"What was he thinking?" It's the familiar cry of bewildered parents trying to understand why their teenagers act the way they do.
How does the boy who can thoughtfully explain the reasons never to drink and drive end up in a drunken crash? Why does the girl who knows all about birth control find herself pregnant by a boy she doesn't even like? What happened to the gifted, imaginative child who excelled through high school but then dropped out of college, drifted from job to job and now lives in his parents' basement?
Adolescence has always been troubled, but for reasons that are somewhat mysterious, puberty is now kicking in at an earlier and earlier age. A leading theory points to changes in energy balance as children eat more and move less.
At the same time, first with the industrial revolution and then even more dramatically with the information revolution, children have come to take on adult roles later and later. Five hundred years ago, Shakespeare knew that the emotionally intense combination of teenage sexuality and peer-induced risk could be tragic—witness "Romeo and Juliet." But, on the other hand, if not for fate, 13-year-old Juliet would have become a wife and mother within a year or two.
We met for exactly two minutes five years ago. Within an hour of our meeting, I received a friend request. After the many mentions of your MySpace page and one look at your crazy eyes, I knew this was an offer I couldn’t refuse. I accepted your “friendship” immediately. For five years I have watched the ups and downs of your dramatic life unfold on my news feed. You post with the unfiltered passion of a teen girl scribbling in her diary and for that I am grateful. There is nothing I hate more on Facebook than cryptic statuses. If you’re going to air your dirty laundry to the world, you had better include the deets and oh, the deets you do include. Your life has become my favorite reality show and I pray it never gets canceled.
All pro athletes ice their arms. That's why there's Pro-Ice.
Linkage: Portlandia: Hide and Seek League The Sherlock Homies vs. The Punky Bruisers This both celebrates and ridicules adult sports leagues. And the old lady is phenomenal.
For those readers who don't watch much MTV these days — or aren't middle school girls — MADE is a resilient little teen-makeover show that has been airing on MTV since 2003, which is also the same year I started teaching English at RAHS. Each episode plays like a cross between Pygmalion and Flowers for Algernon: A kid expresses a wish to change something about themselves; a MADE coach and "expert" in some field or other comes in and helps the kid achieve his/her dreams; the kid performs in a public forum and is warmly received, after which everyone lives happily ever after. It's lighthearted, fairly dull reality fare, closer to a pragmatic, let's-put-on-a-show series like Sell This House than it is to the atrocity exhibitions and epics of self-delusion that you can find on Bravo, A&E, or on other MTV time slots, for that matter.
The MADE episode that partially takes place at RAHS stars senior Mary Beth Bibeau as a girl who wants to "come out of her shell." There are about a dozen archetypal MADEtransformations. In this one, Mary Beth wants to stop being an outcast and start being a Hip-Hop Dancer. (MTV has filmed fifteen other Hip-Hop Dancer episodes, including three this season. Other popular transformations include Prom Queen, Ladies' Man, Boxer, and Cheerleader. In one episode — which I really, really need to see — MTV tries to make a kid into a "High School Graduate." As far as I know, this is the only time they've tried to help a student earn a diploma. How did that go, I wonder?) The last two Hip-Hop Dancer episodes showcased nerdy kids who proved to the world that there was more to them than 4.0 GPAs and weekend sessions with gastroenterology textbooks.
MLS Changes Ball From Jabulani to Prime
I might be the only person in America who cares about this.
Last night's episode of Justified was an example of why some newcomers find it a little hard to embrace the show initially. In the first episode we caught up with Marshall Raylan Givens, his ex-wife, current lover, and soon-to-be mother of his child, Winona, his fremesis, Boyd Crowder, and all the other characters, old (Art! Tim!) and new (guy from Detroit!). All the chess pieces were laid out. Then, this week, the game switched to checkers.
As mentioned last week, there are two Justifieds: a serialized, epic, darkly funny Kentucky noir and a way (way) above-average cop procedural. Last night's episode, "Cut Ties," was more of the latter.
“I’m untouchable, bitch.” It only took Rob Lowe three words to capture the hearts and the minds of an entire generation (or at least just me) when Lifetime released the trailer for its original movie Drew Peterson: Untouchable last month. The film finally premiered on Saturday, and it succeeds in turning a depressing true crime story (one that remains unresolved) into a campy suspense thriller.
The film is based on true events, but as Drew Peterson hasn’t admitted to or been convicted of any actual criminal activity yet, all the movie can reasonably pull off is showing Drew Peterson being a creepy, woman-hating dick, something not even Drew Peterson denies, all with Rob Lowe made up like he’s on an episode of Undercover Boss. (“I wanted to see first hand what life was like working at Blonde Wives About To Die Industries.”)
When you watch The Bachelor you are constantly evaluating and asking yourself, “Self, imagine you are in some alternate universe in which you decided that the best way to find a wife was to star in a network reality show where 25 hussies competed for your hand in marriage. Got it, self? Now imagine that in this alternate universe you were bestowed with the same exact mob that Ben the Bachelor has received. In said alternate universe, whom would you propose to?”
Don’t lie to me, you do it, too. This scenario — this preposterous alternate universe — seems delightful at first. There you are as The Bachelor, the epicenter of this earthquake of desperation, the studly sun that a galaxy of hot cocktail waitresses, dental assistants, and farmers' daughters orbit around. But as the weeks go on and you get glimpses into the personalities, idiosyncrasies, and homicidal tendencies of the individuals around you, deciding which one to take as your bride in this alternate universe becomes a less and less enticing proposal. Courtney the Model Who Won’t Stop Talking About Being a Model is a perfect example of how your valuation can swing from “Attractive young lady, seems cool enough; I could see myself with her,” to, “If I married her I am positive I would end up faking my own death and escaping to Borneo.” And therein lies the problem with this alternate universe in which you are forced to choose one of these women: The more you know about them the less you like them, especially Courtney the Model Who Won’t Stop Talking About Being a Model.
Sorry, little man. No one likes empties. This little trooper made it through both football games and a game of Pandemic. Great job, buddy!
Linkage: The Street Stops Here Great documentary about St. Anthony High School Basketball team in Jersey City. Coach Bob Hurley has won 22 State Championships and all but two of his players have gone on to college. It combines high school basketball and Explosions In The Sky. Get excited.
The Dusty 45's brought the house down with their performance. Yes, that trumpet is on fire. Yes, I desperately want to do that. Yes, I have access to ethanol at my job. No, I will not abuse that access.
They played a game of Celebrity, which Jimmy Fallon plays on his show. That's two of my favorite things.
(Seriously, just DVR Fallon every night.)
(Additional Photo Credits to Kyle Johnson Photography and Jason Andrews)
TBTL at 1000. 1000! How did that happen? It's a contradiction for the ages. I should know. A little over two years ago, I wrote a eulogy for the show and called it "TBTL: Why it mattered." Notice that? "Mattered." Past tense. I assumed it was over and I mourned the loss. I have never been so happy to be wrong. Too Beautiful to Live. A show whose very title seemed to announce its fragility and impermanence instead soldiers on stronger than ever and is as much a fixture as anything can be in our media-saturated world. It's as if someone deliberately built a sandcastle at the ocean's edge (at low tide, to boot) and then returned to find that castle, against all odds, had survived one devouring tide after another. It goes against reason, it flouts common sense. In fact, by seeming to court its own demise, TBTL may have instead guaranteed its longevity.
But then, contradiction has always been part of the show's DNA. I've said this before and I'll say it again, the genius of TBTL is that it recognizes the profundity of the mundane. It's silly and sublime, intellectual and inane, naive and yet knowing. It'll take the time to explain how the Large Hadron Collider works as well as how to seduce an airline attendant into giving you free drinks. Too Beautiful to Live is all about finding that very delicate balance within the contradictions of our own lives. We're Ira Glass and Hot Greg. Drew McFrizz and the Grammar Lady. The New Yorker and TMZ. In fact, we're all Luke and Jen, and, okay, sometimes even Sean.
As I said in my obviously premature eulogy, TBTL has always reminded me of a slice of lemon meringue pie. At its best, it's the perfect combination of sugar-spun fluff and tart flavor. When taking a bite out of TBTL, you have to make sure you taste both the meringue and the lemon, or you'll miss the point. Some people, unfortunately, can't get past the meringue. But if you stick with the show long enough, the lemon will always out.
Remarkably, TBTL still matters.
Rawr.
Eugenides's first novel since 2002's Pulitzer Prize–winning Middlesex so impressively, ambitiously breaks the mold of its predecessor that it calls for the founding of a new prize to recognize its success both as a novel--and as a Jeffrey Eugenides novel. Importantly but unobtrusively set in the early 1980s, this is the tale of Madeleine Hanna, recent Brown University English grad, and her admirer Mitchell Grammaticus, who opts out of Divinity School to walk the earth as an ersatz pilgrim. Madeleine is equally caught up, both with the postmodern vogue (Derrida, Barthes)--conflicting with her love of James, Austen, and Salinger--and with the brilliant Leonard Bankhead, whom she met in semiotics class and whose fits of manic depression jeopardize his suitability as a marriage prospect. Meanwhile, Mitchell winds up in Calcutta working with Mother Theresa's volunteers, still dreaming of Madeleine. In capturing the heady spirit of youthful intellect on the verge, Eugenides revives the coming-of-age novel for a new generation The book's fidelity to its young heroes and to a superb supporting cast of enigmatic professors, feminist theorists, neo-Victorians, and concerned mothers, and all of their evolving investment in ideas and ideals is such that the central argument of the book is also its solution: the old stories may be best after all, but there are always new ways to complicate them. (Oct.)
Jetpack Joyride
(iPhone Game)
Scribblenauts Remix
(iPhone Game)
You type ANY word and it shows up in the game. Giant green gorilla? Type it in and POOF, there he is.
A haunting postmodern fable, Big Questions is the magnum opus of Anders Nilsen, one of the brightest and most talented young cartoonists working today. This beautiful minimalist story, collected here for the first time, is the culmination of ten years and more than six hundred pages of work that details the metaphysical quandaries of the occupants of an endless plain, existing somewhere between a dream and a Russian steppe. A downed plane is thought to be a bird and the unexploded bomb that came from it is mistaken for a giant egg by the group of birds whose lives the story follows. The indifferent, stranded pilot is of great interest to the birds—some doggedly seek his approval, while others do quite the opposite, leading to tensions in the group. Nilsen seamlessly moves from humor to heartbreak. His distinctive, detailed line work is paired with plentiful white space and large, often frameless panels, conveying an ineffable sense of vulnerability and openness.
Big Questions has roots in classic fables—the birds and snakes have more to say than their human counterparts, and there are hints of the hero’s journey, but here the easy moral that closes most fables is left open and ambiguous. Rather than lending its world meaning, Nilsen’s parable lets the questions wander where they will.
Dance Moms
The head dance coach was on Jimmy Fallon. Jimmy GUSHED about this show.
The titular dance moms are pretty reprehensible. If this was a deep probing into their psyche, it would be fascinating. But it's really just mean people yelling at each other.
Watch one if you're interested, but it seems like every episode is the same.
Looking back, I still post in the present tense, even when I'm a week behind. I guess I was trying to make each post sound like it was fully completed by the date on the post.
The point of the blog is to find something noteworthy each day. (Hey, the blog a point now!) That's why I've stuck with the daily posting format even though I'm usually a week behind. I have the pictures ready to go, but I'm slowly working through my twitter favorites to find stories that are fun as well. But those stories don't have to get posted on the 18th because I'm not reading them on the 18th. I didn't read anything exciting on the internet on the 18th. I took a walk to Redbox and Starbucks. Then drank that Starbucks mocha on my way to another Starbucks where I ordered a hot tea. That's what was noteworthy about the 18th. Of course other activities happened too (Skyrim, Rocksmith, reading, Jimmy Fallon, and cleaning out my car), but I've already posted about those things, or they aren't that exciting. The walk was all I did, so it's all that needs to be included on this day.
So I know the posting is slow.
I'm going to try and stay more current, hoping that immediacy trumps depth.
And I know I've got to clean up some of the old links on the side of the page, and update the blogroll. And make a new spot for "Friends of the Blog" that I actually know and a different spot for the "Blogroll" of other sites I visit.
Also, I think the blog needs a new title.
Daily...Digital ... Scrapbook
Maybe that could get abbreviated like a dentist.
Eric's Blog: D.D.S.
Just thinking out loud.
Thanks for reading the most ridiculous and unnecessary post so far.
Recently, Breckon roped his mother into playing the open-world RPG, and began tweeting the highlights and quotes from her lavender-filled quest on his Skyrim Mom feed. The results have been predictably delightful, generating such insights as:
On ranged combat: “It was all dark and everyone was hiding behind boulders, and I didn't want to die again, so I just kept shooting and shooting and shooting.” (tweet)
On accepting rides from strangers: "I got in some guy's cart and thought, 'Shit, I don't know where he's gonna take me! I had to get out; who knows where he was going.'" (tweet)
