Where pop culture meets geek culture and they make out a little.
kilian
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Homepage: http://normalityrestored.com
Posts by kilian
I deal best with stress by ignoring it.
Jul 28th
I could write about how just two weeks ago my wife, out of the blue, got offered her dream job in Seattle (we currently live in So. Cal., for those keeping score) and now we are moving next week. I could go on about how we don’t actually have a place to live in Seattle…with much detail on the two days the wife and I spent their only to see our first choice fall through, and even more detail on how she was in the Pacific Northwest yesterday (flying home today) again, trying to locate a place for us to live. I could go on about how, as yet, I am unsure about my prospects; re: making money. Thursday is my last at the current bookmines so… And then last night, Bella says that she doesn’t want to leave our house where, in her words, “everything is perfect.”
But rather than dwell on all that…I mean, that shit is stressful…I’d rather dwell on one of the books I’m reading right now, Unseen Academicals. I’ve decided that as the number of novels Pratchett will write is now definitely finite (for many years I harbored the, some would say “unrealistic,” hope that Pratchett would live/write forever) that I must parse them out over the years. So that, at least for some amount of time, I still have Pratchett novels yet to read (I haven’t read any of the Tiffany Aching ones, for instance). So the other day I finally picked up Unseen Academicals and damnit, if Pratchett didn’t write the most perfect novel for me. It’s a discworld novel about football! I didn’t think it was possible that Pratchett could have ever topped Night Watch. But, as in many things, I have been proved wrong.
For whatever reason, I’ve been reading a lot lately. Maybe I’m trying to “catch up” from having read almost nothing (well, nothing that wasn’t school related) during the past two semesters. In any event, I also just finished reading God’s Problem by Bart Erhman, which is essentially a discussion about various ways in which the Bible deals with the problem of suffering. The long and short of the Erhman book is…
spoiler alert here, if you’re interested in reading it…
that after many years of wrestling with this issue, Ehrman eventually gave up on his Christianity. What is so fascinating to me, however, is that there is a moment where Unseen Academicals intersects with the ideas in God’s Problem.
Specifically, at one point in the book Lord Vetinari (tyrant of Ankh-Morpork) says (and apologies to Sir Pratchett as I don’t hav ethe book right in front of me so this is a paraphrase) “Some say evil exists in the world so that good can be illuminated. There is more to the argument, though I’ve never heard it because I am too busy laughing out loud.”
The final consideration of why evil exists, in Ehrman’s work, is that same idea…that we wouldn’t know what “good” is if “evil” did not exist as its counterpart. Ehrman than uses some extended passages from The Brothers Karamazov to support his argument that, as an intellectual and moral consideration, such a defense of evil/suffering is repugnant.
So for the few of you that saw my facebook update re: Pratchett’s genius, this is what I was talking about. It is things like this that motivate me to get down with the business of actually finishing my first book (not just letting the rough draft sit around) and make some real attempts to get it published.
Perhaps Seattle is just the place for something like that….
When so much has happened, and so much time has passed, where does one begin?
Jul 8th
There has been so much frustration in my life these past few months. Frustration and, oddly enough, a fair amount of enjoyment as well. And then, completely out of the blue, today my family’s life changed dramatically. It is an odd sensation, to sit here and think that just a week ago I felt one way about my life while today, I feel almost completely different.
I don’t want to alarm anyone, though I doubt there is anyone reading this, so I’ll just say this change has been decidedly for the good. Right now, though, I’m just not ready to say anything more.
kilian
The Battle is Lost…the War Continues
Mar 2nd
Early excitement about the perceived usefulness of my phone in allowing me to post more often has been tinged with some frustration.
Long has it been established that some sort of visual stimuli accompany the textual variety. My assumption that adding images through the phone would work just as well as adding the text has been proven wrong most heinously as evidenced by the previous post’s severe lack of anything resembling an image.
More importantly, this turn of events dampers the high hopes I had for the aforementioned new areas of online inquiry.
Typographical Errors Commence
Feb 28th
This marks the first in a new era for me and digital style publication. I’ve had an iPhone for awhile now…necessitated by my venturing into the realm of online, university-style instruction. This is the first post, however, that has been written on my phone.
Of course, this the third attempt at getting it to actually post. That, coupled with the strange alchemy that is predictive text, has made this post very annoying to complete.
I do have some ideas percolating for new directions in online time wasting…
Lost and Found
Feb 2nd
I can’t even remember the last time I posted here. The standard reasons I have offered in the past can be brought out and beaten (though they are long since dead), yet again: kids, teaching, bookmines, exhaustion.
It remains to be seen how frequent…if at all, updates will come, though my intentions are pure in this regard.
It is also quite likely that none of our other contributors will be back, though at least a couple have claimed a willingness to try…or at least to try to try…
That being the case we’ve (and by that I mean, I) have ditched the weekly update format in lieu of the tried and true “update whenever the fuck you can” method which, honestly, I like better. So if you’re subscribed to the site through a feed you’ll get an update when we update…if not, you can always randomly check in, I guess.
Since there won’t be “themes” there seemed no reason to keep this space devoted to “This Week in Normality” so I’ve renamed it (for now) as “Random Normality.” Although, as I type this it occurs to me that I have to manually update the header somewhere in one of the stylesheets and I’ll be damned if I remember where the fuck that is. As always, I produce the most professional of websites.
I will see (in the internetz way, that is) you all soon.
kilian
This Week in Normality — Parents and Children
Nov 18th
The original, defacto, theme was “Father’s and Son’s” for reasons I won’t go into now. Suffice it to say, I felt a more inclusive theme was fitting.
For the last week or so I’ve been picking my way through Manhood for Amateurs (Michael Chabon’s first work of non-fiction). Even though the HarperCollins website claims that the essays are “slyly interlinked” I’ve always enjoyed reading collected essays out of order. Perhaps I’m borderline ADD, but I’ve always held to the belief that reading such a work out of order leads me to discoveries I would have missed had my path been more linear.
Just today I stumbled across what will undoubtedly be my favorite passage from the entire book:
This may be the fundamental truth of parenthood: No matter how enlightened or well prepared you are by theory, principle, and the imperative not to repeat the mistakes of your own parents, you are no better a father or mother than the set of your own limitations permits you to be. And that set is your heritage, the pinched and helpless legacy of all the limited mothers and fathers whose fumblings, evasions, and shortcomings led, by some dubious accidental magic, to the production of you.”
It comes from an essay in which Chabon witnesses, in a real world exchange, the actualization of his eldest daughter’s burgeoning sexuality, and then must come to terms with his subsequent knee jerk reaction, even against the logical, objective view he holds of “sexuality” in his own mind.
It is cliched, or course, for a father to want to, as Chabon puts it, hit some boys in the face with “a mallet” for simply staring at his daughter. And while my own daughter isn’t even in kindergarten, I have a deepening sense that my own experience will turn out very much like Chabon’s.
Another cliche, though, is in telling someone “unless you have kids, you don’t understand.” More than once, someone has said to me “I can’t believe you have a kid” or, more recently, “I can’t believe you have two kids.” I’ve also been asked “what is it like to be a parent?” Or, “what advice can you give me for when I have kids?” My responses to questions like this are usually along the lines of…
- Weird, huh
- Yeah,
- (Shrug)
- Don’t forget your baby in the car when you go to the store.
In case you couldn’t tell, I have very little of use to say in regards to what it is like being a parent or what is required to be a “good” parent. When it comes to all things parent, “unless you have kids, you wouldn’t understand” which also means, if you already have kids, you don’t need it explained. Sort of a catch 22, really, but it is true.
One thing can convey, something I’ve slowly come to realize over the last 3 1/2 years (and has been reinforced in last year that I’ve had two kids) is that parents are just making it up as they go along. I might not know, precisely, what a good parent should do, but I can fake it well enough to fool a couple of toddlers. The other day my daughter asked mommy for something, mommy replied that said “thing” was broken and that daddy would have to fix it when they got home. My daughter, I’m told, said “daddy can fix anything.” That statement is heartbreaking for two reasons:
- It shows how much unconditional love she has for me
- It also betrays the fact that, someday (much too soon), my daughter will come to find out that, in fact, I’ve faked my way through parenthood
I’m not saying that I feel as if I’m a terrible father. While I can’t say for certain, my guess is most people who make an honest attempt at raising their children (read: don’t want their children to have the same fucking problems as themselves) are really just trying to find their way through a dark hallway without a flashlight. On some level, what counts most is the effort. At the end of the day, I will inevitably fuck up my kids in ways I had never intended, or could have foreseen, but hopefully they understand that I tried my best.
Until then, though, I get to read stories to my kids every night before they go to bed.
Finally, for your edification this time around, D. Composition brings us the Top 10 Most Awesome Parents in Film…enjoy.
This Week in Normality (Short Edition) — Heroism
Nov 12th
This week’s (shortened) theme was inspired by the following story:
Driving home from Yankee Stadium last night, drunk with power (and champagne!), Girardi stopped to help an accident victim, even though each World Series winner is specifically granted the right to run over one pedestrian, no questions asked.
So here’s what happened. The Yankees, you may or may not have heard, recently won the world series. Joe Girardi is the manager of said Yankees, on his way home from the stadium (after the actual winning of the world series), Girardi drove past a car that had wrecked on the side of the road. He pulled over (keep in mind, this is at 2 in the morning after attaining of the the biggest accomplishments in all of sports) to help the victim.
I’m not sure Deadspin got that last part, about running over a pedestrian, correct but what I can tell you is that, were I someone who had just managed a major league team to a world series victory, I doubt I would have stopped to help an accident victim just hours after my triumph. Likely, I would have laughed at the victim for not being as awesome as me.
My self-serving nature notwithstanding, I thought it would be a nice change of pace to at least offer this small bit of karmic goodness to the universe.
Surprisingly…or not surprisingly…the “submissions” from the other NR staff for this particular theme were particularly lean. So lean, in fact, that we have all of one…even after I allowed for an extended time in which submissions could be, er, submitted.
I don’t know if that speaks poorly about the NR staff, in that we could find almost nothing worth writing about when told to write about Heroism…or if that is a reflection of the greater world, and its lack of heroism. Perhaps it is simply a matter of the topic being too serious minded for us. Or, more likely, everyone (save one contributor) has chosen to abandon me to face the grueling mistress of (quasi)weekly interwebz puclication on my own.
Is not, I ask you, soldiering forth, in the face of overwhelming evidence that you should give up, not heroic in and of itself?
Am I just trying to make myself feel better?
Probably.
This Week in Normality — Things Change, Things Remain the Same…
Nov 3rd
Greetings Faithful Normalinauts,
Consider this week an unofficial/official/unofficial again reboot…sort of. Some time ago we (read: I) decided to start posting content at the beginning of the week to afford the weekend time to write stuff and, theoretically, allow for us (read: me) to write more for the site. Most of my weekday hours are devoted to bookmines duty, teaching, grading, bathing and feeding the kids, etc. After all that, I don’t have the time and/or energy to write anything else. As it is, I’m lucky to get more than 3 hours of sleep a night during the week.
So what the hell does this have to do with this?
This week’s theme, “Things Change, Things Remain the Same…,” is a fairly esoteric one and can be molded to fit any topic, I think, but is particularly appropriate when considering the history of this site. By that I mean, we’ve always gone through stretches of relative silence and stretches of frenzied activity. No doubt this state of affairs will continue until I win the lottery or in some other way become independently wealthy. So while we’ve undergone a lot of changes in the last six months, as always, we remain Normality Restored.
There are some more changes up ahead, not the least of which will involve a lot of begging on my part…but more on that later… Regardless of the changes, or the down time, I want to assure the few of you that have been consistent visitors to this site that it remains a priority for me…even if the kids and jobs must take precedence at times. I ask all Normalinauts out there in cyberspace not to lose hope, for as long as I have breath in my lungs (and the ability to pay the hosting fees) you will always have this little corner of the interwebz to call your own.
Now, I’d like to say that the above impassioned plea/apology/rant was the actual inspiration for this week’s theme, but it was not. In fact, this theme came to me as I pondered, some months ago, the release of The Gathering Storm, the most recent release in The Wheel of Time series that has now been taken over by Brandon Sanderson.
I would go into it in more detail here but that’s actually the focus of one of my articles.
D. Composition illuminates for us a re-discovery from our collective childhoods and a story from his past that was particularly special to him.
Lastly, I consider what it means to re-imagine both a foundation of fantasy literature as we know it…and the most popular contemporary fantasy story…all in the same book.
Lev Grossman’s “The Magicians,” or More Inventiveness than I Have
Nov 3rd
I have long been aware of who Lev Grossman was, author of the bestselling novel The Codex, and general “nerd” blogger for Time, he seems to have, essentially, the life I desire.
That said, I had not read any of his fiction until a promo copy of his newest novel The Magicians came my way (thank you, again, gods of the bookmines). I glanced at the back and my interest was piqued by the odd Harry Potter comparison made by George RR Martin. Opening the book to a random page, as is my custom when considering if I will take a book home or not, I came across both the words “prefect” and “4th year” in the same paragraph. The Potter comparison, then, was not overblown.
Well, I like books about magic, and schools, and magic schools. While I didn’t think there was much to be done with the subject, in a post Potter world, I still took it home. My book hoarding instincts often trump all other considerations.
I did begin to read it, though. Grossman has an unassuming style; almost conversational without being annoying or overly stupid. The main character, Quentin, an over achiever with no discernible confidence, sense of self worth, or familial relationships of note was fairly relatable…to me at least. Now I’ve never been recruited to go to a secret test session for a remote and highly selective magical college but I sure did understand the psyche of Quentin.
So, again, the Potter comparisons begin. Harry gets into Hogwarts, essentially, because of genetics. He is a wizard because he is a wizard. Well, Brakebills (the college in The Magicians) doesn’t work that way. You might have the potential, but unless you can pass the entrance exam, you don’t get in…or even remember that you took the exam in the first place. And there begins the differences that are dramatic between Potter and The Magicians. It would be easy to say that this novel is like Potter, but American, and since the characters are in college, there’s a lot more sex, alcohol, drugs, and nihilism. But that description short changes the true depth that Grossman understands the depression that can affect the highly gifted. Imagine, you dream your whole life that you can achieve something more than is “planned” out for you. You find out that, in fact, you can learn to use real magic…really could walk naked through the antarctic for days and survive, for instance…but then you realize that your life is still meaningless. How much worse would you feel, knowing you have such power but it doesn’t change the fact that your life means nothing? The understanding Grossman demonstrates of human consciousness coming to terms with the apparent arbitrary nature of the universe is both deep and disturbing. Probably more disturbing, in fact, in light of the fact that these characters really could fly to the moon if they so wished.
Besides taking a premise that was made popular by another (magic school) and turning it on its head, Grossman also pays homage to one of the foundations of fantasy literature: Narnia. In his book Narnia is replaced by a land known as Fillory. The Fillory books, favorite reading of Quentin even after he starts doing real magic, were written in the 1930’s by a man named Christopher Plover and starred a varying cast of children from the Chatwin family. The books, the reader discovers in time, are more than just childrens reading, though, and play an integral role in Quentin’s life after he leaves Brakebills.
The New York Times review of the book states that, “Perhaps a fantasy novel meant for adults can’t help being a strange mess of effects.” This demonstrates a serious lack of understanding on the reviewer’s part. Either he believes that fantasy must be cut and dry (i.e., good v evil, black v white) or that it can only be for children (and, again, fall into strict categories). The best fantasy, the best fiction, is fuzzy…like the world. If magic were a real force that humans could control (though have little real understanding of, as expressed in the book) then Grossman has given the reader the most true to life rendering of it possible. Of course it is messy because life, and humans, are messy.
In the end, I did not feel overly sympathetic toward Quentin, and I’m not sure I was supposed to. Yes, eventually, he winds up understanding that his story was nothing more than the by-product of another character’s attempt to right a terrible wrong. But even that, as is most often the case, was only the outcome of an even earlier evil… But, sometimes, we are just tools in someone else’s story. Were there moments when I felt sad for Quentin, certainly. Would I have made his choices at the end, maybe. Does that make me want to be him, not necessarily. But isn’t that what adulthood, and humanity, is all about? Whether or not one can perform feats of astonishing power, don’t we all hope to empathize with the pain of others, even if we choose to deal with that pain in a different way?
I’m Told There is a Storm, and That It May or May Not Be Gathering
Nov 3rd
I bought Knife of Dreams the day it came out in 2005. Even though I was in graduate school, and should have been reading my homework, I finished the book in just a few days. I had been waiting for its release, literally, for years. To prepare, I spent dozens of hours, in the weeks leading up to its release, re-introducing the Wheel of Time series to my memory with the help of EWoT (the Encyclopedia Wheel of Time for the unintiated).
When I was done with the book (#11, mind you, in the Wheel of Time series…not counting the one prequel) I realized that almost nothing, save for in the last 50 or so pages, actually happened in that damn book…and it was 800 fucking pages! Even the actual Knife of Dreams, the item for which the BOOK WAS NAMED, only made a minor appearance. I mean, seriously!?
I vowed, then and there, to never again subject myself to pain of reading a Wheel of Time novel.
And then Robert Jordan was diagnosed with a rare disease.
I’ll admit that my first thought wasn’t “oh god, I hope he’s OK” so much as it was “oh god, how will he finish the series.” I’m not exactly proud of that, but you know, I doubt I was the only one to think it. Yes, it is tragic that he died just a year and half after publicly revealing his diagnosis. I like to think, though, that my reaction was in no small part because of how much Jordan’s work had cemented itself in my mind. Yes, I had “sworn” not to finish the series, but when presented with the actual possibility of not being able to finish the series I freaked the fuck out.
I’m not saying there is a causal link between my worship of an author and serious health issues, but I will say that after Douglas Adams, Jordan, and Terry Pratchett, well…Neil Gaiman, Tim Powers, and James P Blaylock should all see the doctor.
By all accounts, Jordan fought the disease hard, but in the end, as these things generally turn out, the disease won.
So this guy Brandon Sanderson was chosen to finish the series.
Jordan, apparently, left very detailed notes on how the story was to finish. His claim that he would finish the series in 12 books, even if he had to write a 2000 page book for installment 12, was not far from the truth and Tor (the publisher) and Sanderson, decided to break the final arch of the story into three average size WoT books.
And so, as I write this, I’m just over 200 pages into the 766 that make up The Gathering Storm.
There was quite a bit of consternation amongst WoT fans over who would finish the series (before Sanderson was chosen). I, too, worried about who would step in to finish a 10,000 page series with 3000+ named characters.
Is Sanderson the equal of Jordan?
Shit, I don’t know. 200 pages in and I’d say the book reads like the rest of the series, all the main characters have, thus far, not done a whole lot and annoyed me with their overly complicated thought processes.
Sometimes I wonder why I kept reading past book 2.
On the one hand, every single character, even my mostest favoritest in the series (Mat, in case you were curious), is his/her own greatest obstacle. No two characters ever seem to have any meaningful communication. Even those who are all working toward the same goal…like defeating the Dark One in the Last Battle…work at cross purposes more often than not. After nearly 10,000 pages it can get really, really, really, fucking annoying.
But then again…isn’t that just how people are? I probably communicate effectively with my wife like 30% of the time and we aren’t on separate ends of the continent, being tortured, running into battles, fighting dark and foul monsters from the north…we just deal with dirty diapers and temper tantrums. The real genius of what Jordan did was take actual people that you might know in real life, the good and the bad, and throw them into some crazy ass fantasy world that is near its end. Even the most well intentioned WoT characters are selfish at times, make mistakes (even when trying to do what is right), and fail. But they also do some drastically heroic things, sacrifice (even their own lives), and fight and scrape. As a complex psychological study of humanity, I doubt I’ve read anything even remotely equal, in fiction, to the Wheel of Time.
It occurred to me, recently, that books are possibly the only form of entertainment where we, as fans, would worry so much when a new author takes over a series. There are, of course, things like D&D and Star Wars that are just written by loads of people by default. But something like WoT, which came from the mind of a single writer, and was shaped by that writer over the course of 10,000 pages, becomes less a series of fictional works and more an extension of that person. Novel writing in general, but long fantasy series writing in particular, is an iconoclastic endeavor the likes of which exists no where else in art.
Would the series be more satisfying if Jordan had finished it himself? I don’t know. At some point I believe works like this belong more to the fans than the creator and so we, the fans, are owed are closure.
Sordid Confessions Continue, or The Vampire Diaries
Oct 16th
I have made a habit of admitting on this website many things that I am ashamed of…or things that I think I should have some amount of shame attached. I am, by nature, one who is not prone to shame and/or embarrassment. That said, I admit the following with a serious amount of trepidation.
My favorite television show, so far, this season is The Vampire Diaries.
Yes, you read that right.
We’ve spent no small amount of energy here at the ol’ NR decrying the phenomena known as the “Twilight.” So I understand if, after confessing my enjoyment of Vampire Diaries, I am called a hypocrite.
I will start by saying that I have not read the books, nor do I have any intention to do so. I enjoy vampires as much as the next guy, but I don’t need them in every damn piece of entertainment I consume.
Every once in a while a teen show comes along that I get sucked into and I am powerless against its pull. The last time this occurred was with a little show known as Dawson’s Creek. Damnit if Tengu and I didn’t spend many a college weeknight mooning over a young and impressionable Joey Potter. What I’m saying is that, even though I generally despise entertainment geared toward teens, I am sometimes inextricably drawn to it.
There are, however, two distinct aspects of the show that makes Vampire Diaries different than your average teen high school drama (aside from the vampires).
1. The actors are actually good. Look, I’m not saying it’s Olivier doing Othello, but compared to other teen shows, the folks on Vampire Diaries (particularly the main female, Elena, played by Nina Dobrev are pretty solid and, at least three episodes in, function very well as an ensemble).
2. Ian Somerhalder, whom you might remember as Boone on Lost (or, if you’re like me, as Hamilton from the short lived Young Americans), is the villain. And god damn does he play one well! Even if the rest of the show was absolute crap, I’d watch it just for his portrayal of Damon.
I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention the objections of my wife. The show does air on the CW, so it’s not like it portrays sex in such a…frank…manner as, say, True Blood. But the show does air at 8, and is geared toward the teens (and tweens). In three episodes, however, I’ve already seen multiple sex scenes, one girl take off her shirt, and a full ass shot of another. If you know an 11 year old who is watching the show, I’d get him/her to watch something else is all I’m saying.
This most recent episode really did a lot to open up the storyline. I don’t want to ruin it for you…you can watch full episodes here, in fact…so I’ll just say that, while the budding romance between a high school girl and a 150 year old vampire is the focus of the show, there is so much more developing.
So if you don’t have anything else going on Thursday nights, you might check out Vampire Diaries…and, if you do hate, try not to judge me too harshly.
3/5 - Might be worth a try...
This Week in Normality — First Loves
Sep 11th
This is a topic that we’ve touched on, in some way, with other themes but we (read: I) was hard up for a theme and so, in the proverbial late stages of the game, Mustardseed did throw out an idea which read thusly:
Theme Idea for this week: First Loves
I’m thinking something like that first comic or piece of music or whatever that just made you feel something you never forgot. Make sense?
To which I responded…
Hey that sounds good…
Everyone, read Mustardseed’s suggestion below and write like the wind!
I actually did think of one, but I’ll add it in for a later date.
And here we are…isn’t it exciting to look behind the “curtain” and see how the magic works…don’t answer that.
It also occurred to me that I used my best “first love” story last week for Back to School but that’s alright, I will recover.
And, actually, since I have already used that (damn moving, if I do say so myself) story about my wife and I in high school, I realize that this theme does, actually, afford me the opportunity to write about something I’ve been trying to shoe horn in here for several weeks now.
All faithful Normalinauts know that Gilgrim and I are fans of the beautiful sport, also known as football. Not the American version here in the states (well, Gilgrim is a fan of that kind of football, but no one is perfect), but proper football. As it happens, I grew up in a house (and extended family) whose sole sports passion resided in baseball generally, and the Los Angeles Dodgers, specifically. I doubt there ever has, or ever will, be a bigger Dodger fan than my grandmother who, literally less than two days before she died, in intensive care and unable speak, communicated to me that the Dodgers had lost a game and she was upset about how weak the bullpen looked late in the season (that is one of the great memories of my grandmother, in fact). I’m fairly certain, in fact, that in any detailed study of my DNA one would find a “Dodger gene.” We recently took our newest round of family pictures and all four us, wife, three year old daughter, 8 month old son and myself were all wearing Dodger shirts.
But much like you can’t choose your family, my passion for the Dodgers is ingrained. My love of football, however, was something that I fell into.
Jezmon can attest to the fact that, in the early years of grade school, I spent nearly every possible moment playing football (Jezmon and I, by the way, went to kindergarten together…Mrs. Steven’s afternoon class represent!). I’m not exactly sure what it was about playing soccer that was so addicting but it probably had something to do with the constant running the sport affords and the fact that until I got to the first grade I had never even heard the term “soccer.” It had an almost mystical feel to it…you mean, there’s a sport where you don’t use your hands?! To a six year old who could rattle off the Dodgers entire 25 man roster and the batting averages of every starting position player, an introduction into a different sport, one that tons of kids at school were playing all the time (thanks to AYSO), was the first time I was exposed to a bigger world outside my own house. And it was a world that called to me and I desperately wanted to be a part of.
Remember how I said I’ve wanted to bring this topic up for a while? You will, no doubt, notice I forgo no opportunity to disparage American football and so, in this particular instance, I will bow to the greater wisdom of John Cleese in helping to explain my one reason for my inordinate love of football…and, as and added bonus, my dislike of American football.
That clip comes from a documentary that Cleese did called The Art of Football (or, stupidly, the Art of Soccer in this country) which I highly recommend if you’re a football fan, or even remotely interested in the game at all.
Now you can find, in any sport, moments or games that defy explanation. For my money, however, there is no other sport that can match football in the possibility to demonstrate the unexpected. In part, I think, it’s the nature of continued play that Cleese mentions in the above clip. When you stop play as little as possible (unlike all three major sports in this country) the ability of the players to change a game at a moments notice is really hindered.
Also, and this is true hands down, no sport can match football for pure passion from both players and fans. If you’ve never experienced a true soccer match in person (and I’m not talking MLS here) then you’ve never experienced sport at its most emotional.
As a demonstration of both these properties, I’m going to show you a five minute clip from the 2005 European Champions League final. The Champions League is a competition in which all the top clubs of Europe compete for a chance to be crowned best club in Europe. The 2005 final pitted my (underdog) Liverpool squad against (heavily favored) AC Milan and has come to be considered the greatest comeback in Champions League history (and one of the greatest in the history of football).
But, of course, football isn’t the only thing we care about around here, and so in this installment of Normality Restored…
Oedipa movingly considers her first loves, musically and emotionally, and the interplay of both.
Stoker reveals the first comic he ever truly “geeked out” over.
And, eventually, Mustardseed will be posting some article about something or other…I guess, we’ll have to see. But, you know, Cubans….
This Week in Normality — Back to School
Sep 6th
If my life pans out in the way that I hope, September will forever mean “back to school.”
Brief aside…I’m available for any tenure track, English faculty positions anyone has available and I am willing to move…anywhere.
But, of course, I’m not the only one around the ol’ NR that has to deal with the beginning of the school year as a specific time to dread and/or anticipate, so why not dedicate an entire week to this wondrous time of year?
I couldn’t come up with an answer to that question so, here we are.
And even for those who have left school, never to have another run in with that fine institution known as education, early September no doubt always reminds one of those formative years. Who doesn’t remember that first day back after a long summer? Seeing those kids for the first time in months, meeting your new teacher, hoping your new school clothes (which your mother picked out) wouldn’t earn the collective scorn of the schoolyard.
If I can be allowed to reminisce for a moment, I will share with you the most important of my back to school memories. During my junior year in high school I had taken Algebra 2 Honors; sixth period, Mrs. Yates. I spent a majority of the class annoying poor Mrs. Yates. When the year began I was sitting in the back of the class. About five weeks into the course Mrs. Yates moved me to the desk nearest hers in an attempt to keep me from talking during class. She moved me back a week later. I would start conversations with everyone who sat near me, basically, because I was bored out of mind every second I sat in that class.
Actually, there was one person with whom I wouldn’t engage in conversation.
Have you ever met someone who, literally, took your breath away?
Or, more specifically, have you ever been sitting in the first day of of Algebra 2 Honors and, as the teacher is making everyone in the class “introduce” themselves, a certain female says her name and you stop breathing for several seconds?
See, that’s what happened to me.
Early in the year this particular female spoke to me once or twice, and each time I nearly dropped unconscious. As the year went on, it slowly became easier to actually have her attention focused on me, due in no small part to the fact that a friend of mine would often act as a sort of intermediary. I wasn’t really calm in such situations, but I could at least manage to utter words that were more than unintelligible grunting. There were a few times, in fact, where she gave me a ride home from school. At the end of each 12 minute car ride I was doing my best to hide the massive amount of sweat that had formed on my body.
During the summer between my Junior and Senior years I unexpectedly ran into this female while at the mall. My friend and I had a conversation with her that lasted all of two minutes. As we were walking away my friend commented that my hands had been shaking.
As my senior year approached my life was at a low point. I had moved into a friend’s house where I was renting a room. I worked, six nights a week, a really shit job that routinely had me getting off around 1 in the morning. I couldn’t afford a car and I was so excited to find out that the bus would be picking me up at 6 in the morning, meaning that once school started I would be lucky to get 4 hours of sleep. My pay was $4.15 an hour and since I was no longer living under my parent’s roof, I was often short of money for little things like food.
I was still planning on going to college, so I had two AP classes (Government and Physics) along with senior English, Spanish 3, Advanced Photography and a period where I was, essentially, the TA for Photo 1. Given my need to work, and the fact that I didn’t have the means to find another job (no car, remember) I wasn’t sure when I would be able to actually do, you know, homework. Needless to say, I wasn’t exactly excited about the first day of my senior year.
But I got my ass out of bed at 5:30 am nonetheless, sat on the bus for an hour, and groggily made my way to first period (English). Second period was Spanish 3 and as I made it to Mr. Hathaway’s class I duly sat in the back (best place to sleep, of course). Just before the bell rang, that particular female stepped into the class room and sat down at the front of the class.
Given my love of sleep, I had been seriously considering dropping Spanish 3 and signing up for late arrival. I could always switch to a later period for English and I figured that if I didn’t have to be at school until 9 I could always wake up in enough time to walk. Of course, as soon as she walked into that class I threw out any thought of changing my schedule.
Long story short…she’s sitting next to me as I type this in bed.
For the rest of this edition…
Mustardseed considers a novel approach to keep the stress of academia from overwhelming the enterprising student.
Tengu reviews the MSI Wind U120 netbook for all you students looking for something with which to write papers.
Jezmon presents a list of documentaries for your consideration.
D. Composition helps us all in our attempts to find internet music.
Stoker considers what the future will hold now that Disney has purchased Marvel…not exactly “on topic” but important nonetheless.
This Week in Normality (Saturday Edition) — Bring the Pain
Aug 29th
Good day to you, faithful reader, on this last Saturday in August, in the year of our lord two thousand and nine.
I won’t go into all the horrid details about my Friday…the first day of the fall semester for me, in fact, and how everything that could possibly conspire against me posting this week’s articles did, in fact, conspire against me. I mean, I guess a comet didn’t crash into my car and I didn’t lose a limb in a lumber mill accident…but aside from those two things, everything that could conspire against me did. Suffice it to say, by the time I got home last night and had the kids fed and asleep I had just enough energy to stumble into bed.
So here we are…
But aren’t you glad you had to wait?
Isn’t the anticipation of what this week’s Normality Restored would bring you even better now that you have had to marshal the reserve to wait a full day more?
Just go with me on this.
And, you know what? It’s fitting, having to make you all wait so long. The waiting, no doubt, pained you faithful Normalinauts endlessly. I imagine you all suffered from severe cramps and headaches all night, unable to sleep, wondering when…dear god when!…you would find the weekly succor you so crave on Fridays.
It was, of course, cruel of us to have unleashed such wanting on our adoring fans. But such is the fate of the faithful on this week in which we Bring the Pain!
And this week’s theme was inspired by the newly released Tarantino film Inglorious Basterds, of which Stoker has written a…dare I say, glowing?…I dare…GLOWING review.
Tengu takes us back to his childhood to reminisce fondly, and not so fondly, about the work of filmmaker Paul Verhoeven.
Mustardseed, in his continuing attempts to prove he is the most literary of NR contributors, highlights Blood Meridian, the oft overlooked debut novel from now Pulitzer Prize winner, Cormac McCarthy.
What I have learned about, if not people at large, at least those associated with this website is that you tell them the theme is blood and violence, then they come out of the woodwork.
Stoker, for instance, was not content to just review a movie, oh no! He also felt compelled to give us all a taste of the, definitely not for the squeamish, Bendis graphic novel Torso.
And lastly, though certainly not least, a new guest contributor shares with us all both, the joy of Peter Jackson’s early work, and the savory taste of gore in general.
For the Love of Gore
Aug 28th
Hey there faithful Normalinauts. Kilian here and, for the second week in a row, we at Normality Restored are pleased to welcome a guest contributor. He has requested that we call him “D. Composition” and I fully honor that request. As a slight, personally advantageous, aside I will say that I am enjoying the guest contributors as it means I do less writing (though more editing) and so we get a wider array of voices here on the ol’ NR.
So without further ado, I present to you…
If I were to walk up to an average movie fan and ask him if he remembered such films as “Deep Blue Sea” or “Resident Evil”, I imagine his response to the latter would be “Not really, but I do remember that guy getting diced by those lasers! That was awesome!” and to the former “Not really, but I do remember the shark jumping up and eating Sam Jackson! That was awesome!”
Sorry for the spoiler, but if you haven’t already seen Deep Blue Sea, chances are high that you either don’t want to see it or you already know about it because of Dave Chapelle.
Dave Chapelle: Samuel L. Jackson’s
I find this to be a commonality with a lot of movies, even when the movie is pretty good (I personally enjoyed Deep Blue Sea very much). We all know the reason for its everpresence. It’s the same reason people love rollercoasters. It’s a shocking thrill rolled in fun. Better the fictional movie characters deal with it than us, of course. It’s a fun way to have all the characters we hate get offed in a film. It works the opposite way with our heroes though (There were too many good times with Chef from South Park before his grisly demise. Gore is like taking a wound, or a death, in a story and turning it up full blast, much to the chagrin or delight of the prospective viewer. The gore can be a little much for some people, but that can be enjoyable too. I always find myself smiling at gore moments if I notice that someone else is cringing while watching. I think anything in a movie that can get a reaction like that is doing something right. I suppose I’ve personally been desensitized to the majority of the gore out there, though. I got started at an early age with a certain stripe-sweatered melty boogeyman with knives for fingers. Who could get these images out of a 7 year old’s mind (or a 27 year old’s mind for that matter)?
Few films, however, can match the feeling one gets when watching Dead Alive (Braindead). Back in the late 80’s-early 90’s Peter Jackson (you know the one…he directed the Lord of the Rings movies, for all you non-existent non-nerds reading this) made a couple of really funny and really gory little movies. Dead Alive is the best of these (according to myself and some friends). A few stragglers aside, it seems to be the undisputed “goriest fright film of all time.” If you’re not familiar with Dead Alive, you’ll either be really happy or really pissed off you’ve missed out for so long.
The movie is about a young man who lives with his old abusive mother. The films opens with the mother getting bitten by a rat-monkey at the zoo and, of course, contracting a zombie-like disease. The ball starts tumbling from there. The protagonist does his best to take care of his zombie-mom despite the infection of more and more, who also end up getting kept in his house. There is zombie sex, a zombie baby, a kung fu priest, a lawnmower scene, and a bunch of gross out stuff that even had me squirming.
If you do decide you want to see this movie, make sure to get the unrated version, because the “safe” version has so much cut out it really isn’t the same movie.
Needless to say, gore is and has been a great joy of mine for all kinds of reasons. It’s always fun to see where the filmmaker is going to take the viewer to get to some new level of shock or creativity. This is why people always talk about the “curb scene” in American History X or the “pen trick scene” in Dark Knight or the “eye splinter scene” from Zombi or the “tooth-pulling scene” from Oldboy. These are the standout moments in film for many because they are so shocking and so memorable.