The thing that most people overlook about the two Star Wars trilogies is that they are, at their core, the story of fathers and sons, and although we once thought of these stories as being concerned solely with the evolution of Luke Skywalker, we can now see that that isn't the case at all -- these movies are about Darth Vader, about a gifted young boy who ended up choosing the wrong path in life, only to be later redeemed by his son.
Nobody really likes these new movies, the third of which, Revenge of the Sith, will premiere this May, but I do; they convincingly portray the disintegration of a democracy into a dictatorship in a way that young people can understand and, given that they take place before the films we knew and loved as kids, they also have the added advantage of establishing all kinds of neat little foreshadowings, twists, and thematic layers that give new meaning to what we've seen before. They are able to, in essence, 'mirror' what happens in the second trilogy, creating a wonderful cyclical effect.
Basically, Anakin 'Darth Vader' Skywalker's story parallels his son's own odyssey through life -- a gifted, respected Jedi Warrior who is trying to do the right thing. Only Vader, obviously makes the wrong choice; Luke, faced with similar temptations, does the right thing. Simple. Powerful.
It's a very interesting, bold message, I think. Lucas is saying: Here's a guy who did everything wrong, but his son, faced with similar choices, not only does the right thing, but in the process redeems his dad, too (as Vader, at the end of Return of the Jedi, once again becomes a 'good guy').
You can argue all you want about the aesthetic choices of this new trilogy -- its excitement factor, it's 'coolness' -- that's your call. But I don't think you can deny that Lucas has deepened his maturity and focus; he's talking about interesting ideas that aren't really talked about much in contemporary pop culture, the most subtle of which is: how do we enter into the world that our parents made, and then somehow avoid making the same mistakes they did?
Take Cambodia. The Cambodian university students I taught were, in general, the children of the elite, which, in this country, means that their parents were government workers. Big shots. Not all of the students were rich kids; quite a few had scholarships, and there were many who somehow managed to scrape the tuition money together by hook or by crook. Still, a great majority of university students in Phnom Penh have parents in one Ministry or another, which means, bottom line, that those parents are on the take. Greasing the palms. Passing the buck, literally and figuratively.
Sad, but true. The weird thing is, in a country like Cambodia, where corruption is the norm, can it even be called corruption anymore? You do what you have to do to get ahead, build alliances, forge relationships. If that's what it takes to grease the wheel and climb the ladder, well, then that's what it takes. You call it corruption; they call it survival.
Problem is, where do all of these university graduates go? They are well-connected, most of these kids; if they want, I'm sure they can get somewhat of an 'in' into the system. And yet it is that very system that I fear, this system that will turn these naive, good-natured (albeit a little bit lazy) students into monetary, bureaucratic survivalists. If there was a Survivor: Cambodia, it would have to consist of a bunch of big-bellied bureaucrats scheming to see who gets to pay off which higher-up first.
But then, once these freshly-minted graduates are allowed into the dance, into the game, what next? How does the process being? How do you get the money, and how does the money exchange hands? Who gets what?
Because the Khmer Rouge killed all of the intellectuals and educated people twenty-five years ago, the people running Cambodia now are not the brightest bulbs in the socket. That may sound harsh, but it's true; Cambodia's educational system wasn't exactly stellar thirty years ago anyways, and the people running the show are woefully uneducated. And here you have their (relatively) better educated children, young and eager and wanting to become a part of the legitimate international community, but unsure of how to go about it.
Will they just inherit their parents' corrupt ways? Is there any other way, besides corruption, to move the country forward, given that those in power sure as hell won't relinquish power? Will the children of Cambodia become their own, authentically Asian version of Luke Skywalker, avoiding temptation by doing the good and noble act, thereby redeeming their great country and their parents in the process? Or is the country doomed to be Darth Vader all over again?
Wednesday, March 09, 2005
Tuesday, March 08, 2005
INTERROGATION
Let me see. Let me think. Just a minute, now. Don't go off, you know, off all, what do you call it, half-cocked. Ready to fire. Playing Dirty Harry and everything. Thirty years is a long time, longer than you been alive. Can't expect me to remember it all at once, can you? You think you could, in a room like this, cold and, and, and gray, you think you could remember something that happened twenty-five years ago just like that? Didn't think so.
What's that?
Yes, we were friends. 'Friends'. Well. Okay. You want to use the word 'friends', that's what we'll use. 'Buddy', 'friend', 'compadre', whatever. I don't know what you young guys call yourselves anymore, anyways. Don't know what the word 'friends' means anymore. Are they people you play video games with? Are those the kind of, you know, the kind of people you'd call friends?
Hey, I'm not the one off-topic here, fella. Not me. I'm not the one who, you know, was talking about the weather and the Leafs and the, and the, and the goddamn basketball scores. Like you care about basketball. You want to get off-topic, fine by me, but don't go, don't go calling me on that, on that very same thing when I'm sitting here, under this light, waiting for the cup of hot chocolate I asked for twenty minutes ago. I'm trying to remember, like you want me to.
Was a while ago, that's all.
Did we fight?
No more beating around the bush, eh?
You want to ask me the question you been wanting to ask since you picked me up?
You want to ask it?
I didn't ask, you know, I didn't ask, didn't say, that I was going to answer it. I asked if you want to ask it.
Good. You got balls. Finally. I had my doubts for awhile.
You want me to say I bashed his head in with a rock? You want me to say that? Want to know the, the, the colour of it, the colour of the, of the blood? You want that? I can give you all that. Confession and everything, I just did. Confessed. But I'm asking for the other stuff. You want that? You want to know what it's like, seeing your best friend go, go away like that? Seeing his, his, well, I don't want to say 'soul', too religious for my tastes, but seeing his life flow out of him? I saw it, same as I see you. Saw his life go...Up. Up up and away, like the guy in blue and red. That what you want to hear? I can tell you all that, if you want. Colours, screams, the whole deal.
Of course I remember it now. Of course I do. But you, you didn't want all this, did you. You wanted 'yes, I did it', or 'no, I didn't'. That's all you want. You want the, how would you call them, details for the judge and jury, sure. But you don't want to think about the nitty gritty too much, young fella like you. Don't want to hear what we can do to each other, us humans. Do to the people we love. Don't want to hear, don't care to hear it. Don't want nothing more than the facts.
Fine.
You got the facts.
I spared you the human stuff. The stuff that, that, you know, you might recognize in your own, in your own mirror. Guy like you probably looks at every mirror he passes by. Vain little, little runt.
Now do I get a cup of hot chocolate or what?
What's that?
Yes, we were friends. 'Friends'. Well. Okay. You want to use the word 'friends', that's what we'll use. 'Buddy', 'friend', 'compadre', whatever. I don't know what you young guys call yourselves anymore, anyways. Don't know what the word 'friends' means anymore. Are they people you play video games with? Are those the kind of, you know, the kind of people you'd call friends?
Hey, I'm not the one off-topic here, fella. Not me. I'm not the one who, you know, was talking about the weather and the Leafs and the, and the, and the goddamn basketball scores. Like you care about basketball. You want to get off-topic, fine by me, but don't go, don't go calling me on that, on that very same thing when I'm sitting here, under this light, waiting for the cup of hot chocolate I asked for twenty minutes ago. I'm trying to remember, like you want me to.
Was a while ago, that's all.
Did we fight?
No more beating around the bush, eh?
You want to ask me the question you been wanting to ask since you picked me up?
You want to ask it?
I didn't ask, you know, I didn't ask, didn't say, that I was going to answer it. I asked if you want to ask it.
Good. You got balls. Finally. I had my doubts for awhile.
You want me to say I bashed his head in with a rock? You want me to say that? Want to know the, the, the colour of it, the colour of the, of the blood? You want that? I can give you all that. Confession and everything, I just did. Confessed. But I'm asking for the other stuff. You want that? You want to know what it's like, seeing your best friend go, go away like that? Seeing his, his, well, I don't want to say 'soul', too religious for my tastes, but seeing his life flow out of him? I saw it, same as I see you. Saw his life go...Up. Up up and away, like the guy in blue and red. That what you want to hear? I can tell you all that, if you want. Colours, screams, the whole deal.
Of course I remember it now. Of course I do. But you, you didn't want all this, did you. You wanted 'yes, I did it', or 'no, I didn't'. That's all you want. You want the, how would you call them, details for the judge and jury, sure. But you don't want to think about the nitty gritty too much, young fella like you. Don't want to hear what we can do to each other, us humans. Do to the people we love. Don't want to hear, don't care to hear it. Don't want nothing more than the facts.
Fine.
You got the facts.
I spared you the human stuff. The stuff that, that, you know, you might recognize in your own, in your own mirror. Guy like you probably looks at every mirror he passes by. Vain little, little runt.
Now do I get a cup of hot chocolate or what?
THERE'S NOTHING HERE
The reason I first came to Cambodia was to volunteer with a Japanese NGO, Children Without Borders (www.knk.or.jp), at a house for street children in Battambang, in the northwest corner of the country, and I decided to fly from Phnom Penh to Battambang, a short flight, less than an hour, less than a hundred bucks, and it was while flying from the biggest city in Cambodia to the second-biggest city in the country (my self and my life suspended in the air), that I looked out the window and realized: There's nothing here.
Nothing but endless fields of rice and winding rivers of brown, like a Southeast Asian Snakes and Ladders brought to life, complete with flimsy huts and zig-zagging paths that I gradually realized were roads. Nothing but bicycles and motos. Nothing but fishermen and their fish, and their families, and their boats lazily floating down the river, all day long. Nothing but young students going to three different universities, hoping for three different B.As. Nothing but prostitutes clad in bright red, from their face to their feet, sitting outside their tiny apartments in groups of five and six and seven, waiting for night to fall. Nothing but dirty, shoeless kids on the street walking from here to there and back again, scavening for whatever leftovers can be used as food, drugs, barter. Nothing but black garbage bags torn in two resting on dusty, damaged sidwalks, the remnants of a government worker's refuse exposed and ransacked for all to raid. Nothing but Royal Palaces and the guards who guard them, with their guns, and their helmets, and their distant, vacant stare, halfway between boredom and vigilance. Nothing but people making their way through the hot and languid day that lies before them.
There's nothing here, I'd thought.
I was wrong.
Nothing but endless fields of rice and winding rivers of brown, like a Southeast Asian Snakes and Ladders brought to life, complete with flimsy huts and zig-zagging paths that I gradually realized were roads. Nothing but bicycles and motos. Nothing but fishermen and their fish, and their families, and their boats lazily floating down the river, all day long. Nothing but young students going to three different universities, hoping for three different B.As. Nothing but prostitutes clad in bright red, from their face to their feet, sitting outside their tiny apartments in groups of five and six and seven, waiting for night to fall. Nothing but dirty, shoeless kids on the street walking from here to there and back again, scavening for whatever leftovers can be used as food, drugs, barter. Nothing but black garbage bags torn in two resting on dusty, damaged sidwalks, the remnants of a government worker's refuse exposed and ransacked for all to raid. Nothing but Royal Palaces and the guards who guard them, with their guns, and their helmets, and their distant, vacant stare, halfway between boredom and vigilance. Nothing but people making their way through the hot and languid day that lies before them.
There's nothing here, I'd thought.
I was wrong.
OVER TIME
"Absolute, true, mathematical time, of itself, and from its own nature, flows equably without relation to anything external."
-- Newton
"If, for instance, I say, 'That train arrives here at 7 o'clock, I mean something like this: 'The pointing of the small hand of my watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events...
"To those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion, if a stubborn one."
-- Einstein
"Whoa. This is heavy."
-- Marty McFly,
Back To The Future
I've always been interested in time-travel stories, mostly because I think that our present-day concept of time itself is illusory, that the past and present and future are all somehow interrelated, folding in on themselves, overlapping, blending into each other. Whether in movies or fiction, time-travel tales offer a different, more palatable perspective. They say: "The past? Oh, that's just over there. The future? Just up ahead. You wanna go? Let's go, hop in, take a seat, don't forget to buckle up." The past, present and future thus become tangible destinations; you can actually go there. You can touch the land. Smell the breeze. It has a tangible, physical, emotional weight.
In (what we call) reality, time and physical weight? That, I'm not sure of. Emotional weight? You bet your ass.
As you get older, your life grows shorter as your memory grows longer, and the past continues to hold sway over your present, while the future hides in wait, refusing to show its cards. They are all co-conspirators, these past, present and future schemers, and we are the victims, while I suspect that the ultimate con is a simple one: the transparent illusion of time itself. (Maybe that's why I find reincarnation, as a concept, so neat.)
And yet, I truly believe that time and aging are all within the confines of our minds, malleable to our will. I'm 29, but I don't know if I feel 29, or 46, 0r 11. I am what I am what I am, as Popeye said. (And, for the record, I think Robin William's Popeye movie from 198o is freakin' great. Vastly underrated. Just had to get that off my chest.) Our bodies start to creak a little more as the days and weeks do their traditional dance, but within this progression comes wisdom, perspective, and regression, too, the ability to see our childhoods a little more clearly, understand our past selves with a more tender level of empathy and awe. The physical declines as the mental gains new altitude.
Having said all that, back to my main point -- time travel stories are freakin' cool. I love the Back to the Future trilogy (so much so that that will have to wait for a later post -- you've been warned). Loved Quantom Leap. Loved Christopher Reeve's Somewhere in Time and the Jack-the-Ripper-in- 1970's- San Francisco- flick Time After Time. Loved Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Loved an early 1980's show called Voyagers, where a young man and his protege travelled through time. (Anybody remember that one?)
All these flicks inevitably led to the archetypal on-the-lawn, sipping-lemonade, looking-at-the-stars-question: Past or future? Where'd you rather go?
For me, there was no real choice. It was always the future.
Not to say that visiting the past wouldn't be awesome. It would. You could check out the pyramids of Egypt and Angkor being constructed. You could see Dickens' London up close and personal. Be there when Marilyn Monroe sang 'Happy Birthday' to J.F.K. Witness the Titantic leaving its port for the first and final time.
The allure of the past, for me, aside from all that cool historical debris, is to see and fell and taste and here what it was actually like.
Future generations will able to see, on film, a complete and total record of life in the 2o and 21st century -- our fashions, our trends, the way we looked, the way we talked. They will be able to view our presidents and prime ministers, watch their speeches, analyze their actions by way of honest-to-god footage; they will be able to study M*A*S*H and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Star Wars and Saved by the Bell: The College Years to find out what we liked, and why. (Did Screech end up graduating?) God knows what they'll make of all this stuff, but it'll be there for our great-great-great grandchildren to at least gawk at, if nothing else.
But we, us, my fellow citizens of the 21st century, don't and can't really know what the past was like. Not really; not truly. We can't view it or listen to it. Everything before photography is speculation, really. It was there, the past; it happened. We know that. Books tell us that. But its very presence, devoid of solid, concrete proof, renders it somewhat...inert. Lifeless. Stale. To me.
Ah, but the future...
The future is nothing but blue skies and mystery, mystery, mystery. (The human mind thrives on mystery; it craves it. It hordes it. Who is the new girl that moved in next door, and what will my new boss look like, and why does my Uncle Sal always pick his nose then flick it when he knows that people are looking at him, what with his lazy lefty eye and all, and how did all those Desperate Housewives get so desperate in the first place, and who will be the next president, Hillary or Condi or McCain or Oprah, and what will this restaurant's burger taste like, I've heard it's good, but I have my doubts, their fries blow, and will my path in life be stable, steady, happy. We need mystery to keep us going, and the future is nothing but.)
At the end of Back to the Future, Marty Mcfly and his girlfriend Jennifer and Doc Brown fly off into the year 2015, and then...nothing. The picture ends. Time to go home and wipe the goobers off of the soles of your sneakers (a legacy of that sticky-floor feeling composed of spilt Coke and stale popcorn, a sweet and synthetic velcro, I remember it so well from all of St.Catharines' cinemas, and what a memory to cherish, but I do, I do...)
Whaaaaaaat? How could they do this to me? You can't, can't, can't just have them go into the freakin' future and not show it!
I had to wait four years, for the sequel, to find out what Hill Valley looked like, all those years from now.
But it gave me time to think, that gap. To wonder. The year 2015...wow. And now here we are, only ten years from that wondrous date, and while I could be wrong I don't think that there will be flying cars soaring through the skies, or tiny Pizza Hut pizzas that magically inflate and expand jumbo-like after ten seconds of cooking.
Oh, but that's inevitable, isn't it, this downplay of expectations? The year 2001 was once a magical and mystical realm of possibility, sheer, glimmering potential -- and now? Now, it's remembered as the year a group of young Saudis carried a bunch of box cutters onto a couple of planes.
Reality has a way of first diminishing, then eradicating, what was once regarded as prophecy.
No matter.
The important, resilient idea is this: When we think about the future, dream about it, write about it, we're projecting hope, plain and simple, no matter how nihilistic or craven our visions ends up being. If there's a future, it means, at the primal level: Life has survived. We've made it. And we want to see and feel what this new reality will be like because it means, fundamentally, that we, as humanity, endure. We survive. We exist. Where will we go? How will we get there? Will everybody still love Raymond? This desire to see the future simply links us back to our most basic human desires: We want to know; we want to touch the mystery.
We want to see how it all turns out.
-- Newton
"If, for instance, I say, 'That train arrives here at 7 o'clock, I mean something like this: 'The pointing of the small hand of my watch to 7 and the arrival of the train are simultaneous events...
"To those of us who believe in physics, this separation between past, present and future is only an illusion, if a stubborn one."
-- Einstein
"Whoa. This is heavy."
-- Marty McFly,
Back To The Future
I've always been interested in time-travel stories, mostly because I think that our present-day concept of time itself is illusory, that the past and present and future are all somehow interrelated, folding in on themselves, overlapping, blending into each other. Whether in movies or fiction, time-travel tales offer a different, more palatable perspective. They say: "The past? Oh, that's just over there. The future? Just up ahead. You wanna go? Let's go, hop in, take a seat, don't forget to buckle up." The past, present and future thus become tangible destinations; you can actually go there. You can touch the land. Smell the breeze. It has a tangible, physical, emotional weight.
In (what we call) reality, time and physical weight? That, I'm not sure of. Emotional weight? You bet your ass.
As you get older, your life grows shorter as your memory grows longer, and the past continues to hold sway over your present, while the future hides in wait, refusing to show its cards. They are all co-conspirators, these past, present and future schemers, and we are the victims, while I suspect that the ultimate con is a simple one: the transparent illusion of time itself. (Maybe that's why I find reincarnation, as a concept, so neat.)
And yet, I truly believe that time and aging are all within the confines of our minds, malleable to our will. I'm 29, but I don't know if I feel 29, or 46, 0r 11. I am what I am what I am, as Popeye said. (And, for the record, I think Robin William's Popeye movie from 198o is freakin' great. Vastly underrated. Just had to get that off my chest.) Our bodies start to creak a little more as the days and weeks do their traditional dance, but within this progression comes wisdom, perspective, and regression, too, the ability to see our childhoods a little more clearly, understand our past selves with a more tender level of empathy and awe. The physical declines as the mental gains new altitude.
Having said all that, back to my main point -- time travel stories are freakin' cool. I love the Back to the Future trilogy (so much so that that will have to wait for a later post -- you've been warned). Loved Quantom Leap. Loved Christopher Reeve's Somewhere in Time and the Jack-the-Ripper-in- 1970's- San Francisco- flick Time After Time. Loved Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home. Loved an early 1980's show called Voyagers, where a young man and his protege travelled through time. (Anybody remember that one?)
All these flicks inevitably led to the archetypal on-the-lawn, sipping-lemonade, looking-at-the-stars-question: Past or future? Where'd you rather go?
For me, there was no real choice. It was always the future.
Not to say that visiting the past wouldn't be awesome. It would. You could check out the pyramids of Egypt and Angkor being constructed. You could see Dickens' London up close and personal. Be there when Marilyn Monroe sang 'Happy Birthday' to J.F.K. Witness the Titantic leaving its port for the first and final time.
The allure of the past, for me, aside from all that cool historical debris, is to see and fell and taste and here what it was actually like.
Future generations will able to see, on film, a complete and total record of life in the 2o and 21st century -- our fashions, our trends, the way we looked, the way we talked. They will be able to view our presidents and prime ministers, watch their speeches, analyze their actions by way of honest-to-god footage; they will be able to study M*A*S*H and One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Star Wars and Saved by the Bell: The College Years to find out what we liked, and why. (Did Screech end up graduating?) God knows what they'll make of all this stuff, but it'll be there for our great-great-great grandchildren to at least gawk at, if nothing else.
But we, us, my fellow citizens of the 21st century, don't and can't really know what the past was like. Not really; not truly. We can't view it or listen to it. Everything before photography is speculation, really. It was there, the past; it happened. We know that. Books tell us that. But its very presence, devoid of solid, concrete proof, renders it somewhat...inert. Lifeless. Stale. To me.
Ah, but the future...
The future is nothing but blue skies and mystery, mystery, mystery. (The human mind thrives on mystery; it craves it. It hordes it. Who is the new girl that moved in next door, and what will my new boss look like, and why does my Uncle Sal always pick his nose then flick it when he knows that people are looking at him, what with his lazy lefty eye and all, and how did all those Desperate Housewives get so desperate in the first place, and who will be the next president, Hillary or Condi or McCain or Oprah, and what will this restaurant's burger taste like, I've heard it's good, but I have my doubts, their fries blow, and will my path in life be stable, steady, happy. We need mystery to keep us going, and the future is nothing but.)
At the end of Back to the Future, Marty Mcfly and his girlfriend Jennifer and Doc Brown fly off into the year 2015, and then...nothing. The picture ends. Time to go home and wipe the goobers off of the soles of your sneakers (a legacy of that sticky-floor feeling composed of spilt Coke and stale popcorn, a sweet and synthetic velcro, I remember it so well from all of St.Catharines' cinemas, and what a memory to cherish, but I do, I do...)
Whaaaaaaat? How could they do this to me? You can't, can't, can't just have them go into the freakin' future and not show it!
I had to wait four years, for the sequel, to find out what Hill Valley looked like, all those years from now.
But it gave me time to think, that gap. To wonder. The year 2015...wow. And now here we are, only ten years from that wondrous date, and while I could be wrong I don't think that there will be flying cars soaring through the skies, or tiny Pizza Hut pizzas that magically inflate and expand jumbo-like after ten seconds of cooking.
Oh, but that's inevitable, isn't it, this downplay of expectations? The year 2001 was once a magical and mystical realm of possibility, sheer, glimmering potential -- and now? Now, it's remembered as the year a group of young Saudis carried a bunch of box cutters onto a couple of planes.
Reality has a way of first diminishing, then eradicating, what was once regarded as prophecy.
No matter.
The important, resilient idea is this: When we think about the future, dream about it, write about it, we're projecting hope, plain and simple, no matter how nihilistic or craven our visions ends up being. If there's a future, it means, at the primal level: Life has survived. We've made it. And we want to see and feel what this new reality will be like because it means, fundamentally, that we, as humanity, endure. We survive. We exist. Where will we go? How will we get there? Will everybody still love Raymond? This desire to see the future simply links us back to our most basic human desires: We want to know; we want to touch the mystery.
We want to see how it all turns out.
Monday, March 07, 2005
STRANGE THEORIES AND PREDICTIONS OF MINE
- Mentally disabled people, the kind we used to call 'retarded', aren't really the mentally challenged ones in our society at all. They're the normal ones, and we're the ones that are messed up. It would explain a lot. A lot of autistic kids are operating on a significantly higher plane of intellectual existence than the rest of us, right? Maybe they've reached a level of intellectual development that is optimal for homo sapiens; by comparison, we're still at the infant stage, clawing at the crib.
- We're all actually supposed to be left-handed. All of you righties may be in the majority, true, but so what? The majority rules, yes, but that just means that there are more of you guys, that's all. (Us lefties are more agile and crafty, however.)
- When we sleep, that's life. What we think of as the living part -- waking up, eating breakfast, going to school, watching Ricki Lake, fighting with our landlord -- is actually the dreaming part.
- Speaking of dreams, I suspect that we're all part of someone else's dream. I'm serious. Me, you, the guy who takes your subway token, the biology prof who smells like smoke -- we're all illusionary images, nothing more than the manifestations of the mental wanderings of a sleeping god (or what we could call god; her husband would dub it 'Ethel') who is suffering from a bad case of indigestion.
- There is a finite end point to the universe. Nothing can ever just begin, and nothing can ever not end, can it? (Except for Ulysses; that book is huge, and there's no end in sight for that baby, and I ain't cracking its spine any time soon.) Accordingly, I believe that there is, somewhere in the shadows of space, light years from here, an actual, honest to God finish line, kind of like the shimmering blue energy stream known as the Great Barrier that the Enterprise discovered in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, except that that was located at the centre of the universe, not the end. Beyond this universal, galactic finish line is, well, hopefully, whatever created us all. Or whatever's left of it, anyways. (Because I also suspect that, if God did exist, He died a long time ago. Which would explain a lot of things. Or maybe He's just resting. And who knows? He may end up even looking a little bit like George Burns. Or Morgan Freeman.)
- Jerry Springer, despite the moron-level intensity and insanity of his show, is actually really, really smart. (He's the former mayor of Cincinatti. And any city that can even inspire such an inspired show as WKRP in Cincinatti could surely produce somebody like Springer.)
- I suspect I haven't spelled 'Cincinatti' correctly.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger is also really, really, really smart, and, if they change the Constitution, will one day become President of the United States.
- Pauly Shore is really, really, really not that smart.
- Cambodia will have another coup, sometime within the next ten years. I won't be here to witness it. (But I may take part in it.)
- Spike Lee will someday make his Jackie Robinson movie. I read the script for it a few years ago, and it's really good, and the trials, tribulations and triumphs of that man's life need to be told on the silver screen again, because a) it would make a great, great movie and b) I don't think modern America truly understands the pivotal role he played in moving that country forward. No man before or since had to go through what he went through, and the country progressed because of it. (And he played for the Montreal Royals before the Brooklyn Dodgers, and it would be cool to see 1940's Quebec on the big screen.)
- The really, really true account of J.F.K.'s assassination will never be written.
- The really, really true account of R.F.K's assassination will be written someday.
- Canada will have a minority/woman prime minister within the next twenty-five years. (We already had a female one. For awhile, anyways. A short while.)
- Everything we think we know to be true in this year of 2005, ranging from science to medicine to computers to philosophy, will, in a hundred years time, be viewed as hopelessly archaic,
naive and ill-conceived. (Not to mention laughably primitive.)
- Stallone will make Rocky VI.
- That feeling we get when our feet 'fall asleep' will be bottled and available for use as mace.
- Stallone will not make Stop!Or My Mom Will Shoot II.
- 99% of UFO sightings are complete bogus. It's that other 1% that intrigues me...
- Most people, down deep, are actually pretty good. (It's poverty that makes morality irrelevant.)
- Most people, down deep, don't really care that Dan Rather is retiring.
- Most people, down deep, haven't really missed this past hockey season. (Though they have missed Don Cherry.)
- Most theories and predictions, including mine, wither and crumble when faced by the strange and invincible quirks of life.
What's your theory? Or prediction?
- We're all actually supposed to be left-handed. All of you righties may be in the majority, true, but so what? The majority rules, yes, but that just means that there are more of you guys, that's all. (Us lefties are more agile and crafty, however.)
- When we sleep, that's life. What we think of as the living part -- waking up, eating breakfast, going to school, watching Ricki Lake, fighting with our landlord -- is actually the dreaming part.
- Speaking of dreams, I suspect that we're all part of someone else's dream. I'm serious. Me, you, the guy who takes your subway token, the biology prof who smells like smoke -- we're all illusionary images, nothing more than the manifestations of the mental wanderings of a sleeping god (or what we could call god; her husband would dub it 'Ethel') who is suffering from a bad case of indigestion.
- There is a finite end point to the universe. Nothing can ever just begin, and nothing can ever not end, can it? (Except for Ulysses; that book is huge, and there's no end in sight for that baby, and I ain't cracking its spine any time soon.) Accordingly, I believe that there is, somewhere in the shadows of space, light years from here, an actual, honest to God finish line, kind of like the shimmering blue energy stream known as the Great Barrier that the Enterprise discovered in Star Trek V: The Final Frontier, except that that was located at the centre of the universe, not the end. Beyond this universal, galactic finish line is, well, hopefully, whatever created us all. Or whatever's left of it, anyways. (Because I also suspect that, if God did exist, He died a long time ago. Which would explain a lot of things. Or maybe He's just resting. And who knows? He may end up even looking a little bit like George Burns. Or Morgan Freeman.)
- Jerry Springer, despite the moron-level intensity and insanity of his show, is actually really, really smart. (He's the former mayor of Cincinatti. And any city that can even inspire such an inspired show as WKRP in Cincinatti could surely produce somebody like Springer.)
- I suspect I haven't spelled 'Cincinatti' correctly.
- Arnold Schwarzenegger is also really, really, really smart, and, if they change the Constitution, will one day become President of the United States.
- Pauly Shore is really, really, really not that smart.
- Cambodia will have another coup, sometime within the next ten years. I won't be here to witness it. (But I may take part in it.)
- Spike Lee will someday make his Jackie Robinson movie. I read the script for it a few years ago, and it's really good, and the trials, tribulations and triumphs of that man's life need to be told on the silver screen again, because a) it would make a great, great movie and b) I don't think modern America truly understands the pivotal role he played in moving that country forward. No man before or since had to go through what he went through, and the country progressed because of it. (And he played for the Montreal Royals before the Brooklyn Dodgers, and it would be cool to see 1940's Quebec on the big screen.)
- The really, really true account of J.F.K.'s assassination will never be written.
- The really, really true account of R.F.K's assassination will be written someday.
- Canada will have a minority/woman prime minister within the next twenty-five years. (We already had a female one. For awhile, anyways. A short while.)
- Everything we think we know to be true in this year of 2005, ranging from science to medicine to computers to philosophy, will, in a hundred years time, be viewed as hopelessly archaic,
naive and ill-conceived. (Not to mention laughably primitive.)
- Stallone will make Rocky VI.
- That feeling we get when our feet 'fall asleep' will be bottled and available for use as mace.
- Stallone will not make Stop!Or My Mom Will Shoot II.
- 99% of UFO sightings are complete bogus. It's that other 1% that intrigues me...
- Most people, down deep, are actually pretty good. (It's poverty that makes morality irrelevant.)
- Most people, down deep, don't really care that Dan Rather is retiring.
- Most people, down deep, haven't really missed this past hockey season. (Though they have missed Don Cherry.)
- Most theories and predictions, including mine, wither and crumble when faced by the strange and invincible quirks of life.
What's your theory? Or prediction?
THE DWARF IN THE WHEELCHAIR
Let's imagine, just for imagination's sake, that you don't get what you want. Your dreams die a long and lingering, sad and lonely death. You do not become rich, famous, or even self-sufficient. Your name does not appear in lights, even Christmas ones. You will always be in debt. You will die unloved. Hungry. Alone.
Does it matter?
I ask because I went for a run last night along the river, and I ran into a little lady that I hadn't seen in a long, long time, because I usually run in the mornings, when she's not there.
When I say 'little lady', I mean that, um, literally. She's a dwarf, little person, midget. (Not sure which is currently the proper term.) She is in a wheelchair, and she has no legs.
I may have even written about her before on this blog; I can't remember. She seems to me to be this weird kind of Cambodian omen (or prophet) that pops up in my life from time to time to remind me of...
Well, I'm not sure.
Is it condescending to pity another person like this? I suppose it is; she doesn't ask for pity. She just wants what we all want -- something to eat, a person to talk to.
I ran over and told her that I had no money, and she smiled, and I shook her hand, and oh aren't I in touch with the wretchedly poor of Cambodia. I go back to my nice apartment; she stays down by the river, wheeling her wheelchair, asking for money.
Most poor people in Phnom Penh are left behind and out of the loop, but to be a dwarf with no legs in modern day Cambodia -- karmically, is there anything lower than that?
Oh, but who says it's 'low'? This is my western-bred mind speaking, the one that says you have to be all that you can be, utilize all of your abilities, strive for the unreacheable or die trying. This is the mentality that says good enough is not enough, that you have to be the best, the one, the man. You have to succeed where others fail. You have to have the house and the car and the wife and the lifetime membership to a golf course whose name you always forget but whose valet service parking is very, very cool.
But what if you can't? What if you've been behind the eight ball since you were a fetus? What if you're a homeless, friendless, legless dwarf in Cambodia?
Is it bourgeoise to even ask these questions? Maybe so, but I have to ask them, knowing that there is no answer, knowing that having even the time and luxury to ask, to consider, to ponder these ideas is, in itself, a luxury that most of the world can't partake of, or even understand. I have to try to believe that her life has a meaning, that existence her in and of itself is enough. She will live and breathe and die alone, crippled, and there is no justice, no fairness, no redemption in that situation, no, but there is humanity, and that has to be enough. It must be, or else what we consider human has to be redefined.
I think that our lives must be made to have meanings and purposes, regardless of our lots. (A view I've picked up on from Viktor Frankl, and his wonderful notions of man's search for meaning.) That woman by the river -- this is the only life she's got, and this is how she's spending it. It's not fair, and it's easy, but it is what it is. She does not worry about its meaning; she is what she is, and she is trying to live, and that is that is that is that. End of story.
Is it a sign, a signal from up above that, every so often, our paths intersect? (A silly, naive notion, true, but I worry that if I don't make sense of her, or at the very least attempt to, then something valuable will have been knowingly, eagerly cast aside or lost, something intangible inside of me, some barometer of morality that will be cracked forever, to the extent that thirty, forty years from now, I will at some point look back on my time here, in this godforsaken place, and it will all be a hazy, heat-stricken fugue, a memory of a memory, and what I learned, or sought to learn, will have been neglected, forgotten, eagerly disregarded without a second thought, in favor of well-cut lawns and soft-touch carpets and flat-screen TVs, flawless to a fault.)
We may not get what we want. Life may (or may already) have socked us in the gut like that kid in Montreal did to Houdini all those years ago, an unexpected sucker punch that stole what little time he had left. We may end up sick and alone an deceprit, and she reminds me of this fact, and I have to make sense of that. I don't know why, but I just do. We look to art, to movies, to books, for our queries and consolations, but rarely to life itself, and maybe that is what I'm doing, allowing life in.
Maybe, just maybe, she's been placed in my life to remind me to chill out, lay off the ambitions, stop worrying about next year, and the year after next. She worries about today, and the day after next. She goes to whatever she calls home and somehow makes it from her wheelchair to her bad.
Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I've been placed in her life for some unknown reason that will remain unknown to me (at least in this life). Maybe me meeting her and her meeting me is supposed to teach both of us a lesson. (Although I believe, deep down, it's up to me and me alone to make sense of it all; no answers will drop from the sky and no evangelical
e-mails will arrive in my inbox, explanations attached.)
I'm not sure what she's learning from me, if anything.
But I'm learning from her.
Does it matter?
I ask because I went for a run last night along the river, and I ran into a little lady that I hadn't seen in a long, long time, because I usually run in the mornings, when she's not there.
When I say 'little lady', I mean that, um, literally. She's a dwarf, little person, midget. (Not sure which is currently the proper term.) She is in a wheelchair, and she has no legs.
I may have even written about her before on this blog; I can't remember. She seems to me to be this weird kind of Cambodian omen (or prophet) that pops up in my life from time to time to remind me of...
Well, I'm not sure.
Is it condescending to pity another person like this? I suppose it is; she doesn't ask for pity. She just wants what we all want -- something to eat, a person to talk to.
I ran over and told her that I had no money, and she smiled, and I shook her hand, and oh aren't I in touch with the wretchedly poor of Cambodia. I go back to my nice apartment; she stays down by the river, wheeling her wheelchair, asking for money.
Most poor people in Phnom Penh are left behind and out of the loop, but to be a dwarf with no legs in modern day Cambodia -- karmically, is there anything lower than that?
Oh, but who says it's 'low'? This is my western-bred mind speaking, the one that says you have to be all that you can be, utilize all of your abilities, strive for the unreacheable or die trying. This is the mentality that says good enough is not enough, that you have to be the best, the one, the man. You have to succeed where others fail. You have to have the house and the car and the wife and the lifetime membership to a golf course whose name you always forget but whose valet service parking is very, very cool.
But what if you can't? What if you've been behind the eight ball since you were a fetus? What if you're a homeless, friendless, legless dwarf in Cambodia?
Is it bourgeoise to even ask these questions? Maybe so, but I have to ask them, knowing that there is no answer, knowing that having even the time and luxury to ask, to consider, to ponder these ideas is, in itself, a luxury that most of the world can't partake of, or even understand. I have to try to believe that her life has a meaning, that existence her in and of itself is enough. She will live and breathe and die alone, crippled, and there is no justice, no fairness, no redemption in that situation, no, but there is humanity, and that has to be enough. It must be, or else what we consider human has to be redefined.
I think that our lives must be made to have meanings and purposes, regardless of our lots. (A view I've picked up on from Viktor Frankl, and his wonderful notions of man's search for meaning.) That woman by the river -- this is the only life she's got, and this is how she's spending it. It's not fair, and it's easy, but it is what it is. She does not worry about its meaning; she is what she is, and she is trying to live, and that is that is that is that. End of story.
Is it a sign, a signal from up above that, every so often, our paths intersect? (A silly, naive notion, true, but I worry that if I don't make sense of her, or at the very least attempt to, then something valuable will have been knowingly, eagerly cast aside or lost, something intangible inside of me, some barometer of morality that will be cracked forever, to the extent that thirty, forty years from now, I will at some point look back on my time here, in this godforsaken place, and it will all be a hazy, heat-stricken fugue, a memory of a memory, and what I learned, or sought to learn, will have been neglected, forgotten, eagerly disregarded without a second thought, in favor of well-cut lawns and soft-touch carpets and flat-screen TVs, flawless to a fault.)
We may not get what we want. Life may (or may already) have socked us in the gut like that kid in Montreal did to Houdini all those years ago, an unexpected sucker punch that stole what little time he had left. We may end up sick and alone an deceprit, and she reminds me of this fact, and I have to make sense of that. I don't know why, but I just do. We look to art, to movies, to books, for our queries and consolations, but rarely to life itself, and maybe that is what I'm doing, allowing life in.
Maybe, just maybe, she's been placed in my life to remind me to chill out, lay off the ambitions, stop worrying about next year, and the year after next. She worries about today, and the day after next. She goes to whatever she calls home and somehow makes it from her wheelchair to her bad.
Or maybe it's the other way around. Maybe I've been placed in her life for some unknown reason that will remain unknown to me (at least in this life). Maybe me meeting her and her meeting me is supposed to teach both of us a lesson. (Although I believe, deep down, it's up to me and me alone to make sense of it all; no answers will drop from the sky and no evangelical
e-mails will arrive in my inbox, explanations attached.)
I'm not sure what she's learning from me, if anything.
But I'm learning from her.
THE LEARNING CURVE
At what point do you put down your pens, paper, textbooks and glasses and say: That's it, I'm finsihed, I'm done.
With learning, that is.
Growing up, you're constantly, almost relentlessly, learning -- how to go to the bathroom, how to make your bed (still haven't mastered that one yet), how to count to ten, how to tie your shoes, how to shift from printing to writing, how to drive a car, how to write a test, how to write an essay, how to do a job interview, etc., etc., etc.
Then come the certificates. The licenses. The pretty little pieces of paper that certify that you, who were previously an incompetent moron, are now, officially, a learned person. You can do something; you have abilities. (That old, politically incorrect childhood taunt, "What are you, a retard?", esssentially means: "Don't you know how to do this plain and simple thing? Don't you have even a little bit of abillity?)
Once you're out of school (high school or college or university), there's the tendency to think: That's it. I'm out of here. Leave me the La-Z-Boy and the remote and let the sloth begin. I know all that I need to know to function in society, so leave me alone. Conan's on in five minutes.
The surprising thing about living abroad is realizing -- slowly, then rapidly, then daily, then minute-by-minute -- how much you don't know.
I landed in Japan's Osaka airport to a bunch of chirpy young Japanese airline employees trying to tell me, in Japanese, that my luggage had been damaged, that it wouldn't be with me on my flight to Tokyo. I had no idea what to do, or how to do it, and no Japanese language ability to back me up. Welcome to the real world, Spence.
I received my first phone bill in Tokyo and realized: Damn, I don't know how to pay it.
"How do I pay my phone bill?" I asked my manager.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean, what do I do? How do I do it?"
She rolled her eyes.
"You go to the convenience store, stupid!"
(Her name was Mikako, this manager, and her dream was to go work with whales out in California as a marine biologist. Wonder where she is now.)
The convenience store? It's true. All your bills can be paid at the convenience store. My phone was always getting cut off because I never paid the bill, and when I finally did pay the bill, at the convenience store, it was instantly reconnected. How was this possible?
The point is, when you live abroad, all the little things are not so little after all. How to buy a bus ticket, how to greet someone, how to not royally piss somebody off -- these are the things that define the way we live, and we have to learn how to get them right.
You're always learning, in other words. That's important, I think, to look at something new, different, strange and incomprehensible -- and then slowly, piece by piece, try to force it to make sense, at least to you.
Nobody's watching. Nobody will be there to applaud you. There will be no pats on the back, imaginary or otherwise. No framed certificates.
But you will have learned something you didn't know yesterday. And that's become more important to me as time goes on, now that I realize the limits that yesterday does, indeed, have, and the promise that tomorrow can offer, if you're willing to swallow your pride and tackle something new.
Or at least try, before reverting back to the remote.
With learning, that is.
Growing up, you're constantly, almost relentlessly, learning -- how to go to the bathroom, how to make your bed (still haven't mastered that one yet), how to count to ten, how to tie your shoes, how to shift from printing to writing, how to drive a car, how to write a test, how to write an essay, how to do a job interview, etc., etc., etc.
Then come the certificates. The licenses. The pretty little pieces of paper that certify that you, who were previously an incompetent moron, are now, officially, a learned person. You can do something; you have abilities. (That old, politically incorrect childhood taunt, "What are you, a retard?", esssentially means: "Don't you know how to do this plain and simple thing? Don't you have even a little bit of abillity?)
Once you're out of school (high school or college or university), there's the tendency to think: That's it. I'm out of here. Leave me the La-Z-Boy and the remote and let the sloth begin. I know all that I need to know to function in society, so leave me alone. Conan's on in five minutes.
The surprising thing about living abroad is realizing -- slowly, then rapidly, then daily, then minute-by-minute -- how much you don't know.
I landed in Japan's Osaka airport to a bunch of chirpy young Japanese airline employees trying to tell me, in Japanese, that my luggage had been damaged, that it wouldn't be with me on my flight to Tokyo. I had no idea what to do, or how to do it, and no Japanese language ability to back me up. Welcome to the real world, Spence.
I received my first phone bill in Tokyo and realized: Damn, I don't know how to pay it.
"How do I pay my phone bill?" I asked my manager.
"What do you mean?" she asked.
"I mean, what do I do? How do I do it?"
She rolled her eyes.
"You go to the convenience store, stupid!"
(Her name was Mikako, this manager, and her dream was to go work with whales out in California as a marine biologist. Wonder where she is now.)
The convenience store? It's true. All your bills can be paid at the convenience store. My phone was always getting cut off because I never paid the bill, and when I finally did pay the bill, at the convenience store, it was instantly reconnected. How was this possible?
The point is, when you live abroad, all the little things are not so little after all. How to buy a bus ticket, how to greet someone, how to not royally piss somebody off -- these are the things that define the way we live, and we have to learn how to get them right.
You're always learning, in other words. That's important, I think, to look at something new, different, strange and incomprehensible -- and then slowly, piece by piece, try to force it to make sense, at least to you.
Nobody's watching. Nobody will be there to applaud you. There will be no pats on the back, imaginary or otherwise. No framed certificates.
But you will have learned something you didn't know yesterday. And that's become more important to me as time goes on, now that I realize the limits that yesterday does, indeed, have, and the promise that tomorrow can offer, if you're willing to swallow your pride and tackle something new.
Or at least try, before reverting back to the remote.
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