I was restacking the bookshelves yesterday and came across a collection of Cynthia Rylant short stories. So of course I read them, since she's such a great writer, and there were two that I especially liked. (This came from "Every Living Thing", Aladdin Paperbacks, New York, 1985 for future reference.)
Retired
Her name was Miss Phala Cutcheon and she used to be a schoolteacher. Miss Cutcheon had gotten old and had retired from teaching the fourth grade, so she simply sat on her porch and considered things. She considered moving to Florida. She considered joining a club for old people and learning how to play cards. She considered dying.
Finally, she just got a dog.
The dog, too, was old. And she, too, was retired. A retired collie. She had belonged to a family who lived around the corner from Miss Cutcheon. The dog had helped raise three children, and she had been loved. But the family was moving to France and could not take their beloved pet. They gave her to Miss Cutcheon.
When she lived with the family, the dog's name had been Princess. Miss Cutcheon, however, thought the name much too delicate for a dog as old and bony as Miss Cutcheon herself, and she changed it to Velma. It took Princess several days to find out who Miss Cutcheon meant when she called out for someone named Velma.
In time, though, Velma got used to her new name. She got used to Miss Cutcheon's slow pace - so unlike the romping of three children - and she got used to Miss Cutcheon's dry dog food. She learned not to mind the smell of burning asthmadora, which helped Miss Cutcheon breathe better, and not to mind the sound of the old lady's wheezing and snoring in the middle of the night. Velma missed her children, but she was all right.
Miss Cutcheon was a very early riser(a habit that could not be shaken after forty-three years of meeting schoolchildren at the schoolhouse door), and she enjoyed big breakfasts. Each day Miss Cutcheon would creak out of her bed like a mummy rising from its tomb, then shuffle slowly into the kitchen, straight for the coffee pot. Velma, who slept on the floor at the foot of Miss Cutcheon's bed, would soon creak off the floor herself and head into the kitchen. Velma's family had eaten cold cereal breakfasts all those years, and only when she came to live with Miss Cutcheon did Velma realize what perking coffee, sizzling bacon and hot biscuits smell like. She still only got dry dog food, but the aromas around her nose made the chunks taste ten times better.
Miss Cutcheon sat at her dinette table, eating her bacon and eggs and biscuits, while Velma lay under the table at her feet. Miss Cutcheon spent mot of her breakfast time thinking about the children she had taught. Velma thought about hers.
During the day Miss Cutcheon took Velma on walks up and down the block. The two of them became a familiar sight. On warm, sunny days they took many walks, moving on at an almost brisk pace up and back. But on damp, cold days they eased themselves along the sidewalk as if they'd both just gotten out of bed, and they usually went only a half-block, morning and afternoon.
Miss Cutcheon and Velma spent several months together like this: Eating breakfast together, walking the block, sitting on the front porch, going to bed early. Velma's memory of her three children grew fuzzy, and only when she saw a boy or girl passing on the street did her ears prick up as if she should have known something about children. But what it was she had forgotten.
Miss Cutcheon's memory, on the other hand, grew better every day, and she seemed not to know anything except the past. She could recite the names of children in her mind - which seats they had sat in, what subjects they were best at, what they'd brought to school for lunch. She could remember their funny ways, and sometimes she would be sitting quietly at her dinette in the morning, quietly eating, when she would burst out with a laugh that filled the room and made Velma jump.
Why Miss Cutcheon decided to walk Velma a few blocks farther, and to the west, is a puzzle. But one warm morning in September, they did walk that way, and when they reached the third block, a sound like a million tiny buzz saws floated into the air. Velma's ears stood straight up, and Miss Cutcheon stopped and considered. Then they went a block farther, and the sound changed to something like a hundred bells pealing. Velma's tail began to wag ever so slightly. Finally, on the fifth block, they saw the school playground.
Children, small and large, ran wildly about, screaming, laughing, falling down, climbing up, jumping, dancing. Velma started barking, again and again and again. She couldn't contain herself. She barked and wagged and forgot all about Miss Cutcheon standing there with her. She saw only the children and it made her happy.
Miss Cutcheon stood very stiff for a while, staring. She didn't smile. She simply looked at the playground, the red brick school, the chain-link fence that protected it all, keeping intruders outside, keeping children inside. Miss Cutcheon just stared while Velma barked. Then they walked home.
But the next day they returned. They moved further along the fence, nearer to where the children were. Velma barked and wagged until two boys, who had been seesawing, ran over to the fence to try to pet the dog. Miss Cutcheon pulled back on the leash, but too late, for Velma had already leaped up against the wire. She poked her snout through a hole and the boys scratched it, laughing as she licked their fingers. More children came to the fence, and while some rubbed Velma's nose, others questioned Miss Cutcheon: "What's your dog's name?" "Will it bite?" "Do you like cats?" Miss Cutcheon, who had not answered the questions of children in what seemed a very long time, replied as a teacher would.
Every day, in good weather, Velma and Miss Cutcheon visited the playground fence. The children learned their names, and Miss Cutcheon soon knew the children who stroked Velma the same way she had known her own fourth-graders years ago. In bad weather, Miss Cutcheon and Velma stayed inside, breathing the asthmadora, feeling warm and comfortable, thinking about the children at the playground. But on a nice day, they were out again.
In Mid-October Miss Cutcheon put a pumpkin on her front porch, something she hadn't done in years. And on Halloween night, she turned on the porch light, and she and Velma waited at the door. Miss Cutcheon passed out fifty-six chocolate bars before the evening was done.
Then on Christmas Eve of that same year, a large group of young carolers came to sing in front of Miss Cutcheon's house; and they were bearing gifts of dog biscuits and sweet fruit.
Monday, December 22, 2014
Saturday, December 20, 2014
Mid-December
Another Christmas is sneaking its way closer and closer, I guess...
Just about everybody around here's not doing so great, between Caleb's broken foot, Trevor's burned foot, pneumonia and the flu. There's been a lot of TV-watching for obvious reasons. I haven't caught anything yet (so far).
Dad started a new job the other day, so that's good.
Reread through Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken in the last couple days, also William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade and Stephen King's how-to book On Writing. And finished Larry King's collection of WWII love stories, a history of Midwest-wartime-morale-building called Once Upon a Town, and the Newberry Award-winning book A Wrinkle in Time(I hated that one. It was horribly written).
Need to start Christmas shopping when I get a chance...also, I need to get my textbooks for spring semester...
Just about everybody around here's not doing so great, between Caleb's broken foot, Trevor's burned foot, pneumonia and the flu. There's been a lot of TV-watching for obvious reasons. I haven't caught anything yet (so far).
Dad started a new job the other day, so that's good.
Reread through Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and Laura Hillenbrand's Unbroken in the last couple days, also William Goldman's Adventures in the Screen Trade and Stephen King's how-to book On Writing. And finished Larry King's collection of WWII love stories, a history of Midwest-wartime-morale-building called Once Upon a Town, and the Newberry Award-winning book A Wrinkle in Time(I hated that one. It was horribly written).
Need to start Christmas shopping when I get a chance...also, I need to get my textbooks for spring semester...
Friday, December 12, 2014
Remembering the Fire
It's been six years ago today.
A lot of things can change in six years. And some stay the same. You grow up a lot between 15 and 21.
On Thursday, December 11, 2008, John McCain was on David Letterman, and Mom was watching it while feeding Amy. There was this smoky smell; and the woodstove wasn't being used just then. She frantically called Dad, and I couldn't sleep, so I came to see what was happening. The inside of the fridge was on fire. Nobody who saw or heard about it had ever heard of that happening before, but the fridge was about seventeen years old, so maybe that's why. Or maybe there was a power surge in the electric lines. Or both. Courtney and I took Amy to the van, where we sat worriedly observing with the radio on K95, two of the songs they played were Tim McGraw's "Back When" and Kenny Chesney's "Don't Blink", back-to-back. Probably Taylor Swift's "Love Story", too, it was all over the radio at that time. I'm not as sure on that. Caleb and Trevor were still asleep. Anyway, the fire department came and wrestled the fridge out into the driveway, they poked around and proclaimed the area safe, shaking their heads at a refrigerator, of all things...after a lot of trying to calm our nerves once everything settled down, Dad began looking at insurance stuff and pricing new refrigerators, and the four of us played Uno in Courtney's room for about an hour before going to sleep around 4 a.m. We played a lot of Uno all that year, kept a running tally from New Year's Eve to the end of December.
I woke up about 7 and got on the computer for a while, enjoying the quiet of a sleeping household. (Webkinz was also a very big deal then.) Everyone else gradually got up, Mom told Caleb and Trevor what happened, they were disappointed they missed out. She flipped on the light switch in the laundry room while getting the box of oatmeal out of the pantry and started cooking it. About fifteen minutes later Caleb walked into the family room. "Mom, why is there smoke in the family room?" "Oh, no, there's not. That was last night. It's all gone now." But she went to check anyway. "THE HOUSE IS ON FIRE! GET OUT NOW!"
I hadn't put my shoes on yet; and only had my phone in my pocket. Gravel is kind of tough on bare feet unused to traveling over the pebbly surface. But that really didn't matter. Somehow everybody else got out, too. Someone opened the backyard gate to let the dogs out, and Liesel the cat was found later safely hiding under my bed(on the other end of the house).
We spent most of the morning sitting in the van, wondering when the firefighters were going to come and what was going to happen next. Black, acrid thick smoke pouring out of the roof... I'd called Maddie almost immediately after racing out of the house for some reason I'm still not sure of, I think her mom activated the GBC prayer chain. Mrs. Pickard had some Red Cross contacts that came by, NewsChannel 8 ran a story that night and other people heard from that. We drove into Okmulgee and ate without tasting some food from Burger King, and then checked into a room for a couple days at the Best Western with money from the Red Cross people while trying to figure out what to do next. The manager heard about what happened and let us stay in his apartment for just what we had already paid, thus more room and kind of a hideaway to regroup. It was one of the first of many wonderful, amazing things that we'll never forget or understand, ways that God took care of us throughout the whole experience.
Our clothes reeked of smoke after cautiously checking what was still usable inside the house, so we bought some sweaters and sweatpants at Wal-Mart and that's what we ended up wearing to church on Sunday. Tracy Lawrence's song "Find Out Who Your Friends Are" running without ceasing for the next several days. The Hollises brought over a gift basket full of useful everyday stuff with a note that said "If you need anything, call us." That's another thing that especially stands out. The phone was ringing pretty often, folks were worried about us.
I told this story earlier in my recap of SGYC circa 2009, so I hope y'all don't mind me re-telling it now. And fictionalized the event somewhat in this short story.
Well, we moved into Grandpa's old trailer north of Tahlequah, and that was home for the next ten months. (Because "home" is where your cat is.) Daily commuting along the hour-and-fifteen-minute stretch of 62 and 16 was the rule, and at one point Caleb asked Trevor completely seriously where he'd wake up if he took a nap in the van. Sorting through what to keep or throw out in the unheated husk of house in January, memorizing the layout of every Lowe's store in the area, watching Amy in the camper that Dad lived in during the week, exploring Tahlequah with Harry and Louise. With Damon, Trish and others, we had a very active American Idol email discussion group going, predicting that week's results and delivering our opinions on last night's shows. (Basic summary of that season, according to us: Adam Lambert was highly controversial, Anoop Desai was funny, and Megan Joy Corkrey was the worst dancer the world had ever seen.)
I covered Beggs tennis that spring for the ONW based solely off of phone calls, and then in June started writing for the Free Lance once Valerie became editor, covering Henryetta sports and the occasional bit for Dewar.
Returning to SGYC was a wonderful experience. It was so great to be back and see everybody I'd met my first year; the music was amazing(I learned "In Christ Alone" then), Isaiah 43:1-3 was that much-needed-to-hear verse(s) that just....made things better. Got to know Daniel, Madelyn, Ash and Matt better, and I met Jed, Jon, Jessica and Amanda. It was really special. It is really special.
Sunny kept Dad company at the worksite and an eye on the folks coming in and out working on stuff, Sport did, too. Liesel came to Tquah with us, and Georgie the red heeler and Little Ann and Old Dan(ielle) the Labs were the strays that adopted us.
There were so many people from GBC who helped out with everything, from taking down old sheetrock to staining new stairs to wiring the house to keeping me updated on what was happening in church news. From the homeschool group, too - everything in that previous sentence applies to them, too. So, thanks, you guys. Appreciate it so much.
Joined the rest of the world on Facebook in June. It's a wonderful tool. And a large time-waster. But, you know, nothing's perfect.
We finished the rebuilding in early October and moved back, Sport never did understand that the floorplan had changed.
Since then, I went on Youth Tour and survived the SAT, senior year of high school with its endless applications and forms, and freshman year of college. Met the folks at the BCM who brightened up sophomore year. I led worship for the youth group and spent good times with friends during murder mysteries and service projects. I learned to play guitar, and Courtney and I both learned mandolin. At some point we all got sucked into the Marvel Cinematic Universe, and it's hard to know exactly when that happened. There's been a lot of changes.
One of the things I find most strange about post-fire life is that we have an entirely different cast of animals around the place than at that time. New cats, new dogs, new goats, new chickens, new assorted scary predators lurking in the woods. That generation passed with Sunny's death.
There's still the caring of being part of GBC, though. And the Lankfords.
So, yeah, it's not the happiest anniversary to remember, but for us it's one of the most monumental. You really lose track of time when writing up a post like this, more so than usual.
Tuesday, December 9, 2014
Closing Out Another Year
Everybody else is finishing up their semesters, staggering through finals. I've been sitting here writing up reviews of An Affair to Remember(which I hated) and Sleepless in Seattle(which I liked). And also rewatching Space Jam(which is still awesome), It's a Wonderful Life(which is wonderful) and Iron Man(which is great).
Trevor hurt his foot on Thanksgiving climbing up a bluff, so he's been hopping around on crutches since then. And then Sunday Caleb was building the bucks a shelter and stepped into a hole, breaking his foot and slipping a ligament out of place. So he's got a huge hard cast on his foot now, and isn't supposed to put any weight on it. They've been playing a lot of video games to keep busy.
The finals week pancake feed went well Sunday night, there were lots of posting saying, "I'm exhausted, and I smell like pancake batter, but it's so worth it." (It's a NSU tradition the Sunday before finals week, there's a huge line stretching from the BCM basement over to the business building across the street.)
I guess I've graduated from TCC now. Word was awful, government boring and saddening but easy, and biology was biology. Very complicated and confounding, but with some interesting concepts. Photoshop was really interesting. We had to create a mock website for our final project, so I invented a fictitious animal shelter and went all-out. (Paws-N-Play Animal Shelter and Dairy, and it's located close to Joplin.) It was difficult, the creative part, but fun. And the instructor really liked it, saying I had a strong grasp of both the creative side and the design/functionality side. No idea what, exactly, Enterprise Development is, but it's something business-related. And that was the degree that my NSU hours fit most efficiently into. So, anyway, I have an Associate's degree now, which isn't much, but it's something.
Somebody committed suicide on the RSU campus last week. Which was really sad. KOTV did a good job covering the story appropriately, balancing the awfulness of the tragedy with concern for informing and calming the public. .
Reading a couple of books about World War II right now; a collection of wartime love stories blandly collected by Larry King and about a small Nebraska city's effort to raise their boys' spirits one train at a time through a kind word, smile and a sandwich.
Pearl Harbor Day was Sunday, which was interestingly fitting. And Friday will be six years since the fire, which is also fitting, as it was on a Friday.
Christmas shopping is coming along. The tree is up and decorated; it's pretty.
Trevor hurt his foot on Thanksgiving climbing up a bluff, so he's been hopping around on crutches since then. And then Sunday Caleb was building the bucks a shelter and stepped into a hole, breaking his foot and slipping a ligament out of place. So he's got a huge hard cast on his foot now, and isn't supposed to put any weight on it. They've been playing a lot of video games to keep busy.
The finals week pancake feed went well Sunday night, there were lots of posting saying, "I'm exhausted, and I smell like pancake batter, but it's so worth it." (It's a NSU tradition the Sunday before finals week, there's a huge line stretching from the BCM basement over to the business building across the street.)
I guess I've graduated from TCC now. Word was awful, government boring and saddening but easy, and biology was biology. Very complicated and confounding, but with some interesting concepts. Photoshop was really interesting. We had to create a mock website for our final project, so I invented a fictitious animal shelter and went all-out. (Paws-N-Play Animal Shelter and Dairy, and it's located close to Joplin.) It was difficult, the creative part, but fun. And the instructor really liked it, saying I had a strong grasp of both the creative side and the design/functionality side. No idea what, exactly, Enterprise Development is, but it's something business-related. And that was the degree that my NSU hours fit most efficiently into. So, anyway, I have an Associate's degree now, which isn't much, but it's something.
Somebody committed suicide on the RSU campus last week. Which was really sad. KOTV did a good job covering the story appropriately, balancing the awfulness of the tragedy with concern for informing and calming the public. .
Reading a couple of books about World War II right now; a collection of wartime love stories blandly collected by Larry King and about a small Nebraska city's effort to raise their boys' spirits one train at a time through a kind word, smile and a sandwich.
Pearl Harbor Day was Sunday, which was interestingly fitting. And Friday will be six years since the fire, which is also fitting, as it was on a Friday.
Christmas shopping is coming along. The tree is up and decorated; it's pretty.
Thursday, December 4, 2014
Social Media and Honesty
One of those things that's been rattling around in my head for the last couple weeks, but only crystallized enough to shape into words over the last few days, is the lack of actual created content in Facebook posts nowadays in general, but among high school/college-aged-to-late-twenties folks in particular. I mean, a couple years ago everyone regularly wrote posts on whatever might have happened that day, or what they were thinking about or whatever. And that sometimes led into mega-long comment chains like the kind I'd get into with Jon, Jed, Amanda and Samara that soon veered from pointless-but-grounded to zany-and-capable-of-going-anywhere(especially space and alternate realities). Which kind of hurts looking back at some of them now, but in a good way; remembrances of good times.
Sure, I know it's easier just to react to things by reposting a BuzzFeed article or linking to that certain song on YouTube that says what needs to be said instead of straining to come up with descriptions that, while original, aren't as well-formed, but...that's not as compelling. Especially not if you're reposting your favorite blogger's response to whatever the Current HOT BUTTON ISSUE Of The Moment Which Will Initiate KNEE-JERK REACTIONS. (Blimey Cow reference....cough. (Look them up on YouTube...) See? That kind of proves my point.) And goodness knows, if you say your murky somewhere-in-the-middle-both-sides-have-good-points-and-are-wrong-on-others own opinion, surely somebody would be offended, right? (Gasps at the possibilities of political incorrectness if this policy was followed....) Actually, I think it kind of started with the rise of BuzzFeed from "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that site" to "Well....yeah, duh. It's BuzzFeed.", which happened rather suddenly about two years ago, more or less.
Sure, I know most of our lives aren't that exciting, and most people don't deal with tasks of earth-shaking importance on a regular basis. We're not Captain America. If anybody, we're George Bailey. But isn't just an ordinary life full of enough interesting puzzle pieces to be a good story? It works for Miss Marple and Father Tim.
We always hear about those horror stories about people who posted X(whatever inappropriate/super-stupid ill-spelled status you want to think of) and then they were fired or something even worse happened to them(what, I'm not quite sure...it's too scary and dark to consider. Like the endings of evildoers in Grimm's fairy tales). But most of that is just common sense; most of that stuff doesn't need to be shared publicly.
What I'm saying is, that fear, of indistinct though truly awful punishment for being honest, has made us as society hyper-aware and self-conscious of what we do post. Which means we over-analyze every single little thing that we put on there and then usually delete it immediately for fear it'll be taken the wrong way or something. (Especially if you're already prone to over-analyzing every little detail on a regular basis..."Raises hand")
It's really pretty sad.
Facebook and other social media is about the only method our 21st century American culture has to get to know people. In earlier generations, before air-conditioning was invented, neighbors used to talk over the fence or congregate on front porches to discuss the day's events or exchange gossip. (For example, in To Kill A Mockingbird, or The Andy Griffith Show.) I wrote some about this in an essay a couple years ago. Social media is the modern equivalent/approximation of such a system, and if we don't talk about the simple small trials, pleasures or knowledge encountered throughout the day, what's the point of such a system existing? Why are on that site, then, if you want to contribute? (For an example of the mundane yet fascinating things I mean, did you know that the cast of Recess included the kids who played Jonah Baldwin in Sleepless in Seattle, Uh-huh from The Little Rascals and the girl who grew up to play the waitress from The Avengers? That would be TJ, Gus and Gretchen.)
Societal-sized problems like this follow Darwin's natural selection; if they aren't used, they will eventually go extinct. If we continue down this road, there's all kinds of questions that pop up. How will we make the connections with other people so vital to staying in one piece as we each travel our own pathways throughout life?
This post is an expansion of a Facebook post from this morning, and it got a decent amount of agreement in the form of likes and several people commenting for reasons this phenomenon might be happening. One of the reasons stated was that once all the older people jumped on FB, then it suddenly wasn't cool enough; which sounds good on the surface. But that's really more like a nice cover story for the real reason: We're too scared of being judged for honestly providing records of our opinions and/or actions about how we feel about things. Because, the thing is - honesty is really dangerous. That's why we appreciate it so much in good writing or wherever else we may come across it, because we usually don't see it, at least not completely. Because we're in a fallen world, we mess up constantly. And as part of this nearly-ever-present sin, humans prefer darkness to light and are more comfortable with deception than truth. And so societies throughout history are built, kept alive and eventually crumble due to half-truths and partial lies and avoiding total honesty whenever possible. Besides, "only the winners write history", and it's a lot easier to make your people's empire sound good if you don't detail every instance of cruelty that your side did, and it's more convenient to make the other side look villianous if you gloss over their good points and highlight their not-so-great deeds.
America's pretty much always operated under this principle of necessary lies being used every day to keep our civilization and society intact; on a large level, the work of spies in the CIA, on the micro level, replying "I'm all right" to a passer-by asking how we're doing, when in reality things might just suck and you want to hide under a blanket that day. Mark Twain pointed this out in his essay "On the Decay of the Art of Lying". And our tall tales and folktales, the closest we have to Greek and Roman(and Norse) mythology, are based on this principle as well. Rip Van Winkle, Paul Bunyan, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Emperor With No Clothes(not American, but still)....
So, when we're completely, brutally honest about something, that's pointing out the flaws of whatever is being criticized, and so pulling out some of the brickwork, weakening ever-so-slightly the structural integrity(in a construction sense, not abstract moral quality) of society. And people don't like that.
Instagram is, I would guess, by far the least-honest form of social media, as pictures can be manipulated in untold countless ways to provide that certain look you want to project. Pinterest builds castles in the air of what could be instead of showcasing what is. YouTube is kind of a gray area. On the one hand, it's video, so if it's done well, then the finished product has no relation to the true conditions/realities of creating that content. But then you have all those cover videos of folks in dorm rooms who can't sing, and that's accurately depicting what was happening when that video was shot. Facebook, there's too much worry about political correctness to usually post anything, which was the whole reason for working on this post. Twitter is probably the most truthful, but the severe limit of message size in tweets works against it somewhat.
I don't really have any good answers to these questions; they have to be chewed on individually, there's no handy one-size-fits-all solution. It's a big subject, with a lot to explore, from many different angles. Hopefully this post made you consider the subject and ponder it a moment.
I'm not even going to try to dig into the role of fiction in its various forms and where that all fits into this discussion just now....my brain hurts from trying to argue my point in this post clearly. :-) But that's a topic/question I've always thought was a really interesting subject that I've wrestled with over the years.
Sure, I know it's easier just to react to things by reposting a BuzzFeed article or linking to that certain song on YouTube that says what needs to be said instead of straining to come up with descriptions that, while original, aren't as well-formed, but...that's not as compelling. Especially not if you're reposting your favorite blogger's response to whatever the Current HOT BUTTON ISSUE Of The Moment Which Will Initiate KNEE-JERK REACTIONS. (Blimey Cow reference....cough. (Look them up on YouTube...) See? That kind of proves my point.) And goodness knows, if you say your murky somewhere-in-the-middle-both-sides-have-good-points-and-are-wrong-on-others own opinion, surely somebody would be offended, right? (Gasps at the possibilities of political incorrectness if this policy was followed....) Actually, I think it kind of started with the rise of BuzzFeed from "Oh, yeah, I've heard of that site" to "Well....yeah, duh. It's BuzzFeed.", which happened rather suddenly about two years ago, more or less.
Sure, I know most of our lives aren't that exciting, and most people don't deal with tasks of earth-shaking importance on a regular basis. We're not Captain America. If anybody, we're George Bailey. But isn't just an ordinary life full of enough interesting puzzle pieces to be a good story? It works for Miss Marple and Father Tim.
We always hear about those horror stories about people who posted X(whatever inappropriate/super-stupid ill-spelled status you want to think of) and then they were fired or something even worse happened to them(what, I'm not quite sure...it's too scary and dark to consider. Like the endings of evildoers in Grimm's fairy tales). But most of that is just common sense; most of that stuff doesn't need to be shared publicly.
What I'm saying is, that fear, of indistinct though truly awful punishment for being honest, has made us as society hyper-aware and self-conscious of what we do post. Which means we over-analyze every single little thing that we put on there and then usually delete it immediately for fear it'll be taken the wrong way or something. (Especially if you're already prone to over-analyzing every little detail on a regular basis..."Raises hand")
It's really pretty sad.
Facebook and other social media is about the only method our 21st century American culture has to get to know people. In earlier generations, before air-conditioning was invented, neighbors used to talk over the fence or congregate on front porches to discuss the day's events or exchange gossip. (For example, in To Kill A Mockingbird, or The Andy Griffith Show.) I wrote some about this in an essay a couple years ago. Social media is the modern equivalent/approximation of such a system, and if we don't talk about the simple small trials, pleasures or knowledge encountered throughout the day, what's the point of such a system existing? Why are on that site, then, if you want to contribute? (For an example of the mundane yet fascinating things I mean, did you know that the cast of Recess included the kids who played Jonah Baldwin in Sleepless in Seattle, Uh-huh from The Little Rascals and the girl who grew up to play the waitress from The Avengers? That would be TJ, Gus and Gretchen.)
Societal-sized problems like this follow Darwin's natural selection; if they aren't used, they will eventually go extinct. If we continue down this road, there's all kinds of questions that pop up. How will we make the connections with other people so vital to staying in one piece as we each travel our own pathways throughout life?
This post is an expansion of a Facebook post from this morning, and it got a decent amount of agreement in the form of likes and several people commenting for reasons this phenomenon might be happening. One of the reasons stated was that once all the older people jumped on FB, then it suddenly wasn't cool enough; which sounds good on the surface. But that's really more like a nice cover story for the real reason: We're too scared of being judged for honestly providing records of our opinions and/or actions about how we feel about things. Because, the thing is - honesty is really dangerous. That's why we appreciate it so much in good writing or wherever else we may come across it, because we usually don't see it, at least not completely. Because we're in a fallen world, we mess up constantly. And as part of this nearly-ever-present sin, humans prefer darkness to light and are more comfortable with deception than truth. And so societies throughout history are built, kept alive and eventually crumble due to half-truths and partial lies and avoiding total honesty whenever possible. Besides, "only the winners write history", and it's a lot easier to make your people's empire sound good if you don't detail every instance of cruelty that your side did, and it's more convenient to make the other side look villianous if you gloss over their good points and highlight their not-so-great deeds.
America's pretty much always operated under this principle of necessary lies being used every day to keep our civilization and society intact; on a large level, the work of spies in the CIA, on the micro level, replying "I'm all right" to a passer-by asking how we're doing, when in reality things might just suck and you want to hide under a blanket that day. Mark Twain pointed this out in his essay "On the Decay of the Art of Lying". And our tall tales and folktales, the closest we have to Greek and Roman(and Norse) mythology, are based on this principle as well. Rip Van Winkle, Paul Bunyan, Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, the Emperor With No Clothes(not American, but still)....
So, when we're completely, brutally honest about something, that's pointing out the flaws of whatever is being criticized, and so pulling out some of the brickwork, weakening ever-so-slightly the structural integrity(in a construction sense, not abstract moral quality) of society. And people don't like that.
Instagram is, I would guess, by far the least-honest form of social media, as pictures can be manipulated in untold countless ways to provide that certain look you want to project. Pinterest builds castles in the air of what could be instead of showcasing what is. YouTube is kind of a gray area. On the one hand, it's video, so if it's done well, then the finished product has no relation to the true conditions/realities of creating that content. But then you have all those cover videos of folks in dorm rooms who can't sing, and that's accurately depicting what was happening when that video was shot. Facebook, there's too much worry about political correctness to usually post anything, which was the whole reason for working on this post. Twitter is probably the most truthful, but the severe limit of message size in tweets works against it somewhat.
I don't really have any good answers to these questions; they have to be chewed on individually, there's no handy one-size-fits-all solution. It's a big subject, with a lot to explore, from many different angles. Hopefully this post made you consider the subject and ponder it a moment.
I'm not even going to try to dig into the role of fiction in its various forms and where that all fits into this discussion just now....my brain hurts from trying to argue my point in this post clearly. :-) But that's a topic/question I've always thought was a really interesting subject that I've wrestled with over the years.
The Best of 2014
So I had these "Best-of" lists for 2012 and 2013; in reality highlights, lowlights and ordinary lights of different things that happened over the previous twelve months.
Favorite Movie Seen in Theaters - Unlike either of the last two years, this is actually kind of hard to choose this year. There were a lot of really good to great movies seen. Guardians of the Galaxy was hilarious. The Winter Soldier was amazing. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't so much, but it was interesting(and rather maddening at points, too.) The LEGO Movie was strange; but it was a good strange.
Unusual Movies Seen that were Surprisingly Good - The LEGO Movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Quick and the Dead.
Movies I Was Not Impressed With - Days of Thunder, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Romancing the Stone, Serenity.
Favorite Nonfiction Book I Read This Year - Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. Or Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman.
Favorite Play Seen as Audience Member - Usually this would't even be a category, but there's three nominees this year. I guess the winner would probably be Fiddler on the Roof, followed by The Voice of the Prairie, followed by The Curious Savage. Fiddler is...very Jewish, but interesting. Prairie was the best concept as far as story, though the lack of props was odd. The Curious Savage had some interesting points about human nature. I knew several actors in each production, but that isn't going to be ranked.
Favorite YouTube Channel - It's gotta be Blimey Cow(Messy Mondays). But Studio C is pretty great, too. Also good are Bored Shorts TV(Kid Snippets) and Doof's Daily Dirt.
Favorite Country Song of the Year - Miranda Lambert's "Automatic". But the biggest STORY by far of the year would be Garth Brooks' return to radio.
Favorite New Non-Country Song of the Year - Could it be anything else? Taylor Swift is a really great writer. And so her lyrics have this irritating way of taking up residence inside your mental radio station all the time. Good thing about that is, she has a lot of songs. Bad news is, well, she has a lot of songs. It's one of those things where you try to just "Shake It Off".
Best Semi-Expected Happening of the Year - Getting my braces off in February.
Most Unexpected Happening of the Year - Leaving NSU and moving back home as I finished up gen eds online through TCC.
Important Verses of the Year - Joshua 1:6-9, 1 Timothy 5:1-2, 1 Corinthians 10:31-32, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Philippians 4:6-7, Philippians 3:12-14 and about the entire book of 2 Corinthians.
Best Amy-Quote of the Year - Looking puzzledly at me) "Where you tummick go?" (Where did your stomach go?)
Best SWAT-related Quote of the Year - Just read this whole post, I can't decide. Miss my teammates, but thankful for the time spent with them.
Best Quote of the Year - "Let's be honest: We may all be adults now, but we still treat each other like rotten little playground kids." - Jon
Favorite Movie Seen in Theaters - Unlike either of the last two years, this is actually kind of hard to choose this year. There were a lot of really good to great movies seen. Guardians of the Galaxy was hilarious. The Winter Soldier was amazing. The Amazing Spider-Man 2 wasn't so much, but it was interesting(and rather maddening at points, too.) The LEGO Movie was strange; but it was a good strange.
Unusual Movies Seen that were Surprisingly Good - The LEGO Movie, The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, The Quick and the Dead.
Movies I Was Not Impressed With - Days of Thunder, The Amazing Spider-Man 2, Thor: The Dark World, Romancing the Stone, Serenity.
Favorite Nonfiction Book I Read This Year - Unbroken, by Laura Hillenbrand. Or Amusing Ourselves to Death, by Neil Postman.
Favorite Play Seen as Audience Member - Usually this would't even be a category, but there's three nominees this year. I guess the winner would probably be Fiddler on the Roof, followed by The Voice of the Prairie, followed by The Curious Savage. Fiddler is...very Jewish, but interesting. Prairie was the best concept as far as story, though the lack of props was odd. The Curious Savage had some interesting points about human nature. I knew several actors in each production, but that isn't going to be ranked.
Favorite YouTube Channel - It's gotta be Blimey Cow(Messy Mondays). But Studio C is pretty great, too. Also good are Bored Shorts TV(Kid Snippets) and Doof's Daily Dirt.
Favorite Country Song of the Year - Miranda Lambert's "Automatic". But the biggest STORY by far of the year would be Garth Brooks' return to radio.
Favorite New Non-Country Song of the Year - Could it be anything else? Taylor Swift is a really great writer. And so her lyrics have this irritating way of taking up residence inside your mental radio station all the time. Good thing about that is, she has a lot of songs. Bad news is, well, she has a lot of songs. It's one of those things where you try to just "Shake It Off".
Best Semi-Expected Happening of the Year - Getting my braces off in February.
Most Unexpected Happening of the Year - Leaving NSU and moving back home as I finished up gen eds online through TCC.
Important Verses of the Year - Joshua 1:6-9, 1 Timothy 5:1-2, 1 Corinthians 10:31-32, 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, Philippians 4:6-7, Philippians 3:12-14 and about the entire book of 2 Corinthians.
Best Amy-Quote of the Year - Looking puzzledly at me) "Where you tummick go?" (Where did your stomach go?)
Best SWAT-related Quote of the Year - Just read this whole post, I can't decide. Miss my teammates, but thankful for the time spent with them.
Best Quote of the Year - "Let's be honest: We may all be adults now, but we still treat each other like rotten little playground kids." - Jon
2014 in Review
Well, let's see.
This year I turned 21, started working out regularly, skated across parking lots, watched the Winter Olympics, got my braces off, jumped back into covering high school football, watched two of the world's most famous scientists debate the world's origins, caught the true flu, wrote an elaborate critique against the stupidity of Valentine's Day, attended a wedding, took part in a basketball tournament, petted my cat, learned Final Cut and Photoshop, strangled many pillows during Thunder watch parties, ignored the Fourth of July, watched every episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Firefly, read Much Ado About Nothing for fun, ignored the Super Bowl, ran to McDonald's for late-night coffee runs, played many games of "Ticket to Ride" and ping pong, went on road trips with a sitcom-cast of drama-ministry teammates, dealt with a broken laptop keyboard, and wrote a story set in a Brazilian cave.
Followed the NASCAR season closely, changed schools twice, served again as a camp counselor, knocked a wasp out of a friend's hair, watched four movies in the theater, saw many more on Netflix or while channel-surfing, moved back home, endured an unbelievably bad start to the Thunder's 2014-15 season, often fell asleep after many long hours of staring at the ceiling, taught my siblings how to play volleyball, hiked around Tahlequah, attended Nano's funeral, sat and pondered the many complexities of life in general, played my guitar and mandolin, cried, laughed, been angry, been sad, been interviewed for a magazine article on college survival and watched three plays(Fiddler on the Roof, The Voice of the Prairie and The Curious Savage).
In January, something about the year to come just...felt different, full of changes. Some of these changes have been detailed above. In the middle of the events, I can't tell exactly how I've grown as a person, emotionally or spiritually, by the year's happenings, but I have somehow. It's been an eventful twelve months.
This year I turned 21, started working out regularly, skated across parking lots, watched the Winter Olympics, got my braces off, jumped back into covering high school football, watched two of the world's most famous scientists debate the world's origins, caught the true flu, wrote an elaborate critique against the stupidity of Valentine's Day, attended a wedding, took part in a basketball tournament, petted my cat, learned Final Cut and Photoshop, strangled many pillows during Thunder watch parties, ignored the Fourth of July, watched every episode of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. and Firefly, read Much Ado About Nothing for fun, ignored the Super Bowl, ran to McDonald's for late-night coffee runs, played many games of "Ticket to Ride" and ping pong, went on road trips with a sitcom-cast of drama-ministry teammates, dealt with a broken laptop keyboard, and wrote a story set in a Brazilian cave.
Followed the NASCAR season closely, changed schools twice, served again as a camp counselor, knocked a wasp out of a friend's hair, watched four movies in the theater, saw many more on Netflix or while channel-surfing, moved back home, endured an unbelievably bad start to the Thunder's 2014-15 season, often fell asleep after many long hours of staring at the ceiling, taught my siblings how to play volleyball, hiked around Tahlequah, attended Nano's funeral, sat and pondered the many complexities of life in general, played my guitar and mandolin, cried, laughed, been angry, been sad, been interviewed for a magazine article on college survival and watched three plays(Fiddler on the Roof, The Voice of the Prairie and The Curious Savage).
In January, something about the year to come just...felt different, full of changes. Some of these changes have been detailed above. In the middle of the events, I can't tell exactly how I've grown as a person, emotionally or spiritually, by the year's happenings, but I have somehow. It's been an eventful twelve months.
Monday, December 1, 2014
An Affair to Remember
An Affair to Remember is a strange movie made in 1957 that stars Cary Grant and Deborah Kerr, full of very long scenes and a bitter outlook on people in general. And I know I said I wouldn't probably post reviews on this blog, but I started this one before creating that one, so...
Nickie Ferrante, aptly described in a Variety review of the film as a "fairly notorious playboy", has just become engaged to a wealthy oil and gravel heiress named Lois Clark, who will soon inherit the staggering fortune of $600 million. (That's roughly over $500 billion in 2014 dollars when you factor in inflation.) He is returning to the U.S. from a trip to Europe on an ocean liner, where he is hounded by curious ordinary people. He meets a lady named Terry McKay, who is engaged to a high-level New York oil businessman named Kenneth Bradley. They talk often, and most of their fellow passengers and the crew think that they're a couple. (This leads to many awkward situations.)
Terry was trying to become a singer in Boston before she met Kenneth and moved to New York to practice becoming a perfect housewife. And as for Nickie....well, as a little boy says, "Everybody on the ship's talkin' about ya!" When he asks what they're saying, the little boy answers, "I don't know. Every time they start talkin' about ya, they make me leave the room." He's irritatingly good at everything he tries, makes it really difficult to care about the character.
During a stop on the Italian coast, Nickie visits his grandmother and Terry tags along. This is by far the best sequence(though lengthy - it takes 21 of the 114 minutes) in the film, there's a garden and a collie named Fidel('faithful"). "It's so peaceful here...it's like another world." "Well, it is another world. It's my grandmother's world." "I think I could stay here forever." "Oh, no, no, no!" Grandma admonishes. "It's a good place to sit and remember, but...you have still to create your memories." His grandma mentions that he used to be a painter before quitting due to being scared of failure. Grandma - Janou - is quite meddlesome and overall a nice old lady. As proof of her meddlesomeness, Janou hints often that Nickie and Terry ought to get married. As they leave to go back to the boat, Terry admires Janou's shawl and, being the nice old lady she is, Janou says she'll send it to her.
After this visit, Nickie and Terry sort of realize that they might love each other, and even more awkwardly avoid each other over the next few days. The last night of the cruise they agree to return to their respective fiance(e)s in New York, and make plans to meet at 5 p.m. on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building on July 1, six months away. At this point, the movie is only half over? Even considering that films moved a lot slower then, this is a dreadfully plodding movie. "What makes life so difficult?" "People."
Nickie breaks up his engagement on live TV during an interview, and soon after watching the painfully uncomfortable scene on her television Terry breaks up with Kenneth, who takes it ridiculously well. Interviewer: "I'm sure you had some wonderful experiences in Europe." "Yes." "...Would you care to elaborate on that statement?" "No." It goes downhill from there. I'm pretty sure Terry's maid is played by the woman who was Mrs. Ziffel in Green Acres.
Terry goes back to Boston and begins a semi-successful singing career again in nightclubs, and Nickie starts painting in earnest, not doing too well. This takes too long to be slammed down our throats.
On July 1, Terry gets hit by a taxi and is paralyzed from the waist down. Kenneth is disgustingly amicable about paying for Terry's hospital bills and taking care of her, and Nickie thinks she stood him up, waiting until midnight and she never shows.
A distraught Nickie mopes around for the next six months, Janou has died by this time. A Catholic priest has in pity found Terry a job as a elementary-school music teacher, and we have a jarringly cheerful (and entirely unnecessary) concert about obeying your conscience by her students. She's too prideful to let him know about her accident, and they awkwardly and unhappily run into each other one night in public. Then there's another performance by Terry's students, and by now it's Christmas.
The neighbor lady is just leaving Terry's apartment when Nickie walks in. He found an address in the phone book that might have been hers, so he followed in just to see, and, well, there he is. He lies about keeping their appointment, saying he missed it, and so he presumably came to apologize. (Cary Grant also opens this scene by saying, "Hi Debbie," HOW did that not get fixed?!) He tricks her into admitting that she never was there, they verbally dance around the subject, he walking through the living room, she staying put on the couch. (But of course, she's paralyzed; but he doesn't know that.) They get madder and madder at each other; he remembers that Janou had left a package for Terry before she died. A very perturbed Nickie suddenly remembers that some poor crippled woman had liked seeing one of his paintings in the studio, and as it was too sentimental to sell, he told his friend the manager of the studio to give it to the lady. He opens the bedroom door, and in a brilliant bit of photography, we see his face on the left of the screen and the painting's reflection in a mirror on the right. He knows, now. She starts sobbing, "If you can paint, I can walk!" He nods, wiping the tears away with his handkerchief. The End. NO, YOU CAN'T. YOU'RE PARALYZED. And he's leaving New York that night, and why should he stick with her, anyway? It's not like he has the greatest track record with that in the first place...it's a horrible ending to a film that was a complete waste of two hours. Why should the situation change? And if it did, there sure wouldn't be any happy endings. And yet this is supposed to be some kind of joyful reunion where everything ends happily ever after. IT ISN'T. It isn't even an ending, really - if they would have cut it off just after they ran into each other, that would have been an ending.
Not sure how I stayed awake through watching it once; but then I started writing this review, and left it barely-started for two months and needed to finish it. Really not very impressed and completely mystified why people love it so much.
Nickie Ferrante, aptly described in a Variety review of the film as a "fairly notorious playboy", has just become engaged to a wealthy oil and gravel heiress named Lois Clark, who will soon inherit the staggering fortune of $600 million. (That's roughly over $500 billion in 2014 dollars when you factor in inflation.) He is returning to the U.S. from a trip to Europe on an ocean liner, where he is hounded by curious ordinary people. He meets a lady named Terry McKay, who is engaged to a high-level New York oil businessman named Kenneth Bradley. They talk often, and most of their fellow passengers and the crew think that they're a couple. (This leads to many awkward situations.)
Terry was trying to become a singer in Boston before she met Kenneth and moved to New York to practice becoming a perfect housewife. And as for Nickie....well, as a little boy says, "Everybody on the ship's talkin' about ya!" When he asks what they're saying, the little boy answers, "I don't know. Every time they start talkin' about ya, they make me leave the room." He's irritatingly good at everything he tries, makes it really difficult to care about the character.
During a stop on the Italian coast, Nickie visits his grandmother and Terry tags along. This is by far the best sequence(though lengthy - it takes 21 of the 114 minutes) in the film, there's a garden and a collie named Fidel('faithful"). "It's so peaceful here...it's like another world." "Well, it is another world. It's my grandmother's world." "I think I could stay here forever." "Oh, no, no, no!" Grandma admonishes. "It's a good place to sit and remember, but...you have still to create your memories." His grandma mentions that he used to be a painter before quitting due to being scared of failure. Grandma - Janou - is quite meddlesome and overall a nice old lady. As proof of her meddlesomeness, Janou hints often that Nickie and Terry ought to get married. As they leave to go back to the boat, Terry admires Janou's shawl and, being the nice old lady she is, Janou says she'll send it to her.
After this visit, Nickie and Terry sort of realize that they might love each other, and even more awkwardly avoid each other over the next few days. The last night of the cruise they agree to return to their respective fiance(e)s in New York, and make plans to meet at 5 p.m. on the 102nd floor of the Empire State Building on July 1, six months away. At this point, the movie is only half over? Even considering that films moved a lot slower then, this is a dreadfully plodding movie. "What makes life so difficult?" "People."
Nickie breaks up his engagement on live TV during an interview, and soon after watching the painfully uncomfortable scene on her television Terry breaks up with Kenneth, who takes it ridiculously well. Interviewer: "I'm sure you had some wonderful experiences in Europe." "Yes." "...Would you care to elaborate on that statement?" "No." It goes downhill from there. I'm pretty sure Terry's maid is played by the woman who was Mrs. Ziffel in Green Acres.
Terry goes back to Boston and begins a semi-successful singing career again in nightclubs, and Nickie starts painting in earnest, not doing too well. This takes too long to be slammed down our throats.
On July 1, Terry gets hit by a taxi and is paralyzed from the waist down. Kenneth is disgustingly amicable about paying for Terry's hospital bills and taking care of her, and Nickie thinks she stood him up, waiting until midnight and she never shows.
A distraught Nickie mopes around for the next six months, Janou has died by this time. A Catholic priest has in pity found Terry a job as a elementary-school music teacher, and we have a jarringly cheerful (and entirely unnecessary) concert about obeying your conscience by her students. She's too prideful to let him know about her accident, and they awkwardly and unhappily run into each other one night in public. Then there's another performance by Terry's students, and by now it's Christmas.
The neighbor lady is just leaving Terry's apartment when Nickie walks in. He found an address in the phone book that might have been hers, so he followed in just to see, and, well, there he is. He lies about keeping their appointment, saying he missed it, and so he presumably came to apologize. (Cary Grant also opens this scene by saying, "Hi Debbie," HOW did that not get fixed?!) He tricks her into admitting that she never was there, they verbally dance around the subject, he walking through the living room, she staying put on the couch. (But of course, she's paralyzed; but he doesn't know that.) They get madder and madder at each other; he remembers that Janou had left a package for Terry before she died. A very perturbed Nickie suddenly remembers that some poor crippled woman had liked seeing one of his paintings in the studio, and as it was too sentimental to sell, he told his friend the manager of the studio to give it to the lady. He opens the bedroom door, and in a brilliant bit of photography, we see his face on the left of the screen and the painting's reflection in a mirror on the right. He knows, now. She starts sobbing, "If you can paint, I can walk!" He nods, wiping the tears away with his handkerchief. The End. NO, YOU CAN'T. YOU'RE PARALYZED. And he's leaving New York that night, and why should he stick with her, anyway? It's not like he has the greatest track record with that in the first place...it's a horrible ending to a film that was a complete waste of two hours. Why should the situation change? And if it did, there sure wouldn't be any happy endings. And yet this is supposed to be some kind of joyful reunion where everything ends happily ever after. IT ISN'T. It isn't even an ending, really - if they would have cut it off just after they ran into each other, that would have been an ending.
Not sure how I stayed awake through watching it once; but then I started writing this review, and left it barely-started for two months and needed to finish it. Really not very impressed and completely mystified why people love it so much.
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