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I want to post this and I don't know who reads this Livejournal anymore but hey it's alive and well, we'll use it.
I felt an affinity to this quote here:
As a society, we encourage girls and women to be emotionally accessible, and in touch with their feelings; we say that it’s an innately feminine trait. We say it, that is, until they have feelings that make us uncomfortable, at which point we recast them as melodramatic harpies, shrieking banshees, and basket cases. -- Tori Amos
(And I had to write something. What the heck am I a writer for if something moves me and I don't write about it.) Here are some plain truths: Drama is invented. You create it because it’s supposed to elicit both a reaction and an opinion from whoever it is directed. There are people who do it to gain attention, most of them actors, some sociopaths, but not everyone does. And contrary to man-centric belief, women are not living and breathing drama factories. Feelings are not invented. It’s involuntary and natural even when not provoked. Unfortunately, most people — this person who accused me of ‘drama’ in particular — do not understand what ANGER was. This is warranted and an acceptable emotion worth acting out because once you bottle it up, you may explode, affecting everyone around you and leaving a mess. I realize I’m a pacifist about this but my rationale is this: It’s nobody’s business. I will deal with it until such time it’s resolved or fades away. When I was accused of ‘drama’ after keeping the turbulence for too long, that was it, I hit my breaking point. So easy for this person to do the ‘drama’ and then frame me for starting it. Classy, no? Also, anger is a way to make a point: Someone harassed you and made you feel uncomfortable, how were you supposed to react — do cartwheels of joy and pat him on the back for doing a great job making you feel like crap?! I don’t think so. Lastly, there are men who are deluded to think they are entitled to do whatever with you without regard to how you feel about it. Here you are, a woman living your life as uncomplicated as possible, and a man, because he feels he has to, because all women ‘need’ him not just as a friends but a ‘lover’, makes things AWKWARD for you. You then become someone who has to deal with this awkwardness — while he doesn’t. Why? ‘Cause he’s done no wrong! Oh no, he just liked you — it’s not wrong to shake things up because guess what, he does what he wants — who cares about YOUR girlie feelings?! Delusional men do wrong things thinking it’s actually right. And when they believe their delusions, they become bad energy, like a dark cloud looming over a woman who has no umbrella to protect her. Women are emotional, that’s true, but you must not punish us for knowing how to process them that you end up getting dissed and ditched because we know how to. If you’re a man who’s supposed to have ‘balls’ and can’t deal, then you should grow a vagina. We women know feelings and we will feel them the way we want them to. Now, feel that. *off my chest* |
I have just finished Patti Smith’s ‘Just Kids’.
I have been finishing books but I hardly write about them because life happens, as you know. And I have really been a lazybutt when it comes to reading. Before, I can read through three books at a time and they finish in three weeks, a week from each other. Now I read one book and I finish in a month-and-a-half. I don’t know if I’m outgrowing reading or I’m really just tired and I opt to sleep. Sleep always wins over will.
Before Patti Smith’s memoir, I did Andre Agassi’s ‘Open’. I’m into memoirs/biographies lately. Fiction seems to bore me these days but I’m not letting go, Jack. I still have piles upon piles to push through (and that’s AFTER I’ve a sold a few books in my office). The fascination with memoirs/biographies is a good thing for me. I’m interested in real people and the lives they lead. I read Charles Schulz’s because I LOVE ‘Peanuts’ but I regretted it after because Schulz wasn’t exactly the cuddly guy you’d imagine and he had bad relationships with his family and loved ones. Andre Agassi’s was a pique-my-interest choice since I know there’s tennis but I don’t get why it’s such a big deal and why its players are the same. All I know about Agassi is that he married Brooke Shields, dated Barbra Streisand, and married Steffi Graf. And after reading it, I was educated. Talk about stage parents – Lindsay Lohan’s seems mild compared to Agassi’s father.
And now we arrive to Patti Smith.
I don’t know Patti Smith. I’ve heard her name. No, I did not mistake her to be the singer of ‘Sometimes Love Just Ain’t Enough’. I know she’s a musician – who doesn’t know that iconic black-and-white androgynous-looking album cover. That white shirt. Her memoir ‘Just Kids’ made the rounds of Tumblr posts and the bloggers pointed out she wrote about art and her friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe. I’ve heard his name too. And I found her book in the bargain bin of a bookstore. Steal.
I began reading expecting to hate it for being about artists starving for their art. Artists being assholes to everyone for making art.
Unfortunately, I didn’t. Why? Because Patti Smith’s writing is beautiful and sincere. She wrote about growing up dirt-poor, getting pregnant at 19 and giving up her baby, and living in 1960’s New York without food and electricity – just her art – without melodrama. She didn’t want the reader to feel sorry for her. She just wanted the reader to read. She shared in ‘Just Kids’ and I admire that. I don’t want to be pandered too when it comes to personal strife. I already know life is hard but it’s the choices that we make that turn them for the best or worst.
Patti Smith’s romance/friendship with Robert Mapplethorpe, a fellow artist like her was organic and again, no drama. There’s a casual feel to ‘Just Kids’ and I like it. I don’t like how they lived at the beginning of their careers though – it was tough-as-nails starving-for-my-art artists kind of life. They were hungry to the point of destitute. They had to beg to be let in the Chelsea Hotel for room and board. They bought art supplies first, sometimes drugs second, and food last. If you know me, I can’t put food that low in the list. I can’t starve for my art. I don’t have the will for that.
Patti Smith’s life reads like a movie and it’s been reported that there will be. She lived in a time of electricity – she met almost all of the music and art legends/icons before they died. Hendrix, Joplin, Ginsberg, CBGB’s. Name it, Patti Smith might have done it. The woman is now an icon herself, thanks to Mapplethorpe’s iconic ‘Horses’ album cover and the music she has produced. She lives a life of an artist through and through, without high regard for fame or fortune – it’s given to her without her even asking.
What I took away from ‘Just Kids’ is: Be yourself but different.
As we age we all change. There are points in our lives when we discard things we don’t like and then we revert to them again as we get older. We’re always evolving. There’s a core but its consistency will never be the same. I like that. In life, you can’t really peg anyone. We can have approximations and that’s about it.
I enjoyed reading ‘Just Kids’. I’m glad to have known a part of Patti Smith.
The first week of October I was out of the country and went to where those twin towers are at -- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was five days of 'holiday' and I went there with a purpose: my youngest brother was graduating for his masters that he took in a university there. Also, like I've said, a holiday. There were no expectations. Co-workers and friends asked where I was going and they always said, 'What's there to do?' And you know what, that's fine. I was going away for a while, away from the daily grind, from getting bogged down by work and the rut. I could care less if there was nothing to do or nowhere to go. I just wanted to go and be somewhere else.
It's my second time out of the country. I actually lived in Hong Kong for two years as a kid. I've ridden planes domestically and I'm not a frightened flyer, although I abhor turbulence. I'm proud of myself for having financed this trip on my own, meaning: my savings, hard-earned money, no sugar daddy as meal ticket, all me. I don't exactly have the greatest salary but somehow I managed to come up with enough cash to fund this holiday. So a pat on my back is in order *patpatpat* because I did it. And because I did I plan to go on more trips care of me. I don't dream of going to the US or Europe or any country that seems to blockade any entry because of my Filipino passport. Screw that. I'm going where I'm welcome.
And since Malaysia is a no-visa country for as fellow Asians, easy-breezy. Our flight was late at night so when we got there, we had a showcase of the stars as we looked up and the lights as we flew over the country. Beautiful. I loved the mirroring of the skies and the illumination on the ground, and us in the middle of it. Upon landing, the smells of herbs, spices, and body odor overwhelmed but this was unfamiliar territory and I marinated in it, literally and figuratively. I realized their transport system was the most efficient, from trains to buses and taxis, you can go from Point A to Z if you like. There are no lines for security checks at the train stations or entryways at malls. The food courts and food stalls offered a wide array of choices. They too are in love with malls -- we've practically been in several of them while there. Malaysia is a true melting pot of cultures with the locals and tourists alike. The graduation ceremony of my brother's was the most organized and most colorful I've ever been to. Their graduation gifts are toy bouquets instead of flowers!
I have a hard time writing down my feelings about the trip because they're a lot and I enjoyed myself tremendously. My favorite is the public transport system. I've been a public commuter since I was a child and I've never experienced a day without traffic. I hate traffic. I wish it gets erased in the identity of my country. Everything is slow, time is wasted, and we are left to run after it. I actually gained more time there. It made me think how can my own government not be that good too? What's wrong with giving your people the best roads and transport?
I also realized how much I love being somewhere else where nobody knows me. Well, they thought I was Chinese -- even here I get that -- but still, foreign. I can't wait for the next trip. I don't care where as long as it's anywhere but here.
P.S. I can't really articulate the enjoyment I felt during that trip because it was a surprise. I already miss riding the trains and walking around without much care. I guess that's a true testament to having been satisfied. I'm wordless, so to speak.
And thanks to the movie ‘Bridesmaids’ I have something to write about. Because for some hormonal reason, I cried at ‘Bridesmaids’, a comedy. More than ‘Toy Story 3’, this caused waterworks for yours truly.
What happened?
First of all, to whoever wrote that ‘Bridesmaids’ is the ‘Female Hangover’ can suck it. To the one who did promo as if the girls were en route to Las Vegas for a bachelorette party for the bride-to-be, confusion is you. I get the angle you’re making but it’s the laziest marketing for comedy starring women, ever. The ‘Hangover’ sequels have nothing on ‘Bridesmaids’. Just sayin’.
Secondly, I adore Kristen Wiig and Maya Rudolph’s best friendship in ‘Bridesmaids’. That’s totally how girlfriends for life do it. I think this is the sole reason I cried. I love how Maya Rudolph is the adult in that twosome, worrying about her friend Wiig who will get left behind now that she’s entered one of the tests of true adulthood: marriage. Well, for most that’s adult, okay. And Wilson Phillips singing ‘Hold On’ and transporting me back to the 90’s when I was a teenager. I miss the 90’s. I was miserable then but there’s comfort in its pop culture.
Finally, ‘Bridesmaids’ isn’t really about a Bridezilla or the bachelorette party where the Bride or Maid of Honor slept with the male stripper while drunk and then feeling guilty about it the next day at the wedding. It’s not about a woman whose biological clock is ticking and finds a pretend-date only to fall in love with said pretend-date and he turns into her real-boyfrriend. It’s not about brides doing hand-to-hand combat for the dream gown and reception of choice. ‘Bridesmaids’ is what ‘Bride Wars’ aspires to be – only it’s funnier, raunchier, and all too raw like, make you cry raw. ‘Bridesmaids’ is about the how painful it is to lose a girl best friend to a thing called adulthood or marriage. Oh shit, is this a preview to when my best friend gets to have her wedding? I’ll be a mess I know it.
Finally.
‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2’ is over and I am done with Harry Potter altogether. Thank goodness, really.
I suppose when you get older, getting invested in things becomes such an obligation that it rears its ugly head on you sooner or later. In my case I’ve checked out of the series a few years ago, most likely upon reading and watching ‘Order of the Phoenix’ and ‘Half-Blood Prince’. I had realized that I’ve outgrown Harry himself (not Hogwarts, it’s the best imagined boarding school ever) and the adventures he, Ron, and Hermione were having. By the time I’ve read ‘The Deathly Hallows’ I just wanted to see how things get wrapped up in the end.
For Part 1, I somehow appreciated the effort. There, I saw how certainly sad and tragic Harry’s life is; people were dropping dead like flies just because they were involved with him, whether they went to school together or cared for and loved him. In Part 2, a LOT of characters that we’ve known and loved since Book/Movie 1 are strewn everywhere (THIS is not a spoiler; there’s a book, people, already it’s spoiled!) and nobody really got to process it as much as we did for Dobby. Such is war. And death.
‘The Deathly Hallows Part 2’ gives Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort more to do and I enjoyed his chemistry with the CGI snake Nagini. I’m still more afraid of his portrayal of a Nazi in ‘Schindler’s List’ and technically, Voldemort and his army are the Potterverse’s Nazi Army.
Alan Rickman as Severus Snape has done more than sneering and enunciating words in his Snape way (holy Trent Reznor-CGI botox! He looks younger than Hans Gruber in ‘Die Hard’ there!), and even became a source of confusion for non-book readers but fans of the films. Case in point: My co-worker asked me if Snape was the real, biological father of Harry because of a memory Harry saw of a Young Lily and a Young Snape within the Pensieve. I had to explain to her that Snape considers Lily as his True Love but Harry is still James Potter’s boy.
THIS is what I’ve always found difficult about Harry Potter movies (besides the thick English accents) – they all assume that people who watch the movies have read the books. As much as there are millions of fans of the series, it is wrong to assume that they can understand what the movies present, however murky the execution — which is, most of the time. Unfortunately, some are not big readers – heck, most don’t even read at all (I don’t know why they don’t and as much as I don’t want to judge, it’s quite sad) let alone afford the books. From Movie 1, this assumption makes for shoddy moviemaking but more of marketing ploys for people to buy the books. I would love to believe that this is not the reality in the creation of the Harry Potter movies; that it was an exercise in good film making and even, discovering new talents especially in Daniel Radcliffe. Alas, the bottom line is: Making movies is a business too. We are buying a brand and if you don’t get it, there are books and merchandise to clear things for you.
For readers of the books like me, we can fill in the gaps or even follow why certain changes were made from book to film. But for someone like my co-worker, it just produced confusion albeit even a scandal. Snape as Harry’s father?! Actually, that would have been a good plot twist. J.K. Rowling should take notes from her. Snape’s devotion to Lily is heart-wrenching and only Alan Rickman can do him justice, even furthering the complexity of his character. So yes, Alan Rickman, I bow to thee.
Everything did come together in ‘The Deathly Hallows Part 2’ but like a war, everything will also be fleeting. The Hogwarts professors are all but cameos now. The entire Hogwarts had its Christopher Nolan treatment of edifices crumbling (see ‘Inception’, his two ‘Batmans’ and current poster for the third) all over the place, even a Michael Bay feel to it what with the senseless destruction and action sequences as far as the eye can see, Voldemort and his minions without a care spewing destructive spells from one to the other. All of the creatures Harry, Ron, and Hermione battled in Movie 1 were there: trolls, giant spiders, Dementors – the whole shebang (except the centaurs from the Forbidden Forest did not represent; I’m a Sagittarian, I wanted to see my kind dang it!)
Having watched so many films since I can remember, it’s hard not to be reminded of other scenes as if remade by ‘The Deathly Hallows Part 2’. Like when Voldemort ordered his dark wizards and witches to fire balls of light to Hogwarts, I remembered the scene of arrows flying across the sky landing on where Jet Li stands in Zhang Yimou’s ‘Hero’. The stone knights Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) animated to life to protect Hogwarts felt like the terracotta warriors in ‘The Mummy Part 3’. And lastly, the trolls and foot soldiers of Voldemort storming Hogwarts looked a lot like the Battle at Helm’s Deep in ‘Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers’. Is it just me? Or is watching a lot of films ruining other films for me?
At this point, what can I say, really? The saga of the Harry Potter movies is over. It was fun while it lasted. Of course good triumphed over evil in ‘The Deathly Hallows Part 2’ and Harry forges a life of his own, the one that’s close to ‘normal’. In it Harry becomes a husband to Ginny Weasley and a father to two boys and a girl. Among all of the ‘ends’ in this film, this particularly gave me warm feelings. I didn’t cry but if I were forced to tear up, this would be the cause. Because this is what Harry really wanted – a family to belong to. For 11 years he lived in a cupboard under the stairs and acted like a domestic helper for the Dursleys who happen to be his closest of kin. So when I saw Harry with his own family and this time sending off his children to become wizards just like him, it’s quite moving. No other family sent him off – Hagrid did or the Weasleys, there was even a time he was fetched by Nightbus by a total stranger. For Harry to afford to give a proper send off to his kids, that’s his normal. See, that’s the only adventure Harry has not exactly experienced – to be a normal wizard that has a family that calls him their own.
“Harry Potter is about doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend." -- Stephen King
Although I admire Mr. King’s industry and impeccable talent in writing, I can’t help but I get turned off with the snootiness. This sort of statement makes the fandoms of Harry Potter and Twilight more agitated and spiteful to each other. The two series are apples and oranges and to compare them would be an exercise of Kafka-esque proportions. In the end, nothing will be resolved; neither can be said better or beneath the other.
A friend even said that comparing Harry Potter to Twilight is akin to comparing oranges to trash. Yikes. Where did this irrational hate borne from?!
I believe it springs from competition. To every story, there must be a hero and a villain. For the Harry Potter versus Twilight rivalry, the former is the Caped Crusader while the latter is The Joker. But see, here lies the difference: J.K. Rowling is a much better writer than Stephenie Meyer. That’s it. That’s not a diss, it’s a fact universally acknowledged. Yet we cannot knock Meyer down for the stories she chose to write. Who are we as readers to dictate what writers should write about? The last time I checked everyone’s free to do what the hell they want.
Although smaller in scale in terms of setting and number of characters, the Twilight series has its own defined universe. Her vampires are good looking and sparkle in sunlight, the female lead is yes, focused on finding a good boyfriend. The irony, of course, is that the proverbial good boyfriend is a vampire, and when did a vampire ever become part of the world of good?
For Harry Potter, he is the hero of his own story. The Chosen One with his sets of allies who battle a sorcerer hell-bent to lord over them. Before Harry and his posse do become full-fledged wizards and witches, they went to Hogwarts, adhered to the rules, and experienced a very supernatural adolescence. Imagine watching episodes of ‘Wonder Years’, just with magic.
Now why would you pit one against the other? Best of all, why be snoots about which is better or worse?
I really don’t understand where this mightier-than-thou attitude came from. I’ve read both series and I’ve consumed pages and pages of fiction like it. For some inexplicable reason, the irrational hate is strong with this one, and it’s usually aimed at Twilight. For me, Harry Potter is not as great as it’s cracked up to be; I can say Books Five and Six really angered me because they seemed unnecessary. Maybe Rowling was happy during the times she wrote those books. She had become rich and contented and it reflected in the contrivance of the novels. Harry Potter the series is good, Twilight is okay, and there are far more awesome or crappier novels out there that don’t get the attention these two deserve.
This is my point: I don’t side with any books. All books are personally linked to the reader who has read it. I side with what I like, what made a dent on me. It’s just like listening to your favorite music; your head’s flooded with memories and your heart is somehow pinched by what you’re feeling. I understand why people have their own favorite books and why they would recommend it and even defend its greatness to others the death. What I don’t get is putting down other books and saying they don’t deserve to be read. The moment you become a snoot about yours and other people’s choices, you think that what you like is the only one that’s special – the rest’s just liking on scum and have no taste at all. If you follow that logic, then I’m both special and scum because I’ve read both the Harry Potter and Twilight series. Hurray for me!
Instead of pitting the Harry Potter and Twilight fandoms against each other, why don’t we just thank them for re-energizing the book industry, for giving children and adult alike choices to read, and for actually making us read more voraciously again? Let’s thank J.K. Rowling for teaching us magic spells and Stephenie Meyer for putting us in a spell of twisted love. Meyer can improve her writing style but with experience, it can happen. What’s with being all or nothing with you, people?!
When it comes to stories, you’re not supposed to side with just one because when you do, you’re limiting yourself. Besides, you can’t be reading literary greats all the time. Your brain needs silliness sometimes and even if it’s silly, what’s wrong with that? Don’t be a snoot – read what you want and like or dislike it right after. Don’t judge it because of its fandom. Reading is not about picking a team – the story is almost always better when it’s in relation to you. To each his own. Live and let live and all that.
So yeah, about 'Super 8':
I didn’t watch it with any expectations but to be disappointed even after the fact, then I don’t know who got it wrong – J.J. Abrams or me.
In ‘Super 8’, J.J. Abrams wanted to make a tribute to his idol and its producer Steven Spielberg. This is supposed to be his ‘E.T.’ or ‘The Goonies’. But after seeing ‘Super 8’, I had wanted to see the 80’s cult classics again. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the kids making their own indie film, complete with costumes and makeup, blood and gore, and the make-do-with-what’s-around film making. The setup was a good hook and the would-be monster was interesting enough. The kids making a film in 1979 could be another film – I want to see THAT film. (Not just on the end credits; don’t leave at the credits to see the final cut of the kids’ film.)
And then Abrams had to go ‘War of the Worlds’ on us. The big reveal of the monster was a let-down, not only for its design but because I don’t get why it’s here, why it’s doing all the carnage, and the kids don’t even befriend him. The monster looks like a Decepticon from Michael Bay’s ‘Transformers’ universe. Even the sound effect for it is the same – is that the sound of a helicopter’s rotor? For a moment there, I also thought it was Magneto magnetizing all that steel in the movie. I was actually waiting for Michael Fassbender to come out and greet the kids, ‘Hello, non-mutants. Gesundheit!’
In the end: ‘Super 8’ is not bad, just okay, and I don’t believe that’s what J.J. Abrams was aiming for. He managed to cloak the movie in secrecy but the big reveal was not even that spectacular. There are also too much explosions. I conk out after the fifth car flies in the air. Okay we got it: you’ve got cash to burn blowing stuff up!
I believe Abrams hasn’t really tapped into the core of most old Spielberg monster/alien/creature feature movies – heart. ‘Super 8’ has an itty-bitty one and it altogether forgot about it by the second half of the film. If you want to watch a movie with kids being funny around a monster/alien, I recommend actor-director Stephen Chow’s ‘CJ7’. This Hong Kong film made me laugh, cry, and go gaga on the cute for its main monster/alien. Heck, watch ‘Lilo & Stitch’ and ‘Mac and Me’ again!
P.S. I must commend the kids – especially Joel Courtney and Elle Fanning – for being the central kids of ‘Super 8’. May you have brilliant careers, each of you. Joel Courtney was ace gushing over Elle Fanning in it. Too precious. At least that casting was done right.
Originally posted here: melodiscontent.tumblr.com/post/675188441
Last May 31, Friendster.com deleted all of its members’ profile accounts from photos, testimonials, private emails, and a partridge and a pear tree. Its new owner, a Malaysian online games developer, has decided to make it a site for online games. Yesterday I checked back into my old Friendster account and lo and behold, my account was indeed wiped out. Gone were the beta version, the spam accounts befriending me on my page, and my old photos and private emails. I was invited to become a gamer on their site and I did what was best – I deactivated my account. It was the easiest click-decision because there was nothing to return to, anyway.
I am not exactly a Friendster fan but I believe I am one of its first Filipino members, having been egged on by then co-workers to join in. The main idea then was to collect as many friends as you can until your account is full. I wasn’t into that. I actually used it as my online slum book sharing my favorite movies, TV shows, and music, and being young and still not my ‘real’ self, was snooty about it. I was being a sort of Friendster hipster when the website itself was not about hipster-ing in the first place.
I am, however, grateful for Friendster for the following:
- My only high school and to this day best friend found me there. If it weren’t for her searching my name on that website, we wouldn’t have reconnected. After our separate high school and college experiences, we’ve lost touch. We began to enter the workforce and have gotten comfortable with email instead of our standard, old-school letter-sending when we were teens. After adding each other as virtual friends on Friendster, we private-messaged and chatted on Yahoo Messenger. And now, we’re still friends; although she still lives and works in Naga, and me here in Metro Manila. We’ve gone from there to texting and on occasion, seeing each other off at the bus station in Cubao (which is now gone! The first time I saw it boarded up and having construction going on, I was disoriented. I need to see where the bus station is at now or I won’t be able to fully recover my equilibrium.)
- This journal has been an outlet for my then ‘kilig’ phase which was prompted by a ‘connection’ over Friendster. It wasn’t my fault, someone else noticed me and that went from mere exchange of emails to sending of tokens from one continent to another. Now all of those emails are gone and in a way, I feel relieved. I am grateful for the experience and I will continuously mine it for material in many of my current and future writings. When I think about what we did then, I still gush but that doesn’t mean I’m not over it. The sensation is just the same as when I reminisce about my first warm feelings when I was 15 for my boy classmate in high school. When I recall such things, I don’t do it with regret. Those were good times and that’s what matters.
- The deletion of my account was interesting. Tabula rasa – clean slate not just for me but for everyone. No more embarrassing pictures when you were slightly younger with that stupid haircut and type of dress (you’ve got Facebook to do that for you, anyway). No more showbiz-y testimonials by your so-called friends (they can just stab you in the back with their Twitters). No more spammers and kids who message you with Jejemon that could make your eyes bleed. You are free. You’re free from keeping up appearances by continuously updating your profile and checking your account for new messages and friend invites. You’re free from asking your friend to check on someone else’s account because you’re afraid to be branded a stalker because of that dang feature ‘Who’s Viewed Me’. You’re free from the dilemma if you need to approve your annoying boss’ friend request or not (this actually happened to me and my co-workers who were asked by our annoying boss to add him as a friend. Must we all be plastics even on a virtual plane?!) You’re free, period. (Now latch onto Facebook and be its slave.)
Case in point, my October 11, 2010 entry here titled: 'Love in the time of tuberculosis'.
Here's the original posting: teluride.livejournal.com/122137.html which I've cross-posted at: www.bukisa.com/articles/386323_love-in-t
And now a website re-posted same entry at their website and I started laughing then foamed in the mouth. Have a look-see: www.aspiritualdesign.com/2011/03/enjoy-i
The pictures I used which I got from Google Images are omitted but there were terrifically terrible changes and addenda. Holy shit, I don't know what this is called but it's fascinating,.. ly bad. Let me count the ways:
+ The title has been changed: from 'Love in the time of tuberculosis' it has turned into 'Enjoy in The Time of Tuberculosis'. ENJOY Tuberculosis? Who enjoys tuberculosis?!
+ Here's the first paragraphs that I supposedly wrote:
My title need to be the alternate to Jane Campion’s ‘Bright Star’ (2009). Acquiring observed adequate period films and go through background, I need to have ignored this film completely, as I knew it would stop in heartbreak, for absolutely everyone in the movie and for me also. But alas, I am but a curious lass and I succumbed to viewing it about the self-imposed prolonged weekend/break from perform. And boy did my curiosity got slaughtered.
So it is with a heavy heart, a great kind of large, that I pronounce that I adore this movie.
I have seen it three periods ever since simply because it took hold of me and in no way permit go. Just but.
WOW. It reads like a weirdly, frighteningly disgusting sub-titled pirated DVD movie. And this is just only the first few paragraphs, okay.
+ This is my favorite: Create letters, folks. Use the article business office wisely. There is an honesty and brilliance to acquiring place your ideas on paper. Rely on me.
This is what I originally wrote: Write letters, people. Use the post office wisely. There is an honesty and brilliance to having put your thoughts on paper. Trust me.
+ The worst part: MY NAME IS ON IT. Plus my Livejournal source. The 're-writer' was nice enough to muddle the original web address, that was such a good thing to do, I was pleased.
I don't know what this is called but I bet someone with great grammar skills did it. It just radiates smarts, see.
Next week is the last Harry Potter film to grace the screen. And kid- and adult-fans alike are going berserk over Tumblr, tagging their posts: Let me die, Can’t deal with it, Crying, etc. etc. and to me it just screams: Overacting much?
I’ve read the books, I’ve seen the six films based on them. The last installment is upon us and I’ll watch because it’s done. I can’t say I’m sad because at the end of the day, Harry Potter was a character in a series of books and films, and it’s become a franchise, a money-making machine. I’m not saying they lack any of the quality or the story is any less, it’s just it has become another thing entirely and I can’t say that I’m attached to it the same way as most Potter fans do.
Maybe it’s because the super fans have been with Harry, Ron, and Hermione since they were in their tweens. I got into it when I was in my early 20’s and years later I’ve managed to separate myself from it because it has lost its appeal to me. My favorite thing about it is Hogwarts. I’ve never been in that environment, a sort of boarding/dormitory school, and that has always fascinated me. Don’t get me wrong, I’m as loner and anti-social as it gets when I want to, so I don’t know how I would have fared in a setting such as that. The wizardry is a bonus but I always felt the names of the spells are totally cheesy on the wordplay. But Hogwarts – I want to go to there.
And to those super fans, I understand you’ll miss Harry Potter and friends after the last film is released, but don’t die, not yet anyway. You can’t let fictional characters run your life; they are not the end-all and be-all. If Daniel Radcliffe wants to go on, Harry Potter himself, do the same. Things end and say goodbye so you can miss them. Besides, there are still books and films to return to.
