Notes, Notings, and Common Refrains

In the early 16th Century, "Geek" meant "village idiot."
In the early 20th Century, "Geek" meant "actor in a carnival side show."
In the late 20th Century,* "Geek" meant "a person mocked for their weird enthusiasms (as if they were an attraction in a carnival side show)."
In the early 21st Century, "Geek' meant "a person proud of their enthusiasm for esoteric fields, not caring if they are mocked."

This is why I love being in the company of geeks. Their enthusiasm is contagious, even when I don't share enthusiasm for their particular favorite thing. Here's a video of a mathematician who is a Klein Bottle geek. I bet you'll be grinning by the end of it. I bet you!



*first noted in popular culture in the movie "The Breakfast Club"

About how they have no concept of "over-thinking" something, and how they compulsively try to connect ALL THE IDEAS to a single point of interest?

Well, a couple of weeks ago, I found "The PBS Idea Channel" on YouTube... I think it does, indeed, have some sort of official connection to the Public Broadcasting Service network... But it also seems to be a creative project of one dude (or small group of people...). Anyway, it strikes me as a very graphic embodiment of my own notions of Geekitude. Not only does he connect ideas explicitly, through speaking, he connects his speaking to an even wider range of cultural references through animated .gifs and rapid-fire still images (take that as fair warning). So, yeah: in my imagination, this is what geek-think looks (and sounds) like.

Just for fun, here's the most recent one:



Here're the links he mentioned:

Ignite talk:
http://bit.ly/1cNRps1

The Cat Web:
http://bit.ly/13Ashgd

Google Cat Computer:
http://nyti.ms/17pHN0s

Based on the likes/dislikes and comments on this thing, it seems like a song you'll either love or hate.

...I side with the former.



The video has closed captions, but they go out of sync about two-thirds of the way through, so here they are behind a cut: ( LYRICS )

Even though I already own a paperback edition of Much Ado About Nothing (Bantam Books, 1980 -- reprinted 1993 [to take advantage of Kenneth Branagh's film]), I am sorely tempted to buy another -- namely, the Arden Shakespeare (third series) edition, 2005.

This, specifically, is the paragraph that's tempting me (Publisher's description on Amazon):

This edition of the play offers in its introduction and commentary an extensive discussion of the materials that informed Shakespeare's compositional choices, both those conventional sources and other contexts, from cuckold jokes to conduct books, which inform the ideas and identities of this play. Particular attention is devoted to Renaissance understandings of gender identity and social rank, as well as to the social valences of Shakespeare's stylistic choices. Among the elements of structure and style discussed are the two concurrent plots, the recurrence of verbal handshakes, and the use of music. A treatment of staging possibilities offers illustrations drawn from the earliest and recent theatrical practices, and a critical history examines the fate of the play in the changing trends of academic scholarship.

Gender identity and social rank -- Yes, Please! It's kind of hard to miss that the shame of premarital sex is seen as worthy of death in the Governor's daughter, Hero, but only gets a "tut-tut" and "you really should make better choices when it comes to your boyfriends," for Hero's lady-in-waiting, Margaret (who is my second favorite character, after Beatrice).

Cuckold jokes -- Ooh! Certainly Yes, Please!

"Verbal handshakes" -- saying "Yes!" to this is like saying Yes to ice cream...

Sigh -- such a geek

[Edited: I'm awake, now, and the thoughts I had about Benedick are still going around in my head, so I'm going to pick up from where I was dropping off [srsly, folks, my eyes were closing of their own accord], and finally get this out of my head.)

I posted about this a couple of days ago, right after I watched it... But it's taken a couple of days for all my thoughts to percolate -- so this is the full-on geek version.

So, this weekend, I found the full, 1984, BBC production of Much Ado About Nothing online, and watched all two and a half hours. It was nowhere as slick or polished as a commercially produced, theatrically released, movie. And if you complained to me that the acting was as stiff and measured as an over-starched dress shirt, I would not argue...

However... I've read the full text several times, and I've seen several versions acted out: a few different versions in live theater, and Kenneth Branagh's film version. But reading words on a page never quite conveys the subtleties of tensions between characters. And in most acted productions, there's always (it seems) going to be something cut out by the modern director. And so this is the first time I'd watched the full text fully acted, and I came away with insights and feels (All the feels!) that I haven't had before.

[ETA: In writing this post, I've gone back and reread the text, and realize a few lines have been cut... but far fewer lines than is usual).

( Where I go into detail, Part one: the tense, dramatic parts )

( Detail, part two-a: The Rom-Com bits: Beatrice's side )

( Detail, part two-b: The Rom-Com bits: Benedick's side )
---

( Conclusions )

Online, here: "On Fairy Stories" by J. R. R. Tolkien

It took me several days; I consider this quite an accomplishment. I was expecting it to be about the length of a magazine article. When I copy-pasted the whole thing into Open Office and did a word count, it came out at over 22K words.

There is much in the essay I agree with (at that length, on that subject it would be improbable if there were not). But, if I were to sit across a table from him, over mugs of tea and a plate of bread and cheese, and this were a discussion, there would be many points where I'd be interjecting: "Yes. But."

However, here are seven of my favorite passages (Seven is a fitting number for the subject), where I find myself nodding in agreement:

(Quote 1 [from the section titled "Origins"]:)
( The things that are there must often have been retained (or inserted) because the oral narrators, instinctively or consciously, felt their literary “significance.” )

(Quote 2 [from the section "Children"]:)
( Children as a class —- except in a common lack of experience they are not one )

(Quote 3 [From "Fantasy"]:)
( If men really could not distinguish between frogs and men, fairy-stories about frog-kings would not have arisen )

(Quote 4 [From "Recovery, Escape, Consolation"]:)
( We should look at green again, and be startled anew (but not blinded) by blue and yellow and red. )

(Quote 5 [ibid]:)
( The gems all turn into flowers or flames, and you will be warned that all you had (or knew) was dangerous and potent, not really effectively chained, free and wild; no more yours than they were you. )

(Quote 6 [ibid]):
( Why should a man be scorned if, finding himself in prison, he tries to get out and go home? Or if, when he cannot do so, he thinks and talks about other topics than jailers and prison-walls? )

(Quote 7 [From "footnote D"]
( I did not want to be quibbled into Science and cheated out of Faerie )

This past July, I just about mainlined on YouTube videos about the Higgs Boson. And I discovered something (for me, anyway): didn't matter if I understood what they were saying -- listening to physicists talk about their particular field of study makes me feel as happy and calm as listening to a lullaby ...

'Cause the message is pretty much the same as a lullaby: The universe is a beautiful place, it's governed by laws that keep whole thing in one piece; the more we learn about it, the more beautiful it appears, and there will always be more to learn. And even if I don't understand the meaning of the words they use, their joy in their work comes through in their voices.

I really like the YouTube Channels by Brady Haran: Numberphile (Maths) SixtySymbols (physics) and Periodic Table of Videos (Chemistry). He basically walks around the University of Nottingham with a video camera, and asks professors to talk about their subjects. So you get the profs when they're relaxed and just playing around and being their geeky selves.

So far, this man (Professor Ed Copeland) is one of my go-to people for when I need cheering up. Just look at how easily he smiles, and how there are default crinkles in the corner of his eyes (how you know the smiles are genuine -- can fake everything about a smile, except that). It's almost more of an effort for him to keep a straight face. Here he is talking about wormholes:



He obviously loves the universe, and most of the people in it.

I've always loved monsters, for nearly as long as I can remember.

Actually, I should qualify that: I'm not fond, at all, of the "Hollywood monsters," such as zombies, or "The Thing from the Black Lagoon" or "The Blob" -- which are, imnsho, blatant representations of abject fear-without-thought, and show up in stories to justify unjustifiable bigotry. But I've always loved the heraldic monsters:

Unicorns (Note Well: they are not just sparkly ponies with a horn. And they do not poop rainbows), Dragons, &hearts Gryphons &hearts, Greenmen, and of course, the monster of my Astrological Sun-sign: Sea-goats

For most of that time, I just thought they were nifty because they were -- "fancy" (?), and they represent the "magical impossible," and are manifestations of the imagination, and creativity... All good stuff. But I never gave them much more thought beyond: "Nifty, Neat-O! Keen!"

Then, a few years ago, for naarmamo, I was overcome with a desire to draw new monsters of my own invention, several days in a row... like some sort of biological urge, or something.

And the geeky part of my brain thought: "WTF is up?! What is a monster, anyway? What, after all, is the basic definition?" And that's when I found the etymology, of "monster" being a "creature, human or livestock, with birth defects, and seen as a bad omen, and sign that the gods were angry."

And from that point on, monsters became a political statement for me, representing Disability Pride, Culture, and History, and the fight against Ableism/Disablism -- on top of being a manifestation of creativity and imagination. ... And here, I could mount an argument that creativity and the use of the imagination is an essential part of Disability Culture, because when Society makes a concerted effort to deny you access (because it views you as a monster) you have to be creative, to make a way of living for yourself where none is given to you.

(but really, that's for another post).

Then, the other day, when I posted the newest image of my newest monster,* pebblerocker commented that she loved the "joins" -- where feather meets fur and fur meets scales. And there was the "ding-ding-ding!" of realization, and third leg in the three-legged stool of my monster-love popped into place.

Back in my first years of my college education, I took a literary survey course called "Comedy, Wit, and Humor" (it was awesome; it was once a week, three hours long, and we got to watch Richard Pryor videos and tell dirty jokes in class). And the one thing from that class which has stuck with me over the last 30 years is this:

The punchlines of jokes work because the human mind can only follow one line of logic at a time. The main "body" of the joke tells a story along a certain line of logic, and in standard narrative fashion, the emotional tension builds to a climax. Then, the "punch" line comes in, from a completely different logical direction and knocks that emotional tension "ass-over-teakettle," revealing all our fears and worries to be nonsensical. And in that release of tension, we laugh. (And that may be why so many people say a compatible sense of humor is the most important trait in life partners -- your sense of humor reveals how you are likely to respond to life's ambiguities. Personally, I will never trust anyone whose humor tends toward causing pain or belittling another's intelligence).

( The joke that was given as a model of this formula (as I remember it), was this: )

Anyway, pebblerocker's comment flicked on the light bulb that monsters do this, too. The point where the goat's front half grows from the fish's back half, or the Green Man's beard grows as foliage instead of hair, is like the punchline of a joke: the moment when the logic of the world-as-we-know-it gets turned on its head.

This can be the moment of terror (especially if you are the Archbishop of Seville, and all the comfort and power in your life is built on the world-as-we-know-it), but it can also be the moment of laughter (which Jim Henson, in his genius, understood instinctively, if not intellectually).

And that's why I Heart Monsters: In one package, they represent:

1) The sublime reaches of Human Creativity
2) Righteous Anger against human cruelty
3) The ultimate life-saving power of the Absurd

*( it's here, behind the cut )

Even though "Geek & Sundry" is a professional, for-profit YouTube Channel, I have to share these recent videos of theirs.

Remember, how, yesterday evening, I was remarking how I'd turned into a gloomy, Serious Business so-and-so?

Well, G&S came to my rescue. Last night, they posted a bonus video of Felicia Day and Robin Thorston making candy versions of "sushi" ... and that prompted me to get into a brief exchange with another user in the comments about our favorite flavor combinations, especially around candy and ice cream...

Then, this afternoon, they posted this music video by Paul and Storm. I'm not even a Game of Thrones fan, and I still had to watch it four times in a row... and kept finding new things to laugh at.

And I know several people in my circles are fans of the series, so:

So yeah... the other day, I wrote this as a quickie post:

[Quote]
A proposal for a definition of "Geek," which can exist independent of any particular cultural trend (e.g. video-games, comics, or spec. fic):

Noun:

Someone to whom the sentence: "You're over-thinking this," is inherently nonsensical.
[Unquote]

This is the ultimate antithesis of a "quickie post" It has All the Words... But a bunch are under cuts, and I'll understand if you don't actually read them all (though it would be nifty if you read some). Basically, this is where a non-geek would say I'm over-thinking this...

That thought came to me in the middle of watching the newest music video from the YouTube Channel called "Geek and Sundry," which is provided under the cuts below for those who are curious. Go Watch / Read / Whatever. I'll wait 'till you get back.

( I'm the one that's cool -- video behind the cut for NSFW or kids visuals )

( I'm the one that's cool -- Song lyrics for those who can't watch vid, behind the cut for length )

The thing is, I've always considered myself a "geek,"* but I had to Google about two-thirds the cultural references in those lyrics before I understood them. And I really think "geek" is really more about: 1) A general attitude toward the world around you and 2) your favorite ways of solving problems than it ever was about which particular cultural tastes you have.

I mean, take this soliloquy from Hamlet, for example: if these aren't the words of a Geek-type wishing he could be more of a Jock-type, than I don't what is (whether these are words strictly specific to character and situation, or [as I suspect] the author getting a wee bit autobiographical)

( Video of he Soliloquy from the end Act 2, Scene 2 in *Hamlet* as acted by David Tennant )**

( Text of the Soliloquy )

( Here's where I stop quoting and start babbling my own words about everything above -- Starting with *Hamlet* and finishing with why I think 'Geekdom' is MORE than just science, math, computers, and science fiction, but even so, I understand why so many people think Geek=Science ... What do you mean, I'm 'over-thinking this?' )


*or rather, as someone of that personality type -- the year I graduated left high school, (I stayed an extra year after I was qualified to graduate so I could be in the new Advanced Placement History and English classes): 1982, the first definition of "Geek" in the dictionary was still "Someone who bites the heads off chickens," and I was never that.

**There's also a video that compares the performances of both Simm and Tennant, back-to-back, but of the two, David's version comes across to me as more frantically barely-out-of-adolescence in age, in terms of don't-know-what-to-do-with-my-feelings and resulting social awkwardness, so I think of this performance as one of the geekiest ever. Makes it easier to remember that Shakespeare wrote the character to be college student... Or it could just be because of that tee-shirt he's wearing in the scene ;-)