Well, would you look at that? Two months to the day since my last post. I’d like to tell you I did that on purpose, but then I’d be a lying liar who lies, my pants would burst into flames, my nose would suddenly grow to be three feet long (and would be made of wood, which would be weird) … You get where I’m going with this. There’s no rhyme or reason as to why I write and post as sporadically as I do, it just happens. At first, I had an entire three-paragraph-long rant here about writing and not writing and why I don’t write when I want to, and it got very meta and I was annoying at myself for even writing it in the first place, so I decided to not subject anyone else to that little rambly piece when a long run-on sentence will serve the exact same purpose instead.
So, two months. What have I been doing for the past two months? You know, I find that I absolutely hate that question. Not the “for the past two months” part, I mean, the first part — the general “What’s new?” or “What have you been up to?” question. Being a person whose life and loved ones are spread out all across the country (including myself, my immediate family lives in five different states, if that paints a picture for you), I’m constantly having catch-up conversations with friends and family members that I don’t talk to nearly as often as I’d like. So yeah, the “What’s new?” is inevitable.
It seems like a harmless enough question, right? So why the vehement loathing? The thing is, I never, ever, ever know how to answer it. I always feel like I should have some epic answer, like, “I’m considering Hinduism!” or “I’ve invented a time machine and have started a dirty love affair with Julius Caesar!” or “I’ve gotten a full body tattoo that consists of only pictures of the Muppet Babies!” My real answers are always some awkward combination of, “You know, still working at the same place, it pays the bills. Yes, I’m still single, and no, I don’t want to talk about it.” and so on and so forth. I mean, more happens in my life day-to-day than I ever let on in those catch-up conversations. It’s like the question “What’s new?” just suddenly gives me amnesia and makes me completely unable to formulate an answer that actually gives anyone any sort of actual update on the general state of my life.
So now that everyone reading this blog post is all set to comment and say “HEY KRISTIN WHAT’S NEW AAAHAHAHA”, I will beat you all to the punch and ANSWER THE QUESTION.
I am still working at the same job at the same university press, and I am still happy enough in that it pays the bills and gives me insurance. I found out in April that I will not, in fact, be getting laid off in November as I had previously thought, which has made a world of difference in the whole caring-about-my-job thing, in addition to my whole feeling-of-self-worth-and-general-usefulness thing, which has been nice. While the job’s certainly not what I want to be doing for the rest of my life, it’s steady, it’s stable, it pays, and I’m thankful it even exists. So there’s that!
In June I watched two of my very best friends get married. No, not to each other — two separate weddings on two separate days in two separate cities in Texas. Since I live in Chicago, I obviously had to travel for both. While affording the plane tickets wasn’t easy (buying just one these days is tough — two in a single month? The checkbook, it hurts), nothing in the world could have kept me from attending either of them. Frankly, I’m still weirded out that I’ve gotten to the age where watching my friends get married is something that’s considered normal. It’s even weirder to watch someone you’ve been so close to for so long make that next gigantic step in his or her life. It’s not necessarily a bad weird, though. It’s good weird, mixed with a, “How the hell did we get here?” kind of feeling.
In between the travel and the work, I’ve been trying, and succeeding, at enjoying my summer. When there’s hiking in the rain, insane neighborhood fireworks, BBC shows on DVD, and Rock Band renditions of “It’s Business Time,” just to name a few things, how can I not have fun?
So there you go. Two months have passed, and I’m mostly the same, except kind of completely different, except not really.
As promised in my latest Love!Vomit video, which is saving and uploading as I’m typing this, I have a little supplemental blog post for you. Can I just say that I am so terrible at making short videos? If there’s one thing I’ve learned about myself from filming and editing myself talking into a camera for the last 11 weeks, it’s that I AM LONG-WINDED AS HELL. Especially when I’m talking about something that fills me with such nerdy glee as mythology does.
If you’re not a regular Love!Vomit watcher, then a) you should be, and b) here’s a little background info — every other week for the past 4 weeks or so, I’ve been including a segment in my videos called “KEGMTL,” which stands for “Kristin Explains Greek Mythology to Laura,” Laura being the lovely lady who posts her videos on Wednesdays. In case the name isn’t self-explanatory enough as it is, I basically do a little impromptu mythology class, in which I put popular stories into .. well, my own words.
Tonight’s video was about Hercules, and HOLY CRAP I can talk about that guy and the wide breadth of the stories about him for hours. I finally edited down my video to about 7:00, and that was only because the batteries in my video camera died. URGH! What I didn’t get to talk about enough (or really at all) in the video was the comparison between the Hercules stories and the Disney animated movie Hercules (1997). But hey, that’s what this blog is for!
And now, inspired by Daily Intel’s completely subjective point system for tallying the “reality” of a show like Gossip Girl (which I also happen to love), I bring you my OWN completely subjective point system for tallying the accuracy of Disney’s Hercules when compared to the mythology. Are you with me? Good! Now lets go!
More Accurate Than Teenage Herc’s Freaky-Big Hands and Feet (and you know what that means … BIG GLOVES AND SOCKS, PERVS!)
The Titans DID come before the gods! Good job, Disney! (Yes, I am already grasping for straws. Humor me). Also, Zeus DID seize power from the Titans. And many (though not all of them) were imprisoned somewhere around the world or in the underworld. Plus 3
The ferry Hades rides through the Underworld (maybe through the river Styx? or Lethe?) is being commandeered by a freaky ass skeleton thing that one can assume is Charon. While Charon surely wasn’t a freaky ass skeleton, it gets Plus 1 for including him at all!
And hey, Cerberus! Who can resist a good three-headed dog? (I know Hagrid couldn’t) Plus 1
According to Edith Hamilton, there was a prophecy about Hercules, but that’s about as much is it has in common with the “prophecy” the Fates foretell to Hades. Plus 1/2
Hades is correct. You cannot, in fact, kill a god. Or a Titan, for that matter. Yes, it made the war between the Gods and the Titans nearly impossible because NO ONE COULD DIE. But I digress! Plus 1/2
Baby Hercules strangling and killing 2 snakes that came to kill him? CORRECT! Plus 10. In the myth the snakes were sent (probably by Hera) to harm him and his half-brother Iphicles. While Iphicles screamed his head off (as babies are wont to do), baby Hercules laughed as he strangled the giant things and killed them.
Hercules’ (adopted) parents are name Alcmene and Amphitryon! Although their roles are all wrong, at least they got the names right. Plus 2.
The awkwardness of movie!Hercules figuring out the bounds of his own strength seem on par. It makes sense that he would mimic what others would do only to have immensely different results purely based on the Zeus-given gift of his physical abilities. Plus 5
Also, his consistent apologizing for his wrongdoings seems to be in line with myth!Herc. He’s not thinking anything through, he’s not really aware of what he’s doing, and when he messed up and hurts something or someone by accident, he’s so so so so sorry. Adult myth!Hercules is constantly punishing himself for his own shortcomings, so it makes sense. It’s quite a large characteristic of his that they got right dead on, even though I’m sure it wasn’t intentional. Pardon the snark! Plus 15
Philoctetes and Hercules knew each other. That’s about the only thing regarding Phil that the movie got right. Plus 1
Hey, Thebes! Even though myth!Hercules is from Thebes, and therefore going to Thebes wouldn’t be a big plot point, at least they got the city right. Plus 1
The centaur Nessus (who WAS a river guardian, plus 1) does play a role in the Hercules myth, but not this role. Nessus actually harassed Hercules’ second wife, Deianira when they were crossing a river shortly after their marriage. Herc shot him and killed him, but Nessus told Deianira to take some of his blood and to use it as a charm for Hercules if he ever loved another woman more than her. She ended up dousing a robe in the blood when she got jealous of some princess later on down the line, and when he put it on, it was like the robe was burning him alive. GOOD JOB, NESSUS! So anyway, plus 7 for getting some of that right.
Yay Megara! She was Hercules first wife. Even though they don’t get her story right in the least, I like that they included her. And this is my purely subjective points system, so I’m giving them plus 2 just for including her. And because I like “I Won’t Say I’m in Love.”
Killing the Hydra was one of Hercules’ twelve labors. And yes, it was a creature who had many heads, and who has 2 new heads grow back when one was cut off. It was technically his second labor, but they included it, so I’m happy. Plus 5
Several other of his labors appear in the Zero to Hero montage: the great boar, the Nemean lion, the Stymphalian birds. A shot of a giant sea serpent he killed is included, and though it wasn’t technically a labor, just a random good deed for a Trojan king who he later killed, it’s still cool that they included it. Plus 10, because I love this song SO MUCH.
Yes, Herc was the most famous person in all of Greece. Tru dat. Plus 1
Phil’s rundown of Hercules’ schedule as he gets his portrait painted includes some more of his labors: the Augean stables, Hippolyta’s girdle. Way to sneak those references in there! Plus 2
Going to the Underworld was technically one of Hercules’ labors, too. Even though it wasn’t to save anyone, just to borrow Hades’ three-headed dog for awhile, I’ll allow it. Plus 1
More Wrong than the Titans looking like Freaky Elemental Monsters
There are NINE Muses. Not five. Minus 4 for the missing four muses.
Seriously, can we talk about what this movie did to the Titans? Titans were elder Gods, and therefore were just as anthropomorphic and intelligent as them. The freaky elemental monsters that seem to be dumb as posts irk me to no end. Minus 10
This is a big one: Hercules was not the son of Zeus and Hera. He was the son of Zeus and Alcmene, a mortal woman from Thebes. Because he was the product of one of her husbands many, many affairs, Hera hated Hercules with the fiery rage of a thousand suns. Hercules was NOT born a god! Minus 20
And Pegasus? Not a part of this myth. Pegasus was supposedly born from the spillage of Medusa’s blood after Perseus chopped her head off. The only story about Pegasus is about Pegasus and a guy named Bellerophon, who tried to use Pegasus to ride up to Olympus to hang with the gods. Minus only 5, ’cause movie!Pegasus makes me laugh.
Hades was not Hercules’ enemy. Hera was. Minus 10
Pain and Panic? Made up oafish demons for Hades to boss around, and have no basis in this (or any other) myth. Also, they annoy me. Minus 3
The Fates as shown in the movie are actually a combination of two sets of freaky elderly sisters. There were the Fates, who spin and cut the threads of human life, and the Graiae (or Gray Women), who were old, prophetic and shared one eye between the three of them. They got some things right, despite combining stories, so minus only 2.
The whole “THE WORLD WILL CHANGE IN 18 YEARS OMGOMG” prophecy? Nope. Not accurate. Minus 5
I’m doubtful about the existence of a potion that can magically take away a god’s immortality. No points are taken away, since these guys are gods and can basically do whatever the hell they want, but … I’m still doubtful.
Amphitryon and Alcmene weren’t poor farmers — they were Theban nobles! Amphi was a distinguished general, and Alc was his hot mama of a wife. Minus 2
I don’t think the neighborhood kids would have made fun of Hercules if movie!Herc’s temper was as raging as myth!Herc’s was. Minus 5
Hercules’ entire journey was not to “find where he belonged,” as the movie says. According to the myth, Hercules did everything he did to gain peace of mind after accidentally killing his wife and children. He was always punishing himself — after murdering your family, finding a niche must not seem as important a priority. Minus 15
Philoctetes *headdesk* Out of everything, this might bother me the most. First of all, Philoctetes was actually younger than Hercules — he was probably a part of the gang that followed him around all the time (if you’re the strongest man in the world, the most popular guy in Greece, and are constantly around doing awesome shit, you’re going to have a crowd following you wherever you go). Also, Phil wasn’t a satyr! All of movie!Phil’s satyr qualities resemble the god Pan very closely. Minus 20
Also, Phil didn’t train Jason, Perseus, Theseus, Odysseus, or Achilles, either. For that matter, Odysseus and Achilles would have come after Hercules. So a young Hercules wouldn’t be looking at a statue of Achilles in awe. ANACHRONISM! Minus 15
The only mention of Philoctetes in my books says that Hercules, on his deathbed, bequeathed his famous bow to Phil, who then took it with him to the Trojan war. He apparently used it to kill Paris, the prince of Troy who ran away with Helen and started the war in the first place. That is how I deduce that a) Phil is younger than Herc; and b) the events of the Iliad and Odyssey come after the Hercules myths. Minus 5just because I feel like it.
“Hey, that was the mast of the Argo!” Hercules was on the Argo. Minus 3
The real Megara didn’t have a “deal with the devil.” Though she got a pretty shitty deal at the end of her own life, events didn’t go down like this. Minus 1
Is that a cyclops loafing around with the Elemental Monsters they’re trying to pass off as Titans? No no no! Minus 1
I’m just nitpicking at this point, but if Hercules did turn back into a god while saving Megara from the underworld, then his true godly form would have burned Megara alive, thus killing her all over again. On top of that, when Hercules was fighting the “Titans” and Hades on Olympus in the first place, HIS mortal self would have been burned alive in the presence of all of the Olympians. Minus 2 because now my head hurts!
And our tally? -64. Which means that Disney’s Hercules is a hell of a lot more inaccurate than it is accurate. And yet I still love it!
Oh, Jesus. Out of all seventeen scrillion of the social networking sites I participate in, Twitter is the only one that I update consistently. For all of its faults, it’s terribly addictive. But hey, that’s not what I came here to discuss today.
I put an accidental moratorium on all of my actual writing since … I can’t even remember. I’ve been in therapy, I’ve been working, I’ve been turning 25 (actually that was only one day and it happened in March .. Happy belated birthday to me!), and I’ve been putting a lot of energy toward the project I’m about to tell you about. Before I start down that road, let me finish my current point. I am one of the millions and millions of people in the world who fancies him or herself a writer and yet doesn’t do any actual writing. Call it ADD, call it lack of confidence, call it what you will. I’ve always wanted to be a writer, I’m at least halfway decent at it, and yet I don’t do it. I want to change that. I’m going to actually try to change that. I hope you, dear readers, can hold me to that. I want to hold myself to it, too.
The aforementioned project that I’ve been devoting a lot of time to since the beginning of March is a little something called Love!Vomit. It’s a collaborative YouTube channel shared between myself and my friends Caity, Kathleen, Laura, Freya, and Dinah. There are six of us, there are seven days in a week; therefore we’ve divvied up the days of the week (save Sunday, which is a rest day — if it worked for God, it works for us, am I right?), and each of us films and posts vlogs (you know, video blogs) on our given day. My day is Thursday, in case you were curious. We generally have a theme for the week of things we will talk about. Basically, it’s just a big tool for the six of us, who all live across the country from each other, to both stay in touch and to get to know each other better. The name “Love!Vomit” itself is explained on the channel page:
What is “love!vomit”?
love!vomit is that feeling you get when you think about something that makes you so happy, you get choked up. For the six of us, love!vomit happens when we think of each other.
There are 3,084 miles between us. We live as close as 20 minutes or as far as 43 hours. We count days until we see each other again, and we deal in between by tweeting, emailing, facebooking, and making videos.
Before agreeing to be a part of this project, YouTube was the one internet thing that I wasn’t hugely into. The idea of talking into a camera and telling the world via the internet about my life and everything honestly skeeved me out. Leave it up to Freya to make a girl change her mind. Jumping into the wide world of vlogging and/or generally-uploading-shit-to-YouTube with a group of five other people that I like a whole lot seemed less intimidating and creepy. Instead of talking to John Q. Public, I’m talking to five people that I know and that know me. I picked up the filming/editing/uploading dynamic surprisingly quickly (though I will say, I’m so not a good video editor and I’m using the free software that came with my Windows computer — homegirl ain’t made of money!), and it’s become a creative outlet that I really look forward to every week now. So while I’m busy being a writer who’s not writing, I can channel my unused creative energy into talking into my FlipVideo like a goon and editing it all together. It works out well for me!
And now for some shameless plugging: I linked to our channel up there ↑ but I’ll link you again here: http://www.youtube.com/thelovevomit. Bookmark it! Subscribe! Pretty please?
Oh, did you want even more shameless self promotion? Here’s my latest video, posted last Thursday, April 29th:
Let me state the obvious for a second: everyone is entitled to his or her own opinion. As trite and possibly played out as that saying is, it’s the truth. My 10th grade English teacher even went so far as to liken opinions to armpits — everyone has them, but no one wants to smell anyone elses. Say what you will about that teacher (and I could say a lot, because he was a smarmy, creepy old man whose memory still gives me the heebiejeebies) and that particular analogy that I’m positive he didn’t come up with himself (I refuse to give him that much credit), there’s definitely some validity in it. And things can get pretty dangerous when that line between fact and opinion gets blurred. Talking about all opinions on everything in existence is pretty broad, so I’m going to narrow my focus to media-related things to make my point. ‘Cause really, the rant I’m about to make is something that I’ve been talking about in some form for the better part of the last decade.
I think it’s a pretty safe to assume that just about every person in our modern society has particular likes and dislikes when it comes to any type of media — TV shows, books, movies, music, games, websites, and so on and so forth. While we have these likes and dislikes, I am also going to venture that it’s a common practice to make a snap judgment or perhaps form an opinion on another person purely based on these likes and dislikes. While it troubles me to some extent (which I’ll go into more detail about later), I’ll certainly admit that I do it. Say I’m doing some light Facebook stalking one evening, and I happen upon a person’s profile that lists the TV show 30 Rock as one of his or her favorites. Well hey, 30 Rock also happens to be one of MY favorite shows! Just like that, whoever this person is just won some points with me purely based on our mutual interest in a TV sitcom. And yet, as I mentioned earlier, this troubles me. While I admit I engage in this kind of behavior, I’m always very clear about where I draw the line. If you’re a jerk and like 30 Rock, it doesn’t make you any less of a jerk, and it doesn’t mean I’m going to automatically want to be your BFF. At the same time, if you either don’t like or don’t care about 30 Rock, it doesn’t mean I’m going to declare you my mortal enemy or even necessarily think any less of you. Like I said before, we all like what we like. It’s different strokes for different folks.
This is where my rant comes in. If we like something, it’s only a matter of time until we run into someone who doesn’t like it, and vice-versa. It’s inevitable, as no one is going to like everything, and that’s completely fine with me. More often than not, however, I’ve discovered that an air of judgment tends to accompany the differing opinion, and that’s what bothers me so much. If I’m sitting in a group of people and tell them that the Lord of the Rings trilogy are some of my favorite movies, is it really necessary for the others to respond to me with reasons why the movies are too long, have too many characters, and are generally terrible? The fact that I like those movies, or that I’ve read the entire Harry Potter series more times than I can count, or that I love Beyoncé and the music she makes, or that I couldn’t care less about most things related to anime doesn’t make me a bad person, it doesn’t make me any less mature or intelligent, and it doesn’t make me wrong. Because it’s impossible to have a wrong opinion! If you like anime, if you like obscure underground indie music, or if you like anything that I don’t particularly care for then that’s fine, I’m not going to fault you for that. I’m not going to think less of you. I’m not going to make fun of you. But if I’m giving you that respect, then it’s the decent thing to do to give me that same respect in return, even if you feel it’s somehow “beneath” you.
I refuse to be made to feel bad because I like and don’t like certain things. Arguing about what’s “good” or “bad” when it comes to these completely subjective fields like art, music, et cetera, is pointless because there’s no right and wrong. No one can possibly win. You can try to convince me every single day that Grease 2 is the worst movie sequel in existence, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to change my mind about how much I love it. Or how I, too, wish I had a cool rider, just like Michelle Pfeiffer sings.
So here’s the moral of the story: let people like what they like. Stop being a jerk, stop being a snob, stop being an entitled prick, stop assuming that your tastes and preferences are the right ones, and stop assuming that there ARE right tastes and preferences to begin with.
To close, I bring you Michelle Pfeiffer as Stephanie Zinone telling us all the qualities of her perfect man. Here’s a hint: it’s spelled C-O-O-L-R-I-D-E-R.
I’m tempted to begin this post with the very cliché, “So it’s 2010 now,” followed by an ellipsis an a long list of things I should start doing now that 2009 has kicked the proverbial bucket. But the reality is that today is the 18th of January, so it has, in fact, been 2010 for eighteen whole days, and beginning my blog post that way after over half a month seems … well, silly.
No matter how I actually begin this, the fact of the matter is that, as far as I can tell now, I’ve got a lot of big things in store for me this year. The two largest being the following: 1) My current steady job with decent pay and wonderful benefits will most likely end somewhere between the middle and end of November due to circumstances beyond my control; and 2) I’m applying for graduate school, hoping to start in the fall of 2011. Both things are scary, but the kind of scary that’s exciting and ever so slightly titillating at the same time. Yeah, the prospect of losing my job isn’t pretty, but I’ve known this was coming since last May. I had all summer to freak out and be in denial about the scary question mark that is (was?) my future. While I can’t say I’ve exactly tackled that beast, I’ve certainly bound and gagged it with a bind that’s probably about the strength and consistency of a fruit roll up.
Mmm … fruit roll ups. Wait, where was I? Oh, right, I’m a delicate flower and I’ve got big scary and weirdly exciting things ahead. Lets move on, shall we?
So this grad school thing! Like I’ve told everyone in my life (including myself hundreds of thousands times a day), I’m still in a very early stages and I’m taking it as slowly as I can. I’m looking at PhD programs in some sort of Media Studies, I’ve got about 6 schools in mind (maybe with one as a back-up, we’ll have to see), and I’m … well, still researching programs. And by that I mean pouring over websites and making list after list in Microsoft Word during the day when work gets slow (honestly, who really works at work?). After this research phase is finished, I have grand plans of writing a research paper, and then studying for and taking the GRE. The paper comes first. I’ll probably write more on my possible topic later after I do some more reading and collect some more information.
Now that’s 2010 (I keep accidentally typing 2919 … weird), the clock inside my head that’s counting down to my potential unemployment and my possible academic future is ticking so loudly that I can hardly hear myself think. I’m scared. And nervous. And excited.
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