Upon receiving your notification today
Upon receiving your interest on Facebook
I remembered your face
the countless times
you screamed at me
for all my many
and varied
INFIDELITIES
which never existed
any old place
outside of your head
and I cringed
because I remember
the infidelities were yours
and you punished me for it
and I am not
particularly
INTERESTED IN THAT
Upon receiving your interest on Facebook
Upon reflecting on my abiding interest in men
I remembered your daughter
and the pets who died
well after leaving my house
including Max
who I
LOVED
and how you
continued to punish me
by insisting
I was responsible
for what you did
that I was in charge
of
YOUR FEAR
and I thought maybe
I might decline
because while I should forgive
and to forgive is divine
I'm not convinced I'll know you
if you say hello
and I hear
"HAIL SATAN"
Tuesday, June 24, 2014
Upon Receiving
Upon receiving your notification today
Upon receiving your interest on Facebook
I remembered your son
And how you told the rest of us
his friends
YOUR SON
that because he had revealed to you
of his abiding interest in other men
and for refusing to be ashamed
he had now been sent to his mother
where he could
as I recall
"SERVE SATAN"
Upon receiving your interest on Facebook
Upon reflecting on my abiding interest in men
I remembered your son
And how you taught love
but could not abide love for other men
for fear of not being loved
by the man-god of love
but not
MAN-LOVE
and I thought maybe
I might decline
because while I should forgive
and to forgive is divine
I'm not convinced you'll know me
if I say hello
and you hear
"HAIL SATAN"
Upon receiving your interest on Facebook
I remembered your son
And how you told the rest of us
his friends
YOUR SON
that because he had revealed to you
of his abiding interest in other men
and for refusing to be ashamed
he had now been sent to his mother
where he could
as I recall
"SERVE SATAN"
Upon receiving your interest on Facebook
Upon reflecting on my abiding interest in men
I remembered your son
And how you taught love
but could not abide love for other men
for fear of not being loved
by the man-god of love
but not
MAN-LOVE
and I thought maybe
I might decline
because while I should forgive
and to forgive is divine
I'm not convinced you'll know me
if I say hello
and you hear
"HAIL SATAN"
Friday, June 20, 2014
Much Effect About Nothing
MASS EFFECT 3 SPOILERS
So, in very timely fashion, I have finally finished the mass effect trilogy this week. Which, naturally, brought me to the much-maligned ending of the series. Having played the original 3 choices and then again with the extended cut DLC with the same save file, I have some thoughts. I guess.
I should probably mention first, that I didn't hate it. I scratched my head a little, but I've seen much worse endings in other games and other SF stories. This ending is roughly the same as Matrix Revolutions or BSG, which I didn't hate either, but also didn't love. I feel like there was as philosophical bioware-esque decision tree in bioware where they got to choose the ending they were going to give to people and, for some reason, they chose hand-wavey philosophical navel-gazing that unnecessarily undercut earlier narrative, gave very little closure on what had come before and introduced a number of unnecessary plot holes. So I consider the ending mediocre, with problems, but acceptable. What can I say, I have a soft spot for philosophical wanking, no matter how out of place or wrong-headed in context.
But before we get into some critiques of the story's ending, I'd like to discuss the ending in terms of gameplay, which actually irritated me a little bit. In terms of what you're expecting as gameplay leading up to the end, we more or less expect it to play out like the previous two games, some hard waves of tough enemies, culminating in a boss fight or two against the illusive man and maybe another reaper. In fact, I fully expected to actually reach the citadel with my squad, and fight my way to the control room through cerberus and reaper forces, fight the illusive man and win. The game gives this impression so strongly I can only assumed they changed their mind about it at the last minute for monetary, deadline, or political reasons. So it was disappointing not to fight through a corrupted citadel to start. The real kick in the nuts gameplay-wise is the actual final bit of combat you do, which is a completely obnoxious slow motion sequence where enemies you would normally eat as an appetizer for lunch, rush you in slow motion and you are given an unsteady gun with sloppy controls to fight them. It feels incredibly cheap, especially on a ps3 controller, which made it near impossible to beat that stupid shielded marauder. After the sixth stupid death because of all the stupid, artificial ham-stringing, I just switched to narrative difficulty so I could finish the story from here. All in all, it wasn't really a triumphant finale in terms of gameplay, which is a bummer, because it could have been. Not that the end fights in ME1 and 2 were really all that epic and challenging, but because they delivered on the promise of the story up to that point. You get to do what you set out to do and fight fun(ish) bosses.
Which brings us back to the story. I basically consider bioware stories glorified "choose your own adventure" books, so it doesn't really bother me when I make a choice and get a brick to the face, because that kind of goes with the genre. But the original ending was kind of a head-scratcher even given my low expectations. For one, they kind of kill any mystique associated with the reapers. There were exactly two moments that really interested me in the first game. The plant/spore consciousness on Feros and the conversation with Sovereign, where you realize the ship is actually alive and the real villain. Those moments were fun. And through most of 1, 2 and 3 they use those moments sparingly and keep the reaper's motivations mysterious. In fact, they outright state several times that the reaper consciousness is playing on fields we can't comprehend, for reasons we'll never understand and I was okay with that. It didn't really matter why they were doing what they were doing, just that they were dark machine gods and we were going to stop them.
So, you can imagine my dismay when the collective reaper consciousness explains its purpose in two sentences.
1. Machines always fight their creators.
2. Selective harvesting of organics is what keeps synthetic life from wiping out organic life forever.
See, not only is that unknowable, it's not even complicated. So basically the awe and terror of dark gods harvesting humanity is reduced to a fart noise. Personally, it would have been perfectly satisfying to kill the reapers or defeat their dark purpose, without ever understanding why they're doing it. It's a better metaphor relating to technology anyway: we're not sure what we're doing, but we're going to keep trying. Plus it has the benefit of fitting everything that came before in the story.
Which is the second problem with the original, and to some degree the extended, ending: it doesn't really fit what the story is about previous to that. Like I said, I'm a fan of metaphysical and/or philosophical navel-gazing in my SF, but not when you just dump it randomly into a story that heretofore has NOT been particularly philosophical. I like the movie Solaris, but it's weird, artsy SF from start to finish. This game is mostly an action space adventure which dabbles in certain themes yes, but is mostly about over-coming all odds, defying authority and doing what you think is right anyway and yes, the relationship of the geth to the Quarians (and the rest of the galaxy). But I wouldn't say it's a philosophical treatise about man's relationship to machines up until this point. It's mostly a series of smaller character arcs, action-packed military adventure and SF short story style missions. So it's really jarring for the game to turn around at the very end and tell you it's about something different than you thought it was, and oh yeah the bad guy (in this case the illusive man) was right all along. So they write a story about defying corrupt, evil, incompetent authority at every turn only to end by insisting that actually authority was right all along and don't you feel foolish. I like story twists fine, but not when they seem like a gratuitous "haha fuck you" to the audience. To be honest, all 3 original endings just seem like either the result of running out of money or time. Or a writing team that just couldn't decide so they wrote a compromise that pleased no one.
Beyond those problems, there were a number of plot holes and plot threads left extremely dangling that, for me, the extended DLC more or less resolves. Playing the ending again with the DLC enabled, I was relatively satisfied with how things wrapped up for both the paragon and singularity endings. I spent two games trying to make sure my choose-your-own adventure ended with the geth and the quarians reconciled, and it was nice to see that work didn't go to waste, like the original ending implied. In fact, after the DLC the only issues I really have are the ones mentioned above.
As for Shepherd dying, I was fully prepared for that and think it's a fine choice. They more or less telegraph the fact that she's going to sacrifice herself for the galaxy at the end of the game through more or less the entirety of ME3. You say goodbye to everyone at least once, sometimes twice. And while I do wish there were some way I could have arranged events that left Liara and my femshep popping out blue babies happily ever after, losing a long, happy life just makes it a more dramatic sacrifice, right? So yeah, I'm okay with hero's journeys that end in the ultimate sacrifice. That's kind of the deal with choosing heroism as a career.
So yeah, they made some truly gob-smacking choices in gameplay and story right at the end there, but the extended DLC smooths over most of my issues with the original ending. Enough to provide closure at any rate. And even with the remaining problems, well, it doesn't really sour what came before. The gameplay is still quite fun and the over-arching story was never really what I was there for anyway. I enjoyed the smaller character arcs much more (especially Tali, Jack and Garrus) and those are tied up long before the main story ending. And hey, overall it's still pretty good for a choose-your-own-adventure.
So, you can imagine my dismay when the collective reaper consciousness explains its purpose in two sentences.
1. Machines always fight their creators.
2. Selective harvesting of organics is what keeps synthetic life from wiping out organic life forever.
See, not only is that unknowable, it's not even complicated. So basically the awe and terror of dark gods harvesting humanity is reduced to a fart noise. Personally, it would have been perfectly satisfying to kill the reapers or defeat their dark purpose, without ever understanding why they're doing it. It's a better metaphor relating to technology anyway: we're not sure what we're doing, but we're going to keep trying. Plus it has the benefit of fitting everything that came before in the story.
Which is the second problem with the original, and to some degree the extended, ending: it doesn't really fit what the story is about previous to that. Like I said, I'm a fan of metaphysical and/or philosophical navel-gazing in my SF, but not when you just dump it randomly into a story that heretofore has NOT been particularly philosophical. I like the movie Solaris, but it's weird, artsy SF from start to finish. This game is mostly an action space adventure which dabbles in certain themes yes, but is mostly about over-coming all odds, defying authority and doing what you think is right anyway and yes, the relationship of the geth to the Quarians (and the rest of the galaxy). But I wouldn't say it's a philosophical treatise about man's relationship to machines up until this point. It's mostly a series of smaller character arcs, action-packed military adventure and SF short story style missions. So it's really jarring for the game to turn around at the very end and tell you it's about something different than you thought it was, and oh yeah the bad guy (in this case the illusive man) was right all along. So they write a story about defying corrupt, evil, incompetent authority at every turn only to end by insisting that actually authority was right all along and don't you feel foolish. I like story twists fine, but not when they seem like a gratuitous "haha fuck you" to the audience. To be honest, all 3 original endings just seem like either the result of running out of money or time. Or a writing team that just couldn't decide so they wrote a compromise that pleased no one.
Beyond those problems, there were a number of plot holes and plot threads left extremely dangling that, for me, the extended DLC more or less resolves. Playing the ending again with the DLC enabled, I was relatively satisfied with how things wrapped up for both the paragon and singularity endings. I spent two games trying to make sure my choose-your-own adventure ended with the geth and the quarians reconciled, and it was nice to see that work didn't go to waste, like the original ending implied. In fact, after the DLC the only issues I really have are the ones mentioned above.
As for Shepherd dying, I was fully prepared for that and think it's a fine choice. They more or less telegraph the fact that she's going to sacrifice herself for the galaxy at the end of the game through more or less the entirety of ME3. You say goodbye to everyone at least once, sometimes twice. And while I do wish there were some way I could have arranged events that left Liara and my femshep popping out blue babies happily ever after, losing a long, happy life just makes it a more dramatic sacrifice, right? So yeah, I'm okay with hero's journeys that end in the ultimate sacrifice. That's kind of the deal with choosing heroism as a career.
So yeah, they made some truly gob-smacking choices in gameplay and story right at the end there, but the extended DLC smooths over most of my issues with the original ending. Enough to provide closure at any rate. And even with the remaining problems, well, it doesn't really sour what came before. The gameplay is still quite fun and the over-arching story was never really what I was there for anyway. I enjoyed the smaller character arcs much more (especially Tali, Jack and Garrus) and those are tied up long before the main story ending. And hey, overall it's still pretty good for a choose-your-own-adventure.
Thursday, May 15, 2014
I feel like I could make a really compelling case that Teal'c and Daniel Jackson are closeted, late-blooming gay or bi men who could have fallen in love. For one, they both have wives they never really seemed to want to spend time or have sex with. For another, they held together pretty well when events forced them and their wives apart. Hey guys, I've been there. You think you have to settle down with a woman because that's what everyone expects of you and you're doing your best, but they never really seem to complete, you, you know? But Teal'c smells like home and Daniel is adorable when he furrows his brow over something and you should just hold each other to get through this hard time. And maybe make out a little, just to see.
To Boldly Gate, Season 2
Having purchased season 2, you are no doubt eager to see if the main cast and the planet earth will indeed die in episode 1. I salute your willing suspension of disbelief in dedication to the Stargate program. The TV program I mean.
Episode 1: The Serpent's Lair
The mighty Bra'tac arrives to give SG-1 the edge they need to send Apophis and his Skaar-stealing son crawling back to their home territories. This and the last really are pretty decent action episodes, and this one has a great finish. They escape a giant fireball in death gliders. That sentence alone should sell the episode.
Episode 2: In the Line of Duty
After a fairly disturbing opening scene, where Carter's reward for trying to resuscitate a human alien with CPR is to get a mouth-to-mouth brain snake infestation, Carter is possessed by the Tok'ra Jolinar. Carter's life is ultimately saved by the alien's sacrifice. This is the first indication that not all parasitic brain worms are as evil as they might appear at first glance. An important introduction to the Tok'ra with many repercussions down the line.
Episode 3: Prisoners
A prison episode! The team gets sent up the wormhole after accidentally breaking the laws of a draconian alien civilization. Here they meet a helpful old chemist who helps them escape. They then set her free, because it fails to occur to them to ask what she's there for. It turns out she used to make chemical weapons of mass destruction and unleash them on planets as a former career. Oops. Also, for a prison episode, there was a disappointing lack of homoerotic subtext between team members, trapped in a strange and confusing place. Or was there? I like to imagine Teal'c and Daniel Jackson had some tender moments in between scenes.
Episode 4: The GameKeeper
A classic SF trope episode, featuring Barkley from Star Trek. The team is trapped by VR chairs in the middle of a garden. There an insane AI has trapped real people in the virtual reality he's constructed, and convinced them that it's too unsafe for them to disconnect. I think they've done this exact same episode in Star Trek Voyager and Lexx. Kind of a good episode, a little creepy and a little goofy.
Episode 5: Need
The team is captured after Daniel saves the princess of another world. Except for Daniel, who is rescued by a princess who gives him access to a goa'uld sarcophagus. Little does anyone know, but extended use of goa'uld sarcophagi makes the user kind of crazy and unpleasant. So that doesn't end well. My favorite part is how everyone on the team spends the whole episode toiling away in a mine and hating Daniel, who is quietly going insane on the surface. But hey, at least we know why the Goa'uld have such charming personalities now.
Episode 6: Thor's Chariot
Another great Asgard episode. The team returns to Cimmeria because they broke Thor's Hammer, the magic device that protected Cimmeria from the Goa'uld, and they've since become enslaved by Heru'ur. The team journeys deep into an asgardian temple, where Thor is revealed to be a little grey alien via long-distance holgram. Most notable for the awesome CGI ship they must have dumped most of the episode's budget into revealed in the last few minutes. One of my favorite scenes in the series.
Episode 7: Message in a Bottle
One of the gloriously weird alien machine intelligence episodes. A crazy device pins O'neill to the wall and threatens the entire base. Just a brutal and tense episode. One of the best this season, although there are many good ones here.
Episode 8: Family
What a totally awkward episode. For one: child actors. For another: lots of crying and yelling from child actors. Teal'c's son has been brainwashed, and they all attempt to deprogram him. Has the weird vibe of an after-school show about cults. Ends with this excruciating scene where Teal'c shoots his own kid with a Zat. The solution literally turns out to be: shoot him with a stun gun. Not my favorite episode, just more fall-out from Teal'c's choice.
Episode 9: Secrets
The second act of Daniel's doomed marriage. He returns to Abydos to find his Goa'uld wife pregnant with his enemy's son. So that's a little rough. I think this was about the time they weren't going to make much long-term use of Sha're's character, so they just set her on the downward path. Also features a reporter on Earth threatening to expose the program, which is a topic they return to often, but never to my satisfaction. Ends with the government apparently murdering the reporter by vehicle in order to keep him quiet. This show has a pretty dark view of U.S. politics. But really, can you blame them?
Episode 10: Bane
A good Teal'c episode. Teal'c gets stung and starts turning into a bug man, as happens so often in the Stargate universe. After he escapes the SGC he befriends a precocious child who tends to him while he cocoons himself to complete his transformation. I'm reading that sentence again and realizing this is a very weird episode with some cool bugs.
Episode 11: The Tok'ra (Part 1)
A great episode starting the end to the story arc between Carter and her dad started a few episodes back. The team finally meets the Tok'ra, introducing Carter to her second alien suiter, Martouf/Lantash. Lots of freaky-voiced people standing around in silver outfits though. Although not subtle on the fore-shadowing. Hmm, this alien is dying and needs a host. Hmmm, this human is dying and an alien parasite could cure him. If only there were a way to meet both their needs. Both are doomed I guess.
Episode 12: The Tok'ra (Part 2)
Or are they? I really enjoyed the scene where Carter tells her dad about the stargate and the miracle head-slug cure. They didn't have that kind of moment enough in the series for my taste. The ending you didn't see coming happens on alien planet and Carter's dad becomes part man/part snake. I tease, but these couple of episodes are pretty good. Selmak/Jacob is one of my favorite characters, and his "origin story" is pretty good.
Episode 13: Spirits
The team attempts to bargain with the descendants of native americans (again, roughty 30 within walking distance of the stargate) for mineral rights to a valuable mineral. An odd story about guardian forest spirits who turn out to be weird aliens with fancy technology. I'm not sure what to think of it.
Episode 14: Touchstone
An "earthmen can be bad guys too" episode where the team tracks down a rogue team running illegal missions from the second stargate. Features a very silly island nation whose very comic booky "weather machine" has been stolen by Team X. And, as they've been violating the natural weather with their machine for hundreds of years, the planet unleashes a grudge storm in an attempt to destroy all their simple huts and carefree island barbecues. Warehouses are investigated, shots are fired, nobody gets caught, but hey, at least the islanders get their machine and carefree lifestyle back. I like to think Daniel and Teal'c took a moment to celebrate amidst the dunes, under the moonlight, waves crashing to the shore ....
Episode 15: The Fifth Race
The first official contact with the Asgard! I love everything about Jack talking to the little grey aliens. And the bit where he gets the ancient language upload and starts inserting random ancient words into sentences is played well. Also introduces the concept of 8-gate address for connecting to other galaxies. Great episode.
Episode 16: A Matter of Time
Another one of my favorite episodes of the series. A panicked team dial Earth trying to get away from a black hole. But they're so close to getting sucked in it causes a time to slow down at the Earth's end as well. The fact that the physics if all wrong in this scenario is waved away by the presence of the stargate. A fun episode with some fun time compression aspects about a black hole nearly destroying Earth through the back door. Sneaky bastards.
Episode 17: Holiday
An old man switches bodies with Daniel and won't give it back. Not as much fun as Freaky Friday. Not my favorite.
Episode 18: Serpent's song
The first death of Apophis and the introduction of Sokar. The team captures Apophis, watches him die, and then, under threat of attack via scary Goa'uld hologram, returns him to Sokar who will undoubtedly revive and torture him. So not a feel good episode, but a good episode.
Episode 19: One False Step
One of the last and weirdest classic SF stories of the first 2 seasons. Little strange, mute bald boys in earth-tone unitards running around everywhere. The alien physiology turns out to be interesting but definitely a foray into the weirder, experimental theater side of Stargate.
Episode 20: Show and Tell
A nice and enjoyably weird episode about a boy and his invisible bug mother who arrive to warn of an attack by invisible bug terrorists. Luckily the Tok'ra have some invisible bug-exploding black light weapons to suss them out. Solid all around.
Episode 21: 1969
Probably my favorite episode of the second season, even though it's completely silly. A solar flare sends the team back down the wormhole only to emerge in 1969. I mostly love it for Teal'c dressed as a tie-dyed hippie. Although the time travel stuff is kind of fun too. And I suspect Teal'c and Daniel learned a little something about the summer of love. Which again, they frustratingly leave on the cutting room floor.
Episode 22: Having learned nothing from what I imagine was a well-coordinated and irate letter campaign about season cliffhangers, the season ends with the team once again on the brink of disaster. This time they've been captured by Hathor the seductive snake, who puts on an elaborate charade to convince each member of the team that they've been frozen for 8 decades or so and should therefore casually mention all of Earth's secrets. Disappointingly, due to this setup, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c have no opportunity to exchange lingering glances. The real cliffhanger, as always, is when those two are finally going to admit how they feel about each other. Not this time. Maybe next season.
Time to buy season 3. Yes, these summaries will probably eventually be taken over almost entirely by slash fiction style shipping of Daniel Jackson and Teal'c. Yes, that would be awesome.
Episode 1: The Serpent's Lair
The mighty Bra'tac arrives to give SG-1 the edge they need to send Apophis and his Skaar-stealing son crawling back to their home territories. This and the last really are pretty decent action episodes, and this one has a great finish. They escape a giant fireball in death gliders. That sentence alone should sell the episode.
Episode 2: In the Line of Duty
After a fairly disturbing opening scene, where Carter's reward for trying to resuscitate a human alien with CPR is to get a mouth-to-mouth brain snake infestation, Carter is possessed by the Tok'ra Jolinar. Carter's life is ultimately saved by the alien's sacrifice. This is the first indication that not all parasitic brain worms are as evil as they might appear at first glance. An important introduction to the Tok'ra with many repercussions down the line.
Episode 3: Prisoners
A prison episode! The team gets sent up the wormhole after accidentally breaking the laws of a draconian alien civilization. Here they meet a helpful old chemist who helps them escape. They then set her free, because it fails to occur to them to ask what she's there for. It turns out she used to make chemical weapons of mass destruction and unleash them on planets as a former career. Oops. Also, for a prison episode, there was a disappointing lack of homoerotic subtext between team members, trapped in a strange and confusing place. Or was there? I like to imagine Teal'c and Daniel Jackson had some tender moments in between scenes.
Episode 4: The GameKeeper
A classic SF trope episode, featuring Barkley from Star Trek. The team is trapped by VR chairs in the middle of a garden. There an insane AI has trapped real people in the virtual reality he's constructed, and convinced them that it's too unsafe for them to disconnect. I think they've done this exact same episode in Star Trek Voyager and Lexx. Kind of a good episode, a little creepy and a little goofy.
Episode 5: Need
The team is captured after Daniel saves the princess of another world. Except for Daniel, who is rescued by a princess who gives him access to a goa'uld sarcophagus. Little does anyone know, but extended use of goa'uld sarcophagi makes the user kind of crazy and unpleasant. So that doesn't end well. My favorite part is how everyone on the team spends the whole episode toiling away in a mine and hating Daniel, who is quietly going insane on the surface. But hey, at least we know why the Goa'uld have such charming personalities now.
Episode 6: Thor's Chariot
Another great Asgard episode. The team returns to Cimmeria because they broke Thor's Hammer, the magic device that protected Cimmeria from the Goa'uld, and they've since become enslaved by Heru'ur. The team journeys deep into an asgardian temple, where Thor is revealed to be a little grey alien via long-distance holgram. Most notable for the awesome CGI ship they must have dumped most of the episode's budget into revealed in the last few minutes. One of my favorite scenes in the series.
Episode 7: Message in a Bottle
One of the gloriously weird alien machine intelligence episodes. A crazy device pins O'neill to the wall and threatens the entire base. Just a brutal and tense episode. One of the best this season, although there are many good ones here.
Episode 8: Family
What a totally awkward episode. For one: child actors. For another: lots of crying and yelling from child actors. Teal'c's son has been brainwashed, and they all attempt to deprogram him. Has the weird vibe of an after-school show about cults. Ends with this excruciating scene where Teal'c shoots his own kid with a Zat. The solution literally turns out to be: shoot him with a stun gun. Not my favorite episode, just more fall-out from Teal'c's choice.
Episode 9: Secrets
The second act of Daniel's doomed marriage. He returns to Abydos to find his Goa'uld wife pregnant with his enemy's son. So that's a little rough. I think this was about the time they weren't going to make much long-term use of Sha're's character, so they just set her on the downward path. Also features a reporter on Earth threatening to expose the program, which is a topic they return to often, but never to my satisfaction. Ends with the government apparently murdering the reporter by vehicle in order to keep him quiet. This show has a pretty dark view of U.S. politics. But really, can you blame them?
Episode 10: Bane
A good Teal'c episode. Teal'c gets stung and starts turning into a bug man, as happens so often in the Stargate universe. After he escapes the SGC he befriends a precocious child who tends to him while he cocoons himself to complete his transformation. I'm reading that sentence again and realizing this is a very weird episode with some cool bugs.
Episode 11: The Tok'ra (Part 1)
A great episode starting the end to the story arc between Carter and her dad started a few episodes back. The team finally meets the Tok'ra, introducing Carter to her second alien suiter, Martouf/Lantash. Lots of freaky-voiced people standing around in silver outfits though. Although not subtle on the fore-shadowing. Hmm, this alien is dying and needs a host. Hmmm, this human is dying and an alien parasite could cure him. If only there were a way to meet both their needs. Both are doomed I guess.
Episode 12: The Tok'ra (Part 2)
Or are they? I really enjoyed the scene where Carter tells her dad about the stargate and the miracle head-slug cure. They didn't have that kind of moment enough in the series for my taste. The ending you didn't see coming happens on alien planet and Carter's dad becomes part man/part snake. I tease, but these couple of episodes are pretty good. Selmak/Jacob is one of my favorite characters, and his "origin story" is pretty good.
Episode 13: Spirits
The team attempts to bargain with the descendants of native americans (again, roughty 30 within walking distance of the stargate) for mineral rights to a valuable mineral. An odd story about guardian forest spirits who turn out to be weird aliens with fancy technology. I'm not sure what to think of it.
Episode 14: Touchstone
An "earthmen can be bad guys too" episode where the team tracks down a rogue team running illegal missions from the second stargate. Features a very silly island nation whose very comic booky "weather machine" has been stolen by Team X. And, as they've been violating the natural weather with their machine for hundreds of years, the planet unleashes a grudge storm in an attempt to destroy all their simple huts and carefree island barbecues. Warehouses are investigated, shots are fired, nobody gets caught, but hey, at least the islanders get their machine and carefree lifestyle back. I like to think Daniel and Teal'c took a moment to celebrate amidst the dunes, under the moonlight, waves crashing to the shore ....
Episode 15: The Fifth Race
The first official contact with the Asgard! I love everything about Jack talking to the little grey aliens. And the bit where he gets the ancient language upload and starts inserting random ancient words into sentences is played well. Also introduces the concept of 8-gate address for connecting to other galaxies. Great episode.
Episode 16: A Matter of Time
Another one of my favorite episodes of the series. A panicked team dial Earth trying to get away from a black hole. But they're so close to getting sucked in it causes a time to slow down at the Earth's end as well. The fact that the physics if all wrong in this scenario is waved away by the presence of the stargate. A fun episode with some fun time compression aspects about a black hole nearly destroying Earth through the back door. Sneaky bastards.
Episode 17: Holiday
An old man switches bodies with Daniel and won't give it back. Not as much fun as Freaky Friday. Not my favorite.
Episode 18: Serpent's song
The first death of Apophis and the introduction of Sokar. The team captures Apophis, watches him die, and then, under threat of attack via scary Goa'uld hologram, returns him to Sokar who will undoubtedly revive and torture him. So not a feel good episode, but a good episode.
Episode 19: One False Step
One of the last and weirdest classic SF stories of the first 2 seasons. Little strange, mute bald boys in earth-tone unitards running around everywhere. The alien physiology turns out to be interesting but definitely a foray into the weirder, experimental theater side of Stargate.
Episode 20: Show and Tell
A nice and enjoyably weird episode about a boy and his invisible bug mother who arrive to warn of an attack by invisible bug terrorists. Luckily the Tok'ra have some invisible bug-exploding black light weapons to suss them out. Solid all around.
Episode 21: 1969
Probably my favorite episode of the second season, even though it's completely silly. A solar flare sends the team back down the wormhole only to emerge in 1969. I mostly love it for Teal'c dressed as a tie-dyed hippie. Although the time travel stuff is kind of fun too. And I suspect Teal'c and Daniel learned a little something about the summer of love. Which again, they frustratingly leave on the cutting room floor.
Episode 22: Having learned nothing from what I imagine was a well-coordinated and irate letter campaign about season cliffhangers, the season ends with the team once again on the brink of disaster. This time they've been captured by Hathor the seductive snake, who puts on an elaborate charade to convince each member of the team that they've been frozen for 8 decades or so and should therefore casually mention all of Earth's secrets. Disappointingly, due to this setup, Daniel Jackson and Teal'c have no opportunity to exchange lingering glances. The real cliffhanger, as always, is when those two are finally going to admit how they feel about each other. Not this time. Maybe next season.
Time to buy season 3. Yes, these summaries will probably eventually be taken over almost entirely by slash fiction style shipping of Daniel Jackson and Teal'c. Yes, that would be awesome.
Tuesday, May 13, 2014
To Boldly Gate
I've been watching a little stargate recently because I loves it, I wants it, I needs it. Here's my brief recap of season 1 for no reason (with many spoilers).
I saw the Stargate movie on Netflix and it drew me in the other night. Kurt Russell and James Spader are still dreamy. And Jay Davidson is incredible as Ra. Back down the wormhole we go.
Episode 1/2: Children of the Gods.
Feels a bit like a poor man's rehash of the movie, but it's a fairly strong start. Introducing the new actors and characters. On Amazon, episode 1 is the showtime pilot, and episode 2 is an abridged version of that to start the syndicated series. You can safely skip episode 2. If you watched all of episode 1, there's literally no new footage. Although it may just be that Amazon botched the DVD upload or something.
Episode 3: The Enemy Within.
It's time to kill off the characters who didn't get picked up for the full season after the pilot. In this case, poor Major Kowalksy who becomes the first of many protagonists to get possessed by the Goa'uld. A strong follow-up to the pilot with a somewhat more gruesome-than-normal ending.
Episode 4: Emancipation.
The first couple seasons contain some mildly regrettable classic SF tropes. This episode would not have felt too out of place in Star Trek: TOS. They journey to a world ruled by descendants of Monguls (who have never advanced), who have regressive attitudes towards women. Although I love the quicky establishment of Captain Carter as a character who kicks ass and does not particularly give a crap about romancing men, the episode as a whole is a bit cheesy. A fun story about Carter versus sexist barbarians, but strangely antiquated in its own way. Skippable.
Episode 5: The Broca Divide.
Another Tropish SF story about Minoan descendants life on a world strictly separated in to a "light side" and a "dark side" This is a little more fantasy than usual, and I suspect this episode and the last were SF short stories that were bought and adapted for the series. Or at least, that's how they feel. There a morlocks (of generic name) on the dark side, and it turns out they are the demented victims of a strange disease, that the light-side minoans are strangely not panicked about considering how often it seems to happen. And it should alarm them considering their population seems to consist of roughly 25 people due to budgetary constraints. The cure turns out to be Daniel's antihistamines, because science. Skippable. Although having said that, potentially worth it for the part where Carter and O'neill devolve into cave people for a bit.
Episode 6: The First commandment.
This is a story archetype Stargate: Atlantis will come back to a few times down the road. A SG team leader goes crazy from heat stroke from weird solar radiation and takes over a random human village as a god. The nice thing about the Stargate universe is you can always count on finding a village of about 30 people within comfortable walking distance of the stargate. These kind of stories tend to bore me, but this one is solid enough. I liked the angle that this was Carter's crazy ex-boyfriend. Especially given her reaction to the news. "Oh, he thinks he's god? Yeah, that sounds about right."
Episode 7: Cold Lazarus
Kind of a sweet story about a sentient blue crystal that takes Colonel Oneill's form and goes back to Earth to try and fix the brokenness he senses in the Colonel around the death of his son. It's a very odd way to explore such a heavy topic, but it works.
Episode 8: The Nox
The early seasons have some interesting alien costume designs that wouldn't feel out of place in the original Star Trek. This episode, in particular, has Armen Shimerman in one of the silliest get-ups you'll ever see him in, and that includes his Quark costume. That said, I still enjoy this episode a lot, partly for the pacifist message of the Nox, and partly for the clear Jack Kirby influence apparent in the final shot. Definitely a little silly, but this is an important episode for the first season, where they start to set the seeds of future plots.
Episode 9: Brief Candle
Another classic SF style episode. An alien babe marries an unsuspecting O'neill on a world once ruled by the Goa'uld. The catch: in this city everyone ages rapidly and lives exactly 100 days from birth to death. Somehow O'neill gets infected and it's up to the team to figure out how to reverse the effects. The first of several "Jack gets marooned and romances a woman" episodes. As well as the first "someone on the team ages rapidly then gets returned back to normal unharmed." episodes, which are always a little funny. Apparently artificial aging wears off after a while. Good to know.
Episode 10: Thor's Hammer
One of my favorite, maybe THE favorite, episodes of the season. First introduction of the Asgard race. Viking village with badass women as leaders. Cool interpretation of Thor's hammer. First introduction of the Unas, who are scary. Genuinely hard choice at the end, that has repercussions later in the season. Builds further on Goa'uld mythology and introduces the possibility that hosts can be saved. Must watch.
Episode 11: The Torment of Tantalus
Another great episode, tying all the way back to the stargate movie, and filling in some of the time between the discovery of the stargate in Giza and the modern day. Love the premise, that Catherine's lost love went through the stargate and has been trapped on the other side for 50 years or so. Love how they take the opportunity to expand the universe's mythology of ancient races at the same time.
Episode 12: Bloodlines
This one is notable as the first introduction of Bra'tac, as well as Teal'c's whiny son Rya'c. What I like about this episode is how it more or less lays out the logical ramifications of Teal'c quitting his Job and running off to help Earthlings fight Apophis for a year or so: His wife marries someone else and his son hates him for not being there. There is some reconciliation at the end, but it doesn't last. Teal'c sacrifices a great deal to fight the Goa'uld and this episode is where we and Teal'c start to understand the depth of that sacrifice.
Episode 13: Fire and Water
Not central to the main story, but I like this one. I like fish people and fancy underwater technology and this has both. A little silly in parts. For instance, one thing the show simply gave up on from the get-go was dealing with language difficulties in communicating with people from other planets. To keep it simple, everyone in the galaxy speaks English and they dance right past that without ever explaining why. So the occasional episode where the alien doesn't speak english, or only speaks broken english is kind of jarring. Because why does everyone but this guy seem to know it? Because the ancients, that's why. Or because history. Or because science. Because shut up, that's why.
Episode 14: Hathor
One of my favorite episodes of first season. The Goa'uld Hathor seduces uses powerful lady magic to seduce the dudes on the base, and the unaffected women led by Captain Carter go Full Metal Jacket on Hathor and her drones because nuh-uh. I love this episode because I feel like the series creators tried hard to create fully-fleshed out female characters who are smart, competent, decisive bad-asses who bow to man in defending their expertise in their fields and who are not dressed as if they exist only to appear attractive to men. And this episode is a great combination of an old-school "lady seductress disrupts the boys club" SF plot and a modern "and here's what the bad ass, fully actualized women of SG-1 think of that noise." Especially entertaining is Dr. Frasier in fatigues kicking ass. Great episode, even the silly bits. As always, I enjoy Jack's complete apathy in response to seduction. "... okay I guess."
Episode 15: Singularity
Non-necessary story, but introduces Cassandra, who shows up a few more times later in the series. Highlights what nasty pieces of work the Goa'uld are. Morbid episode, with lots of tension at the end. Great development of Captain Carter's character. In general I love how Captain Carter's character defies TV trope gender expectations and this episode is no exception.
Episode 16: Cor-ai
Teal'c is tried on a random planet for his crimes as First Prime of Apophis. I really enjoyed this episode, and really enjoyed how Christopher Judge plays it. This is one of those episodes that shows off the good heart of the series. The dark side of Teal'c's former life had to be dealt with at some point, and they handle it very well here. Further, I enjoy a plot that explores the power of change and forgiveness, and the risk/rewards versus self-righteous vengeance (or justice if that's what you're calling it).
Episode 17: Enigma
One of the first episodes where Carter picks up a moon-eyed suiter on a mission. One of the things I love about Carter's character is how romance is clearly not all that interesting to her in the face of exploring other planets through a convenient portal. Introduces the Tollan as reluctant allies who show up in the first 5 seasons quite frequently.
Episode 18: Solitudes
One of the better stories in the first season, with a great mid-episode plot twist. Carter and O'neill get stuck on an ice-world after an explosion rear-ends their wormhole. Introduces Earth's second stargate. Explores Carter and O'neill's relationship a little further. More on that later.
Episode 19: Tin Man
A fun episode about how the team gets cloned as androids by the eccentric remnant of a long dead civilization. Comtraya!
Episode 20: There but for the Grace of God
I love alternate universe stories, so I enjoyed this episode in particular. Daniel finds a cache of alien technology, and after a brief but completely professional round of "what does this button do?" is dismayed to find himself in an alternate universe where Apophis is about half-way through destroying the world. Basically an excuse to tell the story of Apophis destroying earth without lasting consequences. Unless you're one of those poor bastards stuck on Earth B of course. I'm sure the knowledge that another Earth can be saved from their destruction is a great comfort to them as they slave endlessly in service to the old gods, come again.
Episode 21: Politics.
An almost unforgivable clip episode. It's the FIRST SEASON and there isn't a strong enough overall plot to require one. There's an incremental but important 10 or so minutes of new plot inter-woven between all the clips, so it's hard to recommend skipping. Especially as this is the introduction of the domestic political side of the Stargate universe and one of their biggest enemies on that front, Senator Kinsey. But still, it's a CLIP EPISODE.
Episode 22: Within the serpent's grasp
If there's one thing I hate more than season openers it's end-of-season cliffhangers. The team accidentally gates onto Apophis' starship (which is admittedly cool) and are captured attempting to save Skaar. It's the end of the team and of Earth. Or is it? If you only bought season 1, you don't get to know. Bastards.
Time to buy season 2.
I saw the Stargate movie on Netflix and it drew me in the other night. Kurt Russell and James Spader are still dreamy. And Jay Davidson is incredible as Ra. Back down the wormhole we go.
Episode 1/2: Children of the Gods.
Feels a bit like a poor man's rehash of the movie, but it's a fairly strong start. Introducing the new actors and characters. On Amazon, episode 1 is the showtime pilot, and episode 2 is an abridged version of that to start the syndicated series. You can safely skip episode 2. If you watched all of episode 1, there's literally no new footage. Although it may just be that Amazon botched the DVD upload or something.
Episode 3: The Enemy Within.
It's time to kill off the characters who didn't get picked up for the full season after the pilot. In this case, poor Major Kowalksy who becomes the first of many protagonists to get possessed by the Goa'uld. A strong follow-up to the pilot with a somewhat more gruesome-than-normal ending.
Episode 4: Emancipation.
The first couple seasons contain some mildly regrettable classic SF tropes. This episode would not have felt too out of place in Star Trek: TOS. They journey to a world ruled by descendants of Monguls (who have never advanced), who have regressive attitudes towards women. Although I love the quicky establishment of Captain Carter as a character who kicks ass and does not particularly give a crap about romancing men, the episode as a whole is a bit cheesy. A fun story about Carter versus sexist barbarians, but strangely antiquated in its own way. Skippable.
Episode 5: The Broca Divide.
Another Tropish SF story about Minoan descendants life on a world strictly separated in to a "light side" and a "dark side" This is a little more fantasy than usual, and I suspect this episode and the last were SF short stories that were bought and adapted for the series. Or at least, that's how they feel. There a morlocks (of generic name) on the dark side, and it turns out they are the demented victims of a strange disease, that the light-side minoans are strangely not panicked about considering how often it seems to happen. And it should alarm them considering their population seems to consist of roughly 25 people due to budgetary constraints. The cure turns out to be Daniel's antihistamines, because science. Skippable. Although having said that, potentially worth it for the part where Carter and O'neill devolve into cave people for a bit.
Episode 6: The First commandment.
This is a story archetype Stargate: Atlantis will come back to a few times down the road. A SG team leader goes crazy from heat stroke from weird solar radiation and takes over a random human village as a god. The nice thing about the Stargate universe is you can always count on finding a village of about 30 people within comfortable walking distance of the stargate. These kind of stories tend to bore me, but this one is solid enough. I liked the angle that this was Carter's crazy ex-boyfriend. Especially given her reaction to the news. "Oh, he thinks he's god? Yeah, that sounds about right."
Episode 7: Cold Lazarus
Kind of a sweet story about a sentient blue crystal that takes Colonel Oneill's form and goes back to Earth to try and fix the brokenness he senses in the Colonel around the death of his son. It's a very odd way to explore such a heavy topic, but it works.
Episode 8: The Nox
The early seasons have some interesting alien costume designs that wouldn't feel out of place in the original Star Trek. This episode, in particular, has Armen Shimerman in one of the silliest get-ups you'll ever see him in, and that includes his Quark costume. That said, I still enjoy this episode a lot, partly for the pacifist message of the Nox, and partly for the clear Jack Kirby influence apparent in the final shot. Definitely a little silly, but this is an important episode for the first season, where they start to set the seeds of future plots.
Episode 9: Brief Candle
Another classic SF style episode. An alien babe marries an unsuspecting O'neill on a world once ruled by the Goa'uld. The catch: in this city everyone ages rapidly and lives exactly 100 days from birth to death. Somehow O'neill gets infected and it's up to the team to figure out how to reverse the effects. The first of several "Jack gets marooned and romances a woman" episodes. As well as the first "someone on the team ages rapidly then gets returned back to normal unharmed." episodes, which are always a little funny. Apparently artificial aging wears off after a while. Good to know.
Episode 10: Thor's Hammer
One of my favorite, maybe THE favorite, episodes of the season. First introduction of the Asgard race. Viking village with badass women as leaders. Cool interpretation of Thor's hammer. First introduction of the Unas, who are scary. Genuinely hard choice at the end, that has repercussions later in the season. Builds further on Goa'uld mythology and introduces the possibility that hosts can be saved. Must watch.
Episode 11: The Torment of Tantalus
Another great episode, tying all the way back to the stargate movie, and filling in some of the time between the discovery of the stargate in Giza and the modern day. Love the premise, that Catherine's lost love went through the stargate and has been trapped on the other side for 50 years or so. Love how they take the opportunity to expand the universe's mythology of ancient races at the same time.
Episode 12: Bloodlines
This one is notable as the first introduction of Bra'tac, as well as Teal'c's whiny son Rya'c. What I like about this episode is how it more or less lays out the logical ramifications of Teal'c quitting his Job and running off to help Earthlings fight Apophis for a year or so: His wife marries someone else and his son hates him for not being there. There is some reconciliation at the end, but it doesn't last. Teal'c sacrifices a great deal to fight the Goa'uld and this episode is where we and Teal'c start to understand the depth of that sacrifice.
Episode 13: Fire and Water
Not central to the main story, but I like this one. I like fish people and fancy underwater technology and this has both. A little silly in parts. For instance, one thing the show simply gave up on from the get-go was dealing with language difficulties in communicating with people from other planets. To keep it simple, everyone in the galaxy speaks English and they dance right past that without ever explaining why. So the occasional episode where the alien doesn't speak english, or only speaks broken english is kind of jarring. Because why does everyone but this guy seem to know it? Because the ancients, that's why. Or because history. Or because science. Because shut up, that's why.
Episode 14: Hathor
One of my favorite episodes of first season. The Goa'uld Hathor seduces uses powerful lady magic to seduce the dudes on the base, and the unaffected women led by Captain Carter go Full Metal Jacket on Hathor and her drones because nuh-uh. I love this episode because I feel like the series creators tried hard to create fully-fleshed out female characters who are smart, competent, decisive bad-asses who bow to man in defending their expertise in their fields and who are not dressed as if they exist only to appear attractive to men. And this episode is a great combination of an old-school "lady seductress disrupts the boys club" SF plot and a modern "and here's what the bad ass, fully actualized women of SG-1 think of that noise." Especially entertaining is Dr. Frasier in fatigues kicking ass. Great episode, even the silly bits. As always, I enjoy Jack's complete apathy in response to seduction. "... okay I guess."
Episode 15: Singularity
Non-necessary story, but introduces Cassandra, who shows up a few more times later in the series. Highlights what nasty pieces of work the Goa'uld are. Morbid episode, with lots of tension at the end. Great development of Captain Carter's character. In general I love how Captain Carter's character defies TV trope gender expectations and this episode is no exception.
Episode 16: Cor-ai
Teal'c is tried on a random planet for his crimes as First Prime of Apophis. I really enjoyed this episode, and really enjoyed how Christopher Judge plays it. This is one of those episodes that shows off the good heart of the series. The dark side of Teal'c's former life had to be dealt with at some point, and they handle it very well here. Further, I enjoy a plot that explores the power of change and forgiveness, and the risk/rewards versus self-righteous vengeance (or justice if that's what you're calling it).
Episode 17: Enigma
One of the first episodes where Carter picks up a moon-eyed suiter on a mission. One of the things I love about Carter's character is how romance is clearly not all that interesting to her in the face of exploring other planets through a convenient portal. Introduces the Tollan as reluctant allies who show up in the first 5 seasons quite frequently.
Episode 18: Solitudes
One of the better stories in the first season, with a great mid-episode plot twist. Carter and O'neill get stuck on an ice-world after an explosion rear-ends their wormhole. Introduces Earth's second stargate. Explores Carter and O'neill's relationship a little further. More on that later.
Episode 19: Tin Man
A fun episode about how the team gets cloned as androids by the eccentric remnant of a long dead civilization. Comtraya!
Episode 20: There but for the Grace of God
I love alternate universe stories, so I enjoyed this episode in particular. Daniel finds a cache of alien technology, and after a brief but completely professional round of "what does this button do?" is dismayed to find himself in an alternate universe where Apophis is about half-way through destroying the world. Basically an excuse to tell the story of Apophis destroying earth without lasting consequences. Unless you're one of those poor bastards stuck on Earth B of course. I'm sure the knowledge that another Earth can be saved from their destruction is a great comfort to them as they slave endlessly in service to the old gods, come again.
Episode 21: Politics.
An almost unforgivable clip episode. It's the FIRST SEASON and there isn't a strong enough overall plot to require one. There's an incremental but important 10 or so minutes of new plot inter-woven between all the clips, so it's hard to recommend skipping. Especially as this is the introduction of the domestic political side of the Stargate universe and one of their biggest enemies on that front, Senator Kinsey. But still, it's a CLIP EPISODE.
Episode 22: Within the serpent's grasp
If there's one thing I hate more than season openers it's end-of-season cliffhangers. The team accidentally gates onto Apophis' starship (which is admittedly cool) and are captured attempting to save Skaar. It's the end of the team and of Earth. Or is it? If you only bought season 1, you don't get to know. Bastards.
Time to buy season 2.
Monday, April 21, 2014
Nerd
God I'm missing the 80s tonight. Not for big hair or or big-wheeled roller skates, but for the series of formative, goofy SF alien movies that I was exposed to. Here's a few movie I haven't seen in far, far too long.
Cocoon(s).
Flight of the Navigator.
The Explorers.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Invaders from Mars
Star Trek 2
The Black Hole
The Abyss
Batteries not Included
Alien(s)
Escape to Witch Mountain
Movies from later I am also suddenly jonesing for
Contact (although not technically 80s)
Mars Attacks
Stargate
Actually I would really love to see a less sanitized show similar to Stargate. The sanitization was part of Stargate's charm, but I'd like to see an exploration of some of those ideas with substantially less fear of the weird.
Movies I haven't seen, but probably should, given my interests:
Communion
Fire in the Sky
Lifeforce
I would mentioned E.T., but if I'm being honest with myself, I never really liked E.T.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some important ones, but that list will do for starters. I think it's time to stop wasting quite so much time on making digital dolls do repetitive tasks and get back into the weird a little bit.
Man, and hollywood went though quite a UFO phase, didn't it?
Cocoon(s).
Flight of the Navigator.
The Explorers.
Close Encounters of the Third Kind
Invaders from Mars
Star Trek 2
The Black Hole
The Abyss
Batteries not Included
Alien(s)
Escape to Witch Mountain
Movies from later I am also suddenly jonesing for
Contact (although not technically 80s)
Mars Attacks
Stargate
Actually I would really love to see a less sanitized show similar to Stargate. The sanitization was part of Stargate's charm, but I'd like to see an exploration of some of those ideas with substantially less fear of the weird.
Movies I haven't seen, but probably should, given my interests:
Communion
Fire in the Sky
Lifeforce
I would mentioned E.T., but if I'm being honest with myself, I never really liked E.T.
I'm sure I'm forgetting some important ones, but that list will do for starters. I think it's time to stop wasting quite so much time on making digital dolls do repetitive tasks and get back into the weird a little bit.
Man, and hollywood went though quite a UFO phase, didn't it?
Thursday, April 17, 2014
Nerves
So this week has been a pretty good reminder that I need to stay off of the caffeine. I'm still reeling from the two cups of coffee that sent me into nervey panic attack mode at 6am mid-week. It was a very strange sensation. Mentally i was quite calm and ready to sleep, but my nervous system seemed primed and humming in an uncomfortable way. Every time I was almost off to dreamland I would gasp awake with my heart racing. I'm not sure how much of this was caffeine/sugar, how much is underlying work/life anxiety and how much is payback for relying on sleep aids for too long, but it wasn't/isn't pleasant. Even during the day my nervous system feels raw, for a better way to describe it.
Regardless, it seems like a wake-up call of some sort. I have been hiding away from my friends for too long. I have been living in a broken pattern with work for too long, which is probably the prime driver of my sleep pattern abnormalities. Most of these weird symptoms seem greatly reduced or evaporate upon some sort of human contact, especially physical, so I probably should make more of an effort to get that where I can. I've been neglecting my social network for entirely too long It is withering on the vine. I think lack of direct human contact is one of the biggest parts of my work frustration right now. I really crave working in a more structured environment with more direct and in-person contact with a working group. I am still trying to figure out how to make that happen without leaving my current working group completely in the lurch. It would also help if I could decide between 1 and 20 possible directions.
I definitely need to exercise, at the very least to work out the anxiety. Maybe it would help the nerves. I should probably keep trying to write. I have a lot of story ideas and topical posts I keep wanting to write but I still feel like i have trouble getting my thoughts together in coherent sentences. I want to keep learning piano and Japanese, but my neurotic reaction to work and sleep has been unhelpful in creating the time. Or using time well at all. I am very practiced in watching time slide by without doing anything useful for it. I increasingly understand that time is really the only currency of value so I should try to at least spend some of it well without just letting it pour through my hands.
I think I'm in a weird spot, where I feel increasingly competent but I'm scared of it I guess? It's weird to realize I have an impact on the world and it's unhelpful that I don't have a good middle ground in how I handle it right now. I'm getting better at defending myself from outside pressure but unfortunately still feel like my two modes are "doormat" and "nuclear angel of vengeance and ruination." There's probably more depth there to be explored.
The problem with human beings, as I experience it, is the normal ebb and flow of human give and take is a very sandpapery experience for me. Human interaction contains far too much "I want something from you, give it to me," or "your worldview is dumb just use mine" or "please ignore your needs in favor of mine." which leaves me feeling raw and irritated very quickly. It's the constant boundary violations that are the worst. I feel like I am constantly setting boundaries that are immediately challenged for no apparent reason. I am still figuring out how to enforce boundaries without going nuclear on the other party. I simply want to stand up for myself without doing undue emotional damage on the other person. Why this is so hard for me sometimes I don't know. Boundary violations are kind of a button I guess.
Anyway, I think my body and other elements in the universe and hinting now would be a good time for a change. Pause is a nice feature, but has no meaning if I never press the button again.
Regardless, it seems like a wake-up call of some sort. I have been hiding away from my friends for too long. I have been living in a broken pattern with work for too long, which is probably the prime driver of my sleep pattern abnormalities. Most of these weird symptoms seem greatly reduced or evaporate upon some sort of human contact, especially physical, so I probably should make more of an effort to get that where I can. I've been neglecting my social network for entirely too long It is withering on the vine. I think lack of direct human contact is one of the biggest parts of my work frustration right now. I really crave working in a more structured environment with more direct and in-person contact with a working group. I am still trying to figure out how to make that happen without leaving my current working group completely in the lurch. It would also help if I could decide between 1 and 20 possible directions.
I definitely need to exercise, at the very least to work out the anxiety. Maybe it would help the nerves. I should probably keep trying to write. I have a lot of story ideas and topical posts I keep wanting to write but I still feel like i have trouble getting my thoughts together in coherent sentences. I want to keep learning piano and Japanese, but my neurotic reaction to work and sleep has been unhelpful in creating the time. Or using time well at all. I am very practiced in watching time slide by without doing anything useful for it. I increasingly understand that time is really the only currency of value so I should try to at least spend some of it well without just letting it pour through my hands.
I think I'm in a weird spot, where I feel increasingly competent but I'm scared of it I guess? It's weird to realize I have an impact on the world and it's unhelpful that I don't have a good middle ground in how I handle it right now. I'm getting better at defending myself from outside pressure but unfortunately still feel like my two modes are "doormat" and "nuclear angel of vengeance and ruination." There's probably more depth there to be explored.
The problem with human beings, as I experience it, is the normal ebb and flow of human give and take is a very sandpapery experience for me. Human interaction contains far too much "I want something from you, give it to me," or "your worldview is dumb just use mine" or "please ignore your needs in favor of mine." which leaves me feeling raw and irritated very quickly. It's the constant boundary violations that are the worst. I feel like I am constantly setting boundaries that are immediately challenged for no apparent reason. I am still figuring out how to enforce boundaries without going nuclear on the other party. I simply want to stand up for myself without doing undue emotional damage on the other person. Why this is so hard for me sometimes I don't know. Boundary violations are kind of a button I guess.
Anyway, I think my body and other elements in the universe and hinting now would be a good time for a change. Pause is a nice feature, but has no meaning if I never press the button again.
Friday, April 04, 2014
Agents of a higher power
How many stories use the agents of a higher power trope?
The Jedi are fighting for the light side of the force.
Aes Sedai fight for the creator versus the Dark One using the One Power.
Elric fights for the chaos lords versus the lords of law.
Buffy fights for the primordial forces of light against primordial darkness.
Eorzean heroes fight for the living crystal Hydaelyn against darker powers.
Superheroes are agents of justice. Which is admittedly an idea, not an idea embodied by a force or a god, so powerful that one is compelled to wear tights and punch people in defense of it.
Not sure why I'm thinking about this. Although it's interesting to think about the difference between universes populated by harsh, and unfathomable gods whose commands are seemingly random, to gods who embody ideas and therefore whose commands make slightly more sense, to discarnate forces embodying an idea that compel the mortal plane to ideas so powerful they compel mortals by simple exposure. Are ideas the irreducible elements of a higher, compelling power or is there a next step somewhere down the line?
Which is a less disturbing concept: agents with free will that the gods convince to act, vast nameless forces that compel behavior but leave the illusion of free will, or ideas so powerful the agent is left with no choice but to embody and defend them at every turn once they've been exposed to them? Or all those all the same thing?
I am currently jonesing for more stories about people pulled into larger conflicts occurring beyond the scope of their own comprehension. I can't really explain why, but their place in our collective psyche intrigues me.
Thursday, March 27, 2014
Art Imitates Life
So, at a certain point, when you're bawling at 3am after watching the season finale to a cartoon, you have to ask yourself why. The cartoon in question is the excellent Clone Wars series that was just released on Netflix. At the end of the series (massive spoilers ahead, btw), Ahsoka Tano, who had quickly become my favorite character as the series progressed, is eventually framed for a terrorist attack. In the process of the story, she is eventually captured, and barred from the Jedi order, after the council inexplicably ignores years and years of behavior and observation of Ahsoka's personality and motivations and uncritically accepts circumstantial evidence. She is eventually cleared of all charges, and the Jedi Council tries to blow smoke by telling her that their complete and utter betrayal and abandonment of her was somehow just another character building test on her way to becoming a Jedi knight and offer her her job back. Instead, smart kid that she is, she chooses to walk away from the religion she's built her own life around, because, when push came to shove, they didn't have her back at all, despite a lifetime of service.
As it turns out, I can strongly identify with leaving a religion, despite the friends and family that want me to remain, because they can't see me through the filter of systemic malfunction. Even though you don't believe in something anymore, even though it's right to do it, even if you still honor the core tenets of that belief system, walking away is still hard. Especially when it means walking away from friends and family to some degree as well. Apparently I had not processed just how hard, because when I saw that scene I lost it.
I was initially bummed that the Clone Wars was ending, and that they were replacing it with a show set before episode IV. The boyfriend quite astutely pointed out it was probably for the better, since the clone wars represent an era of failing hope, and the original series is an era of rising hope. A new hope. Yes, I like that.
The other story that kind of saved my life this week was Grant Morrison's Animal Man of all things. There's a bit towards the end where Grant makes an appearance in his own comic, and talks about how hard it is to understand the massive systemic injustice that goes on in the world, in this case towards animals, and somehow find away to operate normally without being constantly angry at the injustice at all hours of the day. To understand the systematic oppression and torture of animals (human or otherwise) our society still relies on to some degree to provide the comforts citizens demand, while still functioning normally somehow. What I love about Animal Man is how he points out that this constant outrage can lead to loss of perspective and immoral decisions from the activist side as well. In the end he seems to council holding on to hope, even when everything seems bleak. Which is a very christian idea. Which is a very humanist idea. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the time. Thank you Grant Morrison.
This week, in an era of increasingly cynical and hopeless stories* (because God is dead and it's all bullshit don't you know), I am grateful for stories that exist to increase hope. I am grateful for artists who inspire hope, as tacky as that may seem to the modern world.
*For instance, Man of Steel, which delivered a completely hopeless, morally rudderless and bleak story, even though it explicitly stated that hope was central to the main character. Here' a hint: massive bombs detonating over a city aren't hopeful, no matter what inspiring messages you paint on the shell casing.
As it turns out, I can strongly identify with leaving a religion, despite the friends and family that want me to remain, because they can't see me through the filter of systemic malfunction. Even though you don't believe in something anymore, even though it's right to do it, even if you still honor the core tenets of that belief system, walking away is still hard. Especially when it means walking away from friends and family to some degree as well. Apparently I had not processed just how hard, because when I saw that scene I lost it.
I was initially bummed that the Clone Wars was ending, and that they were replacing it with a show set before episode IV. The boyfriend quite astutely pointed out it was probably for the better, since the clone wars represent an era of failing hope, and the original series is an era of rising hope. A new hope. Yes, I like that.
The other story that kind of saved my life this week was Grant Morrison's Animal Man of all things. There's a bit towards the end where Grant makes an appearance in his own comic, and talks about how hard it is to understand the massive systemic injustice that goes on in the world, in this case towards animals, and somehow find away to operate normally without being constantly angry at the injustice at all hours of the day. To understand the systematic oppression and torture of animals (human or otherwise) our society still relies on to some degree to provide the comforts citizens demand, while still functioning normally somehow. What I love about Animal Man is how he points out that this constant outrage can lead to loss of perspective and immoral decisions from the activist side as well. In the end he seems to council holding on to hope, even when everything seems bleak. Which is a very christian idea. Which is a very humanist idea. It was exactly what I needed to hear at the time. Thank you Grant Morrison.
This week, in an era of increasingly cynical and hopeless stories* (because God is dead and it's all bullshit don't you know), I am grateful for stories that exist to increase hope. I am grateful for artists who inspire hope, as tacky as that may seem to the modern world.
*For instance, Man of Steel, which delivered a completely hopeless, morally rudderless and bleak story, even though it explicitly stated that hope was central to the main character. Here' a hint: massive bombs detonating over a city aren't hopeful, no matter what inspiring messages you paint on the shell casing.
Thursday, March 20, 2014
Righteous Hatred
Having a hard time getting my hate on today. Here are some reasons why.
The problem with the righteous hatred of the hateful dead is:
A) They can't hear me. The only one affected in this exchange is me. Hate generally does not have a positive effect on me.
B) Hatred becomes steadily less righteous the longer one indulges in it.
C) They're still inside my head, forcing me to play by their rules. I'm still standing on the other side of the line they drew, spitting hate at someone who has long ago walked off the field. That's a pretty successful and long-lasting deployment of a hate bomb, no?
This is not to say I mourn the hateful, honor the hateful or love the hateful. Although some who pursue peace would say yes, do that too. This does not mean I forgive the hateful. Although some would say yes, do that too. This is not to say the actions of the hateful to deprive others of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shouldn't be defended against. It is to say that in living a life in pursuit of righteous hatred, the justified hatred, the self-evidently acceptable hatred, I run the serious risk of not being mourned, or loved or honored when is my time to go.
Hate has a primary goal and a secondary goal. The primary goal is to destroy or failing that restrain or failing that imprison the people to hate. The second, failing all that, is to scorch the earth, and bring you down to their level so that if you "win," hate still gets fed. Even if the goal is not accomplished, the hate virus will still try to reproduce. So the hateful can turn around and say, "Enjoy your victory. But you are just like me now and you would have done the same."
The problem with righteous hatred is the hateful always believe their hate to be righteous. The problem with the hateful and that worldview is the idea that hate is always justified, all that remains to find the best reason to hate.
Hate is a beast I cage within me. I do not hate the beast, because the beast is part of me. I simply try to remember the beast is not all of me, and in general is best left recognized and accepted when awakened, but caged. I am not always successful in keeping him in his place.
The best thing about the hateful worldview is it is NOT the best frame for viewing the world, and I can choose to reject it in favor of larger ideas that lead somewhere better. The best thing about hate is it is not necessary for achieving my goals. The best thing about hate is I can leave it aside. The best thing about hate is I can let it rest with dead men. So that is what I'm trying to do.
The problem with the righteous hatred of the hateful dead is:
A) They can't hear me. The only one affected in this exchange is me. Hate generally does not have a positive effect on me.
B) Hatred becomes steadily less righteous the longer one indulges in it.
C) They're still inside my head, forcing me to play by their rules. I'm still standing on the other side of the line they drew, spitting hate at someone who has long ago walked off the field. That's a pretty successful and long-lasting deployment of a hate bomb, no?
This is not to say I mourn the hateful, honor the hateful or love the hateful. Although some who pursue peace would say yes, do that too. This does not mean I forgive the hateful. Although some would say yes, do that too. This is not to say the actions of the hateful to deprive others of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness shouldn't be defended against. It is to say that in living a life in pursuit of righteous hatred, the justified hatred, the self-evidently acceptable hatred, I run the serious risk of not being mourned, or loved or honored when is my time to go.
Hate has a primary goal and a secondary goal. The primary goal is to destroy or failing that restrain or failing that imprison the people to hate. The second, failing all that, is to scorch the earth, and bring you down to their level so that if you "win," hate still gets fed. Even if the goal is not accomplished, the hate virus will still try to reproduce. So the hateful can turn around and say, "Enjoy your victory. But you are just like me now and you would have done the same."
The problem with righteous hatred is the hateful always believe their hate to be righteous. The problem with the hateful and that worldview is the idea that hate is always justified, all that remains to find the best reason to hate.
Hate is a beast I cage within me. I do not hate the beast, because the beast is part of me. I simply try to remember the beast is not all of me, and in general is best left recognized and accepted when awakened, but caged. I am not always successful in keeping him in his place.
The best thing about the hateful worldview is it is NOT the best frame for viewing the world, and I can choose to reject it in favor of larger ideas that lead somewhere better. The best thing about hate is it is not necessary for achieving my goals. The best thing about hate is I can leave it aside. The best thing about hate is I can let it rest with dead men. So that is what I'm trying to do.
Thursday, March 13, 2014
Review Review
This is my my favorite quote from Slant's review of 300: Rise of an Empire
YES. Pixel-barf will be my new go-to phrase to describe the modern practice of filling every action scene with CGI debris.
Murro gives the film nothing so much as a hit-refresh on the same glistening, impossibly golden and gray flecks of pixel-barf that have invaded the frames of every tent-pole studio release since the Bush administration.
YES. Pixel-barf will be my new go-to phrase to describe the modern practice of filling every action scene with CGI debris.
Sunday, March 09, 2014
Subtle Winks from the Eye of the World
I did not expect to enjoy my third or fourth re-read of Robert Jordan's Eye of the World recently, but I did. Now that the series is officially finished, I think I'm going to plow though the entire series again, that is, if I can clear my to-read shelf first, a project I've been stalled on for 2 years now. My enjoyment of the series dwindled the more the plot started dawdling in in a transparent attempt to stretch out the story for as many books as possible. But it was nice to be reminded in Eye of the World how tight the story used to be.
There were a few things that jumped out at me on this last read-through though. The first is how simple the plot of the first book is. A bunch of farm boys meet a wizard and run from the farm to the city in a mostly straight line with the devil hot on their heels. With a teleport to the final boss fight at the end. It's a pretty solid chase story, all things considered. Yes, "the bloat" can be seen in its nascent stages even in the first book, when the author takes 200 pages to describe two farm boys riding on wagons, being chased out of towns, and meeting unsavory people over and over again before finally reaching the big city. It's so repetitive, that in the paperback edition I have there is an editing error where the author accidentally describes meeting the same damn farmer twice, and describes the encounters identically almost verbatim. There's little growth or purpose to that part of the narrative and could probably have been covered in a few pages without the story losing anything. But hey, it turned a 500 page novel into a 700 page novel. Still, it grabbed me in the beginning and kept me turning pages until the climactic encounter at the Eye of the World, just like it did the first time.
Of course, some of the original head scratchers remain. While I find his depiction of the gender war in small town villages interesting and amusing, then women all seem to be the same cardboard cut-out characters. All arms akimbo, or folded beneath their breasts, or tugging on their braids and lecturing the men for being so dumb. In the Wheel of Time, men and women are forever impenetrable mysteries to the other, locked in a never-ending cold war of parallel societies. I'm not saying this is problematic necessarily, just that it always strikes me as odd, this depiction of women and their interactions with men. It's as if the male-female split between Aes Sedai has fractured the gender relations in every other part of civilization as well.
Which brings me to the biggest idea that jumped out at me this read, which is how good a metaphor becoming an aes sedai is for a homosexual coming of age story. In this universe, being a man who can channel fabulous power is not a choice, it is how one is born. It is also terrifying and confusing to anyone who finds out, so men who realize this about themselves keep it secret for fear of being ostracized or killed. Every man who can channel is assumed to be mentally ill. Rand's in love with a woman, but he doesn't seem to feel much passion for her, and it's made clear pretty quickly that he and she are destined to be good friends at most. He meets other male channelers who, while publicly reviled, disturb and excite him. He spends most of the book in denial, plagued by frumpy matrons trying to smother him in one way or another before finding freedom in channeling pure(-ish) energy with other men. He discovers he's not the same as other boys and is probably not going to be able to live the life his family and friends want for him, and eventually comes out in a public and dramatic way when he can't contain it any longer. Okay, it's a little bit of a stretch, I'll grant. Still, I think the case could be made. And honestly, I like the story 100% better when I read it that way. Read the quotes from the post below though, and tell me there's not at least a LITTLE homo-erotic subtext in a lot of those lines.
Or maybe it's just me. Just me? Okay.
There were a few things that jumped out at me on this last read-through though. The first is how simple the plot of the first book is. A bunch of farm boys meet a wizard and run from the farm to the city in a mostly straight line with the devil hot on their heels. With a teleport to the final boss fight at the end. It's a pretty solid chase story, all things considered. Yes, "the bloat" can be seen in its nascent stages even in the first book, when the author takes 200 pages to describe two farm boys riding on wagons, being chased out of towns, and meeting unsavory people over and over again before finally reaching the big city. It's so repetitive, that in the paperback edition I have there is an editing error where the author accidentally describes meeting the same damn farmer twice, and describes the encounters identically almost verbatim. There's little growth or purpose to that part of the narrative and could probably have been covered in a few pages without the story losing anything. But hey, it turned a 500 page novel into a 700 page novel. Still, it grabbed me in the beginning and kept me turning pages until the climactic encounter at the Eye of the World, just like it did the first time.
Of course, some of the original head scratchers remain. While I find his depiction of the gender war in small town villages interesting and amusing, then women all seem to be the same cardboard cut-out characters. All arms akimbo, or folded beneath their breasts, or tugging on their braids and lecturing the men for being so dumb. In the Wheel of Time, men and women are forever impenetrable mysteries to the other, locked in a never-ending cold war of parallel societies. I'm not saying this is problematic necessarily, just that it always strikes me as odd, this depiction of women and their interactions with men. It's as if the male-female split between Aes Sedai has fractured the gender relations in every other part of civilization as well.
Which brings me to the biggest idea that jumped out at me this read, which is how good a metaphor becoming an aes sedai is for a homosexual coming of age story. In this universe, being a man who can channel fabulous power is not a choice, it is how one is born. It is also terrifying and confusing to anyone who finds out, so men who realize this about themselves keep it secret for fear of being ostracized or killed. Every man who can channel is assumed to be mentally ill. Rand's in love with a woman, but he doesn't seem to feel much passion for her, and it's made clear pretty quickly that he and she are destined to be good friends at most. He meets other male channelers who, while publicly reviled, disturb and excite him. He spends most of the book in denial, plagued by frumpy matrons trying to smother him in one way or another before finding freedom in channeling pure(-ish) energy with other men. He discovers he's not the same as other boys and is probably not going to be able to live the life his family and friends want for him, and eventually comes out in a public and dramatic way when he can't contain it any longer. Okay, it's a little bit of a stretch, I'll grant. Still, I think the case could be made. And honestly, I like the story 100% better when I read it that way. Read the quotes from the post below though, and tell me there's not at least a LITTLE homo-erotic subtext in a lot of those lines.
Or maybe it's just me. Just me? Okay.
Wednesday, March 05, 2014
Religious Liberty
Andrew Sullivan touches on a couple of things that I've been thinking about this week. But I don't think he's quite definitive enough in his discussion so I'd like to reframe it a bit. First, is this from Ross Douthat:
I don't think Andrew pushes back hard enough here. These kind of overwrought, garment-rending love songs to the victimization of christians have no reasonable basis in reality. No one is telling churches what to believe or that they have to love gay people or the idea of gay marriage. No one is pushing for punitive measures against churches for not loving gay people and they'd be wrong to do so. Churches are still in complete control of what churches get to believe. All that's happening is churches are losing the "right" to impose legislation on non-churchians regarding what marriage can legally be. This is happening largely because they have, to date, failed to produce a single, valid argument about why two consenting adults who love each other should be unable to marry, or how those marriages will impact society in a negative way. Not a single, compelling argument yet from them, other than, "but my limited and myopic interpretation of the bible in a way that conveniently reinforces my biases instead of challenging them suggests that ...". Which is to say, not only do they not have a single, compelling civic argument against gay marriage*, there are compelling religious arguments against gay discrimination that most churches seem to be pointedly ignoring. So no, I'm not going to feel sorry for churches on the basis of losing the battle on the civic right for gays to marry. They are not going to be "forced" to do anything other than live in a world where gay people get to be married and affectionate with each other, sometimes in public, and where they and their children will have to see it. And arguing that Christians have some kind of monopoly on the world marriage and the institution itself doesn't pass the laugh test. Ask the kings of Israel what they think of "traditional" marriage. When they can tear themselves away from their concubines and wives #2-100 I mean. Ask the unmarried disciples how much traditional marriage allowed them to spread the word of god more effectively. The modern religious case for "traditional marriage" as something the bible endorses is incoherent, and only emerges if you're good at picking metaphorical cherries.
And really, there are two arguments going on here aren't there? The first is that "We are a christian nation and therefore the laws should be based, at least in part, on biblical values as perceived by citizens of this country in this century, especially James Dobson." Since there are many good and strong arguments against this idea, they are failing that. The second then, is, "Well, we at least deserve to create lives for ourselves where we don't have to interact with non-christians and open sinners like gay people," which, sadly, also has many strong, and obvious, arguments against it, from both a civic and religious point of view. I don't know, honestly, why people who have lived in a pluralistic all of their lives don't understand that they have not ever had, do not have now, and will not in the future (hopefully!) the expectation to live in a society where they do not have to interact with people who do not believe in Jesus and do not share their sexual orientation.
The expectation that one can and even SHOULD expect or try to arrange this kind of life is flat out ridiculous. Even from a churchian point of view, Jesus never promised a life of sameness, a life of comfort, and life where your beliefs and lifestyle can never be challenged. In fact, if I'm remembering my churchian holy book correctly, he, in fact, exhorted his followers to get out in the world and rub shoulders with the unclean! And, if in rubbing shoulders with the unclean fails to convert the unclean to your churchian point of view, he DID NOT recommend taking over the government and forcing them to live your way anyway. And of course, this cuts both ways. Gays like myself can't reasonably expect that we get to live in a world where everyone loves gay people and gay stuff in general! The best deal for both sides then, given that neither can have a world where their worldviews and lifestyles will never be challenged or praised by all people, is to agree to, you know, courteously agree to disagree on these particular matters, because simply believing in a higher power doesn't hurt anybody else, and marrying someone of the same sex has so far been shown, scientifically no less, not to hurt people.
So no, I don't feel sorry for churchians on this particular matter. We have, in fact, been having this discussion for a few short decades now, and the anti-gay marriage types have had ample time to make a compelling argument and have repeatedly failed to do so. So no, this is absolutely NOT an imposition of liberal values on principled conservatives. This is a relatively mild repudiation of the attempted imposition of christian principles on civic law because the religious argument against gay marriage is uncompelling*. Liberals and the state do not care what churches choose to believe about gay marriage, so long as they aren't insisting the rest of us agree to their tortuous and tenuous arguments against it based on a biblical authority that non-churchians do not recognize or agree with. And how many times do people have to suggest that churchians have lost the plot, before they'll consider the possibility that the reasons their beliefs are not compelling guidelines for behavior sans sympathetic legislation have more to do with flaws inherent in their own interpretation and adaptation of churchitarianism, rather than pernicious and stubborn choice to do evil by not listening to them and their questionable religious authority. I would like to gently suggest that non-churchians are, by and large, reasonable people and the issue is they don't find your arguments against and decision to be hateful towards gay people reasonable or well-founded. Even if we were to accept the possibility that the Bible contains some moral authority, that's still a long way from being convinced that churchians do not frequently, gratuitously, and seamlessly incorporate their personal and cultural biases into their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Beyond that, the whining about how people at large don't like them much for holding principled beliefs about the inherent ickiness of gay people is hard to sympathize with either. People don't like you because you choose being an asshole to people who are different than you and not hurting anyone, because even they can see you have a choice in the matter, and that continuing to choose intolerance and venom towards people who AREN'T HURTING YOU BY LIVING THEIR LIVES WITHOUT SHAME says a lot about what kind of person you choose to be and how just and noble and worthwhile your beliefs are, regardless of the stories you tell yourselves about yourselves. Even from out here, especially from people who used to be churchians like yourselves, we can see that unless you have love, all your culture war bluster might as well be a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.
Are beliefs that can not stand exposure to contradictory beliefs really that powerful or worth having? Isn't it possible that anti-gay doctrine undermines and is incompatible with the broader doctrines of love, humility and grace? Or would you rather just keep clanging that gong?
* Gay people aren't harmed by loving each other and being physically affectionate. Marriages between straight adults are not affected by the marriages of other people, gay or straight. Children aren't harmed by knowing gay people exist. Straight children aren't more likely to "grow up gay" because they've seen or met a gay person any more than gay children are likely to be "grow up straight" despite a lifetime of living and interacting with straight people. Gay is an orientation, not a "gateway drug" to behaviors like pedophilia or bestiality. In fact, the rates of pedophilia among the gay population is roughly the same as the rates in the straight population. The state is not in the business of protecting people's immortal souls, so it doesn't matter if gay sex is, highly arguably from all angles, technically a religious sin from a civic point of view. Conservatives are losing because they have yet to challenge any of the above statements with compelling logic or evidence.
We are not really having an argument about same-sex marriage anymore, and on the evidence of Arizona, we’re not having a negotiation. Instead, all that’s left is the timing of the final victory — and for the defeated to find out what settlement the victors will impose.
I don't think Andrew pushes back hard enough here. These kind of overwrought, garment-rending love songs to the victimization of christians have no reasonable basis in reality. No one is telling churches what to believe or that they have to love gay people or the idea of gay marriage. No one is pushing for punitive measures against churches for not loving gay people and they'd be wrong to do so. Churches are still in complete control of what churches get to believe. All that's happening is churches are losing the "right" to impose legislation on non-churchians regarding what marriage can legally be. This is happening largely because they have, to date, failed to produce a single, valid argument about why two consenting adults who love each other should be unable to marry, or how those marriages will impact society in a negative way. Not a single, compelling argument yet from them, other than, "but my limited and myopic interpretation of the bible in a way that conveniently reinforces my biases instead of challenging them suggests that ...". Which is to say, not only do they not have a single, compelling civic argument against gay marriage*, there are compelling religious arguments against gay discrimination that most churches seem to be pointedly ignoring. So no, I'm not going to feel sorry for churches on the basis of losing the battle on the civic right for gays to marry. They are not going to be "forced" to do anything other than live in a world where gay people get to be married and affectionate with each other, sometimes in public, and where they and their children will have to see it. And arguing that Christians have some kind of monopoly on the world marriage and the institution itself doesn't pass the laugh test. Ask the kings of Israel what they think of "traditional" marriage. When they can tear themselves away from their concubines and wives #2-100 I mean. Ask the unmarried disciples how much traditional marriage allowed them to spread the word of god more effectively. The modern religious case for "traditional marriage" as something the bible endorses is incoherent, and only emerges if you're good at picking metaphorical cherries.
And really, there are two arguments going on here aren't there? The first is that "We are a christian nation and therefore the laws should be based, at least in part, on biblical values as perceived by citizens of this country in this century, especially James Dobson." Since there are many good and strong arguments against this idea, they are failing that. The second then, is, "Well, we at least deserve to create lives for ourselves where we don't have to interact with non-christians and open sinners like gay people," which, sadly, also has many strong, and obvious, arguments against it, from both a civic and religious point of view. I don't know, honestly, why people who have lived in a pluralistic all of their lives don't understand that they have not ever had, do not have now, and will not in the future (hopefully!) the expectation to live in a society where they do not have to interact with people who do not believe in Jesus and do not share their sexual orientation.
The expectation that one can and even SHOULD expect or try to arrange this kind of life is flat out ridiculous. Even from a churchian point of view, Jesus never promised a life of sameness, a life of comfort, and life where your beliefs and lifestyle can never be challenged. In fact, if I'm remembering my churchian holy book correctly, he, in fact, exhorted his followers to get out in the world and rub shoulders with the unclean! And, if in rubbing shoulders with the unclean fails to convert the unclean to your churchian point of view, he DID NOT recommend taking over the government and forcing them to live your way anyway. And of course, this cuts both ways. Gays like myself can't reasonably expect that we get to live in a world where everyone loves gay people and gay stuff in general! The best deal for both sides then, given that neither can have a world where their worldviews and lifestyles will never be challenged or praised by all people, is to agree to, you know, courteously agree to disagree on these particular matters, because simply believing in a higher power doesn't hurt anybody else, and marrying someone of the same sex has so far been shown, scientifically no less, not to hurt people.
So no, I don't feel sorry for churchians on this particular matter. We have, in fact, been having this discussion for a few short decades now, and the anti-gay marriage types have had ample time to make a compelling argument and have repeatedly failed to do so. So no, this is absolutely NOT an imposition of liberal values on principled conservatives. This is a relatively mild repudiation of the attempted imposition of christian principles on civic law because the religious argument against gay marriage is uncompelling*. Liberals and the state do not care what churches choose to believe about gay marriage, so long as they aren't insisting the rest of us agree to their tortuous and tenuous arguments against it based on a biblical authority that non-churchians do not recognize or agree with. And how many times do people have to suggest that churchians have lost the plot, before they'll consider the possibility that the reasons their beliefs are not compelling guidelines for behavior sans sympathetic legislation have more to do with flaws inherent in their own interpretation and adaptation of churchitarianism, rather than pernicious and stubborn choice to do evil by not listening to them and their questionable religious authority. I would like to gently suggest that non-churchians are, by and large, reasonable people and the issue is they don't find your arguments against and decision to be hateful towards gay people reasonable or well-founded. Even if we were to accept the possibility that the Bible contains some moral authority, that's still a long way from being convinced that churchians do not frequently, gratuitously, and seamlessly incorporate their personal and cultural biases into their sincerely held religious beliefs.
Beyond that, the whining about how people at large don't like them much for holding principled beliefs about the inherent ickiness of gay people is hard to sympathize with either. People don't like you because you choose being an asshole to people who are different than you and not hurting anyone, because even they can see you have a choice in the matter, and that continuing to choose intolerance and venom towards people who AREN'T HURTING YOU BY LIVING THEIR LIVES WITHOUT SHAME says a lot about what kind of person you choose to be and how just and noble and worthwhile your beliefs are, regardless of the stories you tell yourselves about yourselves. Even from out here, especially from people who used to be churchians like yourselves, we can see that unless you have love, all your culture war bluster might as well be a resounding gong or a clanging symbol.
Are beliefs that can not stand exposure to contradictory beliefs really that powerful or worth having? Isn't it possible that anti-gay doctrine undermines and is incompatible with the broader doctrines of love, humility and grace? Or would you rather just keep clanging that gong?
* Gay people aren't harmed by loving each other and being physically affectionate. Marriages between straight adults are not affected by the marriages of other people, gay or straight. Children aren't harmed by knowing gay people exist. Straight children aren't more likely to "grow up gay" because they've seen or met a gay person any more than gay children are likely to be "grow up straight" despite a lifetime of living and interacting with straight people. Gay is an orientation, not a "gateway drug" to behaviors like pedophilia or bestiality. In fact, the rates of pedophilia among the gay population is roughly the same as the rates in the straight population. The state is not in the business of protecting people's immortal souls, so it doesn't matter if gay sex is, highly arguably from all angles, technically a religious sin from a civic point of view. Conservatives are losing because they have yet to challenge any of the above statements with compelling logic or evidence.
Monday, March 03, 2014
Hindsight
When I read through old posts I feel like I have a multiple personality disorder. Trying to express myself in fits and starts, a new way every time. The ones that seem overly fanboy-ish and consumerist are the most embarrassing so far. I want to slap myself and tell me to have some pride.
Unrelated, "Hindsight is 20/20" seems like an odd way to claim one's ass has perfect vision. Be careful in gazing at the ass for the ass gazes also back. I guess? Maybe I'm missing something.
Unrelated, "Hindsight is 20/20" seems like an odd way to claim one's ass has perfect vision. Be careful in gazing at the ass for the ass gazes also back. I guess? Maybe I'm missing something.
We Killed the Stars Long Ago
We killed the stars long ago
but left their corpses burning brightly.
We thought you'd like to see them so
we display them for you nightly.
We embalmed them all in gravity wells
put on some planets in adorning.
If you'd like to thank us, swell,
you may do so in the mourning.
cross-posted here.
but left their corpses burning brightly.
We thought you'd like to see them so
we display them for you nightly.
We embalmed them all in gravity wells
put on some planets in adorning.
If you'd like to thank us, swell,
you may do so in the mourning.
cross-posted here.
Sunday, February 02, 2014
Fragments from the Eye of the World
I wasn't it expecting it to be Robert Jordan's eye of the world that got me back into reading, but I'm glad it was. What a fun book. Not without its problems, of course, but I think I enjoyed it more this time than when I first read it in high school. I've finally taken to underlining my favorite passages, which is something I never understood in my technically competent but visionless youth, but I'm starting to see the point of. I may want to write a few more words about it in a couple days, but I thought it would be fun to highlight some of those fragments that jumped out at me this time. Perhaps they are more or less interesting out of context.
*************
There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
"I have all stories, and I will tell all stories."
That others knew and believed made all the difference.
Around a farm the work never really got done; as soon as one thing was finished two more always needed doing.
Light, who am I?
Lan scowled, but fell silent. "I am coming as quickly as I can, Rand, I promise you."
"You talk when you should be listening."
Surely it would not matter if he delayed just a short time in going to the tower?
Your destiny, the voice whispered, insistent now, eager.
"You listen sharp, think deep, and guard your tongue."
"Did someone suggest burning my inn?" he asked softly.
"You have forgotten who you were, forgotten what you were."
"I am not a cheese for slicing."
"This fellow . . . I believe he might sell his mother to Trollocs for stew meat if the price was right."
"The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel."
"Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."
"But there is no other choice, except to run and hide and run again for the rest of your lives."
"I hope you remembered to forget ..."
"Did they tell you the Eye of the World would serve you?"
"You live like a beetle under a rock, and you think your slime is the universe."
"She loves you, too, but she's not for you, or you for her."
"Go then, but you won't escape."
"Well, are your feet pegged to the ground?"
"They don't care about finding the truth. They think they know that already."
The entire city was broken.
"There isn't any treasure here. There isn't anything but dust."
... a piercing whine just beyond hearing ...
"I should have tried harder," he whispered.
"She is strong, intelligent, and quite capable of finding her way to Whitebridge alone."
"Burn me, I wish I could forget."
"You can't say it in words. It's more of a feeling."
"The Light will not help you, boy, and the Eye of the World will not serve you. You are my hound, and if you will not course at my command, I will strangle you with the corpse of the Great Serpent!"
"A crystal lattice covering an island, and it hums when the moon is up."
"The world will put a hook in your mouth."
"the mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it."
"I'll bet you get to run away a lot."
"The Lost cannot be happy."
He ran his eyes across the open area, over people moving about on their daily business, and when he brought them back a Myrddraal was halfway across the square.
Sometimes Rand looked back, but the road behind was always empty.
"I will find the song, or another will find the song, but the song will be sung, this year or in a year to come. As it once once, so shall it be again, world without end."
Not complete. Accept. Full Heart. Full mind. You still struggle. Only complete when you accept.
The wolves had no notion of time the way men did, no reason to divide a day into hours. The seasons were time enough for them, and the light and the dark. No need for more.
"... but it's the stedding makes the Ogier, not the Ogier make the stedding."
"In the end there was nothing left of him but the stories, and most of them wrong."
To soar.
"There is not truce with the Shadow. There is no mercy for Darkfriends."
Outside, the sky muttered again.
"Think of it. Life everlasting and power beyond dreams."
"If my hounds must pull you down, they may not be gentle."
For and instant the burned face held a look of sublime joy that turned to horror in the final moment, as if he had seen something waiting he did not expect.
"Bloody ravens don't even wait for things to die."
"You are mine," the raven said, and the sharp beak stabbed into his eye.
"They say she can cut right through to what a man wants to hide."
"Sometimes I think the reason you humans are the way you are is because your threads are so short."
"The Great Trees are all gone, and no one remembers them."
"If a man tries to change the direction of his life and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in."
The Whitecloak was another human being, and the night had come alive to take them all.
"In these times many things are dissolving, and breaking apart. Old barriers weaken, old walls crumble."
"Or perhaps it is the end of Ages, the end of time itself. The end of the world."
"Pain and division comes to the whole world, and this man stands at the heart of it."
One minute Lan was in the doorway, the next he was at the bedside, as if he had not bothered with the intervening space.
"You can't hold a man to blame for what he does when he's crazy, can you?"
"This contest between us has taken place countless times before. Each time your face is different, and your name, but each time it is you."
It was as if the dark became denser the more light there was, thickening as it fought against being diminished.
Length on man-thick length sent ripples spreading rolling on and on until at last a tail rose, waving a point like a wasp's stinger for an instant in the twilight, at least five spans into the air. All along that length fat tentacles writhed like monstrous worms, as many as a centipede's legs.
"I will hate the man you choose because he is not me, and love him because he makes you smile."
All women are Aes Sedai.
"All things must grow where they are, according to the Pattern, and face the turning of the Wheel."
"It was not what I was made for, but all was breaking apart, and they were alone, and I was all they had. It was not what I was made for, but I have kept the faith."
"Some of us are bound no longer. The seals weaken..."
"This is my place," the Green Man said, "and you shall hurt no living thing here."
The cord was all. It hummed. It sang. It called Rand's soul.
That should mean something. Thought was a new thing. I can think. I means me.
Abruptly she flung her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. "I'm sorry, Rand. I'm sorry. I don't care. Truly, I don't."
"You needed something more than you had ever needed anything before in your life, and you reached out to the one thing that could give it to you."
"Make them safe? Thom said men who have been gentled die because they stop wanting to live."
"for the grave is no bar to my call."
"It is not right that Treebrother should fall to the Blight."
"I'm going away, but not home."
"The Dragon is Reborn."
*************
There are neither beginnings nor endings to the turning of the Wheel of Time.
"I have all stories, and I will tell all stories."
That others knew and believed made all the difference.
Around a farm the work never really got done; as soon as one thing was finished two more always needed doing.
Light, who am I?
Lan scowled, but fell silent. "I am coming as quickly as I can, Rand, I promise you."
"You talk when you should be listening."
Surely it would not matter if he delayed just a short time in going to the tower?
Your destiny, the voice whispered, insistent now, eager.
"You listen sharp, think deep, and guard your tongue."
"Did someone suggest burning my inn?" he asked softly.
"You have forgotten who you were, forgotten what you were."
"I am not a cheese for slicing."
"This fellow . . . I believe he might sell his mother to Trollocs for stew meat if the price was right."
"The Source is the river; the Aes Sedai, the waterwheel."
"Before I let the Dark One have you, I will destroy you myself."
"But there is no other choice, except to run and hide and run again for the rest of your lives."
"I hope you remembered to forget ..."
"Did they tell you the Eye of the World would serve you?"
"You live like a beetle under a rock, and you think your slime is the universe."
"She loves you, too, but she's not for you, or you for her."
"Go then, but you won't escape."
"Well, are your feet pegged to the ground?"
"They don't care about finding the truth. They think they know that already."
The entire city was broken.
"There isn't any treasure here. There isn't anything but dust."
... a piercing whine just beyond hearing ...
"I should have tried harder," he whispered.
"She is strong, intelligent, and quite capable of finding her way to Whitebridge alone."
"Burn me, I wish I could forget."
"You can't say it in words. It's more of a feeling."
"The Light will not help you, boy, and the Eye of the World will not serve you. You are my hound, and if you will not course at my command, I will strangle you with the corpse of the Great Serpent!"
"A crystal lattice covering an island, and it hums when the moon is up."
"The world will put a hook in your mouth."
"the mighty axe does violence to the helpless tree, and is harmed by it."
"I'll bet you get to run away a lot."
"The Lost cannot be happy."
He ran his eyes across the open area, over people moving about on their daily business, and when he brought them back a Myrddraal was halfway across the square.
Sometimes Rand looked back, but the road behind was always empty.
"I will find the song, or another will find the song, but the song will be sung, this year or in a year to come. As it once once, so shall it be again, world without end."
Not complete. Accept. Full Heart. Full mind. You still struggle. Only complete when you accept.
The wolves had no notion of time the way men did, no reason to divide a day into hours. The seasons were time enough for them, and the light and the dark. No need for more.
"... but it's the stedding makes the Ogier, not the Ogier make the stedding."
"In the end there was nothing left of him but the stories, and most of them wrong."
To soar.
"There is not truce with the Shadow. There is no mercy for Darkfriends."
Outside, the sky muttered again.
"Think of it. Life everlasting and power beyond dreams."
"If my hounds must pull you down, they may not be gentle."
For and instant the burned face held a look of sublime joy that turned to horror in the final moment, as if he had seen something waiting he did not expect.
"Bloody ravens don't even wait for things to die."
"You are mine," the raven said, and the sharp beak stabbed into his eye.
"They say she can cut right through to what a man wants to hide."
"Sometimes I think the reason you humans are the way you are is because your threads are so short."
"The Great Trees are all gone, and no one remembers them."
"If a man tries to change the direction of his life and the Pattern has room for it, the Wheel just weaves on and takes it in."
The Whitecloak was another human being, and the night had come alive to take them all.
"In these times many things are dissolving, and breaking apart. Old barriers weaken, old walls crumble."
"Or perhaps it is the end of Ages, the end of time itself. The end of the world."
"Pain and division comes to the whole world, and this man stands at the heart of it."
One minute Lan was in the doorway, the next he was at the bedside, as if he had not bothered with the intervening space.
"You can't hold a man to blame for what he does when he's crazy, can you?"
"This contest between us has taken place countless times before. Each time your face is different, and your name, but each time it is you."
It was as if the dark became denser the more light there was, thickening as it fought against being diminished.
Length on man-thick length sent ripples spreading rolling on and on until at last a tail rose, waving a point like a wasp's stinger for an instant in the twilight, at least five spans into the air. All along that length fat tentacles writhed like monstrous worms, as many as a centipede's legs.
"I will hate the man you choose because he is not me, and love him because he makes you smile."
All women are Aes Sedai.
"All things must grow where they are, according to the Pattern, and face the turning of the Wheel."
"It was not what I was made for, but all was breaking apart, and they were alone, and I was all they had. It was not what I was made for, but I have kept the faith."
"Some of us are bound no longer. The seals weaken..."
"This is my place," the Green Man said, "and you shall hurt no living thing here."
The cord was all. It hummed. It sang. It called Rand's soul.
That should mean something. Thought was a new thing. I can think. I means me.
Abruptly she flung her arms around him, burying her face in his chest. "I'm sorry, Rand. I'm sorry. I don't care. Truly, I don't."
"You needed something more than you had ever needed anything before in your life, and you reached out to the one thing that could give it to you."
"Make them safe? Thom said men who have been gentled die because they stop wanting to live."
"for the grave is no bar to my call."
"It is not right that Treebrother should fall to the Blight."
"I'm going away, but not home."
"The Dragon is Reborn."
Friday, December 20, 2013
Reality Killed the Reality Star
I've been hesitant to really get involved with the outrage of the week. Not because it isn't outrageous, but more because I have outrage fatigue. I honestly don't know how much more energy I can work up over news that doesn't directly impact my community and that I cannot act upon in any meaningful way. Our collective decision to visit our outrage perpetually on things safely out of our control is an assertion for another time.
So no, I'm not outraged, at least about his gay comments. I've been out of the closet for a while now, and I am keenly aware that there are a bunch of people who have still chosen not to grapple with the fact that their communities are increasingly deciding to be kind to their gay friends, now that they realize they have lots of gay friends and not just lonely straight friends with "long-time roommates" and they're starting to feel a little self-conscious about their place in a shrinking subset of people willing to tell those faggots how it is. What could these other people possibly understand about such perversion that they do not? How could they read the Bible any differently than their gut tells them to?
Here's what he actually said:
Although, having said that, I suppose people find the hatefulness in the first of those quotes, where he says the Bible says it's not right. But the worst thing he does is compare gays to the greedy, drunks, slanderers and swindlers. Which is an oddly unhumble and unchristian thing to say for a greedy swindler who used to look like this who's currently involved in a contract dispute worth millions of dollars about his super-authentic bearded, duck-hunting lifestyle super-real TV show that he sells you as the truth in front of God and man. And yes, "won't inherit the kingdom of God" is basically code for "does not deserve to be treated politely in civil society", so I can see why people find it hateful. I just personally have a hard time getting worked up about what one bigot from the south has to say about things he doesn't understand. He has a right to profess his profound ignorance of biblical principles, basic decency, and lack of empathy and humility and all the respect those things entail.
And from this he assumes black people were happier before they got civil rights. Ta-Nehisi Coates has a historical, thoughtful and frank response to this that is worth reading in full:
We're giving him far more coverage than his statements and personal importance deserve. And the entire focus of the conversation is the non-existant persecution of Christians in the U.S., defined here as "people don't love me when state my unsupported beliefs as absolute truth", which completely overshadows the gob-smacking assertion that black americans at threat of lynching for speaking up in the pre-civil rights era were happier than they are today, which apparently isn't even a topic worthy of discussion. If I'm outraged about anything, it's THAT.
So no, I'm not outraged, at least about his gay comments. I've been out of the closet for a while now, and I am keenly aware that there are a bunch of people who have still chosen not to grapple with the fact that their communities are increasingly deciding to be kind to their gay friends, now that they realize they have lots of gay friends and not just lonely straight friends with "long-time roommates" and they're starting to feel a little self-conscious about their place in a shrinking subset of people willing to tell those faggots how it is. What could these other people possibly understand about such perversion that they do not? How could they read the Bible any differently than their gut tells them to?
Here's what he actually said:
Start with homosexual behavior and just morph out from there. Bestiality, sleeping around with this woman and that woman and that woman and those men," [Robertson] says. Then he paraphrases Corinthians: "Don't be deceived. Neither the adulterers, the idolaters, the male prostitutes, the homosexual offenders, the greedy, the drunkards, the slanderers, the swindlers--they won't inherit the kingdom of God. Don't deceive yourself. It's not right....
It seems like, to me, a vagina—as a man—would be more desirable than a man’s anus. That’s just me. I’m just thinking: There’s more there! She’s got more to offer. I mean, come on, dudes! You know what I’m saying? But hey, sin: It’s not logical, my man. It’s just not logical.Honestly, that doesn't come across to me as particularly hateful, just laughably ignorant and embarrassingly revealing for him. It makes me feel sorry for him. He's clearly not thought more than 2 seconds about how other people in the world might be different than him. This is a grown man that understands, theoretically, that all men don't like duck hunting, and all men don't like broccoli but all men not liking vaginas is a mind-boggling revelation forever out of his reach. It makes me feel sorry for the women in his life that love to him is a fixation on genitalia and what you can do to them, rather than an irrational affection for another human being that inspires affectionate physical interaction. Not to mention his bizarre assertion that anyone who has preferences different than his own is behaving illogically, because that's laughably indefensible from a logical point of view. And, honestly, I never get tired of straight men wrinkling their nose at using the anus for sex because it is an organ for waste disposal, but still still ejaculate into their wives through their own filthy, urine-soaked urethras through an organ which is also, scientists have found, used for waste disposal. If he's upset that our waste disposal and reproductive systems have been cross-wired in a manner he finds personally unappealing, he should probably take that up with God, or perhaps a good therapist.
Although, having said that, I suppose people find the hatefulness in the first of those quotes, where he says the Bible says it's not right. But the worst thing he does is compare gays to the greedy, drunks, slanderers and swindlers. Which is an oddly unhumble and unchristian thing to say for a greedy swindler who used to look like this who's currently involved in a contract dispute worth millions of dollars about his super-authentic bearded, duck-hunting lifestyle super-real TV show that he sells you as the truth in front of God and man. And yes, "won't inherit the kingdom of God" is basically code for "does not deserve to be treated politely in civil society", so I can see why people find it hateful. I just personally have a hard time getting worked up about what one bigot from the south has to say about things he doesn't understand. He has a right to profess his profound ignorance of biblical principles, basic decency, and lack of empathy and humility and all the respect those things entail.
So no, I don't find him incredibly hateful in his comments about gays. He didn't say he wanted to kill them or anything. He's just an increasingly marginalized dude who is ridiculously clueless about the diversity and richness of human relationships and how unimportant his particular preferences are in determining what is beautiful and fulfilling for another human being. He basically said, "I can't understand how someone likes something I don't like." And that's just sad.
Actually, I find it a little surprising that considering the banality of his quote on not understanding gay people, more people aren't upset at this quote:
I never, with my eyes, saw the mistreatment of any black person. Not once. Where we lived was all farmers. The blacks worked for the farmers. I hoed cotton with them. I'm with the blacks, because we're white trash. We're going across the field .... They're singing and happy. I never heard one of them, one black person, say, 'I tell you what: These doggone white people'--not a word! ... Pre-entitlement, pre-welfare, you say: Were they happy? They were godly; they were happy; no one was singing the blues.
And from this he assumes black people were happier before they got civil rights. Ta-Nehisi Coates has a historical, thoughtful and frank response to this that is worth reading in full:
The black people who Phil Robertson knew were warred upon. If they valued their lives, and the lives of their families, the last thing they would have done was voiced a complaint about "white people" to a man like Robertson. Ignorance is no great sin and one can forgive the good-natured white person for not knowing how all that cannibal sausage was truly made. But having been presented with a set of facts, Robertson's response is to cite "welfare" and "entitlement" as the true culprits.
The belief that black people were at their best when they were being hunted down like dogs for the sin of insisting on citizenship is a persistent strain of thought in this country. This belief reflects the inability to cope with an America that is, at least rhetorically, committed to equality.So outraged? No. Partly because I'm tired of saying "how much?' every time some internet link says "be outraged" (this goes double for "be inspired"). Partly because outrage doesn't really get us anywhere except maybe, MAYBE, he'll be on TV less. And honestly, I think odds are good he'll both he and A&E will come out of this richer due to the resulting ratings spike from all this news coverage. I'm tired of being played, and I suspect that his stupid comments aside, that this is more a manufactured drama. At this point, knowing what we do about how much of reality TV is outright scripted or dishonestly edited, how can we not at least suspect that this might be just another scripted scene in the show, using us and our collective, impotent outrage as unwilling participants?
We're giving him far more coverage than his statements and personal importance deserve. And the entire focus of the conversation is the non-existant persecution of Christians in the U.S., defined here as "people don't love me when state my unsupported beliefs as absolute truth", which completely overshadows the gob-smacking assertion that black americans at threat of lynching for speaking up in the pre-civil rights era were happier than they are today, which apparently isn't even a topic worthy of discussion. If I'm outraged about anything, it's THAT.
Wednesday, November 20, 2013
Dancing on the Ceiling
It's one thing to deal with the fact that we were born into a man-made set of systems that are sometimes corrupt and frequently have goals that are at odds with our own individual values. For instance, I think one could forgive someone for believing the benchmark for human progress does not lie in how frequently we make very wealthy men slightly more wealthy. It's quite another thing to move beyond that into resenting being born into a universe with the particular set of laws that seems to govern ours such as gravity, electro-magnetism, strong and weak nuclear forces, entropy and the death of all biological organisms.
"I'm not going to be part of your system of planets orbiting this star, man! And your magnetism and your gravity wells and your complicated chemical interactions sustaining all biological life! Your system sucks man! That's just your opinion, you know!"
I only mention it, because there's this insane little man inside me that won't shut up about it. I think the first step to sanity in this universe is recognizing I exist within a few inescapable constraints and that my id (or my inner toddler) isn't going to approve.
You know how some people grow up religious or in the closet, and then at some point have to question some of what they believed? I think I'm in the middle of questioning everything, even gravity.
Current status: Dancing on the Ceiling.
"I'm not going to be part of your system of planets orbiting this star, man! And your magnetism and your gravity wells and your complicated chemical interactions sustaining all biological life! Your system sucks man! That's just your opinion, you know!"
I only mention it, because there's this insane little man inside me that won't shut up about it. I think the first step to sanity in this universe is recognizing I exist within a few inescapable constraints and that my id (or my inner toddler) isn't going to approve.
You know how some people grow up religious or in the closet, and then at some point have to question some of what they believed? I think I'm in the middle of questioning everything, even gravity.
Current status: Dancing on the Ceiling.
Wednesday, November 13, 2013
Upon further review
As always, it is humbling to read what I have written, then read a punchy essay by people better at writing cohesive, engaging pieces. I understand that blogs that are short, punchy and to-the-point are more popular, but it's not really what I want to write just yet. I'd rather try and actually either make an argument for something or hash something out which is going to take more than a few sentences. Why are people in such a rush, anyway? Maybe they're usually procrastinating on the internet (*coughs*) and feel guilty about lingering too long on any one site. So 30 minutes spent on 5 sites feels acceptable, because they only linger on a site for a few minutes before "getting back to work" (clicking the next link down the rabbit hole), whereas 30 minutes spent reading one long essay/article is more problematic to the decisive reader because one has to consciously set aside a sizable block of time to NOT do the thing one is supposed to be doing. But if it's just one little link . . .
Ahem, in any case, right now I want to avoid short, punchy bullshit devoid of any real substance, and instead write long, thoughtful, but readable essays on whatever bullshit currently takes my fancy. So, charitably, I think I'm about one for two. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Ahem, in any case, right now I want to avoid short, punchy bullshit devoid of any real substance, and instead write long, thoughtful, but readable essays on whatever bullshit currently takes my fancy. So, charitably, I think I'm about one for two. Yeah, that sounds about right.
Friday, November 08, 2013
The first stupid thing I can't stand about existence
There will come a day when this blog isn't solipsistic ridiculousness and borderline unreadable. Today is not that day.
I don't like living on this planet right now in a lot of ways. It's kind natural for someone going through a second adolescence/extended mid-life crisis, but I recognize it as silly. I'm going through the "your system is bullshit man." phase all over again and it's kind of exhausting and embarrassing, which is why I haven't been writing about it much. In true H fashion, I have mostly dealt with this in the usual way: flopping on the ground like a fish out of water then lying there quietly, staring at the sky, playing dead. Which is to say I haven't done much but dissociate with video games, struggle with motivation for doing my job and have again completely lost track of when the sun rises and sets. Well, I take it back, I'm keenly aware of the sun because I don't wake up (in terms of focus and energy) until it goes down and the only real motivation to sleep is when it threatens to rise again. Seriously, it's a giant ball of fire that hangs in the sky, I don't know why people aren't more alarmed.
What is new, is that this old fish-flopping vampire me is being watched by a somewhat newer, adultish me, wondering just how long this bullshit is going to go on. Because that dude would rather not keep doing this until we both die unfulfilled. There is clearly a part of me which would dearly like to procrastinate on living my life and taking the chances I want to take allllllll the way until my lamentable and unrequested death, which, I think we can all agree, is a terrible plan. It feels so right to my inner fish, but it's a terrible plan.
So, here I lie, limp, moist, and scaly, wondering what exactly I'm going to do about it. Laying here doing nothing, hating myself for doing nothing, but hating the world too much as it is to want to involve myself in it is honestly driving me crazy. And it's increasingly apparent to me that I don't have forever to "figure things out." and maybe I should start working my way through it, whatever it is that I need to work through. So I'm going to write my way through it as best I can. Starting with the fact that I don't have forever, because that's bullshit.
I can't stand that I'm going to die and that I'm smart enough to understand that. It's stupid. I hate it. I hate that I'm going to die. I hate how much and how little I was taught about death and I hate how much I'm having to unlearn about it all now.
I want to say my parents never gave me advice/training on how to deal with mortality, but I think from their point of view they did. They gave me Jesus, which was supposed to cover that base. If I believe in Jesus, and fall in line with the myriad bullshit that entails in Adventism, I would get to live forever, and that was all I needed to worry about as far as mortality went. My basic training was, "Having anxiety about death? Soothe yourself with Jesus." which is what my parents and relatives still do, and it seems to work well enough for them as far as I can tell.
I suppose it worked for me for a while? I don't really know if I ever bought into the religion, but I think I did buy in far enough to assume that I was probably going to live forever, somehow, even if some of the specifics of Adventism didn't really pan out. To be fair to my younger, dumber self, this is a fairly comforting belief, and it relegated thoughts about mortality to an uncomfortable tickle at the back of my mind that rarely needed scratching.
Now, as a proud homosexualist agnostic, I've had to come to terms with it on my own. I haven't really found the process enjoyable. I keep having to catch myself, in moments of existential stress, thinking, "Well, I'm sure it will all get sorted out after the second coming . . . " and remind myself that this is a learned response, not a reasoned response. I don't even suspect on an emotional level that the Adventist eschatology is true anymore, but it's hard to shake thebrain-washing training of my childhood.
But I've been searching anyway, as an adult who can ostensibly make up his own mind about things, and honestly, even without a comfort blanket about eternal life, I've never felt more okay about the fact that I'm going to die as I am right now, even though, on principle I still think it's bullshit. Having been injured and operated on in a variety of exciting and popular ways, injury is less frightening to me now, than when I had only read about it. I expect that to be true of death as well, although I'm not sure how rational that expectation is. I guess I'm slowly developing a sense of what I can control and what I can't, and the idea that at some point I will be unable to stop myself from dying and my only choice will be to suffer and agonize over it or accept it and let the experience happen is strangely calming. It's still bullshit to be sentient and mortal simultaneously and I hate it, but that thought is calming nonetheless.
I've done a lot of reading on the subject in the last year or two, about what happens after death according to various philosophies/religions, and it's obvious that no one really knows, and anyone who claims to is trying to sell you something. I find I reject the Christian narrative almost entirely, because all the legalism and sin and punishment and salvation and rewards in heaven nonsense, seems, at best, like convenient social engineering to keep people well-behaved and content to suffer. In any case, it doesn't make sense to me.
I like the practice of buddhism, and the philosophy because it rings true, but I'm not remotely sold on the supernatural aspects of the buddha.
Islam is right out, although I'm sure it contains some good core principles much like Christianity.
As for the dogmatic materialists, I concede consciousness might be entirely brain-generated, and it's quite possible the perceptions that I have when I'm awake are all there is, and that when the brain dies, all that is me goes with it. However, I don't have their confidence on the matter. For a bunch of of self-described skeptics, they sure have some strong beliefs on an afterlife nobody really has any evidence for. Don't even get me started on the singularity idiots who think immortality as cyborg/computer program is a natural and foreseeable evolution of technology. That motherboard is not your mother. It might be a good idea to wait on predictions of consciousness transfer until we have a basic understanding of what consciousness is and the specific mechanisms behind it.
As for the spiritualists, who knows. Lots of people claim to have seen ghosts (like 38% in the US I heard this week? [citation needed]), lots of people claim to have had near death experiences where they find their consciousness has a non-physical aspect that detaches from the body and continues after their body dies, but no one has much in the way of proof on any of that. I am sure many of them are making it up, or didn't see what they thought they saw, and I suspect some of them may be relating truthful experiences, but how truthful I don't know. The "beings" they tend to talk to frequently mention there's only so much they can say, because we aren't meant to know if there's anything beyond, or what it might be. So whether ghosts or NDE's have much to tell us about a possible afterlife I don't know, but I haven't seen a reason to rule them out entirely, nor have I seen a reason to start conducting seances in order to start a rich exchange of ideas with the spirit world.
What came out of my reading on ghosts and out-of-body experiences though, was an introduction to theosophy, which was an idea fashionable in the spiritist heyday of the late 1800s. Which, unless I am mistaken, is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, and we are all old souls, who have been reincarnating through a series of increasingly complicated organisms in some kind of cosmic search for "enlightenment" whatever that may be. And once we've reincarnated as a human a few times on this planet and learned whatever it is we needed to learn here, we move on through a succession of ethereal realms until ... oneness? Transcendence? Some new bullshit? I don't really believe this either, but I must admit, I kind of like the idea. It appeals to my particular sensibilities.
In short, I haven't figured out what happens after I die, and I live in a society which is not particularly good at helping their fellow sentients cope with their own mortality, so the fat lot of good the rest of you have been to me on this one. The materialists might be right, but "Be a man and walk into nothingness with your head held high." is not a particularly helpful advice on coping with the problem emtionally. And I have a pretty low patience for people who claim to know all about what happens at the end of all things, but can offer me precisely nothing in terms of proof. Just reassurances and tradition and hand-waving meant to soothe and co-opt me.
I think I feel into the trap of thinking that I was somehow removed from nature, either through technology or Jesus or some other specialness. But the truth is, we follow the same pattern as every other thing that lives on this planet. We're born, we're cute as a button as children, obnoxious, violent and sexy as we bloom and reproduce, and then we fade, clawing and screaming or with our hands in the air enjoying the ride, until the matter that makes us finally breaks down and returns to the earth. I still hate the idea that I'm not special enough to live forever, but when I think of it that way, as a natural part of life that we are all designed for, it's not quite so bad.
As for potential afterlives, that is an unknown that will be known (or not!) once I'm dead, but do I HAVE to know for sure what lies beyond before I get there? Probably not, although I'd like to. It's just as well, I guess. The universe seems to be playing that one pretty close to the vest.
So I don't know, and you don't know, and maybe we're not meant to know, and maybe we just can't know by definition. But, as a life skill, we have to cope with the fact that none of us seems to get out of here alive, and I am working on that. But I hate it. I hate that I have to die, and I hate that you have to die, and I that everyone's so shitty about it one way or another and that nobody really likes to talk about it. And I hate that while I know rationally that I'm not so special as to deserve eternal ongoingness, emotionally I'm the center of the goddamn universe, and the tension between those two sides of me is hard to navigate most days. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's not dying I fear so much, as dying with the things I want to to still undone. Dying, I can't do so much about. But things still undone? I have some power there. Although I suspect it will require more of me than laying here quietly on this metaphorical existential river bank, impotently shaking my fin at the world.
I'm gonna die, and I'd better get off my ass soon if I want to get some things done. Well shit. That's not something a fish likes to hear.
I don't like living on this planet right now in a lot of ways. It's kind natural for someone going through a second adolescence/extended mid-life crisis, but I recognize it as silly. I'm going through the "your system is bullshit man." phase all over again and it's kind of exhausting and embarrassing, which is why I haven't been writing about it much. In true H fashion, I have mostly dealt with this in the usual way: flopping on the ground like a fish out of water then lying there quietly, staring at the sky, playing dead. Which is to say I haven't done much but dissociate with video games, struggle with motivation for doing my job and have again completely lost track of when the sun rises and sets. Well, I take it back, I'm keenly aware of the sun because I don't wake up (in terms of focus and energy) until it goes down and the only real motivation to sleep is when it threatens to rise again. Seriously, it's a giant ball of fire that hangs in the sky, I don't know why people aren't more alarmed.
What is new, is that this old fish-flopping vampire me is being watched by a somewhat newer, adultish me, wondering just how long this bullshit is going to go on. Because that dude would rather not keep doing this until we both die unfulfilled. There is clearly a part of me which would dearly like to procrastinate on living my life and taking the chances I want to take allllllll the way until my lamentable and unrequested death, which, I think we can all agree, is a terrible plan. It feels so right to my inner fish, but it's a terrible plan.
So, here I lie, limp, moist, and scaly, wondering what exactly I'm going to do about it. Laying here doing nothing, hating myself for doing nothing, but hating the world too much as it is to want to involve myself in it is honestly driving me crazy. And it's increasingly apparent to me that I don't have forever to "figure things out." and maybe I should start working my way through it, whatever it is that I need to work through. So I'm going to write my way through it as best I can. Starting with the fact that I don't have forever, because that's bullshit.
I can't stand that I'm going to die and that I'm smart enough to understand that. It's stupid. I hate it. I hate that I'm going to die. I hate how much and how little I was taught about death and I hate how much I'm having to unlearn about it all now.
I want to say my parents never gave me advice/training on how to deal with mortality, but I think from their point of view they did. They gave me Jesus, which was supposed to cover that base. If I believe in Jesus, and fall in line with the myriad bullshit that entails in Adventism, I would get to live forever, and that was all I needed to worry about as far as mortality went. My basic training was, "Having anxiety about death? Soothe yourself with Jesus." which is what my parents and relatives still do, and it seems to work well enough for them as far as I can tell.
I suppose it worked for me for a while? I don't really know if I ever bought into the religion, but I think I did buy in far enough to assume that I was probably going to live forever, somehow, even if some of the specifics of Adventism didn't really pan out. To be fair to my younger, dumber self, this is a fairly comforting belief, and it relegated thoughts about mortality to an uncomfortable tickle at the back of my mind that rarely needed scratching.
Now, as a proud homosexualist agnostic, I've had to come to terms with it on my own. I haven't really found the process enjoyable. I keep having to catch myself, in moments of existential stress, thinking, "Well, I'm sure it will all get sorted out after the second coming . . . " and remind myself that this is a learned response, not a reasoned response. I don't even suspect on an emotional level that the Adventist eschatology is true anymore, but it's hard to shake the
But I've been searching anyway, as an adult who can ostensibly make up his own mind about things, and honestly, even without a comfort blanket about eternal life, I've never felt more okay about the fact that I'm going to die as I am right now, even though, on principle I still think it's bullshit. Having been injured and operated on in a variety of exciting and popular ways, injury is less frightening to me now, than when I had only read about it. I expect that to be true of death as well, although I'm not sure how rational that expectation is. I guess I'm slowly developing a sense of what I can control and what I can't, and the idea that at some point I will be unable to stop myself from dying and my only choice will be to suffer and agonize over it or accept it and let the experience happen is strangely calming. It's still bullshit to be sentient and mortal simultaneously and I hate it, but that thought is calming nonetheless.
I've done a lot of reading on the subject in the last year or two, about what happens after death according to various philosophies/religions, and it's obvious that no one really knows, and anyone who claims to is trying to sell you something. I find I reject the Christian narrative almost entirely, because all the legalism and sin and punishment and salvation and rewards in heaven nonsense, seems, at best, like convenient social engineering to keep people well-behaved and content to suffer. In any case, it doesn't make sense to me.
I like the practice of buddhism, and the philosophy because it rings true, but I'm not remotely sold on the supernatural aspects of the buddha.
Islam is right out, although I'm sure it contains some good core principles much like Christianity.
As for the dogmatic materialists, I concede consciousness might be entirely brain-generated, and it's quite possible the perceptions that I have when I'm awake are all there is, and that when the brain dies, all that is me goes with it. However, I don't have their confidence on the matter. For a bunch of of self-described skeptics, they sure have some strong beliefs on an afterlife nobody really has any evidence for. Don't even get me started on the singularity idiots who think immortality as cyborg/computer program is a natural and foreseeable evolution of technology. That motherboard is not your mother. It might be a good idea to wait on predictions of consciousness transfer until we have a basic understanding of what consciousness is and the specific mechanisms behind it.
As for the spiritualists, who knows. Lots of people claim to have seen ghosts (like 38% in the US I heard this week? [citation needed]), lots of people claim to have had near death experiences where they find their consciousness has a non-physical aspect that detaches from the body and continues after their body dies, but no one has much in the way of proof on any of that. I am sure many of them are making it up, or didn't see what they thought they saw, and I suspect some of them may be relating truthful experiences, but how truthful I don't know. The "beings" they tend to talk to frequently mention there's only so much they can say, because we aren't meant to know if there's anything beyond, or what it might be. So whether ghosts or NDE's have much to tell us about a possible afterlife I don't know, but I haven't seen a reason to rule them out entirely, nor have I seen a reason to start conducting seances in order to start a rich exchange of ideas with the spirit world.
What came out of my reading on ghosts and out-of-body experiences though, was an introduction to theosophy, which was an idea fashionable in the spiritist heyday of the late 1800s. Which, unless I am mistaken, is the idea that consciousness is a fundamental property of the universe, and we are all old souls, who have been reincarnating through a series of increasingly complicated organisms in some kind of cosmic search for "enlightenment" whatever that may be. And once we've reincarnated as a human a few times on this planet and learned whatever it is we needed to learn here, we move on through a succession of ethereal realms until ... oneness? Transcendence? Some new bullshit? I don't really believe this either, but I must admit, I kind of like the idea. It appeals to my particular sensibilities.
In short, I haven't figured out what happens after I die, and I live in a society which is not particularly good at helping their fellow sentients cope with their own mortality, so the fat lot of good the rest of you have been to me on this one. The materialists might be right, but "Be a man and walk into nothingness with your head held high." is not a particularly helpful advice on coping with the problem emtionally. And I have a pretty low patience for people who claim to know all about what happens at the end of all things, but can offer me precisely nothing in terms of proof. Just reassurances and tradition and hand-waving meant to soothe and co-opt me.
I think I feel into the trap of thinking that I was somehow removed from nature, either through technology or Jesus or some other specialness. But the truth is, we follow the same pattern as every other thing that lives on this planet. We're born, we're cute as a button as children, obnoxious, violent and sexy as we bloom and reproduce, and then we fade, clawing and screaming or with our hands in the air enjoying the ride, until the matter that makes us finally breaks down and returns to the earth. I still hate the idea that I'm not special enough to live forever, but when I think of it that way, as a natural part of life that we are all designed for, it's not quite so bad.
As for potential afterlives, that is an unknown that will be known (or not!) once I'm dead, but do I HAVE to know for sure what lies beyond before I get there? Probably not, although I'd like to. It's just as well, I guess. The universe seems to be playing that one pretty close to the vest.
So I don't know, and you don't know, and maybe we're not meant to know, and maybe we just can't know by definition. But, as a life skill, we have to cope with the fact that none of us seems to get out of here alive, and I am working on that. But I hate it. I hate that I have to die, and I hate that you have to die, and I that everyone's so shitty about it one way or another and that nobody really likes to talk about it. And I hate that while I know rationally that I'm not so special as to deserve eternal ongoingness, emotionally I'm the center of the goddamn universe, and the tension between those two sides of me is hard to navigate most days. And the more I think about it, the more I realize that it's not dying I fear so much, as dying with the things I want to to still undone. Dying, I can't do so much about. But things still undone? I have some power there. Although I suspect it will require more of me than laying here quietly on this metaphorical existential river bank, impotently shaking my fin at the world.
I'm gonna die, and I'd better get off my ass soon if I want to get some things done. Well shit. That's not something a fish likes to hear.
Tuesday, October 29, 2013
New Po-em
Burned Bridges
Over at my other site. Poem might be over-selling it. Was just thinking about what I wanted for my life and what I made of it and that's what came out.
Over at my other site. Poem might be over-selling it. Was just thinking about what I wanted for my life and what I made of it and that's what came out.
Monday, October 07, 2013
Breaking down the Equation
Your pet theory =(your perspective)/(ER) - Bullshit * emotional bias
where your perspective is small, ER is the scope of the empirical reality in question and where
your perspective = intuition * no. of relevant experiences + personal evidence * analytical rigor + ∑ (3rd party anecdotes * veracity)
and
Bullshit * emotional bias = ∑(anecdotes * blindspots^2) + (what you want to be true)/(what you know to be true) + ∑(logical fallacy * (1-critical thinking))
Where anecdotes are constants and critical thinking and veracity are normalized.
In order for the equation to be positive, we need to keep the first term as large as possible and the second term as small as possible. To do this, minimize the scope of the theory, increase perspective, and minimize bullshit and unhelpful emotional bias. Please note emotional bias can contribute positively to perspective if the number of relevant experiences is high (in other words if intuition is well-trained by experience), as well as expand the bullshit term if emotions inflate what you want to be true and the magnitude of blindspots.
where your perspective is small, ER is the scope of the empirical reality in question and where
your perspective = intuition * no. of relevant experiences + personal evidence * analytical rigor + ∑ (3rd party anecdotes * veracity)
and
Bullshit * emotional bias = ∑(anecdotes * blindspots^2) + (what you want to be true)/(what you know to be true) + ∑(logical fallacy * (1-critical thinking))
Where anecdotes are constants and critical thinking and veracity are normalized.
In order for the equation to be positive, we need to keep the first term as large as possible and the second term as small as possible. To do this, minimize the scope of the theory, increase perspective, and minimize bullshit and unhelpful emotional bias. Please note emotional bias can contribute positively to perspective if the number of relevant experiences is high (in other words if intuition is well-trained by experience), as well as expand the bullshit term if emotions inflate what you want to be true and the magnitude of blindspots.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)