So I recently discovered a site called Gawker which I now read sporadically for the snarky comments. Though it is a news source I prefer to get the stories directly from the routers, so it's mostly a source of entertainment.
Anyway, Gawker has a love-hate relationship with an internet personality named Julia Allison who is one of those people famous for doing absolutely nothing. As far as I know, at one point she was a sex columnist who is now trying to eek out a living as Carrie Bradshaw 2.0 while crashing a variety of parties. Gawker repeatedly reports on her, though why they do, as some commentators have pointed out, if they truly believe she is an irrelevant personality, is questionable. However, the posts on her seem to get a lot of hits, so she is probably simply entertainment fodder for them.
I was wondering what all the fuss was about, so as part of relaxation time I decided to visit her page and company, Nonsociety. Here are some of the gems I found:

"Nonsociety and Axe: Join forces to solve the hair crisis!"

"The Internet audience doesn’t demand high quality for original online content. It just needs to be entertaining. So why are people pouring six figures into online series (Dr. Horrible by Joss Whedon) when you can spend less than half that and be just as popular?"

"Advertisers and sponsors have to come onboard to fuel your fire. But with their head in the traditional tv/print campaign model, how do we convince them the Internet is where the cool kids hang out."

"I’ll admit to not enjoying Will Ferrell movies, but I don’t find these web shows funny…at all. Am I missing something? Did the botox eat up part of my brain? Any and all explanation would be helpful. Thanks.

The five web shows are:
Childrens’ Hospital
Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog
The Guild
Onion News Network
You Suck at Photoshop"

(incidentally, this last one is quoted from Mary, not Julia)

This isn't even including the live webcast, which, in Julia's case, seems to be full of lip dubs . Meghan is the only one with anything remotely interesting to say IMO, and actually linked to something interesting: Jasmax

WTF?!

Austria's Fritzl denies murder, admits rape and incest

I love how his lawyer's argument that he is not a monster is that "he occasionally took the children from below ground".

It's amazing how much I like writing and blogging, which I had forgotten. I have created many posts in the past couple days, but I do feel as if I have a lot to talk about. At the moment, I feel no desire to really publicize this blog, however. Maybe later, in which case I will make use of the "friends only" option. On my old blog I constantly felt the need to censor myself because of the amount and variety of people potentially reading it, and it felt disingenuous to pick and choose between friends. Naturally, of course, if a privacy option is not selected, this is on the internet, but I don't feel uncomfortable with any of the content I've written. Double negative!

Something I Don't Get

People who are perfectly tolerant of other's religions, but then go on a rant about how certain things reasonable inside of a normal human psyche and conception are immoral when they see others doing them.
So, it is not ok for people to practice these things, such as living together, because you don't believe in it solely due to your religion, but you claim to be tolerant?
An eternal question: If you truly believe that your way is the only way to heaven, can you be tolerant, ultimately?
I don't know, never feeling this way myself, and I certainly am not going to judge all devoutly religious people who believe this in my uncertainty. It's just something I wonder about sometimes.

Last Night's Dream

I vaguely remember a part where I was with high school band in some location. Things kept breaking that the school didn't have the money to fix, including, at one point, a very expensive video camera due to a wave in the ocean. Repairs for it would "cost a couple hundred" (that wasn't the full cost of the camera). Mr. Kenion, one of my high school band teachers, and Mrs. Craig were there. Mrs. Craig asked me what I had done to my hair, and I told her "nothing, just used a new type of shampoo" and then that I was fine, and getting better, though I got the impression she wasn't really listening. Everything was in brown overtones, and run down.

Next I remember being at Canterbury, still with the band, although it was also implied that I was going to school there. Twice I got so caught up in day dreams that I missed what was right in front of/behind me; the second time this was that a bunch of buildings were on fire with firemen rushing to combat the flames. It was implied throughout the dream that the global economic and political situation was getting worse and that there were fires everywhere. Next I remember a gathering at a clearing by the lunch area, which did not resemble the real life lunch area in Canterbury, and I wanted to know if we could go home since everything was on fire because I wanted to skip school. I can't remember if it was before or after that I slipped into another daydream and everything was bombed by a country who's name I think was Cambria. It was truly horrible in the dream, and I can't imagine it in real life. Everything was on fire, people were running and screaming, I had no idea what had happened to anyone else or my appartment or pets. The global fan had been hit, and there was no telling what was going to happen or if and when the nukes were going to come. I think this happened before the assembly because I was wondering if China was going to side with Cumbria.

We scattered, though I don't remember why, and I ran into the building to the south trying to get out of the school. The building resembled dreamscape from a previous dream about North Hollywood. Another nation, an Asian one, had then sent archers to the west coast and they were now in the school. I remember a brief scene with Alex Jacobson in front of a column of people saying "Archers? In this day and age? Why don't they send bombs or something?" Watching them take down all the people around me I didn't wonder why, as everyone was completely defenseless. The actual reason this country sent archers was that it was poor, in the dream. Another part of the dream had revealed that America's military force was stretched very thin and was too untrained and inexperienced, I remember.

At some point I "woke up" into another dream in "my" bed, though this room did not resemble my apartment. Everything was mauve and it was implied I was in a house in a fancy area. I, still convinced that Cambria was invading, rushed outside with a gun and a kitchen knife, to meet Jackie Chan, who was in his 20s, and a girl in a coach. They both stopped. The dream gets sort of fuzzy from here, though I remember there was a lot of dream after this. I think Jackie Chan was a womanizer and I turned him down, and David Litvak, who I knew in middle school, also liked me but I also turned him down. There was a logic game which Jessica Lee beat David at(David was a nerd) and some sort of new ride involving a tunnel.

Dreams are crazy.

he

I am in pain and having some trouble sleeping. So I want to rewrite an idea I had a little while ago.

I would, as a reaction to shows such as "Gossip Girl", love to see a film taking the life story of the Buddha and setting it in the modern day, because I feel as if it would not only provide a chance for a unique adaptation but also help to cram some of his message down people's throats.

(Honestly, I personally would be more interested in creating a film about Buddha set in the correct historical time period because of the the beauty of the land and architecture that could be filmed and because I would be interested in researching the aesthetic groups he was involved in before his enlightenment. This film would probably be grittier, though it certainly could be beautiful.)

But anyways, this made me think at the time I had the idea, "Would people be fine with a Caucasian actor in NY playing Gautama Buddha?"

I didn't and don't think so. My reasoning is that I don't think people would be able to accept a white Buddha anymore than an Indian Jesus Christ or a black Confucius. My personal feeling on the matter is that such stories transcend race and time, but the possessiveness cultures feel about their central figures is not to be taken lightly. Of course, Jesus and Buddha have both already taken on alternate iconography in the cultures their religions/philosophy has spread to. Will new iconographies, even in a nonreligious sense, be accepted or tolerated in the world today on a mainstream level? The truth of the matter is that they spring up all the time in microcultures, but could they also tolerate exposure outside of them? This is a different topic, of course.

A culture generally has a large part of its identity based on these iconic figures. I somehow get the impression that the general audience would consider it "theft" of one of their central stories. Of course, adaptations have generally never destabilized the original culture or figure, but the artistic choice by a single person may be looked down upon for this reason(which I don't agree with). I also get the impression, in the case of India, that there are still hard feelings over England taking over the country, which would worsen this feeling of theft.

Part of the problem I have with this notion of theft is that it equates culture with race. If you are representing these figure's symbolic life story, they are just serving as that-symbols which everyone should be able to share a part of, no matter where they originated.

This is a long question and topic, and I feel as if I finally am going to be able to sleep. I may return to this tomorrow, or some other time, for some mental exercise.

More thoughts on the Tale of Genjii

The chapter I am on deals with Genjii as an "adult", at a few years older than twelve. Genjii is now running around with women and breaking the occasional heart. He sometimes visits his wife.
This chapter is written as a conversation between three men, one of whom is Genjii, on the qualities of a perfect and desirable woman and wife. It's interesting to try and interpret this, as it was of course written by a woman. How much of this is information gleaned from court, cattiness, or personal opinion? It states in the introduction that Shikibu herself was not by birth of the higher court, and she indeed states that it is more desirable to court a pretty and talented girl of middle rank than one who's upbringing has gone wrong in the higher rank. The chapter is a long list and story of types of women in black and white terms, such as the naive ones, the household busibody, and those obsessed with etiquette(long story short-all not that great).
At times I could almost feel as though I was picking up on her personal frustration about certain practices of women and their families, especially when she talks about women having a few good qualities that are played up and leaked to the world, and their character never matching up to the story created around them.
Women are not portrayed as opressed, mearly sheltered, and have access to the arts. In fact, one of the most looked-for qualities is a talented woman, at least according to Shikibu, though she, or rather one of the men, says that ultimatley steadfastdness of personality is more desirable than talent. Women are taught to write, though whether or not they memorize the classics such as upper-class men is not clear. It is also unclear how accepted they are in the fields of painting and caligraphy. So far, however, women are not portayed as having relationships with more than one man. It may be implied in a couple of places that some of the ones around Genjii's age do.
So, yes. It is incredible to interact with these characters from the first book in the twenty-first century, to understand them and the beauty surrounding them, to appreciate how novels have evolved over time, to analyse and critique it, and occasionally observe my own modern enculturation about men and women color the text. It is a gratifying read, though a slow one.

Thoughts from my Walk

I think that people who are depressed should have the title of adulthood revoked from them for a little while. I feel like I'm fighting reverting back to a childlike state sometimes, except I was more responsible than this as a child. Thankfully there are people here to help me and help bail me out of my messes.
My biggest problem is in my head, and that is the most frustrating part about this. Great, it's in my head, I have control of it! That makes it all the worse that I don't. I've taken and keep taking all the steps I can to control it, don't get me wrong. But today it took me an hour to get out of bed and get a bowl of cereal. An hour! And this isn't unusual.
At least I feel as if I have more mental energy today, which is good, because the majority of it is devoted to studying. When I woke up my head felt raw, in a good way, as if it was trying to switch channels.
I think I would feel a lot happier if I could garden. If I could just create a whole bunch of minature beauties. Drawing them is not the same, as it creates a picture that you have absolute control over that's static by definition.
I hate posts like this when I look back. I think the world is not kind to weakness, and it sort of feels as if it might eat me alive later for showing some in a public place. But, I do like blogging, the one form of diary-keeping I have been successful with keeping up with.

Edit: I was flipping through a book yesterday about depression in which the author describes the paralysis of one girl to the point of not being able to arrange figures in a box. He described it as scary, but I identified 100%. He then went on to describe times when tasks are not below a person's skill level, but the person fails to do them anyway because of the depression.

I am feeling better right now, but I've felt *better* at other times. I can't wait until this rollercoaster ride is fully complete.

Symbols?

So reading the Tale of Genjii got me thinking about how people used to (at least in story) communicate with each other through poetry and picture. As someone who loves the deeper-than-words communication that can be conveyed through these, I feel as though, in part, I miss the days when this was much more commonplace. Of course, part of the reason that we could never communicate this way in the modern day is that for many cultures, symbols had sort of a standard meaning. Now due to the mixing of cultures and experiences, things such as fall and autumn have many different meanings to many different people. I personally think that ultimately this can lead to deeper and richer symbolic communication, though it has also contributed to its disuse and to miscommunication in logical and *normal* communication due to the symbolic nature of language itself.

This also lead me to think about how in the Golden Dawn part of the requirements of the material is to absorb the symbolic aspect and then manipulate the symbols through ritual.
Part of the reason I feel compelled to write this down is how strange the idea of an almost-standardized symbology is to me. Due to human nature fully standardizing symbols is, of course, impossible, but it is just striking when a concept that was extremely commonplace for a long time is completely alien. I guess this is also true of racism, but that I just chalk up to mass ignorance and try not to think about.

It's really early or late

So Dylan introduced me to a site entitled "One Hundred Videos You Should Have Seen", and it has led to a whole bunch of time-wasting-before-finals. Today I am going into hardcore study mode, so I am not that nervous about taking a little extra time. I've enjoyed watching extra videos of Chad Vader since everything is funnier when acted out by an someone in a Vader suit. There are plenty of others that are worth seeing, and some that I will never get minutes of my life back from.

I also played a bunch of LOTRO yesterday. It was fun, especially since many guildies are just as into nerdy jokes as I am. I wish I could remember some of our exchanges to post them here, but suffice it to say that they involve astronomy, quantum physics, and various random talking about sharks, amoung other things. Crafting takes much too long, also.

My parents visited today, which was fun. We went to TGI Fridays, bought my books for the new semester and some groceries. We then all took a long nap. I am very excited about potential patio furniture because of my liking for basking in the sun.

So, yes. Lazy day.

I want to blog again

So today while researching things on the internet(or "researching") I was caught by an urge to blog again. Not even necessarily to write, just to blog. Maybe it was reading Neil Gaiman's and Warren Ellis's blogs, though that correlation is probably purely coincedental. Don't you agree, imaginary audience?
I don't even particularly want to write in this blog but it has my online nickname on it already so I'll go with it. I want to disown a couple entries that I wrote before this one(see below, actually, please don't).
Unfortunately, I don't think I have anything else to say at the moment. Hopefully I keep up with the habit.