Can I just interrupt everyone’s dash for a moment and say I really love this song? The song itself is good, yeah, but what I really love is how this is one of those brake-away-Broadway-hits that has come to be understood by what the lyrics say rather than what the lyrics mean. Which is great!; music is possibly the most flexible of the arts, and there isn’t a misunderstanding of the song - just a separate understanding of the song when it is separated from it’s whole. Within that whole, the end of Gypsy’s first act is not happy. This song is horrifying.

This isn’t a mother singing about looking on the positive side of things, this is a megalomaniac claiming the life of yet another daughter. One who she previously spent years ignoring. Mama Rose singing “everything’s coming up roses!” is her saying “everything’s going to be better than ever!” yes, but it has such an obvious double meaning it can be entirely over looked; “everything’s coming up roses!” also means “Everything’s coming up Roses (way)!” - she is vividly singing about her daughter’s life being something she gets to control and is treating that as something positive. 

Ugh, gives me chicken skin.

Continue on with your scrolling. I was just sharing because this was one of the firsts songs I reevaluated growing up: I’d heard it many times before but when I began to really watch and really listen to musicals outside of just enjoying the separated songs (as I was evidently perceiving them unbeknownst to me), Gypsy was one of the first shows to totally floor me.

… Alright, that and the song is the core of my favorite Simpsons joke. 

Thoughts on the Show 101

bradamantium:

This season has been different than the other two for me, and I’m not sure what to make of that. (Notice before I go further: This post is spoiler-free but you shouldn’t read it unless you’ve watched enough of S3 to have your own opinion. So I don’t ruin it for you by being vaguely cynical.)

I’ve liked Community since the first episode of the first season (oddball though it was) because it tends to have the kind of respect for its audience that a show ought to have. It doesn’t draw back from any of its gags because someone might not get it. Which kind of says something, since it’s a show that gets a huge amount of its humor from referencingeverything ever.Of course, it wasn’t just a big pile of References for Media-Savvy People. It was basically references tacked on to a pretty decent bit of television in its own right, with a good take on community college and the students (more like student archetypes) it used to represent that.

Which stayed strong through season two…And now seems to have reversed in season three, to a ton of clever references with a plot tacked on.

It’s so odd, because I’m still getting a lot of laughs and a pretty good bit of enjoyment out of the show, and it breaks the reversal every now and then. The two-parter did some pretty interesting character study stuff and had some decent lead in, Annie’s Big Move did some interesting stuff with her relationships…But that’s most of what I can come up with in terms of that. Isolated episodes-wise, Remedial Chaos Theory and the most recent episode are probably two of my favorites from the entire show. But I feel like there’s less happening in the way of a show here, and a lot more going on with smart references and self-referential humor. Seriously, there have been so many Jeff Winger as Aesop endings that someone has to have called it out. It’s becoming weirdly formulaic in the way it delivers its humor to us, and a big part of what I liked in the first two seasons was the way it commonly avoided the formula. It also seems like an odd choice for a show that’s all about subverting tropes and cliches to follow such a structure.

(I may just be angry that there weren’t a lot more scenes set in the biology classroom. Because Michael K. Williams, dammit.)

I think Community is one of those shows were people are aware of how self-referencing it is and how culturally savvy it is and they get that it is “smart TV” (a term I have issue with but won’t go into right now) but they tend to focus on just one of those parts and don’t see the whole show - which is why I said it is a show that you can better evaluate at the end of a season rather than while you’re watching the individual episodes making up the season. 

I don’t think this is because Community is DOING ALL THESE THINGS SPECTACORLY ALL THE TIME EVERY EPISODE AND IT BLINDS YOUR SENSES but because the show does do these things consistently and we as viewers can’t help but tune in to only one or a few of these aspects (typically whichever we like most) per episode.

In the first season the Study Group studied Spanish and the overall seasonal “lesson” was learning to communicate with people and the insecurities that come with attempting to do that. The second season they studied anthropology and the overall “lesson” was learning how to navigate and/or drop social constructs and the insecurities that come with attempting to do that. This year the group studies biology with the overall season “lesson” shaping up to be about confronting the structure, function, and evolution of life/relationships/those insecurities.

Within practically every episode that makes up these seasons the episode’s individual themes ties into the season’s overall themes as lead by whatever the group is studying. Which is not a jaw dropping revelation to be had, this is a very simple formula. What makes it interesting (to me at least) is how the episodes and then the seasons fit into Dan Harmon’s method of writing; the story embreyo.

The embryo is simple, it is a circle divided into 8 parts that guides most all aspects of the show from jokes to character’s growth, character’s interactions, the plot of episodes, the side plots of episodes, everything from individual scenes to entire seasons. The circle’s parts are:

1. comfort zone
2. wants something 
3. unfamiliar situation
4. adaptation
5. get what they wanted
6. pay a heavy price
7. return to familiar
8. having changed

This technique has reaped results and is the reason the show has the consistency it does, but it isn’t perfect in and of itself. It all still comes down to how individual scripts turn out and production and post production, the usual factors of any television episode/show.

You’re not alone in feeling that his season feels different - a lot of folks are saying the same. I don’t disagree, but I think this feeling is because in the overall embryo of the series this season is in the “get what they wanted/pay a heavy price” half of the circle; in fact the writers show us the series’ embryo during the Christmas Infiltration Rap in the episode “Regional Holiday Music”. The first Season was “comfort zone/wants something” (which both filtered through and then made up the “Spanish Lesson”) and the second season was “unfamiliar situation/adaptation” (which both filtered through and then made up the “Anthropology Lesson”).

In theory the 4th season, if we get a 4th season, will see a return to the “familiar” mixed in with the “change”. 

Now: I am not saying you (or anyone else) not jiving with this season as much as the last two seasons means you are stupid as you are not taking what I’m talking about into consideration. No one should take what I’ve spoken of into consideration - everyone’s own personal enjoyment out of the series is first and foremost the prime thing to consider in the “do I like this?” quandary. 

I’m just saying that I think it is interesting. All this season needs to me is more Shirley. I’ve grown very fond of Shirley.

PS » Check out the writer’s embryo boards for “Remedial Chaos Theory” LOLOLOOL SHIT IS BONKERS.

Does This Ever Happen to Anyone Else:

I’m tumblin’ right? Just la la la doing my thing endlessly scrolling and opening new tabs when on my dash comes a post I have a visceral reaction to. Today it is a picture of a little girl looking sad with a grown man’s arm reaching into the frame putting a finger to her mouth and silencing her. The big words say “REBLOG IF YOUR AGAINST CHILD ABUSE. IGNORE IF YOU DON’T HAVE A HEART.”

Instantly my mind goes unfollow that mother fucker.

Not because “wah I don’t like people telling me what to do” or “wah I don’t like it when posts challenge me” or “wah they used your instead of you’re”. No; I want to unfollow people when they post this and similar crap because such people push the issue at hand (in this case child abuse) by merging it with tumblr’s supremely messed up and illogically placed stress on the incorrect notion that showing you care by reblogging is the same thing as actually believing in and/or actually understanding the issue(s).

BUT I am aware this is, in so many ways, a total overreaction on my part. People who reblog such things I can’t assume don’t actually know about the issues; I can’t just assume they’re horrible uncaring people who are reblogging something because they just want to show they do have a heart – and if they are doing just that what harm are they really causing me? None, other than assaulting my understanding of what is and is not good “caring about issues behavior”; which obviously has more to do with me than it does with them. Maybe this person reblogged for just the picture, it is a strong image afterall. Maybe they themselves are survivors of child abuse and the reblog is to them a actual challenge of some kind. Maybe their friend is on their account drunk clicking. Yes, that all seems plausible!

However, I must take myself into consideration more shouldn’t I? The follow and unfollow buttons are not tied to people’s actual selves but their presented selves and it is the prerogative, the entire design structure even, of tumblr for us to follow people who post things we <3 and to not follow people who don’t. How we individually choose to filter the qualifications for <3 and </3 is, YUP, individual. If I want to unfollow someone for one post that is my filtering system in place and is thus a totally valid option. I don’t owe anything to the person behind the reblog/post any more than anyone reading this has with me. We’ve not signed anything. I often don’t like “reblog if you” posts and I NEVER like “if you don’t reblog” posts - so it makes sense for me not to follow people who do like such posts, right?

Sometimes I just find it hard to choose to either filter based on content or based on the person as I understand them based on their content OR the person I don’t know at all because all this is is content. So, I do what I always do, I go to the person’s main page and investigate a bit.

Supernatural everywhere, unfollow’d at warp speed.

I am the worst person in the world, officially so. But who the fuck was that person and when the hell did I start following them?!

I was out for my morning walk, pausing to read on top of a picnic table when I thought of something.

Usually when I think of something I think about it and sometimes then think “I’ll write on this later” but then don’t. Sometimes I’ll write down bullet points of what I’m thinking and those then sometimes turn into BRAIN PUKES. Sitting on a table today I suddenly realized I live in 2012 and my phone can do anything and it occured to me I can recorded my vocalized thoughts.

So here is a unfiltered look into how I actually talk/think without the chance to proof read, re-write, and rearrange in two parts. Posting this is actually kind of terrifying.

Female media and male media all suck ass because (surprisingly) media has no gender lines of being shitty. The difference is that boys are often times not chastised for liking things made for them that suck while girls get told what they like - and who knows if they even really like what they claim to like they could just be lying for attention! - sucks whether it is “objectively” (lol) good or not.

To reiterate: I am not attacking bronies. In fact I care little about them. They can do and be whatever they want, in the end we’re all just fans - I’m just pointing out that the sob story so many bronies hold dear to their special-unique-one-of-a-kind MLP experience is the sob story of the female half of the planet and any media they like to watch or engage with period.

I also, now, feel the need to point out that the year ago (more like since the dawn of time) brony/male idea that a lot of female media sucks ass falls in to the idea that female anything (including actual female people) = shit.

If you think to yourself “Golly, a lot of stuff made for girls is shitty” then you are feeding the inequality troll of gender media by propelling the idea that a lot of things made for girls is shitty and girls who like the thing which you deem shitty shouldn’t like that thing because it is shitty (AKA the sob story of the female half of the planet). You don’t have to say a specific title sucks you shouldn’t watch that to the face of a girl or woman to do harm. It is the idea that permeates society, and if you aren’t saying such a thing to someone’s face just thinking it - then the idea already owns you and don’t think for a second there is no harm done in that.

A lot of people think MLP:FiM is a shitty show because it is a girl’s TV show and that is why the grown men watching it should be hospitalized. Have such people making such wide judgement watched the show themselves? Most likely not, but there they are anyways.

My point is that that judgement, that smug disregard, is what a very large portion of female human beings of all ethnicities grow up with when they engage media. Because, remember!; “female media sucks ass” and even though it is made for females and SHOCK females watch it we should still make fun of them for watching it and liking it because it is female media and female media sucks ass.

Frankly there is no argument to be had in the “female media sucks ass” statement. It doesn’t even make sense. It is pretty much the appeal to popularity argumentative fallacy: Simply because a lot of people think female media sucks doesn’t mean it actually sucks. Gee! That must explain all the girls and women who like female media just fine, huh? Thus we have the extreme problem with society trying to police female’s likes, and then even their dislikes, “because female shows suck”. 

It is a pattern of extreme bias based primarily on gender and that is the only thing that objectively sucks ass. 

PS » Sorry if this came off sounding attacky, I’m not attacking you! I am attacking the IDEA. Rawr.

So I was bored yesterday and watched Ballad of the Brony: A Documentary on Bronies and Friendship is Magic, a presentation a guy made for his Study of Deviance class and then posted on youtube. The five part presentation goes over the history of the My Little Pony TV franchise and gives a brief explanation on the “brony phenomenon”, rounding it all out by saying the adult male fans of MLP:FiM can be seen as deviants.

“The simplest view of deviants is basically about stats. Anything that varies too widely from the average is deviant. Do you have red hair? Deviant! Are you left handed? Deviant again! See what’s wrong with this approach? Another view sees deviant behavior as a disease. Whenever a person is in violation of a social standard they are seen as unhealthy. But what is perfect health and by whose definition? But the best description that defines deviants is the failure to abide group rules. This is kind of ambiguous, but it needs to be. The idea is that deviant people aren’t the creators of their acts - society is. When society agrees upon rules and laws to abide by, they are in a way creating deviant acts at the same time. I might find My Little Pony acceptable but the majority of society will frown upon me because I’m not behaving the way they want me to and that is to be a male devoid of all sensitivity.”

The creator goes on, and I get what he is saying overall, but I have to bring something of my own to the table.

Guess what bronies: I get made fun of and I get side eyed for liking My Little Pony in any of its forms and I am a woman.

And here is something the brony community has probably never thought of, because why would they, but; I use to get made fun of and side eyed for liking My Little Pony when I was a little girl too. By boys and by other girls.

The “core” issue of grown men who love MLP isn’t that of them being seen as deviants because they are grown (age) men (gender) - it is a lot bigger and, as always, a lot more fucked up than that. The issue is that female created and/or female intended media gets made fun of and gets side eyed.

This is the catch 22 landscape of female originated, created, and intended media. It is a messed up place where marketing and society says you should like the things put before you but if you do like them then a large portion of marketing and society goes “You like that, really?”

For a lot of women if they like football or NASCAR their genuine interest and enjoyment of those things are often called into question (“I bet she doesn’t even like football, she just says she does to appeal to me and my guy friends/men”) - and if women like say Sex in the City or Twilight their genuine interest and enjoyment of those things brings their personal tastes, and sometimes even their intelligence, into question (“I can’t believe she likes that crap”). 

Many bronies are grown men who are experiencing what it is like to engage with female media for the first time. So you say you don’t want to have your interest in MLP label you as this or that or the other? Well guess what, that is just what female viewers want too. Except with practically everything we choose to show interest in. 

Male fans of any age who love Friendship is Magic do not bear the brunt of society’s scorn. Little girls who take MLP lunch boxes to school and who are given the toys and actually take them out of the box and play with them daily are not getting off either - I guarantee you. If you’re a brony and somehow feel offended by what I’ve written, that it seems harsh to say your experience with MLP is not special in how people you know or don’t know (LOL FOX NEWS) have judged you for what you like; please take a moment to step back and really think about what I’ve brought up here.

Sure it isn’t fair that you may be labeled as a man child or a pervert or any other thing for liking My Little Pony. I’m not saying it is okay for bronies to be thought of as or deserve to be called such things, I’m just trying to bring to your attention that female viewers of either “male media” or “female media” grow up experiencing variations of what you are now experiencing for the first time as grown men.

Doesn’t feel good does it? Welcome to the herd. 

Tracking the Laughs

A lot of people really seem to hate canned laughter huh? The most common reasons I’ve heard is that 1.) it is annoying and 2.) “I don’t need to be told when to laugh”/”If they’re telling me when to laugh then the show really can’t be that funny”.

Point 1 is what it is. Point 2 however, we can have a discussion there. And one way discuss I shall.

I’m going to start off with some horribly shocking news: Laugh tracks do not exist to tell you when a joke has been made. Do you get mad at the audience when they laugh while you’re watching stand up? No? Keep that in mind.

TV influences cinema a lot more often then the cinema influences TV; the big influences of television have primarily been radio and theater - especially in the realms of comedy. The majority of TV comedy still pulls from radio and the stage in it’s three main “comedy distribution” methods:

A.) The Sitcom
B.) Sketch/Variety 
C.) Stand up 

Pretty much every comedy TV show is one or two or all three of these at their core or within their production model. 

What has changed is the means in which comedy is presented, as TV naturally alters the ways in which jokes are set up; television’s one major difference from theater and radio is the ability to manipulate entirely what is being seen and how, and as such jokes have become rather sophisticated.  

And yes, jokes.

Joke telling is still the primary method of all comedy. When we hear the word “joke” we have a tendency to think of a “joke-joke”: You know, a short story that has a punchline. “Joke-jokes” have fallen out of style within our daily lives for the most part, but the craft of joke telling most certainly has not as jokes exist in many, many forms. The format of joke exposition for television has become exceptionally varied. A joke or a gag can come to fruition through any multitude of devices; sarcasm, irony, word play, wordless punchline, referencing, twist ending, repetition, physicality, editing, anything really. 

Now we come to the part where I start building up towards that thing I told you to think about by defending point A of “comedy distribution” and I will do so with a bold opening proclamation:

Sitcom is not a dirty word. Sitcoms are not some persistent unkillable plague to television.

With the recent rise of comedy shows that lack a “laugh track” a lot of people have taken the opinion that, what are now being called traditional sitcoms, are a lesser form of television. That they are somehow places for lazy writers and complacent placid viewership.  

There exists a persistent myth that you don’t have to listen to the words in a sitcom, that it could be in a different language and you’d still know when the punch line’s coming and when the audience will laugh. Sometimes that is true. It is undeniable that timing and the treatment of jokes is very important within a sitcom and doubly so for the few that are still filmed in front of a live audience - but predictability isn’t the goal for a sitcom. Predictability is the bane of the sitcom. The idea of the sitcom is for viewers to form a long-term relationship with the characters and return to view them repeatedly (you can thank radio for that).

The possibility of being syndicated is breed into most sitcoms; many shows utilize the idea that one episode will be viewed over and over again as a mantra for pacing writing, jokes, and events - but predictability is still the enemy.

Sitcom writers use characters and situations that are immediately recognizable to a majority of viewers. And yes many sitcoms have catch phrases and character based jokes, and many utilize repetition comedy; this serves both as a way of giving dedicated viewers a sense of familiarity and then much like a hook to a catchy song that builds upon itself and somehow becomes even more catchy (I bet you just thought of a song you know didn’t you? Yeah you did. Don’t deny it). I personally feel people who do not care about or do not understand advertising and popular culture are the people who see a show that can be identified with one phrase as “bad”, but I suppose there is a basis of the “LAZY!” argument within catchphrases - but that isn’t my focus so drop it.  

But overall predictability, joke wise not necessarily plot wise, is never the goal of a sitcom writer - or any writer. The assumption that traditional sitcom writing is a comfy place for lazy writers is incredibly strange and seriously unwarranted. 

Sitcom writers work hard, writing for a sitcom is only slightly easier than writing for a soap opera - which is another group of writers who get undeserved shit. Traditional sitcom writers are not lazy. If anything, and I’ll get around to this, mockumentary sitcom writers are “lazy” (HINT: the quotation marks are my attempt at informing you that I do not think mockumentary sitcom writers, such as the crew of Parks and Rec or Modern Family are actually lazy). Think about it, how can a writing team working with a live audience been deemed lazy? Live audience sitcoms are hard television because they film in front of a live audience. 

Production isn’t the first, second, or third thing that plays into my opinion of a series - but I’ve always admired audience sitcoms because while not every single one has been to my tastes, most are accomplishing something very fun, playful, and challenging. 

The schedule for sitcoms filmed with a live audience are incredibly tight; there is no time for extreme mess ups or corpsing because there is a audience. A audience who do no want to watch people fail at their jobs for 3 hours. The idea is to get through a entire episode like a play; one time through, no mess ups, no need for re-shoots. As such improvisation is not the strong point of a traditional sitcom, improvisation throws a wrench into the tightly wound machine of getting a episode done. It is not a naturalistic means of production - it is a very rehearsed means of production that relies on a well trained crew and consistent actors capable of memorizing an entire 40-60 page script every week.

Most traditional sitcoms start their week on Friday; a new script is brought in and a table read is done. Saturday and Sunday are off then on Monday it is rehearsal and rewrites. Tuesday is rehearsal and rewrites. Wendsday is rehearsal, rewrites, and the filming of any immensely technical scenes or scenes that can’t be filmed with a audience because they’d take up too much time. Thursday is the day the live audience arrives and the entire episode is shot in order. If any jokes are not working or something feels flat the writers are on set for filming and will rework or rewrite what they can - but it has to get done that day. Friday is a new script. Rinse and repeat. 

Sitcoms filmed in front of a live audience do not use canned laughter. That seems obvious but I thought I’d throw that in there.

“But what about shows that do use canned laughter? You can’t tell me that isn’t there to cue my own laughter?”

I hear you on that; I feel you on that dear reader who I have assumed is anti-laugh track. But I really, really don’t believe that.

I believe the laugh track persists because television is one of the largest shared experiences we have. WHOA - did I just allude to the fact that we individuals at home are in fact an audience even though we sit in our own private spaces? Well look at that, that is exactly what I did. 

Comedy demands a crowd, a audience; drama demands a individual, a viewer. 

“Audience” as it is used in this discussion is meant as a multitude of people whose ideas and feelings have taken a set in a certain single direction and who, because of this, exhibit a tendency to lose their individual self-consciousness in the general self-consciousness of the multitude. There are many confusing, wordy, large books written on this. I don’t know about you but there are films I’ve seen that were not particularly amazing but the energy of the people I watched it with made the film worth while - and then I’ve had audiences lets me down with their lack of energy. These examples are not a special snow flake thing; the power of an audience forming the viewing experience is a very real and well documented psychological aspect of entertainment.

Tennyson, the perfect poet; Browning, the master of the human mind; Stevenson, the teller of enchanting tales - and each of them totally friggin’ failed when they tried to write a play because the conditions of their art had schooled them long in writing for the individual instead of for the audience. Sitcoms are written for an audience. Sitcoms are not written for you. 

So in a way don’t laugh tracks make a ton of sense? A laugh track isn’t put in for lonely people to feel less lonely or to dictate when you should be laughing; a laugh track is a tool for expressing the idea of audience-ship. A laugh track is a tool for pulling you out of your individual space and placing you in a weird celestial body of giggles; it is a tool for plucking you off your couch and sitting you with others through time and space (regardless of year of release, time-zones, DVR, torrents, whatever); the goal of which is to shake loose your tight individual grip on what it is you are watching. 

“Shut up. Tell me why mockumentary writers are lazy.”

A mokumentary is visually pulling on the format of a documentary and is a production model that allows massive short cuts in writing, filming, and editing. 

In Parks and Rec and The Office characters can talk directly to the camera and sum up their emotions and opinions directly face to face. Because the characters are free (and freely written) to directly interact with the camera a default undercurrent of emotion resides within the material and forces jokes, gags, and dialogue to be instantaneously available.

God that sounds like complete gibberish, stay with me!

With the mokumentary style comes instant audience understanding and allowance of jump cuts, voice overs, talking heads, and jokes being entirely explained by characters themselves as such shows have no 4th wall, allowing writers to establish plot information, and of course jokes, much quicker because as there is little audience resistance there is hardly ever a need for joke and/or information set ups (which is what more traditional sitcom writers spend a lot of time dealing with). Mokumentary shows can push through scripts and production quickly and often benefit from improvisation from actors - the every opposite of the traditional sitcom.      

BUT! If you think pushing in on either Jim Halpert or Tim Canterbury or Tom Haverford or Gloria Pritchett with them looking into the camera to cap off a joke isn’t the mokumentary’s version of the laugh track - I’d say you are completely wrong. Because comedy still requires an audience, and the characters looking directly at that audience or the camera (which in a mokumentary piece for all intents and purposes is a character) pushing in to emphasize an action or a bit of dialogue is most certainly our “cue” to laugh.

Mokumentary’s are sitcoms, and they’re pretty traditional ones at that. 

This is Really Crazy and Inaccessible and Maybe Too Dark

So lots of feelings floating about the Abed/Troy relationship (in all its forms) after this week’s episode, but I’d like to talk about it in my own way if I could.

A thing I personally enjoy about Community is the show’s ability to find basic and astute social conflicts between it’s characters while they engage in typically silly plots. Troy and Abed at odds due to a celebrity impersonator debt/issue is not realistic in of itself but the feelings on both sides of the issue are: Their last scene together presents a realistic conflict, maybe one you’ve encountered in your own life - I know I have.  

Becoming frustrated with someone’s actions despite yourself (as in despite your efforts to try and not dictate their life due to your adoration of them only to become mad at them when they fail to do what you view is best and/or sensible) is not a emotional experience limited to dealing with addiction; it belongs to mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, husbands, wives, friends and co-workers concerning any number of interactions. When we add in the layer of one side having a (undiagnosed) disorder of some kind the bar is raised even more in self-flagellating frustration on both sides.

I’m not going to guess or theorize too much because that just isn’t how I choose to enjoy Community - I’m much more content just letting everything unfold and soaking it all in - but as of right now I don’t view Abed talking with darkest timeline Abed as a sign of Abed slipping to the “dark side” so much as Abed considering the idea of what it’d be like if he stopped seeking to be understood by others (which is the character’s reoccurring struggle), including us watching at home.

For the first time we the viewer are put in a place that doesn’t set us wholly on the same ‘side’ as Abed. Such a line draws close in “American Contemporary Poultry” and “Messianic Myths and Ancient Peoples” but never gets totally crossed; in ”Contemporary Impressionists” we finally see an opposing, and more importantly valid, opposition to Abed’s means of seeking enjoyment/self-expression. I think this is why so many of us were unnerved by the episode; because while it is sad Abed didn’t reciprocate Troy’s outward hand, crushing all of us who love their friendship (or the ship), I know that I at least as a viewer was touched by the fact that even if only for a moment I found Abed to be selfish. 

Which, I don’t know about you, but I am a little excited (TV show wise) by the unsettling-ness (emotional wise). 

Getting to finally see Radiohead play was very fulfilling. Writing about it seems pointless; rambling on about what it was like and what it felt like and “what it meant” to me and blahblahblah.

Just to really sully the mood right away: Music isn’t that important to me. Or rather, I’ve never felt it was important to discuss with anyone other than myself. What I mean by that is I’ve never really bonded with others or openly held or crafted or associated a persona tied to music - I’ve pretty much always approached what music I like/what music moves me/what music I connect to/what music means to me as entirely personal and I’ve never really had the need to express outwardly the what, where, and why of it. I love Radiohead. If someone asked me why I love them I suppose I could come up with some gushy or overly analytic reasons, but for me when it comes to music, “I love ____” is kind of all that is needed. Full stop. That explains it all.

This view on music put me a bit at odds with other pre-teens and teens and then even fellow college folk growing up. I’d say that most people hold opinions and personal relationships with music the way I do with TV shows and comics. A lot of people are like me I think, relating to and placing importance in media - but in my personal life the majority of people I’ve interacted with face to face (as opposed to screen to screen) have been music focused rather than television/comics focused. Which is whatever. No harm or extreme frustrations there, but I did sometimes feel a inkling of unease due to my lack of claiming a particular musical world view; like my lack of being vocally defiant in my musical tastes (outside of show tunes that is lolololol) made me unclassifiable to many of my peers.

I had the teen filled obsession with music and having it define/shape/guide/reflect my out-of-wack emotional spectrum just like everyone else around me; I just didn’t see the point in sharing it really. And to be honest when others shared (and even now when they share) their stories of THIS IS HOW THIS MUSIC SPEAKS TO ME I’d always end up thinking “Well, this is very boring” which is horribly rude but true.

I mean I like to talk music (if I know the music we’re talking about), and I’ll share stories tied to music (if I think they’re universally amusing), and I find stories of self discovery fantastic (when the discovery is genuine and not self-hyping) - but hearing a sermon on why some band is best and why I should be liking them makes me feel very awkward. You know the conversation I’m talking about, we’ve all had it. Some people (such as my high school peers) thrive off those conversations; I would not and do not engage in them and have since gotten the rap of being “musically boring”. 

I am not by the way. I consider myself musically versatile as I have never been pigeonholed into grasping any music as a exclusive self defining device. I always say “I love Radiohead”, and if asked I’ll elaborate why I love them. I try to avoid telling people why they should love Radiohead too. 

Although it is a bit hard once you’ve seen them play - they’re very talented musicians and I’d like to say if you appreciate the craft involved in music rather than just the final outcome then you’d appreciate Radiohead’s ability to perform complicated studio songs live, and perform them with studio quality at that. Because seriously? The level of how good they sound live is a bit shocking. Listening to “Everything In Its Right Place” on Kid A is one thing; to see that very song performed in front of you and it sounding relatively the same is another experience completely. A experience I am very, very grateful for and have no desire to explain why that is as all that is rather boring!  

Radiohead’s playlist for March 7th, 2012 at the Erwin Center, Austin Texas:

1. Bloom
2. Little By Little
3. The Daily Mail
4. Morning Mr. Magpie
5. Myxomatosis
6. The Gloaming
7. Kid A
8. The National Anthem
9. Reckoner
10. Arpeggi
11. Nude
12. Identikit
13. Lotus Flower
14. There There
15. Feral
16. Idioteque

1st Encore:
17. Separator
18. These Are My Twisted Words
19. Bodysnatchers
20. Everything In Its Right Place

2nd Encore:
21. Give Up The Ghost
22. You And Whose Army?
23. Paranoid Android

… I love Radiohead.

In which I speak on something many other far more eloquent people have spoken about many times before:

Someone said one of the most insulting things I’ve ever had directly stated about me/the woman kind today.

Lee’s co-worker is going to be driving us to the airport tomorrow and we hung out with him today and took him to lunch as a kind of thank you, right? Nice guy, on our weave length of geek. I do not think he is a bad person who intentionally meant to be hurtful so much as he is a person who was making a wide joke based on assumption. I understand that. This is not a “HOW DARE HEEEEE WHAT A JERK” post as that wasn’t on the whole the response I had then or the reflective one I have now.

At the time (and now I suppose) I had one of those absorbent ”…” responses that I’ve always found conflicting because I am aware of the unintentional nature of the speaker which makes me feel like if I react in a intentionally abrasive way I am the one who has tipped the scales of social interaction into a area they did not desire it to exist in and the hostile social atmosphere is thus created by me, not them. Which is the worst because at the same time they did create the hostile atmosphere because they spoke some massive unintended-intended-it-doesn’t-actually-matter-which bullshit and then lobbed the ball into my court, so why can’t I catch it and pelt it back at them if I fucking want to rather than just causally lobbing it back for the sake of simply correctly reciprocating the atmosphere?

Of course there is nothing written on a stone tablet that says I can’t do just that, but then the conflict I find myself in is that of representing myself in a way that is overly serious; looking for a fight; shall we say “bitchy”. THIS is when I become mad because I should never have to concern myself with thinking like that.

The fact I, as a lady person, am ever placed in a position to wonder “Will this particular reaction have the repercussion of painting me as a humorless bitch?” is simply unacceptable. As no situation is simple, as the layers of human interactions and emotions are never simple, I found myself also put in a position by this person to wonder “is this particular reaction going to cause my husband awkward social conflict?”

I feel the need to clarify that with that second thought many corresponding and confusing thoughts tie into it - but just know that second thought of mine is rooted in a symbiotic caring state of matrimony and not a “Oh I want to make sure I don’t say embarrassing things in front of the men-company; I must make sure I make my husband look good; I want my husbands friends to like him and thus me as a extension of him” state of patriarch-imony. And guess what? Because you are not me you’re going to just have to take my fucking word on that aren’t you? Good. Because if it is one thing human beings do not like being told it is what they are really thinking by someone who is not them.

So this guy walks into our nerd room and sees the two book giant bookshelves on display. His first comment is “Wow, you weren’t joking you have a lot of comics.” His second comment is spoken with a light laugh guided by a gesturing of one hand to the comic shelf saying “His” with a second gesture to the manga shelf with a “Hers”.

Lee, bless him, did not respond with a equal tone of light hearted ha-ha-ness but a tone of straight fact, “All hers.” Which is true. Both shelves are my collection. Lee has read plenty of them but he has not read all of them. I have. They are all mine.  He was making a joke based on the incorrect idea that my gender dictates what I would want to read and what I would enjoy (which is was doubly stupid as the joke assumes manga is inherently effeminate whereas American/European comics are not and even though the majority of manga I own is shojo still rightly fuck off thank you very much).

I followed Lee in a tone of straight fact, “The bloody baseball bat in the corner is mine too.” Which is also true.

“X-Cops” 7x12
Written by Vince Gilligan
Directed by Michael Watkins 

“Well, hey, you know, it all depends on how they edit it together.” [Pointing at the camera]
- Mulder, “X-Cops” 

The fact “X-Cops” is a episode that exists identifies The X-Files as a postmodern series, quintessential American postmodernism even; which isn’t really a great opening sentence as practically everything about The X-Files is a postmodern orgy. Although Jimmie Reeves, Mark Rodgers, and Michael Epstein view the sinscere treatmeant of TXF’s protagonists’ search for the truth as signs that the show may actually be “the first truly post-postmodern television show” (which you can read more about in Deny All Knowledge: Reading The X-files).

Alright, wait, no lets go back. I’ve bungled it. Lets start again with something familiar, I think almost every XF realted thing I’ve ever written starts this way:

The viewer opinions surrounding “X-Cops” is highly varied, as it should be really. It is a episode, more than other episodes that receive fractured opinions, asking a lot from the viewer. It is asking a hell of a lot actually. For plenty of people “X-Cops” is a favorite episode and then for plenty of other people it is the episode you skip during a re-watch when you said you wouldn’t skip any episodes. 

“X-Cops” is shot as if it is an episode of the Fox reality show Cops (hence the farily lame episode name). Before the wave of mockumentary TV shows began popping up in the US “X-Cops” was just one episode in a series with many other strange episodes under it’s belt. “X-Cops” is particularly strange as it asks the viewer to accept The X-Files to exist within our real life reality, if only for 45 minutes. The series crossed over with Homicide: Life on the Streets (in the episode “Unusual Suspects”) once, but that is another scripted television show. “X-Cops” pushes this notion further and crossovers The X-Files with a reality show. 

Shot on location in Venice and Long Beach in three nights with real members of the LAPD as well as camera operators from Cops; “X-Cops” looks and sounds like a legit episode of Cops. Which is important. The feel of Cops, as a reality show that follows officers pounding the pavement on their daily beat, is important for The X-Files crew to capture. I’ve already stated that this episode is a crossover into our reality - now what I need to explain is how that sounds right but is actually wrong. I just said it to get your brain on the same page as mine.

Wish me luck.

“X-Cops” looks and feels like Cops, a reality show, and this is achieved by using the same techniques and crew members that work on Cops. But Cops the reality show isn’t reality. Sure it is capturing real things with a camera but as it is perceived through a lens and edited it is not tangible reality - which is why I personally make the effort to use the term “unscripted television” rather than “reality show”. But this is something we all know. This is something we all default in knowing; that the magic box in the living room does not house real things that we can reach through the screen and touch right then and there. When we meet someone who doesn’t know this we tend to back away from them slowly. YES we all feel real things due to what the magic box projects and the magic box relays the news blah blah blah that isn’t what I’m saying and you know it. Keep reading.

Most reality shows (I’m saying most because I don’t pretend to know of every reality show that has been made or is in production) are not reality. Putting a camera on events and then editing it is not reality. Film and television at its core is the business of anti-reality. Even when trying to capture real emotion and real events and real people; film and television tend to work best at capturing and distributing those real things through highly produced means, through manipulation of some kind. Unscripted television does exactly the same.

The easiest way to manipulate a situation even without any manipulative goals is to simply put a camera on it. 

A camera (like a gun) is a object that does not do anything until wielded and a camera (like a gun) changes people when turned on them. I don’t mean it completely changes people, like some twisted metamorphosis, but when you turn a camera on and then at someone they are now aware they are on camera. And that is so so so tiny but it is a manipulation of reality.   

I obsessively and loyally watched Mulder and Scully every week look into or around the camera but they never once knew that. Then enters “X-Cops”.

Where most uses of the mockumentary are for satire or exist purely for storytelling purposes The X-Files harnessed the mockumentary to turn the 4th wall into a glass wall (but still, yeah, a wall). Never leaning far enough to break into my living room but not falling off back into the side of existing purely by voyeurism “X-Cops” exists not to highlight to me the viewer MULDER AND SCULLY ARE REAL! but to highlight to Mulder and Scully that YOU THE VIEWER ARE REAL!

So basically I, you, every viewer, now exist within the narrative reality of The X-Files. Not vice versa. While that last statement sinks in I’ll wrap up with my personal favorite aspect of the episode:

Throughout the episode Mulder and Scully act just as they would if being filmed by a television crew; but at the same time are a bit out of character due to being filmed by a television crew (WHICH LOL THINK ABOUT THAT ONE FOR A SECOND). This out of character-ness within the episode reflects how others view Mulder and Scully within the narrative reality of the series. Scully is cold, intellectual, and no-nonsense while “spooky” Mulder is ridiculous, possibly insane, yet charming. We as weekly voyeurs know that is not true of their characters, they are no where near that two dimensional but both characters certainly come off that way when they know a camera is on them - which in turn is a achingly accurate portray of human characteristics for a television show to capture. 

And if none of the above interests you they are essentially hunting down a boggart the entire episode so. Win-win.

So I’m creeping on a forum clicking away and muttering to myself when I come across a topic that is all “I don’t care about the animation as long as the plot is good.”

I (think that I) understand the intended sentiment behind such a comment, “If the animation is not that amazing but I like the plot I will watch it”; but it still kind of rubs me the wrong way as it was presented and discussed between non-lurking forum folk. They were lamenting a few favorite titles they feel other people poo-poo due to the bad animation. Which very well may be true. Many people could be missing out on some great plots! But if something animated has “bad” animation (either as defined by the viewer or by objective standards of quality) - that is a entirely valid reason to poo-poo a animated title as the animation in a animated title should account for something.

Animated works don’t get animated due to frivolous decisions. There is a intentional choice behind animating a show/film/commercial/art project/whateverz and animated titles should be held to that choice.  

Its is like saying “I don’t care about the music in a musical as long as the plot is good.” The music is a part of the plot, in all types of musicals - the music defines the medium that the plot (good or bad) exists in. The animation is important to the plot of a animated work. It is. It can’t not be really.

A very good friend graduated a year before me. I made this for him. It features myself, my now husband, and our group of mistfit college buddies.

I think a lot of people think their gang of friends are the misfits on campus - and whose to say they are not? Maybe we all travel in large or small groups of misfits looking out at all the other groups assuming “NOT MISFITS!” Seems likely.

I’ve been very, very lucky in my life to have acquired the friends I have. “The problem” is my entire life is I’ve made deep bonds with life long friends within 24 hours of having met them since I was 12. Up until this move to the mainland anyways. I know I tag “I need friends!” and the like and be generally mopey a lot some of the time, but that is because I still have not learned how adults make friends. I don’t understand. If you’re not helping a drunk stranger play it cool in front of the RA or helping someone write lyrics onto their shoe or sneaking a entire cooked chicken out of the cafeteria in their purse - how do you met people? I know there is a way, I’m certain of it. I think my real reluctance is I still want to be the trip sitter; I still want that mutual hatred of that one dude in that one class; I want hi-jinks. I work best under conditions of total stupidity - those are the moments where I shine as a real life person thing. 

Maybe I’m just misinterpreting all this; perhaps all this want for what I’ve always had is really just my biological clock going off. But how the fuck would I know? What is bothering me is people keep acting like I should know; both if IT IS THAT WOMANLY TIME and HOW TO MAKE FRIENDS. I don’t think I should know this because I believe the larger issue is that there does not exist a pamphlet.  

Anywho, this video comes with a epilepsy warning and a boring warning as the people featured are not actors tied to plots anyone here cares about but here it is all the same. I’d really like to make another video from scratch one day. And I will! Probably home movies of little Ripley’s first steps though. Whatever. They’ll be awesome, what with the tiny little power loader and all.

If you’re into Sailor Moon it is possible none of this is new information - but I thought that Makoto’s school uniform being of the Sukeban style was common knowledge and the amount of discussion and reblogs that post received honestly shocked me, so I figure what harm can be done by elaborating on other basic cultural facts within Sailor Moon huh? <3

The outer scouts, more-so than the inner scouts, have a direct tie to Japanese mythology alongside European mythology due to their Talisman weapons; it is not mere aesthetic reasons that Sailor Uranus wields the Space Sword, Sailor Pluto the Garnet Orb, and Sailor Neptune the Deep Aqua Mirror. The Three Sacred Treasures of Japan (Sanshu no Jingi) are the sword Kusanagi, the jewel Yasakani no Magatama, and the mirror Yata no Kagami. 

If we break down the kanji of the Japanese names for the planets much is explained. Roughly the kanji for Uranus (Tenosei) is “Sky King Star”; Neptune (Kaiosei) is “Ocean King Star”; Saturn (Dosei) is “Soil Star”; and Pluto (Meiousei) is “Dead King Star”. 

Many people who focus on the European aspects of the Sailor Senshi’s powers note that creator Naoko Takeuchi got Pluto and Saturn powers “mixed up” as Saturn (Cronus) in mythology is widely thought of as the personification of time and Pluto (Hades) is death. In this case Mrs. Takeuchi let the the Japanese names for the planets lead her choice in assigning these two Senshi’s powers.

Within Saturn’s (Dosei) kanji is “soil”, which in fact does relate back to Cronus who was also the deity of blight and sowing. Two familiar personifications were born from the iconography of Saturn and Cronus: Father Time (Chronos) and the Grim Reaper (from the scythes that Cronus and Saturn held). For the most part in classical mythology, Cronus and Saturn - not Hades and Pluto! - were said to have held scythes. Sailor Saturn wields her Silence Glaive weapon, a large scythe, and is feared by the other Senshi as the solider of ruin and birth.

As for Sailor Pluto she is explicitly stated to be the daughter of Cronus within the manga (“Sailor Pluto’s mission and situation are entirely different from that of Princess Selenity’s four guardian soldiers. She carries the blood of the god in charge of time, Cronus. She lives between time, the solitary guardian of the door of the underworld. Time is the last inviolable territory. Since ages ago, the Door of Space-Time has been off-limits, and Sailor Pluto was the one who enforced that.” -Sailor Moon, Vol. 5, Act 19) which explains her association with time while ALSO being the guardian of the underworld; the dead planet; Pluto/Hades. This should shed light on her “Dead Scream” attack, which can seem out of place if you are focusing just on her time manipulative powers.

Neptune’s powers obviously relate to the ocean. Easy.

Uranus is a bit tricky. Haruka is the Senshi of flight - so what the hell is up with “World Shaking”? The attack seems confusing in relationship to the sky but I have to point out that all she does to summon her power is grip the air. A common misconception is that Sailor Uranus is throwing a ball of energy at the ground, which is kind of what it looks like, but what she is really doing is collecting energy from the sky and merely touching the earth. The ground in her attack animation breaks up at the force of her collected wind-based-energy as it shoots towards her enemies.