On Birds, Blogging, Unanswered Email, and Magnetic Poetry

SATURDAY
Photographed by: Brandon
Posted to: Brandon's Flickr Account


MONDAY

Email: 1:53 PM
From: Peefer
To: Jill
Subject: Fresh, Exciting and New
[bunch of thoughtful stuff about web design]


TUESDAY
Photographed by: Jill
Posted to: Jill's Flickr Account

Location: Jill's Flickr Account
Comments
Scott : Too cool. You're like a National Geographic photographer now. This means, of course, that you have to stop shaving your legs and armpits. Sorry, it's a union thing. Hello, Jill.

WEDNESDAY

Email: 9:49 PM
From: Jill
To: Brandon
Subject: I feel so awful…
[...] Everything is coming out flat. This fucking sucks. I’m giving up writing. I’m going to move into the forest and photograph birds.

Reply: 9:25 PM
[Notice the reply is EARLIER than the initial email. This is because my computer is POSSESSED.]
From: Brandon
To: Jill
Subject: Re: I feel so awful…
[...] sorry, but moving to the forest and photographing birds is a position that HAS ALREADY BEEN FILLED, SISTER [...] silly [...]

Re-reply: 10:41PM
From: Jill
To: Brandon
Subject: Re: Re: I feel so awful…
[...] I’m feeling Silly Jill coming on tonight [...]
I am totally coming to the forest to join you.
Birds. Fucking. Love. Me.


THURSDAY

Location: Brandon’s Blog
Brandon’s post about… uh… not sure… “And By X, I Mean Y”. Just make up a sentence that somehow follows that pattern.
Brandon writes: Okay, someone please tell me what this ubiquitous rhetorical device is called, because it’s frickin hilarious, and by hilarious I mean enough already.

Comments
8:26AM
Jill: Is this what you were doing while I was suffering, and by suffering I mean not receiving a response to my last f***ing email?

8:58AM
Brandon: [...] Jill, technically, i was drinking. Yikes.

9:24AM
Peefer: Brandon, you'd better respond to Jill's last f***ing e-mail real soon, because only then apparently will SHE respond to MY last f***ing e-mail. Just saying [...]

9:30AM
Brandon: normally i'm very good about responding to emails and by normally i mean rarely. and by very good i mean very bad. unless used together in the same sentence.


Location: Jill’s blog
Jill’s post about… uh… not sure… there was a pen involved.
Jill writes: [...] the only thing you care not for in your hands, a pen.
Your words scrawled: a mere practicality.

Comments
9:52AM
Brandon: EXACTLY. I care not for a pen in my hands, and by pen i mean notebook computer. And that's why I didn't respond to your email, because my words are a mere practicality, and by mere practicality i mean i passed out 2 seconds after posting to my blog.


Location: Brandon's blog
Comments
1:01PM
Jill: /begin rant

PEEFER, answering your email has been on the top of my guilt-inducing-to-do-list, and by guilt-inducing-to-do-list, I mean STUFF I AM TOTALLY NOT SMART ENOUGH TO GET DONE THIS WEEK. But rest assured, I think of doing it several times a day. In fact, I just re-visited your blog, thinking, WHY CAN'T I JUST COMPOSE AN INTELLIGENT EMAIL????????

BRANDON, well I hope your drinks can leave you naughty voicemails, cause I sure as hell will not be doing so.

JILL, stop being a crazy bitch and go do something useful.

/end rant

Email: 1:53PM
From: Peefer
To: Jill
Subject: WHY CAN'T I JUST COMPOSE AN INTELLIGENT EMAIL????????
I believe you're making the erroneous assumption that intelligence is paramount.

Reply: 3:01PM
From: Jill
To: Peefer
Subject: Re: WHY CAN'T I JUST COMPOSE AN INTELLIGENT EMAIL????????
[...] Uh, yeah. Perhaps it's not intelligence. Perhaps what I should have said is that "This week, I lack the power to focus." And therefore, can't get myself to sit down and complete tasks that I have been planning to complete. I have completed many things THAT WERE NOT PLANNED but nothing that arose from previous intention.

In other words, my id has taken over, and my superego has been hog-tied.

Like, my id is totally babbling this right now. My superego wants desperately to open your earlier email and discuss [thoughtful stuff about web design], but my id is like "No way! I'm going to babble! AND THEN, you are going to take this pile of magnetic poetry and sort it into PARTS OF SPEECH. But not really parts of speech, because some words are several parts of speech; and some parts of speech we will separate. Like forms of "be" and other helping verbs must be separated from action verbs. Because you often look for the be/helping verbs for functionality, but the action verbs are more for BROWSING FOR INSPIRATION."

Reply, Continued: Now
From: Jill
To: Peefer and Blogosphere
And why I am sorting my magnetic poetry? Well, first, because I have a lot of it. And everyone knows, you can’t properly use something you have a wide assortment of unless you know what is IN the assortment. That’s why we have ARCHIVISTS, for God’s sake. Archiving requires degrees. That’s why LIBRARY SCIENCE is an actual course of study.

And besides just wanting to write some things with the magnetic poetry, I also had the thought that I would mail one of my friends a message in magnetic poetry. You know, to be reassembled. It would only be 2 sentences, and there really wouldn’t be any way he could get the message wrong, unless he can justify to himself some way that “rock told you remember” conveys actual meaning, and if so, I’d hate to think what he’d have to tell himself to make the remaining words seem like a coherent thought.

Because sometimes I send my friends random things. Like pictures of snow.

Or paint swatches.

Oh, no joke.

One of my friends received a paint swatch in his Christmas card; I’m sure his first thought was something along the lines of W.T.F., or maybe more like “Uh, Jill… W! T! F! ?” but the paint swatch had a message inked on it, and I’m thinking the message--which was in no way related to any sane message that one would expect to accompany a paint swatch, such as "Do you think I should paint my office this color?", or "Wouldn't this be a cool shade for edible body paint?"--made sense after following the proper directions, making the paint swatch make actual sense, given the context.

Though I can’t be sure, because we never spoke of it.

That’s right, we’ve just carried on for 4 months of emails and voicemails and assorted other interactions NEVER HAVING MENTIONED THE FACT THAT THERE WAS A RANDOM PAINT SWATCH ATTACHED TO HIS CHRISTMAS CARD.

And I can honestly say: Jill, W.T.F.? How do you find people that think it’s perfectly reasonable that you would send a paint swatch completely unrelated to a Christmas card, and they would continue interacting with you as if this were an everyday occurrence, that they get paint swatches in their Christmas cards? Or maybe I should say annual occurrence? Because who sends Christmas cards at all--let alone with paint swatches attached--at any other time of year, so as to make it possible for it to be an everyday occurrence?

[Note--Anaglyph, your Christmas card has been re-mailed. Coming Soon! Look for it in a post office near you!]

And--perhaps more importantly--how can we find more of those people?

And more people who will continue answering your emails after, in response to a discussion about web design, you send a treatise on compartmentalizing your magnetic poetry?

And--perhaps MOST importantly--CAN WE BUY MORE MAGNETIC POETRY?

Because we really don't have enough. There was no "rock", so we're going to have to MAKE a rock--that's right, MAKE A ROCK, one of us should call a geologist and find out how we do that--if we intend to send the aforementioned esoteric two sentence message that cannot possibly be misinterpreted.

Not to mention we could find no "very".

And definitely no "afraid".

Strangely enough, we did find "trenchant". Go figure.

I Heart Hamlet

Hamlet is hot.

Hamlet. Shakespearean dead guy. "To be or not to be..." Jumping in graves. Talking to skulls. Crazy dude. Often over-acted. Hot.

It's not any of the things I've just mentioned (taken out of context) that do it. Those are just the images most often brought to mind when one mentions Hamlet to someone who had to suffer through a less-than-inspiring English teacher. That's just the iconography we have been brainwashed as a society into associating with the sexiest man in world literature.

Jill: Hamlet--
Unfortunate victim of bad teaching: Ugh.
Jill: No, but listen. Shakespeare--
Unfortunate victim of bad teaching: Yuch.

Those images, taken out of context, cannot approach the depth, complexity, and sheer sex appeal that is the Danish prince. In my mind.

If the following paragraph makes no sense to you, don't be alarmed. It is merely an academic wise-ass deterrent. Feel free to read on, undeterred.
Yes, not only do I recognize that this is a characterization in my mind but I also have two years of intensive study in Structuralism and its critics that ensure that if you feel the compulsion to argue with my Reading of Hamlet on a level that privileges the Author rather than my experience of the Text as a Reader, I will be quoting Roland Barthes faster than you can complain about my lack of footnotes. The Author is Dead. Let's move on.

Resume here.
Sunday was Shakespeare's (assumed) birthday. (We have only a baptismal record for April 26, and since babies were traditionally christened three days later, it is assumed that Baby Will came into the world April 23, 1564.) I could think of no better way to celebrate (I would say "this joyous occasion", but he died on April 23 as well) than to explicate upon this two word thesis: "Hamlet. Hot."

As is the case regarding most details of Shakespeariana, there has been much debate about Hamlet's age and whether the textual evidence is consistent regarding the matter. Hamlet is usually accepted to be thirty--which is only a few years younger than Ralph Fiennes was when I spent the evening just about drooling over the mezzanine of the Belasco Theatre at his portrayal of His Royal Hotness. This makes Hamlet a man entering his prime. Purrrrr...

But let's put aside the physical for a moment. Let's also disregard the fact that he's a prince. I'm not a gold-digger. Can anyone you know beat this guy's wit? From the first words he utters, the darkly sarcastic "A little more than kin and less than kind" (1.2.65), on through the playful irreverence of his antic act...

Polonius: What do you read, my lord?
Hamlet: Words, words, words.
(2.2.191-2)

...to the naughty innuendoes he makes at Ophelia while awaiting the Players' performance, how can anyone compete with him on the basis of versatility of wordplay? And for those of you who are not entirely familiar with that specific exchange of dialogue, I present

Jill's Annotated Guide to Act 3, Scene 2, Lines 102-110

Hamlet: My lady, shall I lie in your lap? (May allude to innocent cuddling; may also be translated as "So, can we f*&k?")
Ophelia: No, my lord. (Obviously he has to have said it suggestively, or else she wouldn't say no.)
Hamlet: I mean with my head upon your lap? (Here he teases her by playing innocent. How naughty is that?)
Ophelia: Ay, my lord. (So she agrees.)
Hamlet: Do you think I meant country matters? ("You thought I meant something dirty, didn't you?" What a tease!)
Ophelia: I think nothing, my lord. (By the way, "nothing" or "0" was slang for vagina.)
Hamlet: That's a fair thought to lie between a maids' legs. ("Yep, that's a lovely thing to be between a girl's legs.")
Ophelia: What is, my lord? (Isn't she so decorous you could just scream?)
Hamlet: Nothing. (Essentially, "Pu$$y.")
Ophelia: You are merry, my lord. (Evidently, he conveyed the innuendo, because she basically says, "Wow, you're in a good mood tonight, huh?")

So: he is at his peak physically, and he has a prodigious wit, with a sex drive to match. And to pull off this interchange without getting slapped--how charming does this guy have to be? And not only with women--he has to have a certain disarming aura with men as well, or he wouldn't be able to so gracefully call Rosencrantz and Guildenstern's bluff when they try to pretend that they're not there to fish information out of him on behalf of Claudius (2.2). Not to mention that he would never have realized their intention in the first place if he didn't possess a finely-tuned ability to read people--a skill also illustrated when he realizes that he is being messed with when he is called to visit his mother's chambers (3.2.358-9).

Please tell me that you are beginning to swoon.

What about his intellect and psychological complexity? He's more intelligent than just about everyone else in the play, with only Horatio as his possible equal. He's obviously well-read in the classics, as demonstrated by his various allusions, and his easy references to Aeneas and Dido in discussion with the Players (2.2). He dryly suffers pompous fools such as Polonius and Osric, but not without getting in a few jabs at their expense.

He is living in a time and place experiencing a transition from a religious to a scientific worldview. Soooo he entertains thoughts of suicide for a moment or two--so what? He is struggling with a religious upbringing, but clearly leaning toward humanism--no doubt in large part to his university education and having lived in Wittenburg. (You know how wild and liberal those university towns are.) In fact, early on (1.2.174) he promises he'll teach Horatio to drink hard before he returns to school--all this, and the man can hold his liquor, too!

By the way, he can fence. Well.

Need more?

Not only can he recognize shrewd machinations, but he is able to put them into effect himself. (I can't help it--I like my men Machiavellian. And good at it.) The Mousetrap--"The play's the thing/Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king" (2.2.583-4)...? Sheer. Freakin'. Genius.

Suriviving the pirate attack? Resourceful.

Rewriting the letter to have Rosencrantz and Guildenstern killed instead of him? A tad cruel, possibly sociopathic--but definitive. You don't mess with my boy Hamlet.

Jumping in the grave to counter Laertes' drama, declaring "This is I, / Hamlet the Dane" (5.1.241-2)...? One word: badass.

When I go to literary Elysium, I am totally sleeping with Hamlet. Don't even think about trying to fight me for him.

And don't bother getting in line behind me, either.


Happy belated birthday, Billy. What are you now, 442? That's a lot of candles.

Baggage (Part 1)

Jeremy taught me how to pack.

Of course, he didn't teach me until he realized I was bad at it, which was right about when he saw me unpacking in a hotel in Rome. It was my first time out of the US. I was 18. Being taught how to most effectively pack a suitcase might not sound like a particularly formative experience, but coming from a writer who lists "wanderlust" as her favorite word, this is nearly in the realm of the sublime.

Soggy January, 1994. My first year of college, his second. We were on a study trip with a university group. He had packed for nearly two weeks in one large military duffel bag. He unpacked quickly, showered for dinner quickly, met me and my rooming buddy in our room. Two girls with long hair. We were not ready. My clothes were everywhere. And they were wrinkled. Grunge may have been in, but there was no need for wrinkled dinnerwear.

He knocked some idiosyncratic knock that I now wish I could remember. I opened the door and--though I was pretty hot for him--thought nothing of letting him see the mess. He'd known me for three months; if he didn't like my mess, then he didn't like me. His black button-down was wrinkle-free, no doubt due to the miracle of a steamy shower. He strolled on in and took up more space in the room than I would have expected from a guy his size.

"Hasn't anyone taught you how to pack?" A bit more bite in his voice than I'd been hoping to detect. I gave it back to him.

"Why, are you going to show me?" I knew he'd traveled a lot, but I wasn't sure a man could teach me how to organize my own wardrobe.

Great job, Jill. Bait him. Good plan.

What did you expect? I was 18. I hadn't yet learned how to check my ego at the door. (Um...have I fully learned that yet? I don't know.) I wasn't about to take any crap from a know-it-all upperclassman, no matter how turquoise his eyes. Though, if I knew then what I know now, I probably would have realized from the pragmatic way he would arrive in a new city and have a gameplan for us all before we'd even showered, that he was someone to be reckoned with. And that perhaps I shouldn't bait him. His glibness and self-importance notwithstanding.

Seriously, he could make things happen. Like a few months before. In Chicago. It was a weekend trip. I'm not sure what we were supposed to be learning. We'd been seated next to each other on the flight out, as the seats had been arranged alphabetically by last name. Only a few weeks into my first semester of college, I would be spending my birthday with a horde of students I didn't know. It was our first extended conversation.

(Technically we first spoke at the meet-n-greet, wherein the upperclassmen were supposed to welcome the freshmen. Months later, I learned that it was more like the upperclassmen rating the freshmen. Ah, adolescence.)

As we checked in and found our rooms, Jeremy surveyed the people we'd become friendly with. He discovered food preferences, dietary restrictions. He found a guidebook. He located an appropriate restaurant. I think he may even have made reservations. He made plans for after dinner. He figured out to get to the Improv. (And all the while, he took a series of really cool photos which I saw when he developed them a week or so later.)

What, a man with organizational skills?

This was astounding to me. I'd gone to a very competitive all-girls high school. The place was filled with leaders. Girls who could organize a prom in their sleep. Girls who could stage-manage a cast of 50. Girls who could raise $100,000 for the charity of your choice. We didn't mess around. I wasn't used to a man taking charge. (Isn't that ironic? Such is the value of same-sex education.)

I was enamored. Wow. Slight problem, though. Sorta-boyfriend back home. (Eventually, it turned out that the sorta-bf wasn't into the whole "monogomy" thing, and the unbelievable self-control I demonstrated by not kissing Jeremy right in the hotel lobby for his amazing freakin' competence at all things I was just discovering that I found impressive was for naught. But hey, live and learn. Next time you don't kiss someone, think of me.)

So, back to Italy: He folded and rolled and stacked my clothes, tough-love-teasing all the way through. Besides mocking my packing skills, he had to rub it in that his French was way better than my Italian and was more likely to help us out of a jam, even in Rome. Bastard. I wanted to slap him. But I also wanted to kiss him. Again. Which I didn't. Again.

(Still had the sorta-bf back home, who by this time had left me for his ex and came back. You'd think I would have learned my lesson, but no. Good job, Jill. Don't kiss the cute bi-lingual world-traveling intellectual photographer with killer taste in music who makes you excellent mix tapes monthly. Who, by the way, also had single-handedly organized the outing for the evening of your 18th birthday. Good job!)

Tune in tomorrow...or the next day?...for more of "How stupid was Jill at 18?"

The Island

I've just discovered another entry for my list of Fictional Characters I Have Lusted After.

Do not mistake this as a ringing endorsement for The Island as a piece of cinematic history. It's a hybrid sci-fi/action flick, and if you don't like to mix your sci-fi with your action or vice versa, you're very likely going to get a bit ticked off. If you're not a purist, though, you might just be entertained. Because just when the sci-fi looks as if it might get heavy, just at that place where it started becoming painful to sit through A.I., The Island shifts gears. And if you like your action heroes to be ruthless and don't mind their impossibly-good luck, then you'll have a damn good time. I did, even when I was not gawking at Ewan McGregor.

I won't spoil the big mystery of The Island, but I think it wouldn't be a spoiler if I conceded that, yes, in fact, the movie is what the trailer makes it out to be: a metaphor for treating humans with dignity. For not living lives of quiet desperation. Et cetera. I think everyone gets that off the trailer, right?

(Some trailers are just way too transparent. Let me take you back a few years. My friend Tim and I are watching the preview of The Sixth Sense.

Jill: So...um...the Bruce Willis character is...
Jill & Tim: Dead.
Jill: Right.
Tim: Yeah.
Jill: Ok, no need to see that one.
Tim: Pass the Milk Duds.)

Well then. Back to The Island. So if the film is a metaphor for not living lives of quiet desperation, the hero will of course be the utterly-charming-and-resourceful-non-conformist. I'm a sucker for this type. I know this. All the better when played by a cute scruffy guy with a great voice. Who isn't afraid to violently wield crowbars, wrenches, and futuristic motorized vehicles of all kinds.

I won't divulge any more except this, my favorite moment. The moment when McGregor's character, Lincoln, joins my list. He had never previously encountered any motorized vehicles. He's been asleep out by a deserted stretch of highway with Jordan, Scarlett Johansson's character. A motorcycle flies by. They both wake up. He runs out onto the road. "What was that?" Jordan asks. Lincoln gets this look of pure mischief on his face. "I don't know," he replies. "But I want one."

Yeah, me too. I want one. Can I get one of him?

Dead Like Hamlet

Yesterday I interviewed my theater buddy and fellow film-obessive, Elias, for a profile I'm writing about him. (He's an actor.) As this was supposed to be a professional conversation, we tried really hard to not get off on our two favorite tangents--sci-fi and baseball. Baseball was easy to avoid because we're both currently a bit bitter: him about the Expos' flight from Montreal (did I mention he's Canadian?); me about the general state of the Yankees. But sci-fi? Sci-fi must be relevant, especially if he acts in it and I'm going to write about him acting in it. Right?

I asked him about his guest appearance on Dead Like Me last season and the bickering began. If you've been reading my recent entries you will be acquainted with my anguish over the cancellation of DLM. Elias, like many of my friends, becomes concerned when I take fictional characters too seriously. He interruped me as I was voicing my disappointment about not getting to see Daisy and Mason finally do whatever, but this time, not with "uh...they're not real..." but with "uh...they're dead." So now I have to be the one to say it: they're fictional! Who cares if they're dead or undead or whatever! I wanted to see them get together. (I know, I know, if only to live vicariously through her.)

This conversation becomes all the more ironic if you know how Elias and I met. He was co-starring in Killing Jar Jar, a play that he actually co-wrote with Andrew Farrar and which was of special interest to Star Wars geeks like me and the people I went to see it with. I was casting my play Reference Material [3am Pie] for the NY Fringe and thought that Elias would fit a difficult-to-cast part. What was it, you ask? My re-imagination of Shakespeare's fictional (and dead!) character of Hamlet, who guided our pop-culture-obsessed protagonists through the pitfalls of procrastination. Elias spent the rest of the summer in rehearsal, playing a fictional dead guy that I imagined. You know, I think that the historical reality avenges the fact that Elias won yesterday's DLM debate.

The Death of Dead Like Me

Why did no one tell me Dead Like Me was cancelled? Oh, right, the execs at Showtime sort of swept it under the rug, didn’t they? They dropped it in December, but kept the show info on their website. They’re re-running the second season (of which the DVDs are being released in July) but fail to directly state on the site that no third season is coming. They assume we know. Now Mandy Patinkin is on CBS.

As most people who know me can readily attest, I often get very attached to fictional characters. I choose to view this as a good thing, as I am a writer, and writing involves a fair amount of commitment to “people” who don’t actually exist. I am attached to the reapers on Dead Like Me. They fight over breakfast foods. They’re witty, dry & sarcastic at all hours of the day and night. They know who they are and don’t apologize for it. I want to hang out with them, and not just because Callum Blue (Mason) is the most adorable thing to come across the Atlantic since Ewan McGregor. (Ryan Kwanten is also high on my adorable list, but as he is from Australia, he likely came across the Pacific.)

If I were instantly killed by a flaming toilet seat from outer space, I wouldn’t mind Rube as a boss & surrogate parent. And if I needed a roommate in that undead afterlife, I could probably live with Daisy’s self-absorption, because she has a hell of a lot of naughty stories to tell. And she’s not as shallow as first she seemed. Just ask Mason. He’s smitten by her—utterly, inexorably, adorably smitten. I was awaiting the third season specifically to witness how the writers would finally bring them to that inevitable moment.

Well, now that there won’t be a third season, I can write my own climax, guilt-free. I think we all know who’ll be there in place of Daisy.