I was thinking about the Trinity (yes, it is the Pantheon now, but Godspell is still of a very different sort than the other three - Wicked, Fiddler, Les Mis), and I thought of something they have in common that I hadn't thought of before. Speaking of Robert Cormier's books, Lisette Allred said that they encourage hope and noble behavior despite, and even partly because of, their sadly-ever-after endings because "we understand whom we are meant to imitate." Even when the hero's story ends badly, we know we should imitate him because it is his motives, his thoughts, his actions, that the author shows us; we understand who we are meant to imitate.
But in these plays - in the Trinity - we see different characters. Yes, we love and admire Jean Valjean. We know that Marius and Cosette love each other. But we also see why Javert thinks himself a good man. We see that Eponine certainly loves Marius as much as Cosette does. We agree with the choice Elphaba makes, but we see why Galinda makes hers too. We understand Chava's decision to marry Fyedka, but we understand also why Tevye cannot accept them. It's as if the authors of these plays are saying, "I don't have any corner on the truth market. You have to decide what to believe for yourself." It's like in 'No One is Alone' from Into the Woods. (By the way, if any one song could singlehandedly deify a show, I think it would be this one.)
Mother cannot guide you,
Now you're on your own.
Only me beside you,
Still you're not alone.
No one is alone.
Truly, no one is alone.
Sometimes people leave you
Halfway through the wood
Others may deceive you;
You decide what's good.
You decide alone;
But no one is alone.
Sunday, April 15, 2007
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
we believe all sorts of things that aren't true - we call it history
"A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others."-- The Wizard of Oz
It sounds charming at first, doesn’t it? It sounds charming, and sweet, and ever so true. It’s okay: you can say yes; I thought it sounded lovely at first, too. But stop for a moment and think about it. "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." Have you realized what the implications are of that statement?
You see, ever since I’ve come to love Wicked (the musical; unfortunately, I was unable to find in myself any fondness for the book), I find myself unable to think of The Wizard of Oz in any other terms. That is, the Wicked Witch will never again be the bad guy for me; she will always be the beautiful heroine Elphaba. Dorothy has been ousted from her position as protagonist, and I’ll never be able to think of her as anything other than that whiny silhouette I saw at the Kennedy Center.
So, returning to my original topic, I repeat the Wizard’s statement: "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." As I first read it on my friend’s wall, I didn’t think such a noble sentiment fit the Wizard at all. Then, I thought about it for a moment and realized that it fits him perfectly. I don’t think the Wizard gave a fig for anyone in Oz but himself, yet everybody in Oz thought he was the best thing to happen to them since the brilliant idea of putting marshmallows in hot chocolate came along. He was the Wonderful Wizard – complete with a wonderful heart.
Elphaba tried to help all sorts of people. Doctor Dillamond. Galinda (one time was not long after Loathing, remember!). The Lion. The Wizard (remember the monkeys?). Many Animals, probably none of whom she’d ever met before. The Flying Monkeys. Nessa. Boq. Fiyero. She loved most of them probably more than some people do anyone in their entire lives: she sacrificed her reputation and very nearly her life for them. By the “end” of her life, though, she could’ve counted on one hand the people who loved her. So, she was the Wicked Witch – heartless.
Unfortunately, it would neither be quite fair nor quite true to say the opposite – that a heart is judged by how much you love, regardless of how much you are loved by others; but I think it would be true to say that it ought to be. We humans are rather stupid at times; some bad people have been able to fool an awful lot of us into loving them without loving any of us in return. But, some good people have managed to love an awful lot of us without our ever so much as noticing them. That’s why that quote isn’t noble and sweet: it’s saying what matters isn’t how much you love, but how good your PR is. I’m afraid I can’t say that’s not how the world works, but I’m pretty darn sure that that’s not how it should work. So you keep your quote from the Wizard of Oz – I’m going to go listen to Defying Gravity.
PS: The title line is taken from a line from the musical Wicked by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz.
It sounds charming at first, doesn’t it? It sounds charming, and sweet, and ever so true. It’s okay: you can say yes; I thought it sounded lovely at first, too. But stop for a moment and think about it. "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." Have you realized what the implications are of that statement?
You see, ever since I’ve come to love Wicked (the musical; unfortunately, I was unable to find in myself any fondness for the book), I find myself unable to think of The Wizard of Oz in any other terms. That is, the Wicked Witch will never again be the bad guy for me; she will always be the beautiful heroine Elphaba. Dorothy has been ousted from her position as protagonist, and I’ll never be able to think of her as anything other than that whiny silhouette I saw at the Kennedy Center.
So, returning to my original topic, I repeat the Wizard’s statement: "A heart is not judged by how much you love; but by how much you are loved by others." As I first read it on my friend’s wall, I didn’t think such a noble sentiment fit the Wizard at all. Then, I thought about it for a moment and realized that it fits him perfectly. I don’t think the Wizard gave a fig for anyone in Oz but himself, yet everybody in Oz thought he was the best thing to happen to them since the brilliant idea of putting marshmallows in hot chocolate came along. He was the Wonderful Wizard – complete with a wonderful heart.
Elphaba tried to help all sorts of people. Doctor Dillamond. Galinda (one time was not long after Loathing, remember!). The Lion. The Wizard (remember the monkeys?). Many Animals, probably none of whom she’d ever met before. The Flying Monkeys. Nessa. Boq. Fiyero. She loved most of them probably more than some people do anyone in their entire lives: she sacrificed her reputation and very nearly her life for them. By the “end” of her life, though, she could’ve counted on one hand the people who loved her. So, she was the Wicked Witch – heartless.
Unfortunately, it would neither be quite fair nor quite true to say the opposite – that a heart is judged by how much you love, regardless of how much you are loved by others; but I think it would be true to say that it ought to be. We humans are rather stupid at times; some bad people have been able to fool an awful lot of us into loving them without loving any of us in return. But, some good people have managed to love an awful lot of us without our ever so much as noticing them. That’s why that quote isn’t noble and sweet: it’s saying what matters isn’t how much you love, but how good your PR is. I’m afraid I can’t say that’s not how the world works, but I’m pretty darn sure that that’s not how it should work. So you keep your quote from the Wizard of Oz – I’m going to go listen to Defying Gravity.
PS: The title line is taken from a line from the musical Wicked by Winnie Holzman and Stephen Schwartz.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
2 sadly underrated products
So what's this I hear about this new Olay body lotion? I've seen ads for it a couple times, and it's being touted as 'breaking the cycle of dry skin.' Okay, think about that for just a minute. Olay earns money selling lotion. If they invented a lotion so amazing that once you use it, your skin stops being dry, why would they want to market and sell it? This would be like Starbucks giving out a recipe for their amazingly good hot chocolate that actually made amazingly good hot chocolate. I would never buy hot chocolate again; I would make my own. They would have destroyed the market for their product. If I used a remarkable lotion that kept my skin from drying out, why would I ever buy it again? I wouldn't. My skin wouldn't be dry. I wouldn't need to. In short, this is one of the more ridiculous advertising pitches I've ever seen. Whether or not it's a good lotion, I refuse to buy it on principle alone.
St. Ives' Whipped Silk, however, is as far as I'm concerned pretty much the perfect lotion. It makes my skin feel nice and soft without making me feel like I need to wash my hands before I can touch a book. And it smells nice.
It is an interesting fact of life that brand names that become names for types of products in their own right (Xerox, Q-Tip, Band-Aid, etc.) are automatically assumed to be the best of their kinds. Or usually it is only interesting; in the case of Kleenex, it is interesting and unfortunate. For Kleenex is not in fact the best tissue. I have found it to be little better than the store brand. The absolute hands-down best brand of tissue is Puffs. They're much thicker and softer. They may be pricier; I honestly don't know - I don't bother looking at anything else. If they are, though, I promise they're worth it.
St. Ives' Whipped Silk, however, is as far as I'm concerned pretty much the perfect lotion. It makes my skin feel nice and soft without making me feel like I need to wash my hands before I can touch a book. And it smells nice.
It is an interesting fact of life that brand names that become names for types of products in their own right (Xerox, Q-Tip, Band-Aid, etc.) are automatically assumed to be the best of their kinds. Or usually it is only interesting; in the case of Kleenex, it is interesting and unfortunate. For Kleenex is not in fact the best tissue. I have found it to be little better than the store brand. The absolute hands-down best brand of tissue is Puffs. They're much thicker and softer. They may be pricier; I honestly don't know - I don't bother looking at anything else. If they are, though, I promise they're worth it.
Sunday, March 04, 2007
10 reasons hot-water radiators are better than hot-air vents
1 While you're taking your shower, you can lay all your clothes out on the radiator, and when you put them on, they'll be nice and toasty. This technique does not work with vents.
2 What if there's something wrong with the heating? Well, if you have radiators, nothing happens. The radiators simply aren't warm. Which I grant you is not a good thing, but with vents, instead of nothing happening, cold air is blowing into every room of your house. Think of a little mini fan going in every room, all day. Nice in the summer. Not so nice in the winter. (My bathroom has this problem perpetually. I don't think I have ever seen the bathroom get warm enough to steam up the mirror, no matter how long a shower I take. I do not like it, Sam I Am.)
3 A radiator simply warms up the room. If it's doing its job, you don't even notice it. But a vent? You can hear it. You can feel the breeze. (I slept directly under one before I moved to the lower bunk. I had to bury my face under a blanket to be able to sleep.) A vent interferes with your life; a radiator is simply there.
4 What if you have exotic allergies to dust or mold? Or what if you just wonder what might be in the air that's circulating through your house? Anything could be in those air vents. No, really. Once more, for emphasis: Anything could be in those air vents. Could you decisively prove to me that there aren't mice living in there? Snakes? Cockroaches? Flobberworms? Pixies? I know I couldn't. Surely this is a bad thing.
5 When a person, or a cat, or a dog, or whatever, stands over the vent, they're blocking the warm air. They're taking the warmth for themselves, and it's not getting to the rest of the room. When a person sits in front of a radiator, or a cat on it, there's a lot of heat still escaping to everywhere else. Warming up by the heating apparatus is not a community disservice when it's a radiator.
6 Some vents are in the ceiling. This is so obviously idiotic that I wonder that such vents exist. But they do. They blow out hot air (ideally), and since heat rises, it stays right there, keeping the ceiling nice and toasty (ideally). Now, I'm in favor of nice toasty ceilings. I wouldn't want my ceiling to be catching a chill. But all the same, I'd like a little of that warmth to be finding its way to me. I grant you, this is not a problem with all vents, but I dare you to find me a hot-water radiator stuck to somebody's ceiling.
7 Well, I wouldn't like the ceiling vents to feel singled out for chastisment, so how about floor vents? Stuff falls into them. Crumbs and bits of food in the kitchen. Hair in the bathroom. Candy wrappers and pencil stubs and scraps of paper and who-knows-what everywhere else. They're difficult to clean, and easy to get dirty. This is a bad combination.
8 Central heating vents require a big ugly box to sit somewhere outside by your house. It cannot be disguised, and is too large to be tucked behind the average shrubbery. A furnace hides in the basement with the water heater.
9 Radiators are so darn useful! Cats can lounge on them. They're a bit high to sit on, but if you haven't a chair, you can use one as a sort of miserichord. They're perfect for goals when you're playing a mostly innocuous game of indoor soccer. Throw a ball under one to add an interesting challenge to your dog's day. You can set all kinds of stuff on them - especially if you put a board on top first. See, useful as can be. Name me one thing you can do with a vent. I dare you.
10 An old-fashioned hot-water radiator just looks so much classier than a vent.
2 What if there's something wrong with the heating? Well, if you have radiators, nothing happens. The radiators simply aren't warm. Which I grant you is not a good thing, but with vents, instead of nothing happening, cold air is blowing into every room of your house. Think of a little mini fan going in every room, all day. Nice in the summer. Not so nice in the winter. (My bathroom has this problem perpetually. I don't think I have ever seen the bathroom get warm enough to steam up the mirror, no matter how long a shower I take. I do not like it, Sam I Am.)
3 A radiator simply warms up the room. If it's doing its job, you don't even notice it. But a vent? You can hear it. You can feel the breeze. (I slept directly under one before I moved to the lower bunk. I had to bury my face under a blanket to be able to sleep.) A vent interferes with your life; a radiator is simply there.
4 What if you have exotic allergies to dust or mold? Or what if you just wonder what might be in the air that's circulating through your house? Anything could be in those air vents. No, really. Once more, for emphasis: Anything could be in those air vents. Could you decisively prove to me that there aren't mice living in there? Snakes? Cockroaches? Flobberworms? Pixies? I know I couldn't. Surely this is a bad thing.
5 When a person, or a cat, or a dog, or whatever, stands over the vent, they're blocking the warm air. They're taking the warmth for themselves, and it's not getting to the rest of the room. When a person sits in front of a radiator, or a cat on it, there's a lot of heat still escaping to everywhere else. Warming up by the heating apparatus is not a community disservice when it's a radiator.
6 Some vents are in the ceiling. This is so obviously idiotic that I wonder that such vents exist. But they do. They blow out hot air (ideally), and since heat rises, it stays right there, keeping the ceiling nice and toasty (ideally). Now, I'm in favor of nice toasty ceilings. I wouldn't want my ceiling to be catching a chill. But all the same, I'd like a little of that warmth to be finding its way to me. I grant you, this is not a problem with all vents, but I dare you to find me a hot-water radiator stuck to somebody's ceiling.
7 Well, I wouldn't like the ceiling vents to feel singled out for chastisment, so how about floor vents? Stuff falls into them. Crumbs and bits of food in the kitchen. Hair in the bathroom. Candy wrappers and pencil stubs and scraps of paper and who-knows-what everywhere else. They're difficult to clean, and easy to get dirty. This is a bad combination.
8 Central heating vents require a big ugly box to sit somewhere outside by your house. It cannot be disguised, and is too large to be tucked behind the average shrubbery. A furnace hides in the basement with the water heater.
9 Radiators are so darn useful! Cats can lounge on them. They're a bit high to sit on, but if you haven't a chair, you can use one as a sort of miserichord. They're perfect for goals when you're playing a mostly innocuous game of indoor soccer. Throw a ball under one to add an interesting challenge to your dog's day. You can set all kinds of stuff on them - especially if you put a board on top first. See, useful as can be. Name me one thing you can do with a vent. I dare you.
10 An old-fashioned hot-water radiator just looks so much classier than a vent.
Friday, February 16, 2007
10 reasons why everyone should have a dog
1 You never have to suffer the embarassment of knowing that, yes, you really will eat that bit of cookie/pancake/macaroni-and-cheese that fell on the floor because before you can so much as bend over for it, it's been snarfed. He's happy, you don't have to feel like it went to waste, and you didn't even have to clean it up.
2 Once he's housetrained, you almost never have to mop the floors. As explained in 1, foodstuff magically gets cleaned up, and what else do you spill on the floor?
3 You always know when you have visitors. Even if your doorbell is broken. Even if you don't have a doorbell. A dog will always let you know when you have visitors.
4 A dog helps you appreciate your food so much more. No matter what you're eating, his high opinion of it makes it taste better.
5 A dog helps your social life. You're out taking him for a walk, and you start making friends with everyone else on the block who has a dog. Now, just imagine if everyone had a dog, you'd get to know everyone on your block! Wouldn't that be cool? Better yet, you'd get to know all their dogs!
6 Say it's a Saturday, and you're antsy, but you don't want to do something useful, and you're not the sporty go-play-basketball type. What do you do? Well, if you have a dog, you go outside and play fetch. You burn energy, your dog has fun, and everybody's happy.
7 Say you're sick, or maybe just tired, and you want to curl up in bed and read a book, or flop on the couch with a movie. Is there anything better than cuddling up with a dog on such an occasion? Okay, maybe an attractive member of the gender of your choice. But short of that, is there anything better than a dog?
8 Dogs build critical thinking and memory skills. Basic things like remember to feed him, and remember to take him out. But also, remember not to leave food at the edge of the table where he can get it, and judging just how close to the edge of the table is safe. Or, is this Christmas present probably something safe to put under the tree, or could it be chocolate, and I'll find its wrappings shredded all over the floor? See, critical thinking skills!
9 You always have someone to talk to. Okay, so maybe he can't actually converse back with you about politics or books or your miserable lack of a love life or whatever it is you'd be talking to yourself about, but he'll listen. Intently, if you scratch behind his ears.
10 A dog automatically forms a pack, with you at its head. You get to be the alpha. All you have to do is take care of your pack and be a good leader, and you get a pack member who's loyal and good and funny and always likes you. You get the pleasure of knowing there's somebody who prefers your company to anyone else's. You get to have a pack. And, really, what's better than that?
2 Once he's housetrained, you almost never have to mop the floors. As explained in 1, foodstuff magically gets cleaned up, and what else do you spill on the floor?
3 You always know when you have visitors. Even if your doorbell is broken. Even if you don't have a doorbell. A dog will always let you know when you have visitors.
4 A dog helps you appreciate your food so much more. No matter what you're eating, his high opinion of it makes it taste better.
5 A dog helps your social life. You're out taking him for a walk, and you start making friends with everyone else on the block who has a dog. Now, just imagine if everyone had a dog, you'd get to know everyone on your block! Wouldn't that be cool? Better yet, you'd get to know all their dogs!
6 Say it's a Saturday, and you're antsy, but you don't want to do something useful, and you're not the sporty go-play-basketball type. What do you do? Well, if you have a dog, you go outside and play fetch. You burn energy, your dog has fun, and everybody's happy.
7 Say you're sick, or maybe just tired, and you want to curl up in bed and read a book, or flop on the couch with a movie. Is there anything better than cuddling up with a dog on such an occasion? Okay, maybe an attractive member of the gender of your choice. But short of that, is there anything better than a dog?
8 Dogs build critical thinking and memory skills. Basic things like remember to feed him, and remember to take him out. But also, remember not to leave food at the edge of the table where he can get it, and judging just how close to the edge of the table is safe. Or, is this Christmas present probably something safe to put under the tree, or could it be chocolate, and I'll find its wrappings shredded all over the floor? See, critical thinking skills!
9 You always have someone to talk to. Okay, so maybe he can't actually converse back with you about politics or books or your miserable lack of a love life or whatever it is you'd be talking to yourself about, but he'll listen. Intently, if you scratch behind his ears.
10 A dog automatically forms a pack, with you at its head. You get to be the alpha. All you have to do is take care of your pack and be a good leader, and you get a pack member who's loyal and good and funny and always likes you. You get the pleasure of knowing there's somebody who prefers your company to anyone else's. You get to have a pack. And, really, what's better than that?
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