This End Up...

A short note before we begin: The new Godiva is far too focused on art and peanut butter, and needs to go back to what it does best, which is classic amazing chocolate. Why does my caramel taste slightly of toasted coconut? Further proof of my assessment's validity.

Also: I am thoroughly tired of login pages telling me that my password is wrong. It is not wrong. It is a saved password, and pops up automatically. So why said password should be rejected on the first attempt and accepted--without changes or corrections; same automated password--on the second try is a mystery.

NOW: on with the profundity, which is really just spectacular fecundity of thought.

I was sitting in the Bookstore Cafe today, reading my Sartre like a good little grad student, when I had a thought. Backstory: the Sarte was from Black Orpheus, an assessment of the Negritud poetry movement that effectively made the Black voice a "true" voice by virtue of its removal from worldliness, simultaneously essentializing and primitivizing it, and also Othered the so-called White voice by making it unnatural. The essay did this, not the Negritud movement, which began in the Caribbean and was seen as the first kind of Black poetry, despite the fact that the writers of it were largely of a privileged or criollo background that was itself traditionally racist. But then so were most things in the 20s-50s. Of any century so far.

Anyway, sitting in the Cafe, drinking my mocha and reading when I am thumped on the head by a realization. I always thought that the idea posited in the West Wing first season episode called "The Crackpots and These Women," about Big Block of Cheese Day-- *Note: I looked it up, and it's not actually that episode; it's a second season episode called "Somebody's Going to Emergency, Somebody's Going to Jail." But I just couldn't get rid of Big Block of Cheese Day; when am I ever going to be able to write that again? Seriously.*Note 2: I was not wrong! It just happened to be Big Block of Cheese Day: Season II. Yay me. And no more reading Sorkin scripts.

Regardless, in this episode, CJ take a meeting with an organization that wants to flip the map upside-down, so that North is down. I pretty much dismissed it as weird and moved on. But when I was reading this really skewed version of reality and literature by Sartre, the episode came to me again. I never thought that maps, of all things, might be influenced by politics or racial privilege, but here's what I started thinking about in the Bookstore Cafe.

Let's say that the universe is viewed on a horizontal plane, two dimensional. Who's to say which side of that plane is "up?" What if God, wherever He happens to reside, views it from the "other" side? We're just as upside-down from Australia as it is from us, so why is North up? It really only makes sense when you consider who was doing the cartography.*Note: I have since been surfing around on the Internet--between reading West Wing scripts and checking Facebook for outside recognition of my existence--and found "upside-down" maps that dovetail quite well with this idea. Maps from Australia that have it up and the Eastern hemisphere front and center.

Also (this is where it gets a little more harebrained, but at the time I thought it was inspired), if magnetic north is why north is "up," then we have to consider: why would a very large deposit of exceptionally heavy magnetic material be on top of the world, instead of at the bottom of it?

Think about it: in our world, heavy substances are drawn toward the center of the earth, the point around which we rotate. What if the solar system, in terms of the universe as a whole, does the same thing? What if, a hundred or a thousand years from now, we discover the rotational center of the universe? And what if our magnetic north has been drawn toward it this whole time? Doesn't it just make sense that something like a big lump of magnetic material--it seems like it would not be on top of anything, is my point--not acting like some sort of planetary paperweight, but more as ballast, meaning it would be on the bottom of the planet.

I do believe that I have just blown my own mind.

I'd also be willing to bet that I just blew yours, too, if only with the fact that, if you're still reading, you read this whole thing. Why in God's name didn't you do something more productive with that time? Read a West Wing script, have dinner, get blasted out of your skull? You do know you're never going to get that time back, right? But that is what happens here: randomness, from big blocks of cheese to ontological geology and astronomy. Yet another example of how I roll, and how wobbly that trajectory really is.

Poem in progress:

Her Name was Lola

wicked she was--must have been

as any little girl given rubies before her time

little girls in gingham and rubies

on a path of gold to a rich man's house

and such a good witch

whipped white like butter and

frosting--or cotton candy

queen sending a little girl

all gingham and rubies

to an old man's house

that's why, Glinda dear, you too are witch

no fairy or godmother who might

serve up milk, cookies and a home

without clicking heels or ultimatums

not you, not godmother

finding a little lost girl

dust her off, dress her up

on a path paved with gold intentions

To Be Continued (then revised)

Song of the Moment: "New York Minute"~Don Henley

Oh, Nostalgia

Ever notice how the movies you loved when you were little usually end up being total cheese if you watch them as an adult?

This is, of course, not true of all movies, such as Charlotte's Web, Fern Gully, anything Disney, animated or live action. But things like, say, Labyrinth. Or the movie that I just finished watching, Dragonheart. I remember loving that movie. But watching it just now on--what else---the CW, I was struck by what an absolutely horrid movie it really is. In all honesty the storyline has a lot of promise: dragon shares a heart with dying boy only to have boy turn into evil king, and in the ultimate sacrifice dies so that evil king might die, too. Seriously, the stuff of classic fantasy. I even like the way the dragon is animated, in a digitized Jim Henson style. But as soon as you see his mouth moving and Sean Connery's voice coming out of it, we're done. Added to that the lame dialogue; the declarations of plot by the main characters; the freakish combination of Dennis Quaid, long hair and a semi-developed character; the piss-poor fight choreography, including a few scenes in which a 5'6" woman takes on and beats two full-fledged knights, not by being nimble but in a blow-for-blow axe fight--right, that's gonna happen; and last but not least, the ridiculous "look to the stars" epilogue. Gag me.

The cool thing, though is that there were several actors in it who have since moved on to better things. Dennis is, fortunately, not one of them. But obviously Sean Connery is just amazing, end of story. And then there are David Thewlis and Jason Isaacs. No, they're not exactly Brad or Mel (in)famous, but they are ever so much more important. Why, you may ask. Because they, Mssrs. Thewlis and Isaacs, are key players in the ongoing Harry Potter saga. I was watching the Dragonheart, and knew that I knew the evil king from somewhere, so the next step was logical: the Internet Movie Database (IMDb). Turns out the actor was our Mr. Thewlis, who just happens to play Professor Remus Lupin in The Prisoner of Azkaban and in the forthcoming Order of the Phoenix, which is due to wrap filming this month. Also featured in those movies, and I believe in all the other ones, is Mr. Isaacs, aka Distilled Disdain, aka Lucius Malfoy. Such a good pick for the role, especially after his performance in The Patriot.

One of the actors that I have not seen in a Harry Potter movie and would like to see is Patrick Stewart. Yes, I know that he's pretty much Captain Picard, but I always thought that Alan Rickman would always be the Sheriff of Nottingham (Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves), and yet he is not only a wonderful Snape but has been able to branch out and do a marvelous job in Love Actually. I think that Jean-Luc--I mean, Patrick--would be able to branch out just as admirably. Also, I think it might be cool if Sean Connery had a part, though that might be to many Lowlandesque accents.

Well, that was a lot. I think I'm going to watch David Bowie in near-drag now. I know, I know--I just finished saying that Labyrinth was cheese, but it's cult cheese with some good music, awesome Jim Henson puppets, and great childhood memories attached. Not gonna lie, I'm still kind of turned on by David like this, even though my brain goes euuw. I may follow it up with one of Tom Cruise's earlier works, Legend. Also cheese, but I have an absolutely clear memory of the first time we watched it. I was either 6 or 7, and we were living on East Carmel in Mesa, AZ. My dad was at an academy--I think it was the NCO (Non-Commissioned Officer) academy that time. When Dad went away, Mom and my brothers and I would have at least one night that was a "sleepover" night. That day we went to Blockbuster, got Labyrinth, and then to the Giraffe Frozen Yogurt place for pistachio fro-yo. That night we had dinner then got into our PJs. Mom gave us each a pillow and sent us out the back door so we could go around to the front door and ring the bell like at a real sleepover. We had M&Ms, and I was eating the pistachio yogurt the first time I saw Tim Curry as the Lord of Darkness. It was awesome.

Oh, nostalgia.

Song of the Moment: "Dance Magic"~David Bowie from Labyrinth


PS. If you've never heard Meli Barber swear, you really should. Seriously, one of the funniest and most shocking things ever.