Haircut Reaction

So here's a big and important question: how should you respond when someone says they think you got a great haircut? For quite sometime, I responded with the typical, "Hey, thanks buddy!" But the other day, after getting a fresh cut, someone said that they liked my haricut and I simply responded, "Oh! Cool." (Actually, this happened several times.) And you know what? I think it's a better response.

If I thank someone for my liking my haircut, I'm implying that I bear some sort of responsibility for the cut. As if I had something to do with the stylist's work. This, obviously, is not the case at all.

This is why I think it better to simply express a happy sort of surprise or even an "I know, huh?" if you are certain that the cut is good too. In this way, you're acknowledging both the skill of the barber and the aesthetic eye of your friend - all without falsely taking credit for something yourself. Bravo!

Oblivion vs. the Neverine Nerevarine

In the wee hours of Friday afternoon (a.k.a. around 9:00pm), my avatar, F'nor F'nagel (a nod to ill-written fantasy fiction), finished the last of the main quests in Bethesda's latest game in the Elder Scrolls series, ESIV: Oblivion. After finishing the final quests to all four guilds (the Fighters' Guild, the Mages' Guilds, the Thieves' Guild, and the Dark Brotherhood), I decided it was time to finish off the last pieces of the Real Story. With relative ease, I trounced an enemy not remotely prepared to meet my thorny resistance (and superbly cowardly style of combat). So then, having finished both ESIV:Oblivion and ESIII:Morrowind (which I tackled two years ago), how do I think they compare?

Obviously, Oblivion offers a sense of environmental empowerment that Morrowind just cannot match. Not only are Oblivion's graphical delights staggeringly beautiful (so far as video game vistas can, in this age, stagger), but you can interact with many of the objects in the world. And not just in the I'm-going-to-steal-that-goblet kind of way that you could in Morrowind. Oblivion lets you grab onto dinnerware, foodstuffs, weaponry, bodies recently divested of liveliness, etc. and fling them to and fro. My favourite was killing wild animals (boars preferably) and kicking them down mountainsides and then racing them to the bottom as they tumbled with increasing velocity down the slope. Unfortunately, despite being a funnish sort of diversion, this level of interaction with the environment bears little importance to the objects of the game proper. You really aren't called on to roll animals down hills, to hide bodies in the tallgrass, to throw spoons at kitchen drudge - all things you can do, but not things that will help you win.

Fighting is definitely more involved in Oblivion and its foes more tenacious. Well, it would be if you were sneaky and cowardly like me. Essentially, I like taking the paths of least resistance in these kinds of games. In Oblivion, that meant that I had a character who excelled in sneaking, alchemy, and conjuring people to fight for me - all the while wearing gear enchanted in such a way that I could stand in an ogre's way, close enough so that he's tripping on me, and he still wouldn't ever see me. What this boils down to is that I could sneak through entire dungeons undetected, reach whatever treasure guardian I needed to slay, and simply summon another monster to attack and kill my foe while I went in search of snacks and cokes. So then, not really all that much more involved than combat was for me in Morrowind - and in fact, maybe less involved.

That leads to a point in which both games are similar. The player who approaches the games with ingenuity could find simple ways to exploit your ability to do whatever you want to make the game much easier than if you just played it as it's presented. In Morrowind, I enchanted a staff so I could fly above all my enemies, not wasting time with fighting - as lesser players might. I also enchanted a ring to heal me character a small amount every second. This made me nearly impossible to kill; I think I died once after donning said ring. In Oblivion, there was no way to craft those exact items, so I simply went another route: near invisibility, extortionate conjuration skills, and deadly enchants on weaponry. In the end, there wasn't a single enemy who could match me in a fight - even if I wasn't wearing my cloaking gear. In the end, I think this ends up making the game funner for me because I really do find the constant battles to be wearying, and the fact that I could skip those without cheating and still see all the story was, in its way, a life saver for me.

One point in which Morrowind surpasses it's more evolved brother is in the scope of its architecture. In Morrowind, the variety of cultures and breadth of land are well developed in the visual aesthetic of its cities. I think all told, I count eight very distinct styles of structure in Morrowind (not counting caves). In Oblivion, I count five (not counting caves). Granted, in Oblivion, each city does have distinct architecture but the differences are far more subtle - like the difference between a Norse lodge and an Austrian cottage - whereas the various Morrowind architectures are very alien from each other (Redoran district buildings were made from the shells of giant crabs, while the Telvanni dwelt in tremendous mutated mushrooms!). Of course, all this is quite understandable as Morrowind spanned an entire continent whereas Oblivion supposedly occurs in a sixteen square-mile province. Still, I liked the feeling of transition that Morrowind's buildings offered.

Another point in Morrowind's favour is the storyline. Quite frankly, the prophecy of the NevarineNerevarine (cliche though it may be) presents a much more expansive story than Oblivion more straightforward quest to help the world of Tamriel react to the threat began by the death of its emperor. I was always more engaged in the journey to find myself the reincarnation of the only one who could save the world from the villainy of a long-dead-but-still-kicking threat to everyone. It was always the difference between reactive and proactive. In Morrowind, you're out to discover the truth and fight the bad guy in his lair before he can become a threat. In Oblivion, you're constantly reacting: Oh noes! He killed the emperor! Go find an heir! Oh noes! He's destroyed a city! Try to salvage what you can! Oh noes! All the cities are under attack! Help them! Et cetera.... Really, it's not as bad as it sounds, but it just wasn't as engaging. And the guild quests in Morrowind are more interesting as well. It had the great infighting between the Thieves' Guild and the corrupt Fighters' Guild with you walking the precarious tightrope between the two. It had the House Telvanni line of quests in which you gradually rise in their ranks and become their master, even getting to build your very own giant mushroom palace. I did tons in Morrowind and I still didn't even brush the Imperial Legion questline or that of the assassin's guild, the Morag Tong (not to even mention the other two ruling houses, Hlaalu and Redoran). Oblivion's Dark Brotherhood series of quests was pretty fun and entertaining and a couple of the odder Daedric quest were just hilarious, but otherwise: Morrowind FTW.

In the end, I think I would like to see Morrowind spec'd out with Oblivion tech. That would be the Yay.

Berardinelli Sees Film

Quite frankly, having slugged my way though probably as much of the book as both mind and taste can handle, reading this review of the movie adaptation of Eragon was one of the best things I've read this week. If the movie at all resembles the book, the reviewer (James Berardinelli) is dead on target here. I encourage you to read it for it will almost certainly make you laugh. All you need to know going in is that the book is baaaaad.

Redaction

If by any means I may provoke to emulation my flesh, and might save some of them. For if the casting away of them the reconciling of the world, what the receiving, but life from the dead? For if the firstfruits holy, the lump also: and if the root holy, so the branches.

So I know this guy. I run into him a time or three a week. And on rare occasions, while looking over his shoulder, I see into his Bible. (I know, huh. Such a Peeping Tom!) And this is where the funny begins.

Sure there's all kinds of highlighting, underlining, and marginalia (though I have yet to see a "man vs. nature" on the sidelines), but the real kicker is that every page is littered with words he has blotted out, stricken from the record. What began in a kind of mild shock (as in, "Wow, he must not have liked what Jesus said there!") has transformed into a giddy kind of amusement as the truth of the matter slowly has reached its dawning.

This guy I know, he's a big King James Version (KJV) fan. He may even be of the One True Bible (tm) fanclub, I'm not sure. In any case, those familiar with the KJV and its younger brother should know that both versions have a number of words italicized (or otherwise demarcated from the rest of the text - the BLB uses square brackets). This special notation is used (for reasons that escape me) to alert the English reader to the fact that the noted words do not appear literally in the original text but are only implied by the original text. It was a moment of high joy when it was discovered that these are the words that are blacked out.

It was even higher joy, a couple weeks ago, to hear him as he read from his Bible aloud. Skipping all the blacked-out words. Now the KJV is difficult enough for the contemporary ear to decipher when its grammatically sound. To hear the clipped staccato of this abridged version was more disorienting than watching the theatrical climax to James Cameron's The Abyss.

Now he's a nice guy and I imagine that what he's doing, he does with the best of intentions - being careful not to ad to the Word of God and all. But it also betrays a profound misunderstanding of the way foreign language translation works. It's pretty much a well-esteemed truth that an entirely literal translation of Scripture would be patently unreadable. This is because languages are not grammatical analogues of each other. This is why you'll hear twenty-three syllables on the Hong Kong crime drama you're watching and the subtitles will say something terse like, "I'm hungry!"

To use an example from one of the few foreign languages in which I possess a working vocabulary of more than thirty words, if i wish to translate, "No se" from Spanish, I'll simply say it means, "I don't know" or technically, "I do not know" (four words from two). If I were this guy, I would have to blot that down to something like, "Not know." Not only is this pretty inelegant, but as there's no attached pronoun, the statement is pretty ambiguous. Translation of something like "Me llamo El Dane" becomes more tricky. Though we would likely express the same sentiment in English by saying something like, "I am The Dane" or "My name is The Dane," a literal translation would run along the lines of, "I call myself The Dane." This guy's version would run: "Call myself The Dane." It's just too weird.

And it does exactly what he's trying to avoid: it distorts the meaning of the text.

Woe. Woe Unto Hair

Just for kicks, I thought I would add some more pictures of my lamentable hair-state circa 1991. For those who wonder, the cut is very short on both sides and long in the middle (kinda like a mohawk). In the beginning, I would typically wear it over an eye or through the hole in my backwards ballcap. Later, I would just wear it how it fell, with it generally falling largely to the left.

Incidentally, that portrait was in my senior yearbook and still gives me chills of laughter even as it should you. Also of note is that during this era, my brother (who had a more generally acceptable head of hessian metal-do) dressed as me for Halloween one year.

Cast Your Pearls before Harbours

Even as the seventh of December is yearly marked as Pearl Harbour Day and is celebrated by much hooplah, drinking, and revelled abandonment, the day is also marked by a far more solemn anniversary. Without becoming too somber in my elocution here, it will suffice to say that it has been fifteen years since I cut my hair, on 7 December 1992.

1989-1992
R.I.P.

</minxSexism>

If paying attention to a segment of feminist-blogging diaspora has demonstrated one thing more unassailably to my mind that anything else, it's this: despite best intentions to the contrary, people are people - and as such are flawed. And one of those evident flaws is seen readily in the fact that people are uncomfortable with whatever it is they deem to be Other.

If you count sex as a difference, then you predispose yourself toward sexism. If you count race as a difference, then you predispose yourself toward racism. If age, then ageism. If nationality, then nationalism. If religion, then creedalism. If you are ego-centric like me, then you are predisposed toward misanthropy. I suppose it's only natural - and so, understandable - that one who sees himself as distinct from another group would predispose himself to treating unfairly members of this group.

This doesn't mean it's right. Only that we should expect it.

And so, as frustrating as it is to read, there is no reason I shouldn't have expected sexism to be nearly so rampant in the conversations I've been reading. From both males and females. And yet it did surprise me for some reason.

I suppose it was simple naivety on my part to imagine that many of those calling for equality would not themselves be guilty of sexism. I mean, I am, for all intents and purposes, an egalitarian and I catch myself in hypocrisies from time to time - so I don't know why I believed it should be different with others.

In any case, I thought I'd reflect on some of the common inadequacies in some of the discussions I've come across in this particular niche of the discussion: sexism and comics.

Much of this came about in respect to a new line of comics that will be marketed toward a young female demographic. This new line, Minx, and will be produced by DC Comics (the Batman and Superman company); and out of something like nine writers and artists for the new line, only two of these are women. The producers of the line (women themselves), in an effort to clam the minds of many who were already crying foul play, promise that they tried to more women involved but the women they wanted were either unavailable, not interested, or didn't pitch an acceptable book.

So that's the set-up. And I know you're dying to hear about the sexism, so here we go.

Women Seeking Women
One commenter, a strong voice of feminism-in-comic circles, says,

I also seek out authors of my own gender because my experience has been that I’m more likely to get a voice that I can relate to. You may not care about the gender of the authors you read, but consider that that’s not true for everyone.

Another says:

It’s the difference between "this is written/drawn for me and it’s nice" and "this is written/drawn for me and it could have been written/drawn BY me because I can really identify with the women doing it."

There are two things going on here: 1) a marketing truth - that people buy stuff from people that are similar to them; and 2) sexism. The first isn't all that interesting, but the second piques my curiosity.

For the sake of argument what would we say if you gave me a book and, before telling you what I thought about it, I asked if the author was black? Because, you know, I have a hard time relating to blacks. What we would say is that I am a racist jerk and that by saying I cannot relate to someone because their pigmentation differs from mine, I am really just lowering them to the level of an entirely different kind of creature. I am no longer treating black people as human; they are now Other.

This is what's happening here. It is being suggested that men cannot write believable women (and I presume, conversely, that women cannot write believable men). Or maybe, to state better, men can't write women as believably as women can (and vice versa). For the authors of these comments, men are no longer people in the same sense that women are - they are Other.

And that is a sexist notion. (For more on the topic, please refer to my Y: The Last Man article discussing the topic.)

Thar's Condescension in Them Thar Hills

Many readers, mostly male, have said that this not-enough-women-thing is silly, there should be no gender quotas, blah blah blah. It’s easy to say there should be no quotas when you’re on the winning side.

It’s interesting that most (but not all) of the people who are saying it’s okay that the line is mostly men because art should be gender neutral are MEN. Interesting but hardly surprising.

And one commenter says in response to some poor sap who said he didn't understand where all the rage on the issue was coming from,

Rage? More like exasperation, which, as a fella, are unlikely to ever have to understand.

Nearbout a year ago, when I first started perusing comics blogs with anything approaching what we might term, "in earnest," I came across Kalinara's very pink site. One of the first posts there I ever commented on dealt with feminism, sexism, et cetera. I was hesitant and self-deprecating, remembering past incidents in which being the, quote-unquote, privileged majority rendered any point I made a moot one. I had always been frustrated that I was perceived as a white, American male simply because it kept me from being viewed as a person. Instead, I was nearly always perceived as The Man - or some sort of herald to Said Man.

Kalinara, however, said it didn't matter and that ideas were ideas and she didn't care about my chromosome status. Or something like that. It was refreshing. And smart. Because chromosomes don't matter when it's ideas that are on the table.

Yet despite Kalinara's willingness to put sexism behind her, others are not so aicable to the concept. Or maybe they're find with the concept but find the practice more difficult. In any case, every last person who says that men cannot understand an issue like this by virtue of the fact of their "privilege" is wallowing in sexism. They are guilelessly wading through tar pits of that muck they're swearing their lives to do away with.

This is interesting, but not surprising. Not because they're women, but because they're people. And people are thoroughly flawed and are usually of two or three or nine minds at any given time. To restate a Frank, despite everything, I believe that people are really lame at heart.

The Good, the Bad, and the Xmas

My Top 5 Christmas Songs by Popular Performers

(in no order beyond alphabetical)

"A Holiday Song (Happy Holidays)" - Starflyer 59

"Christmas Time is Here" - Vince Guaraldi Trio

"It's Cold Outside" - Brian Setzer Orchestra

"Santa Baby" - Eartha Kitt

"White Christmas" - Bing Crosby

My Top 5 Worst Christmas Songs Ever

(in no order beyond alphabetical)

"Little Drummer Boy" - performed by anyone

"Little Drummer Boy" - performed by anyone

"Little Drummer Boy" - performed by anyone

"Little Drummer Boy" - performed by anyone

"Little Drummer Boy" - performed by anyone

That little drumming hooligan. Why is it that one of the worst Christmas songs ever penned plays several times an hour in any tune-playing restaurant you go to? How did such a stilted, painfully composed march ever become so joyously greeted that it found a home on EVERY Christmas album ever produced (thereby ensuring that every Christmas album has at least one wholly unlistenable track on it)? How do things like this happen? Yet another argument, I suppose, against postmillennialism.

"What's that Mr. North? You have an argument to forward on the behalf of your eschatalogy? No, please. no need to get up. No need to actually present your argument. For you see, it will do you no good. Allow me to introduce you to the bane of your ideology: Mr. Little Drummer Boy. Oh, look what you did Mr. Little Drummer Boy. You just made Mr. North weep."