Remember when you were in elementary school, junior high, and/or high school, and you had an English teacher who instructed: "show, don't tell" in your writing? Instead of saying "Enrique is sad", you were supposed to inspire the reader to come to a more nuanced realization by writing "Enrique has droopy eyes. Enrique is lying on the ground weeping. Enrique has written a poignant suicide note."
[as an aside, I always though there were some situations where simply stating someone's condition would be more effective. Instead of saying "Enrique is experiencing periodic bouts of vomiting, stomach cramping, and diarrhea", why not say "Enrique has cholera"?]
At work today, I reviewed an ad from a wireless carrier which stated: "The [name of phone] is tres cool."
Excuse me? "Tres cool"? (this was not a French company) Why might that be? They certainly didn't take the time to describe the phone (the bulk of the ad was devoted to selling the service plan), nor why I might consider it tres cool, mucho cool, hyper cool, max cool, or uber cool.
This is the same problem I have sometimes with Steven Spielberg as a director. Instead of setting up the scene to invoke emotion, he arranges it so that the cinematography, score, acting, and dialogue are outrageously bombastic in an effort to inculcate the viewer with the desired emotion. This becomes counterproductive and ineffective. The audience cannot be made to experience genuine feeling when they are conscious that someone is trying to manipulate them.
Emotion and opinion cannot be spontaneously transferred to someone. The two must be reached through persuasion. When you are trying to convince someone, whether it be in causal conversation or a rhetorically stringent debate, you simply can't say "you must now be of opinion x". You must present persuasive evidence to direct someone to the desired conclusion. Never tell someone what they should think - tell them why they should think that. Don't tell me that the phone is "tres cool" (quotation marks connote sarcasm). Sell it to me. Make me think to myself: "Self, that phone is tres cool."
Is doubt more analogous to a virus or to a cancer? In one respect, it can be introduced into the brain by a foreign entity, a leeching parasite able to self-replicate ad infinitum. Sometimes this is too much for our immune systems to bear, and we get quite ill(tempered). On the other hand, it can be entirely self-induced. It can start with one single cell of confidence becoming corrupt. This one cell corrupts other cells of certainty which in turn corrupt others. The affliction feeds upon itself and robs healthy faculties of life until it weighs one down like a tumor (and is oftentimes as visible). It turns us against ourselves.
I suppose then that doubt is like both. It can be contagious, or (and?) rot from within.
(This is what happens when my I miss my train. I swear I set the alarm.)
:: The triumphant return of Herr Samuel Coleman "Fats" Brown
Before my freshman year of high school, my family moved to a new city. Having to adapt to a new town as well as a new school proved quite daunting and emotionally troublesome for my fragile adolescent ego. The teenage mind is hard-wired to feel insecure and confused, and when combined with a massive shift in environment, it shorts out. (goooooo metaphors!)
Adding to my dismay, my school insisted that all students participate after-hours in an organized sport sanctioned by the omnipotent athletic director for at least one trimester (fall, winter, spring) of the year. I abstained during my inaugural trimester (fall), and opted for Karate in the winter. I had previously taken Ju-Jitsu classes, and thought it would be a little more my speed than say, Lacrosse.
The ragtag bunch who chose to participate in this venerable art was diverse, to say the least, but shared the common mindset of consciously rejecting the more traditional sports offered by the school. Every day we would cram into a stuffy, overcrowded Chevy Suburban from the Carter administration and ride over to the dojo. Predictably, the less-than-salubrious combination of shared self-imposed rejection and daily pilgrimage resulted in a strong outsider mentality. This in turn fostered a strong sense of community between the participants, and our own rituals soon followed.
One of them was the daily mock-beating of yours truly.
These play fights were without malice, and quite innocuous, so I took no offense. Besides, given my status as the new kid on the block, I was happy just to share in something communal. The faux altercations took many forms, from one-on-one theatrics to festive battle-royals. The faces of the pugilists would change, but the objectives and attitudes held constant.
There was one particular fellow who was able (through charisma, humor, and eloquence) to incite the others sufficiently to catalyze the sporadic mass rumble. His name was Sam, and he too was a newcomer to the school. Whereas I had remained shy and aloof, Sam had already garnered a reputation as an easy-going, comedic, and altogether likable chap due to his outgoing and sometimes histrionic nature. As he was one of the more avid supporters of our daily routine, however, I had held off from agreeing with the general consensus.
One day, a few weeks into our lessons, we arrived at the dojo and proceeded downstairs to change into our uniforms (or Gi's). I kneeled down to remove my shoes, and Sam took full advantage of my defenseless position, gently tipping me over. As I lay on my side, Sam stepped up on my shoulder but quickly lost his balance. In an effort to regain stability, his foot flailed out and struck the sharp edge of a stone fireplace. Blood proceeded to gush from Sam's foot. Almost before the platelets had time to clot the flow, Sam found himself medically excused from the entire required trimester of athletic activity. The smug grin which settled on his face further exacerbated the collective envy we already felt and I longed for karmic re-equilibration, especially since his get-out-of-jail-free card had been issued at the expense of my dignity.
It's been 8.5 years since this fateful day, and I now realize that things have more than evened out in my favor. As recompense for the karmic injustice of that single trimester, I have been given 8.5 years of irreplaceable friendship and a bond that will last a lifetime.
So Wednesday, my rommate used his extensive industry connections to garner us passes to the premiere of "I am trying to break your heart" the new Wilco documentary. Ok, not really, his boss didn't want them, so they got handed down to him.
The movie was good (I recommend seeing it) but the experience was surreal for two reasons:
1) I sat behind Conan O'Brien.
2) At the after-party I sat and watched Conan, Jeff Tweedy (lead singer from Wilco), and the senior editor from Rolling Stone have a lengthy conversation 10 feet from me. They seemed to get along famously. Subject of conversation unknown.
I was on an ornate pirate ship, somewhere in the middle of an ocean or similarly large body of water. The ship was seemingly abandoned, and I took my time wandering about its many decks, enjoying the exploration. Suddenly, a mist/fog/haze began to cloud the skies. Visibility was reduced to nigh zero, and I sensed danger approaching (a possible explanation for this is that I may have been equipped with one or more of the following: "Spidey-sense", clairvoyance, or Yuri Geller ESP - but I can't be sure). I headed to the forecastle of the ship, hoping to provide myself with a good vantage point. Scanning the water, I detected the smell of some indistinct fruit. I turned to see a large Polynesian man, complete with grass skirt and headdress, standing before me. He eyed me tentatively, then leaned over.
"Hubba-Bubba," he said, as if cautiously introducing himself, or informing me of some clandestine plot. Almost simultaneously, he held up a pack of the eponymous gum. For those of you who may not remember, Hubba Bubba was a flavorful chewing gum produced by Wrigley and targeted at youngsters through flashy TV ads. You who doubt the power of advertising, I am living proof that it can infiltrate the ID.
Anyway, the sight of this large islander and his bubble gum inculcated me with such terrible fright that I screamed at the top of my lungs and bolted for the edge of the deck. Without hesitation, I leapt overboard and dove into the water, at which point I sat up in my bed, drenched in my own sweat and shaking with pure, unmitigated terror. I vowed never to chew Hubba Bubba again, which was exceptionally hard considering it was bursting with flavor and always came in substantial quantities.
I look back on this moment of my life with fascination. It's a classic coming of age experience: a man must overcome his debilitating fear of bubble gum and push onward into the night. I was 5.
I wish to express my most heartfelt thanks to Scott Ganz for linking to this humble page. Scott is a pal from back in the day, and an inspiration to the blogsphere. So many memories. I can't wait until his Friar's Club roast...
So I managed, with some help from bl0phish (again), to set up a nifty script that randomizes the images, and their associated links, in the title bar each time the page is reloaded. These are all things I have deemed "interesting" somehow, so check them out.
There is no drug better, or more addictive than sleep. It's the closest we ever get to a womb homecoming, and as a bonus, you often hallucinate. Plus, even if you're a hardcore addict like Rip Van Winkle, you can't really OD. Despite these good qualities, extended withdrawal is deadly, so I guess in some respects it's worse than heroin.
A few nights ago, I dreamt I was in some sort of garden or greenhouse for which they handed out earplugs upon entry because the plants within produced a horrific high-pitched drone. A tour guide explained that this was an evolutionary defense mechanism designed to ward off potential predators. I could appreciate how effective the result would be, as the screeching was still quite loud even with the earplugs in. The sound, predictably, turned out to be my alarm clock but it did get me to a-thinkin: do plants even make noise? Anybody know of clamorous flora?
Feel that? It's satisfaction. I've spent the last few hours configuring greymatter and I must admit, it's quite impressive. It can be customized beyond compare, and yet offers the convenience necessary for this ever-expanding medium.
Yes, I am now a blogger. Didn't think it would come to this. I can only aspire to reach the level of excellence seen in other blogs that prompted me to start my own.
Countless thanks to bl0phish for the use of his server. All this "content" would be nothing but idle scribbling on a napkin were it not for him.
UPDATE: It just occurred to me that, given my current color scheme, this analogy is improbable. Even if there were someplace that had black napkins, I have never once carried around a light-grey pen/marker/writing-utensil.
