Month: May 2015

We are all too often held back and de-individualized by the things we are afraid to say that we are into. There is rampant fear that people will laugh at us or hold some power over us through their ability to label us as one thing or another based on our ‘secret fetishes’.

When I was in High School I played role playing games with a group of kids from several different social cliques. Not many of us openly admitted to the gaming because we knew what people who didn’t understand would think. I remember one dude’s girlfriend would say to me, ‘you know it’s weird that you guys hang out in his room and do that all the time.’ She was against it. Other girlfriends accepted it as a minor inconvenience. One, purely out of love for her guy, even tried to play but it wasn’t really her thing.

Full circle, I teach now and a coworker recently made it known (proudly) that her boys were very much into My Little Pony. I immediately labeled them bronies and considered 47 different versions of trash I could talk. I wound up talking none at all, because I recognized that them being bronies was actually pretty interesting. I didn’t know any bronies up to that point and, for me, the act of learning about things I don’t know is actually kind of fun and helps me grow. I even tracked down an episode of the show on youtube to see what all the fuss was about. I’m not a fan.

I have watched every episode of Dawson’s Creek and am currently burning my way through the Gilmore Girls. Neither would be shows that people generally assume are watched by a black guy, but there it is. I can think of a dozen ways to label me based on that admission. Throw in the fact that I write roleplaying games and sci-fi as my passion work and the number is squared instantly.

Labeling makes life easier. It helps keep the society together (and quiet) by allowing us to very quickly form judgements and categorize people; it also is terribly defeating. We tend to make fun of what isn’t normally accepted and marginalize people because what they believe an or do aren’t mainstream and that make us different. Frankly I find the whole thing backwards. What makes us different is what makes us unique.

Some Thoughts:

1. No ‘white whales’ chased or published today, so I won’t be reaching as far into my psyche for 1852. Instead I will regale you with tales of water and waste. 1852 was the year that the first public female toilet opened (in Britain). Meanwhile in NYC, the U.S.’s first public bath was opening, only a year after the first YMCA opened… There’s a connection there. I know it.

In my ‘other’ life I’m a Creative Writing Teacher. The question that is thrust my way more often than any other is: Can I write fan fiction?? Honestly, my gut reaction is to ask them, ‘why would you even ask me that?’ however, that is neither productive nor a real answer. Does that mean I hate the stuff and will not tolerate it or does that mean that I have come to recognize the validity of fan-written prose in an established fictional world? As with everything else, the truth lives somewhere in-between those two extremes.

For the uninitiated, fanfic is writing based in the world of established character–usually characters in a series such as The Hunger Games, Bleach, Twilight, etc. In this fiction the writer often tells a tale that peripherally involves characters from the novels or shows and tends to include characters the writer has created on their own. Equally often the writer tells a story about the main characters that reflect parts of their lives we haven’t seen before. Today at Comicon I met an author who wrote a series of graphic novels based on the parts of Mass Effect that are eluded to in the books and games but never actually told in story form. Now he was contracted for his work by the company, so that technically isn’t fanfic, but it started out as such. Fifty Shades of Grey started as fanfic of Twilight and became something very profitable. That in of itself doesn’t legitimize fanfic, but it does tell us that there is a large audience for that kind of writing.

Amazon seems to agree that there is an audience eager for fanfic. The company started Kindle Worlds, a self-described “a place for you to publish fan fiction inspired by popular books, shows, movies, comics, music, and games.” The work on the site is sold and the writer can receive royalties. This in a sense financially legitimizes fan fiction.

Still, I think all of this misses the point: We write because we love to write and we love to tell stories to those willing to listen. As such, if you are writing then you are an author and anything you write is legitimate and deserves a proper critique. I’m never going to tell a student they cannot write fanfic for my class. What I will say is, you ought to develop original characters and work on digging deeper into your ability to tell those stories instead of telling someone else’s story about someone else’s character. As for writing stories in someone else’s world, we all do that anyway. When we write about the world we live in we aren’t writing about the world we created. It is a shared world that, like the Seven Kingdoms, or Narnia, or the may worlds of the Star Wars Universe, was here long before us and will be here long after we leave. It is the characters we bring to that world and the stories we tell about them that makes it meaningful.

 

Some Thoughts:

1. In 1851 Moby Dick was first published. Imagine the irony (perhaps only in my head) that on the day of said post this article is front page news on CNN.com. As it turns out, this particular Captain was  stabbed by his ‘white whale’

At some point my six year old is going to fall over. The others will follow soon after, tiny hands relaxing as their bodies tumble to the ground they were walking on moments before. Bystanders will walk around them at first, some offering shocked or chagrined expressions as they watch me watching them and trying to figure out what to do. After a while the crowd will decide to walk over them. Maybe later someone will come along and scoop them up and slide them against a wall where their sleep will be more acceptable. I won’t be able to do it myself because a few minutes after the last child cascades into slumber I too will fall knees first into a heap on the new Phoenix Convention Center carpet and lay there into a wheelbarrow is procured to cart my away.

It occurs to me that it has always been this way. I remember days where I walked nearly the entire length of Manhattan and returned home with little or no fatigue to show for my effort. Yet a day at Comicon and we are all so heavily fatigued that the passing out scenario actually sounds like a good way to go–at least we’d still be at Comicon.

The fatigue appears to be a byproduct of mental exhaustion. Walking around Manhattan doesn’t drain the mind the way wrangling three kids at a comic book convention does…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Not much to say about 1850. Tennyson took his turn as British poet Laurate. It’s kind of a big deal.

Today I was surrounded by a large number of extremely happy people. Geekdom unfurled itself and the proud ran free in their element. This is Comicon. For the first time I took my three boy tribe to the ‘con for a chance to experience the people who I generally write for and the side of me they don’t know. The event draws together elements from sci-fi geekdom, gaming, role playing gaming, tabletop, cosplay, and of course, comics.

This is the first day of the 2015 convention. Most of the stuff opened late in the afternoon, giving us time to hang out in a handful of under visited areas and tables where we could really learn about the convention and what it has to offer. By 3:56 we were down in front of the main ballroom with hundreds of people pressed in around us waiting for the doors to open. Here’s the thing: everyone was happy and energized. The gaggle of people wanted nothing but to enjoy each other like some alternate universe borg collective that numbered each other as friends and not pods. I struck up conversations with everyone and felt once again in my element. It reminded me of who I write for and why.

It also turned my clan into a bunch of sniggering fanboys. More on that later…

 

Some Thoughts:

1. I struggle with the apparent divergence between objectivism and christianity. The two are often at odds, so why then is Ayn Rand often thought of as a leader of conservative thought when conservative thought is so clearly tied to the tenets of christianity?

Back in 1848 a series of European peoples launched into open revolt against their monarchies. Fed up by the ruling class and the rules put forth by that class they all finally snapped and went after their leadership. Somewhere around 50 nations underwent the turmoil. The revolution became the namesake for the recent Arab Spring (because we can’t ever make new names–I mean how many whatever-gates have there been since Nixon?). I think of I, Robot, robopocalypse, Terminator, and countless shorter works about the eventual rise of the machines. I think at this point I am prepared to call it a Machine Spring, because it is basically the same concept in play in all of these circumstances:

Cold machine logic dictates that human intelligence, while beautiful, is an anathema to the planet. I respectfully agree with the assessment if only because we don’t think about the planet for the most part. We do and damage whatever is necessary to continue to profit and to ease our social burden that much more. I recently watched the film Transcendence, which wasn’t great but it did have very smart moments, several of which swirled around this idea of humans being abnormally destructive to the planet. I think by now everyone sees it even if we can’t agree on the science or legally find someone to blame. On the other hand most of us can get behind the idea that machines are smarter than we are and will recognize these problems we tend to ignore. Ask the stories above what happens and you get a woe-stricken tale of humans being phased out.

It is a scary thought to no longer be at the top of the food chain.

One of my all time best movie moments is when Jack Nicholson barges into a psychiatrists office, leans into a crowd of waiting patients and asks, ‘What if this is as good as it gets?’ I’m certain it is a question we all avoid thinking about until the point where it cannot be ignored. I heard it back when I was in college and wondering about what I could possibly make of my life. I was about girls and DJ’ng parties and being a college-town entrepreneur and writing it all down in composition notebooks and maybe, just maybe waiting for a woman to make me want to be a better man.

I asked myself that question that day, head held high in the sunlight. I’d ask it again, years later, in the darkness. Every time the answer shifted–with maturity, situation, state of mind. It led me to an inexorable conclusion: We are slaves to our emotion and circumstance, suffering the indignities inherent in both.  As Buddha writes, suffering is life. It sounds dark on the surface, but just below it reads like a hint of salvation through the promise that suffering is not all there is but an aspect of life that reflects back as joy.

Life is also change and trying to avoid change is how you end up in a psych doc’s office asking random patients to consider if this is as good as it gets.

I know the answer now… It isn’t.

Some Thoughts:

1. Not much to say about ’46. We are still a hundred years away from the brunt of the good stuff. It is worth noting that this was the year Neptune was discovered. There’s that.

In the first few minutes of Snowpiercer we are presented with a new take on the global warming situation. The science world decides to fight back, launching some sort of compound called C-7 into the atmosphere inadvertently trigger a major ice age that wipes out all life on the planet–well most of it. It turns out a number of people wind up on a train called the rattling ark, moving seemingly aimlessly. Within moments of screen time the train is revealed as a marxist case study of the have’s and have nots. Suddenly there is potential. It isn’t original yet, but there is hope that starts with the initial treatment of the global warming debate. But what happens next?

The show quickly devolves into standard post-apacolyptic flare in the vein of later parts of the Hunger Games or Divergent or the Road, etc. Basically it winds up being about a handful of people who have lost access to soap try to get their hands around the throats of those who have soap and battling through the minions standing in their way. I gotta say, I am not impressed with the film and though my judgement reflects only 17 minutes of film time, it still points to a film that has failed to surprise or inspire thought beyond the initial philosophical debate about how to respond to global phenomena.

I’m not ready to turn it off yet, but I’m not expecting to be impressed.

Some Thoughts:

1. Since we are talking about trains (where the heck is the rattling ark going anyhow?) 1845 marked the end of construction of the oldest rail tunnel in North America. The Cobble Hill Tunnel is no longer in use, long since taken back by the rats and roaches and grafitti artists and. Tours still run through the tunnels if you’re fortunate enough to catch this darkened corridor of history.

Engels and Marx.

Few years have the lasting significance of 1844 because that is the year that the two thinkers met and started developing/preaching their ideas about governance and socialization. It also happens to be the year that ended the 2300 year prophecy and for told of the return of Jesus Christ. That second part presumably didn’t take place but did harken a new age of religions such as Seventh Day adventists and the followers of Bahá’í.

While some religions, such as seventh day, flourished under the rule of their  founding member , others came to be relegated to back pages and side streets.

Change happens on a lot of fronts. You cannot become acquainted with one without considering the others. 1844 was about change on multiple fronts.

With yesterday being the last day of school, this is officially the first day of summer and I have a slew of home projects (daddy-do list) to attend to. Lets ignore for a minute the utter revocation of my man card at the site of my pinterest board and obvious submission to the creation of a daddy-do list and stick to the beauty of creation. I get to plan and organize a garage and an initial bills and storage area and a downstairs closet and a pantry and, well, there is the matter of the boysroom superbed (3d rendering is underway).

I enjoy these projects and really enjoy building and organizing. I wonder if I will actually enjoy being done with the work as much as I enjoy preparing to do it?

 

Some Thoughts:

1. Part of being a good friend is staying in contact. I’m going to get better at that. Really.
2. Part of being a good writer is establishing goals and working on your craft every day. I’m going to get better at that, and I mean more than the 10 minutes kind of better.
3. Part of self actualization is setting goals and visions for who you can be and who you want to be as an individual in all aspects of your life. It comes down to focusing on the things that you can control, which are attitude and effort. Nothing else is entirely in your control, so those two must be allotted at a level fit to your desire to succeed less you will not succeed.
4. Gilmore Girls is really good. I feel like there are a number of series that happened over the years that I need to tackle to have a more completely understanding of generations of people. Dr. Who is next followed by the British version of Sherlock Holmes.
5. After that I’m going to research anything and everything produced by Jennifer Lence. She seems to live at the epicenter of cultural phenomena. A lot of her work is translated from foreign shows especially spanish language shows, which brings me to 1843, which was the birth year of uber influential spanish realist Benito Perez Galdos who helped keep Spain on the map throughout the 19th century, eventual turning his literary eye to the stage. He’s had major works adapted to the big screen over the year and is in part responsible for the mass market acceptance of some of the works that Lence has brought over from Spanish-speaking nations such as The Mysteries of Laura. Oh, she does Flash, Arrow, and the rest of those upcoming shows (Supergirl, Legends of Tomorrow) too.

The way I see it, the human brain is capable of calculating millions of tasks in those 100 billion neurons floating around in that grey sac. Unfortunately, a great deal of those tasks are designated as maintaining body functionality. That leaves considerably less processing power for non-essential tasks. This number shrinks even further when your mind is consumed by an idea you don’t quite know how to bring to fruition. The idea bouncing across those remaining neurons is a bedroom rebuild for my three boys.

I’m going to share a photo for the first time in.. ever? It comes from this article I found via pintrest.

This photo ruined me. It was such a brilliant and relevant idea for my gaggle of dudes that I wondered how the heck it never occurred to me. I went crazy doing measurements and researching products to make a boy-version of this heavenly bedset. I thought through every possibility except for the part where one of three boys say, how come I get bottom bunk. That happened once I shared the picture and they started a screaming match over who got what spot in a bed that was still at this point imaginary. I almost quit right then. I should have, but I’m that dad: the pleaser. Instead I doubled down and tried to figure out a way to make the thing work.

I haven’t figured out a way. In fact I found several more obstacles ranging from fan placement (I’ll need to add bunk blowers to provide adequate noise and wind while also pulling the ceiling fan) to designing something that needs to grow with these growing boys.

The other day I stumbled across a skylight that would be the perfect beyblade stadium. I was itching to buy it, so I talked it over with a friend who suggested that I might be doing the stadium for me and my idea of what they want and need more than for the boys who are probably over beyblade and would be over the new stadium once the new smell wore off. The bed wall may also be a me thing while being a knee-jerk response to an under represented need.

I’m going to think on it and come back to it soon… It isn’t like my brain gives me much of a choice.

Some Thoughts:

1. The illustrated London news started its run in 1842, marking it as the first illustrated weekly news rag. Today we have a plethora of bloggers doing it weekly and even daily. How times have changed… Its a wonder we don’t run out of things to talk about.