subscribeStar Wars, Inception, and how a small child made my brain hurt.
Wednesday July 21, 2010
First of all, kids are brilliant. Especially curious, thirsty kids who ask a dozen questions a minute. I was one of those kids, and in every child-related job I’ve had I’ve worked with kids who are like that. I enjoy answering questions with as much patience, honesty, and thoroughness as I can muster.
But this can become complicated. It’s also led to some fascinating discussions with four, five, and six year olds. This discussion one called into question why I love Star Wars and why Inception is too complicated to be a kids’ movie. (Don’t worry, there are no spoilers.) Pretty heady for a five-minute conversation with a small child.
The six-year-old: “Monsters vs. Aliens is probably my favorite movie ever. Ever, ever. Well, maybe Cars, but that didn’t have monsters or aliens. What’s yours?”
“Star Wars.” I paused, wondering at my automatic response. Is Star Wars my favorite movie? I’ve certainly seen it enough to quote it — but by that criteria, I can also rank Raiders of the Lost Ark and Back to the Future up there with Star Wars. (All right, I admit it: the accompanying films in their respective trilogies, too, though I have Opinions about them.) What other criteria are there? A movie I would willingly watch on repeat all day long? (Under that category I can add most Disney and/or Pixar animated films; every Miyazaki film; a handful of Oscar nominated films of the last fifteen years and The Sound of Music; a handful of record-breaking blockbusters both of the critically-acclaimed and the revel-in-the-mediocrity variety.)
“Yeah,” I said, “Star Wars.”
“So why do you like Star Wars so much?” he asked. He knows exactly what movie I’m talking about although he’s never seen it. His friends have Clone Wars backpacks. He has a Star Wars: Heroes and Villains Young Reader book. He went to a birthday party where the theme was Star Wars and he brought home a lightsaber as his goody-bag prize. He knows who Luke Skywalker and Darth Vader are. He understands Jedi and Sith. But he has never seen this movie.
“Luke is a farm boy who becomes a hero by rescuing a princess, eluding Darth Vader, destroying the Death Star, and saving the galaxy.” Another pause. Not only did I just give an example of Joseph Campbell‘s hero theory in a happy nutshell, but that same plot is also that of a ton of books and movies (just substitute different nouns).
He stared at me, skeptically, as if to say, “That’s all? Lame.”
I found myself compelled to add, “It’s not just the story. The characters are memorable, the action is great, and there are spaceships, blasters, lightsaber fights, and a really awesome world. It’s got the whole package.”
As I said this, I realized that part of the entire reason I love Star Wars is because it started what became a phenomenon, spawning sequels, prequels, merchandise, books (so many books!), video games — it’s a part of culture, a nerdy subset of American media culture that has influenced a generation (or two, by now) and helped pave the way for better technologies (ILM, THX, Skywalker Sound) that have influenced the way film and media have evolved in the past three decades. Not to mention Star Wars’ pop culture influences. (Just look at the Wikipedia articles.) So it’s not simply the first movie, or the first trilogy, but the entire technological and cultural phenomenon of Star Wars that makes it something I love, something I value and appreciate. I can no longer separate Star Wars the single film from Star Wars the cultural beast. As I realized this, I also realized that while I can admit the original Star Wars isn’t stylistically or artistically the best movie I’ve ever seen (and let’s not discuss the prequels, mmkay?), I can’t separate the film from the context of its time and its place in cinema history. It’s like trying to separate Dickens from nineteenth century London, or New York from its skyscrapers. For a fan of science fiction and fantasy, it’s impossible to separate Star Wars from the consciousness of American media and culture.
I think, at this point, the six-year-old was wondering why I was looking so lost. I was having something of a revelation — Do I love Star Wars because of what it represents more than the film itself? How can I even answer that? — but of course all he saw was a blank look. I have a tendency to get lost in my head and I think by now this six-year-old understands that.
“Oh, okay,” he said. His question had been answered to his satisfaction. “So what was the last movie you saw?”
“Inception,” I said. Without really thinking. Why do I do that?
He frowned. “What does that word mean?”
“Well. In the movie, the ‘inception’ is the idea of planting an idea in someone else’s head. In their dreams.”
“Did you like that movie?”
“Yes. A lot.”
“Why isn’t that movie your favorite movie, then?”
I stalled. That’s actually a good question, I thought. Stylistically, aesthetically, in terms of the effects and the vision, it was pretty excellent. Is it too new to be in my top favorites? Is it too controversial? In the days since, I have read quite a few reviews about it. I’m still wondering what to think, how to interpret it. I kept guessing throughout the movie, throwing my theories against the inside wall of my brain only to see the plot shoot them down later in the film. In a word, though, it was brilliant. “I don’t know. I’ve only seen it once,” I said.
“So it’s about dreams,” he said, going back to what I’d said earlier — did I mention he’s a very smart kid? — “dreaming and ideas?”
“Yep.” And, because I had only just seen it that same morning and I was still itching to talk about it to someone, I added, “It’s about what happens if people can go inside other people’s dreams and change them.”
He grinned. “Oh! It’s a kids’ movie!”
“Oh. No. It’s not.”
“But it’s about going inside other people’s dreams. That’s cool. That could be a kids’ movie.”
I imagined, for a moment, Inception as a kids’ movie and had a wild notion of kids playing with dreamscapes and getting in trouble. Star Wars, I thought, is something of a kids’ movie. But not Inception. Could I explain it to him somehow? Then I recalled the time when the six-year-old, at age five, asked me to explain multiplication and division to him. He’s a math whiz, so I did. I struggled to conceptualize it in a visual way for him to understand. Explaining about dividing apples among children as my example, he understood the principle of division — but didn’t want to try it in practice. (He was five. That’s okay.) Multiplication, though. That was hard. So to explain the complexity of this film to a young audience? One would have to be terrifically gifted or terrifically crazy.
“Maybe. But this one isn’t. It’s too complicated.”
“Too complicated how? You can explain it! Come on, come on, please?”
I really wanted to find a way to level with him, that impulse of being straight and honest with all kids as much as I can. But sometimes, it’s better just to give the simple answer. “I can’t explain it. Why don’t you go set up a game to play?”
“PLEASE!”
I sighed, seeing the look. The I-won’t-give-this-up-because-I-need-to-know-PLEASE-tell-me look. “It’s not a kids’ movie because it’s a grown-up movie. Okay? That’s just what it is.” Christopher Nolan, I thought, you have just made me give a blow-off answer to a small child because of your dastardly fascinating film. Why couldn’t Inception’s plot have been as simple as Star Wars’? But then, I wondered, would I have loved Inception so much had it been simple — would anyone have loved it? Its beauty is in its complexity, as perhaps Star Wars‘ is in its simplicity.
“Aw, okay, fine,” he muttered, then went to set up Connect Four.
Kids these days, I tell you. They make my brain hurt.
The twenties. An aimless rant.
Friday June 4, 2010
(Warning: This didn’t start as a rant, but it became a rant. Yay!)
First of all, it’s June. Where the blazes did half of 2010 go already? Secondly, there are many happenings this month so far. It’s my last month of the day job before summer vacation (sweet!) and I cannot wait until I have all of that glorious writing time. Because it will be glorious. As it is, I can’t dig into a local café (and there are tons in Williamsburg) for more than an hour before I need to get back to work/life, and one of my favorite places to write is at a café, with an iced coffee or tea sweating on the table beside me.
Then, nearly every weekend this month we have friends visiting from out of town. It’s a magical time when friends visit. It gives us an excuse to stop being homebodies and actually explore this fantastic neighborhood and the entire city, making us feel better about the money we’re spending. We’re seeing a Broadway show! There are street fairs! Museum exhibits! Good times to be had by all! If left to our own devices I will hide in a corner with my laptop and the boy wonder will play a game (or, now, play with the kitten)… or I’ll play a game (oh, Little Big Planet, you are addictive), or we’ll cook or bake… But we live, as so many people remind us, in frakking New York City! Which apparently obligates us, by virtue of the necessity of allowing others far away to live vicariously through us, to go “out” and “have fun.” We do. Just last week, we were invited to Milk & Honey, a bar that is not myth! I had two of the best cocktails I’ve ever had in my life. But we don’t do that kind of thing all the time. We strive to live sustainable lives.
The “New York City life of a twentysomething” is one stereotype I’ve never fully understood. (There’s an episode of Sex and the City that goes into this; twentysomethings here are supposed to live lives of fun, carefree frivolity involving many one-night stands and much alcohol, the kind of lives that thirtysomethings and fortysomethings regard with mild jealousy. This confuses me!) But how can a twentysomething (who isn’t one of the rare 6-figure earning twentysomethings, or who doesn’t have daddy’s credit card) actually afford to go out all of the time, especially in an economy where so many people in our age bracket are losing their jobs? Unless you love dive bars, hole-in-the-wall restaurants, or you know someone who can pull you into a “cool” place, bypassing an expensive cover, going “out” costs add up. Usually going out makes more sense than, say, having a house party — especially when a lot of people I know are either renting rooms in multi-room apartments with relative strangers, living in a “box” of a studio (which we did! We did that!), or living outside the city entirely (which makes grabbing a group together to go to their place a trek rather than a casual jaunt).
This phase is a unique one: the post-college, pre-”real life” phase of learning to be an adult, finding a grown-up identity (because, yes, that identity we discover as teenagers gets smashed by college, then that collegiate identity gets ripped apart by the “real world”…) All of that fun stuff! I’ve been told a lot, by a various folks that the twenties are “a magical time” or somesuch, that I mustn’t “squander” my time, that I need to “live life while I still have one.” Um, what? (Does that mean that one’s life ends with marriage and/or children? Really?) Do those people realize that telling me that is akin to telling a teenager that they will “get over” all of their teenage drama and hardships, that they just have to “suck it up and deal”? (Because I was told that. That being a teenager was a phase I needed to push through, like slogging through mud, and I’d get through to the other side filthy but whole. Thanks, advisors, for telling me that. Helped so much with the day to day of teenage life, knowing that I was sunk neck-deep in mud out of which I’d eventually discover how to crawl.)
I didn’t know how to deal with that well-meaning advice then, and I don’t really know how to live without “squandering” my life now. What does that even mean? Perhaps it’s because I spend part of my days with a lot of New York City moms — every conceivable (positive and negative) stereotype of them — and all sorts of babysitter/nanny-types. A lot of them ask me the usual questions, get a little picture of me, then proceed to give me life advice. Sometimes there are some pleas — “Don’t have children yet! Please! Don’t! Doooon’t!”) Sometimes there are lectures: You should do this. You should do that. (Because I’m asking for it? Like I was when I was a teenager? I am definitely the kind of person who enjoys making and learning from her own mistakes rather than getting inundated with well-meant but not applicable advice, thank you!) I heard a peer say that the twenties are for partying, the thirties for marrying, the forties for kids. That was the life plan, and she was following that perfectly. Plenty of time, later, for “important things”! Some moms have made similar comments. Why are you married so young? The twenties are a time for freedom! (Because a marriage isn’t… free? Because one can’t do what one wants to do… while also in a committed relationship?) This is not to say that one ought to be in a relationship, please don’t get me wrong, but can’t we make our own choices? Can’t we decide that being committed is just as fun as being single, simply different?
This whole sensation, this well-meant advice about how I ought to be spending my twenties, is very similar to what people said when we got engaged. That for a forward-thinking, modern, feminist woman to be engaged! Before thirty! Oh dear me! What is the world coming to? My response then was, well, wasn’t the feminist movement — isn’t it still? — ultimately about freedom of choice? The ability for a woman to make individual life choices that suit her, not ones that should suit all women or ones that used to suit most women? So why am I supposed to be living my twenties in one way? It’s almost as if there’s this implication that my example pulls down the average for all free, single-life loving twentysomething women everywhere. I’m ruining the curve, oh no!
If I lived in a different state, in a small town, would it even be weird for me to be married? Some kids I went to high school with have kids now. I read a piece in New York Magazine this week, a brief spot on 26-year-old Leelee Sobieski. About being a “young” mom, she says,
“People in the middle of America have babies at my age,” Sobieski says. Had she and Kimmel planned to be parents this early? She pauses. “We fell in love,” she finally says. Still, “I wish I had a girlfriend that had a baby. That would be so nice. I feel like I’m doing this thing that’s really weird, but I look around me and realize that everyone has babies. Look at all these people! So what?”
This is, I think, what some people who have urged me to “live life!” in my twenties are worried about happening to me. That now that I’m married, logic says BABIES! and clearly, babies will ruin my stereotypical twentysomething fun. Some mothers (especially some of the mothers I’ve met who had their first children rather “late in life”) have even expressed mild skepticism when I say we’re not planning on babies yet. (Clearly, I must be mistaken, because I am married. CLEARLY. Women who want no babies, who are married? I feel your pain. Why does society insist on it? Can’t it be up to us?) If I spend a Saturday night — or Memorial Day Weekend — at home, watching TV, cooking dinner, playing the PlayStation… why is that wrong? Someone asked me recently what I’d done over my holiday weekend. Did I go on vacation? Did I go to the beach? Did I leave the city as one ought? No, I said, we stayed in. We adopted a kitten. We made hanger steak. There was a significant pause. “Why didn’t you go out?” I paused. “Should we have?” They paused. “Well, we had fun this weekend! We went to X, we did Y…” Well, good for you. No, really — good for you; I’m not bitter. I had fun. You did, too. Yay for all!
I don’t know where this rant is going — do rants go to any sensible conclusion? But the bottom line is that I am in my twenties and I am having fun. I’m not living my life with any regrets and it bothers me that some people assume I am because I’m married, because I’m… I have no idea! Well, people will assume and I can let them. I’m happy and I’m enjoying the experience that is my life, in all of its uncertainties, new experiences, and happy days of relaxing in front of the television or cooking dinner with my husband (and kitty!). We do things, too. Maybe they’re not the things other twentysomethings do, but we’re not interested in being them. We’re interested in being us. A lot of the “grown ups” I’ve gotten to know the last year assume that there’s something wrong with my life because I’m not following the life path they followed. Some have blatantly judged me for it. To them, I say: I’m doing just fine, thanks.
The week of crazy is about to start.
Monday April 19, 2010
The boy tells me (on a daily basis) that I exaggerate too often. It’s true that I have a propensity for hyperbole. I freely admit it. But when I say this upcoming week promises to be crazy, I mean it. (All right, I am probably exaggerating. It will likely be busy but exciting, too, which is its own kind of positive crazy.)
Tomorrow night I have the opportunity to represent Carnegie Mellon at a college fair in Staten Island. The idea of representing CMU is exciting, but the idea of trekking an hour and a half to do it… well. I’m less enthusiastic. The boy says he will accompany me (as he’s also an alum) but he has the obligations of the office to attend to first, so he may not make it. Leaving me to brave the wiles of Staten Island and its transportation system alone. I am not afraid of the Staten Island Ferry. Nope. No sir. I’m not afraid of the Staten Island train and/or bus system. Noooope. Maybe anxious about being late. But I have optimistic hopes about my ability to navigate correctly! So long as the subways are operating and they can get me downtown in a timely manner, things will be all right. Is it weird to say I am valuing this experience as an adventure? As G. K. Chesterton said, “An adventure is merely an inconvenience rightly considered.” THUS. Adventure. In Staten Island.
In between the work I need to get done this week, I’ll have to finish packing. Friday we have the closing and other such wrap-up events, followed by our thrilling trip to IKEA Brooklyn in Red Hook (which, for those of you as almost unfamiliar with Brooklyn geography as I am: it’s far from Williamsburg). Once we buy up half the store, we’ll give it to them for delivery. Then we’ll go home, get a meager amount of sleep, then haul ourselves (with supplies) down to the brand new home and get to painting. Two rooms, one day of mayhem. I’ve painted rooms before (with help) but the boy hasn’t — not really. So it’s yet another inconvenience we must rightly consider to be an adventure. We’ve chosen the colors (yellow for the living room, blue for the bedroom — let’s call them that instead of the palette color names for them). My only sticking point with painting is that I must have a Home Depot painting hat. MUST. Even though it’s water based paint, I am paranoid. That, and a yellow glob in my hair will happen, given my nature, so I’d best be prepared.
At some point during the weekend, a fellow will arrive to measure the windows and attempt to sell us expensive window treatments. We may actually buy them from him. At another point, FreshDirect will arrive and bring us delicious groceries. See how I’m planning this? See how many ways this could all end up crazy? Or maybe you’re not like me, not looking for the possible ways everything could Murphy’s Law on us. Maybe I am, again, exaggerating.
Once we finish the weekend chores, it’s back to the rental for packing the remainders. The computers, the electronics, the clothes, the dregs. Monday morning, at the shiny hour of 8 o’clock in the morning, the moving folks will arrive and we’ll begin the day of mayhem. (I plan to wake several hours earlier, because I am a masochist, and finish the last-minute stuff then.)
That is, of course, assuming the potential doorman strike in New York City, planned to potentially start tomorrow, doesn’t happen. If it does happen — and if it continues all the way through to the weekend, we may have to cancel the move. The building may allow us to move in anyway — it’s up to management, regardless if there are building staff on premises — but I’d need to double check. So maybe if I wasn’t articulating the Murphy’s Law paranoia potential clearly enough, it’s clearer now? This whole thing is actually nerve-wracking. After all of the packing, the buying-a-condo stress… to have the strike happen, to complicate our move? Not that I am taking sides in the conflict, mind you, but I just really want some resolution so that life doesn’t get too interrupted for anyone. We can’t be the only ones moving this week. (Some buildings will not allow a move at all during a strike.) Insanity! Okay, not really, but you get what I’m saying. (See? I really have to work at overcoming my hyperbolic tendency, don’t I?)
The thing about the strike that’s been annoying me — the way it’s been handled in general by the media in New York — is this: it’s not about doormen holding open doors. That’s not really what a doorman, or building staff, is really responsible for, though it’s the most visible thing they do. They are behind-the-scenes miracle workers, really. The entirety of a building staff — and it’s not just “upscale” 5th Avenue buildings, mind you! — are involved in every aspect of making one’s life in an apartment a seamless living experience. The trash, for instance. That doesn’t get picked up by sanitation by itself. The recycling, the UPS guy, the overflowing toilet. These things get taken care of by the lovely people who work in our buildings. So when I hear people saying, “Open your own doors!” I get annoyed. I don’t live in an expensive building, nor are we moving to some posh ridiculous building. But these large buildings function much in the same way companies do, and the “little guy,” shall we say, is just as valuable in a building as he is in the corporate structure. Not to take sides, but really, I dislike when people misunderstand all the building folks do — or treat them as less than human beings (which I see happen! AHHH!). So basically I’m just saying I hope it gets resolved and everyone’s happy, because I hate to see these sorts of conflicts escalate.
So this is my week. Not too crazy by normal standards, but I’m still anxious it’s all going to work out. Not to mention the fact that I have queries and partials and fulls in the tubes, and I am worrying incessantly about them, too. But there’s nothing I can do now that my writing is in others’ hands except wait, so I may as well put my worrying energy elsewhere. Like into packing. Or reading. (Did I mention I have a ton of to-be-read books still on the bookshelf that haven’t been packed — because somehow I am convinced I might read one or two this week? Silver Borne by Patricia Briggs, Tales of the Otherworld by Kelley Armstrong, Graceling by Kristin Cashore, The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing V. II by M. T. Anderson, Senrid by Sherwood Smith… I really should pack a few of them up, huh. Not yet…
Brooklyn? Maybe. How thrilling!
Tuesday March 16, 2010
Life has been busy lately. (And there again I prove myself to be Captain Obvious! Excelsior!) While I haven’t been updating this (ha!) I’ve been working on the 10,000-word (so far) project I am reluctant to continue to label a short story as it is turning into something of a novella. Or just a “story,” minus the short part. Not quite ready to think it’s a novel, but then, I’m so early in the first draft stage, it could become almost anything. I will keep an open mind!
The most intriguing change, though, is our search for a house — and by “house” I mean “apartment” or more specifically “condo” — in New York City. Oh, the joys of experiencing the real estate market! Since the husband’s promotion (probably didn’t mention that, did I? Yeah… he got promoted. Smart boy!) he’s been on the hunt to buy. Buy. This is both exciting and nerve-wracking. I am not mentally adult enough to think that we belong at this point, but it’s been a year since the wedding and, well, when is one “ready” for a step like this, anyway? Disregarding my artistic contribution as stay-at-home-writing-machine (along with my occasional small-child-supervising gig) we have the ability to buy a house. (The boy is a numbers man; I believe him.) So the prospect of no longer paying rent to the rental property gods of Manhattan is actually realistic. Exciting!
As to where we may move… that’s the interesting part. We’re looking at Brooklyn, as well as other parts of Manhattan, but mostly Brooklyn. Having spent years in Pittsburgh with its small-town artsy/industrial neighborhoods, Brooklyn hits us as home in a way that surprised us. (That, and the commute for the boy is great.) I’m looking forward to the change and hoping the whole buy plus move endeavor isn’t as stressful as my mind is beginning to think it may be. Everyone I’ve talked to about buying versus renting agrees it’s a change but then, it’s not a huge change. It’s just something to which to adapt, just like any other change — right? I hope it turns out that way!
So in the next month I may find myself a soon-to-be Brooklyner. Is that the vernacular? I guess I’d better start researching on the Interwebs. In two and a half years I’ve become so much of a Manhattan girl that thinking of labeling myself as a Brooklyn girl feels a bit strange. But then, it felt weird to move to Manhattan after Pittsburgh… and so on. I think of this, this entire year ahead of us, as an adventure. I love a good adventure.
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