1)
"They don't want to find out about anything else, since that might diminish the force of their arguments."
–Wislawa Szymborska
A co-worker of mine repeated the subject argument of Szymborska's statement, almost verbatim and without irony. We were discussing religion. It was one of our many discussions on religion, which I have learned to try to avoid but he remains intent on discussing it, with a critical eye on anything contrary to Christianity in other world religions. I’ve tried to express my opinion that learning about is not the same as subscribing to, but it doesn’t go anywhere, and I don’t know how to express without rudeness that, in my opinion, willful blindness is not the same as faith. I don’t think it will ever end between us.
2)
Metaphors We Live By
This is a book title that struck me a few months ago, and I had to buy it. It's has been an excellent read so far.
3)
Driving home the other day, I saw a wooden sign alongside a fence on one of the back roads that read, simply, "WHO PAID?" It was just a random sign along the road, but I couldn't stop thinking about it and all of the different directions it could go, how very different an interpretation it could have depending on who was reading it.
4)
“But that's where Big Ben gets off the hook, because it's our fault for believing that how well star athletes do their jobs somehow equates to the person they are off the field. … En route to being great again, by association you are somehow seen as a good person.”
Hearing over and over how Ben Roethlisberger is redeeming himself of his off-field "misfortune" by on-field play made me feel a lot of things, primarily negative, but specifically from a writing standpoint, it reminded me of the irritatingly prevalent theme of a character who commits some grave wrong in one area only to be forgiven in the narrative by doing something entirely unrelated on a much, much smaller scale. A frequent offender is the show Supernatural, which I used to watch religiously but can't even stomach now. It's common to see one of the appointed heroes kill an innocent person or otherwise cause severe harm to an innocent entirely without remorse or even any hint of attentiveness, only to be given a sympathetic pat on the back in the script, which resolves him of having to atone in any productive way and furthermore allows him to continue on in this manner. That he feels bad and is misunderstood is apparently atonement enough. Making deals that damn the world is easily pardoned because the poor hero had a bout of insecurity and felt bad about lying to his brother that one time. Or something. There are a lot of four letter words for how I feel about that. It's a million times worse in real life. But then, it also makes me think of how we paint sports heroes, other celebrities and politicians in a certain light and are married to that light, and anything contrary to it is given hardly any attention at all. So Roethlisberger is a triumph of perseverance while Michael Vick is lower than slime, Rudy is the inspirational hero of millions while Joe Montana is a dick, George W. Bush was Satan 2.0 and Obama is now Satan 3.0, and Johnny Depp is always and forever some kind of sex god. (I'm okay with that last one. Now I feel like watching Ed Wood again.) I love Elton John's “Candle In The Wind,” but that he wrote and recorded that song sort of embodies the view he was ostensibly putting to shame. We love our icons to remain as we imagine them, for better or worse. We hardly ever allow them any texture. I would hate to do that to a character of mine. I would consider it the ultimate crime against realistic characterization.
5) The last word goes to Soundgarden again:
"One day this guy from another label walks up to me and says, 'I really like that song 'Seasons'. You should write more songs like that.' I just wanted to punch this guy. What a stupid thing to say. If I wrote more songs like that, who would care about that song? 'You should write more songs like that because I like it.' You should fuck off because I hate you. Probably why people would single out a particular song they like on this record is because it's the only song like that on the record. And if there were 15 songs like that on the record, it would be a lame-ass record. It would suck."
-Chris Cornell, in Guitar Player (June 1994)
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