As you wish...

Parental Caricatures

Why, as adults do we continue to bad-mouth our parents? I know that I am speaking in generalities and that not everything that we say about our parents is necessarily negative. When we do it tends to appear when one person says something that frustrates them about their own parents’. Setting aside that sometime parents really are assholes, is this a knee-jerk reaction left over from our teens and early twenties when we are still trying to define our identities as adults? Is it also possible that we have started to see our parents as fallible human beings and complaining is easier than trying to force change in people who by this point will not change? Or is the other way around, with our parents still expecting us to behave as we did when we were teenagers or younger?

The question occurred to me after a series of conversations among friends comparing the vileness of our particular progenitors. Topics varied from mild complaints about intractable behaviors to deep seated issues with a parent relationship. I personally have a very congenial relationship with my parents, yet even I took some unfair swipes at my parents for things that I had resolved with them and with myself years earlier. The conversations were more gossip than anything else, essentially a safe place where we could vent frustrations without it getting back to the topic of that conversation. As often as not what was said was quickly forgotten. 

Part of me wonders if this is a tool of forming communal bonds with friends, by attacking something we all have in common, our parents. This would put it firmly in under the knee-jerk reaction of teenage behavior. A habitual echo of when we would complain about being under the yoke of parental control, when we are all in a communal one-ups-manship about feeling miserable. Both then and now the conversation would stray closer to the bone. Concerns often connected to much large issues hidden by the thin tissue of decorum and conversation.

As I have grown older I have begun to see not only my parents, but also teachers, aunts, coworkers as more than just characters providing input or an obstacle to overcome, but as people. (Yes I know, this is an odd thing to be figuring out at thirty-four.) At some point the people around me stopped being caricatures and took on a life of their own.

I am also beginning to see how close my behaviors are to my own parents. Every day I discover some little thing that I do that is reminiscent of my parents. If that is the case then the things that I complain about when it comes to my parents, both resolved and unresolved, are really fears about what I will become in the coming years.  Maybe by putting voice to their foibles we can try and avoid them ourselves.

I do wonder if our parents have the same conversations about us that we do about them.  That if we were to all be in the same room gossiping at the same time we would have some kind of mutual understanding. Or a fight to end all fights. Maybe a thought best left to the hypothetical. 

Concession is a Funny Word

The Merriam-Webster dictionary lists a couple of definitions for concession that include: the act of or an instance of conceding, something conceded or granted.[i] Its root, ‘concede’ has similar definitions to concession.

The word Concession consists of several Latin roots. The first is the prefix ‘con’, or ‘co’, which means together or toward.  You can find this prefix attached to a number of words like concur, conduct, and the more modern cohabitate. The base of the word ‘cess or cede’ means to go or to yield and can also be found in words like process, recess, procession and is also the root for words like precede and concede. The suffix for this word, ‘ion’ generally means the ‘act of’ but has other meanings as well.    

Con, cess,  ion. Together, go to, act of.

My strongest connection to the word is via the concession stand which you can find in every movie theatre and amusement park. My first job was at a concession stand in a movie theatre at a mall near my home. I was fifteen at the time and was starting to exert some independence and it was standing in line for tickets to a movie with my family that I decided to ask for an application. At the time I was more or less unaware of my families past with the cinema. My parents like to say that working in a movie theatre is genetic amongst our family. My maternal grandparents owned a drive in theater for many years in a little Ohio town. Since it was a family owned operation my mother worked in the concession stand and sold tickets when she was fifteen as well. My grandfathers on both sides and my father were projectionists. That first job would take me all throught the theatre including up to the projection booth and later into the manager’s office.  I would eventually get a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in theatre management although that would come later. Needless to say I thrilled and also not surprise when I found out my wife had also spent some time working a movie theatre box office.

Needless to say my parents were thrilled with the idea of me working at a movie theatre. This exuberance of course faded when they were forced to pick me up at midnight two three times a week.

I can’t tell you how much nachos and popcorn I would sling, soda and hot cheese I would pour, and candy and hotdogs that I would dispense. I worked at movie theatre long enough that I grew to despise the smell of popcorn and the feel of soda syrup in the creases of your hands which no amount of scrubbing would take off. Standing in full and empty lobbies until my feet and butt ached waiting for shows to start or end.

I did enjoy the job. It gave me an opportunity to put to good use the work ethic that I had picked up over the years and the job skills I picked up there have served me well over the course of my life. I have many fond memories of the various theatres that I worked at over the years.

Now when I go to the theatre I look at the people working behind the counter and I am transported back to that job. I think it’s also why I insist on getting hotdogs and popcorn when I go to the movies, or for that matter anywhere that has a concession stand. The impulse is so ingrained in me now that I have to yield to the act of going to the lobby. It’s not about the food; it’s about yielding to where the memory takes me.

Although I think this says it much better than I do.

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[i] http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/concession

 

And the words come up like shoots from the soil of my imagination...

The semester is over and I have started to shift gears into personal projects and writing. It is a welcome change to the hustle and bustle of the semester. Like scratching an inch that you haven’t been able to reach because you have been stuck in a position that you have to hold. Don’t get me wrong, I do some writing while classes are in session. I just don’t get to work on the projects that I want to work on. Unfortunately, I just don’t have the energy for in depth personal writing projects after a full class load if it doesn't have a grade attached to it. If I get an idea that I want to work on outside of class I am quick to get the stub of the idea into a word document usually attaching a web link or whatever it was that I was listening to that inspired the concept. All of those little stubs would sit on my desk waiting to be told. It is a good little system that I came up with to keep from forgetting something. 

Now that the semester is over I have dived head first into all those little stubs that I have been waiting patiently for me. What I am finding is that the system works. I am able to unravel and find the excitement for an idea that I had days, weeks, or months ago. If I can’t find that excitement or the idea doesn't make sense I put it the idea folder and come back to it later.

I am also editing a play that I wrote when I first got here called Drone. This is in conjunction with the Robot Theatre Class I will be taking this fall.  We may not be using the play due to its length, but working on it puts me in the right mind set. I also hope to learn what robots and drones can do and how they can be used in conjunction with theatre.

I am also submitting more. I have one story, Things My Mother Never Told Me¸ out for review at Psuedopod.com. If you haven’t heard of it, go check it out. You can find it on itunes or though the Psuedopod site. Wish me luck.

I am also looking for German language film and television shows to keep my German sharp.  Anyone have any suggestions?

The Uncanny Valley of Scientific Fact in Science Fiction

A recent trip to the movies got me thinking about the suspension of disbelief when it comes to science fiction. Increasingly we are seeing science used, and misused, on screen as major plot points to varying degrees of success. Of course science fiction is a very broad term incorporating fact based science fiction like Gravity all the way up to this summer’s fantastical Guardians of the Galaxy. Both films lie on the opposite edges of the same valley but what interests me is where does fantasy based science fiction cross over into fact based science fiction and is there a place where the two break down completely. Additionally is there a litmus test, similar to the Uncanny valley for CG and robots, which we as viewers use to make this assessment? And finally does the viewer’s scientific literacy inform that assessment?

Full disclosure, other than Godzilla, I haven’t seen any of these films since some of them are not out yet and others I haven’t gotten around to. I do plan on seeing them all.

What set me on this particular path was the preview for Lucy, which I saw when I saw Godzilla this weekend. Lucy is the new Scarlett Johansson/Luc Besson science fiction vehicle about a world run by mobs and cartels that has forced Scarlett Johansson’s character to work as a drug mule. Near the beginning of the film Lucy’s surgically implanted drug package leaks and it makes her a superhuman. As the film progresses Lucy becomes a transcendent being. In addition to the poor portrayal of Asian stereotypes, the preview also trots out the false anecdote that we only use 10% of our brains. 

The film, which also stars Morgan Freeman, sounds like a great ride. Yet even as I watched the preview I kept returning to its opening thesis. The idea that we only use 10% of our brains has been disproven a number of times in a number of different ways. Yet this concept persists in film and on television. Why did this statement bother me more than giant city destroying Kaiju that I excitedly came to the theatre to see?

I think it stems from the idea we find it easier to accept the conceits of films like Godzilla because they don’t delve too deep into the science to try and explain the plot. Brian Cranston and Ken Watanabe character’s both talk about the science surrounding Godzilla but don’t go too deep into the specifics of the mechanics that would result in Godzilla. By saying that we only use 10% of our brains, Lucy pushes the disproven theory and then tries to build on by showing that that if we could access the other 90% we would be gods. Now you can argue that the non-specific parts of Lucy can be found in how the drug works, yet I think this breaks down too.  The foundation that the film is based on is faulty because it was so specific. Had Luc Besson left that line out of the preview, leaving the specifics up the imagination of viewer, I think it would have been a stronger preview. Or if the opening thesis had been: we now have a way to overclock the speed at which the brain operates, I think I would have been fine with it. It’s the same reason that Midi-Chlorians didn’t pass the sniff test for many Star Wars fans. I think in both cases faulty footing robs the audience of a chance to make the leap it needs to suspend their disbelief, they can’t rely on the footing that they are pushing off of.

I think the other reason this rankles me is that it’s lazy writing. A cursory search on google or Wikipedia will output numerous articles that explicitly state the origin of this myth or can point you to sources that will give you a fuller understanding of how much of our brain we use. The Wikipedia article for Lucy, in fact has a link to the “Ten Percent of Brain Myth” embedded in its synopsis.

All of this assumes that the viewer is scientifically literate enough to spot factual inaccuracies in media. With much of the country disputing climate change, evolution, the efficacy of vaccines, or still hung up on Pluto’s demotion to dwarf planet, it’s a question whether or not this film’s target audience would even notice. Which I think lies at the root of what really bothers me; preying on your audiences ignorance because the writer/producer was too lazy to take the opportunity to say something interesting.   

I would love to know what you think.

Welcome!

Welcome everyone

I created this blog as a place to showcase the work that I am doing. I have been writing since 2004 and have reached the point where I am not satisfied with just writing something. I want to share it. It is no coincidence that I am more than half way through a second Bachelor’s at the University of Iowa that focuses on writing.

One of the things that you will see on a regular basis will be a short story serial called All Alone which is about the last vampire on earth.  So there will always be something going on here on a regular basis.

In addition to showcasing my work, I will also share what I am doing, recent successes, neat things I find on the webs, and where you can find my work as it is published and performed.

Please let me know if you have questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Jason Buehrer