The Magic of Spirited Away

It is not every day that the experience of watching a movie can transport me beyond the structured confines of the plot and make me contemplate my own life. It is rarer still that the general sense of strong emotion that the movie provokes seems more important, more satisfying than the plot itself once all is said and done.

I experienced just such a movie when I watched Spirited Away.

What I found important was not the plot, the characters, or the setting. The movie’s true magic lies elsewhere. 

Somehow, if you let it, if you approach it with an open mind, Spirited Away manages to fill you with a sense of childlike wonder. It’s a fragile effect that would likely fall apart if you were to think about it too hard or try to analyze what, exactly, it is about the movie that manages to accomplish this wonderful feat, but the effect cannot be denied.

Watching the movie made me curious: why are such feelings so rare? Why have we allowed this state of mind to slip away from us, to be relegated to child’s play and the socially unacceptable fantasy worlds of those who haven’t properly “grown up”?

Clearly it’s not that only the young can experiences these feelings. Spirited Away left me with no doubt of that. I will admit that I had to battle my own sense of disbelief at the beginning of its tale. It took a good while for it to really draw me in. But once I did I was hooked. I was enveloped by it and felt a true sense of emptiness once the credits rolled and it was gone.  Like the mournful hours after a joyous celebration, I just wanted to go back to the good times that had somehow slipped away from me.

But what I missed was not the characters or the story or the world. What I wanted to go back to was not the classic “Alice falls down the rabbit hole” plot structure or dreamlike world.

What I wanted to go back to was that magical feeling of envelopment, of being in a different world. 

Some of my most cherished childhood memories are of creating such worlds for myself and for my friends. I think much of my interest in gaming and other forms of storytelling today might well be an attempt to recapture that feeling of being in another world. It doesn’t come close to those bygone days of youth, but I guess it’s the best socially acceptable outlet I have for seeking this type of fulfillment.

Frankly, that’s a problem.

Spirited Away reminded me how important such feelings are. Everyone needs to escape every once in a while. Everyone needs to build their own reality and live in it for a time. Real life can be a heck of a drag and it’s a damn shame that we treat imagination as such a leper, to be cast aside once we’ve entered adulthood.

Of course we must all face the sad truth that we have to grow up and enter the true world for ourselves someday, but we don’t have to leave a large part of ourselves behind in the transition. Child’s play shouldn’t just be left to the children.

Open up your mind, relax, and watch Spirited Away. See if you don’t agree with me by the time it’s over.

Twilight: Journey Into the Abyss (Part Eighteen)

Chapter Eleven (continued)

Need-to-know basis: Seriously. I really want to know. What possible, freakish reason could Edward have to want know Bella’s favorite gemstone?

Yeah, she pulls her usual “easily embarrassed by the weirdest details” routine and admits she switched her favorite gemstone to topaz recently because it’s the current color of his eyes, a conversation piece that’s interesting enough in its own right, but her unhealthy obsession isn’t the issue here (for once).

Why did he ask her in the first place?

Is he starting some kind of Bella Journal where he keeps every last detail of her existence written down in case he forgets something?

“Oh crap. I forgot our anniversary again. Wait! I’ll consult the Bella Journal! And I’ll look up her favorite food and jewelry types to plan our dinner and her present while I’m at it. It’s like I don’t even need my memory anymore. I’m totally a genius.”

Forgetful comedy fathers in sitcoms everywhere could really take a lesson from Edward here. It’s not exactly subtle, but it might at least avoid some of those oh-so-wacky misunderstandings.

Irrational desires: “I leaned forward on the table, resting my chin on my folded arms, my hidden fingers gripping the table's edge as I fought to ignore the irrational longing that unsettled me.”

Never before have I had such a strong desire to do jumping jacks. I couldn’t explain it. I only knew that it was taking every ounce of strength within me to keep from springing to my feet in the middle of the classroom and bursting into a vigorous session of exercise, right there in front of everybody. The urges worried me. I normally don’t even like doing jumping jacks, but I’ll be damned if, right then and there, they weren’t my number one desire in the entire world.

Unbalanced ratio: If I recall correctly, when it was Bella’s “turn” to ask questions to Edward she got to ask a few scant questions before he got violently angry and threw her out of the car while speeding down the highway.

Or something.

Now that it’s Edward’s turn to ask questions, he’s bombarding her with enough material to fill a feature-length magazine article, albeit an unbelievably boring one. Questions all day at school and “hours” spent talking in front of Bella’s house afterward.

How about some balance in this relationship, eh?

Jerk.

Shut-in: “I tried to describe impossible things like the scent of creosote … the high, keening sound of the cicadas in July, the feathery barrenness of the trees, the very size of the sky...”

Here’s an impossible thing I’d like you try and describe: Why someone that’s as old as whatever the bloody hell Edward’s age actually is (I tend to forget he’s actually pretty ancient – the story’s creepy enough already without that thrown into the mix) needs to have the entire world described to him in detail by a teenager. Has he just not been paying attention? Does he have a really bad memory? What’s going on here?

OMG: “The hardest thing to explain was why it was so beautiful to me — to justify a beauty that didn't depend on the sparse, spiny vegetation that often looked half dead, a beauty that had more to do with the exposed shape of the land, with the shallow bowls of valleys between the craggy hills, and the way they held on to the sun.”

You know, at the very beginning of the mind-numbing project, I stated that I would try to be objective and that I would try to comment on both the good and the bad of what I came across while reading this terrible, terrible book.

To this point, I haven’t really had much to show for the former part of my promise. I’ve found enough bad to fill, oh, roughly eighteen installments of a scathing satirical feature, but nothing good. No diamonds in the rough for me.

The above passage is, by far and away, the best sentence I have yet found in the entire book. It might even be able to pass for decent writing, slightly moving even, were it not buried in the proverbial pile of crap that is the rest of this book.

Color me ever so slightly impressed. It’s not much, but I honestly didn’t think Steph had even this much in her.

I just thought, in the interest of fairness and honoring my original mission statement, that this was worth passing along.

I wouldn’t get used to it if I were you.

Hardy har har: “’How late is it?’ I wondered out loud as I glanced at the clock.

‘It’s twilight,’ Edward murmured…”

HA!

HA HA!

SHE USED THE NAME OF THE BOOK! IN DIALOG! NO WRITER HAS EVER DONE THAT BEFORE!

Best. Writer. Ever.

Amiright?

Ever-changing sunlight: Edward: “’Darkness is so predictable, don't you think?’"

Totally. Not like that stupid sun. Always being all “bright” or “not quite as bright”.

Make up your damn mind, sun! We’re tired of your trickery and deception!

Silly light pollution: Bella: “’I like the night. Without the dark, we'd never see the stars.’ I frowned. ‘Not that you see them here much.’

[Edward] laughed, and the mood abruptly lightened.”

I can relate. I don’t know about you, but I simply can’t help myself from bursting into fits of uncontrollable laughter every time I think about one of the myriad ways mankind is ruining the planet.

It’s just so gosh-darn hilarious.

Try bringing it up at a party sometime. Instant ice-breaker.

Awkward human movement, lesson #1: “[Edward] flung the door open in one swift movement, and then moved, almost cringed, swiftly away from me.”

Edward cringed away from her?

Steph, I don’t think you’re allowed to use that word as verb that way…

I know there’s artistic license and all, but you’ve got to draw the line somewhere.

Plus, you know, you shouldn’t be allowed artistic license. Because, well, you’re not an artist.

More of an untalented hack, really.

So cringing is not a form of movement, got it?

Also: you pulled the “almost” thing again. Did Edward do some weird form of movement that was almost a cringe but not quite and this is just your lazy way of describing it? Did you use your crazy mind powers to know that he was about to cringe but decided not to?

Details like this are important.

He’s melting!: “In the passenger seat was a much older man, a heavyset man with a memorable face — a face that overflowed, the cheeks resting against his shoulders…”

Oh eww. Eww eww eww. That’s disgusting.

Is his face melting off or what? That is not a natural way for a face to be.

Lessons in nonsensical character description:  Think after all this time you’ve developed a sort of immunity to Steph’s weird brand of inane, self-contradictory character descriptions?

I did too. Until I read this:

“And the surprisingly familiar eyes, black eyes that seemed at the same time both too young and too ancient for the broad face they were set in.”

I think that might be a new low.

Continue to Part Nineteen

Sarah Palin's Mysterious Followers

What type of person could honestly support Sarah Palin?

This is a question I have wondered for a long time.

I’m not against the lady simply because I disagree with her. There are plenty of people I disagree with and that alone is not enough to spur feelings of dislike within me.

Honestly, in today’s society of argument by sound bite and party platforms that seem controlled by marketing teams rather than people with true values and beliefs, I highly respect someone who has taken the time to think about the world, analyze it, and make opinions about it that they can actually back up with coherent arguments. It’s refreshing.

Let’s just save ourselves a lot of needless explanation and say straight up that Sarah Palin is, more or less, the exact opposite of such a politician. 

She is nothing but marketing. She is nothing but sound bites and appeals to the lowest common denominator. She is a celebrity politician, all style and no substance, made into some sort of spectacle by the Republican party because, well, I’m not really sure why.  Maybe they just couldn’t find anybody better.

But this isn’t about Sarah Palin. This phenomenon of Americans becoming obsessed with some vapid halfwit is hardly a first in our history. 

No, the real curiosity here is the people themselves. What does it take for a person to see Sarah Palin bumbling her way through a speech on television and exclaim, “That’s the gal for me, by jove”?

The answer has long escaped me.

I have longed to catch a glimpse of this elusive creature, this poor soul who has been so ensnared by the marketing machine that he has become completely detached from reality. 

Well, thanks to YouTube, I have finally found what I have been looking for. The true Palin supporter. The true, unthinking Republican. The unyielding ‘Merkin. 

Damn you, YouTube. Damn you to hell.

The creature is far more frightening than I had imagined in my worst nightmares. I’ve never been one to have a particularly high opinion of the ‘Merkin people, but I guess seeing for myself how low we really have sunk is far more terrifying than simply pondering it.

These people represent absolutely everything that’s wrong with American politics today. Hell, probably everything that’s wrong with America today. 

These are the type of people that go to a book signing for a person who can barely even speak coherently in public, much less write worth a damn, without any idea whatsoever of the important bits of what she actually stands for, yet not think twice about blabbering on in front of a camera as to why she’s the greatest human that has ever lived. My guess is that actually reading the book they purchase is fairly low on their priority list as well. One or two might have needed the concept of “book” explained to them beforehand.

Their ignorance is beyond description. Truly staggering. Seriously. I’m not even going to try. It’s not worth it.

I know there’s a video embedded below, but I’m not going to tell you to watch it to see for yourself. I don’t want that on my conscience. If you press that play button, it’s all on you. Mark my words though: the ignorance contained therein might just blow your mind and turn you into a bitter husk of a human being that can never look another American in the face again without inducing a violent gag reflex.

You have been warned. 

Flautist Hero

This is so fantastically awesome.  It makes me long to play a musical instrument so I can do something as cool as this.  

Is it weird that I want this video to be the actual version of the song?  I need to get this in mp3 form or something. 

Truly cool.

The Matrix as a Silent Film

Not much to say about this video other than it's wonderful and that filmmaking really has come a very long way in a relatively short span of time.

So, which version do you think is better?

I know, tough call.