Inkwell Freedom

15 Favorite King James Bible Verses

2012-02-19T17:27:00.001-08:00

The King James Bible is the most important book in the Western Canon, and its celebrating its 400th birthday today. While I am a member of a devotional community, I have compiled this list to speak to the transcendent value the Bible has as a work of literature. Just as how I believe we all ought to read the Koran, the Bhagavad Gita, The Seven Valleys, and other sacred texts, everybody ought to read the King James Version of the Bible.
In no particular order, my fifteen favorite verses:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. John 1:1

Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Job 38:4

And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away. Rev. 21:4

But they that wait upon the LORD shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint. Isaiah 40:31

And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me. Matt 25:40

O that thou wert as my brother, that sucked the breasts of my mother! When I should find thee without, I would kiss thee; yea, I should not be despised. Song of Songs 8:1

Jesus Wept. John 11:35

All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again. Ecclesiastes 3:20

Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee. Hebrews 13:5

The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid; and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6

But let judgment run down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream. Amos 5:24

And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise. Luke 23:43

A thousand shall fall at thy side, and ten thousand at thy right hand; but it shall not come nigh thee. Psalm 91:7

And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were
the sixth day. Genesis 1:31

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. James 1:17

2012-02-07T08:01:00.000-08:00

12 Favorite Pop Songs of 2011

2012-01-23T16:50:00.001-08:00

12. Waiting for the End-Linkin Park
One of the best-selling rock bands of the 2000s dropped a one of their least-overtly angry songs, but I found it all the more effect. The line, "All I want to do/is trade this life for something new" haunts me, and the vocal contrast between the raggae-rapped verses and the sung verses compliments each other perfectly. This is a rock ballad that doesn't come off as boring or overblown.
11. Ready to Go-Panic! At the Disco
Best concert I went to this year. While you're favorite Indie band probably has some whispery, thin-voiced dude singing, Panic! At the Disco really sings out, showcasing a vocal poweress rarely displayed by male singers these days. This song motivates me, and definantly deserved more airtime this year. Buy Panic's new album, it's rad.
10. Rolling in the Deep-Adele
Part old-school, part original, Adele did exceptionally well with this beltin' tune. It's vindictive lyrics actually seemed like they were about somebody (they were) instead of a pack of contrived pop song rhymes. Over this year, I've found myself using the term, "Rolling in the Deep" to describe someone (A.) Someone with a lot of money, and (B.) someone overweight.
9. Young, Wild & Free-Wiz Khalifa, Snoop Dogg, and Bruno Mars
Catchy as all get out, a fun little song that makes me feel nostalgic for right now. Snoop Dogg's flow is beautiful, Wiz is youthful, and Bruno Mars has some pipes put to good use. This is a perfect song to listen to when driving to a party, along with "I've Gotta Feeling" by the Black-Eyed Peas, and "Stronger" by Kanye West.
8. Britney Spears-'Til the World Ends
Britney Spears went from making Teeny-Bopper stuff to making great, GREAT club jams. I had to pick between "Hold it Against Me," this, and "I Wanna Go." All of those songs could have taken this place, but I decided on this number, because its sexual tones are a little more subtle, and its song structure is a little different, but well-welcomed.
7. Pumped up Kicks-Foster the People
Indie kids got some time in the sun with Foster the People. Pumped Up Kicks has an unconventional topic (School shooting? Kid playing with dad's gun?) warped vocals, and easily the best bassline I've heard in quite a while. Sometimes, you find a fantastic dance song from the most unlikely places.
6. Edge of Glory-Lady Gaga
Edge of Glory has a strong level of sincerity, which can be hard to do with a happy-sounding song. Fortunately, she spares no expense with the vocals this time around. But let's be honest, it's the sax solo that lifts this song to such great levels, managing to evoke 80's era pop, while also giving it a timeless quality to set it apart of the other banal club jams. Lady Gaga, you make me believe in the pop song.
5. Next 2 You-Chris Brown and Justin Bieber
Haters back off, J. Bibbs has some pipes, and Breezy's got moves. Ignore the controversy, the public behavior, and the jokes, this is a really good song by two really good vocalists with an interesting melody (Tell me if you Pitchfork-reading punks ever talk about melodic quality!), and doesn't throw in a rap verse just to follow the formula. I'm a Belieber.
4. N****s in Paris-Jay-Z and Kanye West
If "Next 2 You" doesn't throw in a rap verse to follow the formula, "N****s in Paris" doesn't have a singer in it for some contrived hook. Instead, we get a floor-destroying beat, and two World-Class rappers do what they do best. This is a straight-up hip-hop jam with no apologies, and we were all the better for it.
3. Scary Monster and Nice Sprites-Skrillex
Everybody's been talking about dubstep this year, and part of that is thanks to this killer DJ. I hear this song, and I think of the nighttime, endless possibilities, and simply the joy of dancing. This is music! I just has to sound good to be good!
2. Paradise-Coldplay
Coldplay is a band everybody pretends they don't like, but they really love. They really take all the good parts about straight-up rock music and pop music to create wonderful sounds for the masses. Their music, and especially this song, is BEAUTIFUL in a way a lot of popular music doesn't try to be, especially since so much rockier music seems to be competing for who can be either more unlistenable or more esoteric. Paradise finds a good balance, and chimes like a bell to my ears.
1. F*** You!-Cee-low Green
I'm sure after Cee-Low recorded this, he probably said to himself, much like Johnny Depp as Ed Wood in the film of the same name, "This is it, this will be what they'll remember me for."

Turning 21: a Birthday Speech

2011-11-10T10:00:00.001-08:00

Turning 21
Written and Delivered by Brendan Jones O'Connor
In front of the Wisconsin State Capitol

      Many people when asked on their birthdays claim they don't really feel any different. Today is my birthday, and I do in fact feel different. Today, I turn 21, and I feel like a man. Forget 18, 21 i the real age of adulthood. When I turned 18 three years ago, I voted in the presidential election, wore suits to school, was waiting to hear back from the two colleges I applied to- I got into one- the top movie at the box office was High School Musical 3, and "Whatever You Like" by T.I. was the number-one hit son. I was so naive then.
     In only 3 short years, I've lived the bulk of my college experience, gone vegan, protested like a hippie, learned conversational Dutch, written 2 books, produced umpteen Youtube videos, and met many, man strange and wonderful people, all of this before reaching this cusp of adulthood.
     And while I feel more like a man, more like a mature adult, transitioning to a time of life without the fallback of my parent's checkbook or the daily regiment of homework, I feel like the further I've progressed, the closer I've returned to place I was at 18. That is, the state of mind when the future looked so mysterious, so open, and yet so hopeful.
     But above all else, I have learned a lesson today. As a child, I thought friendship was something that only existed in youth, and as soon as one entered maturity, the relationships between adults became mere formalities. I am so very glad to report that this is most certainly not the case. For everyone of you, I value the experiences, the characters, the personalities that have shaped me as much as I hope that I may have shaped you. These years, these times, they matter, they actually matter, and I could not be any more glad than to have shared it with each one of you.

St. Thomas Aquinas and "The Nightmare Before Christmas"

2011-10-25T16:53:00.000-07:00

      I adore The Nightmare before Christmas. Unlike almost every other animated kids' movie since 1991's Aladdin, there are no contrieved attempts at annoying comic relief characters, the story is maddeningly original, the visual aesthetic never gets old, and the songs are beautiful. As that holiday, definately one of the my favorites, as I endorsed in a poem recently, rolls near us, I started watching the film again. I realized something a little peculiar that I hadden't before, what is the cosmology of this fictional universe? Does Halloweentown, Christmastown, (and the other holiday towns) all reside in the same world? Where is the normal world, where Jack attempts to unsucessfully deliver toys? After some thought, I realized that The Nightmare before Christmas is a profoundly religious film, with a worldview rooted in the melding of Aristrotelian and Neoplatonic ideas such as the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas.
      Halloweentown is not a spacio-temporal place in the way the normal world is, rather it exists in the mind of God as the perfect representation of the spirit of Halloween, much like Plato's World of the Forms. The residents of Halloweentown, as spiritual creatures, are capible of transcending into the reality of the normal world, specifically to scare people on halloween and other occasions. St. Thomas Aquinas noted that all beings originate from God with a teleology (a purpose) which they are meant to fufil as they then return back to God. Because these spiritual creatures are like the angels, they are almost perfect in fufilling their task of scaring people. Scaring people is not a sinful task, but rather a noble one, as it is established in the opening song that "Life's no fun without a good scare." On a more national level, one might argue that the prophet Amos' condemnations of invasion from Assyria (which proved to be correct) were meant to "scare" Israel back to following the laws of God after a long period of unjustice. The residents of Halloweentown are spiritual creatures fufiling a spiritual task that includes gaining tangible form.
      Jack, the doubting angel, is strugging with fufiling his teleology. When Jack enters the door into Christmastown, he is entering a portal to another location in this "World of the Forms," into another place in the immaterial mind of God where the perfect spirit of Christmas exists.
Returning to Halloweentown, Jack is excited, and the rest of Halloweentown attempts to mimic Christmas, but instead they create a warped version of the holiday. This is most likely because they are forms, they are incapible of becoming what they are not. Still, Jack enters the normal world unsucessfully, and gets shot down by the military after delievering horrifying presents to children.
It needs to be pointed out that Jack dressed as Santa Claus perfectly reflects another important idea in the Thomist system. St. Thomas Aquinas adapted Aristrotelian concept of essence versus existence. Existence is for an object to be there in space and time. Essence is that which makes the object the object. There is that element of "dog" that makes all dogs be recognized as a dog, despite many different colors, breeds, etc. Essense is within an object. As Jack wears Santa's red coat and a fake beard, be does not become Santa, because Jack's essense as a spiritual creature of Halloween does not change.
      After being shot out of the sky, Jack comes to in the arms of an angel statue, a piece of symbolism demonstrating both his redemption and the place as a spiritual creature himself, he comes to terms with the teleology of his existance: to BE the essence of Halloween. Afterward, he rescues Santa Claus, who then enters the normal world from his place in the mind of God in order to correct the wrongdoing. Jack's question ultimently was not in vain, as he found the girl, and regained a sense of direction in his existance. Meanwhile, St. Thomas would be happy to know that it was a skeleton, not an angel, that could danced on the head of pin.

The Meaning of Halloween

2011-10-09T09:27:00.000-07:00

If you're like me, you love Halloween. But instead of writing about my thoughts on this wonderful holiday in prose, I decided to do it in (unrhymed, accented) verse!

The Meaning of Halloween

By Brendan Jones O'Connor

To live in the north is to fight to survive

in those blistering winter months. But the blessing

we receive is autumn's jewel: October.

Nature, show us the divine presence here.

Of your four movements, autumn is the climax,

the divine conducts in flowing harmony,

each piece of the composure fits in its right place.

How lucky am I to have a seat, my jacket

serves as my tux and my tails. The willow tree bows

at the end of the performance.

Nature flows in circles, but every time

it seems so new. Halloween, our wake

at night to celebrate the death of day

and the circle's promise to begin again.

Still, life is filled with mysteries, and what

is horror but the things we don't understand?

We wear the things that scare us, so that now

we can conquer the crippling fear of unknown.

Halloween is death, but that's not the end;

renewal springs in its place and time.

This isn't a time for blank debauchery,

this is a time to celebrate life's power!

Not in the contrived, old fashioned constrictions,

but in the fun frolic and fancy free,

we release enlightened gaities.

No hedonistic slight-of-hand can brush

away the beauty within the pageantry.

My Very Own HP Lovecraft story

2011-08-10T06:31:00.000-07:00

As of late I've been reading the works of Horror/Fantasy writer HP Lovecraft.
To those unfamiliar, Lovecraft wrote a series of "weird" stories as they were called, mixing elements of fantasy and horror, for pulp fiction magazines back in the day. His use of the Eastern Seaboard locations, extensive first person narration with little dialogue, and suspense-driven stories makes him very much the sucessor to Edgar Allen Poe in the gallery of American writers.
The most unique feature of Lovecraft's work is his Cthulhu Mythos. Several of his stories revisit a set of shared references to a pantheon of creatures called "The Old Ones," not quite gods, but awful entities that seem unrestricted by the limitations of the human mind. For Lovecraft, our reality teaters on a vast unknown, and from whence true horror arises.
Feeling inspired, I attempted to write my own story:

Beast Uprising

By Brendan Jones O'Connor

The greatest misdoing of the human mind is its overwhelming conceit in believing that it every can come within the boundaries of understanding the order and workings of the universe. That which we collective as a society accept as being a supposedly “true” grasp of reality on a cosmic scale is laughable to the ones that exist beyond us.

I hailed from the Milwaukee suburb of Okosh Grove. In the said town, Old Money were those whose wealth extended past your own generation. As a jocular friend of mine stated firmly in a fit of jest, “I think this is the Irish part of Town, because I'm seeing so many McMansions.” It was here I gained my first love of chemistry. In the amorphous shape of my subdivision, amongst the three-car garages and streets that curved solely for an aesthetic design, I first recognized the strength of the utility for the material science. Science did the curtsey of bringing the water through the meticulously planted pipes under the streets. This same subject fertilized the advanced crops in my pantry. This subject made sense, and like the efficient and calculated aesthetic of my subdivision, I could make a well outcome with the rules of logic and observation.

My pretenses wrapped me into a distinct path, that vision which already was approved by a set of experts, who in turn had their credibility confirmed by a set of experts, who accordingly held their titles' esteem as the result of the judgments of another set of experts, ad nauseum. As a hard science major, chemistry, that particular sentiment sometimes earns me the ire of my peers. In fact, I myself used to think that way, until the nightmares started.

Dreams have always interested me. The classic philosophical point regarding dreams is the argument that because dreams seem real to us while dreaming, what is to say that the current moment is not a dream? I never liked that argument, because dreams seem to possesses qualities radically different from consensus reality. Foremost in my observations, if that term can even be applied for dreaming, in a dream I have no concept of Free Will, there is no decision-making process, and I am totally at the mercy of outside events and an uncontrollable urge to do certain actions. My dreams are often filled with desires to do a particular task, but seem to be incapable of even going about doing it, as if my body were merely an avatar for some foreign manipulator.

I would awake with a tremendous relief that what I had just experienced did not actually occur. I could not recall the events, but I knew that those were not the cause of my malaise, but the conditions of my dreams. The sadistic and bizarre rules of my dreams were such that I accepted them without thought. At some point, I would begin to question the reality of the situation, then the dream would end. Thus, it made no sense to me that one could be unaware of living in a dream world, because the ability to question if one's reality is a dream was enough brunt to end the dream.

I do not remember the dream that morning, but I do know that a pervasive sense of dread continued well afterward. My thoughts scattered by the unsettling haze remaining after awaking from the dream, I recalled that I had scheduled a meeting with my zoology professor, Dr. Klopparberg. The matter of our intended encounter held minimal relevance, just an issue about a mis-graded paper, probably a symptom of her extensive and unrelenting work load as a recent adjunct at the university. I am uncertain if she could ever gain tenure status here at the prestigious University of Wisconsin, her youth, combine with a distinct New Age style of appearance, the tussled hair, the lack of makeup, the hand-knit clothes, as well as a method of lecture that emphasized a holistic application of the material. She clearly lacked the discrete professionalism of almost every other teacher I have had. On almost every day prior, I held little opinion of her beside general indifference or annoyance at her drawn-out explanations for extraneous material, especially for a class I am confident the majority of us took only to fulfill a basic requirement. Today I felt a little different, and welcomed the opportunity to speak to somebody a little different, hoping maybe her happy-go-lucky cheer might ease my buffeted mind.

I found the door of Dr. Klopparberg's temporary office after an inordinate amount spent searching the top floor. It turned out the mailbox address was slightly off, but I doubted she had that much spite invested in whether or not students made their appointments within the five minute interval of the scheduled time. I knocked, and she left me in to a tiny office cluttered with more book, posters, and forms of media than I thought were possible without taxing the concentration of any sane person (but then again, it was Dr. Klopparberg I am speaking of.)

We spoke briefly over the fate of my document and the potential for its re-evaluation. She almost immediately confessed to the mistakes made in grading, a behavior I would not mind other professors emulating. I noticed after we came to a conclusion an unlikely looking small, white-marble statue tucked in the back of her office, amid a stack of books with long and uninspiring names. The figure possessed a head resembling a Cuttlefish, but its body looked scaly, powerful, and endowed with enormous wings.

“I am a little intrigued by that figure you have up there.” I said, bending my arm at the elbow in order to point to the strangely-bodied creature.

Unprompted by me, she arose to puck the statue from its prior place. “This is a beast in the water, a special being.” she said. I was taken aback by the intricacy of the statues detail; the skin's design had almost an Arabesque level of intertwined unity. How could human hands make such an object? Its eyes, half-moon in their shape, protruded slightly from the head, drawing in my attention, while at the same time, sending a shape wave of repulsion through me.

“I am unfamiliar.” I did not intend for this to be a lie, my mouth moved before I could make a better command. In fact, my whole walk to Dr. Klopparberg's office kept feeling as if I were merely an observer of an outer phenomenon that I am incapable of controlling.

“I had an experience with one. It is the very event that made me want to become a zoologist in the first place. It is a bit of a story, and I may have added on pieces to it, you know, how stories change over time, but this actually happened.”

I nodded my head. My focus of vision narrowed to include almost solely her head.

“I went to a festival in the wilderness, far away from any city or distraction. Actually, there were plenty of distractions, but they were natural distractions, so they were perfectly welcome. This festival came once a year, every summer. I wanted to go to it every year, and I finally got to go to it after I graduated from high school. I went with a friend, a friend who was very beautiful. Very beautiful.”

She stared directly at me. Her eyes stopped blinking.

“On the second day of this wonderful festival, I knew my vision quest began because my mind lost all of its limitations. I was free to fall into the lake. By my back.”

Her head tilted.

“Water always scared me, but that day it didn't. The light above me in the sky reminded me that the water surrounded me, but the light died. Still I could see everything. The lake at this point didn't have a limit, just as how I didn't have a limit. It blended perfectly, no seam at all, into what the oxygen air used to be. Maybe those two perfectly blended, because I could breath in this new place. Two eels and a cuttlefish crawled out of the darkness. The two eels looked like were connected to the cuttlefish, making up a body along with a black body. It had arms with sharp claws, but I wasn't afraid. It went away quickly, and I got lost in the water land when it came back out of nowhere. It said its name was something strange, but it didn't say it like how I'm talking to you right now, it just let me know it in its own language. That whole moment was such a precious moment. I loved all the rolling things in the world, those that inhabited the land, the air, the sea, and those other places, like this creature, who lives in the land between the salt sea and the sand shore. One day I will find this again. I couldn't cry because I wasn't afraid. But I how could I laugh if it wasn't funny? But I laughed anyway because I like to laugh. It did not matter. The beast overcame me and my limitations. My limitations included my life, my thoughts at what a life could be, or would be, or had been. Those didn't matter any more.”

She stopped talking without any gesture or further indication that she found closure in her thoughts; her lips dangled slightly open, and her eyes reminded ajar, as if her remaining thoughts trailed just behind my head. I waited for about ten seconds, hoping that she would continue, or at least dismiss me from her cloister. To my dismay, it was me who had to end this uncomfortable encounter.

“Well, yes, I think I ought to be going now.” I said, drawing in more air through my teeth than I had hoped. But she could not tell, the only difference after I announced my exodus was that her lips formed a close pucker before fully pursing.

Creeping pangs overcame me, and I left. Instead of directing myself to my apartment to work on an unruly swath of homework, the result of the past week spent with a greater emphasis on socialization than scholastic effort, I went on a walk to the Terrace overlooking Monona lake. I dangled my head over the edge of the Terrace. A conversation I had with a friend the night prior came to mind.

“Something always bothered me about the concept of God. Many people, especially around this state, seem to believe that a supreme being created and regulates all ethics in the universe. But this doesn't make any sense, because what if God was evil?” He said.

“I suppose if God were evil, then he would have made us human beings into thinking that good was bad and bad was good. Our standards would just be different.” I replied, largely indifferent, but obligated to support logic at all times, even if only out of principle.

“But that doesn't address the point that God could exist in spite of us. Maybe God could simply not care about human life. Think about it, if you had all the cosmos in your grasp, would you really think that there's a difference between the molecules in a rock or the molecules in a person? I know I wouldn't even bother. I'm God! I have better things to do!”

My friend's logic, had one of the Religious Studies professors overheard, would probably have incited a series of objections for his crude analogy, but it made me think.

A sudden, powerful effect came over me with little precedent, either in my mood and thoughts that day, or my entire set of recollections of my prior experiences. The flame of my imagination caught fire and a fantasy overtook me; that of an angel. More precisely, a phantasmagorical figure that presented a clear verbal message. Hume said that all objects are nothing but a collection of physical properties, and that may be true, but this angel, did not occur to me as a full visual essence, but more as a figure with out a form. It was as if the overactive imagination of my whimsical youth got hijacked by a mysterious subconscious agent.

“Come... Tonight...” the whispering agent told me. It faltered into a greater nothingness, and I found myself walking away.

The rest of that God-forsaken day was spent in uncharacteristic focus on the research on hand. The pace and precision that I managed to maintain unsettled my mind at some points enough to irk me into recognizing my absurdly centered efforts. My common desires for things like food or mental breaks faded away until I no longer questioned their absence. My homework for the weekend lay motionless, I accomplished all task by the setting of the autumnal sun. I redirected my vision to outside my window. I felt two rapid feelings, one of great discomfort at the realization that the sun had already receded hours ago without me seeming to notice, and the second to excuse myself from the room that I had been planted in for such a long time that day. I arose and departed quickly, securing a thin windbreaker for myself and exited my apartment. My course for that walk mattered very little to me, I deliberately left the path for my feet to decide. A few minutes of passing through the clear night of surprisingly no distraction from any other person or car, I approached the Monona Terrace again, remembering my odd visualization of my intuition earlier that day. The water transfixed my vision for a full minute's time, its idiosyncratic lake flow, a strong character for a town such as this. What I then saw broke me from my blindness. The water formed in ways water is utterly unknown to do so, and the beast arose from it.

Horror, yes, that primitive feeling, the same emotion binds all of humans in all of time together in its struggle against the cruelness of existence, overwhelmed me. No method of escape existed; this being, a being beyond any sort of limitations we humans have attempted to impose on the universe, held the fate of my life. Its immense form of dark green flesh defied every notion of biology: its cuttlefish face extended and contracted, increased and decreased in girth by the second; its bestial claws twisted and angled in awful ways. The eyes, oh how I fail deeply to explain soul-emptying void of its two glowing, but still darkened eyes. The absolute Hell of staring at this beast eyes resembled a cruel paradox of drowning while burning to death. All life forces within me drained from my body, and in the vacuum a wretched, all-consuming pain erupted through every part of me. The beast caught my very consciousness.

The Bible says so little about Hell I'm surprised anybody ever invested that much time thinking about the worst of all things to come. Jesus did say there would be “weeping and gnashing” of teeth. Christ's economy of words may be the only sign in our miserable human language to attempt to capture this great other. At that precise moment, I entered that which cannot be understood as a hallucination or a dream, or any part of reality I or anybody else can ever know. Just as George Barkley theorized that we all live in the mind of God, I lived in the mind of this beast.

What I must characterize as a room, but really lacking the physical boundaries accustom to people in our tangible world, bound me in total restraint: I had no body. My consciousness, removed of my corporal exterior, shifted independently of my will, however, my awareness was not limited by my usual plane of vision, but grasped all of what was around this mind-space. I could not escape. Non-Euclidean geometries of off-colored materials knit in complete uniformity. With my conscious self now trapped, a humanoid form spun into figure.

“You shall be overcome.”

I realized my body alongside a bridge by a bike trail.

The nightmares did not die, instead they intensified. On an accursed night when these horrid visions come to me, my body convulses, and I often ejaculate a scream that awakens those around me. As much as these people inquire into the cause of my night terror, I can never quite form words to express the horror that makes me quake with total release. Common peoples' bad dreams do not in any conceivable way compare to the form of my torture. While a standard nightmare, the sort popular amongst children or those with a stressful experience in their past day, the images do not fade upon awakening; rather, the narrative, if I may even give it the honor of calling it that, does not leave my memory. Every motion, every sound, every pace, every color, every unnerving step indelibly imbues my mind. Worse, my perception of pain, fear, and sickness do not seem to deviate from that of the real world. In every sense, the world of weeping and gnashing of teeth overtakes me, with no introduction and certainly no conclusion. All this to the point I question my own sanity.

But above all is my reaction to the bestial giggling, the low, pulsating bass sounds that effect me physically as well as mentally. I will not ever wish that sound on any human being; its call reaches beyond barrier to intercept my ears and control my body. I cannot outrun it. Whenever I hear it, I freeze and quiver just make sure my body is still alive. The sound that reminds me my conscious existence lies completely in the power of the great ones that I do not, and cannot understand; it is the sound of the forces that we cannot speak of.

Some religious folk live with this obfuscating delusion: Armageddon is just around the corner, the armies of the Good Lord will battle the forces of darkness, and God wins. Those who were on God's side the whole time are the ultimate winners, because they were specially absorbed from Earth to Heaven in one fateful moment, while the rest of the world will suffer accordingly to their lack of faith in the real God.

If I have come to embrace skepticism to those who insist on a tidy rational explanation for the natural science of the world, I too reject a concise Westminster Catechism approach for our warped reality. For all we know, life after death may just be Hell, in fact, I sincerely suspect it.

Politics

2011-07-16T19:50:00.000-07:00

     I have come to a conclusion recently to actively attempt to disengage myself from politics.
     People of all positions sit around and complain about one administration or another, often motivated more by their biases and emotion. People have turned a multi-facited world into a false dichotomy, a fictional "Culture War" of Republicans vs. Democrats. We live in an America where one's ethnicity, class, or religion do not necessitate one's party alliance. Part of the reason for this I believe is because people are no longer limited to the geographical area of their birth or the trade of their father (if male) or motherhood (if female.) Although the United States is a classist society with a large gap between the rich and poor, there is a tremendous potential to follow your dreams.
     That's what I think is most important.
     I believe that every human being has a potential inside of them, an end goal, a teleology, and it is either society that dampers that human spirit, or guides it. I believe that if each of us became fully in-tuned with that driving vision within them, that we would be in a much better world.
     I was blessed from my birth to be in a position to be able to follow this inner light, and I believe that to follow it is not selfish act, but rather a manifestation of what I as a human being ought to do.
     If any good comes from my life, it will not be because of the rambling political opinions I shouted at another equally uninformed person, but from my true life work.

The Word "Pretentious"

2011-07-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

When it comes to film/music/theatre/literature critique, I am a big believer that one's criticisms need to have an element of falsifisity. Instead of just saying, "The vision of this film was totally wack! Don't see it!" write something like, "This film's color pallet is very limited, making it seem monotonous. The camera operators failed to carefully dipect the action, making it seem too much like The Blair Witch Project when all the scene needed was a steady-cam shot." My point here is that if one is going to criticize, one ought to give support for their arguments.
     The word "pretentious" is used often to criticize art, but is almost completely baseless, and does not fit well into an argument about a work's quality. Any sort of work that aspires to something grand in vision will almost always be attacked as pretentious, but that tells me nothing about the actual work itself. Music critics ruteenly call indie music bands like Radiohead, Arcade Fire, Of Montreal etc. pretentious, but these same critics fail to give a counter-example of un-pretentious music. Is Johnny Cash un-pretentious? His six-part American album series, with two instalments coming out after his death, seem pretty grand in vision, that might very well be pretentious. U2 has recieved the pretentious lable, but I suspect that comes more as a criticism of Bono's activism. Once again, that tells me nothing about the music; music should be judged by the quality of the music, not by the identity and actions of the band.
     This is the same story with film and literature. Every indie filmmaker with a vision to make something good must deal with the baseless and meaningless criticism of preteniousness. What about Spielberg's ET? Wasn't that pretentious to make a kids' movie about an Alien that symbolizes Jesus? Wasn't Orson Welles pretentious to make such a long, epic movie like Citizen Kane when he was 25? No, but Quentin Tarentino was pretentious making a self-referential genre film like Pulp Fiction?
     I request everybody to stop using the "P" word and instead base their critique on objective observations.

Poem for my Chaplain

2011-07-01T18:01:00.000-07:00

Here is a poem I wrote for my chaplain Fr. Tom Ferguson, who has just accepted a position as dean of Bexley Hall seminary in Ohio for the Episcopal church. This is his "Graduation" poem.

To our Chaplain

I’ve seen the best minds in my generation done-in,
enamored by their liberation
within the college basin of sin,
baptized too fast in alcohol libations.
But where amongst the nameless crowds,
girdled thick by the debauchery,
could I find a place not too proud
to let me join their comradery?
St. Francis House! (Find us with Ariadne’s spool.)
I knew right in those Eucharist crumbs:
The greatest trick the devil pulls
is telling students not to come.
In Soviet Union’s disarray
you found hope past the bleak and scoff,
I feel our God on Ash Wednesday
as you mark my brow like Gorbachev.
Religion seems at times so weird,
but then I see you in your robes
my creeping doubt has disappeared:
Jesus died for sins, not frontal lobes.
For all you do, your sanity remains.
How do you keep Malcolm gently coerced?
You an immovable object, as he runs figure-Eights,
I take him as the unstoppable force.
For “educating us straight to hell,”
enduring all of this monotony
to lead us well andcome to help
us kids from fly-over country,
I give you my acclaim for working with God,
and maintaining a building so old,
well-versed in bat-bagging, Jason Todd,
and fighting radon and toxic mold.
“The past is prologue,”I must concur,
I leave you with a final thing,
I’m fond of this one song I did hear
and times like now, weought to sing:
“On Jordan’s banks the Baptists cry,
announcing that their Lord is nigh.
Oh, but the Baptists have no fun,
thank God I am an Anglican.”

What I Learned From Majoring in History

2011-06-16T15:55:00.000-07:00

After four semesters, I have completed all the requirements the History BA at the University of Wisconsin-Madison (The Good One.) At this point, I could take classes in yoga, poultry science, and philology, and still graduate in time. Having effectively completed the history major, although I will take more classes, I would like to reflect on my experiences, especially on the young, impressionable youths going to college soon. I am not finished with college. True, but I have learned some things.

- Everything you learned in high school is wrong
That's right! Most people I know that study history independently seem only to be interested in learning about wars or American political history in general. Studying history academically, you will swiftly learn that history is not a grand narrative of white people dominating over other white people, but something much more complex. Your high school wasn't completely wrong, but they were forced to over-simplify and give an America-centric viewpoint.

- History isn't teleological (You can't predict the future)
To quote the Bard, "The past is prologue." Despite what your crackpot radio pundit/uneducated economic theorist that advotes buying gold tells you, history does not work in any determinable cycles or theoretical pattern. I consider History a social science as well as a humanitarian study, but we don't make models the way sociologists do. The future is unpredictable, but it will come...that's the fun of it.
- You will learn a foreign language
Stop lying to yourself, English will not carry you your whole life. American History is full of immigrants that spoke and wrote in other languages. English History is full of Latin, french, and Old/Middle English. Beowulf is hard.
- Reality is not the same as facts
Indiana Jones says in The Last Crusade that Archeology is the search for facts, not truth. What the adventurer/professor meant is that archeology uses empirical methodology instead of analytical and critical techniques found in historical analysis. In other words, antropologists are more or less trying to find out what exactly happened, irrefutable facts, while historians are all about understanding the nuances, human experience, and present-day implications for past events. Antropologists could look at you and say that your body is proportioned in such a way to draw interest from potential mates to continue the gene pool, and your cultural artifacts signify your wealth as capability to support a family. A historian would say you are hot and paid, rico sauva.
- History encompasses literature, cultural anthropology, philosophy, and foreign language studies
You are going to learn about a whole bunch of different subjects and topics to
- You are going to learn about religions that aren't yours; get used to it
- Don't major in history
A good deal of people that graduate in History that A. failed to get into the business school, B. failed to get into the education school, or C. failed to get into some other school on your college. These people tend to begrudgingly complete the requirements. These people tend to do one of three things upon graduating 1. go to law school, 2. get a teaching certificate from a tech school, 3. go to grad school for a PhD. I have some problems with these three options, but mostly because so many history majors do these things because they are scared of trying to enter the work directly.
     1. Law school just might be one of the worst decisions you could possibly make. There simply isn't a huge demand for lawyers, but 45,000 new JDs are awarded each year. A law degree will most likely not help you at getting a job outside of law, and if anything make you look overqualified. And law school will cost 80,000+ dollars and don't count on any scholarships. If your life ambition is to be a lawyer, you need to go to a T-14 law school. If you get a degree from one of these, you will have the credibility to practice anywhere in the United States, otherwise you will be limited to the geographic location of your podunk third-tier law school. Lastly, the median salary of lawyers has declined much given the lack of demand, only the absolute top will be making bank.
     2. It has been said the United States needs better teachers. This is probably true, especially since math and science teachers are scarce given how they could make so much more money in the private sector. As for History and English, I am fairly confident that there is an oversupply of these. Interestingly enough, majoring in straight History or English literature actually has a higher median income than education. I realize that money isn't everything, but if you are trying to get into teaching because you think that it'll be an easy, recession-proof job, you will be shown otherwise very easily.
     3. Grad school will take 5-10 years, a massive opprotunity cost, and extremely little job security. Professors in the Humanities are rarely tenured these days, so abandon this idea that you will easily gain a comfortable job at some bucolic university setting.
- Major in history
   History is great! After all, I major in it. History is a holistic learning practice that combines social sciences and humanities to give a completely different view of the world. History can make you a better, more self-actualized person, and at the very least a better-read and more skilled writer. You CAN GET A JOB that don't involve teaching with a history degree, the important point is not to blindly stumble into the History major, but to accumulate skills like quality of writing, research, analysis, computer skills, foreign language acquisition, and yes, even math ability. History is for the brave who can use the totality of their intelligence. Open minds only.

Unusual Majors at UW-Madison

2011-05-21T13:15:00.000-07:00

The school year has closed and I have completed another semester of pursuing a Bachelor of Arts (or artium baccalaureus if you're not into that whole brevity thing) in history and economics at the flagship, land grant University of Wisconsin, located in the Badger State's own pristine capitol of Madison. In fact, I like learning so much I am taking a class this summer, MATH 112, or algebra.
History and Economics are the quintessential humanity and social science (your opinion may vary,) thus it doesn't seem too strange that a large university like mine would have them. But what about the dozens of other majors offered? Just what are the more peculiar ones? After a run through the website's list, I produced some of the courses of study that even your odd cousin Julius with the forearm tattoos, a photography lab in his basement, and an a-symmetrical haircut wouldn't touch.

- Agricultural Journalism (recently renamed Life Sciences Communication)
Corn has ears, somebody has to talk to them. As well, somebody needs to report about the price of pork rinds and orange juice concentrate in the commodity market.

- School of Education majors: Polish, Hebrew,
I could under why somebody would want to major in Hebrew, Israel is kind of a big deal in the international relations, and classical Hebrew is necessary for critical biblical studies. I could understand Polish, its a decent country in Eastern Europe, and knowledge of the language may help with international business. What I don't understand as much, what is the incentive to major in secondary education of Polish/Hebrew? I don't know about where you live, but there aren't too many Jewish schools in Wisconsin, and even so, they would be private, not needing a degree in education. What schools teach Polish and Hebrew? Where are they? I have heard of Chinese, German, Spanish, French, Latin, even Portuguese (which has almost as many speakers as Spanish, by the way) but really where do they teach Polish and Hebrew in a school setting?

- Retailing
I had no idea retail is a verb. I retail, you retail, he, she, it retails. I sense that retailing majors are business majors types that realize that they actually want to work in retail, and aren't majoring in business because they don't know what to major in.

- Poultry Science
Being a vegetarian, I am despised by all animal science majors. Go on, keep on hating, but these chickens will not be entombed in my body.

- Material Culture Studies (Certificate)
In high school, I took AP Language and Composition, a composition class taught by a woman that I assumed was bitter that she never achieved a prime job as a newspaper reporter. One day the class started talking about tabloids and their exploitation of celebrities, especially how Madonna sued one for false reporting. I sighed loudly and said, "It's a material world." After a second, the class starting laughing.

- Supply Chain Management (Certificate)
This sounds like a joke, imagine if somebody majored in retail and received a certificate in Supply Chain management. This person, let's call her Wendy, gets a managerial position at Best Buy. Somebody walks up to her.
WENDY: Sir, may I help you?
ANGRY CUSTOMER: My God! Does anybody know anything around here?
WENDY: I'm sure I can help you, what is the issue?
ANGRY CUSTOMER: It's just, seriously, did anybody here go to college?
WENDY: Well, sir, I did. I majored in Retailing with a minor in supply chain management.
ANGRY CUSTOMER: (Laughs) nice one. I got a double major in barbecuing and Jack Daniel's appreciation. Once again, my visit to Best Buy has proven that everybody that works in retail is a failure at life (walks away.)
WENDY: But I'm still paying off my student loans! (Pause) I don't think I'm a failure at life.

School is fun. Learning is great. Don't be afraid of double majoring.

Graduation Poems

2011-05-14T17:17:00.000-07:00

For Kate

There may be truth to find in soil science,

but why just scratch the surface when the tools

spelunkers of the soul’s ambivalence

require are merely JSTOR’s knowledge pool?

It’s great to have you in our Christ alliance,

you, humanist from Hudson chose my school!

As never have I heard the word said “Orahnge”

In such a way for me to think it foreign.

Our Kate has nothing at all to prove,

except perhaps how coolness amasses,

she knows the good and bold, and always shoves

away from Hubris and his advances.

She’s not as puritanically above

accepting advice from Dionysus,

I know no other who delights with wine,

Tight-scripting essays quick while slouched supine.

It’s all for purpose, learning liberal arts

or so you’ve reassured my soul’s unease.

Our hospitals have X-Rays scans for hearts,
But only you can make them still believe.
I wish you love in Christ and man (an Abelard!)
To go along-side you as Eloise.

May God anoint such faith with Libation,

(Least not your man to risk emasculation.)

Along with Tom, you battled bats and mice

To be the ‘fellow rift with strength and poise.

From pulpit, Macbook, or bedside, any device

you use within and with your joys,

the pedals, flow’rs and bikes, (least not forget our Christ!)

for anchored faith in windy Illinois.

A man may work his toil from sun to sun,

But this priest’s ministry has just begun.

To Hattie

Who knew the south may rise up strong again?

Or maybe some rise straight up to the top

On to my home and native land, Wisconsin,

Where liquid barley is our fav’rite crop.

Comparatists, you tell me how words pop:

Be weary of Germans baring gifts;

don’t bring your card to the librairie shops.

How awful living life locked in the Stagnant!

Embarrassing as telling Spaniards you’re pregnant.

I realize the sun goes part-time in

the winter. Trust me, I can feel your pain.

But that you chose us o’er Wash U.’s chagrin,

we all feel keen. With you, one rule germane

the greatest sin lies within the mundane.

Just as a Vegan never loses tempah

I never see you losing face or brain.

The best from Mid-Town’s streets, I must attest,

Most excellent in fancy, infinite in jest.

I hear that graduation’s Latin for
“Now get a job!” resume those résumés,

Just don’t embalm yourself with the Peace Corps.

The only advice I can think to say,

life’s more an open mic than cabaret,

You’re a wind chime to our northern cow belles,

If April is the cruelest month, here’s to May!

And as you leap across adulthood’s fjord,

I leave you to the grace and favor of the Lord.

16 Things About Me

2011-04-05T15:38:00.000-07:00

1. I go by my full name, Brendan Jones O'Connor, out of respect for both sides of my family.
2. Ik kan het Nederlands spreken (I can speak Dutch.)
3. I don't mind the sound of my voice in recordings.
4. I don't feel very masculine or effeminate.
5. I don't drink alcohol, nor do I have any desire to.
6. I have never been in a relationship, yet I don't feel unfufilled.
7. I tend to make broad generalizations. For this, people often think of me as being very opinionated, but I don't think I am, because I am willing to change my opinions with new facts or better viewpoints, using generalizations is usually for emphasis.
8. I am a vegetarian. I do not eat fish, and I avoid milk and eggs in their standard form.
9. I believe religion is a beautiful thing. I am an Episcopalian, but I have great respect for Islam, Judaism, and all other religions.
10. I dislike sarcasm, which is bitter and condescending, and directed at an individual. Sarcasm is the lowest form of wit, and whenever somebody is sarcastic to me, I respond by saying, "If I wanted sarcasm, I would have gone to the DMV."
11. My favorite philosopher is Kierkegaard.
12. I believe in being a moral person. One thing high on my list of virtues is humility. Nothing is quite as off-putting as being self-satisfied or condescending.
13. Winnie-the-Pooh holds a very special place in my heart.
14. I attend the University of Wisconsin, majoring in History and Economics.
15. I am a romanticist. Often I think about how I perceive things, aesthetic beauty, the quality of people's voices, etc.
16. I write novels. So far, none of them have been good enough to seek publishing, but a skill takes time to develop. Literature is an art form I am connected to, and think about frequently.

Why I am a Vegetarian

2011-03-29T07:06:00.000-07:00

I do not eat meat (including fish,) and I tend to avoid consuming milk and eggs in their straightforward forms. To some people, this is an affront to the natural order of things. Relax, I am not a radical, but one need not be a vegetarian. Things like animal abuse and the environmental impact of factory farming certainly weigh on my mind, but my reasons for forsaking animal muscle mass are a little more personal than that.
      I worked at a McDonald's during my formative years. Handling those frozen meat patties all the time made me gain a slightly different feeling about my dietary patterns. Before my time working, I loved bragging about how much I loved meat. I thought vegetarianism was stupid. But after making Big Macs with my hands without gloves (they are not required in Waukesha County,) meat started looking gross.
     Soon enough, I gained an aversion to red meat. I could not eat it in front of people; I thought they would judge me, but really, I was judging myself. A few months of going red-meat-less, I went to college (Go Badgers!) and woke up one day with absolutely no desire to eat meat. I literally woke up one day a vegetarian. To this day, I have had absolutely no desire to eat meat.
     Two lessons: 1. I gave up meat as a personal Kosher, and I feel better. 2. I gave up meat because I had lost all desire to eat it. If you ever want to give up something completely, it is always easier to do it when you don't want it.

My Recent Thoughts on Film

2011-03-03T14:03:00.000-08:00

The Academy Awards played out last Sunday, and I realized I need to start reading more books.
I have watched so many films the last couple of years, about 2-3 a week, that film dominates as my largest source for narratives. However, I am not sure that is a good thing.
I do believe film is an art form, undoubtedly the most commercially successful one of the past century. A movie, unlike a book, only takes two hours to watch. This precisely is the problem: all this cinephilia is lowering my attention span. Film too often is a passive experience; we eat popcorn and watch a film. Reading a quality book requires many more hours of dedication and strict focus to avoid shifting one's eyes around the text without gaining comprehension.
From my own experience, people that read a lot of good books (e.g. if you run your hand across the cover, the author's name does not protrude) are generally better human beings. Thus, my desire to become more of an active reader draws me to a radical decision: I am going to delete my Netflix account. Extreme? Yes. Necessary? Not exactly. A move in the right direction? I believe so.

Problems with the 2011 Oscars

2011-02-20T11:31:00.000-08:00

I love film, and I believe that good films ought to be awarded. The problem with the foremost award ceremony, The Academy Awards, is how they nominate the best films and actors ever year, and then give the awards to the wrong ones way too frequently. Here is my take for this year:

-Christopher Nolan is not nominated for Best Director. I feel the best film of a particular year and the best director of a particular year are almost always different films. The best director is the one who has the greatest vision and the most artistic exicution. The best director makes the viewer consciously aware that there is a man or woman behind the camera making everything work perfectly. That director this year was Christopher Nolan; he is the best commercial auteur in America (even though he's British.)

-"The Kids are All-Right" is not that great of a film. The plot had a shift half-way through as abrupt as "From Dusk Til Dawn," there was no real conclusion with Mark Ruffalo, and it seemed like it was trying to be a lesbian film for its own sake. Of all the characters, I felt for Julianne Moore so much more than Annette Bening. I suspect this is a pity nomination, but should Julianne deserve one also for her critical output?

-You also know why Annette Bening shouldn't get best actress? Because Hailee Steinfeld in True Grit was better! At only 16 years old, Hailee totally owned True Grit, despite being cast alongside Matt Damon, Jeff Bridges, and Josh Brolin. She was in every scene, why is she nominated for best "Supporting" actress? Too often "best supporting actor/actress" means a character comes into a scene, has a heartfeld 2 minute monologue, and that's supposed to be the grand scale of acting. Hailee had no teary-eyed monologue, because her character maintained herself as an intrigue part of the story throughout, her development, delievery, motions etc. were subtle and didn't scream "Throw me an award! (Mo'Nique)" and that's why she's awesome.

Top films of 2010, 4-1

2011-02-05T16:52:00.000-08:00

4. Black Swan
Black Swan is a film where the director is essentially the main character. The camera in this film is as much of a ballerina as the main characters, and I cannot say the same for any other film I saw this year. Black Swan is a decent into madness, making the viewer constantly question everything. It grips and warps your mind like how Darren Aronofsky only can, or as a friend of mine said, "Black Swan is an epic beast to be reckoned with!" Except this movie to be on my "Top 10 love-making scenes."

3. Toy Story 3
When I heard that Pixar was finally releasing Toy Story 3 eleven years after Toy Story 2, and fifteen after the original, I became a little nervous. After releasing so many quality films, one would think that they would eventually churn out something lousy, after all, its the third movie in the franchise! But Toy Story means something to me, it's one of the first films I ever remember seeing in theaters. Could Pixar recapture the magic of the first two films? Yes, they did.
This is not a film for kids, this is a film for everybody that ever left their parents' house or ever had to say goodbye to a friend. Toy Story isn't about toys, its about the fragility of innocence and the influence of childhood. To quote A House at Pooh Corner (one of my favorite books,)
"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not even when I'm a hundred."
"How old shall I be then?"

"Ninety-nine."
Pooh nodded.
"I promise," he said.

2. The Social Network
When Oliver Stone released W. back in October of 2008, he produced a well-acted, well-directed, well-scripted film that completely missed the point of the Bush presidency. As a history major, I can say there is a danger in writing the textbooks too soon. The Social Network is a film that perfectly captures the time period of the Noughties decade, while transcending it for an eternally truthful story about the lust for power and the effect of technology on our lives. This is a film that has a seemingly trivial premise, the origin of Facebook, and turns it into a battle of ideas over what now could be seen as the most powerful innovation in communication and human interaction since the telephone. The technical aspects of this film are about as close to perfect as one can get: the acting, directing, music, editing, cinematography, and, oh-my-gosh, the dialogue. This movie is the anti-Juno; the characters may speak fast, and not like anybody you have ever met, but it sounds so interesting, and surrealistically, natural. This being unlike the Diablo Cody script that's stuffed full of jarring pop-culture references that speak more of the writer than the characters. This is the best film about the 2000s made in the vicinity of the said decade.

1. Inception
Much like The Social Network, Inception focus is on the power of ideas, how they shape us, and how we can shape them. I'll go out and say it, Inception is better than the Dark Knight, and just an amazing film altogether. Its complicated, but unlike say, the films of David Lynch or Lost, which are meant to be surreal and confusing, Inception thrusts the viewer into a world of manipulating dreams, with their own warped, but controllable, logic. It's so hard to find an action movie with this much brains, heart (just watch Leo act; he is officially the man,) and soul. The spiritual essence of Inception is the battle between the outside world of war, instability, and one's own restless subconscious. In an age of increasing isolation and escalating world conflict, I can think of no other Hollywood film that simultaneously entertained me while seriously examining the human condition.
(And I say it's real at the end.)

The Golem's Tale, part 3

2011-01-23T12:47:00.000-08:00

CANTOS V

But could Chad pull off this maneuver

even with his rough allure?

Brush all that’s just, all that he knew,

To make a Devil’s rendezvous?

To end a person’s life just so

he may end his own. What thought-maestro

can dream so dark and sick and dour,

such details of a girl deflower’d?

An innocence dies on its own.

An apple-cheeked lass becomes a crone.

Adapt to cheat, less die alone?

A golem’s life is with no home.

Some martyr shed their robes bled red,

While others stained bright white, instead.

To live and live and never die

until the conscious’ fully pried.

Until one’s pride is ground as mill

can Chad release and soak distil.

“Suburban whiners, I’ve cast chagrin,

in truth, that’s what I’ve always been.

I’ve ripped my life so far ajar;

I’m just the miniscule YOU ARE!

To think the things that one can do

when one has less than naught to lose.

Six months were soon. He packed and fled.

There comes a place where maps give up

directing. Steps are gambits, top

to bottom, trees trim the stars.

You simply don’t know where you are.

The winds start here on their patrol,

First when they’re fresh and fiercely cold.

Relentless bruises I call time

have buffeted his skin to lime.

His face uncracked and ghostly smooth

expressed not well his soul unsoothed.

“I think about how I am cursed

A solemn man once said, ‘The Earth

Endures forever.’ I’m not alone.”

So much of nature, in fact, is gross.

The greatest clasp of life is close

Between how much we loath our days

and still we dread our death’s decay.

from ash to ash and dust to dust,

a tiny tab of earthen crust.

“Respect the magic, alive and queer,

but show the world, it’ll disappear.”

CANTOS VI

The moral of the story is…

Wait, you expect for me to give

an explanation for this tale?

Forget it, this ain’t Aesop’s fables.

Now just as I sweat to compose,

you should be reading awfully close

to get the most straight from the text.

As author, I can demand respect!

You chose to cross the Rubicon

not knowing what this tale would spawn.

but there’s a little epilogue

to clear what had been cast in fog:

Magic is a funny thing.

Who knows what fortunes it can bring?

Now Chad’s confined in his decay,

but he may live to love some day.

The stuff that spans across your skin

once made a star shine, boil and brim.

This is the way a life begins,

with ashes’ dust tossed in the wind.

And thus, it all will start again.

The Golem's Tale, part 2

2011-01-23T12:46:00.000-08:00

CANTOS III

October is the coolest month,

a fitting time for some love stunt.

It’s not haywire, it’s Haymarket!

“High-heels are parties’ straightjacket,

why don’t you take them off in my

room, down the hall.” She’s tongue-tied.

The roommate’s dim, and so’s the lights.

The Jesus neckless out of sight.

He was not sold by charm or wit,

her name was no prerequisite

to keep the pace tonight. The act

turns boys to men, and lights pinched black

From sweating leisure comes such pleasure.

Like vulgar Ceaser’s ‘seiser,

Chad thought, “Vidi vici veni

She’s drank the beers and skipped martinis.”

There’s unity in youthful bliss,

she’s spun supine, like Uranus.

“I’m burning up, straight through the ice,

my meager futon will suffice.

She morphs as worthy as Ovid:

Sweet Sydney’s now a vicious Syd!”

What lacked around her waist, instead,

Found its asylum in her head:

“You look just like a million bucks,

Strong-armed and fit like Sioux.”

A wedding night, but sans the banns!

A banned delight, like Kugerrands!

I think an ode for bod’ly lust,

I’m leery to sing, but now I must,

or better yet, I swing ballet

for this gay girl that leads me ‘stray.

What starts so clean upon our feet

soon finds itself in sheathed retreat.

(Who knew that now a plastic coat

can stop life faster than a moat?

The ‘noxious artist dons a smock,

In case she has Pandora’s Pox.)

“I sing her body’s eclectic

and wond’rous blessings! Quick to pick

her up, maintaining grasp,” he quipped,

“Embrace is such a perfect fit;

our clothing just gets in the way.”

She stopped, and much to Chad’s dismay,

dispersed her digestion on his knees

This wasn’t quite the night cap that

He had in mind. “Oh, Gott ist tot!”

He cursed as his excitement burst

His evening plans deserved a Hearst.

Hence past that night, her number died

a tragic death. What caught his eye

was not in texts or rolodex,

but twisted with his views on sex.

In months to pass, the strangest things

caused him to droll: sex-Pavlov springs.

There’s certain shapes and molds of plastic

that flame the fires of fierce fetish.

When thoughts for furniture weren’t wholesome,

his body found a brand-new fulcrum.

One night his better judgment found

a better thing to do. He crowned

the animal that wants its fill.

“I have an hour or so until

the roommate Drew comes, I’m alone,”

he soon inflected his dry tone.

There came a song within the room

That made Chad’s heart begin to swoon,

a gentle lull of popping fuzz

held him entangled. The crux

of sex attraction ‘came apparent

the TV stopped. It was clairvoyant.

Auroras grew around the screen.

The television set looked like

it wore a coat of velvet. The sight

made Chad to think to close the door;

he felt an impulse from his core,

titillating, osculating

loins quickly took to grating

upon the plastic, wood on plastic.

No questions for the enigmatic

engage of love with this TV,

“Was that the twisting of a key?”

The session ended much too short

to gain full-blooded love support.

Chad leapt into the couch askew,

emerging from the door, came Drew.

“Was something going on?” he said.

The tension knotted the velvet threads

that Chad had once embraced with care,

conceived ‘round the antenna-pair.

“Now, were you hugging my TV?”

(I looked so cur’ous, carnally?

thought Chad, the key’s quick dance within

the hole to end my righteous sin

was not enough of a good warning

of the interrogation coming.)

“I was just shagging your TV.”

Chad meant to say that he was ‘shaking,’

but Drew’s so shaken, the mistake’s not mistaken.

A Freudian slip! a raw faux pas

to deconstruct like Derrida,

but spewed dear Drew, himself amiss,

“Just what is up with your bullspit?”

Drew actually did use those words,

a pious guy, refused to curse,

but in his mind, “bullspit” made sense,

“It’s bulls’ own uvula lubricants!”

(I’d love to hear his explanation

How “Cluck you!” is a defamation.)

CANTOS IV

Chad found himself a few weeks out,

coffee-housing since the bout

with Drew and shattered trust. He thrust

his paper up and coldly cussed

when business cards slid on the table.

“I tell you now, the curse is fatal.”

The card said. There a man stood plain

and left. Chad’s reason died; he sprang

up, stepping toward the tattered tweed,

behind the store, his tight-lips cleaved:

“I know your name, you’re wond’ring mine.”

(assumption not made out of line.)

“Young lad Chad, I’m sad to say,

your dying comes in numbered days.”

The man talked slow with no accent

that Chad had known or knew exist.

“Who are you? What has brought you here?”

“I’m sorry, Chad, I can’t be clear.

Just take the words this post has spun,

the sand runs fast for fallen ones.”

Chad’s palm a platform for a reader,

A thin-spined, seraphim-cover,

a dim squint just to read the font,

when Chad looked up, the man was gone.

Later, dorm-home alone he trod

the thinkers’ fore-aft pace. “Was God’s

philanthropy this gift? Did he

slip me this cryptic text to read?”

With night in covers, skin full-showered,

The book ajar and his place cowered

“Six months of pain without escape,

and then you form in stone-cast shape.

The sin devours flesh into rock,

and coitus is the way to stop

the painful transformation fate

into the Wife of Lot. Translate

the curse unto the other,

the first one dies a mercy’s smother.

You wither quick in broken sand,

a shame before the Son of Man.

The other’s now begot the spell

to freeze within a rocky Hell.

Thus, as your soul breaks down to dust

the earthen things shall draw your lust.

Come selfish sex, or noble restrain

you must accept your wretched fate

as Golem, the damned man of stone

a lost soul thrust beyond atone.

What first drove him to porc’lain skin

now drew him close porc’lain rims.

Just from my mad, erratic tryst,

I’m turned on by my own light switch!

The smothering shakes of sliding lips,

fixed –ridge, clean teeth now tightly bit.

Few truths can wring more solemn

than wretched life rung as a golem.

He thought of all the children’s names.

He thought of all the children’s games.

He thought of life not spent alone.

He thought of all that he had grown

accustom thinking things came past this.

Life knows no consolation gifts!

“Perhaps the Lord, in all His wisdom,

had blessed a batch of bacterium

That molded, split and folded, bowled,

stripped, rolled by God’s unseen control,

Into a brew which brains thus grew.

By now, in our primord’l coup,

subdued the world and has His laugh.

If I to die, I have some thoughts

to entertain.” He said and scoffed.

“Forget you, junkies and crack-heads,

panhandlers, get a job instead.

You politicians, keen for war,

play any trick, you corporate whores.

Rednecks, bigots, and narrow minds,

Mein Kampf is quick to read, you’ll find.

Self-righteous, whiney radicals,

You have no clue. But most of all,

To all the folks who don’t know pain

but look for problems they can claim!

Self-help speakers with Talk-show grins,

Damn you, “victims” and charlatans!

You “know” the secrets for life’s passion,

(Counting money in your mansion?)

Where’s one person you’ve changed in life?

I see a bored, mislead housewife.

From tops of charts, to back-bin sales,

Runs your reserves when hope-springs fail!

The money would come faster should

you just push pills. Let me be understood,

suburban existentialists,

get a new job and purse your lips!”

Anger is sadness with a flame

that scalds bleak Chad’s hope-filled remains.

‘Tis this, a dangerous concoction:

What starts as hate soon steams to passion.

Imagination gained its grip

to rip him from his rocky crypt.

He sat and stared up at the wall

until he saw it not at all.

Decisions beckon, filled with spite

The visions thicken in full sight:

A girl kneads his rocked chest

and moans about how she is blessed

to love a man as strong as rock

(although not quite as she had thought.)

He’d smile, since he’d corrupt this kid

and rid the curse and run. How blessed

to think the pain would wein. To dare

caress waxed legs and flaxen hair.

“I am the hedonist’s head cleric,

whose specific quests are esoteric.

I come to claim your flaws in flesh,

to find perfection and heav’nly rest.

now join me in this full release

we are now one, and I the beast!

The sweet song rings, oh sing nymph noise!

Come roll your legs like your lymphoids!”

And so they’d lie, proud what they’ve done,

His curse is over, he’s begun.

He’d laugh as fingertips recede

as all his figure turns to bleed

into a pile of Sahara scrap.

The girl caught in the sand trap.

The Golem's Tale, part 1

2011-01-23T12:44:00.000-08:00

Hello readers, if you're like me, then you like writing a lot. Over the last couple of weeks, I've been scribbling a narrative poem entitled, "The Golem's Tale." In some ways, this is my response to the Twilight "Saga." But you'll just have to read it for yourself:

The Golem’s Tale

By Brendan Jones O’Connor

CANTOS I

Young men, instead of life outside

transfix their screens with blinkless eyes.

Dumb-founded like men o’er a gorge;

wide-eyed as Alex in Clockwork Orange.

I come, defend, and drive the pen

around the page and park again.

You can’t, my writing, read and check

when a joystick wrings your neck.

I am a poet, man of words,

a scribe of truth and life’s absurd

predicaments and grand ascents.

I’ve come to give the verse some sense.

How long have we been dealt the curse

of overwrought and trite free-verse?

The mangled lines and unrhymed words,
just face it, you are not Ginsberg.

The ones who read new poetry

are grads for an MFA degree

and no one else! But liter’ture

success in sales does still occur,

especially in books of prose.

But what wretched driv’l is now composed!

The murder mystery clichés

were done to death in Christie’s day!

Spy thrillers with their denouement

are wet-dreams for the Neo-Cons!

The romance genre need no second look;

the cover is what sold the book!

(I’d hate to see how Harlequin

Would treat the life of Hester Prynn!)

I have a piece, wide-spread in tone.

I fear, my crowd, I’m far too prone

to root the wrong and spite the right,

but prose I write shan’t read too trite.

I have a tale I wish to share,

As I spurn upon my writer’s chair

awaiting a chance to read as I wrote,

my eyes upon the script, I spoke:

“The Golem’s Tale” (yes, that’s the name)

He looked upon the mist’d rain.

How cruel can be November’s cold,

A chill he felt within his soul

of brimming gusts that blow ethereal

no matter what his coat’s material!

“Rain blesses the earth when barren,

it’s scraps of what the cloud had given,

but look! The world about is dead.

The Geese have flown!” He sighed and said.

His name was Chad, aged ten and nine.

He ached despite being in his prime

of physical condition

enhanced by weights and repetition.

His mind was keen for a lad his stock;

Chad’s folks accepted grades he got

without complaint. They said not much,

just dangling in and out of touch.

His parent’s have ridged-racks for minds,

there’s dozens for a pair o’ dimes.

His folks exulted drudge and work;

he shirked it off like a young Turk.

When Atlas shrugs, there comes Earthquakes

soon breaking flesh will shift his fate.

Tonsorial neglect out grew

His hair beyond what stylists knew

about how one looks cool those days,

but odd enough, it won him praise

from girls with little self-esteem,

who conjured him within their dreams.

You may think Chad a tad too pure,

But don’t think that, I can reassure

He makes decisions I’d rather not,

and spends his life in loveless haunt.

What does this mean? You’ll have to read

onward to see the plot proceed.

But something wasn’t right, he thought,

I fester in a lighted spot.

A sponsored clot of old malaise

directs my standing-still these days.

If I could find my piece of solace,

and maybe too this town demolished,

I could walk off scot-free and grin,

knowing I’d never need return again.

Dear reader, remember, your youth

and angst therein, unable to be soothed?

Perhaps you then may empathize

with his dry eyeball-socket cries

like all at points, he felt despair,

and found no cure from the dog’s hair.

Tried as he might, he found no bliss

within the truth of Sisyphus.

Exemplifying his ere some boredom

he scripted once just such a poem:

Are breathes the desp’rate gasps to stay alive?

Each bite of food a meaningless motion?

All jobs are just a money-making grind?

And love? A chemical illusion?

I doubt assertions from Heidegger and Sartre,

“Our being is nothing, life on pins and needles.”

I want to shoot an arrow through their charts,

as Hell is the lack of other people.

To scientists that fit the world between

their ears, to engineers that follow suit,

you give me figures, but I give you dreams,

for facts are pieces, but not all of truth.

Should I be seen as just a flesh machine?

I am a soul, not a deviation from a mean.

He turned this once in for a class,

his teacher looked and let it pass

without a red-pen marking squall,

(‘tis victory to not appall.)

But Chad kept strong. He wanted, no doubt,

a world to take this old world out.

The charm of the town can ware so thin

he wondered where the charm did begin.

This was beyond his basic hunches,

he swore the town’s a guild of dunces.

Chad knew he soon could bare his deuces,

But had no deuce to bare for cruses.

He did deduce that college coming

would give him start on his own running

away from life as parents’ re’currence

still nothing gave him reassurance.

“I dread this dullness. It makes me

sick from sitting and saying ‘La Vie’”

CANTOS II

Chad woke one day, not knowing the hour

(his clock told not, “must lack the power,”)

He thought, if I lie here supine,

Would they come looking for what’s mine?

Elusive answers fail to plug

his mind. His feet compressed the rug

and carried the rest of him to wash

and shave. Where’s the ‘rents? He’s at a loss.

No work did beckon in the back,

nor need to study for a class,

the house entire looked so calm

that everything was now all wrong:

a creeping fear that twists the head,

and makes the white turn black, instead.

When all the town vibrating-still,

it never quite had felt this shrill.

The creeping fear out-seeped its keep

when Chad admired the mossy deep.

“How long have I forgot the woods?

How long have I misunderstood?

My exodus was always there

behind the minivans and fresh au pairs.”

Before he crawled the green abyss,

Chad recalled a saying that went like this:

Remember the woods? You mustn’t forget

these words when trees have you beset,

‘To find some magic, look right here,

but bring the town, it’ll disappear.’

The things in the woods can scare be seen

Behind the forest’s shield of green:

Horizon blocked and sky in slivers,

the leaves and seeds fall from their quivers.

These were not woods of grandeur and pomp,

Instead the ground bogged like a swamp.

Some paths were high; some patches were low,

but forests always seem to know

how easy to be led astray

when you follow not one more.

He tucked his pants into his socks

and tried to clear his head of thoughts

that made him stall, just one look back.

His feet laid low the untread track.

From hop to jump, from patch to log,

this travel makes one’s mind a cog

in process to find the next step,

or else one’s boots lie in regret.

To cast one’s eyes at the tree-spires

is to misstep in the quagmire.

The spider-webs that cluster rain

got tangled on Chad’s face’s plain.

He dared to stop and brush the treads

that suit a bug’s size best instead,

soon realized, backed by his ponder

how all his foot-steps had been squandered!

Yes! Yes! He’s truly bound and lost,

rung ‘round his neck an albatross!

(His neck, in fact, just bore a whistle,

but should his stomach ever thistle,

he’d wished a ‘tross around his throat,

then his edge of hunger, he could coat.)

he wandered, wandered everywhere

without a spot to sit and spare

for thoughts of place and direction!

He spy no map-sign post’s erection!

He perceived a patch of pleasant ground.

So joyous over what he found,

he sprung upon a log to court.

“I settle on nature’s davenport!”

he said, expecting no response,

especially no background taunts.

The woods are such to listen to

your pleas and paeans, I construe,

technology can please the peons

through freezing brains, like freezer Freon.

The woods are for the rugged man

with camping experience on his hands.

However, quips emerged behind

the barked couch. He crouched from fear

and listened clear: “are you out here?”

What voice did robe, alleviate?

Such velvet rubbed, but could not grate!

Fear found itself some other host

as synergy bound bodies close.

Chad drew an image in his mind

of what induced the vox behind.

What he then saw upon his twist

dispelled, and yet affirmed his guess.

“I’m Chad, what’s yours, if I may pry,

dear Cherub?” “It’s Amechesky.”

“Amechesky,” thus numbed his tongue

from making speech, but not from fun.

“You want some magic? Here it’s found!

But God forbid you bring the town.

As soon as they come build a path

through here, the woods are cut in half.

I speak not just for trees, but creeps

and crawls and rocks and wind and sweeps

and all that waifs and whiffed and stripped

and coats... Pretend to fall.” He tripped.

Tumultuous cacophonies!

Please bring a bind, like Pericles!

“For such a man of fine-carved nose,

you have a tongue so well composed.

How can she look as right as a lamb,

but wield delights like Amsterdam?

“Stay. Let me mold you, let us cleave.

Receive me, mold me, nothing deceives

A heart like yours, so rounded in

all youth’s true drive for life. No sin

can cling, no, nor nothing a beast’s

beat-heart can’t coax a free release.

She brushed her hand against the earth,

the motion threw herself in mirth,

jabbing gently, fingerprints stayed.

He knew what’s next is sin survey.

“How long, Chad, you been lead astray?

Forgive yourself, its Ash Wednesday.”

He rubbed the dirt upon his chest

and crowned his crown a clay-filled crest

“When the world composes, we will love no more

There are no songs, there are no odes,

there are no epics of sweeping prose,

The end is but a sweet well-done.”

She licked her lips and thus begun.

His school taught ethics, never vice;

this carnal cram review sufficed.

After their souls had spliced, quite clear,

Amechasky bid for Chad’s ear:

“Come listen close to my adieu,

A blessed me is a cursed you.”

He saw her sigh and spied her mouth

when spider webs of dust came out.

The firm appeal from her core

had morphed to melted iron ore.

The faded skin broke free to sand,

her essence poured straight from his hand.

A clutter of rocks where once was flesh

wound Chad’s fragmented thoughts to second guess

which wounds were real, and what went wrong.

That which was lost here all along?

He lost two things: a meadows-maid,

and something he’d wish not reclaimed.

It was no dream; he didn’t awake.

Her body touches, marked the soil

that doubled as anointed oil.

“I bless in names of holey stories,

Ad Hoc chalk blessings from the quarry’s

staples. The truth’s in tree-growth stables;

his virgin-exile known just to maples.

This shear absurd forced him to jest,

but coming days would see no rest.

An explanation declined to show.

Divine elucidation, though,

through prayer or tarot, made him guess

perhaps he’s blessed to have transgressed.

The further trips to find the spot

where living blood had turned to rock

found not a trace, but trapping moss.

That one-hour wonder trip was lost.

But soon this utter mystery

Fell away, displacing it, had he

Right-locked in thought for learn’d escape:

the college car-packed, childhood draped.

And like a sheet pulled off a bust,

a gai’ty gape, (a smile) combust.

“Now angst can hid under my bed

and spawn itself,” Chad laughed and said,

“Another family will move in

and their kids will bathe in the sin.”

But if one thinks that homes make sin,

corrections come when school begins.

Brendan's 10 Top Films of 2010, 10-5

2011-01-16T09:28:00.000-08:00

10. The Other Guys
This may come as a surprise, but I am not a huge fan of Anchorman. Maybe it was aimlessness of the story, maybe it was the annoying characters, but I'm not a huge fan. The Other Guys, however, took the talents of Will Farrell and gave him a terrific straight man in Mark Walberg. These guys really know how to play off each other's strengths, and it show, because I laughed harder than any film I believe I've ever seen in theatres before.
     What made this more than just a parody of Buddy-Cop movies is the surprisingly developed storyline involving the misinvestments of the NYPD pension funds. I came in with no expections, and had to follow a storyline in a comedy movie! The ending credits then had the gall to feature a political message: a series of animated graphs shows how corporate CEOs get multi-million dollar golden parachutes, while the police get stiffed. I was blown away that a Will Farrel film had relevant political commentary.

9. The Town
The Town is The Departed mixed with Michael Mann's Heat. Ben Afflack shows his influences as director, but it's still a strong crime drama. The robbery sequences are superbly directed, effective in gluing me to my seat. Not as complex or thought provoking as Ben's prior effort "Gone Baby Gone," The Town still pretty good.

8. Shutter Island
Best. February release. Ever. (Yes, that means you, Passion of the Christ!) It's a haunted house movie, a psychological thriller, a mystery, and period piece all in one. Leo is a great actor able to command the screen in whatever movie he's in, and during Shutter Island, I was totally wrapped up in his paranoia as he wanders the freaky mental-asylum-based island. The movie really messes with you, misdirects you, and sends you for a ride.
     Most horror movies are awful, but Shutter Island functions well on all levels and shows off the mad chops of Martin Scorsese.

7. Scott Pilgrim vs. The World
I won tickets to see an advanced screening of this and came in with no expectations. That is the only way to see this movie, come in with no expectations, because it blew me away with it's "epic awesomeness." This is the greatest video game movie ever made, precisely because it's not based on a particular video game (an anime, actually,) but on the idea of video games. This is the first film to successfully utilize and mix the aesthetics of both Japanese anime and video game action. Remember the movie trailer-voice guy? and how he always says things like, "This is the white-knuckle thrill ride of the summer!"? Well, THIS IS the white-knuckle thrill ride of the summer! It's absolutely hilarious, doesn't take itself too seriously, has not only the most fun sequences of the recent memory, but also the best artistic uses of CGI all year. Even if you hate Michael Cera, see Scott Pilgrim. Really, see it.

6. True Grit
The fact that Hailee Steinfeld is being referred too as a supporting actress is a travesty. She, as the 14-year-old girl that instigates this adventure, is the focal character and holds considerable weight next to Jeff Bridges and Matt Damon. Bridges is so much fun to watch as a drunken cowboy that still has his skills together, and Matt Damon did well as the comic relief. The relationship these three characters have as they travel to find the murderer of Mattie Rose's father almost as great to watch as the supremely photographed landscapes they travel around. True Grit is yet another in the long line of Coen Brother's successes, and definitely easier to watch than the horribly depressing (but brilliant) "A Serious man."

5. Enter the Void
This was the best theatre-going experience I had all year. Enter the Void is a French-made, Tokyo-shot, English-language film that is a trip to watch. The entire film is either in the first person of the main character, or shot just behind his head. Oscar is a drug dealer in neon-lit Tokyo, but gets shot in the first half-hour. The rest of the film chronicles his life in loose memories up to that point, and him as a ghost observing what happens to the people he knew next.
      The camera work is mind blowing and the special effects are special. Never this year has a movie actively wonder, "How did they do that?" The best way to describe this foreign film is as a sequel to "Requiem for a Dream." But while Requiem for a Dream is filled with insanely quick cuts that make it seem like a music video from Hell, Enter the Void is filled with long, extended shots that carry the camera to all sorts of disturbing places. Be careful with this film, it will challenge you like you would not believe.

The Power of Youth

2011-01-08T08:48:00.000-08:00

I was cleaning my childhood room today and found an old essay I wrote when I was about 17. upon re-reading it, I liked it quite a bit, and wanted to re-print it:

The Power of Youth
Brendan Jones O'Connor

     It is said that youth is wasted on the young; everyday I try to disprove that statement. Adults tend to forget their times as children and adolescents, so it makes sense they are the ones to criticize the ways of youth. Few can accurately recall when their thinking became abstract, their bodies when through metamorphosis, and yet their heart remained divided over childlike assertions and the uncertainty of the teenage years. I, even as a later teen, retrospectively cannot always relate to the fears of my 12-year-old self. My heart has transitioned from early teenage confusion of identity, to the forward looking mindset of a young adult who will soon be off at college. Somewhere in my transition, I became happier, more self-assured, and optimistic. Maybe it is because in my path to adulthood, I regained an early childlike element that I forgot about in my more turbulent 11-15year-old times: a sense of wonder.
     A child look at a rolling field and thinks not about how thousands of year of glacial movements carved the land they are standing on, or how the town hired landscape developers to add to the ascetics, or even about the potential danger of the UV rays from the noonday's sun. Rather, the child can only recognize the wonder of this body of land they had never seen before. They can prance up and down the green openness with a sense that it's awesome, and they go to bed that night thinking of all the other cool places they have yet to discover. It is whit that lens I often try to see the world.
     I defend my youthful optimism with a quote from the poem "Dreams" by Harlem Renaissance poet Langston Hughes, "Hold fast to dreams, for when dreams go/life is a barren filed/Frozen with snow." The road of life stretches so far ahead of me, and I have only begun. I look to the future, because I know it holds dreams, so long as I reach for them. Without youth, we will forget what life can be, for often it is the least tainted eyes that reviles the most truth. We will forget that every moment of every day is not entitled to us, but a fleeting gift. Without youth, we will not remember that the time we do have is a canvas for our dreams. With the power of youth, a life is allowed to be all it was meant to be, do all it was meant to do, and live how it was supposed to live.

I tell high school seniors that the biggest thing I miss from high school is the brimming sense of optimism. That's not to say I am a pessimist (because I really dislike those kind of people,) but that when one enters college and becomes more conscious of the adult world, one often is buffeted by disappointments and frustrations. But just reading something like this makes me look a little brighter.

Harry Potter: A Science-Fiction Work

2011-01-05T13:59:00.000-08:00

In an earlier post, I voiced my questions over how the wizard/witchcraft economy would work. My complaints were twofold: First, the magic depicted in the books seemed to eliminate the need for most physical labor (and elves seem to fill menial positions like cooking and cleaning. Come to think of it, I wonder if JK was commenting on immigrate labor.) Second, being a wizard or a witch in itself is a specific profession, like being a doctor or a lawyer, thus having a society of almost nothing by witches and wizards would be like having a town full of nothing but doctors.
     I would like to propose a solution to this problem. Science Fiction author Arthur C. Clarke, author most famously of "2001: A Space Odyssey," once said, "Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic." Reflecting upon this, I came to realize the magic of Harry Potter could actually be a hyper-advanced technology!
   Here is my theory: an Alien race came to Earth long ago, and gave a select few people from different continents some sort of biological technology that fuses with their bodies. Through their thoughts, "witches" and "wizards" could manipulate matter through all sorts of nanotechnologies and other things we don't understand. This technology melds with one's genetics, so it is able to be passed onto one's kin. "Mudbloods" like Hermionie, come about when some of the nanobots leach onto a new body, entrenching them with the "magic."
   As soon as we accept that magic is really hyper-advanced technology like no other, the book series' economy (or lack there of) is a reflection on the shifting of the Western World from the Industrial Age to the Information Age. For example, JK Rowling explained what happened to the various characters after they graduated:

'Harry became an Auror for the Ministry of Magic, and was later appointed head of the department....Ginny Weasley played for the Holyhead Harpies Quidditch team for a time, leaving to establish a family with Harry. She later became the lead Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet.
   'Ron Weasley worked at George's store for a time, Weasleys' Wizard Wheezes, then joined Harry as an Auror. [Hermionie] worked for the Ministry of Magic in the Department for the Regulation and Control of Magical Creatures, greatly improving life for house elves. She later moved to the Department of Magical Law Enforcement and assisted in eradicating oppressive, pro-pureblood laws.
     'George Weasley continued his successful joke shop and married fellow Quidditch player Angelina Johnson.
     'Luna Lovegood searched the world for odd and unique creatures, eventually marrying Rolf, a grandson of the famed naturalist Newt Scamander, writer of Fantastic Beasts and Where To Find Them. The couple had twins called Lorcan and Lysander. Her father's publication, The Quibbler, returned to its usual condition of "advanced lunacy" and is "appreciated for its unintentional humour."
      'Neville Longbottom became professor of Herbology at Hogwarts and married Hannah Abbott, who became the landlady of the Leaky Cauldron.
      'Kingsley Shacklebolt became the permanent Minister of Magic, with Percy Weasley working under him as a high official. Harry, Ron, and Hermione were also instrumental in reforming the Ministry.

     Out of the three main characters, all of them ended up working for the government essentially as law-enforcers and political reformists. Ginny writes for a newspaper, Neville becomes a professor (does this mean he has tenure? Or is he just a glorified high school chemistry teacher?) Percy also works for the government. George still maintains his joke shop, making him a merchant, along with Hannah Abbott, a restaurateur.
     It seems the job field is pretty narrow for a witch/wizard, it would almost make sense that after graduating from Hogwarts to try to attend an American or British university and get a muggle job. However, this then raises the question of whether non-magical universities are aware and accepting of the transcripts from Hogwarts. I don't think they would, primarily because Hogwarts offers no real education outside of magical instruction (Magical History and Muggle Studies don't really apply to the non-magical world.) The best thing a magical family could do is send their kids to muggle school and teach them magic at home.

The Los Angeles Problem

2011-01-02T23:05:00.000-08:00

In an earlier blog post, I made mention the self-referential nature of how music played in dance clubs is frequently all about going to the club. Another self-referential problem came to my mind recently that I would wish to explain.
     It is well known that Los Angeles, America's second largest city, has its economy strongly rooted in the film industry. A huge chunk of these films take place in Los Angeles. Frequently, these films (or television shows) simply take place in the LA area because it is easier to film there, the script doesn't actually mandate that the city itself is necessary for any plot points. The characters that live in this movie version of the city just happen to live there, as if it were any other town. A problem arises when one realizes that the city is based on making movies. These characters, if they were real people, would probably be working for the movie industry in some way if they lived in Los Angeles, because that is the main employer in the town! Los Angeles is not a good cross-section of an American city, because they are the only ones to mass-produce well-known and high-grossing films as their biggest export.
     Let me use an analogy: New York is the center of the publishing in America; virtually all major publishers are located in New York. Additionally, New York hosts a large number of famous and aspiring writers. However, New York has several other industries, including finance and insurance. If New York's major industry was publishing, it would seem very weird, if not a self-indulgent and inaccurate representation of the world, to set the majority of these published books in this version of New York that is populated by nothing but writers and those that serve writers.
     Los Angeles, you need some new interests.

Movies I Came Up With the Idea for First

2010-12-31T10:25:00.000-08:00

A common criticism of the cinema is that Hollywood is devoid of original ideas. Sequels, book adaptations, rip-offs, there doesn't seem to be any imagination in the system. I enjoy film quite a bit, and find myself reflecting on this accusation of a lack of creativity. I am only twenty year old at time of writing, but several movies have came out that I had the idea for first, thus, I wish to set the record straight on the couple of original ideas that have allegedly came out of the pictures.

Inception
The summer of 2010 was blessed with a masterfully directed, edited, acted, and scripted heist movie about people that can enter your dreams. When I was in eighth grade, I drew a 40 page comic book about two guys that are trapped in somebody else's imagination. When discussing this comic with a friend, it was mentioned, "Hey, what if you're trapped in somebody else's dream, and you had to keep them asleep so that you don't die?" This is years before Inception. And if you remember, there is a Spongebob Squarepants episodes where he jumps from one person's dream to another.

Click
Summer 2005, I film a skit inwhich I have a remote control that effects the flow of time. I don't think anybody was calling Adam Sandler's Click original, but serious, I thought of it first!

Death Bell
This is a 2008 South Korean horror film about teachers killing their students for being bad students. When I was 14, I made a sound recording of myself narrating a story and added keyboard music later. The story was "The Story of Bob," a disturbing story about a kid named Bob, whose teacher kills students for talking during class or not doing homework. Listening to it now, I am surprised that I wasn't commited considering how messed-up the subject matter.

Kick-Ass
In my freshman year of high school, I was a part of a high school screenwriting competition in the greater Milwaukee area (I didn't win.) We submitted an entry, and if one were selected, one moved on to the next round of submitting a fully-written short film screenplay. The winner had theirs produced. My final entry was about a high school student that was beat-up so many times that he decided to become a superhero. He designs a costume, wears it to school, and slowly seeks out the bad guys in day-to-day life. Basically, it was Kick-Ass in its "high-concept," except without its level of violence and young girls dropping the C-Bomb.

Borat
At the same time that I was writing a short screenplay, I also was producing a year-long documentary about my life, entitled, The Life of Brendan 2005 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W5UZUCbTM9Q). I used primitive equipment, and even more primitive techniques as I films myself walking around, interviewing strangers, making people feel uncomfortable, and getting myself into strange situations. I was Borat, except Sasha Baron Cohan was acting, I was being myself, but I created the same effect without a mustache and an accent.

I am sure there are others. For example, I thought, what if video game imagery were used in a movie artistically? Then Scott Pilgrim came out. Maybe originality really is dead, but that does not stop me from enjoying the movies.

Brendan's Favorite Movies: Blue Velvet

2010-12-30T09:06:00.000-08:00

I believe David Lynch's 1986 film Blue Velvet is one of the most perfect films ever made. This does not mean it's the best, but that everything in the film just works: There isn't one shot or one line of dialogue or one musical cue that need not be there.
Blue Velvet is a mystery story, the main character being an amateur detective. As soon as he starts to investigate, a slew of strange characters in the otherwise generic town surface. The second Dennis Hopper appears, the tone abruptly changes. The viewer has entered the rabbit hole, where will it take you now? This is the definitive neo-noir film, managing to tell a simple story in such a beautiful, twisted, and utterly absorbing way. You will never think of velvet in the color of blue, oxygen masks, or Pabst Blue Ribbon the same way again.

Musical Artists that I Thought Would be One-Hit Wonders, But Weren't

2010-12-27T21:33:00.000-08:00

I love pop music. That is not always a popular opinion to have these days when declaring one's disdain for mainstream culture is a quick way to prove one is intelligent or deep, but we can deal with that later. One of the facets of pop music is the one-hit wonder, the act that comes out of nowhere, strikes it big, and later is never heard of again. Sometimes I hear a song and think to myself, this act will fade off the face of the earth soon, but soon enough, they come back two years later as strong as ever.
For this list, I use the notion of a "One-Hit Wonder" a bit looser than the literal definition. If an act has two hits that come out near each other from the same album, and then never heard of again, they are in my mind still a one-hit wonder. These are acts that came back with a second album or a set of songs that proved they would be remembered for more than just a blip,

Sara Bareilles (First Hit: Love Song)
About every year a "Piano Song" comes out (100 years, 1000 Miles, Bad Day, Kids, Ordinary People, Boston) this was the entry for 2008. Piano-based popular music is more of an exception than a rule, and Sara Bareilles doesn't have the distinction of Fiona Apple or Tori Amos. But what do you know, as of late her song "King of Anything," which is thematically similar to "Love Song" in that it is a tell-off anthem, has crept up the charts, and I feel it has had enough airplay to qualify as a second hit. Unlike Daniel Powder of "Bad Day," Sara Bareilles lives another day to tickle the ivories.

Paramore (First Hit: Misery Business)
Rock music (which I officially define as being any short-form music characterized by solo voice, electric guitar, and lessened focus on melody) is not necessarily in vogue on popular music stations, but Paramore, with a female singer, has a bit more of a chance. I remember their Misery Business song with its chorus that does not mention the words "misery" or "business," but I figured it was another indie-ish rock band of teenagers that got a little lucky by straddling the more commercially viable sector of rock music. Then they did the main song Twilight soundtrack, and I thought, oh, well, yeah, they seem like Twilightish music. Come this year their latter-day power ballad "The Only Exception" did very well, once again, added by the surprisingly good singing of the pink-haired girl.

Sean Kingston (First Hit: Beautiful Girls)
Just look at him. Music has so much to do with image, and selling a guy who is the re-incarnation of Fat Albert must be somewhat difficult. Regardless, he hit big with a song that not only sampled "Stand By Me," but also made references to suicide in the chorus. And it was the summer hit of 2007! While he did have a minor hit with "Take You There," his real comeback into the spotlight was with "Fireburning" in 2009. I get the feeling people remember that song now more for Stephen Colbert's riff on it (Cupcake Reach-around anybody?) Still, he dropped another single in early 2010, "Eenie Meeny" featuring everybody's favorite comedic punching bag, Justin Bieber. Sean really knows how to make autotune work for himself.

Natasha Beddingfield (First Hits: These Words/Unwritten)
Unwritten was one of those pop songs that was well-written, featured acoustic guitar, and did not involve going to the club, which alone gave it Adult Contemporary Radio credit (check out Jesse McCartney's Beautiful Soul for another prime example of this.) And while I thought (and still think) that Natasha B. is one of the pop divas that really deserved to be bigger than what she got, she did have another sizable hit a few years later with "Pocketful of Sunshine," a very unsunny sounding song.

Cee Lo Green/Gnares Barkley (First Hit: Crazy)
OK, OK, this is cheating a little bit, but since Cee Lo Green was the voice of Gnares Barkley, I count them as being the same act. "Crazy" was such a great song, and Gnarles Barkley, along with Outkast, stand as shining evidence that pop/rap crossover music can be, well, gnarley. If you had told me that the same soulful voice crooning about going crazy would infect my ears again with a song whose title cannot even be mentioned over the radiowaves (That's "F%^& You",) I don't think I would believe you. But even better, the song simply rocked, making me want to dance as much as I sympathize with the singer. Bring Motown back, goshdarnit!

Soulja Boy Tell'Em (First Hit: Crank That)
This one is, by far, the biggest surprise of the entire list. Seriously, "Soulja Boy Tell'Em?" That's a really goofy nick-name for a 17-year-old who wrote and recorded a repetitive rap song about a deviant sexual act that also involved a goofy-looking dance. I learned how to do the dance. I was there. Even at the time I knew that this would one day be remembered as nostalgic kitsch, but it didn't stop me from colliding into other people at school dances during the "Y-O-O-O-O-O-U-U-U-U!" part of the song when you hop side to side. He had every single making of a one-hit wonder, but Soulja" "Phone" actually has a good chorus, as sung by somebody that isn't Souljaally has a good chorus, as sung by somebody that isn't Soulja Boy. What makes it interesting is that they actually sing Soulja Boy's phone number, which I, regrettably, called. It just had a recorded message, but just think of the implications, I called Soulja Boy's phone number. This is one of those things not to mention in a job interview. This year he dropped another single, "Pretty Boy Swag," which wasn't a big hit per say, but I have heard it at parties and what not. Soulja Boy, he cranked it so far back, that when it let it rip, it went far.

Unanswered Questions from Arthur

2010-12-23T21:48:00.000-08:00

Every time I hear the name "Arthur," I immediately think of the yellow-sweatered aardvark. While Arthur certainly made an impact on the children's literary world, I, along with many of my generation, remember him much more fondly for the long-running PBS animated show. While Arthur dealt with many issues relevant to children, it did not resolve one to my memory: interracial marriage.
All of the characters in the show were anthropomorphic versions of vary mammals. It is implied that each sort of animal is a different ethnicity. Immediately, this begs a huge question of whether animals can crossbreed. Because all the anthropomorphic animals are self-aware, have free will, and fit into the society like anyone else, I couldn't imagine carnal relations between non-similar species would be counted as bestiality, or immoral in some way. However, can different species crossbreed? The character of Emily, DW's perfectionist friend, is (according to Arthur Wiki) three-quarters rabbit and one-quarter monkey, the only "mixed" animal on the show. Does this mean that different species' chromosomes line up? Or do only certain species line up with each other?
In a cheap move at diversity, Arthur just creates a whole set of questions that they can't possible answer as long as they keep trying to make it a kids' show.

Movies/TV Shows Better than the Source Material

2010-12-15T23:57:00.000-08:00

Every time a film adaptation of a popular book comes out, I hear the same conversation over and over again:
Person A: Um, yeah, they left out this part, and then they changed another part.
Person B: Well, you know that they can't fit everything in the book into the movie or else it would be way too long.
I have heard this conversation way too many times, and I realized the central flaw: A film is BASED on a book; a book is not a teleplay; a book is from whence inspiration is drawn. So to prove my point, I selected some movies that improved on whatever their source material was.

Fight Club
I disdain Chuck Palahniuk's books. Did you ever notice that every press release of his refers to him as "The Author of Fight Club, which was turned into a movie directed by David Fincher, starring Brad Pitt?" Do you know why? Because Fight Club the book is just terrible. Almost everything the Chuck writes is this awful, gory, disturbing nihilist schlock. This is the sort of book that high schoolers, undergraduates, stoners, and people that dislike reading real literature read to make themselves feel like they're deep intellectuals when they are really just annoying people that smoke too many cigarettes and act like jerks. You find them on every college campus.
     The book is written in a narrow first person style that seems to give away the "twist" ending (Dissociative Identity Disorder is a way overused plot device,) the writing consists of one sentence paragraphs, and it simply does not capture any of the social commentary or impact of the film. Also, the film changed the ending. It was better.

Jaws
Slow read, didn't capture the manliness or taunt horror of the movie. The shark's death in the book was lame, compared to the explosion from the film. Just watch the movie.

Garfield
Not Garfield the movie, (to which Bill Muary openly regretted in Zombieland,) but Garfield the animated cartoon. Making Garfield animated made Garfield more animated: he ran around, went on adventures, met different reoccurring, and made an overall very funny and well put-together show. The comic strip, however, has no excuse for still existing. Nobody actually reads it, the art is static, jokes repetitive, and characters are almost non-characters. In fact, removing Garfield from the comics makes the strip much funnier:
http://garfieldminusgarfield.net/
The voice of Garfield, Lorenzo Music, completely owned the character, allowing him to be sarcastic without being cruel, dry without chaping my lips, and just plain funny. Every time I walk by a Chipotle or a Qdoba, I think of the episode when Garfield inherits the Klopman's Diamond and first thinks, "I wonder how many burritos I could trade this for." I, too, wonder sometimes the answer to your quandary.
[According to wikipedia, the Hope Diamond, which the Klopman Diamond is based on, is valued at about 200 Million dollars. At about 6 dollars a burrito at Chipotle, Garfield could buy about 33,333,333 burritos.]

Jurassic Park
Michael Critchton novels really know how to slog on the unnecessary exposition. It makes all the books sound scientific, but not really. He makes countless errors in all of his techno-thrillers, but nobody is out to question him because his readers are trying to get a good read, not a 450-page op-ed piece about the dangers of cloning. The chapters of exposition really are not necessary to even make a point. The original techno-thriller, Frankenstein doesn't even explain how Dr. Frankenstein brings the monster to life. We the readers didn't need to know how it happened, because we probably wouldn't understand anyway. Imagine if the film Inception included a 10 minute monologue explaining how synchronize their sleep cycles to stay on REM sleep, as well as all have the same dream. That would just drag the story down.
     The film not only streamlined so much of the exposition, but makes the characters characters. John Hammond ("Welcome to Jurassic Park!") in the book is a cold-hearted money grubber that dies a nasty death. John Hammond in the movie is a Walt-Disney-ish dreamer that wonderfully conflicts with the cynicism of Ian Malcolm (Jeff Goldblum.) Ian Malcolm in the book is bald, annoying, and sounds like every other know-it-all Michael Crichton character. Ian Malcolm in the movie is eccentric, funny, and is first described as having "an excess of personality." Dr. Grant and Ellie are given a playful dynamic in the movie. Samuel L. Jackson is in the movie. Neumann is the movie. The movie was good. The book was good, but the movie told the story with more fun and less whine.

A History of Violence
Based on a comic book, the Viggo Mortensen film was a powerful meditation about the deep-seated origins of violent behavior and cyclical nature of violence itself. Two problems with the comic: first, it's drawn in a sketchy-pencil style that doesn't look that good. Second, the comic fails to carry the sort of kinetic energy and raw emotion of the film's depiction of violence.
     The film is difficult to watch because, well, it's realistically violent. Viggo does horrible things to people, but no matter what, he cannot escape his "history of violence." The film not only changes the storyline to make the ending and general trajectory more realistic, but also adds two absolutely fantastic sex scenes (from a dramatic point of view.) You can't escape your past, but you can escape the mediocre comic.

The Swiss Family Robinson
The movie was better for one simple reason: it took a largely episodic and non-plot driven story and added pirates. It did not matter that pirates do not fit into the time period. Pirates made the movie so much better.

Casino Royale
This goes not only for Casino Royale, but also for most of the original James Bond books. Casino Royale is a sort of dime store paperback novel that is among tens of thousands. It reeks of the era: Soviets, spies, sexism, cigarettes. The film did a superb job of modernizing a glorified stock character, throwing in great action sequences, swell acting, and changing the casino game in question from Baccarat to Texas Hold 'Em. Seriously, have you ever played Baccarat? And if you have, how many times have you played Texas Hold 'Em. Yeah, that's right, Texas Hold 'Em is better. And is the movie.

Just remember, don't be a fanboy/girl, evaluate the film on its own merits. But just please don't have the conversation detained in the opening paragraph. Please.

The Trouble with Casting

2010-12-13T21:56:00.000-08:00

I would like to bring up an issue of film casting. People tell me that in theatre/film, appearance is almost everything. Oftentimes, one does not get the part because one does not "look the part." Given this, why does Tom Cruise continue to get film roles? He does not look like a lawyer (The Firm, A Few Good Men), a doctor (Eyes Wide Shut), a magazine CEO (Vanilla Sky), a warrior (The Last Samurai, Legend, Born on the Fourth of July), a covert ops agent (Mission Impossible I, II, and III, Knight and Day), an SS member (Valkyrie), a senator (Lions for Lambs), and most certainly not like an ordinary person with a menial labor job (War of the Worlds.)
No, in fact, America's most beloved Scientologist and former Brat Pack member looks too much like himself, which is to say, a model. That's right, more so than any other actor or actress in the game, I cannot suspend my disbelief when I am watching Cruise alternate between mugging to the camera and yelling. He is too pretty-boy looking to be believable in any career he plays, because people just don't look like that, and if they do, they model. Additionally, he also is incapable of doing accents, so he sounds awfully strange as a French vampire in Interview with a Vampire, or a straight American-accented Nazi renegade. Imagine doing Shakespeare in Brooklyn accents. It just doesn't work. I tried:
Whad a piece ah woik is a man! haw Noobile in
Reesin? haw infinite in facullty? in fawm an' mawnin'
haw exprasshun an' admerrable? in Ahcshun, haw like n' Angel?
Having said that, I find Thomas Cruise Mapother IV's most convincing role to be in Magnolia, where I swear he was playing himself. I get the feeling that every person on earth can act in at least one role, and at least Cruise was lucky enough to have been cast in a film where he got to play his.

The Sickest, Most Twisted Thing

2010-12-09T17:07:00.000-08:00

Sometimes life feels like autopilot. One's motions are mechanical, responses automatic, and thoughts streamlined. When one lives completely in the moment, the moment can be meaningless because it's nothing out of the ordinary.
     From this position, it sometimes takes something great to knock an individual out of their living through the motions. This event can be something very positive, but this event can also be something very unsettling. An event that contradicts the order of things can make one realize why even the most basic procedures and events happen as they do.
     I had such an event happen to me. I was attending a high school basement party; I was 18 and the oldest person. As I descend the stairs to the basement, I notice the food set out on a ledge. The lights were dimmed, so I couldn't exactly make out what I was eating. It looked like M&M's. I took a handful and tossed them into my mouth. I masticated, and discovered instantly that the bowl contained M&M's mixed with Skittles.
     Was this some kind of sick joke? Nothing else about the party would suggest that. Additionally, nobody else mentioned anything about the two candies being mixed. It was an event that happened, but for no known reason or intent, and for all I know, I might have been the only person that was affected by it.
     The Irish have a concept that some places were not only holy, but also "thin," the distance between the said places and the spirit world was minimal. That's how I feel about this particular event. It was such an abstraction from reality that it made me question the actual foundations of existence and order in the universe. Maybe M&Ms and Skittles belong together.

Bad Movies with Good Acting

2010-12-07T01:13:00.000-08:00

Have you ever made a video for a class before? It's kind of difficult, scripting, co-coordinating schedules, driving to locations, shooting, editing, and so many other factors. Making a professional film must be this times a number just below infinity in terms of involvement, cost, and effort. Given the number of tasks, roles, and processes involved in making a film, it seems interesting that viewers, including myself, seem rarely interested in anybody outside of the main actors, and occasionally the director. Sometimes, it isn't the actor's fault that the movie is terrible, and they put on a pretty good show anyway. This is my list, in no particular order, or good acting in not-so-good movies.

-Chloe Moretz and Nicolas Cage in Kick-Ass
     This was the only time I ever left a movie theatre completely unsure what I thought about what I just saw. Kick-Ass is a horribly violent adaptation of the primitive comics you drew in middle school. The film keeps flipping from a light teen-sex comedy to a gory superhero deconstruction, but can't decide which one it wants to be, and ends up resulting in a hastily scripted film. However, Nicolas Cage gives the dialogue a surprisingly funny reading, and Chloe Moretz as Hit Girl completely owns the movie as an 11-year-old prepubescent Jason Bourne with a foul mouth and a gun. She was 12 during filming. When I was twelve my voice hadn't changed yet.

-Daniel Day-Lewis in Nine
     I met the person that lives next to DDL in Ireland. He told me that the method actor extraordinaire could be seen singing and dancing around his house. Once Nine was announced, I was so excited, only to be disappointed. The movie failed at recreating the atmosphere of "Chicago," much less the classic 8 1/2! The songs were forgettable, the movie jarring, the plot underdeveloped, BUT DANIEL COULD SING! and Dance! Well! He gave it is all, and it made me feel good inside. Maybe next time.

-Tobin Bell in the Saw Series
     Saw is a guilty pleasure of mine, but I will open agree that it has some of the worst acting in any major release in the 2000's. While everybody is freaking out, the infamously voiced Tobin Bell completely dominates every scene he is in. In my mind, a good villain is not somebody you want to punch in the groin, it's somebody that you, to your dismay, find yourself fascinated by. The world is filled with real villains, and they are always people that can convince you that they are doing the right thing.

-Willem Dafoe in The Boondock Saints
     The Boondock Saints is probably the only movie that EVERYBODY loves except the critics. I like aspects of this movie, and it seems so appropriate around St. Patrick's Day, but I'm calling a spade a spade: it's an immature, over-the-top, self-indulgent, Quintin Tarentino knock-off that takes itself way too seriously. The whole movie reads like a smarmy Irish response to Italian gangster movies, and am I the only one that thinks it's a little weird that the brothers get a message from God to kill gangsters and nobody seems to question the theological implications? The action sequences are lazy, every single one of them in slow motion (although the cauterizing scene was a nice touch of realism.) If you want to see good action, watch "The Matrix," watch a John Woo film (Check out "Hardboiled.") In terms of acting, I can't tell the two brothers apart. But I know when Willem Dafoe enters the room. He is such a wonderful character, managing to be a self-aware over-the-top, while the rest of the movie is just ego-driven, over-the-top. It almost seems like he realized that this was going to bomb at the box office and live forever in the hands of teenage boys, and he just has fun with it. Way to go, Willem, best actor to come out of Wisconsin!

-Edward Norton in Leaves of Grass
     I don't understand why this film was made. Edward Norton was in Primal Urge, 25th Hour, Fight Club, American History X, The People vs. Larry Flint, The Illusionist and Red Dragon, why is he in this bland, inconsequential indie film? This is one of the few films I stopped watching because it wasn't really that funny and it wasn't really that dramatic either. It was just boring. Ed plays both a charming, successful, sexy Classical Philosophy professor and his drug dealing Oklahoma hick brother. Other movies have done the one-actor-playing-two-characters gig before, but the technical precision is insane, and the two characters are so different, I couldn't have guessed they were played by the same dude. Good acting, but a mediocre movie.

-Jackie Earle Haley in Little Children
     This is one of the few non-period pieces Kate Winslet starred in. She is a stay-at-home, thirty-something generation X-er mom trying to avoid turning into a gossipy, shallow housewife, but also married to an unemotional husband that watches too much porn. Patrick Wilson is a stay-at-home dad with a domineering, overly ambitious wife. They start an affair. These two are upstaged by Jackie Earle Haley as a registered sex offender. Sex offenders are the modern-day boogie men, but he manages to craft a remarkably complex character out of "To Catch a Predator" territory. This is not to say we should sympathize with him, but he is the only thing that leaves an impression after the movie's over. Now on the topic of the film itself, Little Children has a terrible ending, and the cinematography tries really hard to be "American Beauty II: The Revenge," but the most unforgivable thing is by far the weirdest, the narrator. This is a grown-up film with an unseen narrative voice. That's right, not a character narrating, but a movie-trailer quality, disembodied voice discribing the characters' backstories and thoughts while also hastening plot development. What kind of lazy screenwriting is this?

-Dakota Fanning in The Runaways/Twilight: New Moon/Twilight: Eclipse
     She is fifteen and plays a drug-addled, sexually-precocious, bi-curious rock star in The Runaways. The scene where she tries to openly buy a bottle of vodka with a couple of onions is amazing.
     I really don't have to talk about Twilight, but trust me, she's the best one.

Saint Nick vs. Santa Claus, a Battle of Globalism

2010-12-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

If you are from Wisconsin, today means something special to you. Today is Saint Nicholas Day. You, as a child, would wake up, run by your fireplace, where you left your shoe, and see that it now is filled with candy by none other than St. Nick. However, you would understand that St. Nick is not Santa Claus, St. Nick is an actual canonized saint, while Santa Claus is the guy who lives in the North Pole.
This is Saint Nick: http://www.stnicholasfestival.org.uk/
This is Santa Claus: http://www.santa-claus-clipart.com/
Santa Claus is not Saint Nicholas. Saint Nicholas is not Santa Claus. One guy comes to kids in Wisconsin on December 6th to put candy in your shoe. The other guy has flying reindeer, elves, and an obesity problem. Yes, I understand that the American tradition of Santa Claus comes from St. Nicholas, but for our intends and purposes, it must be recognized that they are not the same person in Christmastime Mythology.
     The name "Santa Claus" comes as a corruption of "Sinterklaas" (Sint being the Dutch word for Saint.) In the Netherlands, Sinterklaas lives in Spain with his Moorish sidekick (portrayed by white guys in blackface) Zwart Piet (Black Pete), but right before St. Nicholas Day, the Jolly Old Bishop travels by steamship to a port in the Netherlands where kids wait at the docks cheering. If you have been a naughty child, Zwart Piet will take you back to Spain (Hide the children!). On the actual night of before the 6th, Sinterklaas rides from house to house on a horse and throws candy down the chimney in the shoes of children. Dutch candy, however, is not at all like American candy. If you are expecting sweetness, prepare to be disappointed, instead you get things like salty, rock-hard black licorice, gumdrops that taste like mouthwash, disks that look and taste like Play-Dough, and Gingerbread cookies that are filled with minty paste. I still have to acquire the taste.
     I digress, Sinterklaas all makes sense. There are no elves, no operation on the Northpole, no undiscovered species of caribou. One must assume that this is the same Saint Nicholas that comes to Wisconsin, as well as other European countries on December 6th. It still leaves the question of where the other guy, the secular Santa Claus comes into the picture. My high school civics teacher proposed the question of what Saint Nick and Santa Claus' relationship was. Do they know each other? Are they brothers? What's going on?
     My theory is this: Saint Nicholas is the actual saint. God gives him a free pass every year to leave Heaven and bring joy into the hearts of children. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, Saint Nicholas manages to fill children's shoes just as how he dropped the dowry money into the stockings of those poor girls during his lifetime. Santa Claus, on the other hand, was an American man, probably one of German decent with the name of Klaus, that made a pact with Satan to live forever. Satan granted him eternal life and supernatural powers under the condition that 1. He place the title "Santa" in front of his name, innocent sounding, but actually an anagram for "Satan." 2. He must use his eternal life to rebel against God. Santa Klaus, decided to corrupt the Christian holiday of Christmas by usurping both St. Nicholas and the Jesus part of Christmas by giving kids cool toys to promote commercialism and cultural conformity. But he wouldn't give cool toys to everybody, no, he would give rich kids the good stuff and poor kids lame toys specifically to encourage class divisions. Santa Claus, as Calvin from "Calvin and Hobbes" correctly guessed, establishes his base on the North Pole to escape environmental and labor regulations, also because the UK's Father Christmas already set up shop in the Lapland region of Finland. Santa Claus funds his operation through corporate sponsors, including Coca-Cola and, for a time, Lucky Strike (http://www.seacoastnh.com/arts/santa.html), as well as numerous television and movie appearances.
      Most of America has forgotten about the real St. Nick, but in Wisconsin, we keep the hope alive. There is a Saint Nick, and he carries a crosier, not a sack of video games and Bratz dolls!

Biggest Movie Pet Peeves

2010-12-05T13:41:00.000-08:00

If you are like me, you like movies. However, there are sometimes things that happen in movies that make you smack your head. Here, in no particular order, are my biggest movie pet peeves.

-Jurassic Park: When 12-year-old Lex manages to somehow hack a complicated computer system, Dr. Grant and Elle are holding the door back as raptors are trying to break in, while also reaching with their feet to secure a rifle on the floor. Little Timmy looks over Lex's shoulder the whole time. Why doesn't he walk over, pick up the rifle, and give it to Dr. Grant and Elle? He seriously just stands there as this all happens.

-The Road: In a post-apocalyptic America, Viggo Mortensen and son road the landscape. There are at least two times when they go swimming, but Viggo swims naked and his son swims with shorts on. Isn't that kind of weird? Why wouldn't they both swim naked if the father is going to? It's not like they have any reason to be modest. Have you, the reader, ever gone skinny dipping? Usually it's kind of weird when one person goes naked and the rest are clothed.

-Chronicles of Narnia: Prince Caspian: Another water related pet peeve. After the kids are whisked away to Narnia, they appear on a beach. Keep in mind that they have no provisions or have any idea where they are exactly, but that doesn't stop them from running as fast as they can, fully clothed, into the water. They had no change of clothes, why on Earth (or Narnia) would you do something that stupid? Walking around in wet, clinging clothing would most certainly help introduce hypothermia, or at least horrible chaffing.

-Saw II: A girl gets her hand stuck in a trap. The trap allows the hand to enter, but pulling the hand back causes the blades to press in on one's skin. She easily could have used her other hand to press the blades to open up, giving enough space to pull her hand out, but no, she sticks her other hand into the trap, too. So dumb.

-Spring Awakening: This is a stage musical, but it deserves getting ripped on as an unfocused Rent knock-off with forgettable songs, unlikeable characters, and a horribly jarring concept that mutilated the source material. One of the worst crimes was the bizarre hair style of the Fat Kid. Imagine a shaved head with two Hostess Ding-Dongs on the top of his head. It makes no sense, and it draws the eye to such a minor character.

-Mission Impossible II: This movie has so many strange plot holes in it, but I could suspend my disbelief for almost all of them. I could not, however, do this for the issue of Tom Cruise's hair. Remember the first (, good) movie? Tom Cruise has short hair. This makes sense, as if he is in constant hand-to-hand combat, he would not want somebody the easy grab of his scalp. So for being a top-secret agent, is he just so vain the second time around he can't cut his hair? It makes no sense why he would have it that long.

The Road to Gaga: the Solo Careers of Fergie and Gwen Stefani

2010-12-03T21:28:00.000-08:00

When the year 2008 ended, a number of articles, as well as conversations I had with other people, seemed to indicate that people really wanted the year to end. 2009 and 2010 have not been that much better, but a musical gift in the form of the wacky, whimsical Lady Gaga gave American pop music a much needed kick of originality and quality production. A question floated around my head "Was Lady Gaga with a precedent?" Of course, it is easy to see the Madonna in Gaga, but what about the 2000's? What came before to prime us to the sonicscapes of the woman with a new dress for every occasion? The reflection that followed made me think of the solo careers of Gwen Stefani and Fergie. I survived both at the time. Now I revisit the Naughties.
     I have to get this out of the way before I begin my analysis, Gwen Stefani is very much a pre-Lady Gaga, Fergie is not at all.
     Stefani, No Doubt's leading woman, released L.A.M.B. and The Sweet Escape in 2004 and 2006, respectively. They're not bad, standing up fairly well these years after release. Both albums have a glossy, 1980's inspired sound that sets it apart from most of the 2000's pop music. Stefani's voice is a creation in itself, capable of being strong, flirty, and goofy (in a good way), her unique sound makes even the most sexual song sound fairly innocent, unlike Britney Spears' robotic sex-tronic crooning in her most recent releases.
     While both Stefani and Lady Gaga share in a love of 80's influences, the real reason I chose the No Doubter is over a matter of image. Stefani looks like Lady Gaga, she also was a wearer different costumes, drawing inspiration from the Japanese Schoolgirls (Rich Girl), Alice in Wonderland (What are You Waiting for?) Cheerleaders (Hollaback Girl), to The Sound of Music (Wind it Up.) Watch these music videos. I will wait. Notice how none of those costumes look especially promiscuous? One of the biggest compliments I had for Lady Gaga was that she managed to be astoundingly sucessful without having to sell her body. GS proved it could be done as early 2004.
     Gwen Stefani is original sounding, Fergie is not. Her solo album is titled "The Dutchess." That's right, duTchess, don't they have a spellcheck? There is nothing Dutch about this album. There are no songs about tulips, windmills, Anne Frank, Rembrandt, the colonization of South Africa, or liberal drug tolerance laws, but there are a lot of songs about Fergie.
     When I was younger, I wondered by there were so many love songs. After listening to this album, I realized that love songs give a singer a chance to sing about somebody else, otherwise they can end up focusing on themselves. Having said that, the raw narcissism rampant in this album makes it horribly annoying. When the Music Gods make their judgements, I am confident that "Fergelicious" alone is enough to damn Fergie's solo career to an eternity of studying Baroque harpsichord.
     The reason why one must compare Fergie and Gwen Stefani when trying to account for the success of Lady Gaga is because Gwen Stefani showed that the public was interested in listening to new takes of pop music by singers that weren't sex robots. Fergie, on the other hand, IS the pop music establishment of the Naughties. If somebody ever were to ask me what the best example of 2000's era popular music, I would point this person to the Black Eyed Peas discography and especially this album. (That is, best as in the most clear example, not best as in of greatest quality. The BEST example of 2000's era popular music would probably be Outkast.)
     Please, don't listen to "The Dutchess," in fact, history has already gotten rid of both these solo acts by now. I as the curator expunge Fergie's solo career. Gwen Stefani's was pretty good. I recommend listening to Hollaback Girl. The production on that number is fun, and it has a deliberate sense of camp that Fergie will never understand.

Upcoming Posts, check it out!

2010-12-01T21:14:00.000-08:00

Hello educated folk, thank you for reading. If you love it, pass it on! Let the knowledge flow into the world for all to behold!
Here are some of the upcoming posts, all from the mind of Brendan Jones O'Connor:
-Santa Claus vs. Saint Nick, a Battle over Globalism?
-Best Books with Main Characters' Genders Opposite of the Author
-Excerpts from Brendan's Diary
-Brotherly Love, Christian Love, Teenage Love? The Jonas Brothers vs. Hanson
-The Gifts of Hip-Hop
-The Marketing of the Teen Idol: Justin Bieber vs. Chris Brown
-Fun with Film: Good Acting in Bad Movies, Bad Acting in Good Movies
-Video Games as Art? A Dialogue Between Two Imaginary Characters

Icy Lakes and the Absurd

2010-11-29T23:55:00.000-08:00

Back in Eighth Grade, I read a book by the title of Barry Trotter and the Unauthorized Parody. It was about a step below anything you could read in the Mad Magazine, but my 14-year-old self found it absolutely hysterical. I read it in March, and with Easter Break coming up at the end of the month, it became my mission to create an epic book report movie all about Barry Trotter. I had no friends, no homework, and certainly no obligations, but I had a tripod, and an idea; once break began, I started video taping everyday.
      Even though break was over March, it was still snowy and frost covered in my old town. The shot I remember most involved a pan of the frozen lake by my house. The camera becomes stationary, secured on the tripod, and I walk in front of the plane of vision. Turning to the camera, I say, "Barry Trotter is kind of like throwing a rock on an icy lake." I bend over to pick up a rock and throw it over the lake. It skids for quite a distance before coming to a stop. I turn back to the camera and say, "I don't really know how, though."
     That was absurd.
   I rode my bicycle on a rural road far away from my home several times when I was in high school. The road twisted around lakes, ridges, woods, farmlands, golf courses and small towns. To bicycle that marathon-length distance was to take me into the middle of the next county north. As I returned back home for Thanksgiving, I was filled with an urge to return to the off-the-beaten-path path. I drive along with a car this time, and stop by the docks of a secluded little lake. It was a cold November day, and the rim of the lake, but not the center, were frozen with about an inch of ice. I picked up a small rock and threw it underhand, seeing if I could skid it all the way to the watery center. The sound of the rock skidding sounded like an alien laser gun, increasing its pitch as it slid closer to the center. I continued to throw rock onto the lake to hear how they sounded.
     That was absurd.
     Currently I am reading the classic essay "The Myth of Sisyphus" by French-Algerian philosopher Albert Camus. The thesis of the piece seems to be that life is absurd, but it is a paradox we must accept. Therefore suicide is not an option. Camus, whose name is pronounced CAM-MOO as I have come to learn, kept on writing about absurdity in life. I wonder what a Francophone dweller like himself perceived as being absurd. What was the first "absurd" thing that popped into his head? He probably didn't think about icy lakes. Did he think about the evolutionary mechanisms that produced platypuses? Did he think about how erratic traffic in Paris was?
   If somebody is going to tell me that life is absurd, I want to know what things are considered by the writer as absurd, because I see absurd things all the time. It's my life as it is.

Favorite Foods by Color

2010-11-26T14:14:00.000-08:00

There was a time in my formative years when I worked at McDonald's. One of the soft drinks that the fast food behemoth offers is the Gadorade knock-off Powerade, coming in an icy blue color. One day, a costumer asked what it tasted like, to which a co-worker responded, "It tastes like blue." I could not think of a more perfect answer to explain the artificial adult Kool-Aid essence of the drink. This got me thinking about the colors of food, thus I decided to declare my favorite foods by color. If you notice the lack of meat on the chart, it is because I am a vegetarian.

Red- Rhubarb Tart Pie (Runner up: raspberries)
Orange- Carrots (Runner up: Thousand Island dressing)
Yellow- Humas (Oranges. Yes, in my experience, good oranges usually have more of a yellow tinge to them than orange oranges. Honey suckle oranges don't have quite as crisp a texture as yellowish oranges.)
Green- Burritos with green tortillas (Runner up: pickles) (Second runner up: sugar snap green beans)
Blue- Blue flavored frozen Go-Gurt (There really is no blue-colored food, so I had to pick something artificial. Blue is the color of dye, of synthetic food that has that "Futuristic" taste to it.)
Indigo- Greek yogurt with blueberries mixed in.
Violet- Blueberries. Fresh blueberries
Black- Black beans
Dark Brown- Potatoes
Light Brown- Bread (In my junior year of high school, I wrote a 10 page research paper for my composition class all about bread. Perhaps the best part of the project was the title, "Bread: Water Incarnate Solid." I do not believe anybody will ever create a high school paper with a better title.)
White- Oatmeal

I Had a Sign

2010-11-24T00:29:00.000-08:00

Have you ever had a sign before? Some sort of occurrence out of the ordinary that seemed to tell you something? I had one not too long ago.
     I attended an information session on writing an undergraduate thesis in history, the session being held on the 5th floor of the building. Afterward, I descended the stairs, filled with thoughts of whether this would be a good idea or not. A strange sound echoed through the stairwell. I soon discovered that a waterfall of urine-tainted water flowed like a waterfall directly in front of the door to exit the Humanities Building at the third floor. If one wanted to exit through this door, I had to walk through the water pouring through the ceiling. Ideally, one would want to exit the building at the third floor, because it gives one access to several bridges over different roads and to other buildings. I soon realized that this was a sign.
     Right now, I am at the top of the Humanities Building, learning the theoretical workings of the world from the best. If I choose to write a thesis, my goal is to create a piece of original research in the field with the intent of advancing the base of knowledge in the world. I want to learn from the top, descend the staircase of academia, and then enter the "real world" at the highest position, one where I would be able to move as freely as possible to different areas, as if I had access to a set of bridges. To exit on top, I would have to write a strong thesis, a difficult task, one much like walking through a waterfall of urine-tainted water. I would not have to write a thesis, I could get by with minimal effort and exit the Humanities building at the second or first level, but I want to exit on top. Thus, this was a sign that there is pain in the attempt to gain, craft, and distribute knowledge, but the task is a worthwhile one, even if it includes walking through a sewage leak.
   I did not actually walk through the water on that particular day. The allegorical meaning was fine enough.

Unanswered Questions in Harry Potter

2010-11-22T04:48:00.000-08:00

As I write this, the film Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows part I stormed the box office with a 125 million dollar domestic gross. This is the seventh film in a franchise, and it's still making bank. There is something about this whole "Harry Potter" thing.
   For one, this is the book series that got Generation Y/The Millennials reading. Books can seem a fairly intimidating thing: long, no pictures, characters you have to memorize, and so forth. Sometimes it takes just one book to make you realize that reading is enjoyable. The Young Adult Supernatural Romance genre does this for giddy girls, Fight Club did this for Nihlistic stoners, the works of Michael Crichton did this for people that wanted to believe dinosaurs could roam the earth again.For me, it was the obscure philosophical/social satire Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. But we all liked Harry Potter.
   Also, Harry Potter is the biggest cultural phenomenon since the Beatles that did not come from America. I enjoyed reading a different prospective on the world, and especially seeing the films made with a British cast. I used to wonder if the rest of the world ever got annoyed with how America sends all of its movies overseas, but Americans rarely ever see foreign films. Harry Potter is one time when Americans ate up a different country's production.
      Having written all that, there are some things about the Harry Potter franchise that still don't make any sense to me.

-One of the most original concepts from HP was the idea that Wizards seem to live together, or at least in close contact and affiliation. This raises the question, how would a Wizard/Witch economy work? The existence of magic as a way to manipulate production would eliminate any physical labor jobs. The only jobs detailed involve working for the government, retail, and print media, this seems pretty limiting. Do Witches and Wizards ever work at muggle companies? Usually Witches and Wizards in fiction fill a niche in their community, but don't form the community itself. This is like if everybody in the world was educated exclusively in chemical engineering, how could society work? Which brings up my next question...

-Why doesn't Hogwarts teach anything not directly magic related? How do the students understand non-magic history, math, English composition, and other traditional liberal arts fields if all they ever seem to learn about is magic? Hogwarts sounds like a tech school more than anything. Wouldn't it be much more efficient for young witches and wizards to apprentice under a professional than run a giant school for only about 800 students, or can things like heating and plumbing be solved purely with magic?

-How does tuition at Hogwarts work? Is it a public or a private institution? Do they have scholarship funds?

-Imagine for one moment that you are 11 years old. You have friends and a school and whatnot. You receive a letter in the mail telling you that not only do witches and wizards exist, but you are one of them, but the rest of your family are muggles. You are all excited to leave, but you have one problem, what do you tell your friends? You are going to a boarding school, but you can't tell them any of the details, much less what you've learned. Do you just stop being friends with them or what? What do your parents tell their co-workers?

-Did anybody laugh the way I did when Dumbledore died in the film adaptation of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince? Specifically, it was that Dumbledore was shot and fell out of a window almost exactly like how Snape was shot and fell out of a window in Die Hard. Yippie-Kii-Eh, Mudblood!

Nerd vs. Geek vs. Dork

2010-11-20T11:29:00.000-08:00

One of the most wonderful things about the English Language is the sheer number of words. With all sorts of synonyms for basic concepts, each word is nuanced, allowing for a very tight definition. Given that, there are so many insults, but too often are poorly understood.
     The Nerd vs. Geek vs. Dork divide is one of the deepest. Within these three words are three different concepts that everybody understands, but are frequently expressed with the wrong word. I'm here to set the record straight:
     Nerd-A person of great intelligence, but almost always in an academic field. Nobody would ever call a mechanic or a carpenter a nerd; One would call a medieval history enthusiast, a chemical physicist, an abstract mathematics devotee, and especially a computer wizard etc. The heavy implication of this practical/theoretical field of interest divide is that the nerd, in their love and interested in their field, limits their social interaction and people skill. The term nerd can to some people become a term of endearment, emphasizing their love of academics. Most important, a nerd MUST by knowledgeable, socially inept usually, but not required.
     Geek-The word originally referred to a bizarre circus performer that did things like biting the head off of a live chicken (to paraphrase "Hey Arnold," "Why do they call us geeks? None of us to that, except for Eugene" "And it was only that one time!") This is where we find the divide in Nerd vs. Geek. A geek does not need to be intelligent in an academic sense, rather the geek is usually more extroverted than the nerd, although not necessary any more socially conscious. The defining feature of the geek is the dedication to a facet of geek culture. Comic books, video games, anime/manga, obscure movies, star trek and other sci fi, fantasy fiction, role-playing games, Magic the Gathering, music (these then bleeds into the hipster), Jane Austin novels, and so on and so forth. Geek culture is something that exists in a post-modern age of irony, self-awareness, and the meeting of high and low culture.
     Dork-As of the time of writing, some controversy arose over the trailer to the film "The Dilemma," staring the doughy 6'5'' leading man Vince Vaugn, who makes a comment stating "Electric cars are gay." Beyond any question of whether this is homophobic, the more accurate term would be "dorky." Dorkiness includes the worst of both the nerd and the geek. The dork is not necessarily as intelligent as the nerd, and does not have the sort of ironic, self-depreciate humor of the geek, or the collective culture that comes along with a geek's interests; the dork fails to be trendy, misunderstanding all that is cool. At its root, the dork is the image of your parents, a generation behind, and blissfully ignorant of the various fashion and cultural reference faux pas being committed. The dork is the guy in high school that wears a boy scout uniform unironically (no offense to troopers out there;) the dork is the person that wears flag t-shirts when it's not the fourth of July; the dork gets a bowl cut; the dork gets a comb-over; the dork wears birth control goggles; the nerd reads Dostoevsky and Proust; the dork wears socks with sandals; the geek attends anime conventions; the geek grows their hair like a graduate student; the nerd attempts to explain those math formulas where you prove that 0=1; the nerd is Rivers Cuomo, Steve Jobs; the geek is the japanophile girl at the back of your class, mc chris, Kevin Smith; the dork is the aesthetic of Christian broadcasting channels, the father that refers to his pants as "slacks," and anybody that unironically grows a mustache (except Frieda, she's OK.)

Why Michael Jackson is Awesome

2010-11-17T10:53:00.000-08:00

Michael Jackson's posthumous release "Michael" will be upon us next month. Personally, I am very much looking forward to hearing a new MJ album, the first since 2001's Invincible. Usually I'm not a music hipster-type, but I was into Michael Jackson way before he died, especially in that 2003-2005ish time when he was the running joke at my middle school. After his death, a number of people my age (I was born in 1990) re-discovered his music, and probably caught onto the very timeless quality of it. What makes makes Michael so good? There are so many factors, but I can pick out two immediately.
   First, he never sang about going to the club. One narrow exception, he did have "Blood on the Dance Floor," but that song was about a mysterious "Manhunter"-type woman, not the overall experience (I think.) He did not have a "Let's go to the club, listen to music, hit on boys/girls, drink cough syrup, snort cocaine...etc. Instead, Michael Jackson's body of work contains a surprising wide number of themes. Take Thriller, the best selling album worldwide. The three songs that everybody remembers from it are Thriller, Billie Jean, and Beat It, which are still played frequently and loved by everybody that has a soul. Thriller is a horror song; Billie Jean is about accusations of fatherhood; Beat It is about gangs. Name one popular song, much less a dance song, about any of these themes (maybe the remix of Rob Zombie's "Dragula" for the former)? Look at his other hits, Bad (gangs), Black and White (racial harmony), Rock my World (love song), Remember the Time (May-December relationship), You Wanna be Startin' Something (fame), Scream (MJ's Childhood), Stranger in Moscow (the KGB), You Are Not Alone (loneliness support), Man in the Mirror (helping the poor), Don't Stop Til you Get Enough (sex), Really don't Care About Us (poverty), and Ben (a rat). Yes, Michael Jackson is the only person that can sing about a rat, and make it heartfelt.
     This is my second point, MJ was able to sing about occult stuff in Thriller, despite being raised a Jehovah's Witness, being in a gang in Bad, despite wearing eyeliner on the album cover, and sexual interest in a woman in The Way You Make Me Feel, despite, well, looking really uncomfortable when Oprah asked if he was a virgin. Michael Jackson could sing about anything without it seeming "out of character." He was an actor as strong as a singer as strong as a dancer, and a fine one at all three of those things (no comment on his actual acting job in The Wiz.)
     Long live MJ, let's hope the new album delights, and there are many more to come.

Shorts with Words on the Butt

2010-11-14T22:54:00.000-08:00

Clothing is a fascinating thing. Some of it is very functional, like steel-toed boots, other articles are purely aesthetic, the bow-tie. I have figured it out: Clothing is architecture for the human body. Clothing supports us where we are most sensitive, shields us from weather, and frames the body in an image. Clothing has style.
     There is, however, one element of clothing I do not understand: shorts and sweatpants with words on the butt. More specifically, I do not understand why my high school's girls' athletic sweatpants and shorts had to have a message to preface the posterior, the worst being the tennis team's "Smack that!" and "Nice Ace!" My old town went up in arms about a Hooters franchise being opened, how did this not reach the school board?
     I don't think there can be much argument that shorts and sweatpants with words on the butt are not sexual in their nature. They will, I can promise, attract eyes to one's backside. If this was the intent all along, than by all means, continue to grace the world behind you with "Angel Baby," "Juicy," etc. But by producing high school athletic clothing with the said messages, girls are being unfairly placed in a sexual situation they may not be comfortable with.
   I think the solution is not banning the shorts/sweatpants with the words on the butt, but rather, mandating that the schools' boys' athletic wear have words on the butt, also. Once guys and girls walk through the halls with phrases like "Tap that" or even just the high school team's name, than the effect is de-sexualized. Ultimately, this can become empowering to women, because it gives them the opportunity to wear clothing with words on the butt without it automatically being "a slut."
     Clothing can carry a message, and sometimes the only place you can fit that message is over your rear end.

A Name Just Evil Enough

2010-11-12T09:23:00.000-08:00

The Dreamworks animated film "Megamind" opened last weekend, sharing with the Summer's release of "Despicable Me" the theme of having a supervillian as the main character. The fact that two different studios released very similar films is a testament to either the lack of creativity in Hollywood (which I may or may not believe in, stay tuned for new posts,) or the allure of the supervillain.
     I believe it's the latter. Before comic books started getting darker and grittier, many of them had a vaudeville-esque goofiness and unintentional innocence. The whole notion of costumed superheros must be hard to take seriously if one were to objectively look at the material (perhaps the reason why 2008's The Dark Knight did not receive a "Best Picture" nomination?) But for whatever reason, we as culture love superheroes, and so frequently are the villains the best part of the show. Villains can be unrestrained, wildly eccentric, cunning, stylish, and much more interesting as characters. As tragic characters, we find them interesting because they are so great, but so flawed: compare Richard Nixon to George H.W. Bush. One of them is evil, but as complicated as a hypercube.
     I was writing a play a about two months ago including a scene where a very politically-correct superhero is giving an address on PBS as a fundraiser. Coming up with his name was easy, "Magnificent Man." But thinking of what the villains would be called took a serious brain-wracking. A good villain, in my opinion, has to have a very operatic quality to them, the name then means quite a bit. Here's what I came up with: Krazy Karnage, Death Mistress, and Bloodlust.
      The moral of the story is, if you are going to be evil, do it with style.

The Christian Handicap

2010-11-10T16:12:00.000-08:00

One day I check a DVD out from my local public library, the Clean Comedy Stand-Up Tour (please don't ask me why.) True to its name, the four comedians featured in the broadcast did not swear or discuss anything a young person wouldn't want to talk about with their parents. That's fine to me, but it suffered one problem, it wasn't that funny.
     In the comedians' defense, broadcasts of live comedy acts usually lose something from the theatre, but this disappointing. Afterward, I realized why they advertised themselves as "The Clean Comedy Stand-Up Tour," its a handicap. There are famous clean comedians, Bill Cosby and Jerry Seinfeld come to mind immediately, but they never had to go out of their way to advertise their family-friendliness. These four aspiring comedians must have realized they could get a guaranteed audience as soon as they said it wouldn't include jokes about bestiality or Jack Kevorkian. It must have been too easy.
     The other trick these guys had to sell themselves? They're "Christian Comedians." A segment of the DVD includes a specially message from the men explaining why they gave their life to Jesus Christ. Something about this doesn't sit right with me, was it necessary to explicitly state they are Christians, especially since none of their material makes reference to the saving power of Jesus Christ and the promise of eternal life? I'm an Episcopalian, and so is Robin Williams, and he doesn't find it necessary to curb his language for the sake of the show. When I was in high school, a laser tag arena opened near my house. The website had a page explaining how they are a Christian business. Christian laser tag? Were they afraid that the evangelical population of the town would think that Laser Tag was the work of Satan, and by having this explanation on their website was the only way to explain the faith behind their business? Jesus should not be a handicap.
     The real irony of the Christian Comedy Tour is that the best joke was in the "Deleted Scenes" section of the DVD, which included the naughtier segments: "Some people ask me, 'are you pro-gay?' and I say no, and I'm not amateur-gay either."

I am going to the club, would you like to come along?

2010-11-09T06:47:00.000-08:00

I like hip-hop music.
     Hip-hop is, and has been for a while, the new rock n' roll. Its loud, fun, and danceable, the last attribute being one lost in contemporary rock music. Never underestimate the desire for people to dance; you simply cannot do that to a Dave Matthews song the way you can to 50 Cent number.
   There is one strange situation that arises from the popularity of hip-hop on the top 40 charts. A popular subject matter for commercial rap music is the act of going to the club. Usually I listen to the radio when I'm in the shower in the morning, so the thought of being in a dark room filled with trendy and attractive people shaking what their mamas' gave them sounds great, but what about when you actually are in the club? Doesn't this create a bizarrely self-referential situation? How could you possibly enjoy yourself when the focal point of the experience, the music, seems to be a reference to itself? Perhaps we need more rap songs about other locations, like the traditional bar, skating rinks, or house parties. I'm from Wisconsin, we go to peoples' basements.
   Well, there is one song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dDJ1OR5k34

Money Buys Happiness

2010-11-07T11:58:00.000-08:00

Ever since I was young, people have always told me that money does not buy happiness. I still believe these people. Currently I attend the University of Wisconsin, majoring in History, not the most money-promising major of the lot, but I don't regret it at all. There are more important things in my life than being able to drive a corvette with authentic aviator sunglasses over my eyes, and a former NFL cheerleader trophy wife that knows how to cook really good Indian food at my side, as I drive over the Golden Gate Bridge to a penthouse looking out over the peasants. I'm not saying all that stuff wouldn't be kind of nice, though.
     Recently, I ran into one of my fellow high school classmates. We conversed, and I learned that she transferred to a public southern university without much national clout. When I asked her what her major was, she said, "I don't know, but that's OK," as if I was going to criticize her immediately after her statement, "I know I want to make a lot of money, though." When she said that, I felt a part of my heart die.
     My entire life, people have told me, "Money does not equal happiness," but it seems a trend within my peers to contradict this old idea. Has there been some sort of new discovery that proved it wrong? A direct quantitative correlation between the size of one's pay cut and one's enjoyment of life?
     Some friends and I saw the 1989 film When Harry Met Sally a few days ago. I thought the film was well acted and directed, managing to look less dated than, say, Nickelodeon's 1996 offering Goodburger. One element that annoyed one of my friends, as well as myself, is how the main characters' were exceedingly rich, but seemed obsessed with their modern romantic issues. Both Harry and Sally graduated from the University of Chicago, lived in classy New York apartments, held lucrative and secure jobs, were fairly attractive, and had no noticeable health problems. Despite all their blessings, the film presented their romantic tensions as if nothing else mattered; not all of us are bourgeois white people living in the insulated little world of New York.
     After some thought, I realized When Harry Met Sally taught me an important lesson, even if you have everything, you will still find way to make yourself think that you are suffering or deprived. It's true, money doesn't buy happiness. I knew it all along.

Most Powerful Navy in the World?

2010-11-05T12:20:00.000-07:00

Recently, my brother graduated from the Navy's Boot Camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. During the ceremony, several of the speakers mentioned, "You are a Sailor in the most powerful navy in the history of the world." I started to think after hearing this claim. What would constitute the most powerful navy ever?
Without doubt, the United States' Navy is stronger now than any navy in the past, given the great leaps in technology. But for it to be powerful, it must be able to exert control or influence over outside entities. Given this definition, could England's navy from its heyday have been more powerful? The Strength of their navy exceeded everybody else' by such a margin that England maintained a position as the world's dominant power. Before the invention of the airplane, the importance of the navy was much greater. The Navy shipped the materials, carried the troops, laid siege, and fought naval battles. England's navy was more of a cornerstone to the country's political and military power than the United States' Navy is to the US' political and military power.
England directly controlled more land, intimidated more people, and directed more influence through the use of their navy, making them more powerful than any current naval force. America could beat them now, though.

Twenty isn't a Bad Birthday

2010-11-04T15:33:00.000-07:00

Two years ago, I celebrated my 18th birthday by driving to my local polling place, registering to vote, and casting a ballot. That's one of the things I love about Wisconsin, same day registration.
Two days ago, I cast another ballot. Today, I turned twenty.
     I believe twenty is an underrated birthday, although not as appealing as gaining the freedom to drive, watch R-rated movies, buy cigarettes, enter casinos, or perchase and consume alcohol, twenty holds a different gift: Maturity.
     No longer am I a silly teenager, nor any longer can I read Catcher in the Rye and completely identify with the main character; my childish angst has been replaced by twenty-something confusion, sort of like when you try to take another step when going up the stairs, but discover too late that there isn't one.
     The biggest change seems to be a shifted point of reference. Currently, I am in my second year of college. I have not been in a high school classroom for 18 months. When I attended high school, everything I did or thought about related to the high school mold of life: living with my parents, having seven hours of classes every day, highly regimented schedule, etc. By now, that life seems so far away from me, I almost want to question if I actually lived like that, or if that was just a proto-version of myself, still chained inside Plato's Cave (Rest assured, I'm not a philosophy major.) The conversations I get into now almost never make reference to the high-school model of life, and when I tell a story about the past, it tends to be about something over the past 18 months. My scope of reference has a limit, as well as an interest, in the recent past.
     Twenty is an age when I realize that I am an adult, because my direct memory begins since I've been Eighteen. Still, twenty-one may have a bigger party.