Worthless and Weak

What I've been doing with my time. I don't have a scanner, so I just took a photo of it, but here's one that I particularly like.

Labels: drawings

I'm unhappy. Why am I unhappy?

I think there are a few reasons. The first is that I'm moving to a new apartment on Thursday. There's a slight amount of stress involved with that move, and maybe that's getting to me. But I think the bigger story is about the why that I'm moving into a new place. Its a minor life step, involving a fairly significant financial commitment. But the whole point of moving isn't to create any positives in my life, its almost purely to avoid negatives. Not having to fight over chores, or worry about how clean the sink is. There's reasons why I'm moving away from my place, but not too many why I'm moving into the new one, and I think that's beginning to sync in.

The other reason is that happiness I think is like a drug. Or rather, it is in some way a drug, some chemical released in the brain. And when you have a lot of it, you notice when its gone. I think that's whats been happening lately. Stuff just kind of sucks; food doesn't taste good, I'm not looking forward to things.

Anyway, a long time ago, way back when I started this blog, I came up with two rules.

The first rule was not to talk about politics. The second was not to talk about how depressed and angsty I am. The rules exist for the same reason, cause thats all that anybody on the internet ever talks about, and nobody ever listens ever. Now, I like to think that I'm a little wiser than I was 8 years ago, that I've learned lessons and that I'm not as susceptible to stupid emotions (as opposed to smart ones, eh, that is I'm not trying to say that all emotions are bad, but that to a large extent one can easily fool one's self into thinking that any little setback is the end of the world, and that's bad.) as i was back then. And to a large extent I'm right, but the things I've learned for the most part allow me to diagnose my own stupidity and to get over it. But largely, its a matter of time, that whereas before I'd wallow in misery for months, now I'm down to about a week. But I'm still there from time to time, and it simply sucks when you don't want to go anywhere or do anything, when your food doesn't taste good and when you're not looking forward to anything. There's still that time when all you want to do is just scream "FUCK YOU" at the world, and well, I'm in it right now. I'll get over it, but right now I'm in it.

So in what was a really big over-hyped deal, Republican Presidential candidate Herman Cain came to the Northeast this weekend. They say he did over 50 million in damages, shut down the NYC mass transit, and created all sorts of havoc. Well, he can write off the east coast if he wins the nomination.

Oh wait, that wasn't Herman Cain, it was a Hurricane! That's totally different. But I still think that it was totally over-hyped. It was overblown if you will. Of course, Boston wasn't hit that hard, and I heard there was flooding in parts of NY, and of course coastlines always get hit hard by Hurricanes. But I think there's a definite danger of a boy who cried wolf effect," our elected leaders are diluting their credibility. If they would occasionally risk the chance of underestimating the severity of the storm, they would be much more credible when they really need to be heard.

Labels: Things falling off of tall buildings, Unspeakable Horrors

Well, that's over with. (That being the post directly below this one). I was once told that analyzing and describing your problems is great therapy (because one realizes they aren't that big). I guess the better piece of advice would be to have a scotch, go to sleep, then analyze your problems in the morning.

Anyway, through sheer force of imagination, I've managed to defeat one entirely imaginary problem that I had. Ha!

Labels: smart smart smart

Ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh ugh.

I'm in a bad place again. Its going to be a long week. I've been here before, and I hate being here, I've been here before and from the outside you always see how stupid you look and feel. GAH! I don't even know what I"m upset about anymore.

Anyway, this is dumb, I need to go to bed although I'm sure I'm not going to sleep anytime soon. Anyway getting off this dumb computer will help.

Gah indeed.

Labels: stupid stupid stupid

" 'There is chamber after chamber, Legolas; hall opening out of hall, dome after dome, stair beyond stair; ans still the winding paths lead on into the mountains' heart. Caves! The Caverns of Helm's Deep! Happy was the chance that drove me there! It makes me weep to leave them.'

'Then I will wish you this fortune for you comfort, Gimli' said the Elf, 'that you may come safe from war and return to see them again. But do not tell all your kindred! There seems little left for them to do, from you account. Maybe the men of this land are wise to say little: one family of busy dwarves with hammer and chisel might mare more than they made.'

'No, you do not understand,' said Gimli. 'No dwarf could be unmoved by such loveliness. None of Durin's race would mine those caves for stones or ore, not if diamonds and gold could be got there. Do you cut down grooves of blossoming trees in the springtime for firewood? We would tend these glades of flowering stone, not quarry them. With cautious skill, tap by tap -- a mall chip of rock and no more, perhaps in a while anxious day -- so we could work, and as they years went by, we should open up new ways, and display far chambers that are still dark, glimpsed only as a void beyond fissures in the rock.'"

I think this passage, more than any other I've read, epitomizes LOTR. Gimli is moved by the simple presence of nature; finding natural caves comparable to the splendor of Khazad-dûm, which had been lost to orcs. Legolas, by comparison, speaks of wishing to see the Fangorn forest, which is the remains of the old forest which once covered middle earth. For both characters, we see a great appreciation of nature, and more-so that the best way to appreciate it is through a passive role, that it is to be observed, and changed only slowly.

Compare this to the description of Orthanc, only a few pages later. There Saruman had built great furnaces, dug great pits and scarred the land with his creation. Tolkien describes it like this:

"A strong place and wonderful was Isengard, and long it had been beautiful; and there great lords had dwelt, the wardens of Gondor upon the West, and wise men that watched the stars. But Saruman had slowly shaped it to his shifting purposes, and made it better, as he thought, being deceived -- for all those arts and subtle devices, for which he forsook his former wisdom, and which fondly he imagined were his own, came but from Mordor; so that what he made was naught, only a little copy, a child's model or a slave's flattery, of that vast fortress, armoury, prison, furnace of great power, Baradûr, the Dark Tower, which suffered no rival, and laughed at flattery, biding its time, secure in its pride and its immeasurable strength."

The contrast couldn't be more clear, on the one hand we have those who seek to enjoy nature, content to be a part of it, and on the other we have those wicked men who seek to rule it, and to bend it to their own wills, and instead create monstrosities.

Labels: LOTR

So it looks like I can read stuff faster than I can blog about stuff, so i've gotten a little further behind...

So, I've read from the Ring Going South to Leaving Lothlorien. Again, its very interesting what is highlighted in the book, there are two chapters devoted to Moria, full of orcs and cave trolls and balrogs, and then three chapters devoted to Lothlorien, with nothing but elves, and no real danger or "excitement". The most important character from this part is Galadriel, the elf queen. She has one of the three elven rings, and it is revealed that all of Lothlorien's beauty, and indeed the elves themselves, is dependent upon her ring (and the other two), and that destroying the one ring would cause all less rings to slowly die. Faced with this problem, she still urges Frodo on, saying that she would rather see this magnificent beauty fade from the world than have it overcome by Sauron.

This is one of Tolkien's major themes, perhaps the major theme: that beauty is slowly disappearing from middle-earth, and that what is is never as impressive as was, for there are no more mithril mines, no more silmarils, Numenor fell into the sea, and very soon there will be no more rings of power. Yet this is as it should be, that to attempt to turn back time, to use the ring to attempt to regain these treasures would be to invite Sauron's corruption into whatever it touched. This I think, is most clearly illustrated in the character of Saruman, in his attempts to control the power of the world, he can only use it for evil ends.

I'm not sure what (if anything) this decline is a metaphor of, but one very stark similarity is to aging. As we age, all the "wonderful" things in our lives begin t disappear, and that while preserving youth as long as possible is a good thing, it can never be stopped, and attempting to recreate your youth ends only in folly. Indeed, most of the periphery of the book deals with elves, who are eternally youthful, and yet must deal with the truth that they shall soon perish, as they are forced to leave the world for the undying lands.

Labels: LOTR

Many Meetings, and the Council of Elrond:

So the first book is done, and the second book begins in Rivendell, Frodo is recovering from the encounter with the Ringwraiths, and everybody's back stories are told. We learn about what happened to Galdalf, and are for the first time (through story) introduced to Saruman, (would it have killed Tolkien to have the two main villains of his book not both begin with SA, end with N, and have a and R and a U in the middle). The council of Elrond decides that the ring cannot be hidden, nor guarded, or thrown into the sea, and they dare not use it, for even though they could destroy Sauron with the Ring, it would not benefit the world at all, as they would inevitably become that which they seek to destroy. Finally, they decide that it is not for the mighty or the wise to destroy it, for Sauron will quickly overcome might or outsmart wisdom, but instead Frodo shall hope to go unnoticed to the fires of Mt Doom.

That Frodo, and not Aragorn or Gandalf (or Elrond or Glorfindel or so on) should bear the ring is of great importance artistically, first it is easier for us to identify with Frodo than with a Ranger or a Wizard, and of course having the fish out of water character allows for much easier exposition (when Gandalf or Aragorn tell Frodo about some piece of history, they're really telling us), but it goes even deeper than that. The trilogy is chalk full of symbolism, in fact its easy to make the argument that it is nothing but symbolism, and they symbolism of Frodo is that it is each person's job to combat evil, that we all have a ring to bear, and while there are no doubt Gandalfs and Aragorns in our lives, and we must trust in them, we cannot fully rely on them, and in the end we must rely on ourselves and the Sams of the world.

Labels: LOTR

Chapters 11 + 12:

Knife in the dark, the eleventh chapter, has the first real action of the book. Pursued by the Ringwraiths to weathertop, Strider and the four hobbits attempt to make a stand. Frodo unconsciously slips the one ring onto his finger, revealing the true nature of the wringwraiths. Frodo wards them off with the word "Elbereth." He is wounded (almost mortally).

The action, perhaps the most important scene of the book so far (one of the most important, anyway), takes up less space than the tale of Beren and Luthien. Of course, this is really what the book is about, the interactions of the characters, and while they are on a quest which will shape the world, we are given far more information of how they react to the world.

Part of this, is simply an artistic tool, Tolkien wants to show off the world he created, and the most interesting way to do that is to show the reactions of his characters have, as they travel through the world.

Before they reach Rivendell, they find the trolls that Bilbo and Galdalf encountered in "The Hobbit." Sam sings a song about trolls, and then they are met by Glorfindel, an elf. The black riders are destroyed by a flood (or not truly destoryed, but for now they are), and we end the first book of the LOTR.

Labels: LOTR

Chapters 3 - 10.

So, running myself sore on Saturday, and feeling otherwise lazy, I read chapters 3 through 10 of Book One of the Fellowship this Sunday.

These chapters become a little repetitious, or at the very least a pattern emerges. Frodo and company are accosted by danger, they are aided by a stranger, but the stranger does not continue with them, even though the fate of the world hangs in the balance.

The first stranger is Gildor the elf, who they meet after their first encounters with the black riders. Gildor would normally never camp with hobbits, but due to the black riders, does so. Similarly, once the hobbits travel through the old wood, they are saved from Old man willow by Tom Bombadil, and again in Barrow Down. Finally, when they are in the inn of the prancing pony, they are aided by the Butterbur, and Strider.

With Gildor and again with Bombadil, it almost seems as if they only reason they don't journey with the hobbits is due to plot reasons. But almost. With both characters, we see people who are in many ways human, but in many other ways completely different. The elves are described as "so old and yet so young, so gay and yet so sad," which I think is a hauntingly beautiful description of these characters, something which isn't quite human.

Bombadil sings. He sings to old man willow, he signs to the barrow wights, and he sings to himself and to Goldberry. If I recall the Silmarilion correctly, and if you'll forgive some rampant speculation on my part, he is singing a variation (perhaps corruption would be a better word, although corruption is probably a better term for Morgoth's song) of the song began by Illuvitar at the creation of the universe.

But just like Gildor, when given the opportunity to escort them to Rivendell, he instead refuses. In both cases, the characters are more witnesses than actors. They seem to see their roles as outside of the fate of humanity; that whatever happens they will either retreat to the Gray Havens or continue living in the old forest.

Finally, I'll note some things about the world and setting. It seems very static, that while there is history, it seems only to be a list of events and stories, there is no sense of history in the Hegelian sense, there's no momentum, no sense of progress, or even of steady-state equilibriums. The men of Bree-land don't attempt to colonize the lands around Bree because, well it doesn't say. The hobbits don't turn back the old forest, don't try to use it. Everybody seems to think of the world as what it is, and no individual tries to change it, even slightly. I realize this may be part of my 20th century thinking, (dare I say bias?) that we live in an age where we do things everyday that weren't possible a decade ago, and we see changes in the world around us (in terms of architecture, styles and fashions, even music, art, politics, etc) within our lives, so that we can go back to place we used to live, and note how much it changes, and I think that as Americans we get even less of this than average, for instance: Shanghai.

But I think it's more than just a return to pre 20th century thinking. It's a pattern of Tolkien's world, that the world is primarily a place of myth, not an actual realized world, a backdrop to explore heroism, which is certainly not empty, (far far from it), but rather the background just is, the minor characters seem to know that the story isn't about them, but not just for plot purposes, rather because thats their purpose, their platonic essence if you will.

While I'd love to continue writing, and perhaps if I continued to do so long I'd find a combination of words that make a little sense, but it's past midnight, so I will say goodbye, and perhaps I can continue onward with a better understanding and better way to say what I'm saying.

Labels: LOTR

Chapters 1 and 2:

I was reading a bit about the Lord of the Rings lately, here and there, and noticed that there was a lot of stuff that I don't remember, and thinking about it, I have no idea when the last time I read the whole trilogy was. Probably not since before the movies. Therefore, last night, I started reading it again, and thought that maybe I'd blog my reactions to it.

One of the, problems, I had with the books, (which was amplified by the movies, I think), was that it seemed to me that the Shire was the only place where people actually lived, meaning that for everybody else it seemed that there were simply warriors waiting around for the next battle, or elves sitting around doing whatever it is that 1,000 year old elves do. In any event, I think the first chapter is excellent in setting up the Shire, in describing hobbit communities and customs.

The second chapter is about the Ring, focusing on Smeagol. It surprised me that there wasn't more detail given to Gil-Galad and Isildur, and their battle with Sauron. I also didn't remember Sauron taking residence in Mirkwood.

Overall, what I think I was missing when I read the books originally was that it wasn't about the story, it was about the stories within the stories, the histories that Gandalf and company tell.

While I'd ideally like to have some sort of more lengthy discussion about each chapter for the purposes of this project (which, if history is any guide, I will abandon long before completion), however I fear that I may have to settle for good enough, and just a few points of initial interest will have to suffice. Hopefully, I'll get a better post the next couple of chapters.

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

I'm sure glad that I decided to go to Egypt last year and not put it off another year.

Labels: Egypt, vacation

Does anybody else think that the microphone addition to Rockband was the worst invention ever created in the history of ever? Even more so if your roommate can't sing. And its 10:30 fucking hell I think I'm gonna go insane and start just fucking ahhH!!

In other news, I'm officially halfway through The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Good book, you should totally read it. Also, I literally got a turkey in Bowling. I'm trying to clear up space in the freezer for it.

Labels: fall of the roman empire, scooters, vacation

Last night I watched "The Horror of Dracula." One of the best horror movies I've ever seen. Nothing in it was too scary, it just had a very simple plot, strong characters, great actors and a very well done atmosphere. The movie was basically a bare bones version of Bram Stoker's Dracula, with a group of vampire hunters (John Harker, Arthur Holmwood, and Dr. Van Helsing, portrayed brilliantly by Peter Cushing), attempting to kill Dracula, while Dracula is attempting to convert the romantic interests of the hunters to vampirism.

What sets it apart is its use of violence and gore. While older movies (such as Universal's 1931 classic) would shy away from graphic portrayals of violence, and today's horror films indulge in it, "The Horror of Dracula" had just the right amount of it to give a bit of a chill when seen, but not enough to make you wondering if you're watching Cannibal Holocaust.


Bottom line, it was a really enjoyable movie and they just don't make them like that anymore.

Labels: Movie reviews

*Sniff Sniff*

I guess the best line of this song is no longer relevant. This makes me sad...

Rest in Peace...

Labels: disdain for pure mathematics.

why does Massachusetts have a secretary of state? Shouldn't it have a secretary of commonwealth?

(Also, I'm too dumb to vote, apparently).

Labels: fall, scooters, vacation

I'm angry.

I'm angry because the realization hit me today that my ex never cared at all about me. Never really made any sort of emotional attachment to me, other than simply thinking that I'm a nice guy. Hell, I can't even remember a time when she was angry with me.

Oh well, i guess I just need to take a step back, and say to myself, "this too shall pass"

Labels: what this blog is really about

number of times I wanted to scream out "FUCK YOU" during an im conversation today... 7

ok.... I need a drink...

Labels: what this blog is really about