The World Grows Older, The Light Grows Brighter.

Clarification of Earlier Post

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 22:20:20 GMT

In my earlier post I compared Schindler's list and E.T. the Extraterrestrial to one another. I realize I was not being very clear about the comparison, in that I did not mean to imply that the two movies were made the same year. I meant, of course to actually point out that both films were made by Steven Spielberg, and that the one that got him his Oscar was his Holocaust film. A movie that though it was great was not as great a film masterpiece as his earlier film E.T. the Extraterrestrial. Sorry for not being clear about that. It just occurred to me I was not specific as to what I meant.
For that matter look at all of Martin Scorsese's great films and his amazing body of work and ask whether The Departed was the one he deserved the final recognition for..............................

Oscar Time

Thu, 22 Jan 2009 19:29:00 GMT

Talking about dreams is like talking about movies, since the cinema uses the language of dreams; years can pass in a second and you can hop from one place to another. It’s a language made of image. And in the real cinema, every object and every light means something, as in a dream. - Frederico Fellini

People sometimes say that the way things happen in the movies is unreal, but actually it’s the way things happen to you in life that’s unreal. The movies make emotions look so strong and real, whereas when things really do happen to you, it’s like watching television—you don’t feel anything. - Andy Warhol

This youngest of the arts is also the most heavily burdened with memory. Cinema is a time machine. Movies preserve the past, while theaters—no matter how devoted to the classics, to old plays—can only “modernize.” Movies resurrect the beautiful dead; present, intact, vanished or ruined environments; embody without irony styles and fashions that seem funny today.... Films age (being objects) as no theater event does (being always new). - Susan Sontag

Film as dream, film as music. No art passes our conscience in the way film does, and goes directly to our feelings, deep down into the dark rooms of our souls. - Ingmar Bergman

What the hell is nostalgia doing in a science-fiction film? With the whole universe and all the future to play in, Lucas took his marvelous toys and crawled under the fringed cloth on the parlor table, back into a nice safe hideyhole, along with Flash Gordon and the Cowardly Lion and Luke Skywalker and the Flying Aces and the Hitler Jugend. If there’s a message there, I don’t think I want to hear it. - Ursula K. Le Guin (writing about the film Star Wars)

It has been a while between posts for me and it may be another while between this and the next one, but here goes and oh btw hi everyone who may read this.

Well for starters, as usual of course they got a few right and a few wrong and also threw a bunch of head scratchers in for good measure. How is it that every year there are so many places that the Academy get it wrong. It’s of course obvious that they get no brainers right: Mickey Rourke, Anne Hathaway, and Slumdog Millionaire to name a couple of those types. But come on when virtually everyone in the film world hails Sally Hawkins in Happy-Go-Lucky, and Kate Winslett’s Revolutionary Road turn is also being hailed as one of the great performances of the young century, how is it that they are overlooked?

One thing is very much for sure, the old axiom (and joke for that matter) remains true in Hollywood: want to be nominated even if your film or performance doesn’t rate it, then just make a Holocaust movie. The fact the Kate Winslett gets the best actress nomination for The Reader is one of those strange loopy Academy choices that leave you baffled.

And then that brings us to the other Academy tradition the movie that gets lots and lots of nominations and then proceeds to not win any awards. That honor I have a sneaking suspicion goes to The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, with its 13 nominations and lukewarm buzz around good old tinsel town, it does seem the likely choice to have a big nomination no win year, don’t you think?

Then of course the most time honored Academy tradition of all is the film that gets a few token nominations and even has one category where everyone knows they will get a win, but that virtually everyone you ask will tell you will be the movie out of this years class that will be remembered 50 years from now while the big winners are forgotten.

This year’s entry in that category is of course The Dark Knight. Yes that movie……you know the one that virtually every guild and film critic and trade paper has and continues to laud as the best film of the year. Or I will admit some are only calling it one of the best. But in all senses this is the film that has garnered not only one of the biggest box offices in years, but is certainly the best reviewed live action film of the year (only Wall-E challenges it for reviews, and it obviously has its own problem….duh……its animated and that crap has its own award the geniuses in the Academy are most likely thinking).

The Dark Knight has been called by more than just me, a certain all time classic both of its genre and of film in general. And it may be the best film of the young century as well. As I said I have a feeling in fifty years people will still be thinking of The Dark Knight as a masterpiece but be hard pressed to remember more than one nominee for best film.

It is obvious that two things have caused this and one is of course – and I hate to say it – the death of Heath Ledger. His horrible loss gives I think lots of people in the voting public an excuse to think they don’t have to consider the movie as a whole and to think of it as just that movie Heath Ledger was in. And if we give Heath an award – which I think they surely will – then that’s all they need to do for the Batman movie. The other problem is of course the obvious one: the pretentious among the voting Academy can’t get their heads far enough out their asses to think a superhero film could in fact be both an important work of filmmaking and a crowd pleasing money maker. It almost tempts me to think that maybe if the film had been a flop then some of the Academy voters could have talked themselves into thinking that they and they alone recognize a great film.

Of course I know not every Academy voter is pretentious in this way, but I have a feeling that the pretentiousness of some will tend to infect all. It is simply hard to tell a pretentious “artist” that you thought a comic book movie was the best film of the year at a cocktail party in Hollywood. It takes lots and lots of self confidence which of course you might think a person making a living off the art of film would have but alas I think peer pressure is in every walk of life. As I said earlier about the always go Holocaust saying in the film world, it tends to be at this time of year about, perceived importance rather than real importance. This is why a movie about the Holocaust is “Important” capitals very much implied, and a great superhero film is just a crowd pleaser. This is all about the idea that the crowd – meaning the average film goer – isn’t as smart about what is important art as a person paid to create art. This is of course not always true – ask any film critic or historian for that matter – and often has the side affect of leaving certain great films to be “discovered by a new generation of movie fans”, to borrow a time honored phrase. Most students of film history of course know you have to deal with the fact that sure, westerns like Shane and The Searchers, have to be overlooked at best picture time because……….well……..they are just …….well westerns, and westerns aren’t “Important” are they? And you know well Psycho well it was like a horror movie kind of I guess, right? And everyone knows they can’t be all that great or “Important”.

And of course as wonderful and great as Schindler’s List was does anyone really think it was a better film than E.T. the Extraterrestrial? A film generally thought of as one of the masterpieces of cinema, and a crowd pleaser as well I might add. Oops. We can’t have those winning awards. Of course they will get it right at times, but it still hurts because you always worry that knowing that you don’t get recognized will turn some people off of certain projects. We are of course lucky that lots of people don’t mind knowing that they won’t get that much in the way of accolades. It is lucky that you can still convince actors and writers and directors to work in both independent film and also in genre film, because sometimes you get greatness. It is kind of funny that many really important films, get made outside the studio system and aren’t seen by enough people to make them as appreciated as they should be, while movies that seem important just because we get told they are, and are made in the big Hollywood system get seen by lots of people. And often the effect of this is to make the movie going public not want to see works about important subject matter, instead of making them want to see better films.

You then get more people going to see crap and who does that serve? Well it serves the big Hollywood system of course because they make tons and tons of crap. But ironically they also among the crap make lots of genre films, and of course among these are lots of crap, but also in recent year’s lots of great films as well. I kind of think you can make a case that we are in the midst of a Golden Age for the more under appreciated genres of film. Superhero film, Science Fiction, and Fantasy, are producing better works of film art than at any point in movie history, on a fairly regular basis. And I find it interesting that you get lots of actors and filmmakers that don’t mind getting fairly big pay days in this genre but seem to have a hard time bringing them selves to vote for one of these movies for any awards. How about that thought? Of course maybe I take it all a little too seriously but well, I love film and going to movies and sometimes those movies that achieve greatness are movies about transporting illegal immigrants into the states via a frozen river, but others it is about a guy in a flying metal suit (and by the way in any other year I would make the same argument about Iron Man as I am about The Dark Knight) – it is about what works as great cinema not about what seems to be an important subject for great cinema. That just my way of looking at it not everyone’s I am sure; but we all like to see the people we think deserve get honored after all.

Robbery from another journal.

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 16:40:11 GMT

I just want to post away like crazy today so, I stole this from Slave_Lilith, who stole it from someone else. And since I think it is both goofy and fun I will do it and send it out to others. Here it is:

1. Go to the Wikipedia home page. Select your native language and click Random article. That is your band's name.
2. Click Random article again; that is your album name.
3. Click Random article 15 more times; those are the tracks on your album.

Band Name: The Troubles In Armagh

Album Name: Joan of Lusignan

1) Visions of Light
2) Lucena del Puerto
3) JAM notation
4) Anita Diamant
5)The Border
6) Lü Weihuang
7) Peter Philips (disambiguation)
8) Mary Mazzarello
9) Wiener
10) BTD Destroyer
11) Alpine Type-R
12) Daniel Sleator
13) Ubugoe Chainsaw
14) Arumeru
15) Check Mate (Kinnikuman)

Some Musings On Friendship In the Computer Age.

Wed, 12 Dec 2007 15:45:09 GMT

Type your cut contents here.

You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you. - Dale Carnegie

If a man does not make new acquaintances as he advances through life, he will soon find himself alone. A man should keep his friendships in constant repair. - Samuel Johnson

I no doubt deserved my enemies, but I don't believe I deserved my friends. - Walt Whitman

All people want is someone to listen. - Hugh Elliot

When I sit around and a thought gets into my head, it sometimes comes out as a whole lot of babbling and gushing. Sometimes it makes sense, sometimes it doesn't. So when I started to think about friendship in the age of journals, blogs, and personal web pages, I had......well some things come to mind.
Read on if you want, I can't say it doesn't get boing at times, but it was in my head, and I got it out.

I had a couple of thoughts about friendship. Of course they are my own and because of that anyone is pretty free to disagree. My thoughts come from thinking about how different friendship, and friends are today than in the past. I don’t necessarily mean long past either, but rather, even in the last decade. I come to these thoughts on the subject simply because it occurred to me that in the last ten too twenty years the growth of outlets for human networking and discourse, such as LJ, has been overwhelming in its suddenness. In almost a few short years seemingly, the simple online diary evolved into the blog, and sites that allow people to share their lives in amazing and sometimes frightening ways have become part of our everyday life. Web sites like flickr for sharing the most intimate parts of your life through the photographs that once would have been locked away in a book on a shelf in your house, now make appearances on the screens of people from around the world. As do our home movies, on YouTube. These fairly sudden changes are notable because they have changed the way we think of the phrase, “my most private thoughts, and moments.” Privacy has seemingly always been an odd concept in a world of increasingly voyeuristic people, so who can say anything about the concept of what is private, without sounding like they’re reading a eulogy. Of course I am digressing here by saying something about privacy, but if you know me you know an occasional digression happens. I don’t want to say much about what is private, because I suppose the today that is just what we chose not to tell the whole world online. At least until someone else we know, decides to tell everyone else online. And that I would say is the perfect eulogy for the private in our current society. And because of that we are now in the midst of a revolution of thought on the true meaning of privacy. Now mind you I think privacy is a fine topic to write about, but I intended to write about a parallel subject that has also been affected by technology – friendship.

Some people who don’t feel that comfortable in the land of the internet, are perplexed by this idea of having online “friends”, a group of people that there is every chance in the world you may not ever meet face to face, who nevertheless may in some instances know more about you than your more conventional friends. Who may even know more about your life than your own family, in some cases. Now this seemingly, to those who don’t follow what is going on in the world of cyber-space technology, happened over night.

One day life was pretty much lived the same way, in terms of friends and acquaintances that your grandparents lived theirs, and the next we are where we are now. In a land where people have what appear to be two sets of friends, who though they often overlap, do not necessarily need to overlap. Those two sets are of course this: real life, or as I like to call them, face to face friends, and online friends. I like to say face to face because I am not sure real life friends are any more real life than non real life friends. After all, despite any talk to the contrary, the time we are on the internet is real life to us. So what the people who just don’t get this online friend thing are often annoyed and confused by is that notion that you can have a friend you haven’t met. I mean, one might say, how the hell is it a friend if you don’t really know who they are. Sometimes, they say, you don’t even know their names; how is that a friend. Now obviously I myself disagree with the argument against the very idea of an online friend, because, I pretty obviously have them myself. You guys know who you are reading this crap.

Well I got to thinking about face to face friends versus online friends, and realized that there isn’t much of a difference, and that one is in fact the only one that counts.

That reason: that they are philosophically different forms of friendship; and that is what makes all the difference. They are philosophically different because the important thing in the face to face relationship has always been, it’s not their words that matter it is their deeds. In the face to face friendship what you do and say might be two different things, and still you may be friends. The deeds make more of an impression, than the words.

An online friendship is all about the words and not the deeds. Because even though somewhere down the line, your friend may do some real world boon for you, or meet with you and put their arm around you in friendship, that wasn’t why they became your friend. You didn’t like their face, or that kind act you saw them do. You didn’t see them sitting all alone at lunch and decide to walk over and talk. They weren’t the only person at work who gave you a card on your birthday. No pretty much the only reason you asked them to be your friend – and keep in mind this is the only environment were you actually ask someone for their permission to call them your friend – is because you liked something they said. And not something they said about you most of the time, but rather something about a subject completely out of the boundaries of the later basis of your friendship. Odd isn’t it that something that is called the same thing can have two completely different evolutions. The face to face friendship is a sometimes sudden acquaintance that slowly grows into a deepening relationship. You know what I mean when I say that don’t you? Have you ever befriended someone in real life – maybe in school; maybe at work – and then later wondered what was I thinking, I don’t really want to have to talk to that person every time I see them. How about we take a moment to explore the ways in which a real life face to face friend differs from an online friend – and it’s not just the obvious that makes them different.

Let us explore.

The first impression we get of a real life friend comes from their face and their voice, everything else comes later. The smile of that person and the tone and sound of their words often mean more than the words. With an online friend these things obviously take a back seat. We do not hear there voice certainly, and in most cases even glimpse their face when we have already included them in our role call of friends. Now is this important? I can’t be sure, because it would be silly to assume that we make friends with someone just because of how they look, but in some cases I have a feeling it plays into it. I mean after all, someone who seems to be totally odd or different from us might make us uncomfortable, and thus we would be less likely to befriend them.

With real life friends, they just sort of become. By that I mean slowly or quickly they evolve into being our friends. This is as opposed to the online method of making a friend – and I return to the thought expressed earlier – were you ask someone please be my friend. They do not evolve into being your friend; they are rather evolved by you into being your friend. This is much more like un-natural selection, as opposed to natural selection. In this case we are breeding the friendship in a conscious way.

Charted on a graph when you look at face to face friends the graph is very steady.

Now I know that it is often said that friendship is a rollercoaster ride of ups and downs, with arguments and disagreements acting as stumbling blocks. But the reality is that because a friend evolves over time when they are of the real life kind, there really aren’t that many dip and drops. They come infrequently, if at all. Some people will never hit a bump in their relationships with their friends for years. By contrast, online friendship is a constant up and down. You will after all not be seeing this person at family reunions, or company picnics. They won’t be running into you at the movies, because they may not even recognize you if they did. They may not live in the same country, or time zone as you. And this might seem to indicate very little in the way of ups and downs, but that isn’t true, because all of these things mean that every time they hear from you, it is like they haven’t seen you in years. A new e-mail or posted comment on a journal or sudden appearance in a chat is like a special occasion for which you might get out the good china. The reason for this is simple: like a dog that doesn’t know, when you leave in the morning whether you are ever coming back, you ecstatic to hear from your online friend, because you know every time you talk to them it could be the last time. When you see their name posting a comment on your journal, you know that they could disappear never to be heard from again. When you have not communicated with an online friend for a long time, the reunion is always an important one. Because you thought they were gone for good.

A continuation of the idea above is kind of the idea that with a face to face friend you have one big friend moment: the meeting; the moment you first make each others acquaintance. This is a big day, even if it doesn’t seem like one at the time, because this is one of those spikes on that friend graph I was talking about. And it happens once; that’s it…once. With the online friend there are a whole lot of big firsts and meetings. The first communication; the time you requested that they be your friend; the first e-mail or private message you share together. Big special occasion huh? And of course with the online friend there is the chance for the holy grail of possible big firsts: the face to face meeting. Because though there is every chance you two never lay eyes on each other, there is a good chance you might. There are no rules after all that say you can’t become real life friends and online friends. Which of course, will in all likelihood, end the online friendship of course, but maybe not. It doesn’t go the other way you know; you won’t befriend someone in the real world and later become, their online friend, because after all we know who each other is. I could be wrong, I know but something tells me that I wouldn’t find the urge to post comments to the journal of someone that I was friends with already, but was unaware had a journal of some sort. We might add each other as a friend…just because. But talk online? I just don’t think so. So I don’t think you can add in reverse. I think you could be online buddy’s add become real life pal’s, but unlikely that happens the other way around. And even if you do interact online, they are always going to be your friend so and so, who you send messages to on their journal, whereas your online friend that you have at last met in real life, is still that person with the funny little made up name.

Here’s one that is different. With a real world friend, they know really who you are, and are a definite presence in your life. Now this is a good thing, but it also makes you more uncomfortable telling them about the more embarrassing things going on in your life. Because after I tell my friend from work about my love life or my health, every time I see them I wonder what they must think about me. The reason I wonder, the reason you wonder, is they know who I am. What do I mean by that? Simple, in anonymity there is room for the truth at all times. My online friend – until we stage that momentous real life meeting, if it ever happens – knows only what I say and even if they are uncomfortable or judgmental about something I say about myself I still have the wall of the internet to protect me. So we all know that because of the anonymity of the internet – paradox coming – we can be much more honest with ourselves and our friends.

There won’t be any uncomfortable silences between me and my friend in the lunch room because of what I told them about my sex life. No stares because I said I was having financial difficulties, the last time we talked. We know that won’t happen, because they aren’t sure who we are. So paradoxically the online friendship gives those among us who might never tell even a close friend every detail of our lives, an outlet in which complete honesty is possible.

Real life friends are usually people from our own circle of life style. We meet them in our own neighborhood, and in our own workplace. They are from our town, and sometimes people we grew up with. Online friends can be from anywhere. They can be like us, or not like us. Though these people we can get a glimpse into other lifestyles. I guess this is good. My guess is that it is a good thing to have new and completely different viewpoints on the world.

In a face to face real life friendship, it is hard and often painful to call the whole thing off.

In an online friendship, all you have to do is never post to them again. Never answer their e-mails again. Or even filter them out or delete them totally from your list of friends.

In one way or another I think you could make the argument for or against both of these as the better or the worse of alternatives. There are some of the ways in which the two types of friendships are different. Now for my thoughts, I know you thought these were my thoughts on this subject. But wait there’s more.

I wonder if in the end both types aren’t more similar than different. If that the main difference between the two isn’t just that we don’t see each other before we become friends. Who knows maybe we can be just as close as real life friends are just because we don’t have a wall of expectations between us all, based on first impressions. After all we don’t really ever get any first impressions, do we? “Friending” someone is both a sudden rash decision, and a completely benign decision, that might have no bearing on your life whatsoever. But it might, it might. We can’t know ahead of time can we. I would say that I have more online friends right now than I have ever had in the real world at any given single time. And I, I might add am a very moderate sampling of the online community. I have observed people listing as many as several hundred “friends” in their friends listing. There is something a little disconcerting about this of course, partially because I don’t really think you can possibly maintain anything close to a relationship – even an online one – with so many people. This is elevating friendship to the level of a fan club of sorts, and I find it a little impossible to lend validity to. Of course the bottom line to any kind of friendship is that it is a living thing of a sort that must be nurtured and cared for. Whether it is a childhood friend you have known for your whole life, or someone you know only by a screen name, the relationship requires a constant application of work and maintenance for it to survive. And that is a good thing to do with our time. Because your friends make you smile, when you don’t think you can. They make you care when you thought you were too hard to care. They give you someone to care about when you feel as if you don’t even care about yourself. They seem to know what you need to hear even when you don’t want to hear it. Most of all they are someone you like, that likes you. And who doesn’t like that. Even in this group of anonymous people who call each other friends, we feel that, hey that person likes me. I tend to give you all who I call friends the very big benefit of the doubt. And by that I know my friends are very deserving of being liked. Why? It’s because they have been invited into my life, and vice versa. That is in the end, what friends do, whether they are the real life, face to face variety, or the online variety. I do this and you do this for a whole lot of different reasons, sometimes it is because, we want to connect and find people with the same feelings about the same things, and sometimes it’s just because, well it’s just nice sometimes to shoot the breeze. We talk about serious things with friends, and about not so serious things. And sometimes you want to be not so serious about the serious stuff, and then is when you need a friend instead of a therapist. We want to have a friend who can just be thinking good thoughts about us. Sometimes an online friend may tell you that someone much closer than you in there life has hurt them, or maybe said that they hurt them. Now of course that friend or family member may have a good reason to be mad at your friend, but you are only friends with this one person, so how do you know they aren’t to blame?

That’s easy, you don’t, but that doesn’t matter because what does that have to do with any friendship. That’s why I said you make a commitment to a person you make your friend, to give them the benefit of the doubt. To know in your heart they are good, even without the evidence sometimes. You do this for face to face friends, and you must do it for the online variety as well. Of course being friends in this day and age is interesting, it must be because we have so many pitfalls we can fall into, but so many benefits we can gain as well. After all we live in a world where you can sit in your home and read the rambling thoughts of a “friend” you have never met in person. Someone who, if you ever did meet this person, would inspire you to say, “oh my, I never pictured them this way, but it fits.” And why does it fit, because you know that “friend”, not like you knew your friends in high school, but in a way that is only possible in this world of today.

I have to conclude all this, because if I don’t you will in all likelihood put your foot though the computer screen. I will conclude by saying that with all the things I just wrote, the most important thing I wrote is that I like all of you, not in the same way or for the same reason but because you deserve it, and I hope I can be deserving of your friendship.

I know a person must put in the work to be a real friend, even if the work is being done on a computer.

Happy Day!

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 06:33:15 GMT

Snagged more tickets to Spring Awakening, and went to see it again today.

I could see it every week I have decided. It was nice to do it again.
Yes I am a glutton, sucking up all the great theater tickets!

A post? What post. Oh this one!

Fri, 07 Dec 2007 20:21:23 GMT

I’ve got a good mind to join a club and beat you over the head with it! - Groucho Marx

Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me? - Groucho Marx

Well, art is art, isn't it? Still, on the other hand, water is water! And east is east and west is west and if you take cranberries and stew them like applesauce they taste much more like prunes than rhubarb does. Now, uh... Now you tell me what you know. - Groucho Marx

Just a few thoughts from Groucho, to tide you guys over until I get back to the journal with a rather lengthy post I am writing. Why don't you just comment back to me about anything you want. Or as Groucho Marx said......Now you tell me what you know. And remember posterity will be grading you.

Delicious Theater Going Goodness. yum

Tue, 04 Dec 2007 15:33:36 GMT

A song of purple summer is ahead for me. Yay!
Going to go see Spring Awakening tonight! Hooray for me!
I have seen the show from the stage, but tonight we will sit in the orchestra section (third row).
Can't wait. I will tell you all how great it is. I'm pretty sure it will be.
Only drawback: freaking cold ass weather, but it will be purple summer inside the theater.

See ya later.

Anthony

I thought this was ridiculously hilarious. Larry King writes an Erotic Novel

Thu, 29 Nov 2007 14:53:08 GMT

Wed, 28 Nov 2007 14:48:17 GMT

Money frees you from doing things you dislike. Since I dislike doing nearly everything, money is handy.
- Groucho Marx.

Groucho states my philosophy of life to a tee.
I like doing this, and since it costs me nothing, what a perfect fit. Heh.
Here's a thought: I see that the LJ Idol topic this week is current events.
Hmm.....do they mean current events in the contestants’ life or current events in like some world leader's life? Because I have plenty of events going on in my own life, I know that seem fairly current to me. I mean it all does seem fairly current because if they weren't I wouldn't care all that much about them. Of course events in President Bush's life probably seem current to him, they actually aren't current to me because after all I'm not there.
Tangent: The song My Name Is Mud by Primus just came on the radio, which just seemed perfect as I was mentioning George Bush.
Back on point, I kind of wonder what qualifies as a current event, because when I here about stuff it pretty much is over. I mean I kind of hear about it second hand, on the news, or the internet.
Tangent: The internet seems about as close to current as events get, because people are always on it and are updating things all the time. I mean you LJ people will sometimes tell about falling down a flight off stairs, three minutes after you walk back upstairs. But still not completely current I think. I wasn't there when you fell now was I.
Well back again. I kind of wonder if anything we know even about ourselves stays a current event for very long. I mean once it happens it's over, and we know it happened only because we remember the event. We may even see the evidence of the memory, yet it remains only a memory, because evidence can be faulty, or planted. It can be misunderstood. And memory itself can sometimes play tricks. Two people seeing the same thing may remember it differently. And that seems to show that memories can't always be trusted. And if the evidence of our senses and the memories we have of something can be so unreliable, then how do we credit reality at all. It may all be placed before our eyes like a silk screen to obscure what is real.
Of course if you don't trust anything you see or hear or feel or remember, then you might find it tough to get through the day. And the alternative is worse I think.
Tangent: You know I'm writing this NOW, but when now passes it will become THEN, and even I can't trust the reliability of that fact. Maybe it was another me who no longer exists that wrote this. Of course I see myself writing this right now so I trust the evidence at the moment.....but later who knows.
Now back to the thoughts at hand, I think what I'm saying is that the very definition of current events is up for debate, because as you see I can't prove the currency of said events. And if I can't then you can't......and so on into infinity. And infinity is the point, I think anyway, because if we think current stuff is the only stuff, then we are really missing the point of thinking. Current events have their place in our consciousness, but a small place at best. After all as soon as they stop being current - and that seems pretty quickly - they are past events, and that's another subject.
Get what I'm saying?

Another Stolen MeMe, Borrowed From A Friend :p

Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:58:10 GMT

1. Tell you why I friended you.

2. Associate you with something - fandom, a song, a color, a photo, etc.

3. Tell you something I like about you.

4. Tell you a memory I have about you.

5. Ask something I've always wanted to know about you.

6. Tell you my favorite user pic of yours.

7. In return you must post this in your LJ.

Just ask friends and you shall receive from me.

Thanksgiving Cheer. :S

Wed, 21 Nov 2007 19:57:09 GMT

Here is a little message for all my friends that celebrate the day called Thanksgiving. Of course those of you who are non-american and thus probably not going to celebrate it, simply take this as a general wish for good fortune, and a good dinner on November 22nd of this year. After all if nothing else it is a excuse to eat well.
So even if you are in some non-Thanksgiving country, or just a gloomy holiday hater in this country, like me, that doesn't mean you can't have a delicious meal, right?

Let's be thankful for all our good fortunes in life no matter how small they may seem to us sometimes, because even our smallest blessings may carry us through rough patches in life.
Let's be thankful for all the things we enjoy doing.
Let's even be thankful for the things we would enjoy doing, if only we could get up the nerve to do them, because you never know, someday maybe we will wake up and do them.
Let's be thankful for the people who love and care about us.
Let's also be thankful for all the people we don't know who love and care for others we don't know, because the more people care about other people, the better our world gets.
Let's be thankful for knowledge and science, because they show us how amazing life and the world around us really is, and help us sustain life.
Let's be thankful also for art, music, and literature, because they give beauty and meaning to our lives, when sometimes it's hard to see what that meaning is.
And let's be thankful for friends, near and far, both the familiar and those as yet unknown to us, somewhere out in the world waiting to meet us, in friendship and companionship.

Happy Holiday

Also Borrowed From Liz. There seems to be a pattern.

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:44:01 GMT

Borrowed from Liz.

Tue, 20 Nov 2007 06:37:37 GMT

If you woke up and I was in bed with you, what would be your first thought?

Now post this in your LJ and find out what mine would be.

Earliest Childhood Memory. (not an LJ Idol submission)

Fri, 09 Nov 2007 21:55:49 GMT

I was inspired to write this little bit of self exploration after reading the submission to LJ Idol made by my wonderful LJ friend Liz, better known as cataclysmic_liz.

I myself am not in the contest though, because I wasn’t sure I would have enough time on my hands to do it justice. But that doesn’t mean I can’t throw caution to the wind, and lay bare my soul. Okay maybe not bare, but semi-bare. This, like I said was inspired by reading the moving reminiscence written by cataclysmic_liz. The story is true. No names have been changed to protect anybody.

The very earliest memory I have is waking up in bed at the age of I think three, in the dark and alone. I call out to my mother and no one answers. I yell louder and still nothing. So I get out of bed and start to walk through the house, calling and bumping into things, because I can't see much of anything. I can't reach the light switches, and so there is only light from the streetlights outside the windows. Tears start to come from my eyes, and now flow down my face. I am screaming now because I realize I am all alone and I have never been alone in the house before. I don't remember things before this night that clearly, but I know that I have never been in the house alone. The walls seem to stretch into the sky, as if there isn't even a ceiling. I am screaming and crying and I feel as if I am the last kid in the world. I scream mommy where are you. And why, why where is she. I have no idea how much time passes but there comes to be a lot of pounding on the door to the apartment, and still I cry. I can't open the door, because I can't reach it. So I stand in the apartment living room and cry for someone anyone because I have never been alone. I'm only three, and I don't know that anybody will ever come back to take away the raw terror I feel at that moment.

The pounding on the door continues somebody calling to me, but I hardly hear their voice, through my crying, I can't see that well either, because the tears have begun to blind me and are burning my eyes. My cheeks are raw, I feel like I have to pee, but can't seem to remember what you're supposed to do when that happens, because all I know is fear.

Suddenly the door opens and a strange woman runs into our apartment, she sweeps me into her arms and says it's alright someone is going to get your mother.

I don't recognize this woman, so I keep screaming that I want my mother, where is she. The woman says someone knows where she is. Some time has passed and I am still crying choking with intense fear, and I don't know why because the nice lady says everything is going to be alright. But I seem to know that isn't true, I know that if everything was alright, I wouldn't be here alone with this strange woman I don't know holding me trying to calm me down.

And then.....there she is my mother walking through the door in a pretty dress. Why is she dressed up? She wasn't dressed nice like this when she put me in the bed. But she picks me up and glares at the strange woman I don't know. She asks how she got in the apartment, and the woman says the super opened it for her. I have calmed down and I find myself listening to the conversation between the woman and my mother. The nice lady is asking what my mother was doing leaving me alone. They talk like I'm not there, now that I am all quiet they don't see me. They don't know that I understand the big words they use already, even though I am so little. The grown-up words they use come easy to me already, and though they don’t know it I understand everything. All the words have a meaning and even the ones I don't really truly know I remember. And when I find out what they all mean I know why I was left all alone.

Mommy had a date you see, and she asked this other woman to watch me that night, but the lady she asked wasn't able to come. So my mother thought what's the difference, he's asleep anyway, so he'll never know I went anywhere. So she put me to bed, got dressed and went out on her date. That was that, because after all she deserved to have some fun once in a while she told the lady who came and opened the door.

Didn't she? Deserve some fun, that is? I would find out as the years went by and I grew that mom didn't much think of having a child as much of a fun thing.

She told me when I was about six years old that I ruined her life, that had I not been born she could have been happy. Had all the things she deserved.

She always said stuff like that, right up until the time I stopped listening. That was a while ago now; I haven't heard her in a long time, no matter how loud she speaks.

If it hadn't been for me she could have gotten all the things she deserved in life.

Like a little fun, right?

Thu, 08 Nov 2007 15:41:18 GMT

Humor is the only test of gravity, and gravity of humor; for a subject which will not bear raillery is suspicious, and a jest which will not bear serious examination is false wit. - Aristotle

All human situations have their inconveniences. We feel those of the present but neither see nor feel those of the future; and hence we often make troublesome changes without amendment, and frequently for the worse.
- Benjamin Franklin

I guess I should post something, and of course I would what it to be of some interest to at least myself. After all if you can’t amuse yourself, who can you amuse? People often go, “look at you, you laugh at your own jokes.” Well so what they are funny, and even if they aren’t, I must have thought they were, or I wouldn’t have told it.
But this isn’t stand-up comedy, it’s a forum for thoughts, unless you happen to be a stand-up comic, then the jokes are your forums. I am not a comedian, so I move on.
What to talk about…..lets see, I want to write something because certain circumstances will prevent me from posting next week probably. So I have to get along right now.

Did you ever get an idea of something you wanted to write, and then forget as soon as you sit down? Here’s something, I notice that a lot of people lately have been posting to say that they will scale down their posting because they are starting a hand written journal. Hmm, well I must be in the tiny minority of people who, if they had to write by hand again, would probably never get anything written. Not that I don’t respect and admire the hand writing crew immensely. They do something I have no facility for doing. My hand writing sucks and I write by hand at a super slow pace. A pace so slow that I sometimes forget what I was writing when I’m writing a greeting card. I might suddenly lose my train of thought, and suddenly……poof! I have nothing left in the tank, word wise. But here’s to you handwritten journal people, I will keep out of your way, and keep the writing freeway clear by not writing by hand and staying with my – admittedly – less romantic keyboard, and spell-check technology.

I was thinking the other day that I can never understand why anyone isn’t somewhat more optimistic about the future. You know if you read my journal that I myself, am a bit of a futurism geek. I am not a scientist and yet I know about all the possible technologies that are on the horizon. I am also constantly shuffling through the possible sociological ramifications of those technologies. The future is dangerous, and scary. But like most of the people like me, we have an innate trust that the future, even the scary parts are knowable, and understandable. You know I once read about a conversation between some critics and Ian Watson, a SF writer, who was asked an unusual question. Unusual because most science fiction fans wouldn’t give it a second thought. We just don’t think like that for the most part. The question went something like this: if science fiction writers are so gung ho, and confident about the future of both science and humanity, why are so many SF stories so gloomy. Why are they he was further asked so often dystopian in flavor and shape, when you yourself seem so sure of the future? His answer was very fascinating because it was really two answers. What he said was that, sure there are a lot of dystopias in SF, but that’s because most people have fears they can’t put their finger on and SF lets them exercise those fears. Just as even though we don’t believe in the horrors and monsters of a horror story, we still get to live out, and deal with those fears.
He also gave another answer that I thought was even more thought provoking, when answering the question of why characters in these stories never seem happy. Why they always seem to think their world is a terrible dystopia, his reason was, human nature.
He said that nobody ever thinks they’re living in utopia, because they’re to busy living.
The daily work of living is always so all consuming that no one ever really think they live in paradise. If they stopped and looked around with the eyes of someone from outside, they might think that. But they can’t because it’s all too close for them to see.
I guess we could all at one time or another, be guilty of overlooking the good things about life in the world. Even our own world; we are just too close to it all to see stuff isn’t that bad. So Watson was saying that even in a world were you have a life expectancy of 500 years, and you can visit your friends in other countries virtually, appearing before their eyes as a ghost image. Even in a world were roads are repaired by nano-makers and doers, and buildings spring up environmentally safely overnight. Even in a world were carbon nano-tubes make it possible to build smart walls, and clothes, and chairs that can store information and be stronger than steel. Even then people will be busy living, and not notice that stuff looks pretty good from our viewpoint.
But I guess that’s part of being a human being. One of the reasons for progress is because we don’t ever think stuff is that great.

Well that I think is it for today. The future they say is what you make of it, and the cynic in me thinks, yeah right. But I don’t know maybe so.
Bye for now. I’ll be back again tomorrow.

MEME

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 14:42:04 GMT

Here we go, folks. I have been force asked to post this by a lovely LJ friend, known as mouseoffury. And because she forced me so nicely, I have complied. lol.

The rules are easy, just post 6 things that recently made you happy! Then tag 6 people and force ask them to post this meme on their LJs. Because it is good. Everyone needs a little happiness once in a while.

1. Making D laugh so hard, she could hardly breathe, while she was at work.

2. Talking in internet land, to all my wonderful LJ friends. I smile all the time.

3. Talking to a complete stranger on a street corner about The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant the Unbeliever, and science fiction and fantasy in general for about an hour.

4. Eating cupcakes in the Sugar Sweet Sunshine bakery.

5. Chopping vegetables in my own kitchen. Knowing that I am making something very good with my own two hands.

6. Knowing that my skills as a writer are getting better every day. And that doing this journal is helping that.

I Tag: catacysmic liz, anaalexandriess, rockmunkee, twirlandswirl, darling9, angel akki.

Fri, 26 Oct 2007 13:25:27 GMT

Happy Birthday!
It's your 20th!
Hooray for you!

To Darkling9 (Alyssa Grace)

Here's wishing you all the Best,
All the Fun,
And all the Love,
In the Whole Wide World,
To you on your Birthday.

*Giant Hugs and Kisses*

Anthony.

Feeling Blah!

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:24:36 GMT

I just have no desire to post today. Yesterday I thought I would today, but....I.....just.....cant....reach.....my......power.....ring.
No energy to write a lengthy post, and I just can't write any over kind. hah.

I think I will break for a few days from writing, although I may still appear in comments on other journals. I can't help butting in on peoples thoughts you know. lol. That's just me all over.

Well maybe Monday I'll be back to full power.

Later dear friends (you know who you are) *snicker*

Wed, 17 Oct 2007 15:42:58 GMT

One difference between humans and computers lies in the relative strengths in their respective abilities to understand symbolic relationships and to learn facts. A computer can remember billions of facts with extreme precision, whereas we are hard pressed to remember more than a handful of phone numbers. On the other hand, we can read a novel and understand and manipulate the subtle relationships between the characters—something that computers have yet to demonstrate an ability to do. We often use our ability to understand and recall relationships as an aid in remembering simple things, as when we remember names by means of our past associations with each name and when we remember phone numbers in terms of geometric or numeric patterns they make. We thus use a very complex process to accomplish a very simple task, but it is the only process we have for the job. Computers have been weak in their ability to understand and process information that contains abstractions and complex webs of relationships, but they are improving.
- Ray Kurzweil.

An extra long quote to begin my posting for today, but that's why it's my journal, because I can say or quote any silly thing I want. hah.

There is a connection however between the quote and my post here, a tenuous one I admit but one nevertheless.
As you will see there's nothing going on in my life right now, other than the momentous occasion of me staring to read a new book. Tah Dah! See I told you it wasn't anything to hold your breath about.
The book I am going to read is Rainbows End by Vernor Vinge. And if you read my journal, and have noticed and understood the little remark about the coming Singularity (caps on that are appropriate),
then you will most likely go, "oh that Vernor Vinge." That's right the fellow who helped bring the phrase The Singularity to the world. Technological Singularity that is.
And of course Ray Kurzweil who I quoted above is another proponent of the theory of The Tech Singularity, although they do not agree on every particular, especially the how and the form it will take. But that doesn't matter, I'm just going to read this nice novel and revel in the glory of it all.
The subtitle of Rainbows End is: A novel with one foot in the future. How's that for a perfect title.
May we all have one foot in the future; because it's coming and if we make believe it isn't we sure as hell will be tripping over the threshold. Oh and by the way even though the book was written by Mr. Singularity himself, it is in fact not a Singularitarian novel. So that goes to show that Vinge can venture into other realms of fiction I guess.

Now for those who care, here's a link to a review of the book on SF Reviews.net. Just in case any of you fine people out there want to check it out.

http://www.sfreviews.net/rainbows_end.html

And of course lastly, if any of you are not familiar with, or want to refresh on this whole Singularity thingy, here's a link below to a Wiki article on the subject, to give a quick overview.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_singularity

See everybody real soon. Well maybe not see, because I don't know where a lot of you are. lol.
OR DO I....HAHAHA!!!

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:40:41 GMT

I was listening to one song from Spring Awakening, and that did it.
Just put the whole album on the computer, just now.
And it sounds jussst right to me. Great show, great music.
That's it. And I'm mentioning it here because I'm still sitting here. hah!

Bye kids.

Tue, 16 Oct 2007 17:29:37 GMT

Let others praise ancient times; I am glad I was born in these.
- Ovid.

Well I am back here after a short hiatus, from posting. I was busy with real world things, some of which were mildly important. I am also a little under the weather, nothing life threatening, but I am a baby, so I was pretty scared yesterday until about midday when my main symptom began to get better. I also spoke to my doctor, and got some advice that I have put to good use.

I also met a fellow in Manhattan who purchased 6 - yes a whole 6 - books from me.
I met him at a previously agreed upon location; it was like I was selling drugs or something. Drugs would have been more profitable of course. As I said at the pre-determined time the guy Mr. Y____ met me in front of the Moonstruck diner on third ave. and exchanged his $10.00 for my books; I told him it was lucky I had to be in the neighborhood that day. After we finished our transaction we had a very long friendly conversation about a subject we obviously had in common: books. These that I sold to him and others we had read. It was a very good conversation, and after we parted company, probably never to see each other again.

This prompts a thought, and a question. Actually both, the thought being this:
Has anyone out there ever met someone that you kind of clicked with as a friend that is, and kind of just let the opportunity slip past you to connect.
Just sort have walked away from someone you casually met and said to yourself,
"what am I, an idiot, I should have gotten his/her phone number or something."
Times where you say to yourself, "Did I just have a potential best friend walk off without even a, 'say how do I get in touch with you.' Boy (insert name) is more fascinating than half of my real friends."
Just a thought, because I think it has happened to me more than once.

Oh well that all I have for today. Bye.

Thu, 11 Oct 2007 17:33:19 GMT

That's me all the freak over, sticks to the roof of your mouth, and goes great with milk! I might, just might also be related to Tomato.
Thanks, LIzzy!

Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:59:52 GMT

I'm home bored right now and about to put something in the oven.

Perfect time to put on an MST3K disc!
Let's see, ahhh.....yes The Horrors of Spider Island.

"Gary! your infidelity mildly iritates me."

Fri, 05 Oct 2007 14:17:02 GMT

Want to post something here, but I'm running low on things happening in my life.
Other than aggravation anyway. Tired of a certain person, they are making me worn out form giving a shit.
Oh well who could care, about this depressing nonsense, another pointless weekend coming up.
Got to try to do something of interest, for a minute or two, or three. haha.

Oh well I'm sure I wont be alone in pointlessness, not that I want to bring anyone down. lol.

There goes my depressing side, the one I try to depress. Funny huh?
Been posting and commenting non-stop lately it seems, and I guess I'm worn out.
That's what happens to wordy guys like me, I think, we need to recharge our writing batteries. lol.
After all look at how many words I'm using here to say I have nothing to say.
That is wordy I guess, by it's very definition: spending 400 words to say I haven't a thing to say.
Let me think, something usually comes to me to say. I don't think so this time.

Maybe later something will come. lol.

Bye dear readers, whoever you may be.

This one's for Liz and Alex. (See Below)

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 16:10:41 GMT

Here's a little something of the MST3K variety.
The first twenty on so minutes of The Final Sacrifice.
For Alex because she doesn't have cable, and everybody needs a laugh.
For Lizzy because she is woefully lacking in the fact that she is not familiar with the bacony stench of this film from Canada.