The below are what I would call “micro ideas.” Or, as I want
to call them…
Max Fleisher’s Superman, Episode 1: “Superman”
The Max Fleischer Superman
cartoons remain one of my favorite works of animation to date. The entire
series, much to my disappointment, remains digitally restored up to only
standard definition. (Yes there’s a bluray out there, but it’s nothing but a
digitally upscaled lie.) But even with the grain and distortion, the series is
a triumph of film making for the innovations Fleisher brought to the table.
But more importantly are two key sequences (0:57-2:15
and 9:48-9:58)
in the first episode—the FIRST time Superman was given motion and life—where we
discover the world Superman lives in. The first clip depicts the origin story
of the Man of Steel, where no mention of Martha and Jonathan Kent are made and his
life in rural Kansas. Instead, the Kryptonians are already possessed with super
abilities and Clark Kent is raised in an orphanage. The triumphant and hopeful
music declares that Superman is a warrior for the people, for Truth and
Justice, posing as a humble member of the press. Furthermore the sequence
indicates that Fleisher’s Superman arrived very much under the same
circumstances as many immigrants. (Fleeing from persecution and disaster.) The
second clip is just a simple transition showing a sweeping countryside yielding
to a vast urban environment. Realistically, we don’t get to see this very often
in our own lives. Symbolically, Superman is returning from the pastoral fields
and farmland to bring his ethos to the people of Metropolis.
Recording ideas on-the-go,
remembering the “hooks.”
It kills me, sometimes. I will be at work and I suddenly get
a great idea for a story. When I get home I forget it, or simply lose momentum.
For me, it’s difficult to jump into a story. There’s an inner monologue that is
going. It shapes the way I think and lends momentum and immediacy to the narrative.
Trying to recapture that train of thought is difficult, so one of the things I
do is record ideas in a notepad on my iPhone. Ideally, I would record the idea
and then the place where I am when I thought about it, but this doesn’t always
happen. Either way, recording these in the moment helps to isolate and freeze
that moment in time and then resume the train of thought that produced the
story in the first place. Much of the “micro ideas” above and below were
recorded this way.
Recognizing the hurt
caused by church and community.
I’ve been there before. Being angry at other people, or
being disillusioned when something that I bet so much on doesn’t pan out. For
whatever reason, when religion plays a role in this, the hurt stings extra.
What I never understood can be summed up in the following: person A befriends
person B, but after some amount of time a rift develops, people say hurtful
things, and the union is torn asunder. Subsequently, person A befriends person
C, and it all starts over again—or doesn’t. People seem ready to trust people
again, but not institutions. And I suspect this is due to familiarity. You can know a person more than an institution.
By default, an institution is the sum of all its parts.
Richard Beck wrote a book titled Unclean (which I have yet to finish) that I feel describes the
psychology of contamination and rejection in a very powerful way. He describes hypothetical scenarios that are
presented to individuals. One example was a situation where the viewer is
placed in front of an Olympic sized swimming pool of fine wine. At the opposite
end a beaker of urine is poured into the pool. The participant of the study is
then asked, “would you drink out of the pool?” Many declined citing the
contaminant in the pool, despite the scientific reasoning that it was
physically impossible for the contaminant to travel quickly enough to comingle
with the opposing side before one could drink.
Church/community/fellowship (I’m speaking now in the context
of a faithful community of people that worship Christ, with fidelity and
authenticity) is meant to be a “safe place” for people of all walks—that is at
least the intention. But there are many cases where a part contaminates the
body, and the result is a fractured community. Personally, I have experienced
this directly and indirectly, and it sucks. It’s like I said before: you can
know a person, more than an institution. So, when a solitary individual impacts
your walk with God, the ultimate conclusion is often the nuclear option.
What bothers me is that people are willing to seek out friendship
after being burned (most of the time), knowing full well that they can be
betrayed again and again. Yet, for some reason, seeking the same kind of
community (of the Christian variant) seems off limits. And perhaps this is
because the influence of religion impacts the community with a farther reaching
existential consequence. But, I would argue, a marriage, a relationship, a
place of employment, an institution or heritage society, holds just as much
existential weight. (Especially if one is “non-religious.”) As someone who has
been there and been hurt by people that you are meant to trust, I would argue
that if we are to be like Jesus then we should accept and understand the same
pain that Jesus experienced. After all, the Church (as in the entire population
of “believers” in any given context) is fundamentally flawed. The people who
take part in it are there because they have arrived at the conclusion that they
“need help.” To close off communion with these people, for any reason, is counterintuitive. If one is a part that makes up
a whole, if too many “parts” abandon the “whole”, what remains will be worse
than when it started.
Buying guitars.
Buying guitars can be an exemplary exercise in racism.
Let me clarify.
The manufacturing of instruments has changed over the past
100 years as pertains to guitars (especially electric guitars). The building of
a guitar is an art form, just like any other work of craftsmanship. However,
with the advent of technology that was influenced by the “assembly line”
techniques that enhance production, there is now an awkward intermediate point
in which we find ourselves in. A guitar can be built in the United States and
Indonesia, using the exact same equipment, but the Indonesian variant is
considered “inferior” because it was made overseas with cheap labor.
I am guilty of this perception. What has changed me from
thinking this way is by watching members of the music community invest large
amounts of startup capital into overseas development of electric guitars. Solar Guitars is a great example of
this. The emphasis on affordable instruments balanced with an intentional
insistence on quality workmanship, seems to strike a very equitable middle
ground. Not only this, but the work provides jobs and labor to people across
the world that might not otherwise have a means to survive. So, in a way,
buying guitars made overseas would constitute an act of charity, if anything. I
myself have an eye on
this one. It’s soo dope!
What would it be like
to be two lawyers married to each other?
This is something that comes from my talks with clients at
my job, which you would think would provide me
with stories aplenty, but this is not the case. The cinematic universe
we see ourselves in, is woefully deficient of hijinks and hullabaloo.
However I was speaking with a customer and found out that they
were conducting business as two lawyers, married. This I thought was fucking
hysterical. I immediately imagined tense dining room encounters, sweat
percolating on each other’s’ brow, embroiled in passive-aggressive cross
examination while the children played with dinosaur chicken nuggets, benignly
unaware.
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