Bring on the Robots

So Infiniti is playing the snot out of this commercial for its new Q50—which includes “Driving Aids” which help you out if you suddenly forget, you know, how to drive.

To illustrate, the cotton-headed ninnymuggins behind the wheel in this spot manages to almost wreck not once but twice in fifteen seconds. Luckily, someone who does have a working cerebellum bought him a really nice car, so the car’s superior intellect took over and reminded him, “Hey, buddy—you have to stay in your lane.” And, a few seconds later, “When a car in front of you stops, you have to stop too—wait, never mind—I’ll do it for you.”

If it seems as though I’m anthropomorphizing the car, to be fair, in this case the car is the brains of the operation. If you remember the eighties like me this commercial gives you déjà vu, because—Knight Rider.

At the end of the commercial, the narrator intones, “It’s instinct to protect leaves you free to drive.” Or, not drive, dude, in point of fact.

But this is probably the direction we’re all heading. As a small percentage of the population becomes smart enough to make computers the size of a dime, or something, the rest of us get so dumb we forget how to even drive. The robots are probably taking over soon. We might as well just relax and go with it.

To wit, if we’re going to be Skynet’s slaves in a few years anyway, here are a few things I’d like help with:

 Coffee

It turns out different every time. Why? Is it possible that, like the hapless Infiniti driver, my emotions are distracting me and preventing me from always achieving the perfect cup? Send a robot, please.

Small talk

Much like driving and coffee brewing, small talk is fraught with peril. Once again, my emotions can get in the way. And also, what if I’m walking behind someone, and they stop, but I’m thinking about my deadlines, and I fail to stop? A Q50 failsafe would absolutely do the trick.

TV viewing

Let’s face it. It’s hard to hit that power button. Especially in the case of reality TV, how will I know when I’ve experienced enough moral superiority, and can shut off the device before crossing into pathetic-get-a-life binge watching? No doubt the clever folks at Infiniti can help.

In the meantime, I'm pretty bummed out that my car doesn't help me. The darn thing doesn't even chime when I leave the lights on, for lord's sake. It's kind of a miracle I'm still alive. 

Wearing Yoga Pants/Fearless

Last night I got sucked into a show I’d never seen before: Naked and Afraid. It’s a show about survivalists who sign up—willingly—to doff their clothes and get sent to a godforsaken armpit of the earth where they then try to survive for three weeks. The whole “try to survive” part is mitigated somewhat by the crowd of people filming them, and the team of medics standing at the ready. But, never mind. The contestants (participants?—after all there’s no prize) seem to take all of this very seriously. These are the sort of folks whose hobbies include composting and moralizing. Based on my limited viewing, many seem to call upon the spirits of their deceased loved ones to help them through this challenge. Often a ghost helps them to find shelter, for example, or an edible bug.

Throughout the episodes, the Discovery Channel ran promos with the next group of Naked and Afraiders listing their survival skills. As with all reality TV, as I watched, I imagined how I would handle the various situations. The answer is that I would immediately set about weaving some sort of leaf outfit. If there were no leaves I would of course promptly die of embarrassment. Let the medics try to explain that one to the producers!

I was also inspired to consider my own list of skills.

1.     I can deep fry almost anything.

2.     I can spot most grammar errors. I’m also reasonably good at managing not to point them out to people.

3.     Double coupons

4.     Sitting still for long periods of time.

5.     Misdirection through humor.

There may be a challenge show out there for me, but it probably won’t air on the Discovery Channel. I’m going with Food Network. In the meantime, it’s rather funny to watch a show like Naked and Afraid, while wearing comfy pants and eating mashed potatoes.

Goodnight, Dear Void

Some movies you see once, and move on. But some others are just so darn re-watchable—and so quotable. As much as I adore TV and books, there’s nothing like a movie for quotability. There are a few films that I’ve seen far more times than I could ever count. There are certain lines I think of every time a similar event happens in the real world. For instance, if anyone ever mentions trouble digesting dairy, in my head I immediately hear Meg Ryan’s character from French Kiss yelling “Lactose intolerannnnncccee!!!” and I picture her asking Kevin Kline to “stop the rocking” of the train.

These moments are burned into my brain forever, some from sheer repetition, but others because the moment, and the words the character spoke in that moment, just fit into this little space in my mind, and my heart.

There are so many quotes I could list, but here are my top five. More than just great movie quotes, if you ask me, these are words to live by.

5. “We're all pretty bizarre. Some of us are just better at hiding it, that's all”

-Andrew from The Breakfast Club

In a movie full of quotable lines (provided you’re not watching the censored version on broadcast TV) this one seems to me to really sum up the message of the film. None of these kids really felt like they had it all figured out. The fact that Andrew, one of the two members of the popular clique to be in Saturday detention that fateful day, was the one to say it gives the message even more weight.

4 “Why do I and everyone I love pick people who treat us like we're nothing?"

    “We accept the love we think we deserve.”

-Sam and Charlie, The Perks of Being a Wallflower

Okay, so this movie is based on a book, so it’s cheating a bit, but, wow. What a line. I can’t imagine Charlie’s reply not resonating with everyone who reads/hears it.

3. “Donger's here for five hours, and he's got somebody. I live here my whole life, and I'm like a disease.”

-Sam, Sixteen Candles

I have personally recited this one throughout my life. Sam’s grandparents brought their foreign exchange student to her house on the afternoon of her birthday; by nine PM he had a girlfriend. Meanwhile Sam’s had a crush on the same boy for at least a year and (she doesn’t think) he even knows she’s alive. Such a relatable moment (at least for me!)

2. “That's your problem, you don't want to be in love, you want to be in love in a movie.”-Becky, Sleepless in Seattle

The genius of Nora Ephron: I could easily do a top-ten list of just her quotes. This line is so perfect. Who doesn’t want to be in love in a movie? And how many of us at least strongly suspect that romantic books and movies have probably ruined us on some fundamental level?

1. “Sometimes I wonder about my life. I lead a small life - well, valuable, but small - and sometimes I wonder, do I do it because I like it, or because I haven't been brave? So much of what I see reminds me of something I read in a book, when shouldn't it be the other way around? I don't really want an answer. I just want to send this cosmic question out into the void. So good night, dear void.”

-Kathleen, You’ve Got Mail.

Ephron again, of course. I love this movie so much. I love these lines (which the protagonist writes in an email to Tom Hanks’s  character) even more. There’s so much here. I feel sad and happy reading these words, every time. It’s amazing that the email/social media world had barely begun when this movie was written, and yet how perfectly does this sentiment still feel today? And then there’s the idea of wondering if we’ve chosen the best life because it’s what we want, or if we haven’t been brave—that part’s got to be timeless.

In a way, every blog post ever written (and most of them were written after this screenplay) is an echo to this idea. Whether or not we receive an answer, there’s something sort of comforting about sending our cosmic questions out into the void.

Goodnight, dear void.

Halt and Catch Fire?

So I’ve been watching the new show Halt and Catch Fire on AMC. I showed up in case it was going to be the new Mad Men, but stayed for the weird retro music and the flashbacks to my childhood. Much as I remember about the real eighties, there’s an alarming amount of beige.

In the show they’re trying their best to design an affordable personal computer that weighs less than fifteen pounds (ha ha we all say as we reach for the smartphones in our pockets). All the characters are very conservative and wear boring (mainly beige) clothes, except for Cameron, a rogue programmer. You can tell she’s a rebel because she listens to Punk Rock Music and wears t-shirts. If they keep up this kind of subtle characterization, this series is sure to garner lots of awards.

I’ll probably stick with it for a bit because for one, it’s a summer series. Let’s face it, the bar is on the low side. Also, watching it makes me remember the early eighties, aka my early childhood. The show has also caused me to consider my strange relationship with computers. For something that barely existed for the first twelve or so years of my life, the computer has become pretty darn important in my life. My laptop is practically an appendage at this point.

My dad, who’s a baby boomer, worked in sales. He told me that one day someone brought a PC into his office, plopped it on his desk and announced something like, “From now on, this is how we do things.” He said that’s essentially what happened to everyone in his generation.

That had to be rough. But my generation’s relationship with computers was a little murkier. We had computers in my high school. I went to a big public school; we had maybe two rooms full of Radio Shack Tandy machines: green cursor, black screen, floppy drive. As a student I remember visiting these strange devices only sporadically. In contrast, I took a typing class (as in, the room was full of typewriters) twice a week.

 

Sleek, elegant design. Refreshing lack of user-friendly operating system. 

When I was a freshman in college, the school held a ceremonial burning of the library card catalog, and told us to use the computers to find our books. That’s cool, except I’d just finished learning the how to use freaking card catalog in my senior year of high school. 

This kind of crackerjack timing has been the hallmark of my life’s experience with technology. 

The clever title Halt and Catch Fire, though it's supposedly some early bit of programming language--is also kind of a perfect metaphor for technology. Yesterday's amazing new invention is tomorrow's pile of old crap. 

At least until it becomes a collectible, and then you can really clean up on eBay. 

The Cheap Seats

I just finished torturing my freshmen with Romeo and Juliet. I say torture, but a lot of them loved acting out the first scene and learning to stage fight. Some of them didn’t even seem to mind learning about poetry. A handful of them cried when we watched the final scene of the Baz Luhrman movie.

But this year, for the first time since 1996, I had a few students wondering why we were watching the “old” movie.

Now I’ll just let the whole 1996-equals-old business go, and focus instead on the shiny new Romeo and Juliet flick these girls told me about. It came out last year. I’ve seen the trailer a few times.

The thing is, this movie doesn’t really seem all that different from the 1968 Zefferelli version: Romeo is still way too pretty—seriously, you could cut glass on this kid’s cheekbones. In common with the also very pretty Leonard Whiting from the classic flick (who, incidentally, is a dead ringer for Zac Effron—see the proof below), this handsome lad seems to have been selected more for his facility with hair gel and eye sparkle than emoting in iambic pentameter. But, I admit, I only watched the trailer. That’s right, I couldn’t get past the three-minute mark. Because what they seem to have done is, they CHANGED ALL THE WORDS.

When I realized this while showing the trailer to class, one of my students was like, it’s okay, Ms. H—the story’s still the same. And then I freaked out more, because the story itself is actually pretty stupid. For example, our heroes were apparently too dense to figure out that a rope ladder can actually be used to transport more than one person. Everybody knows Shakespeare copied most of his stories anyway. It’s the language that makes this play, and all his others, beautiful and memorable.

But based on what I've seen, this version seems to have eviscerated the play. For one, some lady at the Capulet ball plays Commander Obvious, and explains, for those too dense to grasp this complex, world- famous story that, “Juliet is a Capulet. The  Montagues and the Capulets are MORTAL ENEMIES.”

Oh, good. Because almost nobody has heard of this play, so let’s just make it EXTRA clear.

Then, I guess after he’s murdered Tybalt and all that, Romeo kneels in a church and says,

"What have I done? I've murdered my tomorrow!"

What’s that, Cheekbones? You murdered your tomorrow? Is that what you did? Because nowhere in the play, or anywhere else in Shakespeare that I know of, does anybody murder a tomorrow. This screenwriter has some major cajones: it’s one thing to simplify Shakespeare. It’s quite another to try to out-poetry him. Especially with a line like that.

Some folks may say I’m being too big of a fancy-pants here. But here’s the thing—I love the 1996 version, and not just because Leo DiCaprio can seriously act. It’s modern, and trashy, and not really highbrow at all.* But they kept what was special about the play—the words. It’s worth noting that the cheapest tickets to Elizabethan theatrical performances also offered the best view, right up by the stage. The best seats were in the gallery, which afforded a better chance to hear the words. Today, the best seat in the house is always about being the one with the best view. We make everything look good, but sometimes forget there's more to life. 

I don’t care if you act out Shakespeare’s plays in a modernized Hollywood movie or in your backyard—it doesn’t matter what it looks like—it’s still poetry.

*I have more piece of evidence of my lack of snobbery—if I do end up seeing this new movie, it will be entirely because Ed Westwick of Gossip Girl is in it as Tybalt. I XOXO that guy.

Star-Crossed and Freeze-Dried-To Netflix or Not to Netflix?

I intended to love the show Star-Crossed. Don’t get me wrong, I fully expected it to be cheesy. The fact is, I enjoy cheese, and the show had many of the elements I enjoy in my cheesy escapist CW viewing: cute aliens! romance! great soundtrack! Unfortunately, the show is also taking itself way too seriously.

So far the plot is suffering from what I like to call Season-3 disease, but the weird thing is, we’re only on episode 9. Season 3 disease is named after two of my favorite shows, Veronica Mars and Roswell. Both shows were awesome because of the characters in their first two seasons (though the latter started to go off the rails in season 2). But in their final seasons, both became very episodic and more like cookie-cutter versions of their respective genres, mystery and SF. Star-Crossed is already there: they’ve packed the first nine episodes full of science-fiction nonsense, including, but not limited to: an alien plant that cures cancer, a different version of the same alien plant (you just change the name of it by adding the word “black”—so clever!) that kills people, a spaceship crash, a human/alien hybrid baby, and a secret group of aliens who are passing as humans because they’ve had their tattoos removed (more on that last one later). Also, when they put one of these aliens in prison, they just keep them in a dry room. One thirty-something pretty alien woman came out looking like she was eighty, or maybe just an alien raisin. 

Roswell had essentially the same premise: the forbidden love between a human girl and an alien boy, but they lost focus when they tried to go big with the sci-fi, giving the alien race a name and a space ship powered by a diamond and all kinds of other crap, which didn’t gel with the romantic elements they’d already put in place. The Star-Crossed aliens already have a name, and it’s pretty moronic: they’re called Atrians, which sounds far too much like the entrance to a building for my taste. All the Atriums have a bunch of tattoos and they are really good swimmers, which made Earth a pretty perfect place to crash land, I guess. Since they look like perfectly hot human models without the tats, a bunch of rebel aliens got theirs removed, although the marks still show up when wet, which means their entire system of espionage can be foiled by a light drizzle.

I guess water is pretty important to this species. There was also a scene last week in which an alien was released from prison, where they had her all dried out.  They led out a seventy-year old alien, put her in a bathtub, and presto! She was like thirty-five and hot. Freeze-dried aliens. So that happened.

I also can’t possibly keep track of which are the good Vestibules and which are the bad ones, because some of them are they are using their bad plant to kill people, which is a real bummer, because, as previously mentioned, these alien boys are in fact super hot. The main character is named Roman, so his parents must have known he was going to crash-land on Earth and maybe they figured he could just pretend to be Italian. 

The actor who portrays him is also thirty-one, and playing a junior in high school, a proud Earth tradition going all the way back to Beverly Hills 90210.

According to the story, Roman is in love with the human girl who saved him when he was a kid, but it’s hard to get fully invested in the relationship, as the actress who’s playing her seems to have done some training at the Kristen Stewart School of Acting. He's not bad--it's just--he's clearly not seventeen. Maybe they keep going to high school into their thirties on his homeworld. 

Update: so this show actually got better in its final four or five episodes of the season--so of course the CW had to cancel it. I just re-watched them in order on Netflix, just as a background show to have one while I was working on the computer, etc. And you know what, there was an inescapable element of cheese. But I'm still kind of bummed it got cancelled, because they set up one heck of a cliffhanger. I'd say if you like aliens, teen drama (and if you're old enough to remember V-human/alien baby hybrids!) this one might be worth the binge. 

How to Write a Synopsis

Step 0: Make coffee.

Step 1: Figure out what the heck actually happens in the story you haven’t written yet, even though you’re the type of writer who figures out the plot as you write.

ààAfter Step 1 is unsuccessful, find something else useful to do, like clean your room or the kitchen. Sit down to rest, feeling that at least you accomplished something.

ààààThen, it’s Monday and time to go back to work. Work hard all week, then try again with Step 1 the next Saturday—after taking Friday night off to watch Netflix, of course.

Step 1, Take 2: Start writing. When everything sounds cheesy and wrong, send it as an e-mail attachment to your friends, who later confirm that there are numerous problems with the plausibility of the story, just not the same problems you saw.

ààAdd coffee. Start over.

ààààWhen the result is terrible, print it out, because hitting the delete button on a computer just doesn’t provide that satisfying paper-crunching sensation, and you are, after all, a traditionalist.  Crumpling wads of paper also reminds you of movie montages in which five minutes of failing and then trying again leads to ultimate success, which is reassuring.

Step 1A: Make cookies. Eat them.

Step 1B: Make a project playlist. Get lost on iTunes...

           

ààAccidental online shopping detour.

Step 1, Take 3: Start writing again. Fight urge to go all Office Space on work laptop.

           

ààBaby name website detour. This is okay. You are searching for a new

character name. This counts as work.

ààààAdd coffee. Are there any cookies in the house?

Step 1, Take 4: Write another draft. This one’s got to be it. You can feel it.

            ààWrite blog post instead.

Step 1, Take 5: Write another draft. This has to end sometime. Might as well be today.

Send out as an email attachment. There will be more revisions, but for now, you are allowed to watch Netflix without feeling like a failure.

(ààMake more cookies.)