Take responsibility

My mind has been musing over quite a bit the last little while. Religion, choice, parenting, entertainment, employment. Some of the musings have been personal enough that I haven't shared them here. Others seem a little shallow. It's been hard to nail down a particular musing long enough to formulate a blog post - hence last weeks lapse. Perhaps it is just a matter of me doing the BIC HOK method of writing.

That method might actually be very good for me. Not long ago my office did a Meyer & Briggs Typology Indicator workshop. Many of the people in my office are administrators of the indicator and provide it to our First Year Experience classes. I did the test a little over a year ago and showed up as an ENFJ (although there is very very little separating me from an ENFP). As an extrovert (someone who gets their energy from external sources and interactions) I often think out-loud - which can be really annoying for everyone, myself included. So my thoughts evolve as I communicate them. Perhaps that is why I have always enjoyed writing and why I started this blog.

Interesting enough I was thinking about the pro-choice / pro-life debate of planned parenthood and abortion when I saw this blog by Matt Walsh. I found it rather straight forward and will say that prior to reading it I agreed with him on many of his points. I consider all life sacred and power to create life is gift from God. I will say that in a life and death situation between mother and child that an abortion makes sense. I will also say that in the event of a pregnancy due to rape - where the woman had no choice - an abortion also makes sense. However, a parent or parents choosing to abort a child because it would be expensive, inconvenient, or not with the parents' life goals is very selfish and rather heartless reasoning. Pro-choice say they want to choose whether or not to have the child. That choice was there prior to the conception of that child. The choice to have sex, engage in intercourse, "do it," and every other euphemism and disisum used to describe the God given power of procreation was the first choice they made. If birth control was not used - that was the choice that was made. If birth control was used the responsibility for that child is still there. If both parties are unwilling to accept the commitment of having a child together then why were they doing the very thing that might lead to one?

I will readily acknowledge that physical intimacy is for more than just the conception of children. It strengthens relationships between partners. It brings people closer together. I find it very sad that there are people who engage in such a powerful, meaningful, intimate action in a carefree, flippant, or causal way - giving so much of themselves so readily with so few reservations.

The media of today would have you believe many things about sex. I can safely say that the bulk of what the media portrays can be called, "happy sex." "Happy violence" can be described as violence without consequence. This is what we see in cartoons as well as in live action comedies and even action movies. I love Screen Junkies' Honest Action videos. They had a doctor watch Home Alone 1 and 2 and all the Die Hard movies and report the number of times the villains (in Home Alone) and our hero (in Die Hard) would die. The numbers for Home Alone by itself are quite sobering. It would kill a combined total over 35 people if the violence in those seven movies were realistic. That's an average of 5 per movie and that's not counting everybody that is actually shown to die in Die Hard.

For a comparison, James bond has had sexual intercourse with at least 52 women over 22 films. Extrapolating from data from the WHO, it was estimated that just shy of 500 million people had an STD in 2008. Based on population totals for 2008 that would mean that just over 1 in fourteen people had an STD. Even if Bond had sexual intercourse with women who only had one other partner  he would have contracted 6 STDs over the course of his films. If the women had three partners - 10 STDs. Four - 14. If each were as promiscuous as he was - 193 STDs. At least. Also, assuming that Bond is not sterile I would imagine at least one pregnancy to occur, potentially 52. Bond is a prime example of Happy Sex, non-consequential, sexual intercourse. How many other portrayals of such behavior are spread throughout the media? With films with titles like "The 40 year old Virgin" and main stream cables shows named "Sex in the City" it is clear that sexuality is more pervasive and more accessible via media then previously. George Gerbner, Larry Gross, Michael Morgan and Nancy Signorielli talk about how media influences our perception on society. The more we consume the more we perceive what we consume as reality. This means that more more sexual activity we see in the media the more we feel that such behavior is normal - even though the contrary may be true. With such a flood of "happy sex" in the media is it any wonder that sexual intercourse has lost any meaning of intimacy.

So to bring it around to the original topic. Our media and culture pushes sexual intercourse as a causal act that has few consequences. When people adapt such an attitude it may lead to an unplanned pregnancy. When this happens the pro-choice crowed would have it a simple matter to avoid the unwanted consequence by aborting (killing) the child. I find it ironic that pro-choice mindset seems to disregard that the person already made a choice and now wishes to remove the choice from the unborn child. Even if the child cannot (or maybe should not) be cared for by the mother there are options that still give it a choice to live. It seems that the person who is being asked to make the choice on whether someone should live or die is the exact person who may have made the horrible choice of engaging in sexual intercourse without birth control. That doesn't seem like a good idea to me. I think that people need to take responsibility for their actions and let the consequences live.

The Monster Man

I've learned that there is a new television series coming out called Dracula. I've looked at some of the promotional material and  I have to say that I have mixed feelings. This is partially because I particularly enjoyed reading the book (despite my avoidance of horror literature and film) and I worry about how they treat the original work. But that is a common fear for any adaptation and not a valid reason to dislike something. I do have to say that I am curious about the way that Dracula is portrayed and the way they take the story. It is highly unlikely that I will watch the new drama, however. One reason is that I'm not a big serial drama consumer. The second is that I do not appreciate watching overly sexual television or film. The last reason is that I don't have any way to receive television signals - and I'm perfectly happy about that. Now, I mentioned how I have mixed feelings about the idea of the new Dracula take - this is because I think that evil should be portrayed as such.

I have to agree with Tracy Hickman. In a Writing Excuses episode from 2009 he expressed his resistance against the popular rise of vampires by saying: "Vampires are monsters, and they should be monsters, and they've turned into cute, cuddly, hunks. And I object to that. I think that's actually ill serves women, because what we've done is, we've taken this monstrous cliche, the idea of the monster man as a warning -- a cautionary tale for women and turned it into a chick-flick." In the original Dracula story, by Bram Stoker, Dracula is a creature that steals infants from their mothers to drink their blood, kills without hesitation, and is intent on dominating others - by forcing them to drink his own blood. He is methodical, cunning, vicious, and worst of all charming - the mask he uses to cover his viciousness. Some may say that he is justified by his love of country and his desire to preserve it, but the question is "justified to what?" Character has grown stronger over the years as others have interpreted him and his power and abilities have grown. Yet, I see no situation in which he himself would seek redemption. I suppose the new series could feature an anti-hero as our main character. I can't say that I've ever really got into those however. So what is this interest in the macabre [dealing with death] romance?

Dan Wells, in his novella Night of Blacker Darkness, may demonstrate another part of the equation. Wells' vampires are weaklings who cannot overpower an adult. They are easily overcome by any strong smell (one was turned away by a sharp cheddar cheese once) and are quite pathetic. They claim to have started the Gothic movement "to romanticize the concept of the powerless victim." (Their problem now is that all they got are moody young women who start book clubs. Really, the book is hilarious.) If you take the idea of Tracy's "monster man" and combine it with Dan's "helpless victim," I wonder if you get the recent surge in paranormal romance. The same Dan Wells, along with his brother Rob, put together a fun list of "Which monster would be the best boyfriend?" Dracula scored below Mr. Hyde and above the Phantom of the Opera. He was docked down the list because he already has three wives already. But lets not forget that he is a monster.

Now, despite this line of thinking, I must confess to quite enjoying the movie Hotel Transylvania which features Dracula as an over-protective father, trying to keep his daughter safe from the terrors of humanity. Perhaps I feel more comfortable with this Dracula because he is such a complete opposite of Bram Stocker's. Or maybe it's the fact that I can be empathetic to his situation (I found out that my 5 year old already has a cadre of boys following her around and I want to buy a shot gun). Or perhaps because there is such a need to suspend disbelief for everything else, I can excuse such a portrayal of evil as "misunderstood." Whatever the reason, you may call me a hypocrite for liking one alternate version of Dracula while disparaging another. With that said, I know what to do with vampires, regardless of if they're named Dracula or not.

[picture citation]
Or you can always read Larry Corriea for some suitable ways to get rid of them. My personal favorite is plastic explosives. I would love to see a Twilight / MHI crossover. And yes, I've read both series.

Real vs. digital

One of the most commonly watched movies in my family as I grew up was The Great Muppet Caper. My family enjoyed other Muppet productions, although I didn't see an actual episode of the original Muppet show until I was married. My family now owns the first season on DVD and my children enjoy watching them. I find it entertaining trying to figure out how they manipulate the different muppets, particularly the big ones. Like any performance media their are mistakes made and you occasionally see someones head or hand. In the original pilot episode An End to Sex and Violence they zoom out during the credits so you can see what a filming actually looks like.

The Jim Hanson Company has been used by film, TV, and independent producers for the last 55 years. They work in both physical and digital effects, but I would say that they may be well known for their physical creations. Many people may ask how they are able to stay in business with the advent of CGI and the advanced images that can be produced now. Why create something physically when you can do it digitally without physical limitations?

I remember when the George Lucas digitally remastered the original Star Wars trilogy and they included a scene with Jabba the Hutt. However, many fans were up in arms about how Jabba was done digitally as opposed to with a physical creation. The original Jabba was done by the Jim Hanson Company and, as I understand, took about at least three people to work. The picture to the right shows the digital Jabba on the left and the "real" one on the right. On a side note, "jabba" is an English pronunciation of the Russian word (written in transcription as) "zhabba" which means toad. Another fun note. Chewbacca sounds like two Russian words, "chelavec" and "sabaca" which translate as "man" and "dog" respectively. I heard Lucas wanted to use foreign sounding words.

While I can't say that I was "up in arms" I was rather disappointed about the digital Jabba. Mostly because of the continuity. Jabba looked different. I can understand the reason for digitizing him - the biggest is that the scene with Jabba had been shot as part of the original filming, but they had a human actor playing Jabba (as Lucas wasn't sure what Jabba should look like. Even if they had used a physical Jabba they would have had to put the image in digitally anyway. It certainly made sense to just do it digitally.

The biggest reason I was disappointed about them doing Jabba digitally was because no matter how well the CGI is done, you can often see that it isn't real. Or instance, in the latest version of Alice in Wonderland a lot of it was shot with CGI. If you watch the Knave of Hearts when he walks, you can see a bounce in his step that isn't really natural. Like he's wearing drywall stilts, which is exactly what he is doing. I really enjoy that film and love the imagery they use, yet every time I see the Knave it pulls me out and wrinkles the illusion for me.

I could go through all kinds of examples of good and bad, but I there isn't enough time or space for that discussion. Physical models are not perfect either. But the thing is that such a creation is actually real and in the world, no matter how odd it is. In the behind the scenes of the movie Zathura the director explains that they used physical creations (people in suits) in place of digital images as they wanted to give the children actors something to react to. It is not everyone that can make a CG image look real. Again, in the behind the scenes for Who Framed Roger Rabbit they explain that Bob Hoskins (the actor for Eddie Valiant) was hired because he acted like there was a real cartoon rabbit in his world as opposed to nothing that was filled in later.

In the end, I can't complain too much as both mediums have their faults. Sometimes they are well done and many times they are not. Granted, if they are bad enough the film because a cult classic. Like the original Doctor Who - which I do love dearly. I guess that means that I just have to take them as they come.

The problems with fashion

I generally enjoy shopping for clothes as long as I'm with friends or family and able to find what I'm looking for. This is hard as I stand 6' 5", have extra long arms (but am fairly normal in body) and wear a 36 waist X 36 inseam. My wife grumbles (justifiably) that I wear out my trousers fairly quickly and it is almost impossible to find long sleeve shirts that fit. I went online to order several new pairs of trousers only to learn that the make and cut I like appear to be going away. I was finally able to find some new pairs, but took a large risk in how they would fit. So far so good.

However, for other people clothes shopping can be more than just annoying, it can be down right discouraging, depressing, demotivating, and disastrous. This is because of the images presented by fashion advertising, popular culture, and other sources project a image of "beauty" that is partial at best and unobtainable at worst. Kasey Serdar wrote a research paper for the Westminster Myriad entitled Female Body image and the Mass Media: Perspectives on How Women Internalize the Ideal Beauty Standard. (Note: Kasey Serdar was recognized by Westminster for completing her Ph.D in counseling psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011-12.) The now Dr. Serdar points out that:

Images in the media today project an unrealistic and even dangerous standard of feminine beauty that can have a powerful influence on the way women view themselves. From the perspective of the mass media, thinness is idealized and expected for women to be considered "attractive."... The media is littered with images of females who fulfill these unrealistic standards, making it seem as if it is normal for women to live up to this ideal. ... Such a standard of perfection is unrealistic and even dangerous. Many of the models shown on television, advertisements, and in other forms of popular media are approximately 20% below ideal body weight, thus meeting the diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa (Dittmar & Howard, 2004). [see article for complete citation]

In doing research for this post, I Googled "model requirements." It appears that the expected height requirement for female "fashion" models is around 5'8" to 6'. One website suggested weights (80-120 lb.) which would give a 120 lb. model a Body Mass Index (BMI) of 18.2 at the best and around 16.3 at the worst. A BMI under 18.5 is considered underweight by the World Health Organization. Wolf Kettler, a professional photographer in England, published Wolf's Model Guide online where he brings up the dangers of having a low BMI and what the modeling and fashion industry has done to encourage "healthy" standards. Even with changes to the industry models cannot realistically be considered "average" size. According to Dr. Pamela Peeke (M.D.), a writer for WebMD, the average size for women in 2010 was 5'4", 140-150 lbs. waist size 34-35 and wore a dress size 12-14. So the fashion being displayed is being done so on figures that few can expect to look like.


Let's talk about the difficulty with sizes. I mentioned how hard it is to find clothes my size. For some reason 36 X 36 is very unpopular. Even large tall shirts are rough to find. People tell me to shop at big and tall stores, but I'm just tall. I don't need a 48 X 36. I just want a 36 X 36. For women it's worse. At least most of my sizes are based on inches, an archaic but standard measurement and it's a matter of me being outside the norm. But there is more to it for women. This great clipping from the New York Times carries the great subtitle of "Seeking a steady 4 or a 10." Not only has sizing for women changed throughout the years but The NYT clipping states that different stores will use different sizes. This can be disheartening for people. I remember the week I took through two pairs of 34 X 36 trousers. I felt a little ashamed that I had grown to the point that I was tearing through my clothes. What happens when a women tries on what she believes is her size and discovers that it's tighter then it used to be? Nothing good for the self-esteem you can be sure.

I'll make a final point in regards to the crazy world of fashion and clothing. Several years ago I watched The Devil Wears Prada a fictional story that revolves around the world of fashion. In one scene the editor of Runway is viewing a designer's gowns. When our protagonist expresses wonder that the editor's opinion has so much weight on the designer's plans. She is told, "Her [the editor's] opinion is the only one that matters." While this is a fictional event, it portrays an idea that is demonstrated in fashion - the few dictate what is acceptable. In many ways fashion is a reverse democracy. There is no majority rule, there is a small group that chooses what is shown and those that follow behind. With the increased ease of communication due to the internet and ready access to technology this is changing. But what do you call it when access and information are limited to select sources or information Oh, yeah - it's called propaganda. The more acceptable term for it now a days is marketing.

So, for anybody reading this that struggles when it comes to buying clothes, or feels bad when their size increases, or just doesn't understand what fashion is doing - Remember you are not paranoid. Paranoia is thinking some one is after you. They really are. The best thing you can do to make sure they don't get you is to make sure you feel good about yourself as you are. Sizes are scales. Use them to find the best fit, the numbers aren't accurate measurements of anything except which pair will be bigger or smaller then the other. Also remember that those that are modeling the clothes are the exception when it comes to body size. Also, having a daily affirmation can also help.

One last happy thought, just for you extra worried ones out there. I've heard it said that if men were in charge of the world they wouldn't be wearing neckties. I've also heard it said that if women were in charge they wouldn't be wearing high heels. So if men are wearing neckties and women are wearing high heels - who's really in charge? [cue Twilight Zone theme song]

End of originality?

I enjoy listening to the podcast Do I Dare to Eat a Peach with Dan and Rob Wells every Wednesday. Both have participated in podcasting before, they are both published authors of international renown, and they are brothers (Dan is older by less then two years). And like most siblings they enjoy similar things, but often disagree about them. I enjoy the banter and the information (they are both very intelligent and Rob is a total research nut) but I don't always agree with what they say. For instances in episode 21 they talk about the oddness of the poem that was originally written with Camille Saint-Saens "Dance Macabre" (the 1:09:35 mark in the episode) I was screaming, "It was written in French! Of course it's odd, it's a translation!" Anyway, I've been known to disagree with them, but I still enjoy myself.

 Episode 36 was on covers of songs and it got me musing. Why do we enjoy new versions of something? Covers of songs. Remakes of movies. Re-tellings of stories in novels. Let's take the story of Cinderella. That link will take you the the "adaptations" part of the Wikipedia article. As you look at the list, keep in mind that novels and short stories are not listed. My family has at least two re-tellings in novel form. How many times has that story been retold? I believe I would be accurate to say that it has been done over a hundred times.

In the Do I Dare to Eat a Peach episode, Dan and Rob specifically only look at covers of the songs, not mash-ups (mixing two or more songs), or adaptations and remixes (altering the lyrics). My comparison to Cinderella does include those additional elements. But regardless it begs the question: Why use the same old tired story again. And again. And again.

Dan's other podcast, Writing Excuses covered this question in Season 8, episode 6. Taken from the liner notes they address my question: "Familiar stories let us explore things in new ways, both because we know what’s coming, and because we don’t need to be brought up to speed on the story." They are applying this to written stories, but the same can be said of other media. Rob Wells mentions in an earlier Peach episode that movie adaptations of books are like making apple pie. It takes a whole food (apples), but turns it into  a different food (pie). This provides variation and can produce different perspectives.

For example, JRR Tolkin talks about the sacrifice of Boromir  in The Lord of the Rings: the Fellowship of the Ring. It takes about a two paragraphs (online text here p. 417). It is a stirring scene and you do feel a sense of loss at his death. This scene was taken by Peter Jackson in his movie adaptation and translated to a visual medium. The end product is very different from the original, but the power behind it is equal or arguably greater. NOTE - I am not advocating that movies are better than books, just that they are different and different is not inherently good or bad.

Now let's look at the title of this blog. Is our fascination with established stories ruining our creativity and preventing people from being original? Some may say that it is. I enjoy a variety of YouTube artists and many of them do covers, adaptations, remixes, and mash-ups of popular songs. The last two movies I watched were a Bond film (a book adaptation) and Wreck-it-Ralph a movie pulling from video game troupes. Even Pixar's two upcoming movies are pulling from works they've already established (Planes from the Cars world, and a Monsters Inc. College film). Where is the new stuff?! Well, believe it or not, it's in there. Let me explain.

I recently finished reading Cinder by Marissa Meyer. It is one of the many adaptations of Cinderella and one of the two that my family owns. Allow me to explain how it is original. First, it is a science fiction story that takes place so far in the future that people living on the moon have evolved to be more than human. Cinder, our lowly protagonist, is a cyborg. Oh, and did I mention it takes place in the Orient, or that there is a plague killing everybody, or that Cinder is a mechanic? Like Mary Robinette says in the Writing Excuses episode cited earlier, the story has the important elements that tell us it is a Cinderella story, but everything else is new a exciting. I highly recommend the book. So you know the series isn't done yet, but it's well worth reading.

Allow me one math example here. If you were to look at most advanced math concepts you would discover that, for the most part, they are extrapolations and adaptations of the four basic operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. Heck, even multiplication could be seen as an advanced form of addition. And subtraction is just the opposite. So have there been any original science or maths done since the discovery of addition? Of course. Original thinking in math and science (including the social sciences) is often taking established ideas and applying them in new ways, or combining them to create something new. This is the basic idea of synthesis.

The argument could be used that humanity has been creating ideas for long enough that there is no such thing as an original idea - in any discipline. Joseph Campbell in Hero with a Thousand Faces basically says that despite existing thousands of miles apart all the different cultures in the world had, in essence  the same myths and legends. So was humanity ever really original? Yes. Our originality comes from taking the known and mixing it with the unknown. Taking the familiar and crossing it with the strange. Taking two seemingly opposite ideas and combining them and finding not only do they not cancel each other out, but blend in a new and exciting way. Think about the scene from Disney/Pixar's Ratatouille - where Remy tries to explain food to his brother. It's kind of like that. 

For your viewing (and listening pleasure) here is a playlist I put together of some of my current favorite covers from YouTube artists.

Muse on what your next original idea will be while listening to the music.

The Serial Story

I will gladly say that I do not have television. Not that I don't have A television set, but I do not have an antenna or cable signal. And I really don't care. This is because of a number of factors: my family's love of reading, habit - I grew up with little to no television viewing, and also because of technology - the internet provides a lot of substitutes to television. I'm really don't have anything against television itself as a medium or even against many of the programs. Although there are some that portray things I think are better left alone.

The reason I bring this up is to accent that I enjoy stories in long form, like a lot of what television is doing, but I do not have that source for myself. Consequently I read a lot of books with sequels and series. Just thinking off the top of my head, there are at least 5 series that I have started that I'm currently waiting on books. This is also visible in my selection of web comics.

For this post, I wanted to return to some musing about serials and their origins. A serial of course is when a story is published / produced in segments or parts. This is the definition of television dramas. Often once the story is complete they are complied into one volume for future consumers (think DVD box set). The same is true of books. I understand that Charles Dickens wrote many of his stories in serial format, and the original Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was produced as a weekly radio drama. Even Larry Correia, one of my favorite authors, wrote a serial story online before selling his first bound novel. So even going beyond a series of books, many books were produced a little at a time.

There are many reasons to do a serial. It might be the form of your medium. Television and radio have always had to work with limited time. If you notice, production requires lots of time and money. So if a TV studio is going to poor millions of dollars into a story, they like to release it a bit at a time so if it's going to go south they can stop it before they become too invested. Serial also supports how we consume media. I don't know anybody who has the time to sit and read a book over a 45 hour and 37 min period in one go. Even if you are like me who will dedicate a couple of hours to reading a book (usually between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am) there are few books I have read in one sitting. (I can only think of three, and they were all less then 300 pages).

I think one result of writing (or at least releasing) material in a serial is that it builds suspense. It leaves the audience thinking and dwelling on it. I understand the show Lost had a huge online following while it was on. I know that when I watched the first season of 24 back in college I would talk about and research it between episodes. The same is true with books. Lemony Snicket used online games and puzzles to allow readers of his Series of Unfortunate Events to see extra content and as precursors to the books coming out. Granted, many of the things done "between installments" is for the purpose of reminding consumers to keep with the story. But when the story is good, consumers need very little encouraging to keep consuming.

I wanted to blog about this for two reasons. First, the serial format is nothing new to television as it started long before broadcast media and second, my sister, EA Younker, is currently releasing one of her unpublished works on Wattpad a couple of chapters at a time. This is not the first time she has done this with alpha and beta readers. My older sister got one of EA's books chapter by chapter as she edited it and I got another. Bragging point - EA's first published novel is coming out this year by TM publishing. I got to read one draft and I liked it. I'm looking forward to getting it to see the finished product. To return to Game Over, She is doing this so people can see how she writes as well as to get feedback from potential readers of her other stories. Check it out and the next time you sit down to watch (or read) your latest favorite drama, think about how long we as a society have been consuming stories that we have to wait for.