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While watching the Oscars on Sunday, I was struck by the obvious passion of and ridicule engendered by actors and those in the film industry. They dream all their lives of winning an Oscar and when the moment comes, many get blubbery, fumble with their speeches, take too much time and then get cut off by the music.
It is passion that most ‘normal’ folks try to find in one area or another. It’s not always at work; it more often lies in other pursuits – following a sports team, scrapbooking, watching movies or hunting.
I’m all for making fun of people who take themselves or their pursuits too seriously, be it in sports (OMG, I’m soo depressed that [insert team name] lost!), fashion (you don’t know what the color Cyan looks like?!), movies (You liked Matrix Revolutions?! Ugh!) or most anything else. There’s passion and then there’s self-involvement. I’m as guilty of it when it comes to Pitt or the Steelers as anybody. And for the record, I do know what Cyan looks like.
But as risable as Sally Field’s “You like me. You really like me!” speech was, I still envy those whose passion leads them to dream up 10-feet tall blue aliens or the start the next Google.
From Slate: http://slatest.slate.com/id/2244122/entry/8/
This concerns France’s recent attempts legislate its culture… banning the burqa, specifically. If this were done in the USA, I think I’d be against it. But in a country like France (or Italy or Turkey), which has a predominant character or cultural history, I’m okay with it. I’m definitely okay with Immigration Minister Eric Besson denying a man citizenship for forcing his wife to wear a burqa.
If the USA is a fundamentally immigrant country (except for that part about exterminating the Natives), I don’t subscribe to Conservative America’s notion that they get to define Americanness to/for me. So even though I may not like the burqa, I think an American Muslim should have the right to wear one. She, of her own volition, must create an America that is true for her.
In France, if they determine that the burqa is fundamentally un-French, then go ahead and ban it. It opens up a Pandora’s Box, I know (“France for the French” could be extended to limit religion at any turn), but I can’t kick the feeling that “ethnic” countries should be be allowed to define their national character. What are the limits of that national character… I can’t say.
This afternoon and evening, Pittsburgh experienced an extended blackout due to high winds and rains. (I say extended blackout in the western sense because it lasted less than 4 hours). It was rare for us to have blackouts in Nigeria but we did have them. In Bangladesh, blackouts aren’t uncommon though that may depend on what part of Dhaka or the country in which you live. So I’m relatively experienced in them.
A couple weekends ago, I went to see the movie adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s The Road. It’s an emotionally draining movie; one that is true to the book’s vision, according to my sisters and the Ezdaa. In short, it’s an end-times movie about how a man and his son try to survive against marauding gangs, cannibals and an environment gone crazy. Needless to say, it left an impression.
Back to the blackout – despite having been through many in the past, I can’t say that my reaction to this was one was all that good. No panic but I definitely felt unsettled, sitting in a slowly growing cold living room, listening to the wind whip all around the house. It felt, in some sense, like the beginning of The Road. That I have recently had ACL Reconstruction and couldn’t even begin to survive as in the movie/book did not help.
It’s one thing to wean one’s self off too much techmology but basic electricity is quite another. Most people can unplug for a short period if they’re on vacation. Being forced to unplug as in a blackout is a different story in and of itself because you are robbed of control.
Still, I’m going to try an experiment. I’m going to institute a short blackout period for myself every evening. No power, TV, computer, internet, etc. Candles and flashlights only. I’ll start out at 15 minutes and slowly increase with time. I’m not trying to be a luddite. But forcing an unplug, I think, will help me to learn calmness, appreciate silence (well, such as it can be) and maybe develop an appreciation for really doing nothing.
Photocredit: Silence III by foart
NY Magazine recently asked a question regarding the Kanye West/Taylor Swift ‘controversy’:
Does his mission to acknowledge the greatness of contemporary musicians not amount to a worthy cause?
It’s a legitimate question to ask and in principle, I probably come down on Kanye’s side but he does a disservice to this mission by employing methods such as he did during the MTV Video Music Awards. Many people seem to acknowledge that Swift didn’t have the best female video almost in passing. Or they’re now so defensive about not liking her video that they sound like spoiled, angry jag-offs.
Sometimes it’s not enough to be right. You hafta ackrite.
I remember in 1988 when the Grammys’ first instituted an award for Best Metal Performance. Jethro Tull, which featured a flute solo by its lead singer that year, won the award over Metallica’s Black Album. The Black Album lost to a flute! It was generally viewed as an outrage that Metallica lost. But I don’t remember anyone going off at Jethro Tull during the show. So almost 20 years later, we remember the real issue here – that Metallica lost even though they made a far-reaching, ahead-of-its-time work. Not that some punk decided to steal the spotlight all to himself.
We can debate the relative importance of the VMA’s as opposed to the Grammys’ or any other award shows. (I didn’t even know they were on until I started seeing a bunch of Facebook updates on the incident). But Kanye West stole the spotlight from Taylor Swift AND Beyoncé. And that was the first time I mentioned Beyoncé in this post.
Photo Credit: Getty Images
Baz Luhrmann once said about friendships, “Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle because the older you get, the more you’ll need the people you knew when you were young.”
I’ve been thinking alot lately about relationships and how they’re affected by time and distance. The interwebs provide us with so much opportunity to keep in touch with old friends and so with that much techmology, our friendship decisions are also highlighted and sharpened.
I recently realized that an old friend had cut me out. We hadn’t spoken for a while and I was unable to rekindle the communication. Emails, text messages, facebook wall posts. I even tried phone calls and if you know me, you know I’m not a huge fan of speaking on the phone. It’s a pretty strong indication of rejection not to hear from someone after using multiple communication channels.
It stands in marked contrast to the last two weddings I’ve attended this summer, in which I hadn’t actually seen the principals in several years. In each case, an occasional conversation was enough to sustain the friendship while distance intervened. And they picked up the phone (or answered texts).
While I’d maintain that it’s easier for men to sustain friendships, that’s not at issue in the aforementioned two, where one is a female. What it says is that we implicitly keep alive what we want, what matters to us, regardless of distance. It takes a pretty solid act of un-friendship to break those ones apart.
Friendships wax and wane with time but with the most important ones, I don’t think it takes more than a simple hello to get things going again, no matter how much time has elapsed. I supposed I just mis-read the friend person who cut me out.
At the end of his brilliant novel, Ender’s Game, the author Orson Scott Card develops the idea of a Speaker for the Dead.
“When their loved ones died, a believer would arise beside the grave to be the Speaker for the Dead, and say what the dead person would have said, but with full candor, hiding no faults and pretending no virtues. Those who came to such services sometimes found them painful and disturbing, but there were many who decided that their life was worthwhile enough, despite their errors, that when they died a Speaker should tell the truth for them.”
Recently, we’ve been witness to the deaths of two flawed but brilliant (in their own way) men – Michael Jackson and Steve McNair. There are those who have chosen to remember only the good about each man – Michael’s musical genius, McNair’s on-field leadership. There are those who will emphasize their faults – Michael’s alleged child molestation, McNair’s off-field indiscretions.
In the wake of the overbloated coverage of the deaths of these individuals, I think each needs a Speaker for the Dead. Let us remember McNair’s meteoric rise at Alcorn State, his on-field toughness, the good community works he performed. Let us remember the circumstances of his death, the marital infidelity and how he practically flaunted it with island vacations, allowing himself and his 20-year old mistress to be photographed parasailing. Let us remember MJ’s musical gifts, his dancing skills, the joy he brought to millions, the children he left behind who loved him as only children can. Let us remember his questionable behavior, his run-ins with the law, the psychosis that led to his plastic surgeries.
As you ponder the life of each man or any others who die, allow both visions to circulate in your mind. It will be uncomfortable. If you want to celebrate MJ’s music, you won’t want to recall the controversies he left behind. If you want to document McNair’s marital infidelity, you might want to discount his charities or his football exploits.
Life isn’t about fawning over brilliance nor is it about wallowing in crapulence. Contradictions aren’t a bad thing. They give us the full measure of a person because almost everyone has better angels circling around their head and skeletons hidden in their closet.
Or… Twerpy-looking teenagers don’t have the chops to stick with me
I was driving home from a friend’s house last night when a black Buick SUV started tailgating me in the streets before getting onto the Parkway. I find this sort of behavior to be incredibly annoying because I wasn’t exactly driving slowly and I was also stuck behind someone else.
So I get onto the ramp, still being tailgated and sped up to get this guy off my arse. But he’s putting up a good fight. As we neared the Fort Pitt Tunnels, he (instinctively) got in the left lane, probably expecting to pass me up. But I saw that there were more cars in the left left so I stayed in the right lane. He came up level with me in the tunnels and I looked over to see that he was in fact a teenagey douchebag with affectedly ruffled hair (like Ashton Kutcher used to have). He looked over at me and it was on.
Coming out of the Fort Pitt tunnel, driving towards the Squirrel Hill tunnels, douchebag keeps trying tailgating me despite the fact that I’m going 75+. He pulled ahead on the right lane; a mistake going into second tunnels. I pulled ahead in the left lane. We traded places going back and forth through Edgewood.
Pulling around the bend after Edgewood before Forest Hills, he pulled into the far right lane and increased to what seemed like 80mph. At this point, I considered whether it was worth it to keep going given the speeding ticket boost. Hey, I pay for my own insurance; speed is money.
But pride got the better of me and I wasn’t about to let a youngster beat me so I decided it was time to dust his ass. So I shifted to auto-stick, dropped to 4th-speed and gunned it up to 5th-speed. Jagoff had no answer.
Moral of the story: Don’t mess with an Audi if you’re a li’l teenage douchebag who’s driving mommy’s SUV.
Or, NO THE TOOTH FAIRY DOESN’T EXIST! GO GET A DAMN JOB IF YOU WANT MONEY!
A few years ago, I spent the Muslim holiday of Eid ul-Adha in Bangladesh in my dad’s boyhood home of Barahipur in the province of Feni. There I witnessed a cow being slaughtered in the old fashion. That is, it was held down while its throat was slit in order to kill it. This method of slaughter allows the blood to drain out of the animal.
I’m not squeamish so this rather bloody sight didn’t trouble me. But I was struck that my little nieces and nephews stood idly by and watched the ceremony. Neither the boys nor the girls flinched while witnessing the cow flail for its life, not even after most of the blood had drained and the cow bayed, its head flopping up and down almost reflexively as the last vestiges of life ebbed away.
I think most kids in the west who don’t grow up on a farm will rarely ever see this sight. Maybe as adults but rarely as a 5-year old. Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t allow such trauma and the very thought of eating a cute little lamb caused Lisa Simpson to become a vegetarian.
It gets me to thinking about the cultural differences that drive western parents to allow their kids to believe in the sort of nonsense that a non-western kid doesn’t encounter. The Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, the stork that brings babies or reasons for allowing Cleveland to continue to exist.
I’m not trying to be a killjoy but I don’t see what purpose such fanciful creations serve. It’s not as if I lived a childhood devoid of some measure of innocence, imagination or creativity just because I never believed that a jolly old fat white man would bring me presents if I was good.
My parents bought me presents for Eid. There was no Muslim or Bangladeshi Claus. And I never asked for World Peace, just Super Mario Bros 3.
It appears as though pitbull that attacked Steelers’ linebacker James Harrison’s son will not be put to death. According to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, the new owner is, “is a woman who specializes in rehabilitating pit bulls.”
Pitbulls are not easy dogs to own and are too often adopted by folks who just want to look tough and have no idea what it takes to do right by them. Still others adopt these loveable animals in order to use them in dog fighting.
I’ve “worked” with a number of Pitbulls at the Animal Rescue League. They’re exceptionally strong animals with high energy and it takes a physically and mentally strong person to handle them. James Harrison may be physically and mentall strong but I still doubt James Harrison knew what he was getting into when he got Patron.
It’s worth nothing that all but two of the dogs seized from Michael Vick’s property have been rehabbed and placed in new homes. Some are in homes with children. Others are Canine Good Citizens, which means they visit hospitals and retirement homes to help cheer up the sick and elderly.
So, I’m especially happy this situation looks to have a happy ending. The dog gets a second chance and hopefully James Harrison will get a dog more suitable to his dog-handling ability. Perhaps a Caniche.
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