a question to the world

Is Treasure Planet possibly the most tragically underrated Disney film ever?

(I think so.)

This fanvid got added to my "stuff I like" list today, but I'm also going to highlight it here. <3



The part where Jim's dad treats him like shit and then abandons the family always gets me (1:30-2:10 above). That probably hits a lot of people close to home, hmm? Especially in my generation. I was 20 the first time I saw this movie and I was still trying very hard to be the sort of person who's tough to crack but--oh!--I had to wipe my face with my sleeves.

This movie is frequently described as a "story about a boy becoming a man." It's not, though. To call it that is to erase the experiences of all the millions of women and girls who would identify with Jim, who feel all of these things in just the same way. Don't do that to us... it is killing us to be forever relegated to passive roles.

So...

I think Treasure Planet is a story about being born a human and learning to live in a broken world. It's about getting slapped around by the slings and arrows of harsh reality before you've even got your bearings, and somehow figuring out a way to pull through it all, 'til one day you find in yourself a font of strength and sensitivity you never knew you were capable of producing.

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As a side note, I thought it was really interesting to see that Ariel/Jim is a major shipping theme on the internets.

Poor Ariel never really got the chance to discover what Jim did, did she? I mean, she got her boyfriend to stab a bitch through the belly with the tip of a broken boat in the name of love a hot summer crush... but that's not remotely on the same level as the autonomy, transcendence, and connection that Jim found.

I think they both come from very similar emotional background, though...

Yeah, I would totally set them up on a date if I were the trans-dimensional matchmaker of the Kingdom Hearts universe. ^_^

As for Prince Eric? Oh, I don't know. Charlotte La Bouff?

every you and every me

via CrimethInc

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update - Sept 5, 2011:
There's a neat post along these lines up at No, Seriously, What About Teh Menz today.

(Beware the comment section on older posts on that blog, btw. Despite the high quality and measured tone of most of the main articles, the site frequently attracts commenters of the worst variety. It looks like moderation is improving though, thankfully.)

elliott smith again

Digging through an old youtube playlist tonight, from an obsolete account of mine. This is Elliott Smith, live* in Olympia, WA in 1999. Wish I could have gone to see him once! Will have to settle for the Figure 8 wall memorial.


 *(lolsob)

hetalia on america's relationship with food

As soon as I watched this bit a couple nights ago, I knew I'd have to transcribe it. This is from the English dub of Hetalia: Axis Powers, currently available for streaming on Netflix. I was unable to find any high quality clips of this scene on Youtube. Too bad!

UPDATE: I found one!

Hetalia Episode 17:

America's Cleaning of the Storage, Part I

BRITAIN: Hey, fatass. You've been gorging yourself so much lately, I'm worried that you're going to kill yourself.

AMERICA: *chomping on a cheeseburger* Dude, don't be silly! I'm way too into myself to ever do something stupid like that.

BRITAIN: *sighs* No, that's not really what I'm saying. You know--with heart disease or by choking.

AMERICA: What?! I'm fine. Don't worry, 'kay?

Text: THAT NIGHT...

AMERICA: *stepping onto the scale with trepidation* I work out like a frickin' champion... so I shouldn't gain that much, right?

Text: But he's dressed lightly.

AMERICA: *sees the number on the scale* OWOUUUU!!! *in a panic* Sure, I ate a lot of genetically-modified hormone-rich beef, but I totally drank diet soda to balance it out!

Text: French Method of Weight Loss

AMERICA: *fretting, pacing around* I guess I should get an Ab Roller or a Gazelle machine or pick up a nice drug habit or get a doctor to prescribe me one. Maybe France can help me out. Hey, France!

FRANCE: Hmm?

AMERICA: How do you stay so sexy thin while eating whatever you want like a PIG?!

FRANCE: *smiling sweetly while standing in a field with birds and flowers* Well, that's because I don't sit around on my butt like you.

Text: After that, France told America something bad from an educational point of view, so we're cutting that scene out.

CHIBI FRANCE: (says something unintelligible; maybe "That's not going to work out"?)

Text: Chinese Method of Weight Loss

AMERICA: China! Is it your crushing poverty that keeps you nice and thin?

CHINA: *grinning* That's right! Hard to get fat in a famine! *winks* You can also try our traditional tea. Makes your colon slippery!

AMERICA: *takes a sip, screws up face* Mmmm... this stuff tastes like ink.

Text: Japanese Method of Weight Loss?

AMERICA: Wait! I should ask my good friend Japan! He kind of looks like a girl from behind. Yo! Tell me your ancient Japanese secret diet!

JAPAN: *softly* Well... I eat like human being instead of use food to cover feeling of emptiness...

CHIBI AMERICA: *shocked* Hey! That was cruel!

AMERICA: *chowing down on a bowl of rice* Ahhh. Using these cute little sticks makes it harder to pig out. Hahaha.

Text: After that, America diligently worked out using a strange machine he created and followed the Japanese method of weight loss.

JAPAN: *thinking to himself, watching America pig out on Japanese food* Maybe if I feed him some bad sushi, he'll go away...

john green on religion and nihilism

"How are we going to balance our urge to be more than nihilists with our need to blunt the sharp edges of consciousness?"

Well asked, sir. :-)

I've been working very hard on my answer for the past several years.

...it's not going so hot.


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PS, July 1:

Or maybe it's going fine

and it just hurts a lot...

keeping track of projects

Making lists, charts, and plans is a skill that comes easily to me*. Following through, on the other hand.... bwahaha.

Anyhow. I moved my keep-track-of-what-I'm-doing project off of this blog. For the past few months I've been using Penzu and Evernote to keep track of this and a few other endeavors. On an average day I don't have much (if any) time to sit down in one spot and type up anything coherent enough for public consumption, but I do have time to enter a quick note via my iPod and finish it later or clip in a relevant screenshot from my laptop. These services are working out nicely for me, so I'm going to keep doing more of the same.


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*i.e. I find the process viscerally thrilling.

quotes of the month - november 2010

Nihil tam absurde dici potest, quod non dicatur ab aliquo pilosophorum. (Nothing so absurd can be said, that some philosopher has not said it.) -Cicero

"It's very hard to keep your spirits up. You've got to keep selling yourself a bill of goods, and some people are better at lying to themselves than others. If you face reality too much, it kills you." -Woody Allen


Oh, jeez. That does sound rather bleak.

I could scrounge around real quick for a funny quote to round it off and reassure you that I've not spent this month peeing myself while trembling in the corner with all the curtains drawn, vaguely plotting--between lines of coke--the means with which to bring about my early demise.

But, honestly, I can't be arsed right now.

Here is a baby lemur or something.



Note 7/2011 - I can't believe how many people get brought to my blog through this photo. Hi, all you lemur lovers.

predecessors of the modern hipster: a photographic journey - part 1

Fig. 1: Note the artfully disheveled hair; the meticulously arranged scarf and (optional) floppy hat, both donned in spite of temperate weather; the teeming basket of community laundry, indicating the repudiation of restrictive gender roles.

Fig. 2: 'nuff said.

quotes of the month - october 2010

"It is very tempting to take the side of the perpetrator. All the perpetrator asks is that the bystander do nothing. He appeals to the universal desire to see, hear, and speak no evil." -Judith Herman

"You can never get enough of what you don't want." -Wayne Dyer

"People still believe a lot of stupid crap. There's still a ghost hunters show on Discovery! Wouldn’t you love it if you turned on the History Channel and they said, 'Sorry about all those Nostradamus shows?' I would love that world." -Adam Savage

on the intake - vol. 3

Month of October, 2010

1) Paris, Texas



In this month, in 2003, Elliott Smith died. I accidentally commemorated the occasion this year by watching his favorite movie. It's now easily in my top five as well.

Speaking of which, here is a link to what is, in my opinion, the most thoughtful and nuanced article in existence about the months leading up to Smith's suicide. Scroll down to read reply #3. SPIN magazine has not made this article available online, so the link is to a message board where a user reprinted it without permission.

I think it is irrelevant whether or not Smith's memories of molestation were accurate. Nobody disputes that he was beaten, abandoned, and verbally/emotionally abused. Any one of those things could be sufficient to leave a person scrambling forevermore to pick up the shambles of his life. This is especially true during times when the individual is attempting to face reality without taking refuge under the wings of dissociation* or delusional comforts. It's not strange that Smith died sober.

2) Trauma and Recovery by Judith Herman

In the words of an acquaintance who read half the book: "Not good nighttime reading."

It is a tough read, if you have so much as half a heart (even a Grinch-sized one). But it is also an excellent book, on the whole. Indispensable for anybody interested in PTSD and trauma recovery. Bessel van der Kolk is another author/researcher whose work I would recommend looking up. Onno van der Hart and his colleagues are also at the forefront of PTSD research and clinical practice (at least in my unprofessional estimation). And all of these folks tip their hats repeatedly to Pierre Janet.

3) The History of Child Abuse by Lloyd deMause

That was actually a reread for me. But this time around I also read more or less everything available on his personal site.

If Herman is bad bedtime reading, deMause is worse. I don't mean that the quality is poor, but that you'll probably NEED that book about PTSD recovery after reading this one. ;-)

I am a little skeptical of deMause's work. The Institute for Psychohistory is small and The Journal of Psychohistory is at least somewhat controversial. The relevant wikipedia articles are, in their present state, not terribly illuminating. Is he exaggerating or cherry-picking his findings? I don't know yet. I don't know enough to say. I do know that what he is saying is unappetizing and I can see why some others in the field would prefer to plug their ears.

My hunch at the moment is that deMause is mostly correct, especially regarding his main ideas (that the history of childhood is depressingly violent and exploitative, but improving; that a given culture's childrearing practices have an enormous impact on military and political happenings). The criticisms I've read so far have been ... uh, pretty cursory, with an emphasis on scandalized pearl-clutching ("What? No! My noble savages/grandparents would never do that!") rather than specific, evidence-backed objections.

4) Rene Magritte

I don't know much about art or art history, which means I not-so-infrequently get the pleasure of stumbling on a great artist I knew absolutely nothing about before. (Or, rather, nothing beyond a childhood glimpse of his iconic painting "Time Transfixed".)

Check this out:

Pretty awesome. I don't know about you, but that reminds me of the year 12,000 BC.



Happy Halloween!

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*Spirituality and substance abuse are the most obvious examples of ways in which people dissociate from reality but sober, secular people also have systems in place that serve the same reality-dampening purpose. And, of course, most people--especially "well-adjusted" people--have layer upon layer of these protective illusions and mechanisms. Don't worry; I know I have them, too. Blue pill FTW, I guess.