Choking Relaxation

The wife and I have had an active yet relaxing weekend so far. Last night after work, we went to a bar to watch the debates, the event being an Obama fundraiser. I have yet to decide who to vote for on Election Day (I'm not keeping my options to the major two parties, either), and I don't intend on announcing it to the public.

Interesting, though, to watch a debate amongst a partisan crowd. Had a hard time hearing McCain near the end with the crowd hissing and sneering at McCain while talking.

This morning, we woke up early to jump on the bus to get downtown and meet an out-of-town friend at The Original Pancake House. I didn't go too adventurous with my food choices, but they didn't have too many choices for a vegetarian that doesn't do dairy. Nothing too exciting for me, but their featuring apples on pancakes in the menu looked interesting.

Parting ways with our friend, we decided to check out a matinee of Choke. We, rather, decided to check out a matinee and figured Choke made for an interesting option and gave us enough time to settle into the theater before the 20 minutes of previews started.

I have a limited exposure to Chuck Palahniuck, the writer of the novel. I've seen Fight Club but haven't read the novel. I went with the wife to a Palahniuck reading at The Coolidge Corner Theatre in Brookline, MA from a compilation of non-fiction he had published.

Choke doesn't reach the level of grandness, political/financial commentary or even of plot as Fight Club. Neither does Choke have the gross out factor of Stranger than Fiction: True Stories. The movie sticks to a small, personal scale. It shows some boobs, characters make some off-color sexualized comments, they have some neutered sex scenes and the movie centers around a sex addict attending a support group for sex addicts.

Choke doesn't have a conventional and linear plot. It centers more around the theme of loneliness and the habits that people follow to protect their vulnerable inner selves. Victor, the sexually-addicted main character, pretty much attends the sex addicts support group, works at a colonial era living museum, visits his mother suffering from alzheimers in a rest home and hangs out with his fellow sex addict friend. Then, one day, he meets Paige, a friend of Victor's mom. Victor's journey of "redemption," growth and revealing flashbacks starts from there but doesn't end when the movie does, whence Victor possibly even regressed back to where he started.

I haven't read any reviews, but by the progress of the plot and the movie's ending, I can understand what I've heard about bad reviews. The movie provides more of a character study than a plot, per se. The movies follows Victor's discovery of his loneliness and his habits to protect his vulnerable self. His best friend also makes his own discoveries and follows his own path of growth. Memories that Victor has about his mom and comments made by his mom provide some interesting revelations about Victor and also some quirky situations.

In the long run, Choke doesn't deliver the expected, conventional payoff. I have no problem with the undesired end, unlike, I'm expecting most of the other people who see this movie. Solving this dissatisfaction requires the audience to adhere to the belief in value of the journey is in the journey, not in reaching the goal. I can't be 100% sure, but the movie has enough coherent facts to make the ending true on the level of probability to Victor's character.

Choke works for me because of the themes it explores and the sincerity in which it explores them. Some of the characters have outlandish qualities that make them interesting and sometimes amusing oddities rather than realistic, but Victor's vulnerabilities make him very human and relatable. Most of us don't reach the pathological levels of protecting ourselves from emotional pain and embarrassment, but we all feel vulnerable to other people hurting us.

A normal person in a normal situation wouldn't provide the insight into our vulnerable sides. We all have normal habits that we all accept as regular behavior. Indoctrination into our society through family, school and other institutions teach us the etiquette we need not only to protect ourselves, but sometimes also to protect the other people around us, for their benefit and our benefit. Of course, protecting ourselves and others in these ways can be maladaptive emotionally and psychologically. Following someone pathologically protecting themselves with these types of habits shows us that we all protect ourselves. . .especially when they're protecting the same thing that we are.

Most reviewers and movie goers won't like Choke. They ostensibly won't like it because of unlikeable characters or even an unconventional plot. Maybe, though, people could have a problem with the movie because it shows them just how vulnerable they are. I bet no one will admit it, though.

Dream #3

I step onto the road from my friend Chris's driveway. [He lives in a suburbian neighborhood (not a suburban one, mind you) in New England where the houses are big and they have good sized yards, the kind of yards you could have a picnic in and actually a good game of touch football or even tackle, if you had the inclination, with a good size field. It would probably take you between 3-5 minutes to walk from one house to another.]

People from the neighborhood are outside, enjoying the sunny day, wandering about and chatting with each other. I walk to the other side of the street, turn around and look all about. This scene brings me a certain amount of peace.

I step back into the street, but a car comes whipping out of nowhere, so I jump back. Inside the car, a blond 10-year old boy drives and another boy, just as young, with black hair sits in the passenger seat. They pass me by, drive down the street then turn the corner to the left. No one else seems to mind.

Running to the person closest to me, I ask them if they saw what happened.

I run down the street after the car and the two kids, turning the same corner.

The road looks different than Chris's neighborhood looked. The trees are closer to the street and loom over it, even though behind the trees are fields and at some point along the road, there are no trees.

Walking down that road, the need to find those children overtakes me. 10-year olds shouldn't be driving a car, I tell myself. It's dangerous. Where are the parents? They must have gone on vacation or something.

Reaching the bottom of a small decline in the road, I take out my cell phone and call the police. I tell them about the two 10-year olds in the car, driving all around. The person on the other side of the phone line says that they'll send someone out, and it will probably take them 24 hours arrive.

I want to yell "Don't you think two 10-year olds driving a car around the neighborhood requires a more immediate response?! They could kill someone!" but I don't think I have the opportunity to do so.

I had a lot of trouble waking up this morning. Part of it had to do with still having the compulsion of stopping those 10-year old kids from driving around before they hurt someone and getting the police and everyone else to care.

But while between sleep and awakeness, I don't think I remembered the dream. I think I only remembered that I had to get back there and had to do something, and it was extremely important that I do it.

In my desperation to address the compulsion that didn't let me know what I was supposed to do, I remembered that my free three-month cell phone Web access started today. Maybe if I checked my e-mail, I would get a clue what I wanted to do so much. After what seemed like forever of waking up, falling asleep, waking up, falling asleep and waiting for the phone/Internet cell connection to process information, I didn't find anything useful there.

The clock really didn't make much sense, even though it was buzzing. The same with my phone. . .but eventually I figured out that I should probably get up and get going to work. After all, it was the 22nd, a Monday. . .

What's even more interesting, I neglected to remember most of my bike ride to work. I can't even really remember much of the absent minded thinking that I did while riding. Kind of disconcerted me as I got closer to work.

Well, at least the dreams are getting a little bit more out there and interesting.

Dream Set #2

One:

I go to work. All my co-workers stand in a line, shoulders crossed, side to side. I know something's wrong. The big boss asks me, "How could you do it? You're fired." I feel an oppressive sense of guilt about something I don't know about.

The woman who has the cubicle next to me says, "You didn't finish a sentence in a letter to customer." [I think I stopped writing the letter where I would have written a dependent clause.] Not finishing that sentence meant that a consumer got the wrong impression about their insurance coverage, the product that I sold them. Something occurred that caused the customer to have a loss and their insurance policy didn't cover it.

The guilt is overpowering.

Two:

My current co-workers, my wife and I have arrived at my parent's insurance agency office in Massachusetts. Something has occurred at one agency or the other that has caused either a merger or a temporary lending of office resources from my parent's office. After some talking, we all sit down and went to work.

Three:

The wife and I have gone out to the parking lot of my parent's office. Our boy cat is out there with us. [From Chicago to Massachusetts.] The cat charges then pounces on the back of a opossum. He bites the neck of the opossum, crouches on its back then glances all around. The cat jumps off the opossum then runs away. The opossum flips on its back, twitches a few times, rolls around then skitters off

COMMENTARY

I like that I've been able to remember dreams a second night in a row. This time, I even remembered three and not just one. Interesting that they all revolve around career, at least in some loose theme.

They have also become more interesting. The plots have become less mundane, but moreso, the emotional depth and intensity has become stronger.

Thematically, however, I think these dreams definitely touch upon or dwell on the detritus of the tension between my day job and the ambitions that, to me, run contrary to my current present fate.

Dream #1

Group of friends and I will go to a movie, but they want to stop into the mall first. They want to grab a bite to eat and also some candy to sneak into the theater.

I decide that I don't need anything, so I wait at the appointed spot to meet up with everyone before we head to the theater.

At the last minute, when friends start showing up, I realize that I do need something. I tell whoever there that I need something, I'll be right back.

I run off to get whatever it is that I need to get. I take the back hallways, but the dream ends when I push through the doors.

COMMENTARY

If my imagination comes up with the above as a dream, I'm sad, both because my mind doesn't come up with something more exciting or something more interesting. Remembering the dream, in the first place, somewhat intentionally and after reading the introduction to a book about dreams, impresses me, however.

I've recently had a difficult time coming up with original things to write about that doesn't compromise my future income. If you want to make money as a writer in the future, you really just can't write about your ideas, knowledge or expertise online because it's out there, it's available, the supply becomes infinite while the demand will continue to be finite (thus keeping the market value nil).

And I don't really want to bore people with links to places they would probably find on their own.

Dreams make some good original material, even if it could come off as pretentious if someone came up with it consciously. The first story I published in my high school literary magazine actually came from a dream. I think I may even post here on The Lextopia because I don't expect to ever sell and publish it, even though I guess it could make money after I become famous and someone publishes and sells an anthology of my work or something.

So until I feel moved to write about a piece of news, something I find on the 'net or whatever comes to mind, get ready for something or the other.

But maybe I just used the facade of a dream to write something everyday and mundane in a pretentious way. . ..

A Turn of Phrase Inspired by the Harvard Unitarians

"I'm not depressed or sad. I just have a high tolerance to happiness."

Just something silly I came up with today while walking away from my desk at work. I guess it could even apply to my state of mind lately.

Some Beautiful Scenery up in Wisconsin

The wife and I got back from a long weekend trip up to Rhinelander, WI, where my parents grew up and my grandmothers live. We met up with my parents and celebrated one of my grandmother's birthdays.

On the lead up to the trip, people kept on telling me how pretty it is up there. I didn't believe them, though, because after all the years I've gone there, I didn't see much prettiness. Rather, I saw only tall tree trunks and branches, snow, ice, gray skies and swampy marshlands. No leaves or any color. Just dreariness.

I, after all, only really visited Rhinelander, WI during the late fall and winter. I can only remember visiting that very small city during the spring, summer or early fall once, maybe twice. Even worse, those memories are circumstantial and not for certain.

Summer and Rhinelander, WI actually stick in my mind with sentiments of disappointment. One summer, my family had plans to visit relatives in Rhinelander. I got pretty damn excited about going there to have a lot of fun. My brother, unfortunately, came down with appendecitis, sending the whole trip right down the tubes.

That was then, and this is now, though. Holding onto resentment from the past, especially arbitrary reasons for that resentment, doesn't accomplish anything. I realized that fact and the benefit of that realization while in the elevatr of Emerson Hospital in Concord, MA years and years ago, on the way home from visiting my brother there when he suffered from the infection of his appendix.

But screw all that. Rhinelander during the summer looks quite enchanting during the summertime.



The wife and I arrived in Rhinelander at about 5:30 Friday evening. Soon as we get there, my mom and dad mention some kind of surprise. They had been alluding to some kind of surprise in the e-mails leading up to the whole weekend event. My mom had been mentioning something about a river tour. And lo and behold, my dad drives me, the wife and my two grandmothers to a dock where we board something akin to a ferry boat. We then disembark to take a little river tour on the Wisconsin River.



They didn't so much take us on a tour. Other than the captain saying hello and letting us know about the drinks and pizza below decks, the crew didn't have so much to say about the scenery. I learned more about the river, the dams, the backwash and speculations about the trees hiding peoples' homes from my dad and grandmothers. It was more like a mini cruise on a river with pizza and drinks. . .just a good chance for people to sit, check out the nature and just chill with some friends and family.

I guess Rhinelander, WI
really is quite pretty.

For fans of Charlie Jade and Other Shows I Like

Check some good recaps, interviews and conversation from Charlie Jade, Burn Notice and other shows that I don't watch but hear good things about at R.A. Porter's Pop Critic's page.

Bot-dar

My bot-dar has gotten overly sensitive over the last couple years. About a year ago, I accused a nice young lady of being a bot writing a log. Yesterday, I accused Jose (who commented on the last entry) of being a bot.

I don't know what to make of becoming so sensitive to having bots invade my personal space. It certainly happens, but it unnerves me that I accuse live, flesh and blood people of being SPAM bots. Is it me?

New Computer!

Woohoo! I got a new laptop the other day. It has something like 10 times faster processor and/or something like 10 times more RAM. The new one rocks and is far bigger and stronger than the old desktop that I had used.

I can now communicate, do work on the computer and even procrastinate more efficiently. Now, instead of waiting for some free time to go through my e-mails and clicking on links that friends send me, I can now just take a breather from doing some studying/writing and have near instant access to anything I want on the laptop.

Before, I would have to wait around for at 5 minutes for any program to load then something like 5 more minutes to do the types of things I wanted to do. The old desktop would probably also take around 10 to 15 minutes to boot up. Now I can do practically anything I want in a couple minutes.

I can even have a load of applications open and not slow down the computer.

Only disadvantage came during transition time. Had to transfer files and applications with a CD-RW rather than just copying files over the apartment wireless network. It would have just taken too long since nothing's really wired, the old desktop is too slow and the old desktop could never stay on the network reliably. But now I've got most everything I use on a regular basis on the new laptop.

Unfortunately, I only have 25 uses of the resident Microsoft Office on the laptop, so I'll probably just have to load 2003 that we have on a CD. No worries. I just won't have to spend so much time having to learn a new version.

I love that I can now use my own computer anywhere in our apartment and on top of that, take it out to a cafe or something if I need a break from my surroundings.

The best part of this mobility: I can now compute in air conditioning. We have the old desktop setup in the part of the apartment that doesn't have air conditioning and sits next to the kitchen. Sure, great for when making food and such, but it got sooooo hot in there!

On an amusing note, this mobility around the apartment also means turf wars with the wife, even if it also includes more availability to the wife. She likes watching TV while working. I don't. Simple solution, though: I can wear headphones and listen to music.

Things look up from here. Better control over my surroundings while working on the computer and faster processing time. I look forward to getting a lot more done.

Sense and Memory

Back in the spring semester of 1999 at college, I remember experiencing my visual memories in a unique way. At the time, I liked to say that I saw my memory in technicolor, which I guess could still apply.

But now, after having my attention directed toward Super 8mm film from our wedding videographer, I think a better description would be that during that semester at college, I saw my visual memories in Super 8mm film with the color heavily saturated. I think the stronger the memory, the more saturated the color became.

And the strange thing: remembering that semester of college presently, I think the visuals have a lot of shadows and it's very dark. I haven't had visual memories in color saturated Super 8mm film in a long while, though. At least, not of anything else other than my wedding on my TV at home.

I wonder what influenced me to see my memories in that way back then. A lot of those Super 8mm film memories were some length of time previous of the time I re-experienced the memory. So long before, in fact, that the events in the memories felt like they came from a whole other life or the life of someone else.

And kind of sadly, I haven't really experienced such vivid memory recall for a long time now. Well, maybe I did today, but it involved smell, more specifically, the possible smell of cats and dogs. Since the wife and I adopted Max and Miriya, the brother and sister cat, I've been surprised that our apartments hasn't acquired an overwhelming stench of animal.

Today, I remembered an old friend who had cats and a dog, and his family had that animal stench smell in their house, all the time. That smell just wouldn't leave my olfactory sense. Plenty of memories about that friend flooded me after the sense of cat and dog, but those are kind of private.

Smell and memory reminds me of a time that a girl "broke up" with me (long story. . .that will not be broadcast on the Internet). After she broke up with me, I couldn't get the smell of her perfume out of my nose for weeks, and while I had that smell in my nose, I couldn't get rid of the desire to be around her. This whole thing would occur more when I was alone and trying to focus on something else. The strangest thing, though, the smell of her perfume annoyed me!

Funny enough, accidentally capturing this girl's perfume in my nose happened during the same semester that I saw my visual memories in Super 8mm film. Suffice to say, it was something of an intense semester.

My Many Tracked Brain

The other week, I got hyperfocused researching some aspects of the DC comics universe on Wikipedia. I need to research geeky things sometimes because I didn't really get into them back in the day like the wife and some of my friends have.

My automatic, subconscious mind, however, kept on flashing intimations of the area behind the register of Wendy's in Ayer, MA. That was where I had my first real, official job. I kept on picturing a young, zitty kid (not necessarily me, mind you. . .since this kid had red hair and freckles) with an apron and a paper hat on, holding a big wire thing used to drop the fries into the deep fryer. The things drip, drip, dripped grease. I could feel the massive heat and oil all over my face.

While hyperfocusing on researching the universes of some TV shows, flashes intimations of a late night at my college, right in front the library, at the top of a small hill. It's usually night.

Interesting how my brain makes these intimations while I'm getting all hyperfocused on the 'net. I have the feeling that the same thing happens to other people.

I have this theory that this kind of hyperfocused research and focusing on certain things triggers these kinds of intimations. It could happen because that kind of research activates a certain part of the brain or maybe it triggers some kind of process that brings up these intimations. The themes of these little "research projects" have somehow become associated with memories. I don't know if the connect is direct, indirect or even possibly practically random. These associations just kind of happen.

It kind of works like when I forget something or lose something. Trying to remember the something, I sometimes just have to blank my mind and let the memory bubble to the top. At other times, I have to backtrack through my brain, association by association, forwards, backwards, side by side, up, down. . .whatever way seems like a good way to go.

And back in my youth, I could sometimes just pour myself a cup of milk and drink it to remember something that I blanked on. I wonder if soy milk could do the same thing for me.

Revisionist Viewing of the "New" Doctor Who Season 4 Finale

[Along with voicing my opinion, this entry definitely acts as a cheap ratings stunt]

The season 4 finale of the "New" Doctor Who that aired on the Sci-Fi Channel in the US last Friday night disappointed me quite a bit and really made me feel frustrated about Russell T Davies.

BEFORE MOVING ON, THOUGH, SPOILER WARNING. DON'T READ ON IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE EPISODE AND DON'T WANT ANYTHING SPOILED.

Essentially, the season finale felt like it ended with too much of a deus ex machina that made me feel cheated. The resolution of defeating the Daleks felt too easy.

I'm cool with the whole three Doctors thing, the original Doctor, Meta-Crisis Doctor and DoctorDonna. I'm even cool with the solution to the problem coming from the existence of three Doctors.

The following excerpt from an e-mail I sent to a friend voices my opinion about the element that caught my craw:

But yeah, this last finale was just too much deus ex machina for me. . .especially with the "master control panel" for the Daleks and Davros being at the doors of the TARDIS. What was up with that? And what is up with having that kind of thing? Sure, I can understand if Davros had one (once bitten, twice shy with his Daleks in the past rebelling), but to allow it to control Davros? What? What?! What?!?! But I think the main issue was that there was absolutely no reference or emphasis on the thing before they took control of the master control panel.

In other words, the lack of allusion to the control panel before DoctorDonna started fiddling with it. I think just having a character use or manipulate something in a scene, unless the sudden appearances of things is appropriate for the type of story told, especially when it becomes a vital object, breaks a rule of storytelling in some way. At least, it breaks a rule of engaging storytelling.

After some unconscious thinking on the matter, though, I came up with the following revisionist explanation that I e-mailed my friend:

Maybe Donna got a glimpse of the master control panel while in the TARDIS. It didn't really strike her as anything important while she was just normal, banal Donna, but once she became Doctor-Donna, she made sense of that memory of the master control. Also, did the Meta-Crisis Doctor also receive memories from Donna. . .so they could both actually remember the control panel.

So at least the Meta-Crisis Doctor programs the coordinates for the TARDIS's landing on the Dalek ship to be right at the MASTER CONTROL. Maybe he doesn't have everything planned, but that gun thing they had put together was really just a diversion. Being born in war and willing to commit genocide is kind of a sign that he was willing to sacrifice Donna on a hunch that if she gets zapped by Davros, she would become Doctor-Donna and figure out bunches of stuff out on her own.

And so after getting zapped by Davros and becoming Doctor-Donna, she remembers the MASTER CONTROL, which isn't necessarily a MASTER CONTROL but could be something else, but she's Doctor-Donna and can quickly move wires around & stuff at Time Lord cognitive speed to create a MASTER CONTROL. And then we know the rest after that.

Which, then, certainly brings up a whole bunch of other interesting narrative points. How does a genius, an intuitive one at that, get portrayed successfully as a protagonist? How does someone who has just become a genius after going through a "meta-crisis" and starting at the audience's level or lower of intelligence get portrayed successfully? And, less interesting, did Russell T Davies even think of the above scenario or did he just let an unsatisfying deus ex machina occur because he likes doing that kind of thing? And, just to throw it out there, am I being a spoiled anti-fan or does my criticism come from my "writing sense."

Either which way, I'm not sad to see
Russell T Davies leaving Doctor Who as head writer. I give him credit for really being one of the main forces for bringing Doctor Who back to world. He has probably written some great episodes that I really liked. This finale, though, along with the resolution to the deus ex machina in Season 3 finale, "Last of the Time Lords", really just makes me think that I've had enough of Russell T Davies.

I look forward to and welcome Steven Moffatt as the head writer come season 5 in 2010. The writer of the episodes "Blink", "The Empty Child", "The Doctor Dances", "Silence in the Libary", "Forest of the Dead", of course, "The Curse of the Fatal Death", among others that he has written, I look forward to see what Mr. Moffatt has in store for us for at least a season.

Update on my Tedium

I still live, even though I'm in a strange and tedious rut that has potential for growth and inspiration.

The day job occupies me with tons of cognitive heavy tedium. I wish I knew how to explain it. Assisting someone with the sales of health insurance, selling health insurance, bothering people about paying their health insurance premiums every once in awhile and also helping people with their health insurance claims and administration has a lot of activity. It taxes the cognitive facilities and stretches the problem solving skills and expertise. The need to do things speedily and perfect probably doesn't help.

But trying to come up with a description of that tedium would take time and energy that I would rather dedicate to more important things, like. . .working on my bachelors project.

Unfortunately, the project has become somewhat tedious, too. I've written a 22+ type-written outline, but it still needs a lot of work. I need to organize it so people will find it more readable, interesting and even gripping. It probably requires more concrete details, but I don't want to overburden it with the details.

My work style doesn't necessarily help, either. I can't just cut and paste things in Word and add something here or there. Pen and paper, referencing older copies, writing up a whole new draft of an outline (I'm probably on v. 10 or so, including earlier ones that I started then scrapped because they eventually didn't work. . .even though that's better than trying to write a paper from nothing then scratching that!). The process requires a big amount of thought in one spot, lots of copying text, big thought again to make a transition, bunches of copying text, thought, copy, though, copy, etc. etc.

OK, OK, I can see the tedium there. This editing process requires adaptive imagination rather than innovative imagination. My mind just doesn't care for adaptive imagination when it comes to intellectual and social situations. Kinesthetic and sports situations becomes a whole other matter, probably the same thing with strategy and tactical games. OK, maybe my intellect doesn't mind adaptive creativity so much. . .ack, a whole new situation that would require exploration into my psyche and vocabulary to figure out how I feel about something and how to articulate that feeling.

Anyway, I think I need to once again explore a new direction with The Lextopia. I originally thought about using it to talk log stuff for my projects and even write about writing topics, but that becomes something of an issue when I want to become a writer, but I have yet to decide on my "specialization" as a writer.

For the uninformed out there, posting something for public viewing on the World Wide Web pretty much destroys its ability to make money. Economically, it literally becomes infinite supply for a limited demand (that's essentially the issue with making music, movies and other intellectual property available on the Internet), so who would want to buy something that, theoretically, everyone could buy for free for who knows how long?

I don't want to bleed my ideas and have them lose their ability to generate capital. The socialist and anarchist tendencies in me call this thinking in me a "sell out," but crap, man, we all need to make money somehow in today's world, and I'd like to make that money doing something I enjoy. I don't get to do it now, but I very much like the idea combining the whole "work to live and live to work" into one holistic approach to life.

So, yeah, you'll probably see a bit of experimentation again on the Lextopia until I find something, again, that works for me and works for the audience.

Any ideas?

Please, Do It for the Historians

I've had the idea for this entry in my head for quite awhile now. Only now, inspired to procrastinate away from starting the studying for my insurance continuing education, do I have the will to approach the subject. Yay!

(OK, OK. . .I just had to play with the kitties for a couple minutes first).

The current paper I'm working on for the last couple years has stretched on for quite some time. I ended up using a lot of time about a year ago having to sift through a lot of sources to figure out the central concept that the members of Brook Farm used as their theoretical goal. George Ripley and his fellow community members would talk around the topic by saying that Brook Farm was the best way to reconcile the individual with the community/society, but he never got that much deeper into how Brook Farm would accomplish that fact.

I ended up having to go to some old newspaper articles that really come off more as press releases than news articles that would sometimes talk around the topic, make assumptions, paint images of Brook Farm in ways that appealed to people's desires and wishes or just relate the history, the architectural design, the personalities, the financial situation and all types of pragmatic, everyday things. Only after digging deeper, deeper and ever so into the depths of the topic did I find a good basis for an explanation of how their method would work, how some theory of theirs would explain their method beyond appealing to the cause of utopian socialism. And no, I won't present the theory, as that could spoil a book that I might publish in the future.

Besides, getting into the theory goes beyond the scope of this entry. The search for this theory through historical documents just led to all types of frustration that could have easily been avoided if someone had written the "theory" in a letter, a journal or even a press release by George Ripley or some other Brook Farmer. Or about if it had become the topic of a debate in the papers or journals between George Ripley or Ralph Waldo Emerson. . .except for maybe the fact that they were either too polite to really get into it with each other or that Ripley thought Emerson was into utopian socialism, which kind of came out every time Ripley tried hitting up Emerson for investment capital for Brook Farm.

But no. . .they had to make my life difficult by not addressing the underlying theory but instead, painting pretty pictures with words, relating the practices of the community to religion and political causes and so on and so forth. They had to make me work months to figure out what was going on when a couple straight ahead paragraphs, an article, a chapter, what have you addressing the situation directly with a straight forward structured theory could have helped me A LOT.

Now I'll step away from this heated rant for a moment and tell a story from my own life.

I experienced defining moment a long time ago, 15 or more years ago but not more than 20 years. My parents, some friends of theirs and I had taken a weekend day to climb Mount Monadnock (which was apparently a favorite place of Emerson and Henry David Thoreau). Once past the tree line, I had either struck out on my own or had just moved a little ahead of my parents and their friends. Walking alone somewhere pretty like Mount Monadnock makes for great thinking time, whether conscious or automatic unconscious mulling over something.

There's this point near the top of the mountain, right before the rock becomes completely bare, where the trail dips down under some pine trees and the rocks form a wall that makes it impossible to take any other route. The ground there gets damp and muddy, and sometimes a big puddle waits in the middle of the trail, causing the hiker to slink around one side of the puddle, trying hard to balance and not get wet. It's a very short dip, but its isolation amongst mostly barren rock allows it to stand out as a unique feature. I don't know if it is so unique that everyone would remember it, though.

Walking through that dip, all those years ago, I came to a realization and came to a decision, which kind of depend on each other. I decided to start journaling and realized that I am a historical being. By journaling, I can create a historical and cultural artifact. No matter what I wrote, from the everyday to the lofty abstract world, I could communicate with the future and give them a glimpse into the past. And not only a simple glimpse, but an intimate one provided by someone who lived in the past and experienced it fully, immersed in it, having a certain perspective and not with the benefit of hindsight (which my journaling could help someone in the future develop).

I had a lot of thoughts of having my influence become immortal because I could affect people in the future by writing now, but I also got off on the imagining the wonder people in the future might have of reading a first hand account of the past, whether of experiences or of ideas. Communicating the power I felt at the moment has become difficult.

It feels powerful to me on a spiritual level. I think my first exposure to this type of thing came from first reading Thoreau's Walden. Honestly, I don't think I have the patience to read Walden nowadays. Back then, though, the book had somehow engaged me, even though I could barely understand what I was reading. Now, I feel like I'm not understanding what I'm reading, but I also realize Thoreau could have written a little clearer. At the same time, I think that abstruse unclear writing had a lot to do with enchanting me.

I had a lot more patience for reading things a long time ago that I couldn't immediately comprehend. Maybe something about being young, not having the constraints of time boxing you in, having a more malleable brain, not having anything else to compare the unclear writing to, not having a library of hang ups, concepts and facts in the brain to crowd in the interpretation of what you're reading. The brain at that time, if not stunted in the way, could be acting like a sponge for facts, knowledge, patterns and structure but not in an anxious, scary way, but in an exciting and passionate manner that just encouraged me to open book after book after book, absorbing what little I could understand and getting happily teased by the parts that I couldn't understand that had potential for vast amounts of understanding and wisdom if I just absorbed more and more.

But back to my defining moment and how Walden influenced me to have it. Walden showed me the thoughts of a man from around 140 or so years before the time I spent reading the book. It really just boggled my mind and inspired me that I could absorb the thoughts of this man who no longer lived. It touched me so much that I realized that I could do it, too. I could come up with my own thoughts, put them down on paper and someone 140 years later, probably around 70 to 100 years after my life and have the same experience. This experience could exist as a tradition, the passing on the experience and knowledge that you could affect people that come after you by writing your thoughts on paper, get it to still exist for that long and have it distributed enough that someone will more likely have a cause to read it than just a random incidence of finding a historical artifact in an archaeological dig or something.

So that's all good and everything. We can all exist, yes, even everyday Bob, Joe, Mary and Sara, as historical beings. We don't have to become just numbers counted in medical statistics, opinion polls, market research, incomes, bills, votes for politicians and your imagination can think up of plenty of other examples. We can all write down out thoughts in our blogs, in private journals and diaries, in articles, in articles of incorporation, in contracts, in wills and so on and so forth. I encourage all to do that. Grab a hold of your historical existence, write down your experience and thoughts and help the future get a more colorful idea of their past and our present. We all have that kind of power, as long as we have pen, paper, a computer, an Internet connection, whatever. . ..

But please, please, please, in all these ventures to becoming a historical being, please write clearly, please explore your thoughts, emotions, theories and impulses, please delve deeply into your inner conscious, into the trappings of society, into theories of why you did this, why your friend did that, why your enemy didn't do what they should have done, why you, your friend and enemy had the confrontation where all that doing and not doing just made a whole big mess. But above all, please explain your motivations, your actions, your reasons, your justifications, your theories, your causes, the things that get you to move, what you think makes other people tick and why the ticking in those people get you to do what you're doing. Explain your understanding of the patterns around you in ways that has a structure for you.

A lot of people probably don't think in this fashion regularly. It probably would take people some effort to start thinking this way then to continue thinking and acting on it. It's probably difficult and hard work. Frankly, I've got the misfortune of having developed a physiology that I believe depends on thinking this way and interacting with the world in this way.

Nonetheless, recording your existence in this way will definitely make the work of future historians that much easier. Please, for their sake, write about your interactions with the world and your acting on the world in this way. . .if you are to write about such things.

Thank you in advance for your charity. You will have done the future a great service.

Writing What You Know

I don't know what to think about it, but I can probably consider the last 5 or so years working in the insurance industry as research. The ideas of risk, losses, risk management, peace of mind and hazard, especially morale hazard, have become vital to at least one paper. . .and could easily become important to the other papers, too.

All the above have become central concepts in insurance, and I read about them years ago, near the beginning of my career in insurance. Unfortunately, I didn't perceive the helpfulness of these concepts to my project until recently. I think this failing on my part came from

+ Something of an unconscious thought process that insurance and my project couldn't have much of anything in common

+ Not having the right frame of mind when being introduced to these insurance concepts to incorporate them into my project. Didn't help that I really had no idea of how to define utopia and dystopia in ways that could apply in a universal manor to utopias and dystopia

After reading some social psychology, including the importance of having the needs for meaning fulfilling for people, and reconciling social psychology and needs for meaning with arguments for human rights and people's psychological motivations for being social rather than anti-social, the need for insurance terms, especially morale hazard, came to the fore.

I won't need the insurance terms so much, though. Using those terms in the context of my project became somewhat problematic. They get used in a professional context and could end up sounding judgmental of the people I'm writing about and non-professionals in the world. And the recent studying I did for continuing ed credits reminded me that people in the insurance industry are professionals, so they have more knowledge than someone else who doesn't really think much about insurance and have the responsibility to help other people understand their insurance policies, situations and concepts.

Even the reasonable, prudent person test can have its problems for the context of my project. This reasonable, prudent person, I believe, fits into the same archetype of the economic man, who is rational and self-interested. We all know people like this, but we also know plenty of people who differ from this archetype.

From somewhere, I've even read that someone who has the knowledge of economic concepts probably fits this archetype more than most, but, in addition, they probably have less pro-social tendencies. In other words, someone with the knowledge of an economist will probably be so rational and self-interested that they have less compassion for their fellow humans.

We all have reached different parts of our lives where we have reached different stages of career, knowledge, instinct, spirituality, etc. etc. Our backgrounds can dictate a fair amount of our destiny. Our social environment and genetic, biological makeup can determine our fate. Sure, we have free will to an extent and all the factors involved combine to create an individual.

Throw all the above factors together, however, along with the large amount of people in poverty, having had bad educations, having stronger motivations for crime that sends them to jail, having grown up in the mob, having grown up in an environment that got you ownership of a corporation but no conscience, having lived with a biker gang, having lived in a cult and the range of experience of people that form their identities can almost reach infinity. Nonetheless, do these life experiences that don't encourage people to develop their sense to avoid loss mean that they're any less human?

I prefer not to believe so. At the level of their humanity, they deserve as much respect as anyone else. Trying to teach them the importance of avoiding loss would certainly benefit them and the world, but the fact that they don't know now does not make them dumb or any less of a person. Hell, they may have some advanced knowledge that we don't know and could help make things more interesting and better for the person who knows better ways to avoid loss.

So I decided to approach the problem from social psychology, specifically by addressing the issue with the concept of diffusion of responsibility, a phenomenon that can actually provide for a motivation to allow for morale hazards in your own life. In many ways, not addressing an issue can make life easier, but dealing with it can also help improve the quality of life.

At least, it can help the quality of life as long as you direct all your energy trying to avoid loss. Doing that can lead you to no longer live life. Enjoyment of life requires that we take risks, which, in itself, could be seen as a form of morale hazards and diffusion of responsibility. Being too cautious leads to staying bed all day, not driving on the roads, staring at the walls and ceiling, trying not to think and all types of neurotic behavior.

Sure, I guess a monk that meditates all day could fall into this category, but, in some ways, even a meditating monk takes risks when meditating. . .not being able to focus and concentrate is failure to some degree. Someone could take that as an indication that they're a failure, and that they're worthless. There you go, someone trying to do nothing and think nothing has just gone had a loss to their self esteem.

Yes, all this thinking came from "research" into the insurance industry and insurance concepts combined into studying into social psychology. Who would have thought so much could come out of these two fields that most people probably don't think about at the same time? Go figure. . ..

Then again, this is me we're talking about. . ..

Sci-Fi Channel Schedule Change for Charlie Jade Shouldn't Surprise Me

Turns out that Sci-Fi Channel moved Charlie Jade to Mondays at 3 AM/2 AM CST.

Just goes to show you the kind of support Sci-Fi was giving CJ.

Makes me frustrated, nonetheless. Probably means no second season forthcoming.

Networking and Learning with Other Writers

The last couple couple weeks had become pretty hectic. Along with the usual seven to eight work day and working on my project, I also had do major studying on Medicare to get insurance continuing ed credits.

I need 30 of them by October to make sure my license renews without hassle in January. So far I've done the work for 16 of them and put into motion the process for the Illinois Division of Insurance to register them.

For now, I plan on taking a break from that studying until after Independence Day, when a couple out of town guests leave. Then onto some more major studying and another test to get 15 more credits, then I should be all set.

But I don't want to think too much more about that until after Independence Day. . ..

STACEY BIERLEIN ON ON SUBMITTING AND EDITING ANTHOLOGIES

Last week, the wife and I attended an author coffee at The Writer's Workspace (where I got that nifty information about the open mic at the Borders last week). The following is the intro from the e-mail that marketed the coffee to us:

Stacy Bierlein's personal trajectory from short fiction writer to international editor promises an interesting conversation at our final Author Coffee until the fall.

Currently in Chicago while on tour for A Stranger Among Us, Bierlein attended Columbia College-Chicago in the 90s (where I [the person who runs The Writer's Workspace] met her), was a founding editor for Fish Stories, and has gone on to serve as an executive editor for the highly regarded Other Voices magazine and OV Books.

Most recently, she's received rave reviews as editor of the international collection of short fiction, A Stranger Among Us (OV Books, 2008). However, she's also published her own short fiction in numerous journals and collections and has extensive experience as a panelist at literary conferences. It's hard to imagine a topic she can't cover when it comes to literary shop talk.

Depending on interest, Bierlein and participants may discuss:

+ how to compile and market a successful anthology,
+ how to market your own work to anthology editors,
+ and how/when to make the career leap from writer to editor.

Sharon did a great job of providing useful information, entertainment, perspective and reassurance to me, as a writer. Unless the other people around the table had much more experience than me (which I have a sneaking suspicion that a lot of them did), I bet they had just as much a good time as me. She discussed a breadth of subjects from the topic of soliciting works from known and unknown authors for the anthology, the theme of her anthology, putting her life and soul into the anthology, the process of the anthology from start to finish, enlisting editors to help plow through submissions, the topic of judging pieces, pitching publishers to put together an anthology (but being happy that the publishing company she runs put out the anthology), deciding on what works to put in the anthology, figuring out the order of the anthology, how people read anthologies, marketing the anthology, targeting the academic audience does wonders for anthologies, going on tour from publishing conferences to bookstores to coffee setups like this one to promote the anthology, the reading audience, the publishing industry's view of the reading audience, the difference of the publishing industry in the United States compared to the rest of the world and a whole bunch of other topics between and outside the realm of what I've mentioned.

Some difficulty arises when trying to "review" a discussion amongst something like ten or twelve people. Sharon's discussion of putting together her anthology certainly caught my attention, but being a struggling writer working on a novel, I had a hard time trying to put myself in the place of someone submitting to an anthology.

Frankly, I never really thought much about anthologies and how I relate to them before the coffee. I ended up thinking more about the artistic point of putting together an anthology and the difficulty yet the joy of putting together one. I can imagine it being an organizational monstrosity that sometimes feels overwhelming and like it may never end, but I can also imagine how much fun reading all those pieces from unknown people might be.

The discussion about anthologies felt as if it grabbed the most of my attention when I asked something like, "With all the submissions coming in and not necessarily having the most fleshed out idea of what you wanted, how did you reach the point where you knew what form it would take?" The event having happened a week ago, I can't remember her exact answer, but it took something of an artistic answer about how things slowly formed until things just clicked in her head. At some point, after reading over the breadth of pieces that came in, her vision on the project almost unconsciously took shape until she reached that "ah ha!" moment, and the vision for the anthology just coalesced into the solid idea that grew into the present anthology.

I found the discussion about the reading audience, building writer's careers, the publishing companies and marketing/promoting books and reading as one of the most fascinating parts. Last year, I focused a lot on the technology in my stories possibly become obsolete even as I wrote about them. The society that came from those technologies probably didn't lose their edge, but the technologies just became old news and possibly part of our own past while I tried to write science fiction.

But back then, I also wondered about novel writing and story writing, in general, becoming something of an obsolete career. At the very least, novel reading has felt like it has followed something of a decline. Cynical as I am and following the common meme out there that peoples' attention span grows shorter, I believe that people have had their short attention spans growing shorter and shorter, if not because of their own preferences or because of anything biological, than because of the requirements of our society. To stay on top of things, we need to keep up on everything, and we can best do that by reading one or two sentence headlines on the topics out there without reading much deeper in to the substance of things.

Songs and music videos lasting 3 minutes, less being more preferable. News articles running only a paragraph or two. Editors only reading the first paragraph or two before taking a piece seriously, and if they suck, the manuscript gets throwing into the waste basket. TV shows have to grab the audience's attention within the first couple seconds, not only of the show itself, but also with every act in from the commercials. Commercials, themselves, have to grab people's attention within a second then transfer a minimum of information to the audience. Our doctors don't even have the time to have a relationship with their patients. The list goes on and on, having led me to the thought that the world's audience didn't have the patience to read because they could get as much adventure and story with less effort in a movie, on the TV screen or even on YouTube (C).

Then add the fact that with digital distribution, people could easily get a novel or short story for free easily, if just one person bought it then distributed it to their friends and family. Infinite supply, limited demand with no production problems. Only people without computers and the Internet would find getting literature a problem. Add to that the expectation of people that media should be free or cost nearly nothing to buy. What incentive does a writer to put tons of work into their work other than to express their love for stories through their labor?

This side of the industry really didn't really get addressed, nor should it have been, really, at this discussion. As much as it affects writers, this issue becomes more of a technology and plain distribution problem, thus a technical problem. How does one put restrictions on people once the floodgates have been opened other than to have the good will of the people on the producer's side, and also possibly such a huge demand that people have the willingness to donate a large amount to non-profits, not for profits or whatever form an innovative distribution party or channel takes?

Which brings us back to the audience's interest in novels, short stories and other literature. Sharon surprised my cynical side. After going on book tours, going to publishing conferences, working with fledgling authors and however other numerous ways that she has interacted with The People, she could say that the audience doesn't have a short attention span when it comes to books and stories. The People want books and stories.

There's a fair amount of literate people, and they're ready to do plenty of reading of good stories, if made available to them. On top of that, many people who may not read on a regular basis would read if exposed enough to stories, novels and literature, and not necessarily through the enticement of family or even school, but by the publishers. . .if they only promoted their authors, novels, stories and literature in savvy ways. Give them a sip, a taste and the people will want, is the impression that I got from Sharon when it came to the audience and potential audience for stories, novels and literature.

On the flipside, the publishers, in this day and age, have become short sighted. In the past, the publishers had focused on making careers for good writers. Nowadays, they grab onto the latest genre, famous figures or the latest famous figure writing the latest genre piece of work. Publishers don't want to build and develop the career of a writer that would lead to steadily increasing profits by impressing the audience then keeping them around to read more from that author.

Instead, the publishers want to grab onto a famous figure or topic that has a built in audience that will sell millions and millions of copies to the supposed fickle audience. They want the formula that will make money now, then they will move onto the next formula for lots of money then which will be now and so on and so on. They will keep rushing around for the next big thing, rather than making the next big thing.

I don't want to say that The People need guidance and for big industry to direct people onto what they should be reading, but the market kind of works like that. Unfortunately, we do live in a fast paced world. A lot of things demand all of our attention. Maybe The People don't need to be told what they will like, but they need to know what exists out there that they may like. How will the people know that they will like a story, a novel, a magazine with stories in them, a song, a CD, a movie, a magazine, a car, a TV show, a computer game and so on and so on if people don't get exposed to it first?

Right now, I'm frustrated that The Sci-Fi Channel doesn't promote Charlie Jade as much as their weekend sub par movies that have become their money makers for some reason. To have success, even good TV shows need the support of advertising to get awareness of the show out there. The same thing goes for music, even food, widgets, sprockets, cars, etc. etc.

As much as people like to think that a piece of art, literature or what have you can speak for itself, no one will listen to it, read it, look at it unless someone gets the awareness of that thing out there. The same thing goes for reading, books and stories. If someone doesn't know that reading and stories can be fun, why would someone start doing it on their own? Especially when reading and thinking is portrayed of and thought of as "nerdy" and "lame" compared to sports stars, TV stars, movie stars and other types of celebrities that take action and look glamorous. The biggest reasons people get excited about those things is because the media machine churns out those things as merchandise because they think that's what the people really want.

But really, what do The People want?

Went off on a little rant there. . .losing my writing edge there. . .Also met some other writers and at least one person that had made some great resources for writers to get their work out there and present it in a way that editors can dig. I haven't checked those resources that much in a depth, but if I do, you'll certainly hear from me about them.

So, all in all, the coffee with Sharon Bierlein provided me with a very good use for a couple hours, enlightening me about the writing industry, the story market and also got me to socialize with people. . .for once in a great while. Go figure!

Open Mic Tomorrow Night in Chicago

Last night, while at an event at the Writer's Workspace, I saw a flier on a bulletin for the following:

Open Mic at the
4718 N Broadway Borders
6 PM - 7 PM sign up
7 PM start time

For writers, poets, stand up comedians. . .
(and unfortunately I can't remember the other categories of performers. I'm guessing if you want to play music, it probably shouldn't get incredibly loud or anything.)

I don't plan on performing but am seriously thinking about going. I figure it's good to immerse myself into these types of things and get around creative artists more often.

UPDATE: I've downgraded to very likely NOT going. Too much studying to do for my insurance continuing ed credits. Ugh! What a "career". . ..

Sci Fi Channel Supports Charlie Jade (FINALLY. . .A Day Before the Show Premieres!)

Sci Fi also has a pretty cool interview with Robert Wertheimer, one of the creators of Charlie Jade, at http://www.scifi.com/sfw/interviews/sfw18980.html.

Punkin' Donuts Terrified by Conservatives Blasting Rachel Ray

This blog doesn't really enter frivolous current event politics. I generally end up being the progressive in a political debate that often tries to defend conservatives, as group, and sometimes even ultra-conservative right-wing Christians as having just as much right to be involved in the political machine and most of them actually meaning well. Even considering all of the above, I just can't resist this one:

Rachel Ray's 'Terrorist' Ad Yanked

What the hell?!?!?!

Dunkin Donuts has pulled an ad featuring the Food Network star after concerns grew about a scarf she wears during the commercial, the pattern of which bears resemblance to a keffiyeh, the traditional headdress that Arab men wear. The scarf has enraged conservative Fox News pundit Michelle Malkin and some others.

Just how dumb has our ideological media become that Dunkin' Donuts takes down an ad with Rachel Ray in it because the scarf "bears resemblance" to a traditional Arab male headdress (please note that someone has decided to equate Arab culture with terrorism. . .a little prejudiced?)? Of all people, Rachel Ray. . .terrorism? Did she just stumble onto that career unwittingly, too?

Sheesh!

Honestly, I wouldn't have let the ad reach the air waves because of that scarf. . .and not because it bares resemblance to anything. No, I wouldn't have let it hit the airwaves because it just looks ugly with the rest of her outfit.

But damn!

Please, commence scathing barbs toward the conservative media on this one now. I mean NOW!

Asking for and Accepting Constructive Criticism

I find it re-affirming to ask people critiquing or giving back notes on your unreleased work to focus on an aspect or two and for them to return with responses similar to your own suspicions. Hearing their different articulations of their responses also helps address a problem or see something good in your work.

This past Wednesday, I attended the Chicago-SF Writer's Workshop. About a month beforehand, I submitted my 10 double-spaced pages. A couple weeks after that, I sent out an inarticulate questions inspired by Alex Epstein's blog entry, "PLAYWRIGHTS". After having made a link to Alex's entry, it's kind of odd since he compares TV writing and theatre writing, whereas I write fiction. Right after reading his opinion on the different styles behind TV and theatre writing, though, I had the question, "Well, how do novelists treat their writing style and characters?"

I still haven't gotten an answer to that question, and other than to fulfill my own curiosity, I didn't see much of a point in asking Alex's to compare novel writing with those two other forms of writing characters. Instead, I asked the Chicago-SF Writer's Workshop the following:

I want to know if it feels like there's too much meaningless squabbling amongst the characters and if that gets in the way of the story moving forward. If so, does anyone have any thoughts how these types of dynamics work? When do characters work too well together, making a story somewhat boring because there's no tension? When do characters argue and squabble too much, thus distracting story with too much frivolous tension? That's all the questions I can think up at the moment, but any thoughts on this topic (at the workshop), would most certainly be appreciated.

More succinctly (especially after the workshop on Wednesday), is the novel more character or plot oriented, do the characters get in the way of the plot, does the story dwell too much on some things so the plot doesn't progress, does so much focus on the characters get repetitive and boring?

In the entries, "Finding My Beat and Chugging Along" and "Keep the Story Linear and Interesting, Stupid, and Other Writers Facing the Problem," I explored this topic somewhat; just mostly in the form of avoid repetition from showing the same event from different perspectives.

I think the issue here may actually arise from trying to write similarly to a TV or movie writer. With a visual medium that allows for splitting the screen for different perspectives and other tricks, the whole different perspective trick can be accomplished easily without too much annoying the audience. The split screen trick allows for showing the story from different perspectives at the same time. Further, the visual medium itself doesn't take so much time or demand too much cognitive processing by the audience to see the scene at hand.

With prose, the visual can get difficult because the author needs to write from different character's viewpoints, which also includes their sense of things that are significant. Two people in the same room with a specific design aesthetic, different objects in it, different actions occurring in it, etc. etc., have different perspectives and assign alternate interpretations of significance to each other, themselves, the design of the room, the objects of the room, the location of the room in the building, the building, itself, the location of the building and the whole matter of significance can go on and on into infinity.

So unless an author wants to go in the direction of James Joyce's Ulysses or various novels of William Faulkner, both of which have infuriated many readers and load readers with much cognitive work, an alternative approach needs to be taken.

I didn't expect the discussion would pretty much go in this direction along with a couple comments that my characters were becoming stereotypes/caricatures (I want to know that this is occurring, and I'm not necessarily sure it's a bad thing; if it serves the novel, it should happen) because of certain degrees of repetition. The direction of discussion shouldn't have surprised me, though, seeing as how I have the same complaints and already have figured out some structural ways to address the matter.

One option for me would be to complain that the workshop doesn't fit my needs because of the page limit for submissions every month (10 double-spaced pages or 5 single-spaced pages) and that the limit doesn't allow the group to critique my current writing (I've submitted work I've done from 5 or 6 years ago and am now submitting work I've done 3 to 5 years ago) and how the writing style has changed. Submitting current work from the novel could get confusing because the group hasn't read everything previously (even though the repetition in the writing could negate that issue since it would provide a tool similar to the "previously on. . ." montages at the beginning of some TV shows, which I think might have been the intention with the repetition originally, after hearing people complain about some shows being too complicated and requiring a person to have watched since the first episode to understand what's going on).

Neither do I have the intention to edit anything I've written first draft yet to provide a satisfying storytelling from the beginning for the workshop because I could get frustrated with the process and not actually reach the end of the novel. I followed the technique of writing and editing a section at a time until I got a satisfactory response from a workshop, and after awhile, I just had to scrap that version of the novel and start over from the beginning. In the process of trying to get that satisfactory response, I ended up getting influenced by other things I read, which ended up changing the whole story, anyway. I figure that I might as well just write, write and write until reaching a conclusion, absorb influences through the process then go back and address points of fact and reader satisfaction at the same time. To me, a lot more efficient than trying to get section by section perfect.

I guess it just gets dissatisfying when, to a certain degree, I've already answered questions that I raise and have addressed, to my satisfaction, discussion points that arise during workshops. . .but to adequately address current work, these conversations have to start by virtue of submitting short clips of the story in relation to what has already been written. It feels kind of like wasted time because some amount of my time during the workshop involves me saying, "Yeah, I know, I've already raised that question, I'm going to address that when I rewrite it" to a lot of critiques.

Every once in awhile, though, it's nice to hear something new that I haven't thought up, from praise to frustration/dissatisfaction. It also helps to hear my dissatisfactions get articulated differently or even receive some suggestions on how to address an issue (especially when I haven't put too much thought into correcting it).

Hopefully I've come up with a good tactic for cutting down on the inefficient discussions that I've already had with myself. For future submissions, I will do a minimum of editing, taking the form of excising repetitious parts of the text and asking the workshop if they feel like they've missed anything, tightening up the language and welcome any other critiques that come up, which hopefully don't address matters that I've already thought a lot about.

In the meantime, I've got a fair amount of research and writing to do for the academic side of things. The fact that I could do a fair amount of writing for the novel without distracting myself from writing the academic side has just occurred to me. Will have to put some thought into that. . .but not addressing that matter probably won't affect my working with the workshop. Ahh well. . ..

Sadly, All I Wrote a Couple Days Ago

Last week, back home in Boston, visiting friends and family, I had a common refrain when people asked me "What's up?" I would say, "Not much. Everything's pretty much the same, just a different city and different bosses." This quote is more succinct and articulate, but it pretty much says it all.

Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire

Last week, a friend of mine in the theater scene here in Chicago offered the wife and me a couple tickets to the premiere of Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire (please note that this link will probably become obsolete in a couple weeks), put on by The Next Theatre Company in collaboration with the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago. The wife couldn't make it, but I found another friend who could take advantage of it.

I'm not really a theatre person nor do I have the best memory in the world, so I really don't have the best concept of what was going on in the play. The essential part is that Heather Raffo plays the part of nine Iraqi women, most of them in Iraq but one of them in the US, watching TV and freaking out, of all ages, from one young girl responsible for the kidnapping of her father by Saddam's men to a few old women who remember times before Saddam's oppression and when Iraq actually was a prosperous nation.

The perspectives of the various women did a great job of addressing the complicated situation. Some of the women were glad that Saddam was deposed (and I think killed), some welcomed the US as liberators, at least mentioned that they would have rather the invasion of Iraq by the US didn't happen, much terror, fear and sadness in the face of both Saddam and the US. The play really made for a montage of mood, throwing in the audience's faces the feeling of life in Iraq for women and the effect of it on some Iraqi women outside of Iraq. At the same time, the women had sprinkles of laughter, joy, whimsy and a bittersweetness mixed with all the horribleness.

For the last year or so, I've done a lot of not paying attention to the news and feeling major compassion fatigue in regards to the Middle East, Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan, etc. etc. A lot of the stuff that has become topics nowadays (torture, depleted uranium in bullets, Iraqi casualties not being counted, etc. etc.) are things that I had read about four or so years ago when the Iraq war had begun and soon after through the not-so-mainstream news sources that I had found on the Internet and the Web. I started early and by the time all these horrible topics reached the mainstream press, I had become fatigued, tired, felt powerless and frustrated with the American people for not realizing all the atrocities that we had entered when they had been occurring.

Now I can only look with cynicism at a lot of the news, talk about the situation by the people on the street, etc. etc. that goes on these days while I moodily retreat into my apartment. I work on my bachelors project, hoping that it will bring knowledge to the world, hold a mirror up to people's faces of how people anesthetize their own consciousnesses and possibly bring everyone hope that there's something better for us, if we just put our minds to it. There's also a little bit where I hope that publishing this novel, selling many copies, getting the attention of the press and the people of the nation, maybe I can spend more time being politically active and doing charitable things to better people's lives, maybe I can spend more attention to world events and actually do things about them instead of feel pulled to reading about them and signing petitions and also toward my obligations and duties.

Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire did a good job of throwing the atrocities happening in Iraq in my face, though, while also keeping things human. When the atrocities were brought up, I felt reminded of everything that I had stayed away from because I could do nothing about fixing them. I witnessed the witnessed confession of torture witnessed and torture testified to. These confessions awoke the tears (that never came) in me and the twisting grip on my heart. I remembered that somewhere, people lived lives much worse than me, and I really didn't have much right to complain about my own life. . .but neither did I have the right to remain complacent and wallow in self pity.

Tonight, I may not accomplish a ton in the true trajectory of my life, but even by doing rudimentary, maintenance type of things, I work to bring myself closer to the point where I might have some influence on the world to improve it or at least have more time to join masses in their attempts to make the world better. I was reminded, without really any preaching, in a complicated fashion, that true evil exists in the world, ultra-egoism exists in the world, blind eyes exist in the world and all types of ignorance, hate and so on and so forth that contribute to the horribleness in our world that also holds so much good (and the only way to truly fight the evil is to promote good acts and kindness in the world around us. . .and there's probably plenty of complicated non-violent ways to try defusing evil, too).

So, all in all, Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire works very well as a mood piece that provides snippets of humanity and victims of inhumanity to an audience that lives a fairly comfortable life. Some may even say that our comfortable lives come from the evil elsewhere in the world.

The whole piece generally drew me in and only near the end, during a self indulgent part or two where I thought would make a great ending, did I feel distanced and pulled out of the play and the mood. It felt as if the art became more important than the mood, even though those moments of self-indulgence would have made great endings to the play that would have struck home with the humanity of the piece. Nonetheless, baring through a few minutes of endings (probably 1/15th of the play or so) proves quite rewarding as the stage fades to black on a poor peddling woman, selling the leftover ruined artifacts of a once great nation, destroyed by ideology, greed and war.

Even with the few minutes of distancing self-indulgence, the play still hits hard and will make the most cynical and withdrawn anti-war human remember their sentiments of hoping to make a difference and helping the world be a better place, even if they're just one person without much wealth or influence. Before the play started, the person introducing it asked people to turn off their cell phones but to please turn them on when the play ended, so everyone could call their friends and tell them what a great play Heather Raffo's 9 Parts of Desire was. He didn't lie. . .except that maybe it took a little time to compose myself before being able to speak and give the play its due. . .without letting my emotions choke up my ability to articulate the power of the play.

Working on the Bachelor's Project, Charlie Jade Premieres Soon and Other Miscellany

CHARLIE JADE NEWS

First off, for fans of Charlie Jade, those who have heard me babble about the show or anyone interested in good TV, a little news: Charlie Jade premieres on the SCi-Fi Channel in the United States on Friday, June 6 at 8 PM EST/7 PM CST. Watch, help them get ratings (especially you people with Nielsen boxes) and hopefully a second season will get produced.

BACHELOR'S PROJECT: RESEARCH AND PAPER WRITING

I've been out of active Internet circulation. At least, that's the best way to put it. I occasionally check out some blogs I regularly visit and reply to e-mails of current events in my life, emotionally tense situations or to someone who has provided some interesting stuff to think about or has provided me with amusement. Keeping in touch with friends has become an important aspect to me, too.

I've also recently taken a slight hiatus from the bachelors project. In large part, trying to nail down one aspect of it had me on the computer just about all waking hours and trying to find reading material in regards to an aspect of the project, at least, an aspect of the current paper that I outlined 22 or so pages and am looking to tighten it and make it more concise. Without this aspect, there's plenty of room for the paper to meander on, ramble and ruminate on plenty of topics without really going anywhere.

The topic of the aspect is prosocial behavior. More specifically, I like to believe that prosocial behavior and/or prosocial thinking leads to a more organized conscious or thought, to more meaning in one's life and a more fulfilling existence than one of anti-socialness or individualism. I once read an article in the Wall Street Journal that pretty much said that Tibetan monks that meditated on compassion for people and the world generally had more developed and healthier brains. I've also read plenty about how social connectedness leads to better health for people. In my experience, these points hold true, since the more prosocial I think and the more I'm connected to other people in a social manner, the better I feel. The same goes for when I engage in prosocial behavior that goes beyond my daily experience.

I just get irritated whenever I think about not having the phrase "prosocial behavior" in my vocabulary until a week or so ago. Even worse, it only entered into my vocabulary through the process of elimination from the ontological set of knowledge available to humanity. Thankfully, searching through the near infinite knowledge of humanity gets helped that I have some parameters to cut that ontology down (I can only read English, the overall topic is the social sciences, psychology to be even more exact, then hopefully even more by the subcategory social psychology or possibly developmental or cognitive psychology. . .but it expands a little when philosophy and religion can provide some insight into the topics I'm looking at. . .then it helps that I've narrowed my search down to compassion, sympathy, empathy and things like that).

Nonetheless, despite having some guidelines that cut down the overall set of human knowledge by a fair amount, there's still plenty of detritus to sift through to find anything useful. And just as annoying, when I find something that I think can really help then it doesn't. . .but it's just as annoying finding information that helps a lot then generates more questions or points me in more directions to get more specific information.

I'm under the impression that having a small case of ADHD doesn't help, either.

Overall, research feels like this to me, and it can get massively frustrating. I hopefully figure out some better tricks once I graduate from college and possibly get into freelance writing. Another option is to take on less ambitious tasks and building up smaller research projects and writing projects into a larger project, one that I've been building up to for months and years and probably planning for a good amount of time. I figure that's a good approach when I do this kind of thing as a living rather than as something on the side that acts as an unpaying vocation for the purpose of education and credentials.

For the last week or so, though, I've taken a hiatus from the project somewhat. On the Internet, I found what I hope will be a good source for prosocial behavior: The Social Psychology of Social Behavior. I found it last week or just a little more than a week ago through frustrating and semi-random Google searches. The Chicago Public Library tragically doesn't have a copy. The wife found it through interlibrary loan at her school, though, so she requested it for me. She can get it tomorrow, so I might be charging into the fray again starting tomorrow night.

I'm pretty excited, but I'm also kind of scared. I fear the possibility of disappointment and having to the random process of elimination with the ontological set of human knowledge again. . ..

BACHELOR'S PROJECT: THE NOVEL

So while doing all the in depth research into my latest paper and outlining it, I had been neglecting writing the novel. In the first month after all the holiday crap had been dealt with, I had written a whole chapter for the novel. Until a couple days ago and today, I hadn't written anything in it. Just so busy with the research and the other crap in life.

Something a friend that I commonly get into arguments with (some might call them flame wars) kind of hit home with me, even if the friend doesn't have a full idea of what goes on in my head, cognition and such. He pretty much said that if I had spent the time writing that I was spending complaining about my writing and researching, I would be done with my project. He didn't hit the nail on the head, but he did have a good point. If I worked on the aspect of the project that I wasn't stuck on (the novel), then I could probably get a lot done.

Today, I sat myself down and wrote, four pages to be exact. My productivity surprised me a little. The part I wrote today is the beginning of a section that has freaked me out over the last couple months. It's the section that very much explains the history of the setting, provides plenty of criticism of the setting and basically drives home the rational aspect of the novel. I had put so much weight behind the section that I feared that I wouldn't get it down very well or would have trouble with it. And today, I practically wrote four pages, bang, bang, bang, bang with some good breaks between each page to let my brain have some rest for the next one-page session.

I don't know the next time I will get back to writing in the novel. Hopefully I can do a little research at the beginning of the night and write a good amount in the novel for the second part of the night. When I first started working on this thing seriously after leaving college, I was able to pull that kind of routine off. Sure, didn't have a girlfriend/wife and tons of other responsibilities at the time. . .but I also was able to accomplish the same routine a little more than a year and a half ago when I still had tons of crap to do.

MISCELLANY STUFF HAPPENING IN LIFE

At least I finished writing thank you cards for the wedding and sent them all out (and just a couple weeks before first class mail goes up by one cent, too!).

Unfortunately, I think I'm going to have some major insurance studying to do because I have to get 29 more continuing ed credits before January 2009 to keep my license and not have to be fired, by Illinois law because I let my license expire. Plus, I don't want to have to study and take the initial licensing test again! Those things are horrendous.

Kaplan Financial, however, looks to have some good and interesting classes, though, for a good amount of continuing ed credits. I just wish I knew about more classes that I would just have to sit through and could get a good amount of credits. Nice thing about the Kaplan Financial courses, though, is that the courses range from something like 6 to 15 credits each. If I plan well, I can probably just take two or three online classes to fulfill my education requirement for getting my license renewed. Fun fun. . ..

So yeah, I guess that's the update on my life and some thoughts on things. Don't know when the next entry will happen, with the new research source arriving tomorrow, people visiting from out of town for the weekends, trying to get more involved in social groups and some traveling home for Mother's Day.

Something to Consider about Competitive Capitalism

It's economic common sense in the United States that competition is supposed to bring the cost of products down.

At the same time, though, companies spend millions to try convincing us to buy their stuff. Marketing costs get passed onto the consumer by raising the cost at the store.

Competition also leads to more choice, which is supposed to be a good thing.

Too much choice, however, overwhelms people and at some point makes making a choice more difficult. And when there's more choice, it takes time to research and figure which brand of the product, which model of the product, which design of the product, etc. etc. will fit your needs.

Time is money. Time spent choosing a product to buy costs value, either leisure value or productive value.

So. . .do we really gain or lose freedom when there's more competition in the world to win our attention and loyalty? If there were less companies in the world trying to win us to their side, would they have to spend as much money on marketing, would we have to spend as much time researching a product?

Do we live under a tyranny of competition and choice?

The US at War

With all the changes that have occurred in the last 165 years or so, it's amazing how many things have remained the same. Shouldn't those with power have learned by now?

"I wish," he [Theodore Parker] said, "All of this killing of 2,000 Americans on the field of battle, and the 10,000 Mexicans; all this slashing of the bodies of 24,000 wounded men; all the agony of the other 18,000, that have died of disease, could have taken place in some spot where the President of the United States and his Cabinet, where all the Congress who voted for the war. . . the controlling men of both political parties, who care nothing for the bloodshed and misery they have idly caused, could have stood and seen it all; and then that the voice of the whole nation had come up to them and said, 'This is your work, not ours. . . We have trusted you thus far, but please God we never will trust you again.'"

- Quoted from Gura, Philip F. American Transcendentalism: A History. Hill and Wang (New York 2007). p. 221-2, which quoted it from A Sermon of the Mexican War (1848) in The Collected Works of Theodore Parker. Ed by Frances Power Cobbe, 12 vols (London: Truber 1863-65), 7:59-60.