Entertainment

I don't have an internet connection at home. Nor cable TV. Which means that I have fairly limited opportunities to keep myself amused, and occasionally fall into things like Star Wars marathons (excepting only Episode II, which not only do I not own, but which I deny the very existence of: there IS NO Star Wars Episode II), and drinking a lot. In fact, I went through a period a few weeks ago where I was doing my best to drink myself to death during movie marathons, but I kept passing out before I could reach fatal levels of alcohol toxicity. Hopefully I'll be able to correct that sort of behavior.

But it turns out that you can only spend so much time watching the same old movies while cleaning the same old guns and sharpening the same old knives, and you have to find something to do. When I reach that point, I usually go out to my backyard, sit around my campfire, and make s'mores while calling everyone I know. It's very relaxing; if you don't have a fire-pit in your yard, you really should get one. Nothing like beer and s'mores after a long day at work. Hell, I keep strategic reserves of chocolate and graham crackers on hand for that very purpose!

Alas, alack, eventually it gets late and I run out of things to burn (I am in the middle of the fucking desert, after all), and I have to go back inside. Sometimes when reaching that point, I'll close the blinds, change into sweats, dim the lights, and write. Lazarus Long says that there is nothing shameful about writing, so long as you do it in private and wash your hands afterward. (I like Heinlein, by the way. If you haven't read his stuff, you should.) It can be fun at times to see ideas you didn't know you had take shape, and to see what sort of interesting things you can come up with. I'm a big proponent of the idea that intelligence does not exist without expression, and vice versa. Liberal arts studies are nothing to be ashamed of. You're learning complex semantic and ideological building blocks that allow you to THINK. Our minds' abilities to comprehend and cognate are bounded by our vocabulary and our understanding of words; solid words, properly organized and coherently fused into concepts, form the basis for all intelligent analysis. If you don't have the words, you're not going to have the thoughts, much less express your ideas. Words are everything. Hell, even number are words, if they are to be effective. Symbolic representation will do in a pinch, but there's a reason the Romans never developed any higher math. XII + XXV is actually easier to instinctively calculate (XXXVII) than the same equation using hindu-arabic decimal characters. But you need a degree of intellectual abstraction (which decimal glyphs provide) to get anywhere near x = [(-b) plus/minus the square root of (b) squared minus 4(a)(c)] divided by 2(a).

The best place the find real art, whether you're talking about words or numbers, is in the grey area, between the pedantically simple and the amorphous abstract. People are generally bored with Roman numerals, and are generally stumped by the quadratic equation. But they are pleased with themselves when they remember that pi(r squared) gives the area of a circle. In words, people want to see words they know being used to paint a scene complex and diverse (and different enough from their own lives), that they can enjoy the created picture, without the scene becoming either so complex or so diverse that they lose their grasp of the picture being painted. Dr. Seuss gets real old, real fast, and nobody outside of professional literary critics spends any time at all on Flaubert. But Shakespeare's simple plots are still being adapted into screenplays, albeit divested of the complex iambic pentameter, which is beyond the masses. The Harry Potter books were astronomically successful for following a simple formula: a brightly colored world, not so different from our own but clearly not our own, into which people could escape. Complex characters and complex action, but where both the action and the words used to describe it all were simple enough that readers could follow the storyline, without needing a dictionary. I love the Harry Potter books, and I think J.K. Rowling deserves every one of the billions of cents she earned; she taught (or re-taught) several generations that reading could be fun. VERY well done. And I think it's ironic that romance novels are popular for the same reason; fantastic events, described in small words.

Of course, America excels at mediocrity, and the entertainment industry typically caters to the lowest common denominator, by capitalizing on the two primary passions of the American public: cynicism, and fleeting transcendence. How else is it possible that American Idol is a hit, when people can flip over to MTV and watch singers who's talent is already acknowledged? What that show is really predicated on is two simple things. First, the joy of people who can't sing (read: you, the viewer) watching while an asshole like Simon Cowell tears down people who can't sing either. Then, as the field thins, one contestant (who's entire back story, history of difficulties, and family problems you will learn), rises above all others, and faces down even the Mighty Simon to be crowned American Idol! People eat that shit up with a spoon, especially where their phone-in votes (at $1.99 per call) help choose the winner. I can't fucking stand Simon Cowell. But I do respect the man; he's playing the entertainment industry (and the TV-watching public) like a fucking harp.

Examples are everywhere. How did Jerry Springer makes his millions? Nothing like watching antics from the deepest depths of back-country in-bred trash to make you feel better about sitting at home jobless on a Tuesday afternoon. Phil Donahue had no successor because people were bored with his ho-hum stuff, although Geraldo stayed in business because he's willing to spew much the same trash Springer does. It warms my heart that Dr. Phil is marketed locally in a package time-block with Judge Judy and Divorce Court, but I still have to say that we'd be better off if all of them were replaced with Sesame Street re-runs. About the same intellectual content, but with the possibility of teaching the viewer something that prepares them for more involved lessons.

*Sigh*

The practical upshot of this line of thinking culminates in the classic artists' dilemma. What do I want to do? And what is going to sell? And how much must the artist sell out in order to sell. Fortunately, it's largely an academic debate for me; my income is based on billable hours, not buyable plots. But I do like to think that I might publish something someday. In fact, if anyone knows any literary agents, give me their contact info.