You thought I was done with these posts, didn’t you? I mean, I described the end of Naviim in post three, and the only progression since then was talking a little bit about some odd supernatural element that had more of a timeless quality to it than anything. And even then, there was still a mention of the apocalypse.
Well, first of all, the worldbuilding process has never been particularly restrained by chronological order. A single element, such as, say, a pantheon of gods and the associated mythology, would use many points on the timeline, from the creation of the world to the eventual end of days. But that seems like an intuitive element of the process once you think about it for a moment. As a creator, you have the entirety of a realm’s history spread in front of you all at once, it wouldn’t make sense to go through things the same way your population would.
But the more interesting element that I want to talk about, one that I feel as if I’ve known for a while but only recently experienced in practice, is the lack of finality in anything. Not in a “you’re never finished, it’ll never be perfect” sort of way -- that’s just perfectionism -- but a “there’s always a ‘what comes next?’” And this seems a little antithetical to the first point, right? The previous paragraph was all about not simply going down the timeline and here I am now saying that you can, with the implication that you occasionally even should.
The resolution to this paradox is in the perspective and the size of the canvas, because the first point, in my mind, assumes a finite beginning, middle, and end, kind of like a story. The second point does conflict with this, but more in a “the canvas is infinite” sort of way. In my case, Naviim’s apocalypse wasn’t final. I mentioned a safe haven survivors could flock to. That could succeed or fail. The world could literally break apart and people could cling to the rocks and attempt to start anew. Until the universe is literally snuffed from existence, there will always be something going on.
-F
Tuesday, March 31, 2020
Tuesday, March 24, 2020
Ranking My Thoughts
I’ve been thinking a bit about Top X Lists. These are not to be confused with the “X things that will make you go, ‘whoa!’ Number Y will make you go, ‘gee whizz!’” lists that people associate with clickbait. That’s not to say that ranking things can’t be turned into clickbait -- there’s something authoritative about them that makes people crave either validation or something to be mad about -- but it seems like declaring something “best” or even “tenth best” has qualities to it even people who “take themselves seriously” seem to gravitate towards.
But at the same time, these people who take themselves seriously also, I think, find it the hardest to put together a self-respecting list? Like, I take movies seriously (though I wouldn’t call myself a critic or anything like that) and I still find it difficult to rank movies. I have to add some category on top of it, like “Top movies of 2019” or “Top 9 Best Picture nominees.” And yes, I understand there can be some methodology to these lists. Some places will poll multiple people in order to make a list in aggregate as if that’s any better than asking everyone in China how long the emperor’s nose is.
For the three lists I’ve made on this blog so far, I have to admit a little bit of not only recency bias but also interest in making a compelling list to read. I want there to be a decent mix of things people have heard of in case they haven’t seen them yet and also some unknowns. And when it comes to the unknowns, I mostly do it because I want to share these movies (this is the reason I tell people), but there’s also a bit of superiority in it. Like an “I’ve seen this thing and you haven’t” sort of feeling. I try to downplay it, but I can’t say it’s not there.
This sort of methodology does mean that a lesser-known movie is more likely to sneak onto a Top X list. That means it’s not really a Top X list at all, though. Because again, they present themselves as authoritative. These are meant to be “the best,” no matter if they are popular or not. But then I’m left with questioning why someone would even write such a thing. An objective piece (no critical analysis is objective but as something that wants to be speaking from a position of authority, Top X lists sure try to be) would mean a lack of need for anyone else to write one. We’d just consult the algorithm of rankings and that would be that. X is better than Y.
So maybe it is all just clickbait dressed all fancy and done by someone important. That seems like the far other end of the spectrum, though. Dismissing opinions on the internet that are written out like this simply for being opinions, or with a disingenuous word like “clickbait” seems a bit dangerous too. You can and should dismiss them for other reasons (being bad opinions is certainly at the top of the list there) but not that one.
-F
But at the same time, these people who take themselves seriously also, I think, find it the hardest to put together a self-respecting list? Like, I take movies seriously (though I wouldn’t call myself a critic or anything like that) and I still find it difficult to rank movies. I have to add some category on top of it, like “Top movies of 2019” or “Top 9 Best Picture nominees.” And yes, I understand there can be some methodology to these lists. Some places will poll multiple people in order to make a list in aggregate as if that’s any better than asking everyone in China how long the emperor’s nose is.
For the three lists I’ve made on this blog so far, I have to admit a little bit of not only recency bias but also interest in making a compelling list to read. I want there to be a decent mix of things people have heard of in case they haven’t seen them yet and also some unknowns. And when it comes to the unknowns, I mostly do it because I want to share these movies (this is the reason I tell people), but there’s also a bit of superiority in it. Like an “I’ve seen this thing and you haven’t” sort of feeling. I try to downplay it, but I can’t say it’s not there.
This sort of methodology does mean that a lesser-known movie is more likely to sneak onto a Top X list. That means it’s not really a Top X list at all, though. Because again, they present themselves as authoritative. These are meant to be “the best,” no matter if they are popular or not. But then I’m left with questioning why someone would even write such a thing. An objective piece (no critical analysis is objective but as something that wants to be speaking from a position of authority, Top X lists sure try to be) would mean a lack of need for anyone else to write one. We’d just consult the algorithm of rankings and that would be that. X is better than Y.
So maybe it is all just clickbait dressed all fancy and done by someone important. That seems like the far other end of the spectrum, though. Dismissing opinions on the internet that are written out like this simply for being opinions, or with a disingenuous word like “clickbait” seems a bit dangerous too. You can and should dismiss them for other reasons (being bad opinions is certainly at the top of the list there) but not that one.
-F
Tuesday, March 17, 2020
19
Joke’s on you, I spent most of my time indoors already. That’s about the extent I’m willing to talk about that right now, though. I mean, it’s difficult to talk about anything else, but at the same time, talking about anything else is what keeps spirits up, and if someone wanted to come to this blog for news, well, I guess my only question would be: why?
My time has been spent listening to music, mostly, which is a good way to take one’s mind off things. I just found out about this long-running prog-rock band called The Legendary Pink Dots, so I’ve been going through those. They’re pretty neat, I think. I’ll link a song below.
Between that, working, and keeping social online, I think I’m doing okay. For now, at least. For now.
Stay safe out there.
-F
My time has been spent listening to music, mostly, which is a good way to take one’s mind off things. I just found out about this long-running prog-rock band called The Legendary Pink Dots, so I’ve been going through those. They’re pretty neat, I think. I’ll link a song below.
Between that, working, and keeping social online, I think I’m doing okay. For now, at least. For now.
Stay safe out there.
-F
Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Eurydice
If you’re unfamiliar with the evolution of vocabulary used by “the youths” (scare quotes mandatory), you might not know what a “hot take” is. It’s not an especially difficult phrase to parse once you break it down -- a “take” is an opinion on something (e.g. “What’s your take?”) and the adjective “hot”, well, that has a couple synonyms ranging from “controversial” to “brand new” or even “poorly thought out”, decided through context clues, but no matter how it modifies the take, it’s always something that will bring energy to a given conversation. The opposite would be a “cold take,” one that people have heard before and/or just doesn’t get the blood boiling anymore.
Anyway, here’s a hot take: Eurydice, feminist icon?
I mean, obviously not according to the text itself. The surviving versions of the Orpheus myth paint his wife as not much more than an object for Orpheus to desire. She dies on her wedding day, having been bitten by a rattlesnake, and a major plot point in the myth is that Orpheus isn’t even allowed to look at her as he rescues her from the underworld. That’s Greco-Roman mythology for you. But as time has marched on, I’ve noticed both a resurgence in tellings of this myth in general and interpretations of Eurydice specifically.
To preface all this, I wouldn’t call myself either a classics expert or a feminism expert. I didn’t even know it was pronounced “you-rid-i-see” until earlier this year. But when you experience two pieces of media like this in relatively quick succession, you kind of have to make note of it.
The first is Hadestown, this year’s Best Musical according to the Tony Awards. On its surface, it’s a retelling of the Orpheus myth replacing ancient Greece for depression-era America, creating a narrative distance between Ovid et al. to justify a couple things: its folk-opera aesthetic, and the ability to reinterpret the characters as it pleases. Hades, for example, is depicted as an oligarch who signs people into his employ permanently in exchange for a pittance while the Fates and Hermes are made into dueling narrators, each trying to influence the story in their own way.
But let’s focus on Eurydice. With the major story beats of the myth still there, it’s not like she’s a main character, but she does get, you know, an actual character. The Hadestown version of Eurydice is a realist who is attracted to Orpheus’ optimism, and instead of being killed unceremoniously, Hades attracts her to his underworld by promising her steady work and food to eat. She’s seduced into it, but it’s still a bit more agency than Eurydice has in the individual myths.
These choices are made at the beginning of the story, though, and from Eurydice’s perspective, the story plays out largely the same way once she arrives in Hadestown. To contrast, let’s look at this other piece of media, a film this time: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (trailer).
Portrait isn’t a myth by any stretch of the imagination -- it’s a romance drama between two women and set in the eighteenth century -- but it does spend a lot of time commenting on the myth. The introductory scene to this theme features its main characters sitting around a table with one of them reading aloud. The question arises: why did Orpheus turn around? To paraphrase using some modern (and not French) parlance, “If it were me, I would just not turn around.” The answer the characters come up with is, “Eurydice told Orpheus to turn around. She wanted him to remember her as she was.”
Already, too, the film has emphasized the two romantic leads’ looks at each other. “How you see me” is a recurring phrase throughout the film, as well as several shots of following someone close behind, so this scene, in essence, serves as the thesis of the film. But an idea like “Eurydice said something to Orpheus” isn’t exactly supported by the text of the myth, so the film then serves to demonstrate its reasoning by itself. There are several more callbacks to the myth, but I’ll skip ahead to its conclusion.
The final scene of Portrait is of its two leads, Marianne and Héloïse, having in the meantime been forced apart, attending the same musical performance by chance. Marianne sees Héloïse, but, as the camera lingers, it becomes apparent that it’s a look they won’t share. Héloïse is distracted by the music. Now it is the audience’s turn to ask for a look.
As a reminder, the film is set in the eighteenth century. The relationship between these two women was doomed from the start. And yet, all we want is a turn of the head and a look of recognition in Héloïse’s eyes. Héloïse chooses otherwise, though. She stays with the memory of Marianne as she was.
The symbology is reversed, but the message is still the same. Portrait of a Lady on Fire presents Eurydice as a woman who recognizes that her relationship with Orpheus will fail -- on a meta level, it almost presents her as someone who realizes she is but an object of inspiration to him -- and chooses to live in Hades with the happy memories of their courtship than to have them ruined by the passage of time.
Bookending Hadestown is a line sung by Hermes: “It’s a sad song, but we’re going to sing it anyway.” This is one of the major themes of the musical: its own commentary on using old stories to make commentary on modern issues (a joke title of Hadestown that gets passed around is “Orpheus Starts a Union”). And I thought that was worth talking about in regards to one figure that these two wildly different pieces of media share.
-F
Anyway, here’s a hot take: Eurydice, feminist icon?
I mean, obviously not according to the text itself. The surviving versions of the Orpheus myth paint his wife as not much more than an object for Orpheus to desire. She dies on her wedding day, having been bitten by a rattlesnake, and a major plot point in the myth is that Orpheus isn’t even allowed to look at her as he rescues her from the underworld. That’s Greco-Roman mythology for you. But as time has marched on, I’ve noticed both a resurgence in tellings of this myth in general and interpretations of Eurydice specifically.
To preface all this, I wouldn’t call myself either a classics expert or a feminism expert. I didn’t even know it was pronounced “you-rid-i-see” until earlier this year. But when you experience two pieces of media like this in relatively quick succession, you kind of have to make note of it.
The first is Hadestown, this year’s Best Musical according to the Tony Awards. On its surface, it’s a retelling of the Orpheus myth replacing ancient Greece for depression-era America, creating a narrative distance between Ovid et al. to justify a couple things: its folk-opera aesthetic, and the ability to reinterpret the characters as it pleases. Hades, for example, is depicted as an oligarch who signs people into his employ permanently in exchange for a pittance while the Fates and Hermes are made into dueling narrators, each trying to influence the story in their own way.
But let’s focus on Eurydice. With the major story beats of the myth still there, it’s not like she’s a main character, but she does get, you know, an actual character. The Hadestown version of Eurydice is a realist who is attracted to Orpheus’ optimism, and instead of being killed unceremoniously, Hades attracts her to his underworld by promising her steady work and food to eat. She’s seduced into it, but it’s still a bit more agency than Eurydice has in the individual myths.
These choices are made at the beginning of the story, though, and from Eurydice’s perspective, the story plays out largely the same way once she arrives in Hadestown. To contrast, let’s look at this other piece of media, a film this time: Portrait of a Lady on Fire (trailer).
Portrait isn’t a myth by any stretch of the imagination -- it’s a romance drama between two women and set in the eighteenth century -- but it does spend a lot of time commenting on the myth. The introductory scene to this theme features its main characters sitting around a table with one of them reading aloud. The question arises: why did Orpheus turn around? To paraphrase using some modern (and not French) parlance, “If it were me, I would just not turn around.” The answer the characters come up with is, “Eurydice told Orpheus to turn around. She wanted him to remember her as she was.”
Already, too, the film has emphasized the two romantic leads’ looks at each other. “How you see me” is a recurring phrase throughout the film, as well as several shots of following someone close behind, so this scene, in essence, serves as the thesis of the film. But an idea like “Eurydice said something to Orpheus” isn’t exactly supported by the text of the myth, so the film then serves to demonstrate its reasoning by itself. There are several more callbacks to the myth, but I’ll skip ahead to its conclusion.
The final scene of Portrait is of its two leads, Marianne and Héloïse, having in the meantime been forced apart, attending the same musical performance by chance. Marianne sees Héloïse, but, as the camera lingers, it becomes apparent that it’s a look they won’t share. Héloïse is distracted by the music. Now it is the audience’s turn to ask for a look.
As a reminder, the film is set in the eighteenth century. The relationship between these two women was doomed from the start. And yet, all we want is a turn of the head and a look of recognition in Héloïse’s eyes. Héloïse chooses otherwise, though. She stays with the memory of Marianne as she was.
The symbology is reversed, but the message is still the same. Portrait of a Lady on Fire presents Eurydice as a woman who recognizes that her relationship with Orpheus will fail -- on a meta level, it almost presents her as someone who realizes she is but an object of inspiration to him -- and chooses to live in Hades with the happy memories of their courtship than to have them ruined by the passage of time.
Bookending Hadestown is a line sung by Hermes: “It’s a sad song, but we’re going to sing it anyway.” This is one of the major themes of the musical: its own commentary on using old stories to make commentary on modern issues (a joke title of Hadestown that gets passed around is “Orpheus Starts a Union”). And I thought that was worth talking about in regards to one figure that these two wildly different pieces of media share.
-F
Tuesday, March 3, 2020
Super Tuesday
It’s Super Tuesday today, which, for the non-American readers out there, is a pretty big political event here in the race for our presidency. My state doesn’t participate, but that doesn’t mean I can’t relate a pretty funny story that happened around this time.
I went to a Catholic school growing up, which meant mass on many religious holidays. Ash Wednesday was one of those days. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, good because it meant an hour away from classes, and bad because, well, when you’re in Middle School, church is kind of boring. I’m not going to pretend I was paying attention the entire time, but one moment on this particular Ash Wednesday service stands out.
During the homily, the priest began by asking everyone what the day before was called. The answer he was looking for was “Mardi Gras” or maybe “Fat Tuesday” would also have been accepted. But Mardi Gras and Super Tuesday had happened to overlap that year, so I stuck my hand up and shouted, from the back of the church, “Super Fat Tuesday!”
Only one person laughed, but it was my English teacher so that has to count for something.
-F
I went to a Catholic school growing up, which meant mass on many religious holidays. Ash Wednesday was one of those days. This was both a good thing and a bad thing, good because it meant an hour away from classes, and bad because, well, when you’re in Middle School, church is kind of boring. I’m not going to pretend I was paying attention the entire time, but one moment on this particular Ash Wednesday service stands out.
During the homily, the priest began by asking everyone what the day before was called. The answer he was looking for was “Mardi Gras” or maybe “Fat Tuesday” would also have been accepted. But Mardi Gras and Super Tuesday had happened to overlap that year, so I stuck my hand up and shouted, from the back of the church, “Super Fat Tuesday!”
Only one person laughed, but it was my English teacher so that has to count for something.
-F
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