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Nov. 10th, 2019 05:33 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shadowkat1. The Good Place -- last week's episode...and oh dear, I'm really not liking this season much at all. Considering I skipped over half of S1 and in some respects prefer that season to this one, is saying something. It's just not working for me, folks.
I'm trying to think of an episode that has worked for me this season? Maybe the one in which we get an actual moral philosophy interchange -- which was in episode two or three. Where Chidi informs the self-absorbed Simone that her reasoning is flawed because she's convinced the world is her own creation, while she lies in a coma. Her inability to believe in anything greater than her self or her own perceptions leads to a conviction that obviously this takes place in her head and she can do whatever she wants. That was a great episode. That episode, alas, is but a distant memory.
My difficulty with the Good Place -- is basically that I don't like Michael Schur's writing unless he is cracking wise at metaphysics and philosophy. Otherwise, I'm kind of bored and irritated. I know it's a Michael Schur thing -- because I have not been able to make it through any of his comedies but this one. YMMV of course.
From my perspective, the Good Place's main and possibly only strength is the philosophical and metaphysical whimsy. It's at its best when it is poking fun at either metaphysics or philosophy. Everything else is sort of window dressing and not very good window dressing at that. Yes, there's some nice world-building details in here -- that I did notice. (But I'm not really that into world-building details and sly in-jokes.) The joke about everything being made of chocolate including a reeses peanut butter cup -- which is supposed to be peanut butter plus chocolate, but was just chocolate. The marketing video -- showing how great everything is -- when it's not. And the hole leading to hell -- borrowed from S1.
Character development is rather predictable, and to some extent a retread from the far more entertaining S3. These writers have run out of ideas. Good thing it is ending soon.
Example? We are once again reminded of why Simon and Chidi don't work. It's simple. Simone is too self-absorbed to really care or love anyone outside of herself. Everything centers on Simone. This is shown in the third season -- where Chidi attempts to conduct an experiment with Simone and Simone not only takes it over, but takes all the credit. And Chidi, indecisive doormat that he is, lets her. What eventually breaks them up, however, is not that -- but the fact that Chidi, an ethics philosopher, believes in something greater than himself, and has a moral code, Simone, a scientist, only believes in Simone and her moral code doesn't quite reach past that -- or not that far. But we sort of got that in S3 -- or I did. I didn't really need to revisit it.
I was hoping for a bit more character development on Simone, but alas, her character is basically just there as a contrast to Chidi and Eleanor. We never delve any deeper than Simone's own rational view that world doesn't quite exist much past herself. A view that is better played and for more interestingly so, in that episode I described above. Here -- in this episode, she blatantly refuses to help save another man's life, because there's nothing in it for her and she hates the guy.
Chidi comes back with -- that doesn't matter. You save someone because they are in trouble -- and it is the right thing to do.
Off-screen, Simone has been doing what Eleanor was doing in S1 -- figuring out that the Good Place is actually the Bad Place. Collecting data, etc. But the writers don't think it would be interesting to watch her do this (possibly because they already went that route with Eleanor in S1). And no one knows she's doing it. (Odd, considering we have both Tahani and Jason wandering about in the group, undetected.)
It makes sense Simone would do it -- but it is sort of dropped in there out of the blue. So much of the plot is rushed, while lots of time is made for stupid magic jokes that seemingly go nowhere. Or stupid gags -- regarding Jason's idiot savant abilities or Eleanor's inability to figure out what to do with the four candidates that Michael hadn't previously already done with Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason in s!-2.
I think the writers knew the ending, but not what to do to get there. So much of this feels like filler. OR as if they are phoning it in.
While we do get a group dynamic of sorts -- it doesn't quite gell, because this is the first that we are seeing it. It hasn't been built up to like the Eleanor, Chidi, etc group had been. No real time has been invested by the writers on Gossip, Brent, and Simone. Outside of their glaring and often-times annoying one-note character traits, we know nothing about them -- so why should we or rather I care? (Note I don't. While I do to some degree care about Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason.)
Brent's character is never developed past the self-absorbed narcissist we see on screen. We are never given a reason why. Simone never gets past the self-righteous scientist who can't see past her own importance. The Gossip can't ever see past his own reflection or gossip. They are in a way all reflections of maybe Tahani?
Going back to main characters...Chidi does get something to do here, but for the most part he seems a bit lost by the plot mechanics. I will state that of the characters, he may be the one who has been developed the most -- but it's hard to know for certain. The main ones do have interesting arcs for the most part, but so much of the time they appear to be running in place or serving as straight men for an ill fired joke by a supporting player.
Season 4 alas is turning out to be the weakest of the four seasons to date, and this episode does little to change that.
2. Saw the flick 2 Fast 2 Furious: Hobbs & Shaw last night on "on-demand". I watched it for three reasons: 1) the stunts, 2) I had the oddest desire to see things blown up and fight sequences, 3) Vanessa Kirby, Helen Mirren, and Idris Elba (who plays the villain).
What worked? Well watching 1000 cars get blown apart along with a helicopter was oddly cathartic. Also lots of absurd fast action fight scenes. Vanessa Kirby kicked ass in this. Actually the women characters were all bad-ass and interesting.
There's a rather amazing car and helicopter stunt that I enjoyed.
What did not work? The incessant bickering between the Rock, Jason Stratharn, and every other male character in the show. Honestly, the male posturing and bickering, was enough to make you wish someone would put one or all out of their collective misery. I ended up fast-forwarding at one point, because they were giving me a headache. Whoever was tasked with writing dialogue for this project -- failed. And should be fired. Never to work again. But the stunts were great. Also, Stratharn and the Rock have zero chemistry...the Rock didn't really have chemistry with anyone. Which was interesting.
But I'd definitely watch an action movie with Vanessa Kirby again. She rocked. As an aside? We need more female centric action flicks -- where the women are not scantilly clad.
3. Why People Can't Write
Not what I thought. I actually sort of agree with some of it.
For Pinker, the root cause of so much bad writing is what he calls "the Curse of Knowledge", which he defines as "a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know. The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose."
"Every human pastime --music, cooking, sports, art, theoretical physics --develops an argot to spare its enthusiasts from having to say or type a long-winded description every time they refer to a familiar concept in each other's company. The problem is that as we become proficient at our job or hobby we come to use these catchwords so often that they flow out of our fingers automatically, and we forget that our readers may not be members of the clubhouse in which we learned them."
People in business seem particularly prone to this "affliction." You could argue that business has developed its own entirely unique dialect of English. People are exposed to an alphabet soup of terms and acronyms at business school, which they then put into use in their day-to-day interactions once they enter the working world.
And what starts out as a means of facilitating verbal communication between people becomes the primary mode with which people communicate their ideas in writing, from email to chat apps to business proposals and presentations.
"How can we lift the curse of knowledge?" asks Pinker. "A considerate writer will...cultivate the habit of adding a few words of explanation to common technical terms, as in 'Arabidopsis, a flowering mustard plant,' rather than the bare 'Arabidopsis.' It's not just an act of magnanimity: A writer who explains technical terms can multiply her readership a thousandfold at the cost of a handful of characters, the literary equivalent of picking up hundred-dollar bills on the sidewalk."
"Readers will also thank a writer for the copious use of for example, as in, and such as, because an explanation without an example is little better than no explanation at all."
Whenever I write a sentence that makes me pause and wonder about what it means, I assume that other readers might react in the same way. If a sentence is not clear to me, it might not be clear to others. It's an approach that I recommend to anyone who is trying to improve his own writing.
Before hitting publish and sending your writing out to the world, it's better to be honest with yourself about how much your reader is likely to understand a given passage or sentence. Before you commit your writing to print-- or to the internet-- take a few moments to make sure that what you write is clear and understandable by as many of your intended readers as possible.
4. Television Series..
I watched the relationship dramas, all of which pissed me off on some level. Sigh. Hormones. The problem with peri-menopause is the hormones. The weirdest things set me off -- I'll either cry at something or rage at it. It's very odd.
* This is Us -- most of this past week's episode was cringe inducing, except for the scenes with the two teens, and there's a lovely scene at the end between Randall's white father Jack (Randall is black) and Randall's black teacher.
Jack: Lately there are questions I can't answer for my son. Like how do I teach him to be black?
Teacher (laughs): No, no...you don't want to do that. (His eyes light up and he goes to grab a book from his car.) I brought this book for Randall but my wife convinced me to leave it in the car -- it's the poetry of Langston Hughs. Randall really identified with it. Maybe you can share this with him?
That scene worked. Everything else...was a wee bit too strident on class. Class is hard to discuss well on television shows when the writers are rich, without it coming across as patronizing or cliche. Actually there are two shows that I've been watching that handle class rather well -- The Connors and Bob Hearts Abishola. They actually deal with it better than the dramas.
*A Million Little Things -- which I've decided to rename A Million Little White Lies -- a much more fitting title. The entire plot and character development hinges on the white lies the characters tell each other and themselves.
I wanted to strangle one character, Deliah, who is insistent on keeping the birth father of her daughter a secret from her children. Everyone else knows. Why? She's protecting them from finding out their mother had an affair with their father's best friend and got pregnant by him. I'm thinking, no honey, you are protecting yourself. The kids will find out eventually -- honestly everyone else knows. All they have to do is unwittingly eavesdrop on it. And you are only hurting everyone including your kids more by keeping it a secret. Take responsibility, and take your punishment.
Meanwhile Gary and Maggie chose not to return Colin aka Westley, the stray mastiff that Gary has adopted to his rightful owner. Instead they replaced him with an identical mastiff, figuring the old woman won't notice the difference. This was of course Maggie's idea, and she didn't tell Gary that it was done until after the fact.
And then there is PJ, who it turns out is actually John's son, who John lied about and is most likely the reason John committed suicide. This kid is trying to make friends with Deliah and John's daughter Sophie -- so he can learn more about John, only to freak out when Sophie tries to kiss him -- because he might be her half-brother.
See? A Million Little Lies.
* Grey's Anatomy
Sigh. The insurance fraud storyline refuses to go away. It's still hanging out there. However we did have a half-way decent inter-change with Ameila and Owen at the end. Those actors still have oodles of chemistry.
Maggie Pierce is really being written as a self-absorbed narcissitic bitch. This episode, she decides to perform a surgery that neither the patient nor the patient's father wants -- and it fails miserably. She does it because it's cool and she's convinced she'll come out a hero. What doesn't work is that if the patient (Maggie's cousin) and Maggie's Uncle -- didn't want the surgery done by either Maggie or their Uncle/Brother Webber -- why go seek them out at their hospital and tell them about it? Wouldn't it make more sense to go to a hospital that neither are on staff, and have it done there? It's even brought up that they had the opportunity to do just that but chose not to -- not clear on why.
If you haven't guessed, I'm frustrated with bad television plotting lately. Also they really need to work on dialogue.
5. Studied The Noah's Arc story this week in my weird Bible Study Group (it's a bible study lead by a liberal Jewish UU Minister who doesn't like the New Testament and lets us do that part on our own, while she's providing in depth theological teachings on the Old Testament.)
So, long story short, I learned a few things about it that I did not know.
For one thing...it happens rather early on in the old testament.
Me: So is this after Sodom and Gomorra?
Minister: No that's long after.
Me: Before the Tower of Babble?
Minister: No that's after..
Me: I ask, because God in this story decides to destroy the world or flood the world, so I'm trying to figure out why at that point in time.
Minister: Hmmm. No the only things that happened before were Adam and Eve and Cain and Able.
Me: Really?
Minister: And interesting enough, none of them take responsibility for anything. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the apple, Cain denies he did anything...it's as if God gave these people all this agency and they completely abuse it or deny having it.
We also realized that after the floods recede in the story -- Noah dies an old drunk and no one changes all that much. God basically states in the story that all humans are inherently bad people or evil, and they can't really help it, so God is going to be a bit more tolerant and stop worrying about it. Gives Noah a Rainbow to show good faith.
The other things we found out?
Minister: the word for arc in Hebrew doesn't mean boat, it means box. This was a box.
Congregant: So a fall out shelter?
ME: No, it's a box with a window.
Minister: Actually the word used which in hebrew does mean window isn't used for window anywhere else in the Bible. So it was most likely a magical gem or light -- providing hope and faith through a traumatic passage.
Interesting metaphors there. We also have the Raven go out first and not come back, and the dove go out several times and return each time, until it finally doesn't -- the implication is it found land. We decided the Raven was wild and willing to fly until it found land, while the Dove was more domesticated and not willing to keep flying until it found land.
It's possible it happened and was watered down until someone got around to writing it down. After all we did have a major extinction event with the Dinsaurs. (Although I much prefer to read this stuff metaphorically). And it has happened over and over again -- hello the plague that wiped out most of Europe. Or whatever happened with Atlantis, and the ancient Mayans, Aztecs, etc. We don't necessarily take great care of our planet, I can imagine it's wiped us out from time to time.
And the idea of hitting a reset button -- oh I'm not much liking this human experiment, let's wipe out humanity and start again. What I've always found curious is so much worse happens after this point, yet no one is wiped out. Instead the character of God in the bible tries different things to make it work, like an eternal architect redrawing blue-prints or fiddling with his creation until it works.
6. On Writing..
This morning, I read in a discussion I was having over a book that I was highly ambivalent about (yes, why I'd discuss a book I felt ambivalent towards I don't quite know either)...that the writer wrote the book because she wanted to read fantasy books with magic that featured characters that looked like her.
Okay. It occurred to me while reading that sentence that most people do not read books the same way I do. I don't visualize the characters really. I'm more aware of the character's culture, interests, voice, physicality (size/physical strength) than color or race. In fact a lot of physical description of characters in books tends to annoy me -- I consider it purple prose. (Too many romance novels). Nor do I think what a character looks like matters -- unless you are writing a graphic novel or comic book, then yes, it does.
I guess reading is a bit like listening to a podcast or a radio show -- in that you don't really see the people. You are told what they may look like, but you can jump past that entirely.
Which reminds me of something I overheard a co-worker stating about reading -- she said that people tend to skip over words and often their mind fills in the word that works best. (I know I will often skip over words while writing without realizing it.) So when I'm reading a book, I've been known to skip over descriptive passages. And often won't remember the color of the characters hair, etc, unless the writer makes it a point.
And I don't write books about characters that look like me. Possibly because I don't really need to -- I live in a society that is predominately Caucasion or White European. Up until recently, you sort of had to look for books that were about non-white characters or POC. The other and main reason I avoid it -- as much as I can -- is to make the character as different from me as I can possibly get. For example? In one book, I made the heroine, blue-eyed, blond, and petite. (I'm the exact opposite). She also wore dresses and was into how she looked. (I couldn't care less.) In my current novel? My heroine is African-American, she's an auto mechanic, great at math, struggles with reading, and a recent vet, who worked to defuse bombs.
She is nothing like me. I don't like writing about myself -- I tend to make mistakes. And more to the point? I don't like reading books where the characters are like me -- because I want to jump into another point of view and see the world differently.
Lucky for me there aren't really that many books out there with characters that resemble me. Or I haven't found them. I suppose I could write them but where would be the fun in that?
I do write the books and stories I can't find elsewhere. And I get annoyed with books, movies and television shows that repeat stories I've seen a lot and in particular story tropes that I don't like. If you have to repeat a plot trope or character type that has been done to death -- please be subversive about it or do it in a different way. Or I will get cranky. This is a side-effect of being a binge-reader -- who will read 100 or more books in one genre until I get completely burned out on it. And think damn, people can't come up with a new story to save their lives. I think my annoyance comes from the selfish desire to find something new.
I also write the stories that are inside my head. I used to just tell them aloud to the sky, the woods, but I was told to write them down. So I've been doing that since I was 12. Not always well, often poorly. Because a story in my head doesn't always translate well on the page. It's hard to find the words that will communicate it to the masses.
I'm trying to think of an episode that has worked for me this season? Maybe the one in which we get an actual moral philosophy interchange -- which was in episode two or three. Where Chidi informs the self-absorbed Simone that her reasoning is flawed because she's convinced the world is her own creation, while she lies in a coma. Her inability to believe in anything greater than her self or her own perceptions leads to a conviction that obviously this takes place in her head and she can do whatever she wants. That was a great episode. That episode, alas, is but a distant memory.
My difficulty with the Good Place -- is basically that I don't like Michael Schur's writing unless he is cracking wise at metaphysics and philosophy. Otherwise, I'm kind of bored and irritated. I know it's a Michael Schur thing -- because I have not been able to make it through any of his comedies but this one. YMMV of course.
From my perspective, the Good Place's main and possibly only strength is the philosophical and metaphysical whimsy. It's at its best when it is poking fun at either metaphysics or philosophy. Everything else is sort of window dressing and not very good window dressing at that. Yes, there's some nice world-building details in here -- that I did notice. (But I'm not really that into world-building details and sly in-jokes.) The joke about everything being made of chocolate including a reeses peanut butter cup -- which is supposed to be peanut butter plus chocolate, but was just chocolate. The marketing video -- showing how great everything is -- when it's not. And the hole leading to hell -- borrowed from S1.
Character development is rather predictable, and to some extent a retread from the far more entertaining S3. These writers have run out of ideas. Good thing it is ending soon.
Example? We are once again reminded of why Simon and Chidi don't work. It's simple. Simone is too self-absorbed to really care or love anyone outside of herself. Everything centers on Simone. This is shown in the third season -- where Chidi attempts to conduct an experiment with Simone and Simone not only takes it over, but takes all the credit. And Chidi, indecisive doormat that he is, lets her. What eventually breaks them up, however, is not that -- but the fact that Chidi, an ethics philosopher, believes in something greater than himself, and has a moral code, Simone, a scientist, only believes in Simone and her moral code doesn't quite reach past that -- or not that far. But we sort of got that in S3 -- or I did. I didn't really need to revisit it.
I was hoping for a bit more character development on Simone, but alas, her character is basically just there as a contrast to Chidi and Eleanor. We never delve any deeper than Simone's own rational view that world doesn't quite exist much past herself. A view that is better played and for more interestingly so, in that episode I described above. Here -- in this episode, she blatantly refuses to help save another man's life, because there's nothing in it for her and she hates the guy.
Chidi comes back with -- that doesn't matter. You save someone because they are in trouble -- and it is the right thing to do.
Off-screen, Simone has been doing what Eleanor was doing in S1 -- figuring out that the Good Place is actually the Bad Place. Collecting data, etc. But the writers don't think it would be interesting to watch her do this (possibly because they already went that route with Eleanor in S1). And no one knows she's doing it. (Odd, considering we have both Tahani and Jason wandering about in the group, undetected.)
It makes sense Simone would do it -- but it is sort of dropped in there out of the blue. So much of the plot is rushed, while lots of time is made for stupid magic jokes that seemingly go nowhere. Or stupid gags -- regarding Jason's idiot savant abilities or Eleanor's inability to figure out what to do with the four candidates that Michael hadn't previously already done with Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason in s!-2.
I think the writers knew the ending, but not what to do to get there. So much of this feels like filler. OR as if they are phoning it in.
While we do get a group dynamic of sorts -- it doesn't quite gell, because this is the first that we are seeing it. It hasn't been built up to like the Eleanor, Chidi, etc group had been. No real time has been invested by the writers on Gossip, Brent, and Simone. Outside of their glaring and often-times annoying one-note character traits, we know nothing about them -- so why should we or rather I care? (Note I don't. While I do to some degree care about Eleanor, Chidi, Tahani and Jason.)
Brent's character is never developed past the self-absorbed narcissist we see on screen. We are never given a reason why. Simone never gets past the self-righteous scientist who can't see past her own importance. The Gossip can't ever see past his own reflection or gossip. They are in a way all reflections of maybe Tahani?
Going back to main characters...Chidi does get something to do here, but for the most part he seems a bit lost by the plot mechanics. I will state that of the characters, he may be the one who has been developed the most -- but it's hard to know for certain. The main ones do have interesting arcs for the most part, but so much of the time they appear to be running in place or serving as straight men for an ill fired joke by a supporting player.
Season 4 alas is turning out to be the weakest of the four seasons to date, and this episode does little to change that.
2. Saw the flick 2 Fast 2 Furious: Hobbs & Shaw last night on "on-demand". I watched it for three reasons: 1) the stunts, 2) I had the oddest desire to see things blown up and fight sequences, 3) Vanessa Kirby, Helen Mirren, and Idris Elba (who plays the villain).
What worked? Well watching 1000 cars get blown apart along with a helicopter was oddly cathartic. Also lots of absurd fast action fight scenes. Vanessa Kirby kicked ass in this. Actually the women characters were all bad-ass and interesting.
There's a rather amazing car and helicopter stunt that I enjoyed.
What did not work? The incessant bickering between the Rock, Jason Stratharn, and every other male character in the show. Honestly, the male posturing and bickering, was enough to make you wish someone would put one or all out of their collective misery. I ended up fast-forwarding at one point, because they were giving me a headache. Whoever was tasked with writing dialogue for this project -- failed. And should be fired. Never to work again. But the stunts were great. Also, Stratharn and the Rock have zero chemistry...the Rock didn't really have chemistry with anyone. Which was interesting.
But I'd definitely watch an action movie with Vanessa Kirby again. She rocked. As an aside? We need more female centric action flicks -- where the women are not scantilly clad.
3. Why People Can't Write
Not what I thought. I actually sort of agree with some of it.
For Pinker, the root cause of so much bad writing is what he calls "the Curse of Knowledge", which he defines as "a difficulty in imagining what it is like for someone else not to know something that you know. The curse of knowledge is the single best explanation I know of why good people write bad prose."
"Every human pastime --music, cooking, sports, art, theoretical physics --develops an argot to spare its enthusiasts from having to say or type a long-winded description every time they refer to a familiar concept in each other's company. The problem is that as we become proficient at our job or hobby we come to use these catchwords so often that they flow out of our fingers automatically, and we forget that our readers may not be members of the clubhouse in which we learned them."
People in business seem particularly prone to this "affliction." You could argue that business has developed its own entirely unique dialect of English. People are exposed to an alphabet soup of terms and acronyms at business school, which they then put into use in their day-to-day interactions once they enter the working world.
And what starts out as a means of facilitating verbal communication between people becomes the primary mode with which people communicate their ideas in writing, from email to chat apps to business proposals and presentations.
"How can we lift the curse of knowledge?" asks Pinker. "A considerate writer will...cultivate the habit of adding a few words of explanation to common technical terms, as in 'Arabidopsis, a flowering mustard plant,' rather than the bare 'Arabidopsis.' It's not just an act of magnanimity: A writer who explains technical terms can multiply her readership a thousandfold at the cost of a handful of characters, the literary equivalent of picking up hundred-dollar bills on the sidewalk."
"Readers will also thank a writer for the copious use of for example, as in, and such as, because an explanation without an example is little better than no explanation at all."
Whenever I write a sentence that makes me pause and wonder about what it means, I assume that other readers might react in the same way. If a sentence is not clear to me, it might not be clear to others. It's an approach that I recommend to anyone who is trying to improve his own writing.
Before hitting publish and sending your writing out to the world, it's better to be honest with yourself about how much your reader is likely to understand a given passage or sentence. Before you commit your writing to print-- or to the internet-- take a few moments to make sure that what you write is clear and understandable by as many of your intended readers as possible.
4. Television Series..
I watched the relationship dramas, all of which pissed me off on some level. Sigh. Hormones. The problem with peri-menopause is the hormones. The weirdest things set me off -- I'll either cry at something or rage at it. It's very odd.
* This is Us -- most of this past week's episode was cringe inducing, except for the scenes with the two teens, and there's a lovely scene at the end between Randall's white father Jack (Randall is black) and Randall's black teacher.
Jack: Lately there are questions I can't answer for my son. Like how do I teach him to be black?
Teacher (laughs): No, no...you don't want to do that. (His eyes light up and he goes to grab a book from his car.) I brought this book for Randall but my wife convinced me to leave it in the car -- it's the poetry of Langston Hughs. Randall really identified with it. Maybe you can share this with him?
That scene worked. Everything else...was a wee bit too strident on class. Class is hard to discuss well on television shows when the writers are rich, without it coming across as patronizing or cliche. Actually there are two shows that I've been watching that handle class rather well -- The Connors and Bob Hearts Abishola. They actually deal with it better than the dramas.
*A Million Little Things -- which I've decided to rename A Million Little White Lies -- a much more fitting title. The entire plot and character development hinges on the white lies the characters tell each other and themselves.
I wanted to strangle one character, Deliah, who is insistent on keeping the birth father of her daughter a secret from her children. Everyone else knows. Why? She's protecting them from finding out their mother had an affair with their father's best friend and got pregnant by him. I'm thinking, no honey, you are protecting yourself. The kids will find out eventually -- honestly everyone else knows. All they have to do is unwittingly eavesdrop on it. And you are only hurting everyone including your kids more by keeping it a secret. Take responsibility, and take your punishment.
Meanwhile Gary and Maggie chose not to return Colin aka Westley, the stray mastiff that Gary has adopted to his rightful owner. Instead they replaced him with an identical mastiff, figuring the old woman won't notice the difference. This was of course Maggie's idea, and she didn't tell Gary that it was done until after the fact.
And then there is PJ, who it turns out is actually John's son, who John lied about and is most likely the reason John committed suicide. This kid is trying to make friends with Deliah and John's daughter Sophie -- so he can learn more about John, only to freak out when Sophie tries to kiss him -- because he might be her half-brother.
See? A Million Little Lies.
* Grey's Anatomy
Sigh. The insurance fraud storyline refuses to go away. It's still hanging out there. However we did have a half-way decent inter-change with Ameila and Owen at the end. Those actors still have oodles of chemistry.
Maggie Pierce is really being written as a self-absorbed narcissitic bitch. This episode, she decides to perform a surgery that neither the patient nor the patient's father wants -- and it fails miserably. She does it because it's cool and she's convinced she'll come out a hero. What doesn't work is that if the patient (Maggie's cousin) and Maggie's Uncle -- didn't want the surgery done by either Maggie or their Uncle/Brother Webber -- why go seek them out at their hospital and tell them about it? Wouldn't it make more sense to go to a hospital that neither are on staff, and have it done there? It's even brought up that they had the opportunity to do just that but chose not to -- not clear on why.
If you haven't guessed, I'm frustrated with bad television plotting lately. Also they really need to work on dialogue.
5. Studied The Noah's Arc story this week in my weird Bible Study Group (it's a bible study lead by a liberal Jewish UU Minister who doesn't like the New Testament and lets us do that part on our own, while she's providing in depth theological teachings on the Old Testament.)
So, long story short, I learned a few things about it that I did not know.
For one thing...it happens rather early on in the old testament.
Me: So is this after Sodom and Gomorra?
Minister: No that's long after.
Me: Before the Tower of Babble?
Minister: No that's after..
Me: I ask, because God in this story decides to destroy the world or flood the world, so I'm trying to figure out why at that point in time.
Minister: Hmmm. No the only things that happened before were Adam and Eve and Cain and Able.
Me: Really?
Minister: And interesting enough, none of them take responsibility for anything. Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the apple, Cain denies he did anything...it's as if God gave these people all this agency and they completely abuse it or deny having it.
We also realized that after the floods recede in the story -- Noah dies an old drunk and no one changes all that much. God basically states in the story that all humans are inherently bad people or evil, and they can't really help it, so God is going to be a bit more tolerant and stop worrying about it. Gives Noah a Rainbow to show good faith.
The other things we found out?
Minister: the word for arc in Hebrew doesn't mean boat, it means box. This was a box.
Congregant: So a fall out shelter?
ME: No, it's a box with a window.
Minister: Actually the word used which in hebrew does mean window isn't used for window anywhere else in the Bible. So it was most likely a magical gem or light -- providing hope and faith through a traumatic passage.
Interesting metaphors there. We also have the Raven go out first and not come back, and the dove go out several times and return each time, until it finally doesn't -- the implication is it found land. We decided the Raven was wild and willing to fly until it found land, while the Dove was more domesticated and not willing to keep flying until it found land.
It's possible it happened and was watered down until someone got around to writing it down. After all we did have a major extinction event with the Dinsaurs. (Although I much prefer to read this stuff metaphorically). And it has happened over and over again -- hello the plague that wiped out most of Europe. Or whatever happened with Atlantis, and the ancient Mayans, Aztecs, etc. We don't necessarily take great care of our planet, I can imagine it's wiped us out from time to time.
And the idea of hitting a reset button -- oh I'm not much liking this human experiment, let's wipe out humanity and start again. What I've always found curious is so much worse happens after this point, yet no one is wiped out. Instead the character of God in the bible tries different things to make it work, like an eternal architect redrawing blue-prints or fiddling with his creation until it works.
6. On Writing..
This morning, I read in a discussion I was having over a book that I was highly ambivalent about (yes, why I'd discuss a book I felt ambivalent towards I don't quite know either)...that the writer wrote the book because she wanted to read fantasy books with magic that featured characters that looked like her.
Okay. It occurred to me while reading that sentence that most people do not read books the same way I do. I don't visualize the characters really. I'm more aware of the character's culture, interests, voice, physicality (size/physical strength) than color or race. In fact a lot of physical description of characters in books tends to annoy me -- I consider it purple prose. (Too many romance novels). Nor do I think what a character looks like matters -- unless you are writing a graphic novel or comic book, then yes, it does.
I guess reading is a bit like listening to a podcast or a radio show -- in that you don't really see the people. You are told what they may look like, but you can jump past that entirely.
Which reminds me of something I overheard a co-worker stating about reading -- she said that people tend to skip over words and often their mind fills in the word that works best. (I know I will often skip over words while writing without realizing it.) So when I'm reading a book, I've been known to skip over descriptive passages. And often won't remember the color of the characters hair, etc, unless the writer makes it a point.
And I don't write books about characters that look like me. Possibly because I don't really need to -- I live in a society that is predominately Caucasion or White European. Up until recently, you sort of had to look for books that were about non-white characters or POC. The other and main reason I avoid it -- as much as I can -- is to make the character as different from me as I can possibly get. For example? In one book, I made the heroine, blue-eyed, blond, and petite. (I'm the exact opposite). She also wore dresses and was into how she looked. (I couldn't care less.) In my current novel? My heroine is African-American, she's an auto mechanic, great at math, struggles with reading, and a recent vet, who worked to defuse bombs.
She is nothing like me. I don't like writing about myself -- I tend to make mistakes. And more to the point? I don't like reading books where the characters are like me -- because I want to jump into another point of view and see the world differently.
Lucky for me there aren't really that many books out there with characters that resemble me. Or I haven't found them. I suppose I could write them but where would be the fun in that?
I do write the books and stories I can't find elsewhere. And I get annoyed with books, movies and television shows that repeat stories I've seen a lot and in particular story tropes that I don't like. If you have to repeat a plot trope or character type that has been done to death -- please be subversive about it or do it in a different way. Or I will get cranky. This is a side-effect of being a binge-reader -- who will read 100 or more books in one genre until I get completely burned out on it. And think damn, people can't come up with a new story to save their lives. I think my annoyance comes from the selfish desire to find something new.
I also write the stories that are inside my head. I used to just tell them aloud to the sky, the woods, but I was told to write them down. So I've been doing that since I was 12. Not always well, often poorly. Because a story in my head doesn't always translate well on the page. It's hard to find the words that will communicate it to the masses.