Heartless

Valentine's Day, oohh! Guess I should do a love-themed post, right? Okay, here, goes...

I think people get into trouble where love is concerned when they either fail to understand what they really want, and/or fail to see the other person for who they really are.

1. Loves you for you: True love
2. Loves you for what/who they think you are: Deluded love
3. Loves you for what you can give them: Selfish love

I think those are the three options, really. And, in some cases, they aren't mutually exclusive. Now, you could semantically argue that Option 3 isn't love at all, and you'd likely be right. But I'm calling it that because people in that situation likely think they love Person X, and if you think you love, it's nearly the same thing -- objectively, it likely fails the "sniff test" as love, but people are so subjective about love that they may not think about it clearly enough (and few would honestly cop to being selfish in love; it's like how few people cop to being hipsters, or to being assholes, etc.) Selfish love seems like an oxymoron, and it is, honestly -- love can't truly be selfish, or it's not love -- but I see people caught up in selfish love all the time. It's out there.

Everybody thinks their love is true, but just like everybody thinks they're a good person, it's simply not so. As an empiricist and a skeptic, I would call bullshit on this. Know them by their actions, by what they do, how they treat you, how they see themselves. People would be better off if they actually had the stones to be honest about their intentions with love. But most people are afraid to do that, to actually face who they really are, and come to terms with it. 

The only one that really matters is Option 1, obviously. That's the strongest love, and if it's reciprocal, then you're in the best possible position. If you have a mismatch between loves, though, then you're in trouble. If you're not seeing the other person for who they really are, and/or if they're not seeing you for who you really are, and/or if you're not seeing yourself for who you really are, and/or if they're not seeing themselves for who they really are, then there's trouble right out of the gates. I've experienced this twice in my life, and it sucks. It is a roadmap for emotional pain!

People who are attracted to a "type" can also get into that kind of trouble, because, again, you're not seeing the person themselves, but some blend of 2 and 3, I suppose. I know many people who flounder through relationships because they are only attracted to that type, so it's like they're not even really seeing the person in front of them, but are drawn to a type, and can't figure out where it went wrong.

I know I have a type, and I wrestle with that. I'm old enough and experienced enough to understand that a type can be perilous, especially when stacked up against 1-3. It's easy to find attraction riding the coattails of love and fooling you. It's easy to be charmed by a type, only to understand, fundamentally, that she's not actually right for you. But the key is that self-understanding.

It's an identity tightrope. For it to work, you have to see yourself clearly, and you have to see the other person clearly. In so doing, in both cases, you have at least the possibility of true love. Any other situation, and somebody's going to get hurt.

Person A loves Person B as 1, but Person B loves Person A from 2 and 3. Net result: Person B feels some measure of contempt for Person A, and woe to Person A when they're not able to deliver whatever it is that Person B loves from 3. Person A then can either roll with it and suffer, or cut themselves loose.

Person X loves Person Y as 2, but Person Y loves Person X as 3. Net result: Person X gets used by Person Y, and either can't see it, or won't see it (depends on the degree of delusion they're carrying, and their capacity for self-abuse). Person Y just wants whatever it is that X gives, and woe to X when they can't deliver.

And so on. I would say two people "loving" each other as 3 would be a one-night stand, or a mutual hookup kind of arrangement, without anything deeper than that. Two people "loving" each other as 2 would be confusing and contradictory -- a case of two people probably not understanding themselves, and likely not understanding each other, either -- probably one of those dramatic unions where people argue a lot, just because they're a lot of misunderstanding. That's a union that would depend on mutual physical attraction more than actual love, is my guess.

Probably people inclined to love as 2 stagger from relationship to relationship, never understanding why it never works out for them. They're probably the ones who're embittered on Valentine's Day, wondering why it never works out for them, whereas I'd look at them and say that they need to get their heads out of their asses and understand who they really are, and what they actually want. Some introspection would serve them well.

Anyway, be honest about who you are and what you actually want, see the other person for who they really are, not who you think you are (or want them to be, or wish they would be), and certainly don't value someone for what they can give you (be it money, identity, security, etc.), and you'll at least have the chance of finding and experiencing true love. Beware of the "type" trap confounding your otherwise good sense, assuming you even have good sense.

"Happy Valentine's Day" | OutKast

Onion

Oh, man, this week's ONION is packed with good stuff...

Intelligent, Condescending Life Discovered in Distant Galaxy

Bahah!

Report: Watching Episode of 'Downton Abbey' Counts as Reading Book

*snicker*

48-Year-Old Man Actually Very Open To Dating 25-Year-Olds

Bahahah!

And others. Oh, man! Great stuff this week!

Snow!

Wow, we're getting hammered by snow; I hadn't even realized we were due for it, but it's really coming down. Not sure how many inches of snow we're due, but it's big, fat, fluffy flakes aplenty. Looks like we've gotten at least three inches, with no sign of stopping at the moment. Fortunately, I'm doing a grocery run tomorrow morning, so we'll be fully stocked.

Plagued

So far, so good. B2's recovering from his sickness, and neither B1 nor I have caught it (yet). There's always that existential dread when gastroenteritis season comes about, where you wonder when you're number's up, when you've managed that one lapse of vigilance that lets that nasty pestilence assail you. I told my boys "Make sure to keep your fingers off your face, and don't share cups food." Which helps, but, barring scrubbing down every possible surface, you can't ever quite know for sure if you're safe. It's like being on a plague ship...

Svartkraft, "The Plague Ship"

; )

Exene claimed B2 was puking all day, so I asked her when, and it turned out it had been only around 1:00 yesterday afternoon, so that was good. He had one lil' bout when I had him home last night, but later was able to keep down some crackers, so that's good. He rebounds pretty quickly. That's the marvelous thing about little ones -- they usually spring back from bugs like this fairly handily. He slept the night through, so I'm hopeful that he'll be good to go today.

I had bought B2 some new sneakers, got him some cool ones from Zappos -- a pair of black Chuckies and a pair of black argyle Vans. He loves both of'em, is stoked to wear them. I'm not part of the Cult of Converse, never was; in fact, it bugs me that there's this arbitrary indie hipster significance to Chuckies, as if wearing said shoes actually meant something. I view them much the way I view tattoos -- if you wore Chuckies in the 50s (and got a tattoo then, for that matter), more power to you. If you became a Converse cult member from 1990 onward (and/or got tats in that time), you're a cultural coattail-rider and a victim of adroit lifestyle marketing. FAIL.

At any rate, I waive that rule with kids' shoes, however, just because B2's lil' feet look so damned cute in Chuckies, and he needs to learn how to tie his shoes properly, anyway, so they're useful in that regard. He's more partial to the Vans, anyway, but he likes'em both. He'll be psyched to try his new sneakers out, I know. And they do look sharp. I just wanted B2 to have two pairs of sneakers handy, so he doesn't burn through one pair too quickly.

Yowzers

B2's got "stomach flu." He was sick last night. Not horribly, honestly -- two major hurlfests in the early evening, then some dry heaves around midnight. He tends to sleep things off when he gets sick, but I've kept an eye on him. I asked Exene to mind the boys, since I was out sick a couple of days last week, didn't want to take any other sick days from work anytime soon. B1's okay so far, so hopefully that'll continue to be the case. I just hope I don't get it, since this one seems particularly contagious. One advantage of being a medical editor is you know enough about pathogens and protocols to have a better chance of avoiding getting sick. But gastroenteritis is pretty tricky, sneaks up on you. I'm really not up for that, so I hope I luck out and don't get this one.

Long Live the King

I'm glad somebody's calling out Marvel's bullshit vis-a-vis Jack Kirby. Marvel would not have existed without Jack Kirby's work. It sucks that they screwed him over so badly. I loved Marvel in my comic collecting youth (hell, I still have some of my comics stored away), but how Marvel has built its entertainment empire has Kirby's ghost left twisting in the wind. Truly vile policy, and the writer is right on the money (so to speak) when they say:

What makes this situation especially hard to stomach is that Marvel’s media empire was built on the backs of characters whose defining trait as superheroes is the willingness to fight for what is right. It takes a lot of corporate moxie to put Thor and Captain America on the big screen and have them battle for honor and justice when behind the scenes the parent company acts like a cold-blooded supervillain. As Stan Lee famously wrote, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

If Mitt Romney is right, and corporations are people, perhaps Marvel/Disney has the capacity to feel shame. In any event, a public flogging has already begun. Cartoonist and educator Stephen Bissette’s blog post calling for a boycott of The Avengers kicked up a lot of dust in the blogosphere. Tom Spurgeon, writing for his well-respected industry website Comic Reporter also framed the issue in moral terms, as did the cartoonist Seth: “The corporate lie about Kirby's role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent. It's a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it's a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn't right.”

'Nuff said.

Helicopters

Oh, lordy, people. C'mon!

Unconstitutional

Interesting piece in the NYT, about how the Constitution is in freefall as a model for governments around the world. While the NYT tries to blow a little smoke up America's ass near the end, it's clear that this is just another example of how our country is falling behind. It talks about us being a "legal backwater" in the eyes of the world's jurisprudence, and how other countries, such as Canada and New Zealand are increasingly serving as better models of governance. I get it, sadly, although the majority of Americans won't/don't, which doesn't bode well for our future. We are a declining superpower, whether we acknowledge it or not, and as much as we gulp down propaganda of assimilation that tells us we're the envy of the world, it prevents us from honest introspection as to where we are as a country, where we are going, and where we want to be. As much as I'd hate to quote the Bible, Proverbs 16:18: "Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall." -- just don't tell that to the fundamentalist Christians, naturally, with their heretical views of Christianity that seem to hold pride as the most sacred of virtues, and that haughty spirit might as well be the Holy Spirit to them. Speaking of that, this is a good piece, too.

But point is that our country is politically and ideologically unable to navigate this century; we've been on cruise control, not even realizing we've gone off the road decades ago.

Go-Go's a-go-go

How is it even possible that I've loped along in this blog and NOT written of my crush on Jane Wiedlin from the Go-Go's? Or, more particularly, my crush on Jane Wiedlin when she was part of the Go-Go's, back in the day?

Jane was YUMMY! And look at her workin' the 80s hair!

For sure! She was my favorite Go-Go by far. Any time one of their videos would come on, I'd watch, just hoping for glimpses of Jane. It's funny, in retrospect, how the pre-Net world worked -- you had to work for your pop culture! If you didn't see her on MTV or on Friday Night Videos, or in Rolling Stone, it was hard to even get glimpses of the lil' Pop Tart!

I remember hearing about the debauchery of the Go-Go's, thinking "Not Jane! She's just too angel-sweet!" Although she was definitely as much of a party animal as the rest of them, but just had that vibe about her that was like catnip for my early teen self!

Ah, Jane. I'm a sucker for cute, what can I say? And "cute" is definitely a word one associates with Jane Wiedlin. Even her name is kind of cute. I mean, Belinda Carlisle -- her name made her sound like a Heather, and even her sneer kind of conveyed that, like the alpha girl busy giving her frenemies eating disorders with the curl of her lip (although I liked Belinda, too, just not as much as I liked Jane).

I was so enraptured by Jane Wiedlin that it took me time to actually notice what a rotten dancer Belinda Carlisle was (which was, really, part of her sneery charm, honestly). I remember, as a teen, thinking "What is Belinda doing?" but crushing on her and Jane to the extent that I didn't have a proper context for what the hell she was doing. Since then, watching clips of the Go-Go's playing in their prime, I crack up, watching Belinda do her Belinda Dancing thing...

Belinda Dancing, Exhibit A

Belinda Dancing, Exhibit B

Belinda Dancing, Exhibit C

And please note how adorable Jane Wiedlin is in all of these clips. *crush blush*

How to dance like the Go-Go's

(really, this dancing is more sophisticated than Belinda's signature moves, but it's still amusing)

Warm

Can't believe the weather we're having in February. This is easily the mildest February I've ever experienced in Chicago. I remember when Chicago had true winter, like back in the 90s. Nowadays, it feels more like we're living in a greenhouse, or something (har har). If only there were some way of systematically documenting evidence and accumulating data to be able to get information on what is happening, and possible reasons why this is happening, so that people could form theories about it, and maybe influence policy and make changes that might improve things. But, I know, that's crazy talk, right? It's scary when people trust the judgment of a groundhog more than they trust science. "Science" has always been a four-letter word in the US -- hell, it took Sputnik scaring the hell out of the country to even make Americans realize there was a need for scientific teaching among its populations. I think we're losing that thread again in a big way. It stuns me that people claim not to believe in evolution -- but there's nothing for them to believe in with it; the evidence is simply there, and they are simply unable to accept it. The one I always like to trot out is albinism, just because that mutation manifests across the plant and animal spectrum -- mammals, reptiles, birds, fish, insects, amphibians, snails, plants -- while you could believe that angels with white paintbrushes periodically dollop albinism on all of these species, it's far more logical to accept that somewhere in our common ancestry, the albino mutation kink in the DNA occurred, and has ridden quietly on those genetic coattails ever since, as species diverged and diversified (just one example among many; I mean, mitochondria, hello?) Anyway, it's not a matter of believing in evolution, because the evidence is simply there. It's like somebody not believing in gravity -- their failure to believe in it doesn't actually change the outcome when they go toe-to-toe with gravity. I wonder how many increasingly warm winters people will endure before they get it that our climate is changing. How many droughts and wildfires? Freak weather? Etc. Or maybe they'll be likelier to believe that the Mayan Calendar (eyeroll) is responsible? Lordy.

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" (2011)

Love the poster for this.

I caught "Tinker Tailor..." after work. Not being a fan of LeCarré, but enjoying Gary Oldman's performances. I thought the movie did a good job, although it's kind of weird to see an early 70s-era Cold War spy thriller done long in the wake of the Cold War's passing. The movie was well-done, with assiduous attention paid to the 70s feel of the era, and with the rhythm and texture of English life at that time. That period detail, and things like the director's clear attention to sound, gave the movie a strong kinesthetic vibe that served to heighten the tension. I remembered snoozing through the original as a kid, but thought this one was well-done, with good montage and intercut sequences, and conveying the sense of paranoia surely endemic to anybody involved in espionage. I thought everybody did a good job in their performances, and there was a lot of subtext running through the story that was both dated (ooh, gay spy lovers) and yet worked in the context of the story. For a remake, it stands very well on its own, I felt -- they did justice to the original and probably surpassed it, in truth. Oldman's reptilian protagonist managed to be both urbane and oh-so-English and a cipher of a man, which felt very authentic -- much the way Max Von Sydow's gentleman assassin character was in "Three Days of the Condor," long ago -- genteel, but with that sense of chill deadliness to him.

Also, was tickled to see Mark Strong get some attention in a movie -- he always does a credible job in the roles he gets, and has that great voice of his, so, well-done, Mark Strong!

"The Grey" (2012)

The Big Bad Wolf gonna blow your house in, little piggy.

I caught "The Grey" after work. Had been impressed by the trailer for it, this gritty survival action movie. I liked it, although it is very much more than simply an action movie or thriller; rather, it's more of an extended meditation on mortality, honestly. This carries all the way through it, from start to finish -- "Don't be afraid." It's not really about man vs. wolves, even though the wolves carry throughout it, and are marvelously presented. Some folks have groused about the use of CGI for the wolves, but they are very effective, and the director makes good use of them. If anything, he uses them with restraint. I wished he'd had more howling with them, although in some scenes, it's done to great effect. Really, the wolves are a metaphor for mortality, or for the ineffable savagery of nature, the inevitability of death, and the futility of man's paltry and hubristic ambitions in the face of it, while at the same time the need for honor and compassion and kindness in the face of it. Death comes quickly and horribly to the characters in the movie, and in so many different ways. It's like the Angel of Death swoops in and *voila* you're gone. And for this to plague a group of men who survived a plane crash, no less, it's even more affecting/haunting.

This is not a comforting, comfortable movie, but it was a well-crafted and -executed exploration of mortality. The plane crash scene alone is devastating and effective, unadorned and devoid of sentiment. there is merely the will to survive and endure in the face of nearly impossible odds.

I don't think it's a perfect execution (pun intended) of the premise; I would have liked more characterization of the characters in it, in other ways than them having actorly talks around the bonfire (the kinds of scenes actors probably love, the chance for monologue), and at nearly 2 hours in length, they could have made more use of moments to bring out that characterization. I imagine people seeing this movie thinking that it's going to be an action flick will be pissed off by it, but the logic of the film is woven throughout it, and, as you reflect upon it, it makes perfect sense, and is as admirably constructed as it is grave. I left the movie feeling pretty down, which stayed with me awhile, and, having been bathed in this frigid Alaskan wilderness for a couple of hours, found the well-lit noise and human hustle-bustle of the streets of Chicago to be a jarring transition. Our culture runs and hides from death, as a whole -- the message of advertising is "enjoy today, forget about tomorrow" and "be young forever!" -- and having come out of that movie, this cognitive dissonance was very apparent.

All of the actors worked credibly within their roles, and Liam Neeson did a good job, as ever. He manages that gravelly gravitas that is well within his comfort zone, but which he brings to bear with that earnest, unadorned nobility. I'm glad that Neeson has managed a kind of late-era action hero status -- you can tell that he's the action hero for the senior citizens/Baby Boomers these days by the fact that he's risen over the years as the go-to guy for these kinds of "old guy kicks ass" movies. It's like as the Boomers take one last, long slide on the banana peel they've been standing on their whole lives, headed for the grave, they cling to someone like Neeson to make it alright.

Anyway, good movie, a serious movie, and one that'll leave you thinking, if you're inclined to think at all. Which means that many people will probably be disappointed and disillusioned, but I wasn't one of them.

Fabulous

I love these vintage Chicago posters! They're so great! It's amazing to think that at one time so much attention was paid to illustration like that, to create these beautiful posters.