Proulx

An article was forwarded to me today that I couldn't help but comment on: this piece, which examines part of an interview with Annie Proulx, author of "Brokeback Mountain."

The main takeaway: Annie Proulx wishes she had never written "Brokeback."

The whole interview (found here) is actually very fascinating and informative, but the "I wish I'd never written it" comment is so interesting that it really warrants some analysis.

In summary--an incredibly dangerous phrase, I know--Proulx states that "Brokeback" has caused many problems because so many people misunderstood the story. They can't stand that it doesn't have a happy ending, so they rewrote it to have one. In a phrase most elegant: "They can't understand that the story isn't about Jack and Ennis. It's about homophobia; it's about a social situation; it's about a place and a particular mindset and morality."

This remark is really admirable. Proulx is accurately identifying a societal phenomenon wherein people fail to engage with fiction. We as a society have been raised on simple stories, easy fictions, with happy endings galore, which has of course increased our demand for similar stories, but that also makes our fiction bland and samey. Not only does commercial fiction often fail to engage us on a deeper level; we also lose our ability to engage deeper material ourselves.

This is an utterly horrifying reality, of course, and I appreciate the way Proulx has characterized it. But there is still some contention to be had about the whole "I wish I'd never written it" thing.

Mostly I just think Proulx is missing the forest for the trees here. Lots of people fail to critically engage deep fiction, yes, but the problem isn't her story, it's people's inability to critically engage deep fiction. It's like wishing you weren't gay because society is intolerant of gay people. The problem isn't that you're gay. It's that society is a dick to gay people. 

I'm not sure that deep down Proulx truly wishes that she'd never written the story. It strikes me as a very exasperated, spur-of-the-moment thing to say, born not from ill will but from mere exhaustion.

But it does open the doors for some fascinating discussion. Confronting the fact that many people are accustomed to (and in fact seem to demand) easy, laid-back, happy-ending fiction is a scary proposition. It's unarguably a problem that deserves a remedy; books, movies, all the stories we tell, help shape the way we see the world, and I prefer a critical society that leans forward to one that lazily leans back.

At the moment, I'm considering the merits and demerits of what I can only describe as "tricking" people into consuming deeper fiction. Dress it up in the garb of commercial fiction so people will watch/read it, but then--masterfully, carefully--make the story inescapably engaging. I guess I'm of the opinion that there are some stories with which people can't help but engage. It's just not in their nature to seek them out initially.

But there are a lot of other possible solutions out there too.

Thoughts?



(On a final and unrelated note, I thoroughly enjoyed reading about Proulx's writing processes, especially that she write her endings first and then writes toward them. I've heard this advice a few times, and it definitely resonates with me.)

Establishment

Racism is not an action.

It is an establishment.

Recommended reading this week: http://newjimcrow.com/

Ranking the Harry Potters

BOOKS                                                                 MOVIES
Deathly Hallows                                                    Sorcerer's Stone
Goblet of Fire                                                        Prisoner of Azkaban
Order of the Phoenix                                             Chamber of Secrets
Prisoner of Azkaban                                              Half-Blood Prince
Half-Blood Prince                                                 Order of the Phoenix
Sorcerer's Stone                                                     Deathly Hallows 2
Chamber of Secrets                                                Deathly Hallows 1
                                                                               Goblet of Fire


Sorcerer's Stone is a delightful book, and it definitely gets props for starting the whole series off. When you go back to reread it, though, you notice a few clunks. The movie, though, is a masterpiece; it's visually ambitious, completely enthralling, true to the heart of the story, and it actually feels better on the screen than on the page, which shockingly few book-to-film adaptations are able to do.


The Chamber of Secrets movie carried over the same heart and charm from the first movie, which is why I rank it so high on my movie list. Again, it seems to work better on the screen than on the page. This is in small part to the fact that the second book is probably the worst of the books, although none of them can truly be labeled as "bad." It introduces us to the "mudblood" conflict that escalates throughout the entire series, but it also has some frayed edges: why can Percy the Prefect take points from Gryffindor? How exactly did Mrs. Norris come to hang from that torch bracket? And if only wizards can become ghosts, how are there ghost horses int he headless Hunt? Were they Animagi and still in horse form when they died?


Prisoner of Azkaban is where things start to get a little crazy. We got a new director for the film, which caused a lot of changes, but the new aesthetic he brought to this film was engaging and fun, and combined with the interesting Dementor and Time-Turner effects, it's no wonder why so many people like this film best. The book is wonderful too, because it's the one that got parents' attention: this isn't just a kid's series anymore. A pivotal book and pivotal movie.


Goblet of Fire, however, is totally imbalanced. While I think Chamber is one of the best movies but worst books, Goblet is one of the best books, and a terrible, terrible movie. This is where Rowling really hit her stride, where she found her perfect voice and writing style, and she could write as much as she wanted because her audience was so enormous. The book was a masterpiece, and began to tip the series into a new direction, setting us up for a stunning finale. The film, though, was a mess. It's a big book to adapt to the screen, but the corners they cut were done hastily, not with care. Then the final product was Frankensteined back together with ten extra minutes of dragon-attacks-a-school-while-the-teachers-do-nothing-about-it and the whole thing just feels haphazard. The bottom line is that this is the film where you had no clue what was going on plotwise unless you'd read the book, earning it an F.


Order of the Phoenix carries a bit of the same terrible fate as Goblet of Fire, filmwise. It's hard to grasp the backstory on everything unless you read  the books, so the Fudge-goes-mad arc (and thus the inclusion of fiction's best villain, Umbridge) really does come out of nowhere. The film does retain a bit of that "It's like I'm really at Hogwarts" feeling from the first three movies, but significant pieces are still missing or glossed over. The connection to the characters began to wane in this one--the only genuine emotion you felt toward any of them was just anger at Umbridge and not much else, even Sirius. (Plus, that "something worth fighting for" line is just the worst.) The book, however, is easily one of my all-time favorites. A lot of people don't like how much of a jerk Harry became, but this story was integral to my personal growth as a teenager: seeing Harry act like a jerk, identifying so strongly with him, and the level of complexity and emotional depth in this book really helped me evaluate myself and start making a move toward become a more positive and healthy person.


Half-Blood Prince. The big "SPOILER!" book. Don't get me wrong, I love this book--but it does feel a bit like housekeeping. Most of it is just setting up for the Horcrux hunt in book 7, and while the concept of a Horcrux is such a great plot device that it makes me straight-up giddy, the final fight at the end did feel just a tiny bit contrived. As a movie, however, it was quite enjoyable, and the transition into the darker side of the franchise felt smooth and appropriate. This was the first movie that religiously attempted to stay true to the book since Azkaban, which was enormously refreshing.


Ah, Deathly Hallows. One of the best finales to any book series out there. There are a lot of series that stumble on the last installment--even a lot of trilogies can't get it right--but Rowling really delivered here. The epilogue is a bit much, but still, this is easily the best of the seven books. The movie, though, is in two parts. The first is all setup with no climax, and the second is all climax with no setup. Considering that the point of splitting the movie in two was to cover all the events from the book and really get it right, they glided over a lot of necessary information. Like the fourth movie, non-reader audiences were left saying "whaaaaa...?"


This fascinates me--that the difference in the medium can change how much I like a story. There's something very interesting lying at the heart of that, I think. It's really quite intriguing to examine the ways that stories have to change depending on the medium in which they're told.

My favorite example of this is an old Goosebumps book by R.L. Stein, My Best Friend is Invisible, where a kid named Sammy tries to convince his family and friends that he's being followed by an invisible boy named Brent. At the end of the book, Brent does become visible, and everyone is disgusted  that Brent only has one head, two arms, two eyes, and no tendrils or antennae or suction pods on his skin. That's an R.L. Stein twist for you--all the other main characters are aliens.

This is the kind of thing that just can't be pulled off in film, though. Seeing the aliens the whole time would ruin the effect. There is a Goosebumps episode for this book, but the ending was obviously changed around, and it just doesn't really work.

Looking at the Harry Potters, or any book-to-screen adaptation, is always really interesting to me for exactly this reason. When you have a story to tell, which medium is the best one to present it? What are the restrictions of each? Is there something inherent to a specific medium that makes translating it from one to another difficult or impossible? Looking closely at your favorite things to discover why they're your favorites is a really fascinating project, and that process of self-discovery is just one more reason I'm grateful for the Harry Potter series.

On Horror Movies

As it's October, a lot of my friends have been requesting that we have movie nights and watch Horror movies.

Most recently we watched Most recently we've watched Halloween. Before that, Scream. Before that, You're Next, and before that, Insidious.

Which means by now it's become a bit of a running joke that whenever somebody suggests we watch a horror movie, I start to groan.

This is not untrue. I try my best to hold back that impulse, but it's slipped out, probably more often than it should. My friends are awesome and I don't wanna bring things down with a bad attitude. I dislike horror movies, but it should be no big deal.

But that's the thing.

I don't just dislike horror movies.

I loathe them.

Which sounds like a fun blog. So here we go:

Three Reasons Why Horror Movies Are Completely Reprehensible

1) Baby Formula

     Everyone's heard the jokes that 'the first person to die in a horror movie are the ones who have sex' or 'the black guy always dies,' etc. There appear to be a lot of similarities between horror movies.

     Which makes sense. Because every single horror movie is exactly the same.

      The films all follow a very clear formula. Some group of people (often young adults) discover some spooky Macguffin (haunted house, Ouija board, book of the dead) and something started to haunt them, often killing them off in dumbest-to-least-sexually-adventurous order while they slowly dredge up the mystery surrounding the Macguffin, and once they've solved the mystery and possibly defeated whatever was haunting them, there's some twist ending. At one point this was original, but it's been plodded out so many times now that it's vomit-inducing.

     This is why The Cabin in the Woods is one of my favorite films. Though it masquerades as a horror film, it's actually an unabashed attack on the horror film genre. It shows you the horror formula and turns it on its head, forcing you to see how simple and mindless other horror films truly are, and then it one-ups them all with a game-ending third act.

     Formula has a lot of good uses. The Flintstones used the formula of a family sitcom to angle itself towards a unique style of humor. But formula has to be used purposefully, and horror films have been using it as a crutch. There's a significant lack of originality in modern horror films. It's not filmmaking by artists, it's just filmmaking by accountants; slap something on the formula machine to make a quick buck.

     Ultimately, it comes down to this: horror movies are in the suspense business. They're trying to scare you, and a big part of being scared is the feeling of suspense, of dread, of not knowing what's going to happen next. So why do they keep following the same formula over and over again? It's impossible to feel suspense when you already know what's going to happen. 

2) Moral of the Story

     One of the reasons this particular formula has stuck around so long is because it reinforces very particular moral lessons. Promiscuous characters are killed off, and only the responsible, virginal one ever makes it out alive? Better not be sexually adventurous then! A bunch of kids read from the book of the dead and then it haunts them? Curiosity is clearly killing the cat! These lessons particularly resonate with parents trying to get their rebellious teens to behave, so it makes sense that moviemakers, who are all parentally aged, would have a vested interested in producing movies with those kinds of moral warnings.

     The problem is that those morals are bull. Discovering sexuality is a huge part of becoming an adult. Exploring the world around you is how you find your place in it. Making mistakes is an essential aspect of being a human being. But these films make the argument that promiscuity will ruin you, and adventurous behavior could end your life. That's not a moral lesson, that's mental abuse.

     Basically, they're all doing this to you. (For the record, I don't recommend watching that video, because it's graphic and absolutely absurd, but it does illustrate the point.)

     Bottom line: horror movies are interested in force-feeding you very specific values, namely sex-negative and conform-to-social-order values, and those values are absolute garbage.

3) Flavor

     A little cinnamon in a dish really adds a lot of flavor.

     A mouthful of cinnamon makes this happen.

     Horror movies are the latter.

     A good storyteller is out to share a wonderful piece of art with the world. They have an amazing story that makes you think, that will shape the way you view the world. The genre of that story is completely arbitrary to them, completely after-the-fact.

     This is not how horror movies work. Their inception begins with "How can I scare people?" Which means the story become the arbitrary thing. their first priority is to scare you. The second is to tell a story. And that's completely backwards thinking. it completely devalues the entire point of telling a story, of sharing art with the world.

    Imagine we had a "Crying" movie genre. Movies made explicitly to make you cry. Not Dramatic films, mind you. Dramatic films focus on grandiose stories that somehow compel you or move you, and sometimes that might make you cry. But "Crying" movies aren't interested in moving you. They just do a bunch of stuff to evoke the tears.

    This would be ridiculous. But for some reason, when you replace "crying" with "scaring" it's somehow supposed to make more sense.

    This is the functional equivalent of starting a recipe with a pound of cinnamon and then figuring out what to mix it with. It's backwards. You'll get a truly terrible dish that way. Start with the main dish, the core, and add cinnamon here and there, to give it flair. That way it's a delicious dessert that just happens to have cinnamon, and the cinnamon really adds. Good movies can be made that just happen to terrify you, and the fear will really add to the experience of watching it. It'll just be a part of the journey you happen to go on in order to reach a brilliant conclusion. These kinds of movies can totally be made.

      But they aren't.

      (I should mention that there are many Comedies, Action films, Dramas, etc. that are made in this backwards way, but Horror movies are easily the worst offenders, because every single one of them is built this way.)



There's a reason I've been calling them Horror movies, rather than scary movie. To be perfectly honest, I don't think a single one of them is scary. They're formulaic backwards-thinking poorly-constructed tripe. Bottom line: the scariest thing about Horror movies is that people continue to watch them.




(For further interesting criticisms on the tragically disgusting genre known as Horror movies, I recommend the CinemaSins "Dear Hollywood" segment on How to Fix the Horror Movie Genre in 10 Steps. I particularly agree with #10.)

Top Wait

Today I took one of my best friends to a Magic: the Gathering tournament in Seattle: Standard States event (more info on it here).

We were psyched to play, but in the last round, something happened that made a lot of people unhappy.

The tourney had 100+ people and played  seven rounds. After those seven, they'd cut to the top eight players, who would all get big prizes and continue playing for 1st-3rd place, which would get them even bigger prizes. Pretty standard stuff. You play magic, you do well, you get prizes.

But when that final seventh round came, the top table was empty.

The players who were ranked 1st through 8th place didn't play the final round.

Each of them had won 5 rounds and lost 1. And what they all realized was that if they agreed to a draw with their opponent in the final round, they would have 5 wins, 1 draw, and 1 loss. Which would still rank them ahead of everyone else in the tournament who won 5 and lost 2 rounds.

So they didn't play round 7 because if they all drew, they were guaranteed a spot in the top 8, and guaranteed the big prizes. They were locked in, no matter how well anyone else did in the last round, even the guy in 9th place--which happened to be me.

Now I ended up losing round 7, so that's fine. It happens. But my opponent that round was 5 and 2. And my friend had lost his first 2 rounds, but won the other 5. And despite this, ,they still just didn't have a shot at getting Top 8. In round 7, the only people playing were doing it for the sheer pleasure of the game. (There were small prizes for 9th-16th place, so I guess people played for those, too, but they were small small prizes. One person said they were more like consolation prizes than anything.)

The thing that bugs me is this: At a Magic: the Gathering tournament, certain players were incentivized to not play Magic: the Gathering.

It was in their best interest to skip that round and get right into the big prize pool. If I were 8th instead of 9th place I'm sure I'd have done exactly the same thing. Why risk losing the round and potentially dropping out of the Top 8? Just skip!

But that's not Magic. That's not what Magic is about. Or even what sportsmanship is about. Forgive me if this sounds radical, but people who don't play games of Magic shouldn't win Magic tournaments.

But they did. And people were kinda bummed out. They grumbled. In my round 7, my opponent and I played next to an empty Top 8 table that should have been filled with excellent Magic players. As other people sat down for round 7, they all said basically the same thing: "Well, either of us can get Top 8, but good luck, I guess..." Even the judges running the tournament started round 7 by saying, "Well, for those of you who are playing, round 7 is starting now..." I spent the whole day playing excellent matches of my favorite game against truly skilled players, but I (and a whole bunch of other players) ultimately walked away feeling bitter about how the tournament ended up

The question, then, is this: how do you incentivize those players to keep playing? Under these circumstances, what makes it worth taking the risk to play that final round?

This conundrum throws me back to 2012, when Magic switched from the ELO system to the Points system. What they realized was that the ELO system (which rated players on how well they did in tournaments) actively discouraged players from playing Magic. Once a player had a high enough rating, they would stop going to tournaments at all, because if they lost subsequent tournaments, their ELO would drop, and they wouldn't be rated high enough to qualify for the Pro Tour anymore. They switched to the Planeswalker Points system because it gave points instead of ratings--you just needed a certain number of points to qualify instead, and that meant you could play all the tournaments you wanted without risking anything.

On a much, much smaller scale, this Top 8 "let's all draw" thing is incredibly similar. In both instances, the act of playing Magic is against your better interest. Which just feels wrong.

So what's the solution here? Is this a common problem, or just a fluke of numbers? Is it just a necessarily evil in tournament structure, or is there a similar "Planeswalker Points" kind of answer? I'm not sure, myself. It's a tough question to grapple with, but I think it's a valuable one. Because this experience truly did suck for a lot of people. Even the Top 8 players couldn't have been very happy that it was in their best interest to skip the round and wait. They want it to be in their best interest to play the game. That's why they came in the first place! So is there a better way to navigate this circumstance? I'm interested to hear thoughts on this.

Artistic License

I recently saw the movie The Maze Runner, one of the many film adaptations to come out of the avalance of post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction novels aimed at Young Adult audiences that followed in the wake of the success of the Hunger Games franchise. I'd read The Maze Runner already, and while the book honestly didn't do it for me, I knew the movie would be much more entertaining. It wasn't a groundbreaking film, but it was enjoyable enough.

This was the funny thing, though: While watching the movie, I felt that it would be especially enjoyable for the young adult readers who made it popular in the first place. But then I realized that the reason I was enjoying the movie so much was because of the places it chose to deviate from the original story. And this made me think that if I was a teenage fan of the book, and watched the movie, I might be devastated at the things they changed.

This is something I've encountered quite a lot, particularly because of the Harry Potter films. Growing up with those books and watching them come to life on the big screen was a simultaneously delightful and horrifying experience. The first movie was an absolute joy--it felt like I was actually in Hogwarts. My little preteen brain could hardly handle the excitement. But as the series continued, and the books became more complex, the movies started to suffer. Badly. Very, very badly.

At first I attributed this to the fact that the bad movies just didn't follow the books. Everything wrong with the movies was wrong because that wasn't how it happened in the book. This was a simple idea, and it stubbornly lodged itself in my mind for years. And to an extent, it's still true; many of the things that suck about the movies are things that deviate from the source material.

But, to borrow a popular phrase from the vlogbrothers, the truth resists simplicity. Saying "the movies are bad because they deviate from the books" assumes that the books are perfect. And assuming that the source material is perfect is a dangerous way of thinking; it fosters a very troublesome art-consumer relationship, wherein the consumer places the art on a pedestal, as if on display at a museum, to be seen but never truly engaged. And that's troublesome.

And as I said earlier, one of the things I enjoyed most about Maze Runner was the way it didn't stick strictly to the book. Given that the movie is still new, I won't go into spoiler-y level of detail on this. But luckily, there are still tons of other examples of films where I found deviation to actually improve the story:

--In the movie HAIRSPRAY (released seven years ago, so I don't have qualms about spoiling this) the big buildup at the climax of the show is whether Tracy Turnblad or her rival Amber VonTussle will win the Miss Teenage Hairspray Pageant. As it turns out, it's neither: Little Inez, a young black girl, wins instead, and since the rules dictate that the winner will be the lead dancer on the TV show, this forces the show to integrate nonwhite dancers. But in the original Broadway show, Tracy wins, and just announces that the TV show will integrate, because apparently when you win a pageant you get to dictate that kind of thing. It's pure cheese. In fact, it makes you wonder why Inez is even a character, because in the Broadway show, she honestly doesn't do a whole lot. Even if both the movie and show are campy, having Inez win is a surprising, charming, and flat-out better ending.

--The Avengers was a huge hit. It was fun, exciting, and all the buildup Marvel had been doing with the individual hero movies (Iron Man, Captain America, etc.) really ended up paying off. Audiences loved it. I loved it! But it needs to be noted--the Avengers in this movie aren't the original Avengers from the comics. In the original Avengers you have Ant-Man and Wasp and stuff, and there's no Black Widow in sight. And that's the point. This movie wouldn't have benefited from having an Ant-Man. Sticking to the original would have been detrimental, in fact. The moviemakers made the right call here, using the source material as a launch pad to jump off to bigger and better things, rather than letting it drag them down for the sake of tradition.

--And even the Harry potter movies made good calls on shirking events from the books. In the first book, Harry follows Snape into the Forbidden Forest on his broomstick, hides out in a tree, and overhears Snape and Quirrel talking about Fluffy and the trapdoor. In the movie, the same conversation happens, but while Harry is fleeing the library under his Invisibility Cloak, forcing him to hide and making him discover the Mirror of Erised. In the book, it's not Ron, but Neville who joins Draco, Harry, and Hermione for detention in the forest, after they secretly give Norbert to Charlie in the astronomy tower. The movie doesn't waste its time here. It glides over these points so seamlessly that when you reread the first book, you forget that these weird things actually happened. It's much cleaner, and that's a definite improvement.

Even though it may have taken my brain a long time to admit it, deviation isn't always a bad thing. In fact, it can be fantastic. There are moments when artistic license is an overall improvement on the story, and it's amazing.

It's worth noting, too, that artistic license is inevitable. Books and movies and plays and comics are all vastly different mediums, and the stories have to change, at least a little bit, as they transfer from one medium to the other.

The problem is that a lot (and I do mean a lot) of the times a movie changes things from the original material are bad, bad, bad, bad choices. In the fourth Harry Potter movie, we don't get to see the Quidditch World Cup, which is certainly sad, but the World Cup doesn't advance the plot much, so I can make my peace with this decision. But what we do get is a horrible, overlong, absolutely soul-rending sequence where a dragon chases Harry around Hogwarts on his broomstick and the teachers do nothing about it. In Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief nearly every single thing is different from the book, including the final bad guy. While it's nice they took out the weird 'twelve-year-old beats the God of War in a duel' thing, we also get stuck with an appalling plot thread where three kids try to find three magic pearls that can each transport one person out of the underworld, and then go into said underworld to rescue a fourth person and only then realize that they don't have enough freakin' pearls. And M. Night. Shyamalan's The Last Airbender is such a travesty that I can't even name all the problems with the things it changed.

And that's the thing: it's not just that things changed... it's that things changed and got replaced with crap.

(As a quick aside, it's fascinating to me that the director of the Percy Jackson movie and the director of the first two Harry Potter movies are the same guy. The first two Harry Potters are easily the most faithful book-to-film adaptations in the series, but it hardly feels like the people who made the Percy Jackson movie even read the original book.)

When it comes right down to it, changes are done because movies are made for a broader audience. They're not made for the fans of the books, they're made for everyone. Moviemakers are aware that they can't make the movie too complicated because the viewers who have never read the book would get confused. The problem is just when they dumb it down too much and eliminate the things that made fans become fans in the first place. Then the audience thinks the movie is dumb, and that the books are probably dumb too, and the original fans are stuck begging everyone else to please please please read the books because the story is actually really good, we promise, just give it a shot, but of course the non-fans already saw the movie, so why bother with the book, and everyone goes home unhappy.

If I was a teen now, and I had fallen in love with the Maze Runner books, I'm honestly not sure how I'd feel about the things they changed. Maybe I'd cling to the books and cry foul, or maybe I'd be able to see things more objectively and notice how things were improved. The movie adaptation of my favorite musical, Into the Woods, is coming out soon, and I'll be the first to admit that I've probably put that show on a pedestal. It's tough to be objective about things you love, and I have to remind myself that there's no value in blindly accepting originals as untouchable, unchangeable perfection. Moviemakers need to be careful about the things they change. They need to take the time to truly scrutinize the source material, and if they need to alter it, those choices have to be deliberate, artistic, and justifiable. But fans need to be careful too. Writers are frequently told to 'murder their darlings.' No matter how much they love something, sometimes it has to be cut for the sake of the story. The story is what matters. Which means that fans have to truly engage with the things they love so much, just as much as moviemakers. Sometimes we have to be okay with watching our darlings get murdered.

Tricking Your Body

Your body doesn't know anything.

This concept took me a little while to learn, but it's perfectly true. Your brain is fully aware that you're sitting at a computer reading a blog, but your body has no idea. All it knows is that you're sitting down and that it's comfortable and that you're wearing clothes. Hopefully.

This concept, that your body has no idea what's going on around it, has probably been the most important lesson for me in terms of fitness. Because it teaches you how your body thinks. And it lets you trick it.

Let's take the example of excess body fat. This is by far the most frequent fitness complaint. People like trim waistlines, so extra fat, especially around the stomach, can really distress people. But here's something to keep in mind, that can help ease that distress: when your body has excess fat, it's being nice to you. 

Even though you know where your next meal is coming from, your body doesn't have a clue. It doesn't know you have food stored somewhere. It thinks the last time you ate could actually be the last time you eat. So it has its own storage system. If you eat a lot of food, and your body doesn't need to use all the energy from that food right away, it's gonna hold onto that extra energy for you. Just in case. If the zombie apocalypse happens and food becomes scarce, it's got some energy stored up you can use.

That's really the key to all this: your body isn't trying to be a supermodel, it's trying to stay alive. Any meal could be your last. It only wants to use energy if it absolutely has to, because holding onto those extra calories might help you if you start to starve. It's not gonna burn away that extra energy unless you make it.

That's how you can trick your body when you work out. You have to realize that your body doesn't know you're in a gym. If you start lifting weights, it has no idea what you're lifting. All it knows is "OH S*** THIS IS REALLY HEAVY GOTTA LIFT GOTTA LIFT GOTTA LIFT!" If you go running, it doesn't know the difference between running on a treadmill and running away from a saber-toothed tiger. It just knows it's running, and lets your brain handle all that complicated "why" stuff.

Your body also doesn't know that all of this Working Out stuff is otional. It thinks its lifting a heavy weight because it has to to stay alive. If it doesn't lift the Heavy Thing, the Heavy Thing will fall on you, and that will be incredibly, incredibly painful. And your body really doesn't want that. Because your body likes being a body. It likes being alive. It likes Not Being In Pain. 

So you keep lifting the Heavy Thing. You go higher and higher weights. But eventually your muscles get tired. They can't lift the Heavy Thing anymore. Which signals DANGER DANGER DANGER in your body. Your body's like "WTF MUSCLES, YOU HAVE ONE JOB." But they clearly can't go on lifting the Heavy Thing. Which is a big problem for your body. It doesn't like that. Because it's worried now. What if you had had to lift a Heavier Thing? Or an Even Heavier Thing? It would have failed. The Even Heavier Thing would have fallen on you. It could have injured you. And that goes against the Not Being In Pain rule, which is just absolutely unacceptable. So your body tells your muscles to grow. To get bigger. Because it got lucky this time with the Heavy Thing. But next time it could be a Heavier thing, and your body wants to be ready. 

(This is also true for running. Your body thinks its running away from a Fast Thing, but what if next time it's an Even faster Thing? It's gotta get stronger to stay alive!)

This is how your body thinks. It hasn't got a clue what's really going on, so take advantage of it. Trick your body into thinking that it has to get stronger and faster, because if it doesn't, the Heavy Thing might fall on you. If it doesn't, the saber-toothed tiger will catch up to you and eat you. it's not easy, but damn, it's a lot of fun.

Terrible Article is Terrible

Watching TV news is honestly a form of self-inflicted torture, but unfortunately, articles can often be just as bad. I was sent a link to an article recently, and I found the story so absurdly, idiotically terrible that I absolutely had to write about it.

For reference, this is the link to the article:

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/27/upshot/how-social-media-silences-debate.html?_r=0&abt=0002&abg=0

This, of course, is how the article wants you to react: 

How Social Media Silences Debate? What a title! I'd better click on it to read more, which will also give them some advertising revenue!

But this article is not news. It's not newsworthy. It's sensationalist hyperbole.

The article asserts that social media platforms stifle dissenting opinions on the internet. It alleges that people are unwilling to voice their opinions on social media outlets because they fear the backlash of saying something other people disagree with. And that this phenomenon is creating a "spiral of silence" that polarizes opinions online.

When explained like that, it almost sounds reasonable.

HERE'S THE PROBLEM:

The conclusion that social media stifles debate is based on ONE study on ONE news event and measures people willingness to express opinions on that event on TWO social media platforms: Facebook and Twitter.

It even admits this: "These findings are limited because the researchers studied a single news event."

This is not science. This is a fallacy of composition.

What this study found is that people didn't always like expressing opinions about a news event (in this case the Snowden story) on Facebook and Twitter. What it didn't find is that people don't express their opinions on all social media. Because Facebook and Twitter are not the entirety of social media. What is really didn't find was that the entire internet causes people to stop sharing their opinions and discussing news events. 

AND YET: "The Internet might be a useful tool for activists and organizers, in episodes from the Arab Spring to the Ice Bucket Challenge. But over all, it has diminished rather than enhanced political participation, according to new data."

What about reddit? Tumblr? People's blogs? This article could have exclusively examined the reddit thread ChangeMyView and asserted that the entire internet was a perfect place for thoughtful political discourse. Or it could have looked at YouTube comments and declared that the whole internet is a cesspool of uneducated masochists. It's amazing what conclusions you can draw when you only use two pieces of the internet to diagnose the entire internet.

Reading the original study upon which this article is based is a slightly better read. ( http://www.pewinternet.org/2014/08/26/social-media-and-the-spiral-of-silence/ ) But even then, it's not going to tell you something you don't already know. People don't like expressing complex political opinions on Twitter, a social media outlet that only allows 160 characters per message? What a shock. People who know their Facebook friends have different political ideologies are slightly less willing to discuss political topics with those friends in person? OH GOD WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO. The phrase "avoid politics and religion" is a pre-internet sentiment, people. Social media isn't worsening a divide, it's just showing you that there is one, which you knew already. 

If the stupidity article can be summed up at all, it's with this quote: "Interestingly, those with less education were more likely to speak up on Facebook, while those with more education were more likely to be silent on Facebook yet express their opinion in a group of family or friends." Fascinating, isn't it. The smarter someone is, the more they realize that Facebook isn't a great outlet for comprehensive political discourse. They know that shouting a controversial opinion on Facebook is like shouting your opinion to people on the street. It's useless and they're not going to get anything done there. They know that they're better off in person, where the setting is more intimate and they can usually get a better grasp on what other people actually mean, because they can see their expressions and hear their tone of voice. They also know that the internet is made up of many, many more websites and social media outlets than just Facebook and Twitter, which is more than I can say for this article.

My Top Fives

A friend recently asked me to give him a list of my 5 favorite songs. He told me he was making a playlist of all of his closest friends’ favorite songs, like a Friendship Playlist. I loved this idea. It was honestly really touching. So I gave him my list—after deliberating about it for a few days.

I was really struck by this exercise, by how strangely and enjoyably difficult it was to complete. And when he shared the final playlist with all of us, and we each got to see each other’s choices, I was slightly surprised that nobody had picked the same song as someone else.  I know there are a lot of songs out there, but since we were such a close group of friends, I was still a little bemused that our tastes were so different.

A little more recently, a different friend asked me about my top 5 movies. As he asked, he mentioned that he thought my favorite movie was still RENT, as it had been when I was in junior high. I told him that my list had changed, and we talked about favorite movies for a while, and again, I was quite surprised. I realized that your taste in music or taste in films can really say a lot about you, and that I hadn’t necessarily shared my tastes with people I consider some of my closest friends, and that this fact might say a lot about how close I perceived us to be versus how close we really were.

From all of this I’ve decided to compile a list of my Top Fives for every artistic medium I can think of. It’s been an enjoyably difficult exercise on all fronts. Your taste says a lot about you, and it’s been fun getting to know myself a little better.

SONGS

Cosmic Love – Florence and the Machine

Eyes Wide Open – Gotye

The Fear – Lily Allen

Let Go – Frou Frou

Hide and Seek – Imogen Heap

(What I find most interesting is that some of my favorite artists didn’t make it on my list. MIKA, for example, has to be my favorite music artist of all time. He’s never written a song I didn’t like. But I didn’t put anything by him on this list. I was fascinated by my own decisions here.)

FILMS

The Prestige

Memento

Scott Pilgrim vs. The World

V for Vendetta

Cabin in the Woods

(I find myself particularly attached to this list. To put it simply, I feel that each of these movies transcends the limits of film as a form of media. They’re not just movies; they’re works of art.)

VIDEO GAMES

Prince of Persia: Sands of Time

Legend of Dragoon

Super Mario 64

Left 4 Dead 2

League of Legends

BOARD/CARD GAMES

Magic: the Gathering

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Battlestar Gallactica: The Board Game

GO

Cards Against Humanity

TELEVISION SHOWS*

Sherlock

Psych

Friends

Scrubs

Pokemon

(*I don’t watch much TV anymore. Specifically I’ve been told to watch Game of Thrones, Orange is the New Black, Doctor Who, and Breaking Bad, among several others. I’m sure many of them would make it on this list if/when I watch them, I just haven’t yet. Sorry L)

BOOKS

Harry Potter and the [insert title here] – J.K. Rowling

The Fault in Our Stars – John Green

Nineteen Eighty-Four – George Orwell

The Great Gatsby – F. Scott Fitzgerald

Catching Fire – Suzanne Collins

(Seriously, huge Potter fan right here. That series was my generation’s Star Wars)

MUSICALS

Into the Woods

Wicked

The Book of Mormon

Company

Avenue Q

POEMS/SHORT STORIES

Good Country People – Flannery O’Connor

I heard a Fly buzz - when I died – Emily Dickenson

The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas – Ursula K. Le Guin

The Negro Speaks of Rivers – Langston Hughes

Mirror – Sylvia Plath

MAGAZINES/RADIO/NEWSPAPER

No.

So, those are the top fives. 

I chose not to include paintings and photography for this exercise because their names are frequently ambiguous, not widely known, or often just untitled, and accessing the images themselves is actually quite difficult. 

I may do a blog post later on that includes my favorite photographers and painters, as well as my favorite authors, directors, actors, music artists, YouTubers, etc. It’ll be interesting to see how those lists compare with all of these, and especially interesting to see how (and how frequently) these lists change over time.

Ranking the Sherlock Episodes

WARNING: SPOILERS. IF YOU HAVEN’T WATCHED SHERLOCK GO DO IT RIGHT NOW. ALL OF THEM. RIGHT MEOW. 

9 The Empty Hearse (S:3 E:1)

                This episode… doesn’t work. In fairness, it was under tremendous pressure; the anticipation for Season 3 was so great it’s possible NOTHING would have satisfied fans. But even excusing that, the episode itself doesn’t seem to come together. There’s no tension in the main conflict, the scene where they explain Sherlock’s faked suicide is overly convoluted, especially since it isn’t really clear whether it’s just another one of Anderson’s delusions, and the kidnapping of John Watson is entirely out of place. While the episode is commendable for bringing some heart to rekindling the relationship between John and Sherlock, the thing that really kills the episode is that it completely wipes away the ending of Season 2. Fans were looking forward to watching Sherlock fight in the shadows, for him to claw his way back into the light after Moriarty made him out to look like a phony. But right off the bat we’re told Sherlock’s name was cleared, which just didn’t make for as good a story.

8 The Hounds of Baskerville (S:2 E:2)

                I probably like this episode more than most, but yes, it has some problems that it just can’t recover from. The bad special effects of the hound itself are enough to deter most viewers, but the real problem is that the episode just isn’t that mysterious. Sherlock is always supposed to be three steps ahead of everyone else, but the viewer can easily figure out the secret of Baskerville almost half an hour before Sherlock himself gets there. That’s just not a feeling you should ever have when watching a mystery, let alone a Sherlock mystery. That said, the rapidly-spoken monologue about the out-of-work fisherman and his widowed mother is some of Cumberbatch’s best work.

7 His Last Vow (S:3 E:3)

                While this episode proves to be more entertaining and ambitious than Hounds of Baskerville, it suffers from a lot of the same issues; namely that it, too, doesn’t feel as mysterious. While it’s commendable that the show developed a new villain for Sherlock to face off against, the journey getting there is a bit rough, and you can see the ending coming from a mile away. Plus it’s kind of awkward that the phrase ‘mind palace’ gets used so much in this episode, when it was originally used as a sly joke in the Baskerville Episode. His Last Vow is entertaining, and the cliffhanger ending is intriguing enough, but the tension between Sherlock and Magnusson just isn’t as potent as it is between him and Moriarty or even him and The Woman. Also, I’m just gonna say it: I really dislike the twist where Mary’s some super-crazy-awesome assassin. It’s just too big a coincidence, and as Sherlock and Mycroft noted about coincidences in an earlier episode, “The universe is seldom so lazy.”

6 The Blind Banker (S:1 E:2)

                I don’t suppose there’s anything technically wrong with this episode; there’s a fair amount of mystery, a dangerous gang of smugglers, and the turn where they think John is actually Sherlock is pretty entertaining. The only real issue with this episode is that it’s just kind of boring. Where the pilot episode led off with a bang, this one just kind of fizzles. It’s still good, and it shows off the depth and danger of Moriarty’s network, but if it begins to feel a bit like a filler episode about halfway through, well, I can hardly blame you.

5 The Sign of Three (S:3 E:2)

                This is the episode of Season 3 I actually really like. It’s funny, charming, and while I’ve heard most people think Sherlock’s best man speech is a little overlong, it actually does a really good job of keeping you on your toes. The best thing about the episode, though, is how well it calls back to the pilot episode; simply put, this episode is a riddle. The Bloody Guardsman and the Mayfly Man are really intriguing stories Sherlock uses to demonstrate his admiration for John, and once you figure out that they’re actually clues to a dangerous mystery, you’re right there with Sherlock, desperate to keep a deadly situation under control and trying your damndest to figure out the solution before the killer gets away, just like you felt in the pilot episode. This one has some real heart, and the relationship between Sherlock, John, and Mary is so touching you can almost forgive The Empty Hearse for stumbling so badly. Almost.

4 The Great Game (S:1 E:3)

                Man, was this a tough call. I actually kind of feel bad for putting this episode only at number 4, because it really is intense. The introduction of Moriarty, the ticking clock as Sherlock completes a difficult challenge only to find a new and more sinister one awaiting him, the amazing HOLY-WHAT-WHERE-IS-MY-REMOTE-I-HAVE-TO-WATCH-SEASON-TWO-RIGHT-NOW ending… this episode is a ride. It’s quintessentially Sherlock; this is exactly the kind of cat-and-mouse game you want to see between two dangerously intelligent masterminds. The only reason this places number four is because the next three really crossed the threshold into groundbreaking cinema.

3 The Reichenbach Fall (S:2 E:3)

                Between this and A Study in Pink, I’m not sure which is the most-watched episode of Sherlock, but I’d put my money on this one. My family and friends rewatched the ending of this episode dozens of times to figure out how Sherlock faked his own death. The stakes are high, and exactly where they need to be: not just Sherlock’s life is at stake, but the lives of everyone he loves, and we get to see not only Sherlock’s brain at work, but also his heart. Moriarty’s turn as Richard Brooke is downright scary, and the finale leaves you excited, speculating, and head-over-heels in love with the series thus far. Part of the reason The Empty Hearse felt like such a letdown was because of just how damn good this episode really is.

2 A Study in Pink (S:1 E:1)

                Due service has to be paid to this for being the pilot episode, the one that got it all started. We live in a world of useless reboots, recycled plots, and lame reimagining of stories that aren’t even a decade old (Amazing Spiderman, I’m looking at you). But this episode announced to the world that it understood not only what a reboot on an old series had to do to befit a modern audience, it also announced that it deeply understood, respected, and paid homage to its own source material. Sherlock as a consulting detective, Moriarty as the consulting criminal, John as a blogger, and intricate puzzles in a digital age take you on a spin so wild you’re amazed you’d never thought of all this yourself. It just seems so obvious, so right, and that’s not a feeling that a lot of other Sherlock-inspired shows (ahem, Elementary, ahem) can successfully manifest. It’s a work of genius.

1 A Scandal in Belgravia (S:2 E:1)

                This isn’t just the best episode of Sherlock, it might be the best episode of any television series that’s ever been on the air. It might be one of the best things that’s ever been filmed. The reinterpretation of Irene Adler as a dominatrix is inspired, and the sexual tension in her cat-and-mouse game with Sherlock is exactly the right twist to make her another unique and dangerous villain that we place on a pedestal along with Moriarty. The Coventry Conundrum is perfectly foreshadowed in the most amazing way, and pleasantly creepy. The metaphorical resonance of Adler as a dominatrix that brought a nation to its knees is fantastic. And the answer to Adler’s heart, the password to her hypersecure phone, is so brilliant it still occasionally gives me goosebumps. This isn’t just an episode, it’s art, and it’s not just art, it’s a masterpiece.

July 31st

HAPPY BIRTHDAY HARRY POTTER!

Blog post that links to other blog post

This
Is
The
BEST


http://blog.nathanbransford.com/2012/08/the-publishing-process-in-gif-form.html



(This one's neat too: http://www.writersbloq.com/writing-your-first-novel-in-gifs/ )

The Wrong Story

When the preview for the first Purge movie came out, I got excited.

I loved the concept. I mean loved it. One night a year, all crime is legal is the US. I was all over this. So poignant! So resonant! Such social commentary! I was head over heels for this idea.

But I didn’t want to see the movie.

After the preview introduced the concept, it showed us the story: a family of four trying to survive the night as a group of evil strangers attempts to break into their house.

Splat.

This is news to no one; the first movie received, at best, lukewarm reviews. And I think this setup is exactly the reason why.

Quite simply, it’s the Wrong Story. We’ve seen a lot of movies where a group of evil strangers breaks into a house. Hell, here’s a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_films_featuring_home_invasions

 Now, home invasion movies aren’t necessarily a bad thing. That list alone proves that a lot of movies can use home invasion in different and interesting ways.

The problem is that the concept of The Purge has absolutely no business joining that list. This setup is way too elaborate to be reduced to just another slasher movie. One night a year, anyone can get away with anything? The possibilities are endless! Stealing. Killing. Hacking. Gambling. Illegal experimentation. What does the nation look like in the years after the Purge? What industries have come into being or been shut down because they could or couldn’t manage the yearly Purges? What’s happened to the class structure, since the poorest are the most unlikely to be able to afford to defend themselves? These are interesting questions to speculate on. But the preview tells you right off the bat that while the movie is interested in glancing at those questions, it’s not going to dig into any of them properly.

It’s the reason I still haven’t seen this movie, and that I don’t really care to. I wasn’t interested in the people trying to get into a house. I was interested in the world outside it.

It’s the Wrong Story.

The same phenomenon occurred with the movie The Adjustment Bureau. Remember that one, with Matt Damon, where he goes to work late one day and finds a group of men in suits modifying the thoughts of the other people in his company? The preview was thrilling! Who are these people? What are they really doing to the people they modify? Are they part of a conspiratorially large and powerful mystery group that dictates the world of business, or even the government?

Well, it turns out the movie is a love story. The people who adjust things are apparently magical and they have a very specific idea of what the future should look like, and in Matt Damon’s case, that means he can’t be with That One Girl he met That One Time. The conspiracy, the mystery, the deep and devastating question of whether we’re really in control of our lives—brushed aside for a love story.

The Wrong Story.

This phenomenon is interesting because it tells you something fundamental about the way we approach fiction. You can really easily see where stories that got it right could have fallen into the same pitfall.

For example, let’s look at The Hunger Games. The premise piques your interest: kids in an arena fighting to the death. Even if it isn’t the most original thing you’ve ever heard before (Blade Runner, Battle Royale, etc.) it’s still interesting and opens up a new world full of possibilities.

What the Hunger Games does right is the story. Our main characters are trapped in an arena where only one can survive, and they use a love story to change the rules. Imagine if instead the story was just about a poor girl who beat all the other kids and won the Games. Imagine if instead it was about a girl from a rich district who beat all the other kids and won the Games! Splat! Not interesting. Wrong Story. Subverting the rules, experimenting with the way the outside world responds to the events of the Games—that’s the Right Story. The concept isn’t there to tell a love story. The love story is there to explore the concept.

I’ll say it again. The concept doesn’t justify the plot line. The plot line explores the concept.

This example also highlights something else about how we like our fiction. The Hunger Games also acknowledges that without any victor, the government is screwed. The concept “Only one can survive” has evolved into “two victors” and then turns into “ZERO victors.” It takes you on a journey. Our understanding of the Games has transformed, and transformed again.

In most circles, this is what you’d call a Twist. There’s a big surprise near the end. If Hunger Games had stayed at “two victors” and never ventured into “ZERO victors,” it wouldn’t be the Wrong Story. But it would be a much more boring story. Because we like third-act surprises. We like our concepts to be fully explored. We like Twists.

We just also happen to hate them.

To be more specific, we like good twists. Twists that force you to completely reevaluate everything you’ve seen so far. That transform not only your relationship to the movie, and to the movie’s concept, but also to the way you evaluate your life. Sixth Sense, Psycho, Usual Suspects, The Prestige. Epic, genuine surprises.

What we loathe is a bad twists. I don’t need to tell you twice that M. Night. Shyamalan’s name has become box office poison for exactly this reason. His movies are famous for having a twist just for the sake of having a twist. It’s not surprising or transformative whatsoever. So predictable you don’t even bother.

Cases like The Purge prove that Shyamalan’s not the only one in Hollywood doing this kind of thing. He’s just the most obvious. Because let’s be real, you knew the ‘twist’ at the end of The Purge based just on that preview.

But if The Purge had been the Right Story—if it hadn’t obsessed itself with a home invasion plot, if it had focused on the outside world and the ramifications a yearly night of crime has on society, if it had really delved into the craziness its concept promised—maybe it would have had an ending that really, genuinely transformed you.

The Purge 2 is out in theaters right now and its received similar reviews to its predecessor, although perhaps a shade nicer. After all, this one does what the first one should have—it takes place in the hectic anarchy of Purging society, not inside a tiny house. That’s the Right Story, isn’t it?

Ehhhhhh….

No.

It’s a step in the right direction. And I’ve heard this one digs a little deeper into the big questions I was asking at the beginning of this post. But it’s not quite there yet. Finding the Right Story to explore a crazy concept can be difficult. But it’s really easy to tell when the story being told is the Wrong One.

Hopefully I’ll be able to keep this in mind in my own creative works.

I hope you will too.

Germanpuffs

In the German language, if you want to say what you think of something, you say "Ich finde." For example, "Ich finde das toll." Literally, "I find that great."

Because Germans are excellent finders.

They are all Hufflepuffs.

Be a One

Very often I hear people in relationships say things to one another along the lines of "You complete me." Even I've occasionally asked a married friend "How is your better half?" The sentiment is simple, and innocent enough, I guess: that your boyfriend or girlfriend has fulfilled a missing piece of you, that you're finally whole, etc.

It's just not how relationships work.

Let's talk about this with math.

The "You Complete Me" mentality is best expressed with the equation .5 + .5 = 1
Simple enough, right? You're one half, they're the other half, together you make one complete relationship. Easy.

The problem is that relationships are way way way too complex and intricate to be expressed with a plus sign. You and your partner will talk, laugh, argue, make out, meet each other's friends, meet each other's parents, fangirl over the same things, fangirl over different things, judge the pros and cons of each other's respective fangirldoms, etc.

So a plus sign? Not quite. Relationships are way too complex for that.

They're more akin to a multiplication sign.

So what really ends up happening isn't .5 + .5 = 1

What happens is .5 x .5 = .25

If you're going into a relationship expecting someone to 'complete' you, you're just one half. But 1/2 times 1/2 is 1/4! You end up with even less than you had before!

And that's just textbook Not A Good Thing.

But here's the thing. If you're already 'complete'--that is, confident, happy, independent, engaged in your own hobbies, pursuing your own dreams, etc--then you're a 1. And if your partner is the same way, then (s)he's also a 1.

And 1 x 1 = 1

And that sounds like a pretty happy relationship to me.

Hello World

Writing is like going to the gym. A little bit every day, and it's gonna make you sweat.