Sunday, April 27, 2008

*

I've had blog-worthy thoughts lately, but I am writing a screenplay right now, so I've been spraying my creative juices in that direction.  Let me get through that, and then I'll write some more stuff here.  

Also, if any of you want to buy a screenplay, let me know.  

Friday, April 11, 2008

*

Language is overrated.  A few years ago I was on the T heading toward Kenmore Square when the preceding sentence was dramatized by the passengers sitting opposite me.  (This was right when they were introducing new T-cars on the green-line with the weird steps to a second level -- I didn't understand the new design, but I suppose that they might all be like that by now, so I should get over it.  I THINK that my particular car was a big painted advertisement for Code-Red Mountain Dew  -- that might not be right -- it was something like that though.  This parenthetical statement may seem like the mother of all non-sequiturs, but Boston insiders will recognize this as a unique moment in time and imagine passing The Elbow Room, Viper Video, The Avenue, Lee's 2 convenience store, that one bum who looks like an African American Abraham Lincoln near Harvard Ave, and stuff like that.)  The passengers across from me were a young couple in love.  They had big backpacks and I overheard references to Europe, so I think they were on their way to the airport.  The guy had rimless glasses and seemed like the kind of nerd who becomes an engineer: i.e. he had tendony forearms and seemed confident, but he didn't care quite enough about humans to be socially talented.  He probably ran exactly 6.2 miles a day and knew how to use every feature on a graphing calculator.  He was going on and on and on about the locations of various pieces of camera equipment that he had carefully packed and he was very pedantic about it.  I guess he wanted the girl to be able to repeat his packing method in the event that he was incapacitated and she became responsible for the luggage.  The girl had one of those black leather rocker belts with silver studs on it.  She had a pixie haircut.  She had an ironic T-shirt.  And, she wasn't listening to a word that he said.  She just stared at him with adoration.  Sometimes she would sarcastically say "uh huh uh huh . . . that is VERY interesting."  Sometimes she would kiss him while he was in mid-sentence.  He would pause to kiss her back, and then proceed talking about a lens.  At the time I was dumbfounded.  I couldn't figure out how this relationship happened.  They don't communicate AT ALL.  Then I realized that language doesn't matter.  Very little that anyone says is probably ever heard, and if it is, it's probably not interpreted correctly.  The couple on the T communicates just fine -- just not their thoughts.  




Saturday, April 5, 2008

*

Dinosaurs are made up.  Paleontologists are frauds.  Paleo means ancient or prehistoric; and, ontology is the study of "being".  So, paleontology is the practice of naming ancient things.  But, of course, paleontologists don't name EVERY ancient thing -- rocks are old as hell, but paleontologists steer clear of naming rocks.  Why?  Because rocks already have names.  Geologists got there first.  And, if your whole job is naming things, you'd be pretty silly to name something that already had a name.  So, paleontologists needed some ancient non-rock thing to name and they chose ancient beasts -- they called the beasts that they "discovered" "dinosaurs."  The problem is that, like rocks, "dinosaurs" already had a name.  Dragons.  

Religion is generally very silly.  And, mythology that isn't Judeo-Christian is treated so much like fiction that it is difficult to distinguish it from fiction.  The reason is that the intelligentsia is fond of empirical evidence in advance of belief.  The more fantastic a belief, the more rigor they require for proof.  (One of my favorite comedians, Dana Gould, was talking about a recent question posed to Barak Obama about his prayer habits.  Barak said that he prays once or twice a day.  With the caveat that he understands the near impossibility of any sort of American political career for an admitted agnostic or atheist, Dana pointed out the silliness of such a prayer requirement.  Why should we be MORE comfortable to know that our president "mutters his desires to an invisible giant" at least two times a day?)  For the most part I'd count myself as a member of the camp composed of comedians and scientists.  However, the thinkers shouldn't let their egg-heads get too big.  Science should not have inherent value.  Science is an important tool for discovery and description but in the event that a myth rears it's majestic bony head, science doesn't get to pretend that it has made a discovery -- science has to play it as it lays, and it should admit the FACT that Dragons were real!  We haven't found griffin bones.  We haven't found halos.  We haven't found centaur pants.  But, we have found dragons.  Maybe we didn't live among them and maybe they weren't breathing fire, but they were legit mythical monsters, and I resent a field of study that diminishes their cred.  

The earth is flatter than you think.