For those of you not familiar with Scary Movie Month, check the original post that I wrote last year. It explains everything. It recently occurred to me that the story of Scary Movie Month is a really good illustration of my approach to appreciation of things in general.
Now, for the movies I watched October 2010:
Bride of Frankenstein
This is one of those unusual sequels to better the original. It's more thoughtful, horrible, and has more heart than the original Frankenstein. The plot of the original was so familiar, it took something away from the movie's grandeur. I didn't know what to expect with Bride.
Ringu
It was scary, as expected. The only part of the movie that really stuck with me, though, was the fascinating relationship between the protagonist and her exhusband while they try to unravel the curse on their heads.
Carrie
My favorite scary movie of the month, this is a movie about a high school outcast. The symbolism is beautiful, thoughtful and exquisitely disturbing. The tension is built over the course of the movie until the famous breaking point, which (surprise) involves a lot of blood, in case you hadn't seen the movie's cover.
Martin
Martin is a real-life vampire. As he states emphatically, "there is no magic". He doesn't have any powers. All he needs is a syringe of tranquilizer, a razor blade and some planning. The themes worked here reminded me strongly of Carrie-- an expose of the alienated, painfully shy teen with destructive antisocial tendencies. The audience is invited to pity and identify with both main characters. However, whereas Carrie is a fundamentally good person driven to those actions by circumstance, Martin is a sociopath.
Night of the Living Dead
This is the movie that established the classic zombie. In the last decade, zombies have been getting faster and more fragile, but there's a lot to be said for a zombie that will take a shot to the heart, pause, and keep coming. Eating people adds something too, I think.
Dawn of the Dead
George Romero returned to the genre that he had popularized with Night of the Living Dead ten years later with this sequel. The bulk of the movie is set in a mall. A lot had happened since 1968, and though Romero didn't change the premise or lore, he certainly doesn't take himself as seriously this time (rather than sobering black and white, blood is now a garish orange-red). As with Living Dead, if the social commentary of the movie wasn't already painstakingly obvious, Romero hammers you with it at the credits. Movies like Shawn of the Dead or Zombieland demonstrate a considerable debt to this classic.
Suspiria
This Italian film seems to be the best-regarded horror movie about witchcraft. It's set in a ballet school in Germany and the main character is American (though she almost only speaks Italian). The movie plays as a sort of boarding school mystery. There's a strong sense of apprehension and "weirdness" through the movie. I wasn't a big fan, but the movie is obviously well-made.
Poltergeist
Poltergeist comes off as kind of the flagship for the family-fun horror genre. The amount of special effects is competitive with contemporary popcorn movies, which is saying something. It takes you on a fun, fright-filled ride, accomplishing exactly what it set out to do.
Let the Right One In
This Swedish film is about a twelve-year-old boy befriending a vampire girl. The movie's as much an old-school romance as a horror film. I thought it was great.
The Descent
This keeps getting reviewed as the best horror movie of the 00's or in the words of a friend, "a horror movie that doesn't suck". As you would expect from one about spelunking, it is incredibly dark and claustrophobic. That pretty much sums things up.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sunday, October 24, 2010
Legalizing Pot
I thought this day would never come. Well, I at least thought it would take another ten or twenty years before a measure to legalize recreational marijuana would be seriously considered by an American constituency. I was wrong. California's Proposition 19, that will legalize recreational pot use, is just barely behind in the polls.
This is spectacularly cool for a number of reasons, the foremost being the realization of a truer liberty in America. I've long thought that our founding fathers must be rolling in their graves to know that an essentially harmless drug like marijuana would be made formally illegal. If Ben Franklin were alive today I'm sure he'd be a fan of pot.
I will grant that marijuana is not entirely harmless. Like caffeine, THC can stunt childrens' growth, like alcohol it lowers inhibitions and though there is no indication that extensive abuse causes brain damage the way alcohol does, residual THC (aka permastone) can dampen brain function for a month or two, though only noticeably so if epic quantities of pot are involved. I think every informed person will grant that the social risks of marijuana use are vastly overshadowed by alcohol and the health risks are overshadowed by tobacco.
I think it's fairly obvious that the decrease in price and increase in availability of pot will result in an increase in its consumption. I'd like you to pause for a moment and consider whether that's a bad thing. Prop 19 opponents will point out that many people have abuse problems with the drugs we already have legal, so why should we allow consumption of yet another drug? The answer is that while alcohol and prescription drugs do cause problems, there is an overwhelming good that comes from their being legal. I know I've enjoyed the benefits of responsible alcohol use.
THC is a non-habit forming drug, in contrast to nicotine, caffeine and, yes, alcohol. That means that consumers must repeatedly make the conscious, non-coerced choice to continue smoking pot. It is a drug consumed more voluntarily than any major legal recreational drug, to say nothing of hard drugs like meth, cocaine and heroin. Honestly, if not for the deference of American common law to consensus --that is, approaching this from a purely constitutional perspective-- marijuana use has far better grounds as a individual right than alcohol or tobacco.
There is some concern that legalizing pot would increase availability of the drug to minors. If Prohibition was any indication, though, bringing pot consumption above ground will make it easier to control who the drug is made available to. Right now minors have better access to pot than cigarettes or alcohol.
One figure I heard estimated the annual value of the Californian pot crop at twelve billion dollars. That's roughly three times the value of every other field crop in the state combined. That crop's value will diminish considerably if Proposition 19 passes. A modest chunk (1.5 billion) will go into taxes. Based on a projected 80% decrease in marijuana prices, that only leaves about one billion for the pot growing industry. Granted, these figures assume no increase in consumption, but these figures project a collapse in industry value by a factor of ten.
Of the original 12 billion, 1.5 billion will go to taxes and around a billion will go to run the industry. The remaining nine billion will be stolen back from the black market economy. Mexican drug cartels make a majority of their income from marijuana trafficking, so we can be sure that a significant amount of money will no longer be making it southward or indeed into organized crime across the state. Further, the profit margins that growers, distributors and dealers once made will disappear in the blink of an eye. Without the risk of incarceration those jobs will no longer pay unreasonably well. It is worth mentioning that Kush Magazine, everybody's "premier cannabis lifestyle magazine" had an ad in it opposing Prop 19, paid for by a medical marijuana dispensary. Middle school dope peddlers and Mexican drug lords won't be the only people suffering if Prop 19 is passed, let's not forget California's newest capitalists.
Voting for Proposition 19 is the correct choice from both a practical standpoint (improving government finance at the expense of cartels) and a civil liberties one. Legalizing a relatively harmless recreational drug like marijuana is fundamentally American and would make California a beacon of liberty. It would also probably set up a Supreme Court battle worth talking about.
Though September polls showed Prop 19 leading in September, it has slipped since then. Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing a consolation prize should the Proposition fail-- decriminalization. A fairly even vote will also get people thinking about the ins and outs of legalization. There's a decent chance that a loss now will set up a victory later. That said, don't plan on losing this quite yet. The vote is still close and a recent study showed that Prop 19 polls are subject to a strong social desirability bias.
This is spectacularly cool for a number of reasons, the foremost being the realization of a truer liberty in America. I've long thought that our founding fathers must be rolling in their graves to know that an essentially harmless drug like marijuana would be made formally illegal. If Ben Franklin were alive today I'm sure he'd be a fan of pot.
I will grant that marijuana is not entirely harmless. Like caffeine, THC can stunt childrens' growth, like alcohol it lowers inhibitions and though there is no indication that extensive abuse causes brain damage the way alcohol does, residual THC (aka permastone) can dampen brain function for a month or two, though only noticeably so if epic quantities of pot are involved. I think every informed person will grant that the social risks of marijuana use are vastly overshadowed by alcohol and the health risks are overshadowed by tobacco.
I think it's fairly obvious that the decrease in price and increase in availability of pot will result in an increase in its consumption. I'd like you to pause for a moment and consider whether that's a bad thing. Prop 19 opponents will point out that many people have abuse problems with the drugs we already have legal, so why should we allow consumption of yet another drug? The answer is that while alcohol and prescription drugs do cause problems, there is an overwhelming good that comes from their being legal. I know I've enjoyed the benefits of responsible alcohol use.
THC is a non-habit forming drug, in contrast to nicotine, caffeine and, yes, alcohol. That means that consumers must repeatedly make the conscious, non-coerced choice to continue smoking pot. It is a drug consumed more voluntarily than any major legal recreational drug, to say nothing of hard drugs like meth, cocaine and heroin. Honestly, if not for the deference of American common law to consensus --that is, approaching this from a purely constitutional perspective-- marijuana use has far better grounds as a individual right than alcohol or tobacco.
There is some concern that legalizing pot would increase availability of the drug to minors. If Prohibition was any indication, though, bringing pot consumption above ground will make it easier to control who the drug is made available to. Right now minors have better access to pot than cigarettes or alcohol.
One figure I heard estimated the annual value of the Californian pot crop at twelve billion dollars. That's roughly three times the value of every other field crop in the state combined. That crop's value will diminish considerably if Proposition 19 passes. A modest chunk (1.5 billion) will go into taxes. Based on a projected 80% decrease in marijuana prices, that only leaves about one billion for the pot growing industry. Granted, these figures assume no increase in consumption, but these figures project a collapse in industry value by a factor of ten.
Of the original 12 billion, 1.5 billion will go to taxes and around a billion will go to run the industry. The remaining nine billion will be stolen back from the black market economy. Mexican drug cartels make a majority of their income from marijuana trafficking, so we can be sure that a significant amount of money will no longer be making it southward or indeed into organized crime across the state. Further, the profit margins that growers, distributors and dealers once made will disappear in the blink of an eye. Without the risk of incarceration those jobs will no longer pay unreasonably well. It is worth mentioning that Kush Magazine, everybody's "premier cannabis lifestyle magazine" had an ad in it opposing Prop 19, paid for by a medical marijuana dispensary. Middle school dope peddlers and Mexican drug lords won't be the only people suffering if Prop 19 is passed, let's not forget California's newest capitalists.
Voting for Proposition 19 is the correct choice from both a practical standpoint (improving government finance at the expense of cartels) and a civil liberties one. Legalizing a relatively harmless recreational drug like marijuana is fundamentally American and would make California a beacon of liberty. It would also probably set up a Supreme Court battle worth talking about.
Though September polls showed Prop 19 leading in September, it has slipped since then. Arnold Schwarzenegger is preparing a consolation prize should the Proposition fail-- decriminalization. A fairly even vote will also get people thinking about the ins and outs of legalization. There's a decent chance that a loss now will set up a victory later. That said, don't plan on losing this quite yet. The vote is still close and a recent study showed that Prop 19 polls are subject to a strong social desirability bias.
Sunday, October 10, 2010
Logistics of Drinking: Glasses
There are those of you who will know me as an aficionado of jam jars. That element of my ghetto chic has persevered since Brandon and I's days of Seagram's martinis.
My jam jars comfortably hold about six ounces. That makes them ample for stiff drinks like martinis. It may have influenced my arrival on the 2:1 rule of cocktails, which is two parts mixer to one part liquor. Judging from other peoples' tastes, the 2:1 ratio is not arrived at without some guidance.
The size of my jam jars also lends itself to drinking wine. Though the glass is too thick for chilled whites, room temperature reds are perfect in my sturdy little declarations against pretension.
My jam jars are practically indestructible. In all my time in Davis, only one of them has broken (and not for lack of being dropped). They're further practical because they fit the universal mason lid, which I usually acquire by way of Classico pasta sauce. All kinds of things have been stored at some point in those trusty jam jars.
At six ounces, however, they do have some limitations. When it comes to drinking orange juice, milk or water, you need a glass with some capacity. Classico pint jars work great for water, but they're a bit hard to clean for milk and OJ. For that I've used more conventional glasses wide enough to be scrubbed out by hand.
The real journey in the world of drinking glasses has been with beer. In the beginning, I drank out of the can or the bottle, as befitted my no-nonsense "living light" attitude. Later, we occasionally drank out of glasses just for fun. At some point Brandon and I noticed the difference in flavor between pale ale out of the bottle and out of the glass. Aromatic beers need a glass to show their full flavor. I still drink non-aromatic light lager out of cans without qualms (though cans warm beer up quickly).
Quart or pint mason jars are great for drinking beer out of. I've had less luck with thick plastic cups, which tend to quickly decarbonate beers because of their many surface imperfections. I also have had the use of Brandon's legendary beer stein and a variety of typical pint glasses. Surprisingly, neither of those worked well as beer glasses. Because of the thickness of the glass, if they're not prechilled before use they'll quickly warm the beer to swill. I just don't have the kind of patience required to prechill glasses.
Everything changed a year ago when Jill brought back a couple of fluted glasses with short stems, courtesy of her study abroad class field trip to the San Miguel brewery in Burgos, Spain. The glasses were thin enough to keep the beer cool, wide enough to sniff and comfortable in the hand.
Part of these beer glasses' attraction was the sense of class. I still have no complaints about mason jars. They also are lightweight and keep beer cool, but short-stemmed beer glasses are more comfortable in the hand and way too much fun to drink out of. I've bought a few purpose-made stemmed beer glasses since then and I now have enough to host small tastings in style. I'll probably be on a constant hunt for elegantly shaped beer glasses for as long as I'm obsessed with beer.
My jam jars comfortably hold about six ounces. That makes them ample for stiff drinks like martinis. It may have influenced my arrival on the 2:1 rule of cocktails, which is two parts mixer to one part liquor. Judging from other peoples' tastes, the 2:1 ratio is not arrived at without some guidance.
The size of my jam jars also lends itself to drinking wine. Though the glass is too thick for chilled whites, room temperature reds are perfect in my sturdy little declarations against pretension.
My jam jars are practically indestructible. In all my time in Davis, only one of them has broken (and not for lack of being dropped). They're further practical because they fit the universal mason lid, which I usually acquire by way of Classico pasta sauce. All kinds of things have been stored at some point in those trusty jam jars.
At six ounces, however, they do have some limitations. When it comes to drinking orange juice, milk or water, you need a glass with some capacity. Classico pint jars work great for water, but they're a bit hard to clean for milk and OJ. For that I've used more conventional glasses wide enough to be scrubbed out by hand.
The real journey in the world of drinking glasses has been with beer. In the beginning, I drank out of the can or the bottle, as befitted my no-nonsense "living light" attitude. Later, we occasionally drank out of glasses just for fun. At some point Brandon and I noticed the difference in flavor between pale ale out of the bottle and out of the glass. Aromatic beers need a glass to show their full flavor. I still drink non-aromatic light lager out of cans without qualms (though cans warm beer up quickly).
Quart or pint mason jars are great for drinking beer out of. I've had less luck with thick plastic cups, which tend to quickly decarbonate beers because of their many surface imperfections. I also have had the use of Brandon's legendary beer stein and a variety of typical pint glasses. Surprisingly, neither of those worked well as beer glasses. Because of the thickness of the glass, if they're not prechilled before use they'll quickly warm the beer to swill. I just don't have the kind of patience required to prechill glasses.
Everything changed a year ago when Jill brought back a couple of fluted glasses with short stems, courtesy of her study abroad class field trip to the San Miguel brewery in Burgos, Spain. The glasses were thin enough to keep the beer cool, wide enough to sniff and comfortable in the hand.
Part of these beer glasses' attraction was the sense of class. I still have no complaints about mason jars. They also are lightweight and keep beer cool, but short-stemmed beer glasses are more comfortable in the hand and way too much fun to drink out of. I've bought a few purpose-made stemmed beer glasses since then and I now have enough to host small tastings in style. I'll probably be on a constant hunt for elegantly shaped beer glasses for as long as I'm obsessed with beer.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
On the Persuasion of Words
My friend Rob prefaced a confessional story with a preamble about how the use of words is nearly always an attempt to persuade people to like us and love us. He explained that he did his best to use words for the greater good and ignore what light his confessional story might portray him in. This was my response, cleaned up for your reading pleasure.
Your discussion about the persuasion of words was an awesome thought, but it's hard to be convinced that your attempts at making people love you with words are anything other than more complex and self-consciously twisted than the majority of people's. Attempts to subvert the impulse to try to be loved are never true subversions. I don't think we can free ourselves of that motivation and our resulting actions to even a small degree, only try harder to cover our tracks.
I can strongly empathize with your thoughts. I think I've tried harder to subvert those impulses in myself than most I know. I've watched my smartest friends go through the same calculus, though. That's had the dual benefit of showing me what it looks like from the outside and illustrating to me that the impulse is completely normal for individuals of our intellect. It also illustrates that the impulse makes people's personas far more interesting even if they never succeed in displacing, subduing or even hiding their selfish desire to be loved.
I remember my effort at that began with Christianity. I remember being in catechism, wondering whether good deeds counted if they were based in a desire to feel better about oneself and/or be treated with the gentleness reserved for "nice people", to say nothing of being motivated by the promise of heaven. Because God knew our motivations perfectly, I concluded they did not qualify as truly good deeds.
The next step in my thought process was that the only way to do good things without the inevitable morally-compromising reward was to play my good intentions off as bad ones and convince both those around me and myself that my actions were selfish and wicked. This corresponded with an increasingly perverse altruism that I mixed freely with my most overtly evil impulses as well as an increasing obsession with compartmentalizing my mind for the purpose of insulating my conscious from the fact that I was doing things that I believed to be good.
This formed the basic tenets of my high school class persona that earned me so much hate and ultimately love. I managed to almost perfectly conceal that I was an essentially loving, conscience-driven individual haunted by insecurity and loneliness. I came across as an arrogant, self-obsessed dick who was too smart for his own good. The persona meshed smoothly with my slacker-who-loves-school thing. I refused to take notes to my teacher's chagrin and asked hard, merciless questions that sometimes went over the teachers' heads and always kept them on their toes.
Picking at flaws in logic and person became a favorite outlet for many impulses at once, including my altruism, though I would have rightly insisted then that I was venting displaced anger by pointing out my teachers' weaknesses. I did the same essential thing to fellow students for even raising their hand if they wasted class time. Not only was there such a thing as a dumb question, there was such a thing as people too dumb to be entitled to a voice.
By the time I entered college, I'd entered a new phase of activism that was more nuanced and less overtly conflicted and confrontational than my high school days, but I still have great respect for the person I was in high school. I've only built upon the moral calculus that formed my high school persona. I've given up on thinking that compartmentalization or cultivated hatred will allow me to do good without reaping the benefits. I've given up avoiding the benefits. Part of that is probably because of how high school ended. I was eventually respected and adored for my refusal to conform or parse words.
My blog is a complete embrace of the "look at me" and "love me" implicit in writing so many words in a place where so many people can see them. I make no bones about trying to persuade people that my way is the right one, but more importantly I make no bones about playing up the quirky charm of my personality. I am shameless about my efforts to persuade people into loving me via my blog. Haven't I already earned your liking?
That persuasion has always been a filtering process, though. I've never had any ambition to be loved by all or even most. When somebody thinks I'm insane, sociopathic or perverted my normal reaction is to say screw you. I work hard enough at being correctly understood that when explanation fails I have few qualms about judging people for judging me. Were I not so articulate and careful to justify my thoughts, I might be more lenient, but as it stands, fuck'em.
Your discussion about the persuasion of words was an awesome thought, but it's hard to be convinced that your attempts at making people love you with words are anything other than more complex and self-consciously twisted than the majority of people's. Attempts to subvert the impulse to try to be loved are never true subversions. I don't think we can free ourselves of that motivation and our resulting actions to even a small degree, only try harder to cover our tracks.
I can strongly empathize with your thoughts. I think I've tried harder to subvert those impulses in myself than most I know. I've watched my smartest friends go through the same calculus, though. That's had the dual benefit of showing me what it looks like from the outside and illustrating to me that the impulse is completely normal for individuals of our intellect. It also illustrates that the impulse makes people's personas far more interesting even if they never succeed in displacing, subduing or even hiding their selfish desire to be loved.
I remember my effort at that began with Christianity. I remember being in catechism, wondering whether good deeds counted if they were based in a desire to feel better about oneself and/or be treated with the gentleness reserved for "nice people", to say nothing of being motivated by the promise of heaven. Because God knew our motivations perfectly, I concluded they did not qualify as truly good deeds.
The next step in my thought process was that the only way to do good things without the inevitable morally-compromising reward was to play my good intentions off as bad ones and convince both those around me and myself that my actions were selfish and wicked. This corresponded with an increasingly perverse altruism that I mixed freely with my most overtly evil impulses as well as an increasing obsession with compartmentalizing my mind for the purpose of insulating my conscious from the fact that I was doing things that I believed to be good.
This formed the basic tenets of my high school class persona that earned me so much hate and ultimately love. I managed to almost perfectly conceal that I was an essentially loving, conscience-driven individual haunted by insecurity and loneliness. I came across as an arrogant, self-obsessed dick who was too smart for his own good. The persona meshed smoothly with my slacker-who-loves-school thing. I refused to take notes to my teacher's chagrin and asked hard, merciless questions that sometimes went over the teachers' heads and always kept them on their toes.
Picking at flaws in logic and person became a favorite outlet for many impulses at once, including my altruism, though I would have rightly insisted then that I was venting displaced anger by pointing out my teachers' weaknesses. I did the same essential thing to fellow students for even raising their hand if they wasted class time. Not only was there such a thing as a dumb question, there was such a thing as people too dumb to be entitled to a voice.
By the time I entered college, I'd entered a new phase of activism that was more nuanced and less overtly conflicted and confrontational than my high school days, but I still have great respect for the person I was in high school. I've only built upon the moral calculus that formed my high school persona. I've given up on thinking that compartmentalization or cultivated hatred will allow me to do good without reaping the benefits. I've given up avoiding the benefits. Part of that is probably because of how high school ended. I was eventually respected and adored for my refusal to conform or parse words.
My blog is a complete embrace of the "look at me" and "love me" implicit in writing so many words in a place where so many people can see them. I make no bones about trying to persuade people that my way is the right one, but more importantly I make no bones about playing up the quirky charm of my personality. I am shameless about my efforts to persuade people into loving me via my blog. Haven't I already earned your liking?
That persuasion has always been a filtering process, though. I've never had any ambition to be loved by all or even most. When somebody thinks I'm insane, sociopathic or perverted my normal reaction is to say screw you. I work hard enough at being correctly understood that when explanation fails I have few qualms about judging people for judging me. Were I not so articulate and careful to justify my thoughts, I might be more lenient, but as it stands, fuck'em.
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