First time I haven’t watched 24 live. For once school work took priority. Not that I missed it, not with my trusty TiVo! 🙂

Looks like I might be attending a Buffy gathering in LA on March 30th, assuming I don’t have other plans. Odd but possibly interesting and fun. In another bit of Buffy hilarity, the post from TWoP that I quoted a few entries back (pancakes and spatulas and such) was written, oddly enough, by a fellow Brandeisian. What are the odds? I mean, seriously take a moment to consider this chain: Brandeis student likes Buffy. Said student visits TWoP. Posts message on message board. I like Buffy. I visit TWoP. I happen to find the thread. I happen to find that single post more memorable than any others on the board. I put that post on my blog. This person somehow finds my blog and reads her own post (despite a bad attribution, now fixed). She e-mails me.

One could think a higher power or some form of magic is at work here. Its just soooo odd. But really cool. Don’t think she’s going to the LA gathering, seeing as she’s probably not from LA. But if she is…oh my, I’d have to renounce my atheism.

This passage from Lisa Schiffman’s Generation J speaks for itself and I have nothing to add, but the sentiment is one that I embrace and see as a wonderful explanation for what I am trying to do here.

Historically, anthropologists have been loath to publish their field notes. They’re often too personal, too honest, a tad too unscientific. They show a hodgepodge — stories and scenes, conversations, facts and figures, questions, confusion — a collection of stuff, evidence of what it means to be a cultural observer. They show stray thoughts, character flaws like impatience and self-righteousness.
[…]
Field notes. They’re supposed to show patterns. They’re supposed to reveal societal underpinnings, magnify our smallest actions into larger meanings. How?
[…]
Me and you: the observer and the observed. Who is enlightening whom? I want to say this right now, right here: we can help each other.

There will be no secrets. There will be no rules. Take these notes in your hands. […] Tell me what you find. I’m sure I’ve missed something important. Whatever you see, tell me. And I’ll tell you. I’ll keep telling you. We’ll tell each other. And through each other, we’ll find ourselves. That’s how it works.

While what I offer is different then Schiffman’s notes, the intention is the same. To understand this. To explain it. As for what “this” is I cannot say, but that is, perhaps my task. And an essential part of this quest is interaction and feedback.

I think I’ll go outside now, in the snow, and watch people. See how they act.

Check out what regina welch posted on the TWoP Buffy forum about the show’s metaphors:

Flat earth. Right, so, the world is the pancake. Frying pans represent the whole system of alternate worlds in which the Buffyverse exists. When a character is hit over the head with a frying pan, it is a moment of choice, where fundamentally something about the world changes (on a surface level, the person gets knocked out, but it could be more…).

Spatulas are our coping mechanisms for keeping the world (pancake) as we know it under control. But spatulas also exist outside the flat plane of the pancake itself. I posit that spatulas represent the Key. That’s why Dawn doesn’t need a spatula; she is one. The spatula (Key) can modify, blend, or separate different pancakes (worlds) within the frying pan (larger system of worlds). When Buffy defended herself against Spike with a spatula, it was foreshadowing of the scene outside the house in “As You Were” where she tried to reject Spike because of Dawn. (Of note, she was carrying a flattened burger at the time.)

All this time we’ve been complaining about anvils, they’re really hitting us over the head with frying pans. Go figure.

But it’s also a commentary on the show as a whole. The world is not really flat, like a pancake, but we’re watching a two-dimensional television show, where ideas have to be flattened for our easy consumption. ME keeps hitting people with frying pans to remind us that our world is a three-dimensional entity, in which the Buffyverse is just some rather intriguing food for thought.

And I almost die from laughter. But not quite. With my last breaths I put this post up. And quickly realize that most people will not find it the least bit funny. At all. And in a Freudian slip I almost typed “buffy” in place of “funny.” Which again, is probably not something of relevence to the general community. But its 1:30 at night. And I have a 12 page paper to turn in by the end of Sunday, and I only have one page written. And I’m giddy for some unfathomable reason that might have to do with the strange cultural dishes (well, food on dishes) I ate, courtesy of some event called Culture X that celebrates diversity. And as a white person in the room I was quite in the minority. Which, again, is not very relevant. But was amusing.

And I ate falafel. And my spell-checker can’t tell me if I’ve spelled that right or not, so I’ll go with it.

Okay, leaving now.

Edited to add: wow, Sunday is today! and to fix some formatting. And to say, oh god, I’m adopting TWoP forum conventions, explaining why I’m editing things. This can’t be good. Must quit while ahead…nope, missed that a mile back.

I was just reading some coding examples in my quest to learn Tcl. One was a process that checks for all-uppercase posts, and then returns this message: Your ad appears to be all uppercase. ON THE INTERNET THIS IS CONSIDERED SHOUTING. IT IS ALSO MUCH HARDER TO READ THAN MIXED CASE TEXT. So we don’t allow it, out of decorum and consideration for people who may be visually impaired.

Its funny, because I hadn’t realized it before, but all of my years on the net have caused me to actually comprehend UPPERCASE as SHOUTING. When I’m reading something in my mind and something is all uppercase, I actually read it and think it as shouting. This self-referential message made me realize how much your perception of reality can change due to computers. Before the net I would never state “sigh” instead of actually carrying out the sighing action. Now I state it much more often then actually do it.

In the Simpsons episode I was watching yesterday the Comic Book Guy, upon reading something disturbing on his computer, shouts out, “No emoticon can express the anger I am feeling!” Hmm.

I decided to waste some of my precious time fiddling with Boogle for no apparent reason. I revamped my network file search tool’s crawler and put in a rudimentary uptime calculator thing. Then I rescanned the entire network. Again I got over 1.5 terabytes (1500 gigabytes) of files catalogued. So I go do a search, and alas, only three Buffy episodes and no Angel episodes. I go to all this trouble, and I get NOTHING!!! But at least I can be happy some dummy is getting his Britney Spears fix. Sigh. People here have no taste.

All this week and perhaps longer our Intro to Law class is dealing with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). It should be a very interesting week, because this legislation is very interesting. It seems, at least to me, to be a dramatic reversal of the federal courts’ trend towards actively seeking out cases that allow them to set precedent for changes with regard to issues of social justice. In fact, the courts were, at least initially, very reluctant to expand the power of the ADA. I see both sides of this issue and have certainly thought about it before, so hopefully class tomorrow and the rest of the week will help me to clarify a bit. Yay, education! 😉

Wired News makes the astute observation that all of the good guys on 24 use Macs and the baddies use PCs. Thus it was easy to spot Jamie as the mole because she was using a Dell. When Wired confronted one of the writers about this, his response was as follows:

“Very clever of you to figure this out,” said writer Michael Loceff in an e-mail. “But your powers of observation could have carried you a little further. For instance, the bad guys use Nokia and the good guys, Ericsson. The good guys play chess and the bad guys play Go. The good guys eat popcorn and reconstituted soy protein and the bad guys eat red meat. The good guys are on the quarter system and the bad guys on semesters. However — both the good guys and the bad guys read Wired (News).”

See, I just knew that Nokia was evil! But semesters…uh oh.
PCs Are Incorrect On TV (Wired News)

For some reason I am very jubilant or happy or jumpy (or whatever the synonym is that I’m looking for) right now. Its kinda cool. Makes me want to go do something…

I think I’ve decided basically what I’m gonna do this summer. My intention is to learn about Hollywood, the industry, etc. My goal is not to get a grunt job so that I can move up the food chain and become a big shot Hollywood actor or producer or writer or whatever. All three of those careers interest me, but its not something that I want to dedicate my life to at this point. Stan Brooks says the best encouragement you can give a kid who wants to work in Hollywood is a good put down. The only people who make it in that business are those who are incredibly tenacious and will never take a no. I’m not really as much of that kind of person, and, although I find the business interesting, I don’t think I have the commitment to it at this time. So here is what I’m gonna do:
I’ll send in my resume to the various places whose addresses I’ve dug up. Then I’ll sit back and relax. My first day in LA I’ll go down to CENEX and register as a non-union extra. Then I’ll start looking in Variety for things in production, and start volunteering. Stan Brooks said that if someone called him out of the blue and just volunteered to help out on a set, he would be fine taking that person, so he suggested I try said and see what happens. If nothing comes of it, I go to Maintex and get their web site up. Or try to…

With any luck I’ll get some fun and crazy experiences in the big city and learn a bit about the biz and the atmosphere and the culture, and maybe meet some interesting people. Sound like a plan?

Apparently my obligation as one of the single-holders of our new suite is to provide the stove/hot plate and the microwave. I can so do that! This is gonna be really cool!

In other news, in 10 minutes I have my Psychohistory class and my three hours of presenting…and I really feel…not ready. Hmm. Gotta go get back to my reading!!! :-/

A specter approached the young man sitting in the clearing. “You have questions,” it stated. “I will answer them.”

They young man had been thinking of magic. And wondering: what is this thing we call magic? How does it fit into this world of rational thought?

“Magic is what you think it is,” the specter explained. “It is what you need it to be. Some people need me to be a hallucination, so to them I am. You need guidance, so to you I am a spirit of knowledge. A specter of something otherworldly.

“Magic is all around us. It is not a simple spell, a spark and some miraculous transformation. Magic is the unexplainable, the life force that binds us, the energies that shape who we are, and what we are to become.”

“Why,” asks the young man earnestly, “can I not see the magic?”

The specter understands the man’s question, and answers thus:

“You see the magic every day. Your real question is this: why can magic not be measured? Why can’t it be tested, prodded, experimented with? The reason for this is simple: magic is for the individual. It is for those who wish to believe. We tempt and tease with magic, draw people in, but never reveal the truth. It is only for those who truly believe and truly seek enlightenment that the magic becomes clear and open to manipulation.

“Magic is energy, it is in your spirit and the spirits of all things. It cannot be measured because it is not of this dimension, it is not physical, it is not quantifiable. Magic is life.”

The young man sits back and looks up into the sparkling night sky. He contemplates the stars. “I think I understand,” he states. “Other religions speak of an all powerful God, a supreme being, whose presence will never be revealed but who must be believed in through faith alone. This is no different.”

“You are partly right,” replies the specter. “The mainstream religions of today require the embracing of a set of values and traditions that many people find irrelevant to or out of touch with modern society.

“Magic is the belief that one can find one’s own path, one’s own way to enlightenment. And magic is different in that it is real. For a man who wants to believe, the energy of magic can be felt all around him, inside of all things.

“The question is not, ‘do you believe in that crazy magic stuff?’ but rather, ‘why wouldn’t you want to?'”

The young man closes his eyes in thought. He wonders why magic and mainstream religion must be in conflict. He wonders why the mainstream is so quick to judge those who are different, who have beliefs that stray outside of the realm of modern thought. A thought hits the young man like a shot and he jumps up. The specter is nowhere to be found. The young man calls out plaintively to the cool night air, but his words echo off of the mountains. Then, faintly, he hears a voice.

“Do as you will shall be the whole of the law…”

He turns and follows the voice, but it leads only to the strong current of a brook. The man jumps into the frigid water and his skin glows with energy. What did the vision mean? What is this new law? And how does it apply to the young man’s life?

He leaves the brook and travels back to his urban dwelling under the light of a full moon. Tomorrow he will have to go to work. He doesn’t mind, for he can barely wait to experience tomorrow night.

Everything is working out quite nicely. I’ll be in a suite next year with seven very nice people who seem both interesting and easy to get along with (I know two of them and had met a third). Our mini-lottery for once found me with a bit of luck in tow, as I landed one of the two open singles, so I get to room alone, while still having the advantages of having a roommate or, more specifically, seven other suitemates. 🙂 I was very worried about housing and really wanted something single, and the suites are very nice, so this is a great development. We have private bathrooms (two for the eight of us…but no ventilation…), a common area, lots of windows, lots of room, and little oversight (in terms of “forbidden items” like, say, toasters). /me claps hands.

Now on to the 200 pages of reading I have tonight for my Psychohistory class tomorrow, which I get to present this time…

Stan Brooks is a nice guy, and he gave me some good advice on how to get a fun job in Hollywood. I had heard before you should just show up somewhere, he suggested calling ahead first… Might be less stalker-y.

This quote struck me, so here ya go:

To withhold the truth because you’re worried about the reaction of the weakest, stupidest, or most ignorant or corrupt among us — especially when that truth is exactly what we need to set us free – would be an act of cowardice or insanity. It would mean that we deserve to be where we are now instead of where we aspire to be.

It would be the act of a slave.
– L Neil Smith

Jerry Cohen will have a field day.

Is the White House covering up that it was molding foreign policy as well as energy policy to suit Enron? Did the Bush Administration know that Enron’s collapse was coming as early as August? If any of these is true, the largest bankruptcy in American history may well connect with the greatest political scandal in American history.

AlterNet

fanatic
adj : marked by excessive enthusiasm for and intense
devotion to a cause or idea; “rabid isolationist” [syn:
fanatical, overzealous, rabid]

One thing that I haven’t really been able to understand is the star worship and idolization of sports stars, actors, etc. I mean, in theory yeah, but not in real life, I just don’t get it.

There are several television and movie stars that I appreciate the work of, but reading some message board postings lately about what one would do upon meeting has caused me to get a little…worried.

People would break down in tears, faint, stutter, go crazy. I mean, yeah, I understand that. People can through themselves or their roles change you and your outlook on life. But if I were to meet some great movie star, I can’t really think of anything terribly interesting that I would do. I mean, I’ve seen or been in physical proximity to a few prominent stars at various times, but I’ve never felt any kind of crazy urging or longing to approach them. I just can’t think what I would do.

If I were to meet my current television obsession (whom I will not name here, because I’m not a crazy obsessed person, just moderately obsessed, and I don’t want people to start making fun of me… 😛 ) I would probably stand in the back of the room, think to myself, “ah yes self, that is indeed the person. I know who she is,” and then sulk off. Because I’d feel bad invading her space just to fawn. I mean, yeah, telling people you like their work is always nice, but at some point it feels, at least to me, to be unfair. When I give a speech, or act, or whatever, and then people come up to me and congratulate me, I feel awkward and embarrassed. Maybe its just me, but I don’t want to risk that other people might feel that way.

If I do end up with any sort of Hollywood internship, I’m sure I’ll be left with lots of fun stories and experiences, but none of them will involve breaking down in tears upon seeing a celebrity. Because that would just be really weird…

I like it a lot better when someone comes up out of the blue and recognizes me and tells me that I’ve affected them in some way, even if it is only through their use of my search engine or one of my writings or whatever. That is cool. I mean, I’m still embarrassed, but that is cool. But only when its heartfelt, occasional, and, well….

I dunno, I can’t really describe the difference. Sometimes a person can be having a not-so-good day, and something like that could cheer said person up. But when its excessive, it seems like it would lose some of its charm and appeal.

Wow…I’ve really gone on for a whole page about this. I should really go take a shower now.

In other news: my laptop has finally gotten back to me. The screen is fixed, but the Ethernet port is broken, so I can no longer get online. Someone at Apple is going to (metaphorically) DIE!!!

Samantha Ketchum (11:12 PM): erm
Danny Silverman (11:12 PM): I’m hangin’ in the Cable ‘hood with all my homies. Buzz me and I’ll dish with y’all later, coo?
Samantha Ketchum (11:12 PM): oh GOD
Samantha Ketchum (11:13 PM): tell me that is SO not your away message

The taxi driver on the way back from the play gave me his philosophy. Its the same with the Arabs and the Jews, the Bosnians, the Yugoslavians. None of ’em have jobs, so they all kill each other. Here in America, we all have jobs, so we don’t have terrorism. Them, they buy American guns and toys, and then they go and kill themselves.

Hmm.

My AP English teacher Mrs. Kasper derided my belief that television and movies can convey the same rich symbolism and metaphor that books do. I never said all television, and I never said all the time, but, just like books, audio-visual entertainment sometimes has great ways of opening one’s mind.

Of course my example here is from where you know it will be from: Buffy. I didn’t expect this, I didn’t go looking for it, I just happened to watch the season 4 finale today and I was just blown away. In it the four main characters, suffering the after effects of calling forth the great primal force of the slayer to defeat their unkillable enemy, each have linked dreams, haunted by the force of the “First Slayer,” that reveals their fears, insecurities, and doubts about the future.

Three times through Xander’s dream he finds himself back in his basement: a place of non-existence for him with no way out and no future. When he tries to venture out he finds himself facing things he could never achieve. He finds Giles and Spike in a playground where Spike is becoming the Jr. Watcher he could have been. Buffy calls him ‘big brother,’ eluding to the fact he could never achieve a romantic involvement with her. His endless list of futureless jobs. What is critical in this scene is Xander, in the ice cream truck, looking out on Xander standing in the playground. He and Buffy are completely still, not moving and we hold on this as Giles and Spike clime ever higher in their swings.

This isn’t my analysis. It comes, believe it or not, from a complete dream analysis site set up by another fan. Wow. 🙂

I tailed my web logs and found out that someone in the Japanese military seems to be visiting. Cool.

The father and myself spent a day on the town Friday before I had to come back to school. It was a good opportunity to see all the things that I, as a person of the LA-area, am supposed to be able to say I have seen. So where did we go? And where have I been? Well, apparently I’ve been more places then I realized. Santa Monica…check. Pasadena? Yeah, been there a few times. Used to live in Irvine. Have seen Hollywood and Century City and Universal City and all that. Have been by some studios, not that that means anything, since there is nothing to see outside. I’ve been dragged kicking and screaming to a few beaches in my time. On this excursion we checked out the Venice Beach area, and had a look at some shops and such. What else? Hmm…not really sure. Perhaps dad can comment and remind me, so that my checklist can be completed.

I have certainly done a complete 180 in the past year or so with respect to my appreciation, or lack thereof, for Hollywood. For some reason I am really excited now at the prospect of working somewhere in the ‘biz over the summer. If I have my schedules right, (and I’m usually wrong with schedules, but alas…) TV shows should be finishing up filming in the next month or so and then taking a few off before beginning again in, oh, I would estimate, May or June. But apparently new shows in development are starting to shoot now, so who knows…point is, there should be something interesting for me to do over the summer. Now if only I had remember to bring all of my resume material back to school with me…

As soon as it gets Fedexed, I’ll send out the main load of my resume/cover letter/application things. Wish me luck. And cross your fingers with me that the job I get does not end up involving filing. Not that I don’t like filing, it’s just that I don’t like filing, and also, I want to do something INTERESTING. Speaking of interesting, I should probably move on to some of my masses of reading now. Not that I will…but I should.