It was the mother who told Thelma she was a "born storyteller." This was false. She had a phenomenal recollection of detail- what any true writer could have done with that!- but no sense of what made a story worth telling. As they waded through baked trout, artichoke hearts, and a not-bad Chablis, Thelma rambled through a childhood recorded but not really taken in. Listening to her was like viewing someone's vacation slides. Of course, Thelma had a story- everyone has a story- but she did not seem to know what it was, and didn't know she didn't know. Knowing what your story is, Amy was fond of telling her classes, was what separated writers from everybody else.
-from Amy Falls Down
by Jincy Willett
Friday, May 20, 2016
Wednesday, March 16, 2016
First-World Problems
Here's how it plays out: The end of any typical day, perhaps spent working or cleaning house or stuck in traffic. A decent meal, the dog's been walked, and the endless, pointless, mindless drone of "Murder, She Wrote" or "The Good Wife" flickers from the TV set. Dishes are mostly taken care of, except for the odd glass or dessert plate which sit in the sink. Your limbs seem to fill with wet sand. It becomes physically impossible to hold your eyes open as some neurochemical courses through your veins shutting off the proverbial lights and drawing the curtains. You fall into a fitful drowse, despite the fact that you are sitting upright and your jeans are cutting into your waistline and in the back of your mind you keep telling yourself that you have to rinse off that fork in the sink. For an hour or so, you drift in and out of consciousness as your spouse tiptoes off to bed, as you wake yourself up snoring, or as Jessica Fletcher finds yet another dead body in her living room. Each time, for that brief moment before drifting off again, you think to yourself that you need to get to bed and you remember that stupid fork in the sink and it's all so overwhelming that you have to just rest here for a minute longer...
Eventually, your Iron Will as an autonomous human being vanquishes the melatonin and seratonin which have been marinating your brain, and you manage to lift yourself off of your chair or your couch or futon. Eyes half-closed, you blearily rinse the goddam fork. You stumble into the bathroom and take care of your teeth. Leaving a trail of clothing which makes it look like you've been on a drunken honeymoon for one, you shuffle into the bedroom, where the husband and the dog are already blissfully sleeping. You fall, practically face-first, into the bed.
And you are wide, wide awake.
Friday, March 4, 2016
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
TRUTH IN ADVERTISING
My mom watched the CBS Evening News as far back as I can remember, back to the days when you wouldn't be shocked to see one of the newscasters light up a Lucky on camera. She never called it "the news", though. It was always "Walter Cronkite", as in, "Jack! Turn the TV on! I want to watch Walter Cronkite." Even after it was Dan Rather, it was still "Walter Cronkite."
I wish I could say that I inherited that habit from my mother, but in truth I can't say that I did. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so for me at least part of the 6:00 news every night included body counts and stories about places named Quảng Trị and Khe Sanh, and Walter Cronkite had me so filled with pre-teen angst about actually reaching adulthood that the news was the last thing I was interested in. That all changed in September of 2001. One of the countless changes, big and small, which took place in our world on that morning was that I suddenly started to pay attention. But, even if I didn't inherit my mother's interest in "the news", I did at least inherit her preference for which of the Big 3 networks to sit down and watch every evening. I can see her now, smoking away on her Chesterfields and picking loose tobacco from her teeth, often snuggled into a fluffy bathrobe because she was always cold. I think she would have liked Scott Pelley, although she still would have called the program "Walter Cronkite."
Now, many would argue that network TV news is pablum for the masses; and some would say even worse, that we are being manipulated by a small number of shadowy entities who control what information we are given and how it is presented. And I would agree 100% with nearly all of those arguments. Luckily, I also inherited my mother's ability to consider many sides to a story, her curiosity, and her ability to read books. Plus, I know that if a news story is truly important or truly momentous in history, I will be hearing about every possible side of the story and every ridiculous argument, every morning for months when I turn on my laptop and scroll through my Facebook news feed.
But I digress.
My observation here has actually nothing to do with the news, but rather the commercials which are being shown to those of us who watch the news.
I have long been interested in a concept called "target demographics". This is where a particular product, or service, or advertisement, whatever, is being directed to a specific portion of the population, for example, white men aged 18-25. This is a very important concept in the modern marketplace, because if a company is spending millions of dollars on a commercial campaign, they want to be sure that the commercial is being seen by the right people, that is, by potential customers. You don't make a commercial for Chick-Fil-A and then buy airtime during "RuPaul's Drag Race".
So, anyway, what I have decided is that the only people, apparently, who watch "Walter Cronkite" are the aged and the infirm, because 99% of the commercials shown during that half hour are for Buicks and prescription drugs.
I read somewhere that, when non-Americans are asked to list things about America which they find strange, the fact that we have commercials for prescription drugs is right up there with "portion sizes". And it is odd that millions of dollars are being spent marketing a product to us which we can't even actually buy. Think about that for a minute. How many people actually walk into the doctor's office and say, "Hey, Doc, I'd really like to get some Xarelto!" ?
It's even odder when you look at how these medicines are marketed to us. Disease and treatment have been reduced to a sort of silly cartoon, or like "Candy Crush". We see people portrayed as little origami paper-fold-people, as copper plumbing pipe-people, or as inflatable balloon-people. We see happy diabetics tossing a Frisbee to one another as we hear about "Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Syndrome Type II". In one commercial, a woman is being bullied by her little animated bladder, who won't even let her ride the bus or go bowling in peace; then we see the little bladder sitting in the doctor's office, listening attentively while they discuss overactive bladder. It's all just too surreal, when you think about it.
They've all been topped, though, by the latest campaign for a drug called "Xifaxan". Xifaxan is an antibiotic. An antibiotic! Anyway, it's supposed to be useful in treating IBS: Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The commercial? You guessed it: a little, pink, animated colon. In the first commercial, we first see him? it?... a non-threatening little anthropomorphic ball of intestine, as he runs off, presumably to the bathroom with a case of "urgent" diarrhea. Later, presumably after treatment with Xifaxan®, we see the little bucket of guts admiring fish in an aquarium, and finally able to enjoy a meal in a nice restaurant, albeit all alone. See what being an irritable bowel will get you?
Well, it gets even worse. They actually released a new Xifaxan ad for Super Bowl Sunday, and the little pink bowel has even been given a name; "GutGuy." Well, in this one, we see "GutGuy" at The Big Game, tailgating, high-fiving (gross), even being searched by one of those hand-held wand metal detectors. I mean, really? Think about everything that that implies. At the end of the commercial, GutGuy, a little, pink, animated bundle of intestines, ends up on the JumboTron, his little colon-mouth hanging open and waving at the crowd like the Pope.
Can I really be the only person who sees this stuff and just thinks to himself, "What the fuck.....?"
I wish I could say that I inherited that habit from my mother, but in truth I can't say that I did. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, so for me at least part of the 6:00 news every night included body counts and stories about places named Quảng Trị and Khe Sanh, and Walter Cronkite had me so filled with pre-teen angst about actually reaching adulthood that the news was the last thing I was interested in. That all changed in September of 2001. One of the countless changes, big and small, which took place in our world on that morning was that I suddenly started to pay attention. But, even if I didn't inherit my mother's interest in "the news", I did at least inherit her preference for which of the Big 3 networks to sit down and watch every evening. I can see her now, smoking away on her Chesterfields and picking loose tobacco from her teeth, often snuggled into a fluffy bathrobe because she was always cold. I think she would have liked Scott Pelley, although she still would have called the program "Walter Cronkite."
Now, many would argue that network TV news is pablum for the masses; and some would say even worse, that we are being manipulated by a small number of shadowy entities who control what information we are given and how it is presented. And I would agree 100% with nearly all of those arguments. Luckily, I also inherited my mother's ability to consider many sides to a story, her curiosity, and her ability to read books. Plus, I know that if a news story is truly important or truly momentous in history, I will be hearing about every possible side of the story and every ridiculous argument, every morning for months when I turn on my laptop and scroll through my Facebook news feed.
But I digress.
My observation here has actually nothing to do with the news, but rather the commercials which are being shown to those of us who watch the news.
I have long been interested in a concept called "target demographics". This is where a particular product, or service, or advertisement, whatever, is being directed to a specific portion of the population, for example, white men aged 18-25. This is a very important concept in the modern marketplace, because if a company is spending millions of dollars on a commercial campaign, they want to be sure that the commercial is being seen by the right people, that is, by potential customers. You don't make a commercial for Chick-Fil-A and then buy airtime during "RuPaul's Drag Race".
So, anyway, what I have decided is that the only people, apparently, who watch "Walter Cronkite" are the aged and the infirm, because 99% of the commercials shown during that half hour are for Buicks and prescription drugs.
I read somewhere that, when non-Americans are asked to list things about America which they find strange, the fact that we have commercials for prescription drugs is right up there with "portion sizes". And it is odd that millions of dollars are being spent marketing a product to us which we can't even actually buy. Think about that for a minute. How many people actually walk into the doctor's office and say, "Hey, Doc, I'd really like to get some Xarelto!" ?
It's even odder when you look at how these medicines are marketed to us. Disease and treatment have been reduced to a sort of silly cartoon, or like "Candy Crush". We see people portrayed as little origami paper-fold-people, as copper plumbing pipe-people, or as inflatable balloon-people. We see happy diabetics tossing a Frisbee to one another as we hear about "Multiple Endocrine Neoplasia Syndrome Type II". In one commercial, a woman is being bullied by her little animated bladder, who won't even let her ride the bus or go bowling in peace; then we see the little bladder sitting in the doctor's office, listening attentively while they discuss overactive bladder. It's all just too surreal, when you think about it.
They've all been topped, though, by the latest campaign for a drug called "Xifaxan". Xifaxan is an antibiotic. An antibiotic! Anyway, it's supposed to be useful in treating IBS: Irritable Bowel Syndrome. The commercial? You guessed it: a little, pink, animated colon. In the first commercial, we first see him? it?... a non-threatening little anthropomorphic ball of intestine, as he runs off, presumably to the bathroom with a case of "urgent" diarrhea. Later, presumably after treatment with Xifaxan®, we see the little bucket of guts admiring fish in an aquarium, and finally able to enjoy a meal in a nice restaurant, albeit all alone. See what being an irritable bowel will get you?
Well, it gets even worse. They actually released a new Xifaxan ad for Super Bowl Sunday, and the little pink bowel has even been given a name; "GutGuy." Well, in this one, we see "GutGuy" at The Big Game, tailgating, high-fiving (gross), even being searched by one of those hand-held wand metal detectors. I mean, really? Think about everything that that implies. At the end of the commercial, GutGuy, a little, pink, animated bundle of intestines, ends up on the JumboTron, his little colon-mouth hanging open and waving at the crowd like the Pope.
Can I really be the only person who sees this stuff and just thinks to himself, "What the fuck.....?"
Tuesday, February 9, 2016
PERSPECTIVE
You Matter :)Remember, you're one of a kind. :) <3 #LoveWhatMattersVideo courtesy of Cobi Sewell
Posted by Love What Matters on Monday, February 8, 2016
Tuesday, January 26, 2016
Saturday, January 23, 2016
Humble and Kind
This song is so special to me. I really wanted a video that showed the universality of the message of Humble and Kind. Thanks to Wes Edwards for executing this vision and to Oprah Winfrey for lending us scenes of Belief from all over the world. I hope you like it as much as I do.
Posted by Tim McGraw on Thursday, January 21, 2016
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