tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-248624072024-03-07T00:12:57.896-06:00Figaro-PravdaDon't forget what your hat and shoes will look like
when you are nowhere to be found.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.comBlogger146125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-16189073185243830582013-02-05T13:29:00.001-06:002013-02-05T13:39:46.466-06:00Anti-Social Media<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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So recently I upped my involvement with <a href="https://twitter.com/NotSeenRadio">Twitter</a>, and it was fantastic, and then it was an absolute disaster. Read on, and learn from my mistakes.<br />
<br />
First of all, like a lot of folks, I have been a long-time user of facebook, and I have a really good community there - lots of ongoing conversations across the spectrum of opinions and politics. I pop on for an hour, here and there, and maintain ties to this community with ease.<br />
<br />
Twitter ain't like facebook.<br />
<br />
Or rather, it is and it isn't. And learning the similarities and differences has been a painful process.<br />
<br />
First of all, I should point out that I am not tweeting as an individual, but instead on behalf of my radio show, <a href="http://www.thingsnotseenradio.com/">Things Not Seen: Conversations about Culture and Faith</a>. This led me to think about numbers, numbers, numbers instead of people.<br />
<br />
I was going a little nuts, sending out blasts of tweets about various podcast episodes and adding hashtags galore. For a few days, the response was incredible. The downloads jumped from a couple dozen to hundreds a day. It was addictive - the higher the numbers grew, the higher I wanted them to go. So I tweeted, and retweeted my own tweets, blasting bigger and bigger each time.<br />
<br />
Two days ago, the numbers stopped rising. In fact, they dropped off entirely.<br />
<br />
What happened? Well, Twitter throttled me. And with good reason. I was acting like an ass.<br />
<br />
You know that guy who shows up at a party, or a funeral, and starts handing out business cards? You know that "long lost friend" who reconnects out of the blue, only to start trying to sell you on some multi-level marketing scheme? Yeah. On Twitter, I now realize I was That Guy.<br />
<br />
I never had difficulty understanding how facebook is social media. To be honest, though, at first Twitter just seemed to me to be a big free for all, a meet market where you threw 140 characters out again and again because, after all, they would blast through the feed and disappear in the noise if you didn't.<br />
<br />
The problem, I discovered, was not trying to cut through the noise. The problem was I had become the noise that needed to be cut through.<br />
<br />
So, gentle readers, I am offering this public apology. I didn't do Twitter right. I treated readers like numbers, and not like people. I added to the noise. I am sorry, and I will not do it again.<br />
<br />
I stayed up pretty late last night, thinking about all this. Lots of friends on facebook gave me some great advice and pointers, too. I went to bed feeling just like I would have felt if I had been an ass at a party. Because, in a lot of ways, I was.<br />
<br />
What have I learned? Well, first, that short term explosive growth is exactly that: short term. It comes at the expense of what really makes social media work, namely relationships and trust. I learned that just showing up on Twitter and blasting and then disappearing is about the equivalent of drinking too much and insisting folks listen to you sound off about politics loudly in the kitchen. Folks may listen politely for a while, but eventually the host is going to shut that crap down.<br />
<br />
So, this morning, I opened up Twitter, and instead of sounding off about the show, like all last week, I read what other people were saying. I spent more time listening than I did talking. I thanked people for the tweets that made me laugh or think, and I found good things to pass along that had nothing to do with promoting me or my radio show.<br />
<br />
After a day of doing this, I am beginning to feel better about my relationship to Twitter, and to the followers who trusted me not to ruin their party. Still a ways to go, but I will say today, Twitter has made more sense to me, and started to feel a little more like the community I value so much on facebook.<br />
<br />
There's still a long way to go to make amends for acting like "That Guy," but this feels like a good start.<br />
<br />
Thanks for reading.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-44691073356358574442011-09-01T16:56:00.002-05:002011-09-01T17:23:44.817-05:00Forward in all directionsIt's a hundred-plus degrees outside. Kira is waiting to go into labor with our second child at any moment. It's the tail end of the second week of school. And I just got inside from a bout of pruning the rose bushes.
<br />
<br />How's that again?
<br />
<br />By "pruning," I should instead say, "butchering." There is a gnarled pile of brambled branches by our curb now, and the rose bushes look markedly worse, not better, for my efforts. Did I mention that I am also a sweaty mess? Sweaty and stinky, and punctured and itchy and a little bloodied from gargantuan thorns? I am.
<br />
<br />This is my life right now.
<br />
<br />My entire life is that thorny bramble of tangled and knotted branches, overgrown and without order. At least, that is how it has felt for the past few months. It's been frustrating.
<br />
<br />So I decided, this afternoon, and with things I should probably be doing (like writing or organizing papers or getting through the overfull email inbox) to take a few minutes and hack away at the lowest-priority problem on the planet at the moment, that problem being the cosmetic state of our front yard.
<br />
<br />And yet. There I was. And it was just nonsense, I tell you. The rose bushes have become over-overgrown, with branches heading in all directions and braiding around each other. So I just started hacking and snipping, with no plan or direction other than to reduce the total amount of thick overgrowth.
<br />
<br />The result? A four foot pile of nettled branches, large and small. And now I can see the underside of the bush, and how bad the whole job is going to be. There's a lot more to do to get these bushes back in order. It will be a multiple-attempt undertaking.
<br />
<br />So this was a first step - wild, no plan, just jumping in and going as long as I can. Then stopping, toweling off, and going back inside, until I build up the gumption in a few days to do it again.
<br />
<br />This is my life. These rose bushes are my life, at least for right now. Everything - school, parenting, finances, the future - is a thorny, overgrown thickness, tangled and braided from my neglect. It's a bit daunting.
<br />
<br />But I learned something today, with those bushes. Jumping in without a plan is not a recipe for disaster (as I initially suspected). Instead, it actually allowed me to get my bearings, and to figure out the real extent of the problem. It got me started, and that's good.
<br />
<br />I think I need to apply that approach to the rest of these thorny parts of my life right now. Dive in, hack away, towel off, do it again in a few days. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.
<br />
<br />I have been avoiding all action, largely because I am afraid, and I don't have a good plan for anything right now. But what I just learned from the roses is that if I can at least hack at it a bit, there might be hope. For everything.
<br />
<br />My wife jokingly calls this approach "forward in all directions." I used to be good at it. I lived the whole of my twenties that way. But of late I have been timid. Writers block and being the father of an infant has made me a bit cautious. Or maybe it gave me too much excuse to be too cautious.
<br />
<br />Time for a bit of hacking away at things. Time for a bit of gumption.
<br />
<br />Forward. In all directions. Towel off. Repeat. Rinse. Repeat.
<br />daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-18679184767647770712011-07-25T17:54:00.001-05:002011-07-26T10:45:46.953-05:00Not an office, not a restaurant.Several months back my friend Maria posted the following on facebook:<br /><br /><blockquote>Did you know that Fido [in Nashville's Hillsboro Village neighborhood] turns off its wireless internet if the cafe gets busy to get people to leave their tables? I told the manager that this does not seem to be in the spirit of Bongo Java and Fido. He said that this is a restaurant not an office. The wireless has been turned off and back on twice during the half-hour I've been here. Both times I lost data. Thanks a lot.</blockquote><br />That post got me thinking.<br /><br />There is a great coffee shop here in Memphis - <a href="http://www.republiccoffeememphis.com/cg/rc.pl">Republic Coffee</a> - I go there often to work (in fact, I am sitting in Republic as I type this). The internet is always on, and when it conks out I tell s<span class="text_exposed_show">omebody and the staff apologizes and gets it up and running again.<br /><br />As a result, I often sit for hours, which means I will likely eat a meal in addition to getting coffee, and sometimes a little nosh between meals as well. Because the staff is so cool about it, and because I feel very comfortable there, Kira and I often make a point to go there on days when I'm not writing, and grab a meal. I'm a good tipper anyway, but my tips are especially high at Republic.<br /><br />In other words, because of their wireless policy, I have made it a habit both to work there and go out of my way to eat there. In addition, I feel strongly enough about their wireless policy to take up four or five minutes to write a comment in here about it.<br /><br />I am thinking about these things because I see a stark contrast between the approach Republic is taking to the approach Fido is taking, and it is worth lingering over this difference for a moment or two.<br /><br /></span><span>I love taxonomy and definitions, and I think this is an interesting taxonomic problem. Despite the manager's adamant stance, I think he is committing a categorical error.<br /><br />(First off, let me say that I will avoi<span class="text_exposed_show">d the term "cafe" here, since in American culture that is a "gray area" term - it used to mean "coffee house," but now often means informal restaurant where light fare is served quickly, So, in what follows, the polarity is between "restaurant" and "coffee house" - adamantly)<br /><br />If you serve an espresso at the end of a meal, with dessert, you're a restaurant. If you put coffee drinks at the end of a menu (and they are listed simply "coffee," "cappuccino," "espresso," etc.) , with the desserts, you're a restaurant.<br /><br />If you put coffee drinks at the front of the menu, with a range of sizes for each, chances are you're a coffee house. If you have more varieties of coffee drinks offered than you have, say, varieties of sandwiches, chances are pretty good you're a coffee house.</span></span><br /><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />A "coffee house" entails coffee house culture - which is a culture of lingering. This is a certain type of lingering, which leads to conversations, creativity, and thought (all of which are goods in themselves, and need no economic justification for their encouragement and flourishing). This type of lingering should not be confused with other types of lingering that are malicious in nature, such as loitering or lurking.<br /><br />I will agree with the manager that Fido isn't an office, true. But I want to argue that Fido also <span style="font-style: italic;">isn't</span> a restaurant. It is a coffee house, just like Republic Coffee (and my beloved <a href="http://www.mysfcoffee.com/">San Francisco Coffee Roasting Company</a> in Atlanta) are coffee houses. It is a third space: not an office, not a restaurant. And that third space is both necessary and important.<br /><br />When I want to write, I don't go to write in a restaurant, because a restaurant does not convey or foster an atmosphere of lingering or creativity, even though a restaurant will serve me coffee (and, incidentally, I can also get coffee at my office). I write where the vibe is best for writing.<br /><br />So, I will argue, a coffee house is not about the coffee, at the end of the day. It is about the type of atmosphere and interaction I can expect -- with other patrons and with staff -- when I go there. Furthermore, I don't feel I need to "justify" this expectation in economic terms, even though (as I pointed out above), it certainly seems to me that there is tremendous economic benefit to a coffee house from folks like me, since we tend to attract other folks of like mind (that's the point) to be around us, because that helps us do creative work. Fostering such an atmosphere is beneficial to the establishment itself, of course, because even though the crowd may be there for the atmosphere, as a byproduct we tend to eat and drink and tip.<br /><br />Why go on about this? Because it matters - at least to me (and, I hope, to folks like me). There is so much pressure to justify the cash value of everything these days, which makes me distracted and sad.<br /><br />I look at my lovely baby daughter -- no cash value, just unqualified good in her own right. Poetry? No cash value, but unqualified good, nonetheless. I don't want to live in a world where everything has a price, and whose price has been calculated and fractured over time increments.<br /><br />So I am thankful for little pockets of culture (particularly coffee house culture) that still remain, because these, too, are unqualified goods in themselves. A place to sit, and think, and write, is too rare in the wasteland of strip malls and parking lots that America has become not to spend a few minutes writing praise when we find them.<br /><br />So I say "amen" to coffee houses, which are neither restaurants nor offices, and I say "shame" to Fido, a sad, confused establishment that yearns to be something it is not, to the detriment of Hillsboro Village, to the detriment of us all.<br /></span><span jsid="text"><span class="text_exposed_show"><br />What do you think?</span></span>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-32321781316313406662011-02-01T16:50:00.000-06:002011-02-01T16:51:39.452-06:00Dear Senator Alexander, Please Support the Health Care LawDear Senator Alexander,<br /><br />As I have several times before, I am writing you as a citizen and small business owner firmly in favor of the present health care reforms. I support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act recently made into law by Congress, and support continued efforts on the part of concerned citizens and legislators to improve the law until it contains a government-supported, single-payer option.<br /><br />I am therefore writing you to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to please cease all efforts to undermine or repeal PPAC. Furthermore, I am asking you to work to continue the momentum begun by the passage of the Act into law. This health care legislation is not perfect, granted, but it is an essential and necessary start. Too many Tennesseans face dire consequences if the law is repealed or if the enactment of its reforms are delayed. Please, for their sakes and for mine, change your position and stand in full support of the Patient Protective and Affordable Care Act!<br /><br />Your recent vocal efforts in the Senate to spearhead the repeal effort take us backward, not forward. It is the wrong battle, waged against the wrong enemy. Speaking as one of the working poor, as a person scraping every day to make a business work in this economy, we are not the problem. We need Washington to give us support and increased safety nets like the Health Care law, not take threaten to take them away!<br /><br />I realize we deeply disagree on this issue. Therefore I am hopeful that, if nothing else, I can appeal to your conscience on this matter. I am a Christian, and Scripture clearly states we must protect the least of these among us. When we do so, we honor our Creator. I hope, even if we disagree on much else, we can firmly agree on this point.<br /><br />At a time when so many dire issues face our nation, I hope you will lead your colleagues in the Senate, as you have so many times in the past, to a higher ground of conversation than I have seen these past two weeks. Now is *not* the time to attach anti-Health Care amendments to each new bill. Now is *not* the time to fixate on repealing Health Care as some sort of "mandate" from the recent election. Now is the time to help the economy by moving forward, not dwelling in the past.<br /><br />Thank you for your service to the state of Tennessee, and please know that I speak for a great many Tennesseans when I say that I support the Health Care law, and that repeal is not the answer.<br /><br />Cordially,<br /><br />David Daultdaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-75492277633842964452011-02-01T16:42:00.002-06:002011-02-01T16:56:20.983-06:00Dear Senator Corker, Please Support the Health Care LawDear Senator Corker,<br /><br />As I have several times before, I am writing you as a citizen and small business owner firmly in favor of the present health care reforms. I support the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act recently made into law by Congress, and support continued efforts on the part of concerned citizens and legislators to improve the law until it contains a government-supported, single-payer option.<br /><br />I am therefore writing you to urge you, in the strongest possible terms, to please cease all efforts to undermine or repeal PPAC. Furthermore, I am asking you to work to continue the momentum begun by the passage of the Act into law. This health care legislation is not perfect, granted, but it is an essential and necessary start. Too many Tennesseans face dire consequences if the law is repealed or if the enactment of its reforms are delayed. Please, for their sakes and for mine, change your position and stand in full support of the Patient Protective and Affordable Care Act!<br /><br />Mr. Corker, two summers ago you and I spoke face to face at a town hall meeting. At that time you watched as angry voices heckled me because I asked you to help me and my pregnant wife by voting in favor of health care. That evening, you looked me in the eye and I had the feeling you were ashamed at what your constituents were shouting at me. Like me, I hope you feel we are better than that in this state.<br /><br />Therefore I am hopeful that I can appeal to your conscience on this matter. I am a Christian, and Scripture clearly states we must protect the least of these among us. When we do so, we honor our Creator. I hope, even if we disagree on much else, we can firmly agree on this point.<br /><br />At a time when so many dire issues face our nation, I hope you will lead your colleagues in the Senate, as you have so many times in the past, to a higher ground of conversation than I have seen these past two weeks. Now is *not* the time to attach anti-Health Care amendments to each new bill. Now is *not* the time to fixate on repealing Health Care as some sort of "mandate" from the recent election. Now is the time to help the economy by moving forward, not dwelling in the past.<br /><br />Thank you for your service to the state of Tennessee, and please know that I speak for a great many Tennesseans when I say that I support the Health Care law, and that repeal is not the answer.<br /><br />Cordially,<br /><br />David Daultdaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-24633915159168150252011-01-21T16:58:00.016-06:002011-01-21T23:49:53.238-06:00Five Theses on the X-Files: An Appreciation<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvLRAWa0_BlNHTOTa1Ph4sY1ye3vrBrDTquLUxjhySWwgcBtNcexdvj3sSlDu0TkVEoIzTYghk8DsHuOlx5JbOoF6RIaSD696YY87dwrE3cIiAvNBxSGOhsCDDto7BbCVbV3w/s1600/XFilespic.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 142px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiWvLRAWa0_BlNHTOTa1Ph4sY1ye3vrBrDTquLUxjhySWwgcBtNcexdvj3sSlDu0TkVEoIzTYghk8DsHuOlx5JbOoF6RIaSD696YY87dwrE3cIiAvNBxSGOhsCDDto7BbCVbV3w/s200/XFilespic.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564879538575709138" border="0" /></a>As an adult, I have never owned a TV or had television in my home. Nevertheless, those that know me know that I have managed to become fanatical about a handful of shows over the past two decades. Despite not having a TV I have exploited videotapes, then DVDs, and more recently streaming technology to catch up and keep up with my faves. I also have benefited over the years from the generosity of folks who were willing to let me come over week after week when I couldn't wait until the end of a season to find out what happened (Jonathan, Maria, and Laura, I am talking to you).<br /><br />My fanaticism is no joke. I either ignore TV or I obsess about it. This is likely a holdover from my youth when, as a bored (and boring) child, I watched everything indiscriminately. I could sit and watch awful tripe for hours on end. I avoid that nowadays, but I find that, when I let myself, I fall into narratives and get totally wrapped up.<br /><br />Some of the shows that have held me fast over the years only did so for a handful of seasons. <a href="http://www.kryptonsite.com/news.htm">Smallville</a>, for example, faded for me after several major characters left the show (and it started feeling like Dawson's Creek with super powers). Similarly, though the first two seasons of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/24_%28TV_series%29">24</a> were gripping, it eventually became formulaic at best and a torture-fest at its worst. I still enjoy going back to episodes of both on occasion, but the series arc overall does not hold me.<br /><br />Then there are the series that held me the whole way through. <a href="http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Lost">LOST</a> immediately comes to mind, as does <a href="http://www.hulu.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer">Buffy </a><a href="http://www.hulu.com/buffy-the-vampire-slayer">the Vampire Slayer</a> (it took sticking through a season to get me hooked, but I got hooked and stayed hooked). A more recent discovery was <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2149566/">The Wire</a>, which was utterly fantastic throughout, and AMC's <a href="http://www.amctv.com/originals/Rubicon/">Rubicon</a>, which had tremendous promise but has sadly been canceled at the end of its first season.<br /><br />Of all this fanaticism, however, nothing holds a place in my heart like the X-Files.<br /><br />I was first introduced to the series by my friend <a href="http://www.derwanderer.net/">Theron</a>, and over the years I would catch an episode here and there. Later, when the DVD box sets came out, I watched the "mythology" sets, and then the whole thing. Repeatedly. I loved it.<br /><br />This past Christm<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd-d7F3o-bqaIxQa0kHEovmBcYZ6JfEj43eBPf8p1uwQeM1302i-sXgFqt7HDGhLndMbeXXDNvDNgkBvW_GDLdVIJg-U9PQP8Zhse_a13xi28gcSgCgNuXn13P3uz30TbHoezv/s1600/xfiles.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjd-d7F3o-bqaIxQa0kHEovmBcYZ6JfEj43eBPf8p1uwQeM1302i-sXgFqt7HDGhLndMbeXXDNvDNgkBvW_GDLdVIJg-U9PQP8Zhse_a13xi28gcSgCgNuXn13P3uz30TbHoezv/s200/xfiles.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564874227521665986" border="0" /></a>as <a href="http://www.derwanderer.net/">Theron</a> and I had a conversation about the series, and that got me thinking about some of the things I have come to believe about what it means for me. It made me want to watch it again, as well. So over the past several weeks, my wife Kira and I have begun to re-watch the series from the beginning. We are now just finishing Season Three. This is Kira's second time all the way through. It is my fifth. As we've been talking about the episodes along the way, some observations have come up that seemed fit to share. So thanks for letting me be a nerd for a few minutes about my favorite show.<br /><br />First of all, this is my first time re-watching the series since I finished watching LOST last year. I'll be honest, I had expected that LOST would have cooled me on the X-Files somewhat, but I am finding that is not the case. If anything, the intricacy and connectedness I find in LOST has just made me appreciate X-Files all the more. In fact (and I don't think JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof or Carlton Cuse would dispute this), in many ways the X-Files made a show like LOST possible. Certainly LOST found an audience primed and hungry for weirdness and conspiracy in the wake of Mulder and Scully's long run. LOST made it respectably through six seasons, weathering a writers' strike and still delivering a quality story throughout. The X-Files managed to make it half-again longer than that, weathering a change of production location and the loss of its major star, and still delivered quality throughout. Kudos to both for that.<br /><br />I know that some of my readers are long-time fans. I also know some have never seen the show. I hope the following will pique the interest of the latter half and give way to some good conversations with the former half. In what follows, I am going to make some opinionated observations, and I welcome comments and corrections from both newbies and fanatics alike.<br /><br />Strap in, ladies and gents. We are entering alpha-nerd territory. Here are my five theses about the X-Files:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >If you think the X-Files is a series about aliens, you are missing the point.</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> Around the release a couple years ago of the second movie, <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.xfiles.com/">X-Files: I Want to Believe</a>, I had many conversations with folks who voiced their disappointment and confusion with the film. "Where are the alien</span><span style="font-size:100%;">s?" was what I heard over and over again.<br /><br />It makes sense, o</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNmZcWKYyxiG1zOQAkJS2Ipgl1zpSQIo7CVspUbrYNp6kSmn5WE0Jp7LghStzOHCJfARlkg1qc7t7gJRBM7pvXhqU8TvOnEA9ouy6mcIlz-rKtm-YnovaTCme4nuXbrm06m7-Y/s1600/xfilesaliens.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNmZcWKYyxiG1zOQAkJS2Ipgl1zpSQIo7CVspUbrYNp6kSmn5WE0Jp7LghStzOHCJfARlkg1qc7t7gJRBM7pvXhqU8TvOnEA9ouy6mcIlz-rKtm-YnovaTCme4nuXbrm06m7-Y/s200/xfilesaliens.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564874966097615026" border="0" /></a></span><span style="font-size:100%;">f course. Clearly the alien stories and mythology were an essential part</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> of the series. But -- as i</span><span style="font-size:100%;">mportant as a backbone is -- it is nothing without the muscles and sinews around it. Th</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e X-File</span><span style="font-size:100%;">s was preoccupied foremost with telling creepy stories, and telling them well. The alien st</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ories were definitely creepy, but so wer</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e the stand-alone "monster of the week" episodes (and sometimes more so. Think of "2Shy" from Season 3, or "Home," which some have rightly called "<a href="http://www.tv.com/the-five-scariest-episodes-in-tv-history/story/19102.html">the</a></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><a href="http://www.tv.com/the-five-scariest-episodes-in-tv-history/story/19102.html"> scariest hour ever aired on television</a>").<br /><br />Which is all to say that a focus on the aliens alone means you miss a lot of good tingles -- both from the creepy monsters and from all the good development of Mulder and Scully's relationship.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:130%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">If you think the X-Files is ab</span></span><span style="font-size:100%;"><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >out figuring out the conspiracy, you're missing the point.</span> This is a similar temptation to the one that frustrated a lot of the LOST </span><span style="font-size:100%;">viewers. Like the LOST writers, Chris Carter, Frank Spotnitz and the other key players in the X-Files were very good at weaving intricate, long-running story arcs that dropped clue after clue in an ever-widening</span><span style="font-size:100%;"> web of intrigue.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">But the X-Files is not a mystery novel. Despite the pedantic tone of the series finale, the story arc does not neatly re</span><span style="font-size:100%;">solve or tie itself off in satisfying closure. This is largely because there is not one conspiracy at work in the X-Files, but several overlapping ones at once.<br /><br />Remember that th</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNWgZJTs_sBYRylEbIZjFPblUCwbrtUzfUaFHL0vHXVPhKeJF2F3GjoMzgNjgJjOsfO16eGxehIIBJVmVBJ7KC_kLm1ql7tUb7_6F1r1yOy8swkZLSTWNhV10Xt6TA7rYkyN1I/s1600/WilliamDavis.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 147px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhNWgZJTs_sBYRylEbIZjFPblUCwbrtUzfUaFHL0vHXVPhKeJF2F3GjoMzgNjgJjOsfO16eGxehIIBJVmVBJ7KC_kLm1ql7tUb7_6F1r1yOy8swkZLSTWNhV10Xt6TA7rYkyN1I/s200/WilliamDavis.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564876813819115826" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">e Consortium are pretty much all dead by the end of Season Six, having been killed off in a hang</span><span style="font-size:100%;">a</span><span style="font-size:100%;">r by the rebel faceless aliens (alpha-nerd - I warned you). But their death did not mean the conspiracies went away. Even before their demise, we were shown that </span><span style="font-size:100%;">there were other agendas at work, at all levels of the government and the shadow government.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">The one common thread was venality and self-interest. As the conflicting intrigues unfolded we see again and again that self-interest is the strongest loyalty most of the characters hold. Krycheck certainly exemplifies this, selling his services to the highest bidder and repeatedly double-crossing everyone, but he is only the most visible exemplar. Everyone and every organization is out to increase its power and cover its hind quarters. The overlap </span><span style="font-size:100%;">of these self-aggrandizing machinations drive most of the deep plots of the long-term story arc.<br /><br />In fact, as time goes by, we come to discover not only multiple agendas among the humans in the show, but also the multi-leveled conflicts among the various alien races, at work for or against the colonization plot, and for or against hybridization. The complexity makes the show rich with narrative possibility, and -- for me -- makes the show's conspiracies all th</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e more lifelike and realistic. I mean, spend a little time researching the various conspiracy theories around the Kennedy assassination -- trying to find one clear narrative in that rabbit hole is a lost cause, mostly because everyone's ex</span><span style="font-size:100%;">planation brings in more and more groups that had some interest in the events, from Oswald ad infinitum.<br /><br />The desire to take the complex story line and find the key to unlocking it can drive other simplifications, as well. So it seems important to say this -<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >If you think the X-Files is about the struggle between science and the supernatural, you are missing the point.</span> A theme that resurfaces continually in the series riffs on the polarity between Scully, "trained in hard science" and rational inquiry, and Mulder, whose "spooky" ideas have taken him "outside the Bureau mainstream" into laughingstock territory.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_g5oSja9Rpj-WOiY-RtRK7W2FVFFswYqtQVJP6SngdlAlWewoGrcfU45gm7TBarIawYt-QdL_gh55W-MR4kev5cFEzFIj_WxI4oqT0_H5GqLjCEXAkAqYRtPO6mZ1TNwa0BD4/s1600/x-files-believe1-1.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 159px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_g5oSja9Rpj-WOiY-RtRK7W2FVFFswYqtQVJP6SngdlAlWewoGrcfU45gm7TBarIawYt-QdL_gh55W-MR4kev5cFEzFIj_WxI4oqT0_H5GqLjCEXAkAqYRtPO6mZ1TNwa0BD4/s200/x-files-believe1-1.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564877503465581090" border="0" /></a>In the first two seasons, in fact, this polarity is sharply emphasized, and it leads to some very interesting stories in which Mulder holds the place of "the feminine" in the narrative. What I mean is that the other m</span><span style="font-size:100%;">en in the FBI treat him, narratively, as females have often been treated in television procedural </span><span style="font-size:100%;">dramas. Detectives roll their eyes at him, refuse to take his ideas seriously, and work actively to get him out of the way so the "real work" can be done. It is especially interesting to watch Scully's reaction to this behavior, especially when she participates in it.<br /><br />If that were the whole of the tension, that would certainly be interesting. As the series develops, however, we are exposed to the complexity of this tension, and the polarity is anything but simple. First of all, while Scully is a rationalist and scientist, she is also a person of religious faith -- a fact that should provide common ground with Mulder's supposed "irrationality." Instead, her faith confounds him. Despite his credulity for all forms of the supernatural, this is one realm into which Mulder refuses to venture. In Mulder's wo</span><span style="font-size:100%;">rld, there is room for aliens, but not angels. Scully, however, can see the hand of God in events, and becomes more bold in saying so as time goes by.</span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />This asymmetry makes for one of my favorite aspects of the show. Throughout the series we see both Mulder and Scully facing crises of "faith," as Scully waxes and wanes with her Catholicism and Mulder bitterly abandons his belief in aliens as a result of one of the many false conspiracies that are "revealed" to him by the venal powers manipulating his crusade for their own purposes. In the final episode, when we hear Scully assert to Mulder that "you and I believe the same thing</span><span style="font-size:100%;">," the admission is as hard-won as it is accurately inaccurate. Mulder and Scully may believe the same Truth, but their respective articulations of that Truth, and its ultimate meaning, are still deeply personalized.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >If you think the X-Files "jumped the shark" after Season Seven, you are missing the point.</span> Next to the lack of aliens in the film, Mulder's departure from the series is often cited by my friends as their bi</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ggest disappointment about the series. The implication is that the series went disastrously awry, in terms of character and story, with David Duchovny's absence. In television parlance, this i</span><span style="font-size:100%;">s known as "jumping the shark." Even the Cigarette Smoking Man says, "you know how important Mulder is to the equation."<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">True as this may be, ther</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxe3DhRx9XJzM31sfRlUIpxn13YYLRkcQDIqfTa6DAnLwsKb7FkYcRyxePXuz-4KlSoUQbEvcqB8SEUT2EPNOM1pm8kWR43jo_U1aBi40Od9AQE_Z9l-u4rbxtvKGb72J_4-H/s1600/xfiles_l.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 200px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlxe3DhRx9XJzM31sfRlUIpxn13YYLRkcQDIqfTa6DAnLwsKb7FkYcRyxePXuz-4KlSoUQbEvcqB8SEUT2EPNOM1pm8kWR43jo_U1aBi40Od9AQE_Z9l-u4rbxtvKGb72J_4-H/s200/xfiles_l.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564867201601930578" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">e is more to the story. Though he is physically absent for the majority of the last two seasons, Mulder's absence forms a central presence to both the narrative and the development of the relatio</span><span style="font-size:100%;">nships between Scully and her new partners, Doggett and Reyes.<br /></span><br /><span style="font-size:100%;">In Doggett and Reyes we have a chance to see the X-Files through new eyes, and new perspectives. The approaches of both to the unexplained phenomena in the Files are significantly different to those of Mulder, and in confronting thes</span><span style="font-size:100%;">e approaches, Scully is pushed to further define her place as the X-Files's advocate. Where her original role was that of skeptic, brought in to debunk Mulder's work, by Season Six she is the voice and the champion of the X-Files in a changed FBI landscape.<br /><br />I will admit that the final two seasons are somewhat weak, but so are the first two seasons of the show. With the introduction of new major characters, a period of adjustment has to occur for dynamics and relationships to become firmly established. This was certainly true through all of Season One and most of Season Two. Think, for example, of "Ice," an early episode where Mulder and Scul</span><span style="font-size:100%;">ly's relationship is tenuous at best and there is very little trust or camaraderie in the face of unknown dangers. In contrast, by Season Two's cliffhanger conclusion, "Anasazi," Scully defends Mulder's innocence despite his violent and aberrant behavior and seeming guilt in the death of his father.<br /><br />Truly, the high water mark for the X-Files finds its home in seasons Three through Six, but this means that those who would dismiss the Doggett and Reyes episodes should also dismiss the early Mulder and Scully episodes. While weaker than the strongest seasons, I contend that Seasons Eight and Nine are at least as strong as Seasons One and Two, and in some cases stronger.<br /><br />Which leads to the inevitable conclusion:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:130%;" >If you think the X-Files is about Mulder, you're missing the point.</span> Despite all the twists and turns along the way, the Mulder that we encounter in <span style="font-style: italic;">X-Files: I Want to Believe</span> is fundamentally the sa</span><span style="font-size:100%;">me Mulder we first see in the basement office in the Pilot episode of Season One. Mulder is static. He matures, but he does not change.<br /><br />The X-Files is about Scully. From the very first scene of the series (where we see her enter the J. Edgar Hoover building to be briefed), to the last shot of the show (where she and Mulder lay quiet as the rain falls outside), to the last shot of I Want to Believe </span><span style="font-size:100%;">(where she begins the operation to save the boy's life under the prayerful eyes of the nuns), Scully is the focal point. Mulder doesn't change, but Scully does.<br /><br />While remaining com</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFR2Hy1DFFLSFzb5MPpfK4SKcF6JwTNhQvJtc0DGNjyR1MpSZqyWP3hTbYb4sr2bHcd9_2YQw7evq23IDlt5hl-n4ZPdyVfTgNKTv4hq-vfKw5HzLIjkveko2MxEPi8HHSBn_/s1600/Scully-the-x-files.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 154px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjtFR2Hy1DFFLSFzb5MPpfK4SKcF6JwTNhQvJtc0DGNjyR1MpSZqyWP3hTbYb4sr2bHcd9_2YQw7evq23IDlt5hl-n4ZPdyVfTgNKTv4hq-vfKw5HzLIjkveko2MxEPi8HHSBn_/s200/Scully-the-x-files.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5564866269406520562" border="0" /></a><span style="font-size:100%;">mitted to her scientific and rational view of the world, we get to watch as Scully rediscovers her childhood faith, and then watch again as that faith broadens beyond dogma to spirituality, </span><span style="font-size:100%;">ecstasy, and ecumenism. She meets a boy messiah, angels, miracle children, three incarnations of Satan and at least one incorruptable martyr along the way. It is more than subtly hinted that her inexplicable child, William, has a somewhat Christ-like "dual natu</span><span style="font-size:100%;">re" that could someday bring peace between the aliens and the human race. By the last seasons of the show, she has had a remarkable faith journey, to say the least.<br /><br />More than this, however, she becomes open to the Truth of the phenomena contained in the X-Files. Not in the way Mulder is open, but she achieves a credulity that remains balanced with her commitment to scientific inquiry. As an empiricist she has encountered overwhelming evidence of mysteries; unlike Mulder, she does not jump to explain them, but she accepts that, until the proper answers are found, these experiences cannot simply be dismissed. By the time she is paired with Agent Doggett, then, she has become the "spooky" one at the FBI. She has not become Mulder, but she understands him and what he must have gone through in those early years alone in the basement office.<br /><br />This, in the end, is what makes the X-Files -- from very start to very finish -- so compelling for me. The slow build up of trust and affection between Mulder and Scully, the eventual consummation and inseparability they achieve in the narrative, despite Mulder's absence, and the tenderness and respect they show each other, are deeply satisfying to me. Moreover, as a person who makes his living trying to understand the deep conflicts that drive and motivate persons of faith, Scully's struggles and triumphs are to me very realistic and extraordinarily edifying.<br /><br />And that, from start to finish, is for me the heart and soul of the X-Files. More than any other show I have seen, I think the creators and writers of the X-Files kept integrity with that heart and paid honor to that soul. This is why, to the confusion of my friends, I was so happy with I Want to Believe, despite its lack of aliens, and why I am certain this will not be the last time I watch the whole thing, start to finish. I want to. I believe.<br /></span>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-46006023339659795842011-01-18T20:39:00.005-06:002011-01-18T21:00:23.151-06:00Overheard on LimbaughSo today, January 18, 2010, Rush Limbaugh said the following as <a href="http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_011811/content/01125109.guest.html">part of his daily radio program</a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>The left is constantly telling anybody who will listen how rotten this country is, how rotten we are, how rotten the nation is, how unfair and unjust our economic system is. They create this environment of pessimism, self-hate, and desperation. They tell victims -- and they try to make as many people victims as possible by putting them in groups of victims.<br /><br />They tell these people that they've got no chance in this unjust and unfair country. "If you're Hispanic, you got no chance. If you're African-American, you got no chance. If you're a woman and African-American, you are doomed! You have no chance. The only out for you is the military, and if you do that, you're stupid, but you really can't be blamed because this economy was so destroyed by George W. Bush, you have no future." What is this going to do to people? And this went on for eight years. And before Clinton got to ten it went on for 16 or 12 years, during Reagan and the first term of Bush. This has been a constant refrain: Uunjust, unfair America is.<br /></blockquote><br />What stuck me was how similar, at least on the surface, this sounds to a message written by Dr. Carter G. Woodson, in 1933, in his book <a href="http://historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/misedne.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">The Mis-Education of the Negro</span></a>:<br /><br /><blockquote>THE "educated Negroes" have the attitude of contempt toward their own people because in their own as well as in their mixed schools Negroes are taught to admire the Hebrew, the Greek, the Latin and the Teuton and to despise the African. Of the hundreds of Negro high schools recently examined by an expert in the United States Bureau of Education only eighteen offer a course taking up the history of the Negro, and in most of the Negro colleges and universities where the Negro is thought of, the race is studied only as a problem or dismissed as of little consequence. For example, an officer of a Negro university, thinking that an additional course on the Negro should be given there, called upon a Negro Doctor of Philosophy of the faculty to offer such work. He promptly informed the officer that he knew nothing about the Negro. He did not go to school to waste his time that way. He went to be educated in a system which dismisses the Negro as a nonentity.</blockquote><br /><br />I'd like to suggest, however, that there is a vast world of difference between Dr. Woodson saying this from a place of oppression, and Rush saying similar things from behind the gold-plated microphone of the EIB Network. To see the similarities on the face of the messages (that minorities have been fed a load of ideological horse manure about their proper place in society) is to miss the fundamental point.<br /><br />For a member of the master class to point this out (and El Rushbo is always happy to point out, with his "nicotine stained finger," that he is part of the master class) is perhaps gauche, but has no possibility of being a call to revolutionary consciousness. When Dr. Woodson names it, however, he names not only the problem itself but those who perpetrate and profit by it.<br /><br />When patriotic critics speak of the inequalities facing the minorities in this country, it is not to score points in the political game. It is to name a problem that, God willing, will be rectified.<br /><br />The key question, the one El Rushbo doesn't actually ask, is who constitutes the "they" spreading these messages of inferiority? Woodson knows. Were he alive today, Woodson would be pointing steadily at the man behind the gold-plated microphone, and the powerful interests for whom he speaks.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-14638708582406718942011-01-15T22:44:00.002-06:002011-01-15T23:06:36.522-06:00Love and Loss in a Digital AgeGmail is eerie to me these days. I still use it, but it has a haunted aspect.<br /><br />A little over two years ago, my mother passed away. Despite this fact, her presence remains as a ghostly part of my gmail account. When I mouse over her name in my contacts list, a stylized picture of <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEDwxd8LT4tBY916YXD7RYGUzwuufeaN6lM1SpggFwC9BD3SAKgDBRvHcHST8eXM_wHbEcIsN7FUbLGikR-yde0FBnV1o0AdWtmpVTVEqa2i8qvYBPrFeu-MQHfszP1ykQzZ6/s1600/AnnThomas.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 96px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiFEDwxd8LT4tBY916YXD7RYGUzwuufeaN6lM1SpggFwC9BD3SAKgDBRvHcHST8eXM_wHbEcIsN7FUbLGikR-yde0FBnV1o0AdWtmpVTVEqa2i8qvYBPrFeu-MQHfszP1ykQzZ6/s200/AnnThomas.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5562645465650409282" border="0" /></a>her face appears, hovering, until the mouse moves away. I have archived emails and voicemails the linger, despite her absence from this world. She still has a toe hold here. She remains, though departed.<br /><br />I am thinking about that today. Today my friends buried a friend of mine. She passed away a little over a week ago, and the funeral was today. Thirty-six years old. Too young. I couldn't be at the funeral. It is eight hours by car, and my wife and daughter are both sick in bed. And yet, here on Facebook, I am connected to the events. I have managed to get a status update or two throughout the afternoon. It breaks my heart that I could not be there. I wanted to be. But the sting is lessened, somewhat, by these odd electrical connections.<br /><br />And here, in various places, I have her emails and messages to me. I have inklings of places where she and I were connected randomly -- she quotes a lyric from one of my songs here, we have a mutual friend there. None of it adds up to the weight of her absence, but the weight nonetheless is palpable. Substantial. Like my mother, my friend Elizabeth still has a toe hold in this world.<br /><br />For the last twenty years or more I have kept some records of things. Projects I have been a part of that make me proud. The files they kept on me from grade school and high school (yes. I have them). My poetry, such as it is, and my writings (even the bad ones). Pictures. Old cassette tapes. Every rejection letter from every school and job I ever applied to. I have these things.<br /><br />Why? Because I want, to whatever degree possible, to leave a breadcrumb trail when I am gone. I want to have pieces that others can piece together. It won't add up to my life, I know, and the life it adds up to will probably only be a parody of the one I lived, a shadow play. But dumb show or not, I want to leave the breadcrumbs and have them be found. I want to leave a toe in this world.<br /><br />When we were cleaning out my mother's house, there was so little time. So much got passed over, and thrown away, or lost. If she intended tidy endings and well-kept meanings for me, I missed them in the maelstrom. I have had to make my own meanings. So will you. Meanings are for the living, not the dead. No matter how much I would like to control my meaning when I am gone, the best any of us get is the phantom face during a mouse-over.<br /><br />It is all there is. It is enough.<br /><br />And so I say goodbye again to my dear, strange mother, as I do every time my mouse glances near her name and that face appears. And I say goodbye today to Elizabeth, though I am certain my goodbyes will echo again and again as I bump into her toe holds here in my digital world. Goodbye. I have loved you as best I could, and I love you still, in my own strange and halting ways. Please pray for me as I pray for you. I hope we meet again -- not as a mouse over, but, as promised, face to face.<br /><br />I love. I miss. I hope.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-65482112232580677922010-10-09T11:49:00.005-05:002010-10-09T12:23:05.784-05:00"MONSTERS": Low Budget, Big Payoff<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=000000&fc1=FBF7F7&lc1=0000FF&t=materialscripture-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=B0044BY98K" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" align="left" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>I've been a small-time film maker and television writer, back in the day, and I've worked with student filmmakers at various levels of their projects. I really love what comes out of the limitations of small film budgets and minimal film crews. Regular readers will <a href="http://figaro-pravda.blogspot.com/2006/09/i-dream-of-wires.html">recall</a> that one of my favorite films of all time is Shane Carruth's <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007N1JC8?ie=UTF8&tag=materialscripture-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0007N1JC8">Primer,</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=materialscripture-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0007N1JC8" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important; font-style: italic;" width="1" border="0" height="1" /> a film shot on 16mm for just over $7,000. Another favorite is Robert Rodriguez's <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0000A2ZTY?ie=UTF8&tag=materialscripture-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0000A2ZTY">El Mariachi,</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=materialscripture-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0000A2ZTY" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" border="0" height="1" /> another hella enjoyable film made for well under ten grand.<br /><br />So I haven't yet seen the whole movie version of Gareth Edwards's new film <a style="font-style: italic;" href="http://www.monstersthemovie.com/">Monsters</a>, but from the <a href="http://trailers.apple.com/trailers/independent/monsters/">trailers</a> and clips I've seen, I'm getting pretty excited. Reportedly shot on a budget of just $15,000 (yes, that's thousand, not million), the film seems to deliver on the things that get you hooked into a narrative: good characters, good story, and leaving a good deal to the imagination.<br /><br />Here's a little behind-the-scenes clip about doing all this on such a low budget:<br /><br /><img style="visibility: hidden; width: 0px; height: 0px;" src="http://counters.gigya.com/wildfire/IMP/CXNID=2000002.0NXC/bT*xJmx*PTEyODY2NDI5MzE1ODcmcHQ9MTI4NjY*Mjk*NTgwOSZwPTE5ODY4MSZkPTBfMnJsOTdicnkmZz*yJm89NWViYmIwOWNm/M2JjNGY4NmE2OWIxOTQ4OGMyNDhhNjgmb2Y9MA==.gif" width="0" border="0" height="0" /><object name="kaltura_player_1286642922" id="kaltura_player_1286642922" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allownetworking="all" allowfullscreen="true" data="http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/1_zkqtgaux/uiconf_id/1310222" width="310" height="174"><br /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"><br /><param name="allowNetworking" value="all"><br /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><br /><param name="bgcolor" value="#000000"><br /><param name="movie" value="http://www.kaltura.com/index.php/kwidget/wid/1_zkqtgaux/uiconf_id/1310222"><br /><param name="flashVars" value=""><br /><a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/">video platform</a><br /><a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/video_platform/video_management">video management</a><br /><a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/solutions/video_solution">video solutions</a><br /><a href="http://corp.kaltura.com/video_platform/video_publishing">video player</a><br /></object><br /><br />Monsters is available for download at <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0044BY98K?ie=UTF8&tag=materialscripture-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0044BY98K">Amazon,</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=materialscripture-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0044BY98K" alt="" style="border: medium none ! important; margin: 0px ! important;" width="1" border="0" height="1" /> and it hits the theaters in limited release on October 29th.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-1580389380465801072010-07-20T23:08:00.003-05:002010-07-20T23:21:17.986-05:00Procrastination Central: Bands I digSo it's eleven at night, and I'm up writing and have hit a momentary block. Tattoo You just came on my headphones, and I'm groovin.' So I decided to do a quick short, non-exhaustive list of bands I love. First ones that come to mind. Why the heck not?<br /><br />So here 'tis, kids. Enjoy.<br /><br /><ol><li>The Rolling Stones (natch)</li><li>The Jayhawks</li><li>Pinback</li><li>Foghat (because "Slow Ride" kicks raw ass)</li><li>The hal al Shedad (You've never heard of them. You should have.)</li><li>Motörhead</li><li>The 3 Mustaphas 3</li><li>The Fall</li><li>Dion and the Belmonts</li><li>Jonatha Brooke</li><li>Sonny Boy Williamson</li><li>Romeo Void</li><li>Billy Squier</li><li>Heatmiser</li></ol>There ya go. Back to writing. Have a good evening. Over and out.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-82181770848092445332010-06-11T05:05:00.051-05:002010-06-22T08:47:16.224-05:00Trusting the Ground CrewAs far as my phobias go, I would have to say "fear of heights" probably ranks as number three.<br /><br />Do not be fooled by this into thinking that it is a mild fear. It is not. Let me give you a quick story to illustrate the point.<br /><br />Once upon a time (actually, around fifteen years ago), while I was working for the <a href="http://obsoutheast.com/contact_us/index.php">North Carolina Outward Bound School</a>, I found myself sitting on a platform near the top of the tree line in the <a href="http://www.pisgahforest.com/public-lands/pisgahnationalforest/">Pisgah national forest</a>. I was about 60 feet in the air, about to depart from the last element of the "ropes course" there in the woods.<br /><br />If you have never had the pleasure of a ropes course, let me describe it. Imagine a skeletal fortress of telephone poles and guy wires that towers above you, standing on the ground. Then imagine someone points at this flimsy bastion of questionable architecture and says, "Climb that." The only way through is up, and the only way off is, well...<br /><br />...That's usually a surprise they don't mention when you're there on the ground. I have been on a lot of ropes courses in my life (particularly when I was working for Outward Bound), and the last element is always pretty dramatic. You never just climb down off a ropes course, like you would expect a civilized person would. No. You have to make one last stab at conquering fears and team building and trust and all that. Which means that it's usually going to involve some sort of leap into the abyss.<br /><br />By that point in my career as an outdoor adventurer, I was expecting the standard mode of ropes course egress: the zip line. But sitting on that platform that morning, there was no zip line. No. I was strapped in and harnessed to what basically amounted to a long pendulum wire. In other words, to get off this particular ropes course, I was going to have to fall off the small platform upon which I was sitting, free-fall in air until the guy wire I was strapped to pulled taut, and then swing back and forth until my momentum slacked enough that somebody could climb a ladder to catch hold of my foot and help me down.<br /><br />My palms are sweating just writing this, by the way.<br /><br />It took me a long time to move my butt off that platform. That, however, is not my evidence for my fear of heights. No. That evidence came later in the trip.<br /><br />One of the guides with the crew I was with that trip was an Australian named Bruce (I'm not kidding). He had been leading a different activity that morning, so I hadn't seen him most of the day. The next morning he and I were together at the rock climbing site, and he asked me, "Were you on the ropes course yesterday?"<br /><br />Yeah, I answered. But why was he asking?<br /><br />"I was leading a hike up the mountain yesterday," he said, laughing, "and we heard you screaming."<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Given that I am terrified to be more than a few feet off the ground (really, even stepladders can prove to be a challenge), you might well ask, how the heck was I able to get up onto that ropes course in the first place?<br /><br />Ah. To explain that, I will have to tell you about "ground school."<br /><br />A ropes course, like many other outdoor activities like rock climbing and rappelling, is a technical activity that involves a series of calculated risks offset by the implementation of safety equipment. In the case of a high-elements ropes course, that equipment includes a <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climbing_harness">Swiss seat</a>, a redundant pair of high-load bearing locking <a href="http://www.rei.com/expertadvice/articles/right+carabiners.html">carabiners</a>, a lot of nylon rope (referred to as "webbing"), and a crash helmet.<br /><br />Participants would suit up in all of this gear, and then our leaders walked us over to a clearing about fifty feet away from the ropes course. There, on the ground, was a horizontal telephone pole, sitting just a few inches off the ground, with a horizontal guy wire stretched about five or six feet above it.<br /><br />This was ground school. The crew had each of us, in turn, get up on the pole and lock ourselves onto the guy wire with the two carabiners. The carabiners, in turn, were attached, via short lengths of nylon webbing, to the Swiss seats at our waists. Once we were locked in, the leaders just had us walk, back and forth, along the length of the pole. Simple enough.<br /><br />Then, right as a little boredom was starting to set in, a new instruction was given: "OK," the leader said," Fall."<br /><br />Huh?<br /><br />"Fall."<br /><br />The task, basically, was to lose your balance and fall off the pole. Now, I don't know about you, but falling is not comfortable for me. My body resisted. It wanted to balance. It took work to fall off the pole. Then, just as I was getting used to the discomfort of falling, a revelation.<br /><br />The webbing snapped taut, and the harness at my waist caught me. I was no longer falling; I was hanging. I was hanging in mid-air, and not altogether uncomfortably. I looked around. This seemed solid. I felt safe.<br /><br />A few more minutes on the pole, and several more falls, confirmed again and again that the equipment could be trusted. It would catch me and hold me, even if I lost my balance. With each fall, my confidence in the process -- and my confidence in myself -- increased a little bit. By the time I got off the pole, I was still afraid of heights, but my body was slowly convinced that the equipment I was in was stronger than the danger I feared.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Bruce took some obvious pleasure in teasing me about my terror. Despite this, I can honestly say that -- except for that last part, swinging and freefalling in the unforgiving sky -- I was not overly uncomfortable with my time on the ropes course. By "not overly uncomfortable," I mean that I was actually able to function and not freeze in abject fear. Given my experiences of other high places (suspension bridges, theater catwalks, <a href="http://www.seerockcity.com/pages/Our-Story/">Rock City</a>), this was quite an accomplishment -- for all parties concerned.<br /><br />I remember the theater catwalk particularly vividly. I was in college, working backstage at the campus theater for my freshman-year work study. Most of my job had been sawing wood, hammering together sets, and painting (and painting, and painting). But one day, the boss wanted me to go up into the ceiling and rig lights. So I climbed up a set of stairs, through a cubby hole, shimmied past the pipes of a pipe organ, and climbed a long and somewhat precariously balanced stepladder. Reaching the top, I had to crawl through another hole, where someone had sawed through the wall up near the ceiling, and onto the catwalk.<br /><br />If you have never been on a catwalk, don't. Just don't. You're some fifty feet in the air, and you are standing on a narrow plank of thin and (as I recall) queasily-flexible plywood. To my right, on the stage side, there was a metal bar that the lights were screwed on to. To my left, there was one steel cable. You couldn't stand all the way up.<br /><br />So there I was, high in the air, with -- as far as I could tell -- absolutely nothing to keep me from falling to my death.<br /><br />I froze. I froze solid. I remember the boss cussed a blue streak at me for freezing, but I froze. I might have timidly adjusted the light closest to me. I might have been able to move just enough to get to one more, but that was it. Utterly useless.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />You might well ask what allowed for the difference between that frozen state on the catwalk and my relative success, years later, on the Pisgah ropes course. What was the secret to not freezing?<br /><br />Simple enough to answer. The difference is trust. Sad to say, but I certainly did not trust my boss at the theater job to look out for the well being of my life and limb. In contrast, at the ropes course, that time spent on that pole a few inches off the ground accomplished two essential and profound things in my psyche that morning before I scaled up to the treetops.<br /><br />First, it caused me to get comfortable with the equipment, and with how the equipment would protect me. That unexpected command, "Fall," and the feeling of being securely caught again and again when I fell, helped me trust the harnesses and carabiners and webbing holding me in place.<br /><br />Second, and more importantly, these moments of growing confidence in the equipment increased my confidence, with each fall, in the folks who had put the equipment on me in the first place. It's hard to describe accurately -- maybe it was a strange equivalent of what they call "Stockholm Syndrome," where kidnap victims begin to empathize with their captors -- but I felt a bond with the leaders grow almost in an instant that was very strong. I knew I was going to be safe because I trusted that these folks were looking out for me.<br /><br />I trusted my ground crew.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />The goal of all the activities in Outward Bound, of course, is not simply to get people into the outdoors. If you only looked casually, though, that's exactly what you would see. But as you examine the pedagogical philosophy more closely, you begin to see that what happens on an Outward Bound trip in the woods could just as easily occur in the heart of a city. The secret goal of Outward Bound is not wilderness adventure. It is risk.<br /><br />"Risk" is almost a dirty word these days. We insure ourselves and shield ourselves to avoid it at all costs. In contemporary living, "risk" equates with "danger." It is this vicious pairing that the pedagogy of Outward Bound seeks to uncouple. Many of us -- most of us -- surround ourselves with a zone of comfort and safety. Anything beyond this zone is, by the logic of our comfort, "dangerous." Think, for example, of all the books on public speaking that report (perhaps apocryphally, perhaps not), that a majority of Americans surveyed "would rather die than give speech."<br /><br />That's a great example of this collapse of "risk" into "danger." To give a speech creates anxiety because there is the risk one will be embarrassed. But embarrassment won't cause you physical harm. Death, on the other hand, is just about the textbook definition of "physically harmful." The two aren't the same. In our modern cocoons of air-conditioning and antacids, however, we are quite likely to forget that.<br /><br />On that catwalk in the theater you might suggest I was in actual danger, and I would not argue with you. That was a moment when my fear, perhaps, served me and my survival well.<br /><br />At the ropes course, however, as I was told again, "Fall," and I fell and was caught, my body began to learn (slowly) that -- though this felt like danger -- I was not in danger. I was safe.<br /><br />It is this zone, where you feel the danger but you are not actually in danger, that the pedagogy of Outward Bound is designed to explore. When you learn to function in this zone, you begin to discern the difference between your brain screaming at you that you are in danger and actually dangerous conditions. Facing the zone of risk, people begin to find in themselves reserves of strength and fortitude they had not previously suspected would exist. If that sounds idealistic, it should. It is hella idealistic, and I do not make apologies for that, because I've seen (and felt in my own bones) that it works.<br /><br />The ability to function in risk, however, is not as simple as making a decision or mouthing pious words. It has to start deep within a person, as the soul learns, inscrutably and by mysterious increments, to trust that, in falling, the harness will hold.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />It was about two in the morning when she awakened me. It was passing from Saturday to Sunday, and it was the dead of January and it was so very cold in Memphis. We were bundled up under the covers and had been sleeping well enough when, groggy, I figured out that she was telling me -- again, because I must have been asleep the first time around -- that she thinks her water just broke.<br /><br />We had planned for this, sort of. We knew that this was just the beginning, and that there was still a long way to go. And it was two in the morning. And suddenly we were shit-sure wide awake and excited, and also trying to convince each other that we needed to go back to sleep; that we needed our rest for all that was ahead.<br /><br />We turned on the little portable DVD player by the bed. Put on an episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Office</span> to distract us with a little laughter. Snuggle back in again against the cold. Try to get a little sleep.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />While the expectations in the Catholic Church are firm about attending weekly Mass, there are also generous loopholes for times of distress or concerns for health. Though I don't know that I have ever seen it mentioned explicitly in the Catechism, we took the liberty the next morning of skipping church on account of the fact that Kira was now on the near edge of labor. Every now and -- ouch! -- again there was a contraction. We thought they were big. We timed them, and then began timing the intervals between. But for the most part, we just had a nice morning and relaxed.<br /><br />There was another episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">The Office</span> to take our mind off things, and then we went for a walk into Cooper-Young and had lunch at the Deli. I forget whether we split a sandwich, or whether we each had one of our own. I do remember, though, that we were laughing about what we might say if one of the wait staff or another patron asked us (as had happened so often since Kira started to show), "When are you due?"<br /><br />"Um...NOW!" we kept giggling.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who, and Mrs. Which are, of course, the three mysterious women who arrive to aid Meg and Charles Wallace in the intergalactic and inter-dimensional search for their father -- the conceit that drives the narrative of Madeleine L'Engle's <span style="font-style: italic;">A Wrinkle in Time</span>.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Wrinkle</span> entered my life through one of those Scholastic order forms in elementary school, where you can sign up to get Newberry and Caldecott winners on the cheap. Moreover, <span style="font-style: italic;">Wrinkle</span> entered my life at a point when I was young enough that my parents were still together. Maybe it was second grade -- that feels about right.<br /><br />Regardless of the exact details, though, I think I can safely credit <span style="font-style: italic;">A Wrinkle in Time</span> for prompting me to be somewhat overly well-disposed towards a trio of crazy women who swoop into your house at all hours, coming to aid in the transportation to strange new worlds and mysterious new realms. In other words, you can thank the Scholastic Book Service for this ease I have when I meet three crazy women on a holy mission.<br /><br />Needless to say, the first time I met the Full Circle Midwives -- Martina, Melissa and Missy -- I couldn't help but think, "Aha: Which, Whatsit and Who." They were quite a team: a German expat, a crunchy Earth-mama type, and a doula -- each with well over a decade (or two) of experience.<br /><br />Midwifery practices are few and far between in this part of Tennessee, but as we compared the options available we knew we were very pleased with what we saw. From the first weeks we had been in Memphis, mid-way into Kira's pregnancy, we had been under their watchful care. They had conducted examinations of Kira and had given us access to numerous (and at times overwhelmingly explicit) videos and resources, as well as simply reassuring us and letting us know that we were not in this alone.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Martina came to the house once in the afternoon and twice later in the evening that Sunday.<br /><br />Kira and I were, by turns, going on walks around the block and relaxing (as much as possible) back at home. We had rearranged the downstairs a couple of weeks before. Now, with the dining room table pushed to one side, we had cleared a large space for the futon mattress and all the supplies we had been told to gather. When Martina arrived she added to our stash of supplies, bringing along an oxygen tank and a couple of medium-sized duffel bags full of medical and midwifery stuff.<br /><br />With each visit that day she only stayed a little while. She checked Kira's progress, and made sure everything was normal (it was), and offered praise and encouragement and helpful suggestions on how to get rest. For the most part, however, she exuded a steady calm that was very reassuring, if for no other reason than that, for us, "calm" was periodically in short supply.<br /><br />By the time Martina left after her late-evening visit, Kira's contractions, which we thought were big at the start of the day, had become much bigger. In fact, at points, they were huge. The night became a groggy ballet for the two of us, as we alternated brief periods of sleep with Kira moaning and me massaging her lower back. But we did manage to sleep, there on that futon mattress on the floor. As before, <span style="font-style: italic;">The Office</span> helped.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />That Monday morning I awoke, and Kira was already up. At this point, she had been in labor for just around thirty hours. It was a good thing we were doing this at home (doctors tend to get impatient, I have heard, if labor goes on and on).<br /><br />We were still timing the contractions, and noting the time between. They were -- how to say this? -- regularly irregular. Kira would call out, "Starting," and I would count Mississippis to myself until she indicated that she was finished. At some point, we graduated to <a href="http://www.contractionmaster.com/">a timer on a webpage</a> that would count the times and intervals for us. We showered, puttered, and timed, spending most of the morning trying still to rest and relax. We made it through a good chunk of that <span style="font-style: italic;">Office</span> season box set.<br /><br />I was useful, though. When a contraction would hit, Kira found it comfortable to sort of wrap her arms around my neck and hang down against me, rocking softly back and forth. I got good at being a steady weight that she could moan against. I'll be honest -- I really liked this part. It made me feel not quite so on the outside of it all. I was part of the team, even if I wasn't the one swinging for the fence, like Kira was.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />A Swiss seat is an odd contraption. The first time you pull one on, it doesn't fit you quite like you expect. You're used to belts that cinch tight around the waist, above the hips. A Swiss seat isn't like that. It grabs you around the thighs, mostly. Then, when you start getting into a weight-bearing situation, the harness pulls tight across your butt. The "seat" part is no mistake -- this thing is designed for you to sit in, not to keep your pants up.<br /><br />The first time I ever got into one I was up repairing a roof in Sewanee, my old college burgh. It was a house down near the town market, as I recall, and we had gotten a bunch of students out that morning to help fix up the place. It was a student organization <a href="http://www.sewanee.edu/outreach/housingsewanee">kind of like Habitat for Humanity</a> (I think now they might even be a Habitat chapter), and I was one of the lucky ones who drew the short straw. The height bothered me, but as long as I stayed pretty far from the edge, the large flat surface of the roof kept my in the range of sanity. We used Swiss seats and long ropes that we borrowed from the wilderness program to make sure us undergrads didn't go cracking our skulls open in the midst of our good deed.<br /><br />What I liked about the Swiss seat best, of course, was this: as you leaned into it, it tightened. The more you needed it to hold you, the more secure it felt.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Martina arrived around noon, and immediately started brewing an extraordinarily strong pot of raspberry leaf tea. Then she examined Kira again, and I showed her our dutiful log of contractions.<br /><br />It's actually pretty funny. When you watch births portrayed on television and the movies, there's all this rushing and hectic energy. "Push! ... Push! ... PUSH!..." and suddenly you hear the telltale "Waaaaaaaaaa" and there are smiles of relief and everybody can't believe they did it and such. Time an on-screen birth sometime. From onset of labor to final "PUSH!" I will bet you that it occurs in under three minutes.<br /><br />Ladies and gentlemen, I am here to tell you, as one for whom the televised versions of birth were my sole training in the process before all of this began, real human births ain't fast like that.<br /><br />Which is all to say, they also make it seem, in those movies and shows, that the timing of contractions is vital information, and that the contractions escalate like some sort of mad logarithmic freight train, doubling and doubling like Moore's law applied as much to wetware as it does hardware.<br /><br />I was disabused of this fiction with Martina's perfunctory, "Hmph. Okay," as I showed her the timetables. Then she went back to tending to my wife. And I realized that, though the contraction timing may not have been anything close to vital information, it did give Kira and me something to hold on to, and something to do, that kept our minds away from panic until the real work needed to begin.<br /><br />But now things actually were progressing, slowly, and the real work needed to begin.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />The really extraordinarily strong pot of raspberry leaf tea, I learned, helps to spur the mother's body on to stronger and more regular contractions. It's a bit of midwifery wisdom that keeps at bay the need for drug interventions like Pitocin.<br /><br />While we were waiting for the pot to brew, the three of us went for a walk around the neighborhood. Actually, I'm being generous. We actually just took a walk around the corner and to the end of the street. This is a distance that, under more usual conditions, would take Kira and I just a few moments to cross. On this walk, however, Martina and I took turns as Kira, every few steps, stopped and labored through another growing contraction. Sometimes she would hang onto my neck, or lean down against Martina.<br /><br />I imagine we were an odd-looking trio, moving slowly down the street and stopping with a moaning woman doubled-over again and again. Like at the Deli the day before, we laughed thinking how we would explain ourselves if someone were to come out of their house and want to know what was going on. "Don't worry, we're fine...She's just having a baby..."<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Martina's approach was nurturing and encouragement all the way. When she praised me for how well I was supporting Kira through this part of the labor, I felt like a million bucks. For a few hours, the three of us were a solid team, with she and I taking turns supporting Kira through the contractions. During this time, it really felt like Kira's body was the one in control, and anything that it did -- whether fast or slow -- was just fine.<br /><br />But Martina had to leave to attend to some family obligations around 3:30 (though she was reluctant to leave us at that point), and so, with Kira now quite full of raspberry leaf tea and me continuing my role as human monkey bars for her to hang on during the painful moments, she said goodbye for now. Not to worry, though. Help was on the way.<br /><br />At quarter to four, Melissa arrived. Help was here.<br /><br />Now let me say this. If you would have just shown all this to me on paper, I would have been sure that, of the two, the earth-mama type (Melissa) would have taken the laid-back, "everything your body does is good" approach and the German (Martina) would have been the third-base coach. Shows you what I know.<br /><br />As soon as she got situated, Melissa got us working to help that baby get ready to come out. Kira was up, switching positions, rocking hips and bouncing on the big exercise ball or laying on her side. As before, I was switching with her, being there when she needed to lean and massaging her lower back.<br /><br />I felt a lot less essential to the process, but I understood why. Kira's contractions were shifting. They had been intense before, but she had been at this for so long that she risked exhaustion, and there was more intensity yet to come. If Martina's approach had been like someone coaxing a deer from the edge of a forest, Martina was breaking a wild bronco. Kira's body was still in control, but it didn't necessarily know the best direction to run. Melissa had every good reason to be stern in her approach.<br /><br />It worked, too. About 4:30, Missy (the doula) arrived, and by that point contractions and dilation were steadily progressing. Nothing was rapid. In fact, Kira was feeling it was too slow, and worrying she'd have to transfer to the hospital. I remembered (from all the videos the midwives had given us to watch) that a lot of moms feel that way in labor right before things really shift into high gear -- so I encouraged her and reminded her of that. She was amazing, and rallied around that thought and hung in there.<br /><br />Missy and Melissa were the team now. I felt the "woman energy" in the room rising markedly, even as my own energy was dwindling. Amazingly (to me, at least), Martina had predicted this, and left instructions with Missy to look out for me. So at five o'clock she sent me upstairs with a sandwich and suggested I nap, if possible.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />We were out in the Pisgah forest for about five days, and on the next to last night the leaders gave each of us a tarp and sent us off by ourselves to make a camp and shelter ourselves with nothing but the materials we had immediately at hand. So I found a good, low tree with cooperative branches and fixed up the tarp with my shoelaces and (since I had a ponytail at the time) some of the elastic bands I had brought along to tie my hair back.<br /><br />That time alone that evening was profound. I remember I spent a long time brushing the tangles out of my hair, and listening to the sounds of the woods. When you go on an Outward Bound trek, part of the gear you bring along is a book of inspirational readings that they have bound up in a pocket-sized folio with some blank pages for your own thoughts and reflections. I read a while, and then I wrote a while, and, strangely, I found myself crying for a while. Today I could not for the life of me tell you what those tears were about. Exhaustion? Alone-ness? Beauty? I don't know. But I cried. That's for sure.<br /><br />Dusk came, and as the daylight fell away, I felt my body become heavy and sleep came easily as the sun disappeared. I remember this was the first time I had ever felt that sort of slippage into slumber. I am so used to electric lights and fighting the dark that I was surprised to find how naturally my body tuned itself into the circadian rhythm. It remembered something I did not; my body knew how to do this better than I did.<br /><br />Most of my life, thinking I was the one in control, I had really just been getting in its way.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />My eyes were open at seven sharp.<br /><br />I was disoriented for a moment, and heard voices downstairs. I found out later that, at almost that same time, Kira had gone into what they call "transition," the final stage of labor. The baby drops into position in the pelvic girdle, and that's when all the muscles shift from stretching open to pushing the baby down and out.<br /><br />I have been told that mothers often make a very peculiar moan as this occurs. I do not know if I heard the moan, or if that was what caused me to wake. I do know, however, that Melissa heard it, and shifted into action.<br /><br />During my nap, Martina had returned, and as I came downstairs I beheld for the first time the three of them together. Mrs. Which, Mrs. Whatsit and Mrs. Who had descended on our home in this cold and windy night, and magic was afoot. Time was wrinkling. Dimensions were shifting. Without knowing the mode of transport, we were arriving on a strange new planet, a new world.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />It was hard not to feel like an outsider, like I had missed something important. The woman energy was in full swing, and I had none of it to offer. Groggy, I fretted over this, but almost at the same moment, I was put back to work. I was rested; Kira needed my strength now.<br /><br />She tells me she remembers almost nothing of that last hour. In the moments between the stabs of pain, she would black out. When she did manage to remain awake for a few minutes, Missy or Martina made sure she took a bite of some food to keep her energy up. Meanwhile, Melissa was there, in the "catcher" position, keeping track of the progress.<br /><br />I was shifted in behind her, and she leaned into me again. As much as I could be, I was with her. I wanted, prayed, that I could absorb her pain through my skin and away from her.<br /><br />As we had those many months before, our bodies found a rhythm. Holding on to her, we rode the storm together.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />At 8:04, the telephone rang. The next day I checked the message. It had been my father, calling for an update.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />What caused those tears, that evening in the forest? I wish I knew. It was so many years ago.<br /><br />But I remember how lost I felt at that point in my life. I was in my mid-twenties, and -- though I was careening ahead into life and debt and decisions and age -- I had no discernible direction. I was a trajectory without a bearing, without a compass. I felt good for nothing and nobody, least of all myself. If I were to bet, something of that was wrapped up in those tears, that evening in the forest.<br /><br />What had changed, in all those years since? Had enough changed?<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />"Do you want to reach down and feel the top of your baby's head, Kira?"<br /><br />"<span style="font-style: italic;">Oh my God. Oh my God.</span>"<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />After all the waiting, after forty-two hours of labor, the final distance closed so quickly.<br /><br />I think it surprised Kira most of all, suddenly to be holding our child, but I can't say I was any more prepared for that little pink face suddenly so close to mine. We forgot to ask what it was at first. All that mattered was that a moment ago we had been alone in the world together, and now we were shared. Healthy and pink and breathing, a new story for the world.<br /><br />No longer a "Kritter." Maggie. Beautiful pink Maggie.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />Midwives are shamans. They are field medics. They are crones and anchors. When my wife was hungry, they fed her. When, after the labor was done, she was bleeding from the effort of that last instant of distance, they mended her wounds with salve and suture.<br /><br />As I held Maggie for the first time, they washed dishes and laundry. The house was returned to normalcy with a humble and efficient speed. The triumph was Kira's, not theirs. They were there to accompany and to serve, to encourage and to guide.<br /><br />What physician, tell me, would have done this?<br /><br />The triumph was Kira's, and now she rested, cared for by a trio of three mysterious women -- Mrs. Whatsit, Mrs. Who and Mrs. Which.<br /><br />* * *<br /><br />There's still a chill in the air, and a bit of morning mist. My skin is tingling from the bite of November, but I'm not cold. I feel good.<br /><br />One step at a time. I unclip the caribiner from the hook sunk in the wood, and stretch my arm above my head until I can lock it in place on the guy wire above. Once it's secure, I'm linked both to the pole I'm coming from and to the pole I'm moving to. Redundancy.<br /><br />I hitch my leg a bit and shift my weight, and then I'm swinging up. Once my feet are solid, I reach down and unhook the second caribiner and lift it above my head to the other guy wire. Once it's in place, I dial my fingers across them both to lock them tight. As I come out of the stretch, I feel the Swiss seat tightening a bit across my backside.<br /><br />I look up. I'm above the treetops now. The autumn patches of yellows and red dot the forest into the distance up the mountain. Turning the other direction, I lean out, and the harness catches me as I hang out from the pole, secure.<br /><br />The sun has risen high enough now to have burned off the morning haze.<br /><br />I can see for miles.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-63412100350020226382010-04-18T12:18:00.004-05:002010-04-18T12:28:06.366-05:00Grab the sledgehammer, spraypaint the rubble (They built our monument without us)This is <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wir_Sind_Helden">Wir Sind Helden</a>, a band I first learned about when I lived in Berlin. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000TETAVW?ie=UTF8&tag=thenylcarall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B000TETAVW">This song</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thenylcarall-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B000TETAVW" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />has been going through my head all day, and I dig this stripped down acoustic version. So enjoy.<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/kfyTS2tJu74&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/kfyTS2tJu74&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-16109646998725893042010-03-17T16:13:00.008-05:002010-03-17T16:44:59.822-05:00From somewhere back in your long ago<object width="410" height="330"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/2EXyPrRvbos&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/2EXyPrRvbos&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="410" height="330"></embed></object><br /><br />This is the vocal ensemble <a href="http://www.blogger.com/%3Ca%20href=%22http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0013K8GVQ?ie=UTF8&tag=thenylcarall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B0013K8GVQ%22%3ENeri%20Per%20Caso%3C/a%3E%3Cimg%20src=%22http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=thenylcarall-20&l=as2&o=1&a=B0013K8GVQ%22%20width=%221%22%20height=%221%22%20border=%220%22%20alt=%22%22%20style=%22border:none%20%21important;%20margin:0px%20%21important;%22%20/%3E">Neri Per Caso</a>, and the soloist is a dude named Mario Bondi (Though I am suspicious that this might actually be an alias of my old and dear friend <a href="http://www2.hum.uu.nl/nieuws/archief/090130AGprizebadenoch.htm">Dr. Alexander Badenoch</a>)daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-53113725628521551172010-03-02T21:41:00.002-06:002010-03-02T21:45:44.624-06:00Do not mistake coincidence for fate.<object width="480" height="295"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/qybUFnY7Y8w&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/qybUFnY7Y8w&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="295"></embed></object><br /><br />Thank you to Presvytera Marion Turner for sharing this with me.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-50797344134507649622010-02-25T07:44:00.001-06:002010-02-25T23:03:05.721-06:00Dear Senator Corker, redux.Senator Corker,<br /><br />I heard one of your Republican colleagues on NPR this morning saying that he thought the "American people had spoken" in rejecting health care reform. This is disingenuous.<br /><br />When I looked you in the eye this summer at that rally and told you about the fears my wife and I had had as a young couple just out of school with no resources to pay for COBRA and a baby on the way, I appreciated that you seemed sympathetic to our plight. You were sympathetic despite the crowd around me jeering that we "shouldn't have gotten pregnant," implying, I suppose, that we should have destroyed or rejected our precious daughter, Maggie, instead of rejecting and working to change a system in which parents like us are forced to make tough and impossible choices for the convenience of maintaining the "status quo" of a health care system that is greedily and monstrously out of control.<br /><br />As one of your constituents, I have contacted you in the past to say that I am in favor of a SINGLE PAYER SYSTEM and a GOVERNMENT OPTION. I am in favor of radically reducing and curtailing the influence of health care lobbyists on Capitol Hill (including the donations they make to the campaigns of you and your colleagues), and that your poor and working constituents especially do not have time to wait while you and the Republicans obstruct and play politics.<br /><br />I am writing to say that I am STILL for these "impossible" outcomes. Moreover, I know I am not the only one of your constituents writing to tell you this.<br /><br />What I think, sir, is that when you and your colleagues refer to the "will of the American people," you are simply only attending to the polls you and your benefactors in the health care industry find most expedient. <br /><br />I think you and your fellow Republicans' behavior these last months during the debate on health care has been shameful. We need drastic, not incremental change, and we need it now. People are dying, sir. They are dying from a system that denied them access to care and to affordability; they are dying from "preexisting conditions." <br /><br />The rhetoric that has flown in the past months about "denial of choice of doctors" and "death panels" ignores the fact that these conditions are already in place with the system we have, only they are factors currently of the "free market approach" you love and esteem so much.<br /><br />In rural central Tennessee and now in Memphis, as an educator and a pastor, I have seen with my own eyes the devastation the "business as usual" approach to health care has brought to honest and hard working families. At the Saturn plant, in Culleoka, in Nashville, and here in Collierville and Memphis, there are a whole bunch of hurting (and dying) folks that just want the kind of access to decent, affordable, effective health coverage and care that you and your colleagues in the Senate enjoy every day.<br /><br />Whether you call it "socialism," sir, or just good merciful common sense, I am an American, and your constituent, and I am asking you to get off your kiester and work for it.<br /><br />Cordially,<br /><br />Dr. David Dault<br />Assistant Professor of Religious Studies<br />Christian Brothers University<br />Memphis, TNdaulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-87498186347015662682010-02-22T20:32:00.002-06:002010-02-22T20:35:19.596-06:00More signs of the ApocalypseAs seen on <a href="http://pittsburgh.craigslist.org/wri/1611802410.html">CraigsList</a>. Oh, Lord.<br /><br /><h2>Erotic Writing for Pittsburgh Blog (Pittsburgh)</h2><br />We are launching a new blog featuring erotic writing and photography set in Pittsburgh and its surrounds. Our goal is to make Pittsburgh the sexiest city in the United States--heightened eroticism as regional asset key to livability. We are looking for well-written short stories between 500 and 1,500 words. All works should be prominently set in Pittsburgh. Quality of writing is paramount. Stories may feature any kind of encounter or near miss (we are GLBT-interested). We are currently paying between $20 and $50/per post and over time are hoping to build a stable of two or three writers who can keep us all hot and bothered with fantastic tells of sex in the city.<br /><br />Please include an erotic work sample with your inquiry. <!-- START CLTAGS --> <br /><br /><ul class="blurbs"><li> <!-- CLTAG GeographicArea=Pittsburgh -->Location: Pittsburgh </li><li> <!-- CLTAG compensation=Between $20 and $50 per blog post -->Compensation: Between $20 and $50 per blog post </li><li> <!-- CLTAG telecommuting=on -->Telecommuting is ok. </li><li> <!-- CLTAG partTime=on -->This is a part-time job. </li></ul>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-53313384676756833882010-02-10T19:33:00.003-06:002010-02-22T22:48:18.607-06:00Hell yeah.Brother West, tellin' it like it is.<br /><br /><object width="560" height="340"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/oLAmxvtUBtY&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/oLAmxvtUBtY&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="560" height="340"></embed></object>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-57689225165641730422010-02-09T17:10:00.003-06:002010-02-09T17:36:54.644-06:00We're calling from the Pleiades, and we'd like to make a request...So I was listening to NPR this afternoon and, as an aside to a <a href="http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=122997440">story about water on the Moon</a>, they happened to mention "Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft, " a rather unfortunate hit for The Carpenters back in the 1970's. Here's a little taste of that magic, for those who don't remember:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/_BrSVOOK610&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/_BrSVOOK610&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Whew. Okay. Heavy, I know. The reason I'm even bothering to post about all this is that the NPR story mentioned The Carpenters as if they were the originators of the song. Not so. In fact, their version of the song was a cover of the <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgZCXHPkCo">original version</a>, written and performed by <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KcgZCXHPkCo">KLAATU</a>.<br /><br />Now, I know. You've never heard of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIaxSxEqKtA">KLAATU</a>. Nobody has. But back in the day, when <a href="http://www.obscurantist.com/images/klaatu.jpg">KLAATU</a> was, you know, doing its thing, there was a pretty massive rumor that they weren't a band at all. The rumor was that, instead, they were a <a href="http://www.klaatu.org/klaatu1.html">front for a secretly reunited Beatles</a> project. <a href="http://www.beatlesagain.com/breflib/klaatu.html">Srsly</a>.<br /><br />It was a nice pipedream for a culture exhausted by Watergate and such. The wish for something awesome, even secretly awesome, like the Beatles being back together, was a powerful opium for the masses. It would lull us into accepting just about anything. Even <a href="http://www.scificool.com/images/2008/07/keanu-reeves-klaatu.jpg">KLAATU</a>. Even The Carpenters. So it goes.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-25717196656004422982010-02-07T15:04:00.003-06:002010-02-07T15:13:51.150-06:00"Our Daughter" (a poem)Our daughter<br />Who art in bathtub,<br />Glistening be thy rump.<br /><br />Thy towels come<br />To dry thy bum,<br />And then it is off to bedtime.<br /><br />You had, this day,<br />Your daily breast<br />And numerous spit ups<br />(Though we forgive you, who spits up<br />Against us)<br />And sleep is not even temptation,<br />But a wager made through rocking.<br /><br />For thou art the tired, the hungry, and the fussy<br />and not yet a Toddler. Amen.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-47561638309523897342010-02-02T00:09:00.004-06:002010-02-02T00:16:00.928-06:00Short documentary on Chris Marker<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/1HrujmaJ5zU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/1HrujmaJ5zU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Chris Marker's short film, <span style="font-style: italic;">La Jetee</span> (1962), was the inspiration for a song <a href="http://bit.ly/9OAj66">Thad Thompson and I </a>wrote of the same name. His work is an all-time favorite of mine.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-64285040590560007682010-01-30T22:46:00.005-06:002010-01-31T00:23:53.424-06:00"The key to good decision making is not knowledge. It is understanding."<iframe src="http://rcm.amazon.com/e/cm?lt1=_blank&bc1=000000&IS2=1&bg1=000000&fc1=FFFFFF&lc1=0000FF&t=thenylcarall-20&o=1&p=8&l=as1&m=amazon&f=ifr&asins=0316010669" style="width: 120px; height: 240px;" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" align="left" frameborder="0" scrolling="no"></iframe>When I grow up, I want to be Malcolm Gladwell.<br /><br />I just got done reading his recent book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316010669?ie=UTF8&tag=thenylcarall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316010669"><i>Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking</i></a>, and it is one of the best written and most enjoyable reads I have had in quite a while.<br /><br />Gladwell first came onto my radar late last year, when I <a href="http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/256431/november-17-2009/malcolm-gladwell">saw a clip of him</a> on The Colbert Report. He seemed very subdued and soft spoken, and very out of place in the full glare of Colbert's rapid-fire wit. Despite this, I sensed that Gladwell had a sharp mind, and I was won over by the quiet forcefulness of his ideas. Plus, he had this crazy hair that I thought was pretty cool.<br /><br />So my brother in law gave us Blink for Christmas, and I picked it up a couple of weeks ago for some "distraction reading" (the types of books I pick up to fill gaps in days when I'm not writing myself or reading something specific for my class preparations). When I do this type of reading, I often put the book down pretty quickly, as I get easily bored with a lot of popular titles.<br /><br />Not so in this case.<br /><br />Having spent several years as a science correspondent for the <span style="font-style: italic;">Washington Post</span>, and later as a staff writer for the <span style="font-style: italic;">New Yorker</span> magazine, <a href="http://www.gladwell.com/bio.html">Gladwell</a> has honed his writing to a fine journalistic edge. He has already penned <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316346624?ie=UTF8&tag=thenylcarall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316346624">several bestsellers</a>, and seems to have no limit to the amount of popular books he can produce.<br /><br />Gladwell writes in a very conversational, engaging style. It almost feels as if he is perched in the chair next to you as you are reading, and the two of you are just tossing ideas around. The ideas, in this case, are more interesting, however, than those that pop up in your average casual conversation.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316010669?ie=UTF8&tag=thenylcarall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316010669">Blink</a> is preoccupied with the human capacity for what Gladwell calls "thin slicing." This is his term for the instantaneous, gut level decisions that we make, that often turn out to be much more accurate and incisive than those decisions over which we expend a great deal of time, research and deliberation.<br /><br />As but one example, my favorite portion of the book was the chapter entitled "Paul Van Riper's Big Victory," in which Gladwell becomes a fly on the wall for a set of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Challenge_2002">war game exercises </a>conducted by the American military in 2002. The event was intended to be a showcase of the latest in reconnaissance and strategic technologies. Think about those Air Force recruitment commercials you've seen lately -- "It's not science fiction; It's what we do every day" -- that sort of stuff. The Big Idea was that during the war game simulation, the armed forces would use all this new technology, and veteran commander <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_K._Van_Riper">Van Riper</a> would play the part of a rogue general in the Middle East theater. It was supposed to be a rout.<br /><br />However, as Gladwell's account unfolds, things did not turn out the way the military brass anticipated. The very technologies that were deployed to keep the commanders abreast of every last detail of field operations quickly overwhelmed both the high-level and mid-level officers, leading to hesitations. Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pentagon/interviews/vanriper.html">Van Riper</a> and his fictitious factions of zealous rogue armies very quickly exploited every tactical advantage, leading to some rapid, stunning, and quite embarrassing defeats for the American forces in the war game.<br /><br />Gladwell points out that information, in itself, is neither a good nor a bad thing to have. It is, instead, knowing which information is essential in a given exchange that makes the difference. This is as true on the battlefield as it is in the worlds of fine art, education, music, and taste-testing.<br /><br />During the course of the book, we are introduced to leading psychologists who demonstrate how this "think slicing" capacity we have leads us to make really excellent (and truly horrendous) decisions. Along the way, we encounter <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvan_Tomkins">a researcher</a> who (supposedly) can read faces so acutely that he can judge, just by looking at someone, their motivations and sexual orientations. We also learn that most people, when put under pressure, reveal reflexive tendencies toward bigotry and racial profiling that are unintentional, but nonetheless <a href="https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/">very measurable</a>.<br /><br />Gladwell does not just present these facts, but frames them in a series of ethical questions that helps the reader to see that these sorts of insights into the human mind might actually, if applied, make the world a slightly better place. "This is the real lesson of <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316010669?ie=UTF8&tag=thenylcarall-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=0316010669">Blink</a>," he writes. "It is not simply enough to explore the hidden recesses of our unconscious. Once we know how the mind works -- about the strengths and weaknesses of human judgment -- it is our responsibility to act" [276].<br /><br />What I enjoyed most about the book was Gladwell's seemingly endless ability to make interesting connections. How did he <span style="font-style: italic;">find</span> all of these people? It seems like he spends his time traveling to various locations, <a href="http://gladwell.typepad.com/gladwellcom/">following one lead and then another</a>, having fascinating conversations and gleaning these nuggets of vital knowledge. It strikes me as a very similar approach to the one taken by the folks at <a href="http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/">RadioLab</a>, only there it's sound and here it ends up on paper.<br /><br />This book is the real deal. It's informative and inspiring. I got done reading it and the first thing I thought was, "I want to write like that. I want to have conversations like that."<br /><br />Seriously. Even if I never will achieve his cool hair, I still want to grow up to be Malcolm Gladwell.<br /><br /><span style="font-size:78%;"><br />Disclaimer: Figaro-Pravda is an Amazon Marketplace affiliate. If you choose to purchase items through links on this page, we will receive a modest commission. We certainly appreciate your support.</span>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-54095481844155906422010-01-22T18:59:00.001-06:002010-01-22T19:01:34.907-06:00There are two colors in my head, kid, eh?<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/9p4AwxgDKlA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/9p4AwxgDKlA&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en_US&feature=player_embedded&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" allowScriptAccess="always" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Awaiting February 2nd: Everything in its right place.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-33117986441467815732010-01-22T16:52:00.003-06:002010-01-22T17:01:50.790-06:00Just plain PHAT<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/s4JBfzUsfIU&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/s4JBfzUsfIU&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />You know, I have a friend who teaches folks <a href="http://www.shredtheclassics.com/">how to play violin concertos on the guitar</a>. Now I just stumbled across <a href="http://video.google.com/videosearch?hl=en&safe=off&q=%22eric+stanley%22+violin&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=vCtaS8KnEpGVtgezx5GXAg&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=4&ved=0CBkQqwQwAw#">Eric Stanley</a>, who added these catgut licks to the Trey Songz joint "<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z__FHAG1Jk8">Say Aah</a>." And what he drops is, quite frankly, mad fresh.<br /><br />First, I am not sure I am allowed to be talking like this. Second, I don't care; I am smiling.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-8111471198251586112010-01-21T16:34:00.002-06:002010-01-21T16:48:02.795-06:00Brother West on Democratic Socialism and the legacy of Dr. King<a href="http://www.cornelwest.com/">Cornel West</a>, honorary chairperson of the <a href="http://www.dsausa.org/dsa.html">Democratic Socialists of America</a>, spoke earlier this week with <a href="http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/guests10/011510/CornelWest.html">Tavis Smiley</a> of Public Radio International about socialism and capitalism, as they apply (or don't) to the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Barack Obama.<br /><br />Listen to the interview <a href="http://www.tavissmileyradio.com/guests10/011510/CornelWest.html">here</a>.daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-24862407.post-19770429400535282022010-01-08T16:54:00.003-06:002010-01-08T17:06:57.504-06:00Just in time for (next year's) Christmas<span class="sqq"><br /><span style="font-style: italic;font-size:85%;" >“Art is permitted to survive only if it renounces the right to be different, and integrates itself into the omnipotent realm of the profane.”<br /><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: right; font-style: italic;"><span class="sqq" style="font-size:85%;">~ Theodor W. Adorno</span><span style="font-size:85%;"><br /></span></div><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/dqwN1-dJFmk&hl=en_US&fs=1&"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/dqwN1-dJFmk&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>daulthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16922091549713253119noreply@blogger.com0