Do I really want to write a post? Or more to the point, would you want to read it?

[shadowkat]

What to write...what to write...sort of doing the stream of consciousness thing at the moment. I feel the urge to write, that niggling, iggling, itchy feeling I get that says I must write before I explode, like someone who has drank too much caffeine. Haven't drank any. Well, except for a few sips of green tea. So I'm doing that exercise which is basically writing whatever comes to mind whether or not it makes an iota of sense.

Over the course of the week I felt tempted to do what I call my lecture/soap box posts...but much to the relief of my flist, resisted the temptation. One post this week was more than enough. These are basically my rants on whatever issue comes to mind. Inspired either by work, dreams, or in most cases, the stuff I've seen on TV. Have decided I watch far too much television. Didn't stop me from watching two hours of Gilmore Girls and another TV show today.
Hey, was a busy day - had a doc appointment in the city - so had to zig zag my way through the tower of babble that is the NYC subway system. Prior to the doc appointment, spent two hours reading my livejournal flist - long frigging list. Course I haven't been online since Sunday...so...well...there you go.
Found some interesting things to ponder.

One was the whole authorial intent arguement going on in londonkds journal. Made me smile. Personally, I agree with londonkds on this one - TV is a collarborative entreprise, true, but that said, as anyone who is currently working on the ATS S6 Fanfic can attest to - the head-honchos control the show. Even more so actually than the ATS S6 head-honchos do, because, gasp, money is involved and careers are on the line and real TV head-honchos can fire people. TV is a business first, entertainment second. Mostly the two go hand in hand, but when push comes to shove, it's a business and the guy who has his name on the series as the creator and executive producer controls the show. Especially in Whedon's case - that guy had full creative control and in every single commentary it is made clear that he looked over those scripts and nothing aired on-screen that he did not approve of, first. Heck, he often re-wrote the scripts. Evidence of this can be found in: S6 - the episodes Smashed (Whedon told them to use a decripit building), Gone (Whedon's idea to have invisible Buffy have sex with Spike), Dead Things (the balcony thing was Whedon's idea), S7 (Whedon re-wrote the church scene in Beneath You and directed it himself), S5 (Whedon wrote the William scenes). A funny thing about TV and movies that I've learned over the years - you can't believe the credits. For instance, I know for a fact that Kit Carson not Sam Shepard wrote a good portion of Paris, Texas - but you will not find it anywhere on the DVD or on the film, because Kit was what in Hollywood is called a ghost writer, and not credited for his work. Same thing with Love Crimes - you won't see my brother, his wife, or Kit's names on that film either - even though I know they worked extensively on it. This may be why I usually don't bother reading the credits on films or TV shows very often nor care, because deep down I know that just because someone's name is there does not always mean they did the work. My bro used to regal me with stories of people who got their names on the credit list because they helped fund the film - that was their reward. Weird business - ain't it? Add to this the fact that no matter what an author intends, audiences have a habit of seeing whatever they want in the work. We see it through our own viel of experience after all. No way around that. You cannot control how someone else views or experiences your artwork. You can scream your "intent" at them until you are blue in the face, but if they see something else - that is as valid as what you intended. Once the artwork is out there, it ceases being yours, it ceases being what you intended, and becomes something completely new. The best you can do, I think, is shrug your shoulders and let it become whatever it becomes. I think that's the thing I love most about artwork - the fact that it changes depending on the viewer, each viewer, each viewing changes the work, makes it different. The interaction between art and viewer can actually be more interesting than the art or the author's intent. Often what the viewer sees in a work of art is far more intriguing than what the author or artist intended when they created it.

The other bit...was redredshoes complaint about the 10 Things I've Done That You Haven't Meme. Tend to agree with redredshoes, so you won't see me doing it. But as you may or may not have guessed, I'm not really into memes, unless I create them myself that is and those memes tend to be loose on the rules. Throughout my life there has been one constant - I tend to do my own thing regardless of what the crowd is up to. I may join in - but only if I'm interested or want to. Most of the time I'm over here, puttering away. Not much of a groupie. That said, this meme is an intriguing one, because it is developed around an "assumption" and a potentially "faulty" one at that. How the heck do you know other people haven't done these things??

The human tendency to make assumptions and build entire plans around these assumptions, make huge decisions based on them, without getting all the information first (because honestly who has the frigging time or patience to do that?), fascinates me. Seen it as a continuous theme in all the TV shows I have watched this week. From Lost where the Jin assumes his wife hates him more than her father, and sees him as the villain. Truth is, it's the opposite. But he never asks her. They never communicate. In Battlestar Galatica, trust is a huge issue, and paranoia runs rampant, for good reasons, here the President assumes the cylon prisoner is telling the truth - until he throws her a curve ball and she executes him. In her own mind she's above this, she's the maiden in white running through the forest and the soliders are the villians, yet, it is she, not Lt. Starbuck, who throws him out an airlock. Assuming that just because he is a cylon, means he isn't human, that he is a machine. She doesn't know. She assumes. Assumptions can be bloody dangerous. And can destroy relationships. Yet, it is easier to assume someone wants something or someone knows something, than asking. People don't like to ask for directions for some odd reason. Not my friend Boringuen, whenever we got lost anywhere in the city - she'd pull over in her beaten up volvo and ask the guy on the street - where to go next. She wouldn't hesitate to ask. And I think that's it - asking - for help, guidance, directions, instructions. How hard is it to ask:"What do you want for your birthday?", "What movie would you like to see?" " Do you like sushi?" "Would you like to help me with this?" "Can you turn this paper in on time? If not? Why?" "Why were you late?" "What happened?" "Are you okay?" Or if you don't understand the response - to guestion it?

I can't help but wonder if we've developed too many languages, learned too many words, too many slang terms and abbreviations - that we are becoming lost in translation. Unable to communicate with one another or interpret what the other is trying to say. Today on the train, I walked up to the conductor and asked them to repeat what they said over the loudspeaker - I couldn't hear what they said, just garbley-gook. Sometimes I think life has become like a cell phone commercial - "Can you hear me now?" Our lives inundated with so many forms of communication, so many words, so many sounds - that we no longer listen or hear them. But not just sounds. Words too. Written. When I wander through the internet, I find myself scratching my head, attempting to interpret the slang on my flist or in email. When did people start making up words or abbreviating them to the point in which they look like computer jargon or what some might call net slang? Such as Frex? (I think it means "for example") or meta-narrative, or wank, or the worst culprits those ALL CAPS abbreviations that only a true "computer geek" knows. All of which only manage to exclude those who haven't taken the time to learn the language. Language is meant to further communication yet lately it seems to work more as an obstacle. I remember in college and as a child people would create languages to exclude others, to make it possible to talk around someone without them understanding - an exclusion tactic. So, if one is a linguist - one has obtained a pass to just about every club. If one is not? You are continuously lost admist the babble, literally stuck in that Old Testament chapter, gasping for some meaning, some context, some way to communicate. In a world that seems to me at least to be becoming increasingly obsessed with methods of communication (cell phones, computers, etc) - this worries me. It may be why William Gibson, a sci-fi writer, is a favorite of mine. He worries about this too. In Neuromancer - he tackles cyber-space and how translation and communication can get garbled within it. Just picked up Pattern Recognition last week. Will probably finish Hyperion first, then must read the God of Small Things for my book club, even though I'm halfway convinced of two things - 1) this isn't the book Danny had in mind and she's going to hate it, because gasp, it is another stream of consciousness, hard read not the short stories she'd envision, 2)I'll probably end up reading it, even though I don't want to, and she won't, again. Note to self - bring a selection of fun light reads with me to the next book club.

Okay, running out of steam again. So will stop the ramble...



Is it just me or is this show just getting better with each episode? Each time I think it's gotten as good as it could get, and the next episode is bound to be maybe a B or less - like every other single show I've seen in my life, this baby blows me completely away. Maybe it's just because the topics it is exploring and the characters it presents speak to me and what I've been going through in a way nothing else on air does? (shrugs) Possible. Except Buffy did that, and even I admit, Buffy was not great all the time. Every TV show has a so-so episode here and there, even the great ones. Except for the new BattleStar Galatica. Which is ironic, since the old one was really lacklustre and had few good episodes if any.

Seriously folks, if you aren't watching Battlestar Galatica you are missing the best science-fiction television series since the first Twilight Zone. Unlike BTVS, Angel, all the Treks, Farscape, X-Files, Babylone 5, The 4400, etc - this baby has few if any missteps, I can see. Although I tend to be pretty forgiving. It started out of the gate at A level and has kept up the pace. It's trippy, it's multifaceted, and it deals with our current social/religious political environment more deftly than anything else out there. It is about people who were living the high life, the military a thing of the past - literally in retirement, when suddenly they are attacked and fleeing their enemies, terrified. No where is safe. Nothing is the same. And the enemy is everywhere, can attack them from anywhere, could be their best friend. Remind you of anything? Haven't seen anything deal with this issue since the 1950's Invasion of the Body Snatchers (the black and white version and far better one) or the Twilight Zone. Here humanity worships multiple Gods (like the Ancient Greeks) and the Cylons worship one God and see life as temporary, that their souls will live onwards and when they die, their essence is literally transmuted into a new shell. Issues such as torture, military action, what makes us human, trust, family, religion are examined in new and complex ways.

Almost six episodes in - this has got to be the best television show I've seen ever. And no, I'm not fannish about it. You won't see me posting icons. Or writing fanfic or reading it. Or taping each episode and obsessively re-watching them. Or buying fan-mags, or joining posting boards. It doesn't effect me like that - it doesn't have gaps I need to fill, nor am I worried about what happens next in the same way - shows that are flawed will do that to me, this one is so perfectly realized, so perfectly acted and shot - that it is like a film, I can watch, absorb, be haunted, wonder...ponder. But I don't need to figure it out. Not sure if that makes sense.

Comments

[deevalish.livejournal.com]

How the heck do you know other people haven't done these things??

*shrugs* You don't. It's just a leap of faith I guess. Or not. Maybe more like a small amount of trust. Like how you trust that the bus driver knows where they're going. Or something like that.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

*shrugs* You don't. It's just a leap of faith I guess. Or not. Maybe more like a small amount of trust. Like how you trust that the bus driver knows where they're going. Or something like that.

Not quite where I was going with that...although I suppose when you do the meme, you are indirectly asking folks on your friends list if they've done these things. And if they respond and say they have - then oops you are wrong. If they don't? You can assume they haven't. But here's the thing - it's not the same thing as assuming the bus driver knows where he is going. Because you are basing the assumption on whether or not someone replies. How do you know they read your journal at the time you posted? Or maybe they did do these things, but don't want to expose themselves? OR maybe it's just not of interest? When you assume the bus driver knows where he's going - you do have a couple of facts to back you up: 1) he can't drive the bus without being licensed by the state, 2) there's usually a map of his route in the bus that you can look at (at least there is on the City buses here - so I am assuming there is elsewhere, which isn't necessarily a safe assumption) 3) You've taken the bus before, and he's gotten it right.

When you state - I've done these ten things and you haven't: you are making a blanket assumption without any information to back yourself up. Sort of like meeting someone in a bar and assuming they've never danced naked in the rain. Odds are, they haven't. But then again? You never know.

[thepackrat741.livejournal.com]

Well ... Without being a philosophy-dork ... they could NEVER have done those things because they could never be YOU ... When YOU do something ... it is YOU doing it... when THEY do something it is THEY ( them ? ) doing it ...and THAT variable is the key.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

In which case, what's the point of the meme?
Because everything you've ever done in life, someone else hasn't done and could never do.