47/52 - Great-ish Expectations

“There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.”
― Charles Dickens

Dear Internauts,

In general, I find happy people to be the most disappointing.

They can be disagreeable, even absurd to the point of disgust. However, the root of this perceived vulgarity is not the inherent wrongness of their mood but the gap in perspective between that of the happy person and those of us upon whom they inflict themselves. This irreconcilable dysfunction is, sadly, not their fault. Nor is it necessarily ours either.

At fault for this whole mess is the performative nature of existence.

This nature leads to one of the most compelling aspects of artistry—the utter meaningless of intention in the face of an audience. Perhaps there’s enough of a schism between creation and interpretation that it is impossible for anyone to experience the original truth of a work. Or rather the original truth of any work is how far removed it is in every instance and every step from the design of its creator.

If a story exists at all outside the telling (or the hearing/viewing, for that matter), it exists incompletely. The incomplete does not always necessitate completion, except of course when it comes to social pressure. And who better to provide that pressure than the audience, the very mechanism of its completion. But who knows what they might think or feel or yawn about this put-together puzzle in their putting together of it?

We think our experience of art is to receive it and then, as separate beings, construct some outside response as if to form an uniquely divisible creation. Of course that makes plenty of sense on the surface, but one scarce look at our responses shows that we are in the tumultuous throws of our own unbroken sequence of influences. Every symptom is a side-effect.






So I disagree with my previous absurd accusation that intention is meaningless. It's not that it's meaningless but rather that it's meaning is not found in its independence. Intentions declare meaning through what they reveal of influence, which continues the cycle through the effect the intended work has on those across the divide from the intention, who are under their own weight of influences. In sharing their response to the created work, the audience does not become the creator but rather reveals the public face of a creation already in the work from the moment of their exposure to the original work (which itself is of course not the original). Everything is a response to everything else.


Like the brilliant post I saw on tumblr earlier this week about how everyone in my generation had a Twilight phase. You either had a pro-Twilight or an anti-Twilight phase, but in either case you most certainly had a Twilight phase.

I think this can be true of any movement, genre, form, or expression that gathers any substantial following. Then again, you don't even need two people to have a disagreement; one will usually suffice.



I mean all this twisting illogic to say this: a big issue with any pretense of purity in critique that I rarely see brought up in online discourse is how big a role our expectations play in our experience of a work. I'm not talking about how closely a film stuck to the supposed "promises" of its trailer, because if we're honest, the trailer is simply a far more expensive (though oft a bit more informative) cover by which we should not judge the proverbial book. This runs far deeper. In the veins of any audience member or reader or listener or passerby runs the blood of an ecosystem in action. The memories, emotions, and all the drippy bits of homeostasis with which one enters into a relationship with a created work not only serve as goggles through which we view it but an entire suit of moist and jiggly armor in between it and our sense of self-awareness.


I love going to the movies by myself and being the only person in the cinema. Despite my severe introverted nature, I also find myself enjoying—on occasion—the wondrous wave of serendipity which occurs when a crowded cinema and I can join in the experience of a movie together. It can be funnier when everyone else is laughing and more breathtaking when my breath isn't the only one being taken. I don't like it because it feels icky and social, but there truly is a transformative aspect to the communal experience of art.

Of course, don't you dare talk in the theater or you ruin everything and should be made to pay for everyone else's ticket if you do.




In the parking lot, on the drive home, the next day, or later online, there is, however, the discourse. Not only is my own mind racing with a billion thoughts a second about what I've just experienced, but now it contends with the weight of everyone else's opinion. How often is it that said opinion isn't even their own anyway but just the sort of common jelly mold ball of meh that forms from the collective dilutions of so many brains only wanting to think as hard about something as they need to so that it stays enjoyable? Easy. Fun. Or fun to destroy.


Deep in that mire, we find the chameleonic shell of expectations—

When I hear Doctor Who, I picture David Tennant.

When I see the words The Joker, I hear Mark Hamill's uproarious laughter.

When someone mentions the president, I have to check myself for a moment before I break down in tears because Jed Bartlett is a fictional character, and I very much doubt the conversations in the hallways of the west wing of the white house these days sound much anything at all like something written by Aaron Sorkin.

When I think of the beach, my feet brace for running on knife-sharp rock piles and the hair on my arms stands out straight from the chilled-to-the-bone cold water.

To some, the crowded calamity of a city is a nightmare most dreadful. To me it will always be a dream of home.

And there is not a single work of art, film, book, or song that has brushed by my self-symptomatic shell of existence which has not been absurdly thrown into a strange perspective by it.

AND THIS IS ART!?!!!

Yup, this is the stuff we make and share which we think of as the most poignant, the most transformative, the most persuasive, the most piercing, the most affecting.

So...

How much more are our experiences with the mysterious, complex, fuzzy, weird-o wonders known colloquially as "other people" affected by our shell of experience-based expectations, moods, and manners?

I'm not even sure what I want, so why am I so continuously disappointed when I don't get it?

Thanks for reading,
Odist









46/52 - Sitting Around Waiting for the World to Change

Dear Internauts,

This past local election, I sat in a meeting room near the library/police station and handed voters their ballots. It helps me feel like I'm involved and actually participating in the political process in a way that doesn't make me wanna throw up. Plus, it's a way I can force myself to spend eight-ish hours out in public around people without going into a complete panic attack. It's a small town and a small time election, so I spent most of the time reading, but it's also a decent way to experience one of the few happy aspects of politics—participation without fighting. Sure, you still have to walk past the two party booths standing the mandated legal distance from the front of the building, but they're a bit less boisterous than they were last time I worked the polls (November of 2016). If you'd like to be involved in your local election, it's not a bad way to spend a morning, afternoon, or both if, like me, you've yet to be called back from the endless number of menial labor jobs to which you've applied.

After all, if I'm gonna continue to cheer the idea that the only politics that really matter are local, then I might as well back it up with some sort of involvement, right?

Remember how I mentioned going to that TEDx event a few weeks back, well one of the best things that the first speaker did in her talk on composting was to demonstrate ways in which her organization made it as easy as possible for local restaurants to participate. Too often, "causes" do everything they can to make you feel guilty instead of inspired. Please remember those are NOT the same thing. As someone caught in the ever-shifting tumult of emotional tempests, any speaker who does more than make me feel flattered or insulted has my attention far more often than the usual quick-sell.

Don't just tell me I should do something. Make me aware of a way I actually can.

For an example, I'd like to introduce you to Resistbot, an easy to use tool to help you send a message to your government representatives.

All you have to do is text 'RESIST' to 50409.

From there, Resistbot will walk you through the steps to send a message directly to your Senators, House Representative, President, and/or State Governor. It does all the work of getting the message to them, all you have to do is make the message.

If you're like me and don't enjoy talking on the phone but can spend a minute texting a simple message, this is an extremely helpful way to get involved.

Perhaps it's especially important to you that the FCC not kill Net Neutrality, so your ability to read weekly blogs by obscure songwriters isn't hampered in the name of selfish business interests. Just sayin.

Anyways, media roundup time!

I recently finished reading THRAWN by Timothy Zahn. If you're into Star Wars books, this is one of the very best of the new canon. Focusing on the career rise of a blue-skinned, red-eyed, tactical genius from the outer reaches of the galaxy far, far away within an Imperial Navy that is decidedly anti-alien, Zahn's brilliant writing expertly manages to weave the technical military apparatus of the Galactic Empire with fascinating strategy, compelling character development, intelligent yet relatable dialogue, and a smart display of blending previous mythos with an exploration of the new. Great read.

Yes, I did see both Thor: Ragnarok and Justice League. I enjoyed both of them, but don't really have much to say about either besides that. I think they're both worth seeing if you enjoy these kinds of films, Thor especially. I think Wonder Woman is the best of the DCEU so far, but that's not really a novel opinion at this point. If you want to see Justice League done really well, watch the animated series from 2001 or read the Grant Morrison run of comics. My favorite Justice League story is a very weird one called Identity Crisis, which first inspire my love for Elongated Man. Also, if you liked Ragnarok and want to know more about one of the stories which inspired part of it, I'd def recommend Planet Hulk, wherein you can get a lot more in-depth on the characters Korg and Meek.

As for amazing movies you should def make it a point to see ASAP, I have to recommend Lady Bird. Written and Directed by the astounding Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha!, Miss America) and starring probably my favorite actress right now, Saoirse Ronan (How I Live Now, Brooklyn, The Lovely Bones, Atonement, Hanna, The Grand Budapest Hotel), this is def going in my favorite films of 2017. It's seriously unlike anything I've seen before. Hilarious to the point that I actually couldn't hear some parts because the audience was laughing so loud, poignant to the point that I was legit stunned, with some of the best acting and writing you'll see this year.

Honestly, there's something about dramas with comedy that I tend to find their jokes hit so much better than straight up comedies. Both Lady Bird and The Big Sick were far funnier to me when they were being funny than so many movies trying to be funny throughout. Maybe I just have a terribly irrelevant sense of humor, or maybe there's something about getting me to really dig into the absurdity and meaning of these circumstances (or both). Make me laugh till I cry and cry till I can't help but laugh, I don't know. Anyone relate? This can be done terribly too, of course (as can anything, I suppose), because with all the action films I see that try to inject comedy throughout, there can be definite criticism made of taking away from the weight of the dramatic with too many jokes. Both Guardians of the Galaxy films and the recent Thor film missed a few points for me due to not letting some important moments be as emotionally resonant as they could be. It's okay if we're not always laughing. But then again, maybe it's a backlash against the super-grimdark tone of so many would-be blockbusters that folks seem to loathe. I think there's a great balance to find there, and honestly I'm fine with dark, gritty, and sad if that's what a film really needs. I think maybe my spectrum of allowance for darkness is a bit broader than maybe the common movie goer, because I learned a long time ago that my sense of humor is both so tiny as to be non-existent at times and weird enough to be clueless as to what most folks will enjoy. I try to fit some sort of humor into my writing, but the truth is I'm stunned by what most people find funny or don't. But then I've read that many writers struggle with truly knowing what in the world people will find funny. I think that's okay. Funny can be great, but I think meaningful is more important. So maybe that's why I prefer dramadies over straight comedies. Helping me feel joyful wins over trying hard to make me laugh.

This blog is brought to you by me being sick and sleeping/not sleeping through the past two days.

Also, one of you lovely readers asked for a drawing of the box analogy from last week.

Hope this works for ya ;)

Thanks for reading,
Odist

45/52 - Boxes and Boxes

"We are all poets or babies in the middle of the night, struggling with being." - Martin Amis

Dear Internauts,

1) I read Kevin Smith's 2013 memoir, Tough Sh*t: Life Advice from a Fat, Lazy Slob Who Did Good, several months after leaving college. I don't remember too much of it, but what sticks in my mind is a lesson he picked up from director George Romero (“I don't think you need to spend $40 million to be creepy. The best horror films are the ones that are much less endowed.”). I'd do the particular story a disservice to try and retell it, but basically Smith wanted to make his own film but felt hindered by his lack of resources, connections, and position. Thus he decided to make a film about working at a convenience store, and Clerks remains probably his most famous work. Shot relatively cheaply from a script he wrote and starring his friends. The lesson, he wrote, being that the more resources you think you need in order to accomplish your goal—the more roadblocks you're setting up before you—the more excuses you're giving yourself to stop pursuing it. Figure out the best way to make your goal using your limitations to your benefit instead of telling yourself you can't do anything until the situation is optimal.

2) Last Thursday, my folks and I went to a TEDx event featuring several great speakers who presented eighteen-ish minutes each on a variety of topics. They were all interesting, but what stuck with me the most was actually this video they played from artist Phil Hansen. If you haven't already seen it (or even if you have), I def recommend taking the time to watch it.

[tl;dw - Basically, in art school, Hansen developed a nasty hand tremor which prevented him from continuing on his current stylistic path. Lost, he allowed this setback to drive him from his goals, dreams, and best self until he purposefully set forth to reclaim those ideas in new ways despite the troubles he perceived as blocking his path forward. Through this determination, he discovered a refreshed sense of creativity by embracing his limitations as a part of himself, rather than fighting against them. From there, he began to explore other mediums, styles, and concepts for his art, setting up purposeful parameters as a way to inspire creativity instead of letting those borders hinder him.]

3) I've loved wolves pretty much my entire life. They're pretty much my favorite animal. A common idea about wolf pack social structure is that of the Alpha. This is the one at the top who keeps everybody else in check, gets to eat first, and gets first dibs on a mate. Well, this has been the thinking for a long time, and I believed it from the stuff I'd read and seen. However, over the past year I've been reading a lot about how the whole Alpha male, etc stuff is not really true to nature. Sure it exists, but the major research done to confirm it was/is based for the most part on wolves held in captivity. Specifically those who were strangers before being put in the same enclosure would form these hierarchies out of the immediate necessity for order. That's not to say that their aren't leaders of packs in the wild, but rather that the conditions of captivity necessitated in the wolves a power structure built on violence, control, and subordination. In the wild, a more organic, familial support system can develop depending on circumstance.

(This is not to say that I don't believe there are certain rescue sanctuaries which truly do help wolves, though even then those places only need to exist due to human destruction of natural ecosystems and wide-spread wolf slaughter in the past century by the uninformed, uneducated, and greedy.)

So if the nature of wolves can't be best determined by their survival within captivity, what is there to say about the nature of humans within the captivity of, say, capitalism?

 In the words of Emma Goldman—

“Poor human nature, what horrible crimes have been committed in thy name! Every fool, from king to policeman, from the flatheaded parson to the visionless dabbler in science, presumes to speak authoritatively of human nature. The greater the mental charlatan, the more definite his insistence on the wickedness and weaknesses of human nature. Yet, how can any one speak of it today, with every soul in a prison, with every heart fettered, wounded, and maimed?

John Burroughs has stated that experimental study of animals in captivity is absolutely useless. Their character, their habits, their appetites undergo a complete transformation when torn from their soil in field and forest. With human nature caged in a narrow space, whipped daily into submission, how can we speak of its potentialities?”

Think about the world of Hunger Games as brought to us by Suzanne Collins:
While the various districts are made to focus on and root for their hero/celebrities in fights against one another, the actual antagonistic force was the oppressive Capital, facilitating, encouraging, and enforcing this struggle as a way to maintain a status quo of control. The very idea of challenging them was so far out of thought, because people were too busy fighting eachother, starving, and simply trying to make their way from one day to the next.

Or in Star Wars' own Clone Wars:
The Republic and the Separatists were so busy destroying one another that they let themselves be ripped apart from within, betraying any ideals they had once held dear and fought for in order to unwittingly bolster their mutually assured destruction and introduce a singular figure of oppression once it was too late to reconcile.

Or whenever we as people are so caught up in fighting over borders, parties, sects, or resources that we ignore the root causes of this scarcity, which is used by those in power to maintain the illusion of their own usefulness and necessity.

So to recap:

1) Don't let the list of things you think you need to be successful stop you from even beginning to try.

2) Instead of seeing your limitations as weaknesses, accept them as part of your unique self and thus unlock the chance to sow creative expression from the uniqueness of your particular challenges.

3) And remember that the outward enforcement of limitations by those in power need not be the sole means of structuring reality for yourself, your interactions, your community, and your world.

As long as there are boxes for people, there are people climbing out, climbing in, and running around inside and out. All those people are unique and all those people are capable of more than simply being defined by their relationship to their box.

Thanks for reading,
Odist

44/52 - Moment by Moments

“Every creator painfully experiences the chasm between his inner vision and its ultimate expression … We all have the conviction, perhaps illusory, that we have much more to say than appears on the paper.” 

- Isaac Bashevis Singer

Dear Internauts, 

Thus we see the beginning of National Novel Writing Month 2017, or NaNoWriMo—a congested cataclysm of creativity, community, and complexes in which a gazillion would-be novelists set forth to write 50,000 words of a first draft in the limited space colloquially known as November. I've participated several times in the past, only ever completing the challenge, or "winning", once. Usually I'll get pretty deep into the month on good ground, than flail about a bit before falling irreparably behind in the last third and losing track of my sense and motivation before the end comes along to harmonize with my seasonal affective disorder. As if writers aren't neurotic enough, though I suppose for some the challenge can be more inspiring than haunting. 

This year, I'm simply continuing the work of writing out the whole plot for my graphic novel. I started with something of a chronological timeline of important events that take place in the main setting. From there it's a matter of setting up the chapters both as functions of the whole and as miniature plot-lines in themselves, with rising and falling action, climax of sorts, and a hook to leave off before the next chapter begins. 

I've been particularly focusing on a method of story-telling I think I may have heard from a clip of a speech Trey and Matt Parker gave once. It's meant to keep the action moving along by having the connecting fiber between each beat focused on either "but then" or "thus then", instead of "and then". The issue being that "and then" tends to place one action after another in a way far too episodic to maintain forward momentum. This happened "but then" this happened, however, allows for both an obvious continuation from one beat to the next as well as a challenge to continually subvert expectations and keep the protagonist(s) active participants and drivers of the story. "Thus then" works as a way to fit those points which expand upon the previous, the difference between "thus then" and "and then" being what flows naturally and what is simply trying to keep going from one plot point to the next simply out of necessity to hit those moments. 

(Here's a video saying that much better than I can.)

Moments alone, however, don't make a cohesive or purposefully driven plot. 

Although we do often remember specific scenes, set-pieces, or lines from a work, it's the characters and their motivations from one beat to the next which allow us to feel as if we are not simply observers but emotional participants in their lives. Though in some of my favorite genres and plot structures, the focus may seem to be more on the cool or the wondrous or the awe-inspiring or the fascinating, the most affecting of any story-based works of art find a way to connect to our shared humanity. And what better way to do so than by getting us to care about the characters? They don't even have to be the "good guy". 

As I explore my own colorful cadre of maddening miscreants, I tend to find that the best use of moments is one in which even the most absurd can be connected to through a link with these people. 

Speaking of, as I mentioned last week, I finished reading John Green's Turtles All the Way Down recently, and wow. I wouldn't go so far to say that Aza Holmes is this generations Holden Caufield, but I will say that I haven't felt so connected to a protagonist's inner thought life since Catcher in the Rye. So that's my endorsement. 

Speaking of endorsements, here's a little thought: 

One of the many problems with the idea that commercialization should simply be accepted as a necessary function of media is that it completely denies an audience’s intellectual ability to judge the worth of supporting a work while simultaneously forcing an increasing amount of often unrelated garbage down our throats. Thus they can no longer support the work simply because they find it worth supporting, but rather the work is financially bolstered up by the same vile mechanism which distracts from, demeans, and infringes upon the independence of the work’s message. 

You’ve got a possible masterpiece, but who’s to know when it’s the size of a postal stamp and the frame is an arena-sized billboard of blindingly obnoxious industrial space waste? 

I get that everyone’s gotta make a living, but if the art which inherently expresses a part of humanity unable to be fully locked down by the demons of capitalism is enshrouded by its flags and propaganda, even the most sincere attempts at chain-breaking are made flimsy and pathetic. Maybe it’s simply the sad reality of trying to survive in a money-mad, material world. Still, I’d like to believe that there must be some way for the method to match the means. 

Let us NOT all be made hypocrites by our daily necessities. 

At the same time, I was watching 60 Minutes with my mom the other night and boy, are TV commercials weird or what? I'd nearly forgotten how cringey they are. And you can't even skip them after five seconds. Sure, I grew up with that, so maybe I'm jaded. Still, have they gotten more desperate now that so many get their media from non-cable sources. Even the ones on the radio don't seem as bad as the commercials on TV, but maybe it was just the hour I caught, being speckled as it was with political ads too. 

So anyway, (one of) my problem(s) with being a writer who's so often been inspired by current events and social justice issues is how it's all just so overwhelming. 

On one hand, I am on a semi-constant emotional roller coaster ride of madness by being even kinda woke to the contemporary absurdities. On the other, I'm not sure that raising awareness is good enough anymore. I don't want to blog or draw or sing about some bad thing in the same way that I'd just retweet it. 

I don't want to contribute to call-out culture as some simple, brainless conduit for sharing the  24 hour bad news cycle. 

It's too easy to say that other folks have said it better. And it's not enough to simply pass along the latest crisis, scandal, or disaster porn. It overwhelms me, and—despite my many issues—I'm technically an adult in the latter half of my twenties. I do worry about the affect that an atmosphere of negativity has on younger folks. Similarly, I know that there was plenty of stuff I was kept away from as a kid because it was part of the evil/sinful world and deemed inappropriate for me to even know about, much less learn how to process healthily. We can't shelter the future of humanity from everything, but we also can't just pretend that they're somehow automatically immune to the torrential downpour of EVERYTHING that is an integral part of the information age. 

Truly, though, I do believe that this group of kids and teens coming up is poised for some brilliance, so long as we can do our part to help and not hinder their growth into the harbingers of a better age. 

What do you think?

Thanks for reading,

Odist