The Christmas Post (featuring the Grinch)

I haven't been around recently due to finals, going home, etc. I've been really busy with things, like washing cars for spare change, carefully constructing Gastly profile pictures so that it looks like Gastly is taking over my profile,  and rereading the Artemis Fowl series while getting mildly emotional every time it looks like Artemis may just have a heart. YA books are wonderful. Currently, I'm waiting for my latest batch of ink cards to sit and dry while I listen to "The 99 most Essential Christmas Masterpieces" that I downloaded from Amazon for two dollars. Not even kidding. They're good recordings, too-- choirs and symphonies from Boston, New York, St Peter's, and lots of other places. I don't mean to sound like an advertisement, but seriously. It's awesome. Two dollars.

My family has a tradition of watching the 1966 version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas every year, and we just watched it last night. I now harbor a newfound love for the Who Song (Welcome, Christmas). And the Grinch Song, of course, but that goes without saying. There's something that's just perfect about the Who Song. Even though they get their presents back, they're happy without them, and while the human in me is cringing at the destruction that the Grinch has caused Whoville, they don't seem to mind at all. This actually seems to be a rare feature in most Christmas movies, which tend to involve some sort of appreciation for Christmas spirit after something good happens, or after the protagonist has learned some painful/touching/epic lesson about the meaning of sharing/love/happiness/Christmas/whatever. But the Whos are different; the only thing that happens to them in the movie is this:

1. They get ready for Christmas, like every year
2. They get absolutely everything taken from them
3. They wake up on Christmas morning and start singing, as usual
4. They let the Grinch into their singing circle
5. They get their presents back
6. They let the Grinch carve their roast beast

There is no questioning that he destroyed their town or that they have no food (seriously, Christmas spirit aside, wouldn't they have starved?), but they welcome Christmas anyway, seemingly without any notice to the current state of affairs, and welcome the Grinch just as gladly. There was no lesson; nobody was taken on a ghostly adventure to see how they should change their future, or presented with the dilemma of whether or not to accept that creepy old man as the real Santa Claus. They simply accepted Christmas and the Grinch, no questions asked. And they actually embrace him as they allow him to sit at the head of the table!

And the Grinch himself, while ostensibly a children's character of a mean old man with a heart two sizes too small and a soul full of "dirty socks" who decides to turn nice, actually represents even more for adults. The latest Glee episode had it right with the focus on the downfall of Christmas spirit that comes with growing up. The Grinch mentions something about how he has been witnessing Whoville like this "for fifty three years". He's turning into a Scrooge. Except that Scrooge had to be pushed out of his grumpy old man "I hate christmas" stage by external forces. The Grinch discovered it on his own, and changed on his own. Even his wonderful, cute, awesome, loving dog Max doesn't really help with that transformation. While it was the singing on Christmas Day that seemed to push him into the world of happy Christmases, there was no singing at the Grinch. The Whos were just singing, and he listened to it. And then his heart grew three sizes that day! 

I think that's why the movie/book is such a classic. (And why the Jim Carrey one was such a fail). The lesson happens almost spontaneously, seemingly without an instigator. That's important today, because if you don't have something magical and miraculous happen on Christmas day (like what happens in every Christmas story ever), then it's kind of up to you to make it happen. That's what the Grinch did, and it worked for him, and he's been a popular and iconic character now for over fifty years. So take a hint. 

I hope everyone had/has a wonderful Christmahanukwanzaakah and holiday break!

The Garden of Eden

In the beginning, when God created Man, He gave Man a wonderful gift: the ability to do homework right when it was assigned. When God gave them homework, they completed it that very hour, so that when it was dinner or time to go to sleep, they did not worry about finishing their homework, because it was already done. Because of this, Adam and Eve found that time abounded and each day they were able to savor every second. The glorious sunny days in Eden seemed to stretch on forever, and the beautiful nights with starry skies never ended.

The Serpent came to Eve one day while Eve was doing her homework, and lured her away with the offer of a delicious looking fruit from the tree. Eve explained that she had homework and had not yet finished, and the Serpent said, "But why do homework when you could eat this delicious fruit instead?" And Eve saw the fruit, and she decided that it did look delicious, but said, "But, Serpent, it is forbidden. I have to do my homework." And the snake said, "Why? What is the point of doing that assignment?" And Eve could not answer. So she took a bite, and found that it was indeed delicious, and was much more pleasurable than doing homework. And she took Adam away from his homework and said, "Eat this fruit," and he, too, took a bite, and they ate fruit in the garden together. The next day, God woke up and checked His email for the assignments that were due at midnight before, and found that they were not in His inbox, and He was displeased. And He said to Adam and Eve, "You did not turn in your homework, and you must leave Eden."

So Adam and Eve left Eden and entered a very different world from what they had previously known. There was suffering and pain and death, and they were new to all of these things. When God gave them their first ex-Eden homework assignments, Eve sat down first to finish hers, but the snake entered her mind and distracted her so that she messed around online and hung out with friends, because that seemed more enjoyable. But time did not slow down, as it had done in Eden, and Eve found that she never did end up finishing her work. She went to her home and explained to Adam what had happened. Adam and Eve were confused at first. Where had all the time gone? But God came to them, and showed them how when Eve was doing fun things like playing on facebook and watching movies with her friends, the time passed far more quickly than it ever did in Eden, and she hadn't been savoring each moment like she had on Eden. God said, "Because you chose to listen to the Serpent instead of me, he will be in your head all of the time. You will no longer feel the same joy and strength to do homework when it is assigned, and you will suffer. You will not notice at first, until it is too late, and then you will beat yourself up while you frantically attempt to finish your assignments at the last minute."  

And then Eve wept, and Adam was afraid, because did not understand this new punishment. But God turned to him and said, "You'll feel the pain of procrastination soon enough, don't worry. Unlike childbirth, this isn't only for women." And Adam did discover procrastination shortly thereafter, and felt sorrow at his banishment from Eden, and begged God to take him back to a world where this new punishment was unheard of. But they had already eaten the fruit, and could not go back.

Poetry Skillz

My roommate Hannah and I went to a coffee shop on Monday for one of her classes; there was a poetry-reading circle there that she had to listen to and write about in a portfolio for her poetry class. We got there around eight to find a small group of older people sitting in a circle in large armchairs and couches around a coffee table and chatting for a while, and we didn't want to intrude, so we ordered coffee and sat at a nearby table and found several boxes of jigsaw puzzles nearby. We selected one with pictures of kittens on a log surrounded by flowers and set to work immediately, drinking our coffee and listening to the people read their poetry. There were six people around the table, and another man sitting nearby who would chime in occasionally. 

The first man, Beard Man, read his poem about Adam and the right of men. It was a very interesting and well-written poem, although I didn't hear all of it. I found his poems throughout the night to be very insightful. There was a woman next to him who I'll call Anonymous Woman, because I don't remember if she read a poem or not, and I don't remember if she said anything interesting. The woman next to Anonymous Woman, River Woman, read a poem about rivers in Texas that I didn't find particularly interesting. I learned that there are fifteen major rivers in Texas and three thousand and something "major streams" which I thought sounded like an oxymoron. Then everybody talked about rivers for a while.

The next person, Portly Man, read a poem that I don't remember too well. His poems rhymed, but he spoke too quietly for me to hear. The woman after him was English Woman (she had an English accent) who read a poem about the Thames. River Woman pronounced it "Thaymees" which I found kind of annoying, and English Woman was quick to correct her. I realized at this point that there is a theme every week to the poetry group, and this weeks theme was rivers. The woman after English Woman, Newbie, was new and didn't have a poem. This was her first poetry circle, and she had heard about it through a friend. Then it was back to Beard Man. I don't even remember if Beard Man had a beard or not, but it just feels like he did. He read another excellent poem.

Hannah and I continued to work on our puzzle, and we worked on it for almost two hours, but we never got around to finishing it. At one point, a girl in the coffeeshop got up and went over to the circle to ask if she could photograph them for a college portfolio she was making. Hannah and I stayed quiet and focused on our puzzle. The group left around nine thirty, except for Portly Man who stayed back and played piano for a bit (there was an electric keyboard in the corner). CoffeeShopBarTender Man hung out behind the counter and chatted with us, and Portly Man eventually left after chatting with us for a bit. He apparently went to Trinity and graduated in 98. He was very friendly, and we all talked about Faulkner and other modernist writers.

Then he left and I played piano for a few minutes, and finally Hannah and I left. We decided we would make Monday night coffee shop visits something of a tradition. 

We stayed up late that night chatting and being silly, and ended up writing a poem of our own composed of lines we had said (and found particularly amusing) earlier that night. Here was the final result:

Actually, I Need One More Distraction

Did you ever realize

that when you tap your nose

you are actually tapping a part

of your face?

Do you realize?

Give me a character

that doesn’t have a seizure

at every chance he gets.

And I have tears

coming from my nose.

What do you do with extra strappage?

Sorry if that’s something that you don’t wonder

but it really is germane to my life at the moment.

High, high, high

in the night sky-

like a fly...

slowly waving goodbye

Good God, what was

in that coffee?

Gingle Berry

My favorite pokemon

So it's pokemon profile picture month on facebook, and in celebration of that, I decided to write about my all-time favorite pokemon. I was always a gameboy fan (as opposed to the anime or trading cards), and my first game was Silver Version, so I consider myself a second-generation person. Well, I did kind of collect the cards, but more because they were pretty. I distinctly remember trading a level hundred Rhyhorn (or Rhydon, whatever the evolved form was) for a level seventy Rapidash, because rapidash was this beautiful fire unicorn, whereas rhydon/horn was this ugly grey thing.  Also, I was disappointed in both the game and the cards that pikachu was actually a terrible pokemon (unless you're playing Super Smash Bros, in which Pikachu is quite excellent). Also, I would like to remind people reading this that I am a very cool person, despite being a huge pokemon nerd.

My number one favorite is a second-gen legendary ice type-- Suicune! She's pretty. And not very good, as far as legendary types go, but still. It's Suicune. How could you not like her? (she just seems like a girl pokemon, so I refer to her as "she") Traditionally, I'm not a huge fan of ice types, mostly because they're never very good, the exception being the half-ice pokemon, like Dewgong (half water), Jynx (half psychic), Articuno (half flying), etc. Suicune is probably the only pure ice type that I would ever actually keep and use in battle. Like I said, she's not great as far as legendary pokemon go, but as far as all the other normal ones, she's wonderful.

The rest aren't in any particular order, so here we go: 

First-gen ghost type-- I actually prefer haunter to gengar, probably just because you can't evolve him without trading him, so I never actually had a gengar and I just ended up getting used to haunter. I loved the dream eater attack! And night shade was always fun at lower levels. The part poison side was kind of a downer when fighting psychic gyms (ghosts are supposed to be good against psychic!), but the Gastly/Haunter/Gengar trio always made up for it by never being affected by normal or ground type moves. 

Ditto! I love ditto! He's cute, versatile, and awesome! (a first-gen normal type that can change his appearance to any other form, including other pokemon whose movesets he duplicates) I've actually never had the patience to train one, because it's difficult to use a ditto unless you are fighting a battle in which you are a higher level than the opponent, and I never trained my pokemon to very high levels; I tended to use the type advantage system more (elite four? I would beat them with a party at level forty or forty five, just rotating who was first at every battle). Still, one day I'll train one!

Caterpie-- I'm  not usually into bug types, but I like it that he evolves into a part-bug, part-psychic bug-type (after getting through the annoying metapod stage), and I like caterpie over butterfree just because he's a cute green caterpillar. I don't like Beedrill/Weedle because he's part poison, and I think I like poison even less then I like bug type. A very useless type.

Finally, here is one of the only third-gen pokemon that I think are really great: the fighting/psychic/dark wolf Lucario. He's in SSB Brawl and he looks cool and he has a great moveset, and he's just awesome. What else do you need? (I can never remember whether the other half of him is psychic or dark, but both types of moves show up on his learnset, as well as lots of steel! Very useful.)

Well, that's not ALL of my favorites, but just the ones off the top of my head. I'm also a pretty big Articuno fan (did anyone else notice that the three first-gen legendary birds were named ArticUNO, ZapDOS, and MolTRES?), and I like the second-gen Ferligator (evolved from the starter Totodile-- here is an awesome picture to the right), and Arcanine. And Venonat. Fun fact about Venonat: he was originally going to evolve into Butterfree, while Metapod was going to evolve into Venomoth. It makes sense if you look at the pictures (below):

                                      


You can see Venonat's eyes and pincers and hands in Butterfree , while Venomoth's eyes and head kind of reflect what Metapod may have originally evolved into. It's even apparent in their types; Butterfree and Venonat are both psychic/bug, while Venomoth is just bug and (I think) flying. Not sure why this didn't happen, but I'm always happy that Butterfree is a twice-evolved pokemon. I always sort of feel like that makes them more powerful than the once-evolved ones. Even if you are a bug type.

Well, I think I'm pokemon'd out. Just kidding, that's impossible. All of you pokemon generation people, don't forget to change your profile picture!! Happy pokemon month! 

(oh, and isn't there some holiday that happens in December? Happy December holiday month, too!)