I've had this article sitting here in draft mode for nearly a month now, a little tentative to try and finish it. I wasn't sure I could pull it off. Last month I watched a very good movie with one of my favorite actors. I won't say who, or what film, as I want to speak without fear of spoilers. But I do want to try to explain this. I just find it hard to make my point on it. It can be a very intense subject for many, especially for those who have experienced these kinds of things and they can tend to have a very visceral reaction to something like what I'm about to say. But I'll give it a good shot.
There is seminal scene in the film where something drastic happens. The protagonist's wife has just about had it with her husband. She loves him but he can be annoying. So she goes to visit their son at college. She simply needs some time, a week maybe, away from him.
During a phone call with his wife, he asks if he can come up and join them. But she turns him down, saying that it kind of defeats the purpose of her getting time away. Then he finds that the man she works for just happens to be in that same town and now they going about to go to lunch with him, so she needs to get off the phone. She is open about it, to suggest she sees nothing wrong with her actions, which is a little (a little) bit reassuring. She even points out that her husband was the one to have suggested the man go to that town for some business. It all seems rather innocent.
But that man happens to be someone who has been, at least in our protagonist's mind, a threat to him, just because he is so much more than him in many ways; he is handsome, he is clever, and his wife likes him and works for him. All mostly things that had made him uneasy from the moment he saw them first meet. Obviously he is pretty annoyed about all this. And she is annoyed with him about it, after all, she's not doing anything wrong, just lunch with a friend and coworker with their son there. She is firm and says there is nothing to worry about, that she will see him in a few days.
But, this rips his heart apart. He asks her to come home but she refuses, saying she loves him. So she goes and supposedly has lunch. But he is devastated. He goes to his favorite bar to have a drink and drown his sorrows and missing his wife. While he is sitting there, having his drink, drinks, an attractive women next to him starts talking to him because she recognizes him. As it turns out, she used to work for him some time ago, on his soap opera type TV show. She has an obvious attraction, and after all, he's a guy, so he finds that attractive.
At this point, he believes, according to how he feels from what happened with his wife, that had she left for that town, where she just happens to find "the guy" who just "happens" to show up, all during a point in their life where she is unhappy with him and he is feeling very low. Because she left for a week for the soul purpose of being away from him, because she won't come home, because she was meeting with the one guy that seriously threatens his security in himself and his marriage, because she wouldn't cancel the lunch and run home to him right at that moment, he feels that his heart has been shredded in his chest.
He is feeling great pain, and partially because his wife is off with another man. He is intelligent, creative, and hurting, not a good combination; and his wife will not do anything to sooth his pain, to make it stop, to make it go away. So, she has in some way, seemingly abandoned him, and replaced him with another in order to feel good, to enjoy herself with; even if their son is there with them. And, after all, what about after lunch, or the next day, or night? Since there is some distance between himself and his son, would his son hide any indiscretions?
So he ends up on the floor at home, having sex with the girl from the bar. And he feels better afterward. He can make it through the rest of the day now. But after a little time passes, he starts to think about it. Having not used protection, he panics. By the next morning, he asks his friend and doctor to give him a test to find if he is infected with a social disease, and run it, really fast. You see, he realizes, now that he can breathe easy again, and has calmed down some, can be sane again, that he shouldn't have done what he did. It was wrong.
But he was just a little bit insane for a while and it took someone being intimate with him in the most intimate way possible, to show him he was worth the attention, in order to find his sanity again. Now this is not making excuses for his behavior, and he knew that; it's simply explaining the order of things and how it happened.
His wife then finally returns home, having stayed until the end of the week as she had said she would. As it turns out it was good for her, it was just what she needed. Once she gets home she is happy to see him again, she feels rejuvenated. She just needed to get away to clear her head, just like she had said. Nothing had happened with the man, after all; they were just friends, coworkers.
The phone rings and he says he has to take it. She wants him to hang up, for him to take her to bed. He is rather happy about this, but pretty panicky, but tries to be calm and simply says he has to take the phone call. So she tell him that she is going to the bedroom and he knows what will happen if he simply joins her.
He takes the call and finds out that no, he is clean, no STDs. He is so happy now, he can finally put this horrible mistake behind him and never do it again. After all he loves his wife and she is an incredible wife and person, and he just wants to forget what an idiot he was. This has reaffirmed his belief in life and his wife.
So he goes to her, just in time to see her setting down the phone, with a shocked look on her face. She apologizes, and has a good reason for having listened. But she didn't really hear anything, other than it was the doctor. She is concerned. Is he dying? She asks him to just tell her, whatever it is, just tell the truth.
Foolishly, and since he has been traumatized and is so happy to be back with his wife, he makes a very poor choice in judgement; he tells her the truth. Of course she is devastated. And sadly it ends their marriage. She can put up with anything, with his grumpy old character all these years but she cannot put up with this, he has broken a trust with her and she simply cannot get back to before. Ironically, she ends up with the coworker. So in a sense, he was right to have been worried except, she wouldn't have done anything, had he not ruined things.
But he has ruined things. But why?
She didn't have sex with the friend and coworker. But he acted like she had. It wasn't that he thought she did, he knew she hadn't, but he "felt" like she had. By her having left him, rejected him, even for that short time, leaving him vulnerable when he needed her most, by then rejecting him again when she refused to come home, or to allow him to come up to visit with her and their son; then rejecting him yet again in the most intense way at that moment by going to lunch, seeing that particular other man, by acknowledging that man over that of her husband, buy sharing her "wonderfulness" with another man, when she was so in the process of taking herself away from her husband; she had damaged him so badly by all that, that it was like he had experienced the situation of his wife having actually been adulterous with that other man and that man in particular.
It was at that moment on the phone with her, that he was experiencing that she had indeed been adulterous.
And he had acted accordingly. Not in a mature fashion, to be sure. But in a way to stop the pain and anguish. So that when he tells her the truth, that he was tested not for a life threatening condition, but for the possibility of having acquired a social disease by being adulterous in her absence; her reaction to him, as one of the cuckolded spouse, was almost mean spirited. Ironic, to say the least, that is from her husband's point of view.
Did he know this? No, he may not have recognized it at all and his argument at that time, was weak because he didn't understand himself all I have just explained. He too was at a loss as to how to explain why he did what he did. And it's not to say that he thought she had committed adultery and so it cancelled out what he had done. He knew something was wrong and so he got angry and argued back about it, about how she was off in another town with that man.
Of course, she asked if he thought that had any comparison to what he had done, and of course, he had to reply to the negative. Of course her having lunch, with their son there with them, in no way compared with his act of infidelity.
He knew he was in the wrong. He was devastated. He had ruined their marriage. But he was not fully culpable, was he. She did have a hand in his actions. She had lived with him for years, she knew him better than he knew himself. She knew how he saw things, even on the night they first met. But she would never see that now. Their marriage was over, and it was his fault.
You cannot claim that she was at fault, he was the one who acted on the actual, act. But she broke trust with him first. She didn't see it, because she was hurting, because she needed time to herself, she couldn't see that she needed to be there for him, that to leave him like that, was devastating to him, and was taking their marriage to a precipice where it could easily be knocked over and destroyed; and so it was.
Should she have stayed with him? Should she have come back when he asked on the phone? No, probably, most likely, not. That would have been the optimal thing, for him, and in the end, for their marriage. But she deserved her need for privacy, for alone time (and there is part of the problem, she was welcome to her "alone" time, but not with another man, especially, that man).
Of course she needed her time away, and no doubt, he needed her to return. Her going was probably actually good for their marriage. Maybe too, even her staying. But throwing that other guy into the mix was the toxic element to topple things over that edge.
The point here is this, sometimes, there is simply nothing to be done. You may very well both need what you both need and sometimes, only one of you can get what it is you need, for things to continue all well and good. But sometimes, if one of you can recognize that single element, that one thing you can do, that you may even not want to do, if you can find your way to move on that, you may just save the rest of your life, or at least, your marriage.
Sometimes undoubtedly, it is best that a marriage end. But many times, I think people give up too easily. It can take a while for a marriage to smooth out and get back on track. It is when the love is truly dead, when you are completely miserable and it will never go away; or even more so, if it becomes destructive, that it's truly the time to end it.
So, that was what I wanted to share. I just thought it was interesting, intriguing and bittersweet. It was a very moving part of the film and I found it both sad and enlightening. I've been through a few relationships, all of them interesting, all rewarding in some way. And all of them have had moments like the one I have described. Perhaps not so large and intense, as I've never gone out on someone like that, though I've had it done to me a couple of times. The first time it happened, it was devastating. But whether it has actually been done to you, or it only feels like it has been done, it can still be intensely painful.
If we can just see when these times happen and try to avoid doing those kinds of things to the ones we love and care deeply about, I think the world would simply have to be a better place. Even if just a little bit. Because sometimes, that's all it takes, a little bit of effort, to avoid a devastating life event.
Friday, December 23, 2011
Thursday, December 22, 2011
The Auteur Director
Why is a film directed by an Auteur Director supposed to be better? For me, it's because in order to be considered "Auteur" as a Director, you have to have a grasp of all aspects of film and Cinema, but to a very high degree. You have to fully "Get It". You have to rise above the solidly capable, and venture into that scary land of the Artiste. It takes understanding of the form, genius, fusion, clear focus even when it appears to be unclear.
I grew up watching PBS, Channel 9 in Tacoma, Washington in the 1960s. I don't know who was responsible at that station, but they did a bang up job.
I saw a lot of films with the Janus Films logo.
A logo I find as evocative then as I do the Criterion brand now. PBS showed Kurosawa films, Truffaut, Bergman, and many others. As a kid, I was fascinated. These were no American type films, they had something more, texture, substance, depth, unlike anything I was used to. They left me stunned, curious, blown away.
I had no idea what I was seeing but in comparing it to most of the American films I was seeing, there was something special going on there. I grew up going to the Drive-In Theater every Friday night as our Step-Dad was an Asst Manager. It was his night job, the job he enjoyed. Having been a big band leader, it was his chance to get out of the warehouse he worked in during the day, put on a suit and meet the public; even if it was only to sell them tickets. Later I too worked there at night all through High School. So I grew up seeing a lot of films.
On top of all that, my mother saw Hollywood actors as our American Royalty and so we celebrated when we watched the Oscars. Film, is kind of in my blood. And so it makes sense that I would lean toward the top end of filmmaking, the Auteur films.
So, what exactly is "Auteur"? The technical definition of the term "Auteur" (French for author) describes film directors (or, more rarely, producers, or writers) who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable style, because they:
(a) repeatedly return to the same subject matter,
(b) habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme,
(c) employ a recurring visual and aesthetic style, or
(d) demonstrate any combination of the above.
In theory, an Auteur's films are identifiable regardless of their genre. The term was first applied in its cinematic sense in François Truffaut's 1954 essay "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema" - Wikipedia
Using a list of Auteur Directors, I picked the ones that were influential starting from before I was a teenager to adulthood and after I had spent some time studying Film Theory and Cinema at my University.
I would argue that some of directors on the list I was looking at, I really wouldn't consider Auteur, but well known, proflific, or highly competent. I have a more stringent definition for Auteur, similar to my differentiation between Artist and Artiste. I have always tried to differentiate between those highly competent and prolific Artists and Genius Artists, or those individuals who took their craft or art to a much higher degree. Thus I see Director and Auteur Director, Artist and Artiste, for wont of a better term for either one.
Here is my personal, mostly complete list, not in any order. I may have left some off, but I think I got most of them, those who have touched my life in some way. I may have included some perhaps through emotionalism, and who could arguably be removed, but not many I think.
Michelangelo Antonioni
John Boorman
Frank Capra
Jean Cocteau
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Jim Jarmusch
Fritz Lang
Louis Malle
Georges Melies [500 films to his name, he destroyed them all]
Alan Parker
Roman Polanski
Jean Renoir
Ken Russell
John Sayles
Steven Soderbergh
Martin Scorsese
Paul Schrader
Bob Rafelson
Nicholas Roeg
Quentin Terantino
Jacques Tati
Guillermo del Toro
Francois Truffaut
Paul Verhoeven (mostly for his preHollywood films)
Luchino Visconti
Orson Welles
Wim Wenders
Chris Marker
Henri Langlois
Terry Gilliam
Alfred Hitchcock
Woody Allen
James Cameron
Stanley Kubrick
Lina Wertmüller
Ingmar Bergman
Jean Luc Goddard
John Carpenter
David Cronenberg
David Lynch
Pedro Amodovar
Alain Resnais
Sir David Lean
Louis Lumiere
Ridley Scott
Francois Truffaut
Werner Herzog
Akira Kurosawa
Andrei Tarkovsky
Sergei M. Eisenstein
Federico Fellini
Luis Buñuel
Peter Greenaway
Buster Keaton
Harold Lloyd
Charlie Chaplan
Tim Burton
I grew up watching PBS, Channel 9 in Tacoma, Washington in the 1960s. I don't know who was responsible at that station, but they did a bang up job.
I had no idea what I was seeing but in comparing it to most of the American films I was seeing, there was something special going on there. I grew up going to the Drive-In Theater every Friday night as our Step-Dad was an Asst Manager. It was his night job, the job he enjoyed. Having been a big band leader, it was his chance to get out of the warehouse he worked in during the day, put on a suit and meet the public; even if it was only to sell them tickets. Later I too worked there at night all through High School. So I grew up seeing a lot of films.
On top of all that, my mother saw Hollywood actors as our American Royalty and so we celebrated when we watched the Oscars. Film, is kind of in my blood. And so it makes sense that I would lean toward the top end of filmmaking, the Auteur films.
So, what exactly is "Auteur"? The technical definition of the term "Auteur" (French for author) describes film directors (or, more rarely, producers, or writers) who are considered to have a distinctive, recognizable style, because they:
(a) repeatedly return to the same subject matter,
(b) habitually address a particular psychological or moral theme,
(c) employ a recurring visual and aesthetic style, or
(d) demonstrate any combination of the above.
In theory, an Auteur's films are identifiable regardless of their genre. The term was first applied in its cinematic sense in François Truffaut's 1954 essay "A Certain Tendency of the French Cinema" - Wikipedia
Using a list of Auteur Directors, I picked the ones that were influential starting from before I was a teenager to adulthood and after I had spent some time studying Film Theory and Cinema at my University.
I would argue that some of directors on the list I was looking at, I really wouldn't consider Auteur, but well known, proflific, or highly competent. I have a more stringent definition for Auteur, similar to my differentiation between Artist and Artiste. I have always tried to differentiate between those highly competent and prolific Artists and Genius Artists, or those individuals who took their craft or art to a much higher degree. Thus I see Director and Auteur Director, Artist and Artiste, for wont of a better term for either one.
Here is my personal, mostly complete list, not in any order. I may have left some off, but I think I got most of them, those who have touched my life in some way. I may have included some perhaps through emotionalism, and who could arguably be removed, but not many I think.
Michelangelo Antonioni
John Boorman
Frank Capra
Jean Cocteau
Rainer Werner Fassbinder
Jim Jarmusch
Fritz Lang
Louis Malle
Georges Melies [500 films to his name, he destroyed them all]
Alan Parker
Roman Polanski
Jean Renoir
Ken Russell
John Sayles
Steven Soderbergh
Martin Scorsese
Paul Schrader
Bob Rafelson
Nicholas Roeg
Quentin Terantino
Jacques Tati
Guillermo del Toro
Francois Truffaut
Paul Verhoeven (mostly for his preHollywood films)
Luchino Visconti
Orson Welles
Wim Wenders
Chris Marker
Henri Langlois
Terry Gilliam
Alfred Hitchcock
Woody Allen
James Cameron
Stanley Kubrick
Lina Wertmüller
Ingmar Bergman
Jean Luc Goddard
John Carpenter
David Cronenberg
David Lynch
Pedro Amodovar
Alain Resnais
Sir David Lean
Louis Lumiere
Ridley Scott
Francois Truffaut
Werner Herzog
Akira Kurosawa
Andrei Tarkovsky
Sergei M. Eisenstein
Federico Fellini
Luis Buñuel
Peter Greenaway
Buster Keaton
Harold Lloyd
Charlie Chaplan
Tim Burton
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Non Verbal Thought
This article was accidentally published before it was ready or meant to be. I do apologize for that. Now, here we go....
Peter Chatterton wrote an article I found very interesting article.
He talks about Non-Verbal Thought (NVT). What is NVT? Hmmm... well, let me paint you a picture....
Have you ever read a book and heard the words in your head? Okay, that's verbal thought. When I was in Eighth Grade, Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics came to our classroom and taught us Washington State History over several months, using their methods.
Sadly, and you'll understand the irony of this even more in a minute, when I got into High School, they wouldn't count the credit for this class for some reason, and I had to take it all over again. Their comment was, "Well, if you did take it before, then it will be a breeze for you this time." What a jerk. Well, it was a breeze. But I learned it better the first time, than any of the kids did in this new class, this time.
Evelyn Wood had taught Pres. Kennedy herself, as I heard it, and many others, to use this method to read quickly and increase your comprehension. They wanted to find if teaching in a classroom setting was workable. Turns out it was. I've seen many other "speed reading" courses over the years, and most of them aren't worth the money, if you ask me. Some teach you better reading skills than you have now, to be sure. But I guess I see Wood as the gold standard.
The first thing they told us, and taught us, was to stop thinking words in your mind. After all, your mind can move much faster than your words, when spoken. When you "hear" the words in your mind, you slow your mind down to the rate at which the muscles in your mouth and face will allow you, to talk and articulate. Well, don't do that in your mind and you immediately speed up the rate at which you read, and think.
I went from 60% comprehension at around 280 words per minute, to within several months, by the time this class was over, to 80% comprehension and 10,000 words per minute. Honest. I was reading a novel in an hour. And I was understanding and retaining more by 20%.
One thing this told me was that in all the years previous, where I thought I was slow and stupid, I found that I was simply bored. There was actually more to it than just that, but that was a lot of it, actually.
When my teachers, who were usually going too slow for how my mind worked (or could work), whenever they sped up their teaching, I found I was then able to understand them better. But usually someone in the class would complain and they would slow down and typically start going over it all again, which just made me even more bored and on top of it, frustrated.
Of course there are other elements involved, emotions, nutrition, etc., but let's skip those for the purposes of this discussion.
Then when it came to tests, it looked like I was just stupid as the other kids would get better scores. But that was because they got to learn at their speed and (this will sound funny), I couldn't keep up at their slower speed of assimilation. I would get quickly bored and start looking around and not pay attention.
But that wasn't inherent in my attitude. I was interested, actually, fascinated, but my thoughts were going so fast, I simply couldn't pay attention. It was like watching a movie, only they play the first scene at half speed and repeat it three times, so that by time the next scene comes up, your now reading a book or something.
Getting back to the Speed Reading, I kept it up for a while, but doing the "push up" drills gave me headaches. Your eyes have to get accustomed to the zipping back and forth across the pages, at first. Then once you get beyond that, you're smoothly slipping down a page; in the time it takes to look from top to bottom of the page, you have read it and can answer questions about it. You also can't read dense material that way, as it simply slows you way down.
So I eventually quit reading that fast. But the real reason I quit was that I had read a few really good novels using that technique. They took me an hour or two to read. It was actually pretty cool, like watching a movie in your head while you read. Except for one thing.
When I read a really good novel I want to savor it, enjoy it, let it last for a few days, a week, maybe as long as I can stretch it out. But with this fast reading style, it was zip, over. Also, to really learn a book, they expected you to read it possibly three times. But then you would have learned it far better than using normal reading methods. Of course, even reading it three times, you were still done far faster than ever before possible.
Now you might ask, could I really do that? Well many years later I asked myself the very same thing. I was in the USAF in my early twenties. I had a letter from Evelyn Wood stating that should I ever want to take their classes again, for the rest of my life, I can take them for free. So when I was about twenty-two, I saw they had classes starting at a local downtown hotel conference room. So, I signed up for free.
I knew I had done this before. But even having done it before, I had trouble understanding by then, how that was possible. How does anyone read 10,000 words per minute? So I took the class again. And once again, I got up to those speeds. And once again, I found the same issue. I liked taking time reading so that the experience lasts longer.
But that is neither here nor there.
So I was bored as a child in my classes. I did have ADHD as a kid which explains some of that. Or is ADD a natural evolutionary development for us to help our race pick up the pace to that of modern times?
The point here is speed. That is one element in this NVT thing. Remember that? We naturally, purposely slow our minds down, without even knowing it. Parents will tell kids sometimes, "you're going to fast" (yeah, for the slow adult). They tell you to slow down. Sometimes of course, kids are going too fast, but if they can handle it, let them go at their own pace. If it seems not to be working, consider if you are trying to teach them using a method too slow for a kid with a fast processor.
What makes you think that a car that runs at fuel injector speeds, can run in a healthy manner using a carburetor? Well, you see what I'm saying anyway, right?
Getting back to Peter's article, in it he says:
"To me, the idea that mathematicians, artists and chess players think in words while they are working productively is preposterous."
Interesting. He goes on to say:
"I’ve found that I can reduce unnecessary sub-vocalization in daily life just by making a point of not thinking in words. It is my impression that anyone can improve their NVT, but it takes time and effort; on the other hand, presumably, anyone can lose NVT by sloppy thinking."
Interesting article. He has a good point. How many years were humans non verbal? Language has developed our brains in a certain way, certainly, but the basis was non verbal. So, if we allow that to work, now, what happens?
I like the concept on a TED video I saw about our minds using a kind of photo indexing system, or even video, or more so, perhaps, 3D image indexing inter relationships, rather than a FAT (File Allocation Table) type format to allocate and track our compartmentalization of data. A FAT type table tracks the beginning and end of a file on your hard drive, and if it's fragmented, spread all over the disk, it tracks where all parts of it are, so you can access the entire file without having to realize it's in pieces all over the place.
As for 3D indexing, think holographic indexing, perhaps. It's on the order of what I'm talking about, anyway. Still, it's too simplistic, but you get the idea.
If every image in your mind is 3D, or "video" in nature, or video 3D, a streaming one second slice of that stored moment, then every element possible to consider is stored in relation to that "experience". So, you are indexing not just by word, image, temporal slice, but the overall consideration of that, EAT "Experience Allocation Table". Then by "lighting up" different matrices in your brain, you can access these, which lends itself to this kind of thing; in a computer, it uses more basic indexing as a grouping of various hardwired junctions using "on or off" bits, 1's and 0's. The difference between the two concepts is light years apart in complexity.
If, rather than using words to categorize our thoughts, to store and access data, what if we use a rich image related to the event, then each element within that frame becomes a search element. Think of the depth of storage and retrieval we must be capable of.
I've always had trouble with retrieval in my own thought indexing. It is slow. Why? Well there may be many reasons, and many of those may be physical. But I wonder.
We have two basic ways to access memory: retrieval and recognition. But I discovered early on that I am incredibly good at recognition and creation, but not so good at retrieval and association. So it can take me a while to fully remember something.
When, let's say, I see a face I've seen before, I recognize it instantly. But attributing it to its history in my memory, and extracting that data, takes me a while. So I've learned how to make that work for me in life. Basically, I'm very good at creating but not so good at regurgitating information. I'm just very good at generating as I go. And so I'm good at writing, composing articles and stories. The funny thing about that is that as I'm creating, I'm drawing indirectly, vast amounts of information, but more in an image index than a word index. If you follow what I'm saying.
If you want to learn something, learn it in those two formats. When I started college, one of my first classes was Physics / Chemistry, as they are basically the same in their beginnings, I had to learn the entire periodic table. So I wrote two programs. One to help me recognize, another to help me recall or retrieve.
Basically, one program showed me an element and I had to recognize it and recall what its properties were. The other program, required me to type in, to recall the properties, to retrieve information, which I find more difficult. But with time and repetition, it's doable; see that is usually the issue. I can do it, it just takes me a long time to remember, which appears as dysfunctional.
So, I learned it all in a week, far faster than anyone else in class, and with better memorization. One of the students said I cheated by using a computer, but all we had to do was learn it, so I don't know how it was cheating. Then someone pointed out, my lab partner, very cute girl (after getting together, getting a college degree, then breaking up), she pointed out that I had first had to design and write a computer program to be able to "cheat". The others thought about that and then all agreed they had to give me that much. This was back when few people anywhere had a PC at home.
Now, Peter ends his article with this:
"I would like to see more awareness of NVT to save other people the learning curve and to improve the overall level of cognition and reasoning (wow!)."
What he's saying is that this all sounds rather intimidating, high level functioning, genius level stuff. But, it's not. Anyone can do this. You just have to understand what you are doing. Though it helps to understand how your own personal brain works, how your mind best functions, for you.
Once you realize you don't have to "hear" words in your head, you're way ahead of the game. It takes a little effort, but I believe almost anyone can do it, if they really want to.
When I started college, the first class I took, was study skills. I never took a more important class. I came to realize that my understanding of how to study was wrong and for the first time, learned how I could learn and retain information in a way useful to me in an academic environment. Since college throws things at you faster than you need it, that was no longer at issue. Learning was still difficult, in a classical type or academic environment, but you learn to adapt.
Sometimes, all it takes is being given the right information for the task at hand. We just need to have the information about how to do what we need to do and, they simply don't tend to teach that to you in school.
But in this information, that I'm giving to you today, gives you enough information so that you can go look it up yourself, and change your life. If you want to.
And if you do, let 'er rip!
Peter Chatterton wrote an article I found very interesting article.
He talks about Non-Verbal Thought (NVT). What is NVT? Hmmm... well, let me paint you a picture....
Have you ever read a book and heard the words in your head? Okay, that's verbal thought. When I was in Eighth Grade, Evelyn Wood Reading Dynamics came to our classroom and taught us Washington State History over several months, using their methods.
Sadly, and you'll understand the irony of this even more in a minute, when I got into High School, they wouldn't count the credit for this class for some reason, and I had to take it all over again. Their comment was, "Well, if you did take it before, then it will be a breeze for you this time." What a jerk. Well, it was a breeze. But I learned it better the first time, than any of the kids did in this new class, this time.
The first thing they told us, and taught us, was to stop thinking words in your mind. After all, your mind can move much faster than your words, when spoken. When you "hear" the words in your mind, you slow your mind down to the rate at which the muscles in your mouth and face will allow you, to talk and articulate. Well, don't do that in your mind and you immediately speed up the rate at which you read, and think.
I went from 60% comprehension at around 280 words per minute, to within several months, by the time this class was over, to 80% comprehension and 10,000 words per minute. Honest. I was reading a novel in an hour. And I was understanding and retaining more by 20%.
One thing this told me was that in all the years previous, where I thought I was slow and stupid, I found that I was simply bored. There was actually more to it than just that, but that was a lot of it, actually.
When my teachers, who were usually going too slow for how my mind worked (or could work), whenever they sped up their teaching, I found I was then able to understand them better. But usually someone in the class would complain and they would slow down and typically start going over it all again, which just made me even more bored and on top of it, frustrated.
Then when it came to tests, it looked like I was just stupid as the other kids would get better scores. But that was because they got to learn at their speed and (this will sound funny), I couldn't keep up at their slower speed of assimilation. I would get quickly bored and start looking around and not pay attention.
But that wasn't inherent in my attitude. I was interested, actually, fascinated, but my thoughts were going so fast, I simply couldn't pay attention. It was like watching a movie, only they play the first scene at half speed and repeat it three times, so that by time the next scene comes up, your now reading a book or something.
Getting back to the Speed Reading, I kept it up for a while, but doing the "push up" drills gave me headaches. Your eyes have to get accustomed to the zipping back and forth across the pages, at first. Then once you get beyond that, you're smoothly slipping down a page; in the time it takes to look from top to bottom of the page, you have read it and can answer questions about it. You also can't read dense material that way, as it simply slows you way down.
So I eventually quit reading that fast. But the real reason I quit was that I had read a few really good novels using that technique. They took me an hour or two to read. It was actually pretty cool, like watching a movie in your head while you read. Except for one thing.
When I read a really good novel I want to savor it, enjoy it, let it last for a few days, a week, maybe as long as I can stretch it out. But with this fast reading style, it was zip, over. Also, to really learn a book, they expected you to read it possibly three times. But then you would have learned it far better than using normal reading methods. Of course, even reading it three times, you were still done far faster than ever before possible.
Now you might ask, could I really do that? Well many years later I asked myself the very same thing. I was in the USAF in my early twenties. I had a letter from Evelyn Wood stating that should I ever want to take their classes again, for the rest of my life, I can take them for free. So when I was about twenty-two, I saw they had classes starting at a local downtown hotel conference room. So, I signed up for free.
I knew I had done this before. But even having done it before, I had trouble understanding by then, how that was possible. How does anyone read 10,000 words per minute? So I took the class again. And once again, I got up to those speeds. And once again, I found the same issue. I liked taking time reading so that the experience lasts longer.
But that is neither here nor there.
So I was bored as a child in my classes. I did have ADHD as a kid which explains some of that. Or is ADD a natural evolutionary development for us to help our race pick up the pace to that of modern times?
The point here is speed. That is one element in this NVT thing. Remember that? We naturally, purposely slow our minds down, without even knowing it. Parents will tell kids sometimes, "you're going to fast" (yeah, for the slow adult). They tell you to slow down. Sometimes of course, kids are going too fast, but if they can handle it, let them go at their own pace. If it seems not to be working, consider if you are trying to teach them using a method too slow for a kid with a fast processor.
What makes you think that a car that runs at fuel injector speeds, can run in a healthy manner using a carburetor? Well, you see what I'm saying anyway, right?
Getting back to Peter's article, in it he says:
"To me, the idea that mathematicians, artists and chess players think in words while they are working productively is preposterous."
Interesting. He goes on to say:
"I’ve found that I can reduce unnecessary sub-vocalization in daily life just by making a point of not thinking in words. It is my impression that anyone can improve their NVT, but it takes time and effort; on the other hand, presumably, anyone can lose NVT by sloppy thinking."
Interesting article. He has a good point. How many years were humans non verbal? Language has developed our brains in a certain way, certainly, but the basis was non verbal. So, if we allow that to work, now, what happens?
I like the concept on a TED video I saw about our minds using a kind of photo indexing system, or even video, or more so, perhaps, 3D image indexing inter relationships, rather than a FAT (File Allocation Table) type format to allocate and track our compartmentalization of data. A FAT type table tracks the beginning and end of a file on your hard drive, and if it's fragmented, spread all over the disk, it tracks where all parts of it are, so you can access the entire file without having to realize it's in pieces all over the place.
As for 3D indexing, think holographic indexing, perhaps. It's on the order of what I'm talking about, anyway. Still, it's too simplistic, but you get the idea.
| Computer memory hardware "bit", 0 or 1, on or off |
If, rather than using words to categorize our thoughts, to store and access data, what if we use a rich image related to the event, then each element within that frame becomes a search element. Think of the depth of storage and retrieval we must be capable of.
I've always had trouble with retrieval in my own thought indexing. It is slow. Why? Well there may be many reasons, and many of those may be physical. But I wonder.
We have two basic ways to access memory: retrieval and recognition. But I discovered early on that I am incredibly good at recognition and creation, but not so good at retrieval and association. So it can take me a while to fully remember something.
When, let's say, I see a face I've seen before, I recognize it instantly. But attributing it to its history in my memory, and extracting that data, takes me a while. So I've learned how to make that work for me in life. Basically, I'm very good at creating but not so good at regurgitating information. I'm just very good at generating as I go. And so I'm good at writing, composing articles and stories. The funny thing about that is that as I'm creating, I'm drawing indirectly, vast amounts of information, but more in an image index than a word index. If you follow what I'm saying.
If you want to learn something, learn it in those two formats. When I started college, one of my first classes was Physics / Chemistry, as they are basically the same in their beginnings, I had to learn the entire periodic table. So I wrote two programs. One to help me recognize, another to help me recall or retrieve.
Basically, one program showed me an element and I had to recognize it and recall what its properties were. The other program, required me to type in, to recall the properties, to retrieve information, which I find more difficult. But with time and repetition, it's doable; see that is usually the issue. I can do it, it just takes me a long time to remember, which appears as dysfunctional.
So, I learned it all in a week, far faster than anyone else in class, and with better memorization. One of the students said I cheated by using a computer, but all we had to do was learn it, so I don't know how it was cheating. Then someone pointed out, my lab partner, very cute girl (after getting together, getting a college degree, then breaking up), she pointed out that I had first had to design and write a computer program to be able to "cheat". The others thought about that and then all agreed they had to give me that much. This was back when few people anywhere had a PC at home.
Now, Peter ends his article with this:
"I would like to see more awareness of NVT to save other people the learning curve and to improve the overall level of cognition and reasoning (wow!)."
What he's saying is that this all sounds rather intimidating, high level functioning, genius level stuff. But, it's not. Anyone can do this. You just have to understand what you are doing. Though it helps to understand how your own personal brain works, how your mind best functions, for you.
Once you realize you don't have to "hear" words in your head, you're way ahead of the game. It takes a little effort, but I believe almost anyone can do it, if they really want to.
When I started college, the first class I took, was study skills. I never took a more important class. I came to realize that my understanding of how to study was wrong and for the first time, learned how I could learn and retain information in a way useful to me in an academic environment. Since college throws things at you faster than you need it, that was no longer at issue. Learning was still difficult, in a classical type or academic environment, but you learn to adapt.
Sometimes, all it takes is being given the right information for the task at hand. We just need to have the information about how to do what we need to do and, they simply don't tend to teach that to you in school.
But in this information, that I'm giving to you today, gives you enough information so that you can go look it up yourself, and change your life. If you want to.
And if you do, let 'er rip!
Tuesday, December 20, 2011
Mission Impossible 4 and the Ilk
If there is one thing I really don't like in film, it's when they are "incestuous" in their plot devices, especially for films like Mission Impossible, and the ilk (family, class, or kind). I was a kid and a big fan of the original TV show. I like the actors well enough. I'm a big Jean Reno fan, from MI's first movie. And Simon Pegg, from this current installment, MI4.
But now they're doing it again. Instead of focusing on a good, solid story line about the team performing one of their impossible missions, they are dealing with being turned inside out yet again. Why?
The very first show in this series, put a traitor in their midst, on a team where that simply isn't supposed to ever happen, and should have been saved for possibly MI4. This is a team where it should never be a consideration that one of the team is a traitor. Yes, it's find to have them suspected, or even have one of the peripheral team members be bad, but not the core team. Not the leader. Certainly, as in the first film, not Phelps. I find it cheap and tawdry. I was highly offended by that first movie.
For the one team in the history of the world who are supposed to have their act together, these guys sure do have a lot of problems.
Let's see, producer/writer Josh Appelbaum is a TV producer and writer. André Nemec is the same. Interesting. Director Brad Bird has done blockbuster cartoon movies like The Incredibles and Iron Giant, but of which I did like. Brian DePalma directed the first film in the series and they had not a few writers on that project. John Woo directed MI2 and J.J. Abrams directed MI3. Both solid directors whom I like.
I don't know Brad Bird for this kind of film, but maybe, the director isn't the problem, yes? He has an Oscar, so he's no hack. I'm thinking culpability goes to Studio, Producers, Writers, in that order. It may not even be the writer's fault at all.
It wasn't that I thought the first film was bad, I just felt they started off on a false footing.
Raise the stakes! Let's make them have a mole in their midst. Let's make the leader, the bad guy. Do literally everything that can be done to guarantee we squeeze the most money out of the audience and the widest audience possible. Well, Hollywood, Frankly, Up Yours....
So, no. In my book, the playbook for this series is and has always been, that just doesn't (shouldn't) happen. They are loyal to one another, that is part of who this team is, always has been. Yes, we can think they have turned, but no, they don't turn. Maybe I'm a purist, but that was part of the original attraction to the TV show.
Again, maybe, some time down the road, when the franchise has become old and tired, juice it up a bit, but you just don't start out at the gate with it.
Now, in a similar kind of move, they have the team being disavowed because of blowing up the Kremlin. Really? They "get caught", that is, found out? Which to them is pretty much the same thing. They are shadows, ghosts, they don't exist, shit just happens. So, no, I don't think so, that simply isn't what they do (get caught, that is).
They are, the Impossible Missions Force! What don't you get about that? It makes me miss the original TV show. Yes, it could be cheesy and far fetched, but the spirit of the thing is what counts, and that now we can achieve what they were trying to do. But instead, they seem to revel in making them dysfunctional instead.
That's one of the things that is so interesting about the Indies. An independent film doesn't have to be a whore to the Hollywood (studio) paradigm. They have the ability to just made a good movie without pushing it to the point of being defective.
This brings to mind the James Bond franchise. Always trying to be the end all be all, always trying to outdo itself, it bogs itself down in wasted money on pyrotechnics thinking that people can't handle real tension in a true thriller fashion, rather thinking people need bright shiny objects to grasp on to, in order for a movie to make a buck. Personally, I much prefer the human element against the larger than life situation, than explosions, which are frankly, overkill.
Much like the 9/11 terrorists action, I just wasn't terrorized. I was a worried at first, but the more time I had to think about it, the more angry I got. I wasn't terrorized, I was pissed off. It was too much, for what they were allegedly trying to do. Did they want to simply strike out, and damn the repercussions? Or did they have an agenda they wanted to pursue? Smaller things, in the right place, at the right time, are always more effective for your cause. Otherwise, it tends to backfire.
Give me a visceral feeling, against possibility, not the explosions, not the tearing apart of the team that is supposed to be perfect, unfathomable, indestructible. Fine, make them seem more Human, if you want, but the one thing they aren't to be doing, is turning on one another. Ya know? That, to me, was one of the two things that set them apart, because you find it hard to believe they would stick together like that to start with, that's a given.
The other thing about them, is being able to achieve the impossible, THAT's why they are the IMF! Making them THAT fallible, kind of ruins the entire concept to begin with, so the, what's special about them. Then they aren't the IMF, they become, the RDMF, the Really Difficult Missions Force. Not as cool, right? Tearing apart the team, tossing them in the waste basket, blowing up the world, is all much like what director Stanley Kramer once said in a seminar I was attending.
To paraphrase:
"When you shoot a close up to show emotion, never show the tears falling, only show the tears brimming up full in the eyes, nearly bursting forth; never drop that tear down the cheek. That tension of, "when is it going to fall", is priceless. Letting it fall, releases the tension, and throws away much of what you are building. To throw that buildup away in the tears racing down the cheek, is to waste a lot of effort for nothing."
Now, I'm not saying this current film will be bad, just that it is starting out on a bad conceit. Again, at MI4 I could buy this, that the team is being set up, but if it turns out to be someone on their team, or up the ladder in the government from them, I'm going to call in my own IMF team and take these producers out myself.
This is part of the problem with typical Hollywood formula films. Raising the stakes so high, that it's simply out of the ballpark for the character's filmic universe. What happened to the perfect special ops team? I could go more for MII4 than MI1 storyline, but still, just give us a good plot based upon what the team is supposed to be doing and leave the tired plot devices as in MI4 (and especially, MI1), for when you are burning out the franchise and have no where else to go.
Oh, wait a minute... are we there now? Seems to me, we started there with MI1.
NPR article on MI4
But now they're doing it again. Instead of focusing on a good, solid story line about the team performing one of their impossible missions, they are dealing with being turned inside out yet again. Why?
The very first show in this series, put a traitor in their midst, on a team where that simply isn't supposed to ever happen, and should have been saved for possibly MI4. This is a team where it should never be a consideration that one of the team is a traitor. Yes, it's find to have them suspected, or even have one of the peripheral team members be bad, but not the core team. Not the leader. Certainly, as in the first film, not Phelps. I find it cheap and tawdry. I was highly offended by that first movie.
For the one team in the history of the world who are supposed to have their act together, these guys sure do have a lot of problems.
Let's see, producer/writer Josh Appelbaum is a TV producer and writer. André Nemec is the same. Interesting. Director Brad Bird has done blockbuster cartoon movies like The Incredibles and Iron Giant, but of which I did like. Brian DePalma directed the first film in the series and they had not a few writers on that project. John Woo directed MI2 and J.J. Abrams directed MI3. Both solid directors whom I like.
I don't know Brad Bird for this kind of film, but maybe, the director isn't the problem, yes? He has an Oscar, so he's no hack. I'm thinking culpability goes to Studio, Producers, Writers, in that order. It may not even be the writer's fault at all.
It wasn't that I thought the first film was bad, I just felt they started off on a false footing.
Raise the stakes! Let's make them have a mole in their midst. Let's make the leader, the bad guy. Do literally everything that can be done to guarantee we squeeze the most money out of the audience and the widest audience possible. Well, Hollywood, Frankly, Up Yours....
So, no. In my book, the playbook for this series is and has always been, that just doesn't (shouldn't) happen. They are loyal to one another, that is part of who this team is, always has been. Yes, we can think they have turned, but no, they don't turn. Maybe I'm a purist, but that was part of the original attraction to the TV show.
Again, maybe, some time down the road, when the franchise has become old and tired, juice it up a bit, but you just don't start out at the gate with it.
Now, in a similar kind of move, they have the team being disavowed because of blowing up the Kremlin. Really? They "get caught", that is, found out? Which to them is pretty much the same thing. They are shadows, ghosts, they don't exist, shit just happens. So, no, I don't think so, that simply isn't what they do (get caught, that is).
They are, the Impossible Missions Force! What don't you get about that? It makes me miss the original TV show. Yes, it could be cheesy and far fetched, but the spirit of the thing is what counts, and that now we can achieve what they were trying to do. But instead, they seem to revel in making them dysfunctional instead.
That's one of the things that is so interesting about the Indies. An independent film doesn't have to be a whore to the Hollywood (studio) paradigm. They have the ability to just made a good movie without pushing it to the point of being defective.
So why can't they just have them doing their impossible missions? Too impossible to write? Is it too hard kiddies? Perhaps they need better producers and screenwriters? Or an independent studio, if Hollywood can't handle their own genre/style of film.
Much like the 9/11 terrorists action, I just wasn't terrorized. I was a worried at first, but the more time I had to think about it, the more angry I got. I wasn't terrorized, I was pissed off. It was too much, for what they were allegedly trying to do. Did they want to simply strike out, and damn the repercussions? Or did they have an agenda they wanted to pursue? Smaller things, in the right place, at the right time, are always more effective for your cause. Otherwise, it tends to backfire.
Give me a visceral feeling, against possibility, not the explosions, not the tearing apart of the team that is supposed to be perfect, unfathomable, indestructible. Fine, make them seem more Human, if you want, but the one thing they aren't to be doing, is turning on one another. Ya know? That, to me, was one of the two things that set them apart, because you find it hard to believe they would stick together like that to start with, that's a given.
The other thing about them, is being able to achieve the impossible, THAT's why they are the IMF! Making them THAT fallible, kind of ruins the entire concept to begin with, so the, what's special about them. Then they aren't the IMF, they become, the RDMF, the Really Difficult Missions Force. Not as cool, right? Tearing apart the team, tossing them in the waste basket, blowing up the world, is all much like what director Stanley Kramer once said in a seminar I was attending.
To paraphrase:
"When you shoot a close up to show emotion, never show the tears falling, only show the tears brimming up full in the eyes, nearly bursting forth; never drop that tear down the cheek. That tension of, "when is it going to fall", is priceless. Letting it fall, releases the tension, and throws away much of what you are building. To throw that buildup away in the tears racing down the cheek, is to waste a lot of effort for nothing."
Now, I'm not saying this current film will be bad, just that it is starting out on a bad conceit. Again, at MI4 I could buy this, that the team is being set up, but if it turns out to be someone on their team, or up the ladder in the government from them, I'm going to call in my own IMF team and take these producers out myself.
This is part of the problem with typical Hollywood formula films. Raising the stakes so high, that it's simply out of the ballpark for the character's filmic universe. What happened to the perfect special ops team? I could go more for MII4 than MI1 storyline, but still, just give us a good plot based upon what the team is supposed to be doing and leave the tired plot devices as in MI4 (and especially, MI1), for when you are burning out the franchise and have no where else to go.
Oh, wait a minute... are we there now? Seems to me, we started there with MI1.
NPR article on MI4
Monday, December 19, 2011
Stream of Consciousness, Friday night
My Friday night at home, alone.
Stream of consciousness (look it up) blog. Once in a while, I think it is good to take a break, diverge, take tangents, see where it leads you. I've come up with some very interesting things that way. Or so people tell me from the results.
Here we go:
I discover that Steven King has a new movie on, a mini-series, actually. Pierce Brosnan is in it, with Patty Duke's TV dad. Awesome, love that guy, but oh, God, he's getting old. Patty and her cousin, so funny, so long ago, so 60s.
So, I'm the guy, that wrote a play, wherein, the protagonist, was a frustrated playwright from New York, Manhattan. I'm an ex Manhattan-ite. Love Manhattan. Used to live on 86th and 5th. Anyway, in the play, the guy goes through all this crap with his girlfriend. In the end, he's had it. So, he leaves NY. He plants a nuclear weapon (okay, now, look, this is all metaphorical, and, I wrote it in 1983, in a screenwriting (or was it playwriting, yes, playwriting class). So, this guy, he blows up NY. Right? But then he finds out that Mr. King (for whom I have the most respect) has left for San Francisco. So, this guy, he blew NY up for no reason. Shit happens. Right?
I wrote that at Western Washington University. We were sitting on bleachers, in the downstairs stage, so there's a stage, an open part of floor, and bleachers. When the play is done being read, EVERY one in the class turns around and looks at me. No one says a word for a minute. One guy near to me, I think it was Mike Rainey, says,
"So, do you have a problem with Steven King?"
I responded, "No, I really don't, other than he is famous, and no one knows me." Everyone is quiet.
At the end of that class quarter, the instructor, Bob Schelonka, walks around and hands out slips of paper to eight students. I'm one of them. I said, when he handed it to me, "What's this?" He's says, "It's a slip for you to take part in an eight person, year long, special screen and script writing class. I've selected eight students out of this playwriting class, and you are one of them. If you're interested?"
I look at him, incredulous. "Seriously? You are choosing me?"
He gives me a questioning look and says, "Yes?" He smiles. I smile, I'm stunned. Understand, I showed up at this class, typically, at 28 years old, the oldest student in the class (this was after four years in the Air Force), usually, I had a cup of coffee in a paper cup, with a shot of 151 Barcardi in it. I was stressed out in this class, possibly the most stressful class I'd ever attended.
And that includes a solid year of Psychology Statistics.Horribly hard class. I mean, I took Psychology to avoid any kind of math, and they make me take a solid year of statistics! Miserable, but I learned a lot. Couldn't have made it through though, without my girlfriend Monie (Monica) and our friend Kim ("God", long story). I remember hours of studying our Psych stats book, drinks, study, filling up the mug with rum and coke, more studying. Then our primary Psych. Department Adviser, Dr. Rees, tells us, if you study high, you should take the test high.
But it's better to study straight (anathema), and take the test straight, he says. Okay, didn't happen. We studied and drank to kill the boring duration, then took the tests as straight as possible. I got a "B" first semester, "C-" second semester, but no "D", so I passed and left that nightmare behind.
Where was I?
So, I accepted. The year long screenwriting class. Best decision of my life. Well, one of them.
So, tonight, I'm watching yet another Steven King movie. And he never got blown up, just run over by a van with a drunk driver. A drunk driver who just sat there waiting for the police. Drunk drivers, are idiots.
Anyway....
King did a good job on this one. I'm a Pierce fan, so no worry there. When I heard Brosnan was going to be Bond in the movies, I thought, finally, good choice. I Loved Roger Moore as "The Saint" but he just wasn't Bond to me. Even though Ian Fleming wanted him initially, and hated Connery, but Roger couldn't get out of his TV contract. Sean, was the man.
But King. Well, don't get me started. Okay, I'm started....
During the misery that was that first semester of that Pyschology Statistics class, with the Professor that literally wrote the book for the class (and his Father, and Grandfather were both big names in Psych. Stats and he looked like some kind of Cary Grant figure the girls literally swooned over, but he was such a nice guy, the guys couldn't be jealous over), I found a copy of King's book, "Cujo", left in the classroom.
So I took it, I read it. And I was furious afterward that I had wasted the time to read it. I took it back to class. I put it on the desk where I found it (someone left it for someone else, we did that a lot to help out other poor broke students so I always would leave a book to replace one, or return it). But this time, as I set the book down, I realized that if I left that, someone else will read it, and that would be a mean thing to do to someone, after all, our time was valuable.
So, with no one left in the room, I took it and threw it in the garbage can; that grey metal thing next to Dr. Thorndike's desk. Don't get me wrong, Steve is a genius, sort of. But he does go very long in the characterization and it puts me to sleep. And his prose ain't that wonderful. I'm more of a Clive Barker fan. Always have been and I have the letters on my wall from him to prove it. Even if he tells a boring story, you can't help but enjoy the prose for its own sake.
So, I'm watching Steve's "Bag of Bones" miniseries, all four hours at one time. In the end, a pretty good piece of work. Pierce, as always did a good job.
Melissa George, did a good job, too. I liked the show. Until the end. An old woman attacks Pierce, and takes a dire end. A LAME dire end. Seriously? Oh, God that frustrates me. A good film, and then at the end, you have to muff it up with some lame special F/X? Really? And she died too quickly for that kill shot. Temple shot, eye shot, whatever, but not that. They always have people bleed out too quickly. Like if you stab someone with a bleed out wound, they do NOT die within five seconds. It takes a Long time to bleed out. But then death in film is almost always so fake, so stupid, so, inaccurate. Unless it's something like "Blood Simple".
I have a rule, in life, in writing. If you try to kill someone be prepared for this, because they won't die, easily. But if you don't want to kill someone, they may very well die easily. Case in point. Some bad guy tries to kill you, you kill him back first. DO NOT simply walk away, make sure you overkill him, or he's probably going to get back up. In real life, people don't die easily, especially if they are motivated; they will run on until the batteries run out, or the oxygen in their blood burns out. If you are in a "friendly" bar fight, one punch, that person may fall and hit their head, then die, immediately. Suddenly, you're up for murder charges, when you only wanted to blow off some steam.
I had a guy try to pick a fight with me once in a bar (actually, he did this twice, another time a few weeks later). As things were escalating, I told him, I don't believe in bar fights. He said, why not, what's wrong with a friendly bar fight? I said, because, you are just looking for a "friendly" fight, but one misplaced punch, or someone falls and hits their head, and you have just unintentionally murdered someone. Drunk, he looked at me and said, "Good point." It de-escalated from there.
Okay, fine, whatever. So when the show is over, I switch over to NBC's "Grimm" Show. Kind of like it. Not so much, ABC's "Once Upon A Time". I argued that with my gay friend, John. But then, he's on the fence with that one too. Whatever. We like "Grimm" better
I miss, the original
Star Gate" show, so don't listen to me. Jack, was just a funny guy.
I miss, "Firefly". Thank you Joss.You're a genius.
I miss, my ex (Oh, please, not that again).
I don't miss this Brandy (good stuff, thank you very much)
And what is this "Blue Dream" stuff?
Life is good.
Of course, my 19 year old daughter is living on the beach in Athens. Aw, life is good. For some of us, who don't have to show up at work on Monday. I missed out on that when I was 19, I went into the USAF at 20. She took a better route. Perhaps.
So did my son. Rock on dude. He just got acknowledgement of his skills at work. Moved to a different testing project. They're starting to realize just how smart he is. What a guy! A chip off the old block, I suppose. My Prof at the University said, "You are, of the existing Psychology students, in the top 1% of the top 1%." Nice compliment (that was to the both of us, the girlfriend, and myself).
And he was a brain. He went to Brown University. He was in a "Think Tank". When the students wanted to protest, they asked his team, what is the next step. They had charts all over the walls, worked it all out, then told the student leaders what they had to do. Take over the administration building, shut down the school. The rest is history. Brown was shut down because of him and his student team of thinkers.
I tried to tell all that to my son tonight on the phone, but he didn't quite get it.
He was playing pool in his girlfriend's basement. Was he dense? No, just was humble. That is part of our way. I am not stupid, but it took until I got to college to even have a concept of that. So in his not "getting that", he was being well rounded, I think. Not conceited. Conceited to me, is thinking you're great, but your not. Thinking you are, or not thinking you are, and being so, are well, different things, right? The difference between my son and I, in childhood, was that I was told frequently that I was stupid.
With my son, we always told him he was smart, he just didn't want to do the work, or do it the way he was instructed to do it. My ex, told me one day, she was tutoring him in math in his room, he was in life, fourth grade, she came out, frustrated with him. She said no matter what, he has to do things his own way. It was a very clear math problem, and I agreed with her, she was teaching him the way, THE way. He would find that out. But he had to invent his own way, stubborn, just stubborn. Strength in character I think. He would try all different kinds of ways of figuring it out and sometimes would decide, the way he was shown, was the way.
But he had to figure that out on his own. Smart. But, time consuming, and after all, we, our society, is all about, saving time, even if it's wrong. Taking the long, hard route, is the smarter way, it's just not temporally economical, is it? I suspect, he's way smarter than I am. We talk about physics, metaphysics, and so on like that, and I hold my own, but he inevitably loses me. But you don't have to understand it all, to be able to help someone like that to solve their own problems.
At my old job, I used to help the programmers. I had no idea how to program in the language they were using. But time and again, I was called into someone's cubicle to help the get unstuck. I could always find the roadblock in their code. So, you don't have to know everything, or more than someone, to help them. Keep that in mind, it's important. There'll be a test later....
Anyway....
Friday night. I need more of these each week.
Stream of consciousness (look it up) blog. Once in a while, I think it is good to take a break, diverge, take tangents, see where it leads you. I've come up with some very interesting things that way. Or so people tell me from the results.
Here we go:
I discover that Steven King has a new movie on, a mini-series, actually. Pierce Brosnan is in it, with Patty Duke's TV dad. Awesome, love that guy, but oh, God, he's getting old. Patty and her cousin, so funny, so long ago, so 60s.
So, I'm the guy, that wrote a play, wherein, the protagonist, was a frustrated playwright from New York, Manhattan. I'm an ex Manhattan-ite. Love Manhattan. Used to live on 86th and 5th. Anyway, in the play, the guy goes through all this crap with his girlfriend. In the end, he's had it. So, he leaves NY. He plants a nuclear weapon (okay, now, look, this is all metaphorical, and, I wrote it in 1983, in a screenwriting (or was it playwriting, yes, playwriting class). So, this guy, he blows up NY. Right? But then he finds out that Mr. King (for whom I have the most respect) has left for San Francisco. So, this guy, he blew NY up for no reason. Shit happens. Right?
I wrote that at Western Washington University. We were sitting on bleachers, in the downstairs stage, so there's a stage, an open part of floor, and bleachers. When the play is done being read, EVERY one in the class turns around and looks at me. No one says a word for a minute. One guy near to me, I think it was Mike Rainey, says,
"So, do you have a problem with Steven King?"
I responded, "No, I really don't, other than he is famous, and no one knows me." Everyone is quiet.
At the end of that class quarter, the instructor, Bob Schelonka, walks around and hands out slips of paper to eight students. I'm one of them. I said, when he handed it to me, "What's this?" He's says, "It's a slip for you to take part in an eight person, year long, special screen and script writing class. I've selected eight students out of this playwriting class, and you are one of them. If you're interested?"
I look at him, incredulous. "Seriously? You are choosing me?"
He gives me a questioning look and says, "Yes?" He smiles. I smile, I'm stunned. Understand, I showed up at this class, typically, at 28 years old, the oldest student in the class (this was after four years in the Air Force), usually, I had a cup of coffee in a paper cup, with a shot of 151 Barcardi in it. I was stressed out in this class, possibly the most stressful class I'd ever attended.
And that includes a solid year of Psychology Statistics.Horribly hard class. I mean, I took Psychology to avoid any kind of math, and they make me take a solid year of statistics! Miserable, but I learned a lot. Couldn't have made it through though, without my girlfriend Monie (Monica) and our friend Kim ("God", long story). I remember hours of studying our Psych stats book, drinks, study, filling up the mug with rum and coke, more studying. Then our primary Psych. Department Adviser, Dr. Rees, tells us, if you study high, you should take the test high.
But it's better to study straight (anathema), and take the test straight, he says. Okay, didn't happen. We studied and drank to kill the boring duration, then took the tests as straight as possible. I got a "B" first semester, "C-" second semester, but no "D", so I passed and left that nightmare behind.
Where was I?
So, I accepted. The year long screenwriting class. Best decision of my life. Well, one of them.
So, tonight, I'm watching yet another Steven King movie. And he never got blown up, just run over by a van with a drunk driver. A drunk driver who just sat there waiting for the police. Drunk drivers, are idiots.
Anyway....
King did a good job on this one. I'm a Pierce fan, so no worry there. When I heard Brosnan was going to be Bond in the movies, I thought, finally, good choice. I Loved Roger Moore as "The Saint" but he just wasn't Bond to me. Even though Ian Fleming wanted him initially, and hated Connery, but Roger couldn't get out of his TV contract. Sean, was the man.
But King. Well, don't get me started. Okay, I'm started....
During the misery that was that first semester of that Pyschology Statistics class, with the Professor that literally wrote the book for the class (and his Father, and Grandfather were both big names in Psych. Stats and he looked like some kind of Cary Grant figure the girls literally swooned over, but he was such a nice guy, the guys couldn't be jealous over), I found a copy of King's book, "Cujo", left in the classroom.
So I took it, I read it. And I was furious afterward that I had wasted the time to read it. I took it back to class. I put it on the desk where I found it (someone left it for someone else, we did that a lot to help out other poor broke students so I always would leave a book to replace one, or return it). But this time, as I set the book down, I realized that if I left that, someone else will read it, and that would be a mean thing to do to someone, after all, our time was valuable.
So, with no one left in the room, I took it and threw it in the garbage can; that grey metal thing next to Dr. Thorndike's desk. Don't get me wrong, Steve is a genius, sort of. But he does go very long in the characterization and it puts me to sleep. And his prose ain't that wonderful. I'm more of a Clive Barker fan. Always have been and I have the letters on my wall from him to prove it. Even if he tells a boring story, you can't help but enjoy the prose for its own sake.
So, I'm watching Steve's "Bag of Bones" miniseries, all four hours at one time. In the end, a pretty good piece of work. Pierce, as always did a good job.
Melissa George, did a good job, too. I liked the show. Until the end. An old woman attacks Pierce, and takes a dire end. A LAME dire end. Seriously? Oh, God that frustrates me. A good film, and then at the end, you have to muff it up with some lame special F/X? Really? And she died too quickly for that kill shot. Temple shot, eye shot, whatever, but not that. They always have people bleed out too quickly. Like if you stab someone with a bleed out wound, they do NOT die within five seconds. It takes a Long time to bleed out. But then death in film is almost always so fake, so stupid, so, inaccurate. Unless it's something like "Blood Simple".
I have a rule, in life, in writing. If you try to kill someone be prepared for this, because they won't die, easily. But if you don't want to kill someone, they may very well die easily. Case in point. Some bad guy tries to kill you, you kill him back first. DO NOT simply walk away, make sure you overkill him, or he's probably going to get back up. In real life, people don't die easily, especially if they are motivated; they will run on until the batteries run out, or the oxygen in their blood burns out. If you are in a "friendly" bar fight, one punch, that person may fall and hit their head, then die, immediately. Suddenly, you're up for murder charges, when you only wanted to blow off some steam.
I had a guy try to pick a fight with me once in a bar (actually, he did this twice, another time a few weeks later). As things were escalating, I told him, I don't believe in bar fights. He said, why not, what's wrong with a friendly bar fight? I said, because, you are just looking for a "friendly" fight, but one misplaced punch, or someone falls and hits their head, and you have just unintentionally murdered someone. Drunk, he looked at me and said, "Good point." It de-escalated from there.
Okay, fine, whatever. So when the show is over, I switch over to NBC's "Grimm" Show. Kind of like it. Not so much, ABC's "Once Upon A Time". I argued that with my gay friend, John. But then, he's on the fence with that one too. Whatever. We like "Grimm" better
I miss, the original
Star Gate" show, so don't listen to me. Jack, was just a funny guy.
I miss, "Firefly". Thank you Joss.You're a genius.
I miss, my ex (Oh, please, not that again).
I don't miss this Brandy (good stuff, thank you very much)
And what is this "Blue Dream" stuff?
Life is good.
Of course, my 19 year old daughter is living on the beach in Athens. Aw, life is good. For some of us, who don't have to show up at work on Monday. I missed out on that when I was 19, I went into the USAF at 20. She took a better route. Perhaps.
So did my son. Rock on dude. He just got acknowledgement of his skills at work. Moved to a different testing project. They're starting to realize just how smart he is. What a guy! A chip off the old block, I suppose. My Prof at the University said, "You are, of the existing Psychology students, in the top 1% of the top 1%." Nice compliment (that was to the both of us, the girlfriend, and myself).
And he was a brain. He went to Brown University. He was in a "Think Tank". When the students wanted to protest, they asked his team, what is the next step. They had charts all over the walls, worked it all out, then told the student leaders what they had to do. Take over the administration building, shut down the school. The rest is history. Brown was shut down because of him and his student team of thinkers.
I tried to tell all that to my son tonight on the phone, but he didn't quite get it.
He was playing pool in his girlfriend's basement. Was he dense? No, just was humble. That is part of our way. I am not stupid, but it took until I got to college to even have a concept of that. So in his not "getting that", he was being well rounded, I think. Not conceited. Conceited to me, is thinking you're great, but your not. Thinking you are, or not thinking you are, and being so, are well, different things, right? The difference between my son and I, in childhood, was that I was told frequently that I was stupid.
With my son, we always told him he was smart, he just didn't want to do the work, or do it the way he was instructed to do it. My ex, told me one day, she was tutoring him in math in his room, he was in life, fourth grade, she came out, frustrated with him. She said no matter what, he has to do things his own way. It was a very clear math problem, and I agreed with her, she was teaching him the way, THE way. He would find that out. But he had to invent his own way, stubborn, just stubborn. Strength in character I think. He would try all different kinds of ways of figuring it out and sometimes would decide, the way he was shown, was the way.
But he had to figure that out on his own. Smart. But, time consuming, and after all, we, our society, is all about, saving time, even if it's wrong. Taking the long, hard route, is the smarter way, it's just not temporally economical, is it? I suspect, he's way smarter than I am. We talk about physics, metaphysics, and so on like that, and I hold my own, but he inevitably loses me. But you don't have to understand it all, to be able to help someone like that to solve their own problems.
At my old job, I used to help the programmers. I had no idea how to program in the language they were using. But time and again, I was called into someone's cubicle to help the get unstuck. I could always find the roadblock in their code. So, you don't have to know everything, or more than someone, to help them. Keep that in mind, it's important. There'll be a test later....
Anyway....
Friday night. I need more of these each week.
Saturday, December 17, 2011
Weekend Wise Words
Be Smart! Be Brilliant!
Nororius Atheist and advocate of positive Human relations, Christopher Hitchens, died this week. If you knew of him, he was either Satan spawn, or a breath of fresh air to you. I dedicate this weekends quotes to his esteemed self. If you decided to choose someone as a model for how to think, you could do far worse than Hitchens, in my estimation.
Thanks for everything Chris, and well, it's all over now, isn't it. I give you eleven of his quotes that I find interesting or entertaining; because eleven is one louder than ten, isn't it?
"[George W Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things." – Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC, 2000
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
from his book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything"
"My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either."
Also from, "God Is Not Great"
And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood.
from, "Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays" (2004)
Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.
There are several pleasant little towns like Abbottabad in Pakistan, strung out along the roads that lead toward the mountains from Rawalpindi...The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to this one—called them "hill stations," designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.
“Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.”
"The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals."
Hitchens once branded Mother Teresa “a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf” and said: “She was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God.
“She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."
We have the same job we always had: to say that there are no final solutions; there is no absolute truth; there is no supreme leader; there is no totalitarian solution that says if you would just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you would just give up, if you would simply abandon your critical faculties, the world of idiotic bliss can be yours. (October 2011 speech at the annual Atheist Alliance of America convention in Houston, as he accepted the Freethinker of the Year Award)
Nororius Atheist and advocate of positive Human relations, Christopher Hitchens, died this week. If you knew of him, he was either Satan spawn, or a breath of fresh air to you. I dedicate this weekends quotes to his esteemed self. If you decided to choose someone as a model for how to think, you could do far worse than Hitchens, in my estimation.
Thanks for everything Chris, and well, it's all over now, isn't it. I give you eleven of his quotes that I find interesting or entertaining; because eleven is one louder than ten, isn't it?
"[George W Bush] is lucky to be governor of Texas. He is unusually incurious, abnormally unintelligent, amazingly inarticulate, fantastically uncultured, extraordinarily uneducated, and apparently quite proud of all these things." – Hardball with Chris Matthews, NBC, 2000
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
“Human decency is not derived from religion. It precedes it.”
from his book, "God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything"
"My own view is that this planet is used as a penal colony, lunatic asylum and dumping ground by a superior civilisation, to get rid of the undesirable and unfit. I can't prove it, but you can't disprove it either."
Also from, "God Is Not Great"
And yet, I wake up every day to a sensation of pervading disgust and annoyance. I probably ought to carry around some kind of thermometer or other instrument, to keep checking that I am not falling prey to premature curmudgeonhood.
from, "Love, Poverty, and War: Journeys and Essays" (2004)
Faith is the surrender of the mind; it's the surrender of reason, it's the surrender of the only thing that makes us different from other mammals. It's our need to believe, and to surrender our skepticism and our reason, our yearning to discard that and put all our trust or faith in someone or something, that is the sinister thing to me. Of all the supposed virtues, faith must be the most overrated.
There are several pleasant little towns like Abbottabad in Pakistan, strung out along the roads that lead toward the mountains from Rawalpindi...The colonial British—like Maj. James Abbott, who gave his name to this one—called them "hill stations," designed for the rest and recreation of commissioned officers. The charming idea, like the location itself, survives among the Pakistani officer corps. If you tell me that you are staying in a rather nice walled compound in Abbottabad, I can tell you in return that you are the honored guest of a military establishment that annually consumes several billion dollars of American aid. It's the sheer blatancy of it that catches the breath.
“Thus, though I dislike to differ with such a great man, Voltaire was simply ludicrous when he said that if god did not exist it would be necessary to invent him. The human invention of god is the problem to begin with.”
"The Bible may, indeed does, contain a warrant for trafficking in humans, for ethnic cleansing, for slavery, for bride-price, and for indiscriminate massacre, but we are not bound by any of it because it was put together by crude, uncultured human mammals."
Hitchens once branded Mother Teresa “a lying, thieving Albanian dwarf” and said: “She was not a friend of the poor. She was a friend of poverty. She said that suffering was a gift from God.
“She spent her life opposing the only known cure for poverty, which is the empowerment of women and the emancipation of them from a livestock version of compulsory reproduction."
We have the same job we always had: to say that there are no final solutions; there is no absolute truth; there is no supreme leader; there is no totalitarian solution that says if you would just give up your freedom of inquiry, if you would just give up, if you would simply abandon your critical faculties, the world of idiotic bliss can be yours. (October 2011 speech at the annual Atheist Alliance of America convention in Houston, as he accepted the Freethinker of the Year Award)
Friday, December 16, 2011
Cannabinoids Kill Cancer and Our Government Has Known for 36 Years?
This is short, and sweet, or not. Bittersweet, really, I suppose. It just makes me sad. Not for the reasons some might think though. So many have suffered becuase of whomever has been doing this, perpetuating this lie, and it has cost us so much, so much we will never know just how much.
Here are two articles I just heard of that claim the US Government has known since 1974 that Cannabis cures cancer. I've been seeing this claim in the news the past year or two, from new research in other countries, Canada for one. But now we find out it's been known and covered up for decades?
Cannabinoids Kill Cancer and Our Government Has Known for 36 Years
Cannabinoids Kill Cancer And Our 'Government' Has Known for 36 Years
Apparantly, we've been jailing the wrong people. We shouldn't jail those smoking it, we should jail those officials in authority who hide positive health benefits from the citizenry, just because of their personal biases. Criminal. I tell you, that's worse than someone smoking a spliff behind a building or worse, in the privacy of their own home. From what I've seen in recent times, there are more criminals out in the open, in offices, and government offices at that.
Really, what the hell is wrong with speaking without a forked tongue? Why did the Surgeon General get fired for saying there is nothing wrong with masturbation? Or Pot? Why can't our country take the truth? Why don't we just start saying what is true? I'm sorry if this is against your personal belief system but certain things are okay. Sorry they are against your God, your beliefs, your desires in what you want to see around you, but if you don't like it, move to Iran where things are more cut and dry and orderly for you.
Really, just because you can get high on Cannabis, even though it has health benefits, people in authority want to restrict the knowledge of that? Why would we want people in authority who act like that. This, would be criminal in any sense of the word. Not to mention, people who have suffered in jail for no reason. It's ludicrous, and I don't mean the rapper.
From one of the articles:
"That’s right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice — lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia."
Here are two articles I just heard of that claim the US Government has known since 1974 that Cannabis cures cancer. I've been seeing this claim in the news the past year or two, from new research in other countries, Canada for one. But now we find out it's been known and covered up for decades?
Cannabinoids Kill Cancer and Our Government Has Known for 36 Years
Cannabinoids Kill Cancer And Our 'Government' Has Known for 36 Years
Apparantly, we've been jailing the wrong people. We shouldn't jail those smoking it, we should jail those officials in authority who hide positive health benefits from the citizenry, just because of their personal biases. Criminal. I tell you, that's worse than someone smoking a spliff behind a building or worse, in the privacy of their own home. From what I've seen in recent times, there are more criminals out in the open, in offices, and government offices at that.
Really, what the hell is wrong with speaking without a forked tongue? Why did the Surgeon General get fired for saying there is nothing wrong with masturbation? Or Pot? Why can't our country take the truth? Why don't we just start saying what is true? I'm sorry if this is against your personal belief system but certain things are okay. Sorry they are against your God, your beliefs, your desires in what you want to see around you, but if you don't like it, move to Iran where things are more cut and dry and orderly for you.
| Is it really the demon it's made out to be? Uh, no. |
From one of the articles:
"That’s right, news about the abilility of pot to shrink tumors first surfaced, way back in 1974. Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia, who had been funded by the National Institutes of Health to find evidence that marijuana damages the immune system, found instead that THC slowed the growth of three kinds of cancer in mice — lung and breast cancer, and a virus-induced leukemia."
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