Category Archives: Culture

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and the bah humbugs

December 18, 2015 8:14 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I’ve been on a theater kick for the past couple of years and we are right now at the tail end of the 2015 Fall theater season in Houston.  I just have to say that the theater scene in Houston keeps getting better and better all the time.  Houston has gained a national reputation for its fine dining choices and I can see a time when it gains a name as a live theater mecca as well.

But anyways, some of the local troupes that I follow put on Christmas and holiday related plays to cap the year.  Stark Naked Theater put on “Ho Ho Humbug 2.0“, Bayou City Theatrics put on “The 12 dates of Christmas“, and the Classical Theater Company put on “A Christmas Carol“.

The last is of course the classic Charles Dickens story and I wanted to see it as I’ve never seen it performed live but the other two were contemporary stories set in or near present day America and dealt mainly with how we perceive and deal with this time of year.

For better or for worse, people in this country have come to associate this holiday season with certain things.

  • Religion of course.  This is a christian holiday and at one time this was a predominantly christian nation.  Whether you agree with it or not you can’t deny that there is an influence there.
  • Traditions that bind us to certain European countries where Americans originated from
  • Commercialism which is more of an american tradition.

From the late 19th century till about the Mid 20th century this was the Christmas season (the term “holiday season” wasn’t in widespread use).  Government, Church, and commercial interests helped spread and foster the season and developed it into what we came to know as Christmas time.

But then in the mid 20th century we began to see this change over time.  People started to notice that this time of year didn’t resonate with everyone.

One of the earliest examples was the Peanuts Christmas TV special where one of the characters proclaimed that Christmas was a racket and controlled by some company “back East”.  This illustrated the disconnect that some people had always felt around this time of year.

Mass media began to notice that besides the Christian majority that there were people from other faiths in this country and that more and more new Americans were arriving from non western European lands.

At the same time, commercial interests were moving to leverage the holiday for all it was worth.  Store displays are now put up as much as two months in advance and even though there has been some consumer backlash over this, they don’t seem to care that much.

I thought about all these points as I attended the plays I mentioned up above.

Christmas Carol is of course the original story about someone who has disconnected from the holiday.  Scrooge had consciously made a decision to set himself apart from humanity.  The spirits show him that this was not always the case and that he still had time to fix this condition.

12 dates of Christmas was a story about a woman who loses her fiance at Thanksgiving time and for the next 12 months has disastrous dates with various men.  She reflects on how “family centered” that the holidays can be and how single people can feel ostracized around the holiday season.

Ho ho Humbug 2.0 was the most poignant of the three.  A writer, that hates the holidays, needs a temporary job to make his rent and by accident winds up playing a store Santa Claus.  Through some soliloquies the writer explains that even as a child he had never connected to Christmas and that he felt that this job was a farce.

As the play progresses and he interacts with his co-workers and with the customers, he comes to see that Christmas means so much more than the commercialism, the decorations and customs, and even the religious aspect.  Christmas had a distinct meaning to everyone he met.  In the end he doesn’t embrace all the aspects of the holiday but he comes to find a way that he can celebrate the season and make it his own.

I think that last point is the most important.  I see some people decrying the holidays as being too commercial, too religious, too superficial.  But then I look around at people from other parts of the world cheerfully celebrating the holiday and pretty much just ignoring the bits that they don’t like or understand.

For example, Christmas is huge in Japan for the gifting aspect.  Not many Christians there.  I know some Jewish families that put up Christmas trees and focus in on the gift giving and celebration aspects.  Last year I was on vacation in the tropics at this time of year and I saw some of the locals decorating their hut with a Christmas tree.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you need to make the holiday your own in order to enjoy it.  Most people enjoy the season out of habit.  But for those that find the season to be a chore or a bother, I think that if you look more closely that there is something there for you to enjoy as well.

 

Merry Christmas

Posted in: Christmas, consumerism, culture, current events, holidays, Houston, life in general, pop culture, theater, thought , Tagged: ,

Birthday lessons

July 5, 2015 6:57 AM , Leave a Comment ,

We celebrated America’s 239th birthday yesterday.  To most people it’s a chance to get off work and relax. Most of the population doesn’t sit back to consider the declaration of independence or the revolutionary war or the impact and meaning of these to their lives.

The few people who are paid to do this, social commenters, political writers, and those that make a living speculating about such things will usually crank out the same series of articles every year.  Either the founding fathers were God-fearing capitalist patriots trying to forge a new form of government in a howling wilderness or they were atheist, proto-marxists throwing off the shackles of oppression and  creating universal suffrage for all.  Most of the written pieces fall somewhere along this continuum with some detours delving into the issues of women’s suffrage or slavery. Depending on what websites you visit you will see one opinion voiced more than the other.

Of course not one of these views is wholly correct.  The founding fathers were a mixed lot of idealists and scoundrels, laissez faire capitalists and anarchists, land owning gentry and yeoman farmers, church elders and worldly men.  Each group had its own agenda and reasons as to why they wanted to break away from London’s control and the only thing they had in common was a realization that they would need each other’s support to achieve independence.

One thing that they all recognized however was the need to do something new and radical.  To post a logical declaration of grievances against their existing government and provide a sort of logical proof for the need to break away and to form a new government of their own.

I think that has been a vital part of the American character since before the start.  The urge and ability to try something new and not shy away from it just because it wasn’t something that had been done before.  Of course innovation and new thinking can occur anywhere in the world and at any time in history but I think it’s rare that it has ever been so widely accepted as it was in the early American era by such a large population.

I think it was a side effect of the excitement of being part of a new nation in a new land that allowed people the freedom and flexibility to think about new forms of government, the willingness to gamble on new ventures, the acceptance of new technologies, that sense that over time the nation would “improve” itself and that technology would leverage us all into a new golden age.

I find that somewhere along the way we lost that vital spirit.  Perhaps as early as the late 19th century but certainly after World War II.  We went from being a nation excited and curious about the possibilities and challenges of the future to being a nation in love with a past that for the most part didn’t exist in one way or another.  From being excited at the prospect of change and new thinking to being terrified of the idea and demanding that we stay in a social and mental limbo.  From pulling together in common cause to blaming each other for past and current woes.

Rather than trying to solve situations to find the maximum benefit for all of us we have balkanized our populations into competing and often hostile camps that could maybe pull together and benefit each other but for the most part practice mutual antagonism as a sport.

If we continue on our current route I am certain that we will not see another 239 years.  I don’t see us going past another 100 years.  Either our own inertial forces will rip us apart or competing nation states will begin using our confusion against us and will feast on our self-made misery.

We should respect the past and learn from our mistakes and follies if at the very least to honor the sacrifices of those that came before us.  But we should also remember that they made those sacrifices not for us to stay in the past but to progress forward and up into a better tomorrow.

 

Posted in: birthdays, culture, current events, holidays, life in general, myths, politics, speculation, thought

Discussions that we should have but we’re not having

June 9, 2015 6:46 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I rarely watch TV anymore.  I don’t find all that much that excites my intellect or that is thought provoking or that I can respect.  I find the opposite to be true.  I feel that most television programming is an insult to the viewing public.

I find most programming to be a waste of time.  Most programs pander to the lowest common denominator, sex and violence.  They rehash or rework tired old ideas and concepts and expect the viewing public to not notice that the plot lines are painfully and ridiculously predictable.  But what I find most disturbing about television is how it serves as an electronic anesthetic and distraction for the public when real issues come up that need to be discussed.

The viewing public would much prefer to pay attention to the most vapid and banal television shows rather than to become informed and or take action on matters which direct or indirectly affect them.  Matters which they very much need to voice their opinions, yet they don’t.

So it’s worth noting when a program comes on that at the very least brings some of these topics up and captures the public imagination in an entertaining yet informative format.  The program that I am thinking about is Last Week Tonight with John Oliver.

Episode dealing with Net Neutrality

For those that don’t know, John Oliver is a British comedian that emigrated to the states and began writing material for comedy shows like The Daily Show with John Stewart. After a successful run at the Daily Show he decided to try his hand at his own news oriented comedy show on HBO.

The results have been significant.  Not only is the show extremely popular but several of the topics that he has covered have been given closer scrutiny by mainline news organizations and his efforts have gone viral on social media and have arguably helped promote some changes in some contemporary topics.

Oliver has covered topics such as the above mentioned Net Neutrality, FIFA, the wealth gap in America, police militarization, and the prevalence of Sugar in the American diet.

Now, I don’t happen to agree with everything he does.  I don’t agree with all his view points, as a comedian he tends to frame the debates in humorous ways, and he doesn’t cover all the topics that I wish he would but I have to give him high marks and praise for bringing these topics to light and giving them the attention that they are due.

I think that in an age where too often television executives don’t want to bother with sophisticated or thought-provoking television shows and would rather just distract the public, that we need to give praise and promote shows that at least encourage the public to think and start important conversations about topics that affect us all.

Posted in: communication, culture, current events, life in general, politics, review, television, thought

the new 20s

June 1, 2015 7:09 AM , Leave a Comment ,

I was listening to an NPR program about retirement and they touched upon my generation (Generation X) entering into middle age.  This reminded me of a one-off phrase that a friend of mine had used the other day.  Namely that “the forties are the new twenties”.

Thinking about it I certainly don’t feel like what I imagined I would feel like when I hit my forties.  Growing up in suburbia I didn’t really contemplate my future that much but when I did I imagined a stereotypical suburban future with button down shirts and khakis and minivans and whatnot.  My career would be well underway and would probably be spent at a single company for more than twenty years and would be backstopped by some sort of pension plan.  My family life would be typical suburbanite and traditional.

Little did I know what the future would bring.

But then again I don’t think anyone really knows what the future will bring.  Sure there are folks out there that do have that sort of lifestyle but it’s becoming rarer and rarer these days.

I never imagined a multigenerational household or that I would have to guard, tend, and cultivate my own retirement fund.  I never imagined that I would have to be more dynamic and keep abreast of the latest developments in my field and several related fields in case I had to change jobs.

“the forties are the new twenties” sounds positive but really I think what it means is that you have to not only think like a twentysomething to keep your head above water but you also have to have the strength and flexibility of a twentysomething in case you find yourself in a tough position.

The new economy is not only leaner and meaner, it’s more dynamic and requires us to think fast and move even faster in order to keep pace with developments around the world.

Thinking about my future I don’t see myself retiring at the “traditional” age of sixty-five.  Not only is it something that I don’t think I will manage to do.  I don’t particularly want to limit myself.  I want to believe that I can continue being active for as long as possible and to take advantage of my life right up to the very end.  Things are just to interesting right now to retire.

Posted in: activities, aging, culture, thought, work

Catalysis

May 22, 2015 7:10 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Catalysis, the process of accelerating a reaction, mostly associated with chemical reactions, this process can also take place in other situations.  Mainly I’m thinking about human interactions here.

When you get together with other people whether at work or play or in study, something happens just by interacting.  It’s an inevitable result of humans being social animals.  Exchanges are made no matter how careful one or both parties are.  Exchanges of not just physical goods but ideas, notions, and attitudes.

Just the slightest contact is enough to set the human imagination going and from there who knows what can happen.  The best example of this would be the great Columbian exchange where not just plants, animals, technologies, and diseases flowed freely back and forth between the Old and New world.  Ideas and concepts made the journeys as well.  Unforeseen consequences followed but nevertheless the exchange would form and fashion the world for the next 500 years to come.

But even at human scale levels these exchanges can yield extraordinary results.  So many new ideas and concepts have come about from people getting together in coffee houses or in libraries or other public gathering spaces.  Free and unfettered exchanges of ideas are always generating new concepts and pushing the bounds of our civilization.

But beyond this I think these exchanges not only serve to disseminate information but to stir up humanity’s competitive spirit.  I think that when people get together and see what other people in other fields are doing that they themselves feel compelled to make an even greater effort in their own fields.  The Catalysis I mention is not just exposure to new concepts but the exposure to the passion and drive that other people have for their particular field.

It’s one of the reasons I love going to large conventions and to art showings and to book readings.  I find that I leave more energized and determined to do better and to try different things after attending these gatherings.  The energy is infectious and the result is that I want to do more in my own life than I previously did.

Posted in: culture, ideas, pop culture, relationships, social networks, speculation, thought

Extra energy

May 12, 2015 7:06 AM , Leave a Comment ,

[Author’s note:  This is an edited and reprinted post from April 2007]

So I step out of the house and go to my car this morning and I see that nature has pollinated all over my shiny Dodge.

The formerly midnight blue glossy coat was now covered by a yellow dusty cover. Those harlot pine trees had done all their business all over my car. Nature is in full bloom

Birds and bees are doing unspeakable and I would think unnatural things. Couples out together, the wafting fragrances of Spring are in the air and a young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of how long it had been since he had last…..pollinated.

Other species have it easy. Young Rams for example will butt heads to see who is the fittest and strongest one to mate. This has two advantages. One it assures the survival of the species, but a more socially practical benefit is that the losers have such a bad headache they forget all about pollination for the rest of the year and don’t cause trouble.

Human males of course don’t butt heads, and the only other suitable outlets for this frustration (pillaging, war, midnight street racing) are tightly regulated by law these days.

So that tends to leave a lot of pent-up energy that needs to be released. Now people with the time and the inclination will use up this energy with hobbies, working out in the gym, plotting world domination, or discovering unified field theories. Luckily my laziness has evolved beyond these simple pass times to embrace a much more worthwhile endeavor. Beating up orcs in Everquest.

So whenever the frustration is too great I’ll take out my high level character and wander to one of the beginner zones and start pounding the hell out of anything that moves.

No one but computer generated files suffer and after an hour or two of laying waste to an entire culture you get a sense of satisfaction and forget about any other needs.

Of course that still leaves my pollen covered car in the drive way, but that’s what car washes are for.

Posted in: activities, attitude, culture, dating, life in general, relationships

mindless hate

May 10, 2015 6:28 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Sigh.

It takes a lot to get me angry these days.  Maybe it’s a function of age and passions have cooled, or maybe I don’t have as much to get angry at these days.  Sure there are things that frustrate me, all around me and I get frustrated on a daily basis.  But anger doesn’t manifest itself in my life anymore.  At least I didn’t think it did.

I was driving around getting various chores done early on a Saturday morning.  I pulled up at a turn signal at a large intersection and as happens more often than not there was a panhandler there.

He looked thoroughly beat up by life.  Dark tanned skin, ratty and dirty clothes, and nothing than skin and bones.  Most public officials frown on people helping out panhandlers but I will pass out a few dollars every once in a while and I suppose I will continue to do it in the future.

But just before I hand my money over he stops me and pulls out a printed sign.  He asks me if I was a christian and just then I read the sign that’s filled with a litany of hateful anti-homosexual messages.  The sign looks like it was printed on a computer and the paper was laminated so it could survive out on the streets.  I think to myself “You’ve got to be kidding me”.

He starts up on some rehearsed speech denouncing same-sex marriage.  I stop him in mid-stride and tell him “I am not going to listen to this.  We are not going there.”  He walks off down the median and mumbles something that sounded like “Have a nice life, homosexual lover”.  Of course he didn’t say homosexual.

I think about getting out and saying or doing something regretful but the light turns green and I drive off instead.  I have to control my foot to not floor the pedal.

I am incensed.

It’s a naked, mindless bigotry that I have not witnessed in a long time.  It’s not the veiled or hidden prejudice that you see in popular media or hinted at by people you may casually know.  It was this stupid, in your face, and even prideful hatred that I thought no longer existed except in some of the most backward of places in the middle of nowhere.

I am flabbergasted for the longest time.  Just mulling it over and over in my head.  It’s like I can’t believe I just had this encounter.

What makes it worse is that this is a guy that most likely has had to live with the sting of prejudice against homeless people.  People have probably made negative judgments about his character without knowing anything about him and here he is doing the same thing.  I want to find this guy and ask him what made him turn into this hateful person?  Was it his family, a teacher, some friends that warped his perspective and made him the way he was now?

I am left angry by the encounter.  Angry that this still exists, angry that people can still fall prey to such notions.  Angry that I can’t really do that much to change the situation.

I wish I could end this post on a happy note but there is really nothing happy about the episode.  This is just sad.

Posted in: culture, driving, Houston, life in general, prejudice, religion

fans

April 22, 2015 6:05 AM , 2 Comments ,

The Star Wars trailer came out the other day. Don’t know if it will be a good movie or not but the initial signs are positive.  Movie trailers are not a huge event to most people but to devotees of the series, it was highly anticipated.

Nowadays trailers usually come out on YouTube and people on YouTube will film what’s called reaction videos.  Basically videos of their initial and genuine reaction to the trailer.  I could waste hours watching these. I find it somewhat fascinating to watch these. I was also shocked that so many people made these videos already.

I like watching not only the reactions but in particular I also like to note the diversity of the fan base.  Not all Star Wars fans are pasty skinned, fat, glass wearing nerds.  The phenomena that is the Star Wars series runs the gamut through all races, genders, and economic backgrounds and is worldwide.

It’s somewhat difficult to explain the appeal of this series.  I mean it’s one thing to say that it all has to do with cool special effects and space movies and fighting but I feel that there must be more here.  These are a series of movies that people have memorized all the lines and regularly quote these lines to one another during conversations.  I don’t mean that they quote just memorable lines but they will quite literally quote each and every line to one another no matter how innocuous  the line.

I don’t think that happens with any other series, even with venerated series like Star Trek.  Something about the themes, the ideas behind the story reaches out and touches individuals no matter what their background or situation.  They can relate to a character in the story, they can relate to the feeling of struggling against a system that feels oppressive, they can relate something of their own particular situation to what they see up on the screen.

Something else I noted watching all these reaction videos was the number of female fans that posted reaction videos.  Nerd and science fiction culture has had to take a long and hard look at itself with regards to the ingrained discrimination towards female fans this last year.  It has been a painful but most necessary process.  We who have proclaimed ourselves to be the oppressed underdogs fighting against a system that discriminates against us.  We have been guilty of the same sort of oppression against female fans.  A lot of the old guard nerds have asserted that female fans are not as passionate about science fiction or that they just “don’t get it”.  I think this puts that argument to rest.

Just one more to make the point.

 

 

Posted in: culture, entertainment, fans, life in general, movies, pop culture, thought

between worlds

April 18, 2015 6:19 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Big western cities like Houston give people lots of room to develop themselves and their lives into what they want them to be.  I guess that’s part of the allure of what is sometimes referred to as the “american dream”.

I mean you can go from one part of Houston and suddenly find yourself in a totally different situation to what you were in five minutes earlier.  I have friends and acquaintances all over the Houston area from the big ex-burbs like Katy, Sugarland, and the Woodlands and of course friends inside the city limits proper.  They all swear that their part of Houston is the best and can’t imagine how people can live in other parts of town. People can find the part of town that best suits them and live the type of life that they want.

But beyond just mere geography there lies another type of life that we can lead.  The individual interests, the pass times, the hobbies.  Whatever you want to call them.  I find it amazing how wrapped up and how into these things people can get.  People can get so into these things that they barely notice that there are other worlds out there.

I tend to drift between a variety of different worlds and different groups so I’ve had the opportunity to observe these various sub-cultures interact and express themselves in their own natural surroundings.

Some examples?

Back in January I was at a big art gallery party held in what used to be a factory.  Crowded from top to bottom with well dressed people, loud music, food and drink.  Models, artists, and local luminaries all hobnobbing the evening away.  Lots of back slapping and hearty handshakes as people got re-acquainted or met new friends and contacts.

In the Fall and Winter I go to book readings downtown.  A local group invites notable authors and they come to Houston to read from their latest books.  Sometimes it’s a well-known personality, sometimes a barely known author.  I can already recognize some of the audience members as regulars and I get the sense that this is a group that has a long history.

A couple of weeks ago I was at an anime convention at the George R Brown.  Kids and adults all dressed up in costumes and walking nonchalantly around.  Nobody really giving them a second thought.  Most of the vendors, staff, and speakers at these events travel on a convention circuit and see each other all the time.

A few months ago I was at a boxing match. Now, my idea of boxing matches were moodily lit events with maybe a couple dozen guys around a ring in some grungy gym.  But this was a large hall with thousands of people and valet parking.  Very well-organized and looking around I got the sense that a lot of these people came to these fights regularly and knew one another.

The two things I noticed in all four of these situations was:

1.  A real sense of community within these groups.  They were fully developed sub-cultures.  Individuals in these groups were totally comfortable within these situations.

2. I am fairly certain that if I asked individuals within these sub-cultures about the other sub-cultures that they would either not know anything about those groups or almost nothing about them.

This leads back to my observation of how this large city allows people to find and express themselves in their own part of the city and lead the type of life that they want to lead.  I find it fascinating to travel from one to another.

Posted in: activities, culture, Houston, life in general

image and substance

March 19, 2015 6:51 AM , Leave a Comment ,

Back when I was growing up I always heard from my elders that it mattered more to be good than to look good.  The idea that substance mattered more than style.  I was encouraged not to think about how polished or how well I presented myself or my ideas.  The substance was the most important part and for the most part I agreed with this point of view and still do to a small degree.

Time passed of course and I entered college and later went into the workforce and started realizing that style and presentation did matter.  At first style didn’t matter as I was in basic production work and everything that I did or produced would be passed up the chain to a boss or sub-boss who would polish the work and put it into a format that the client would receive.

I was then moved into a position where I had more contact with clients and I began to have an appreciation of style and delivery.  Also I began to appreciate that how you presented yourself might directly affect any possible sales or projects.  I had to write coherent proposals, I had to speak with confidence, I had to become more gregarious and outgoing.  A difficult process that is still ongoing to this day.

So really in the end it has turned out that it’s not good enough to be good or to look good but that you have to both be good and look good at the same time.

Effectively presenting yourself and your ideas can be as if not more crucial than your actual ideas.  But of course if you don’t have a good idea (product, proposal, whatever) in the first place, then all the polish and slick words will mean nothing.

The more I think about this the more I’ve come to the conclusion that this is the way that things have always been.  Even before I was born people have had to both look and be good in order to get ahead.  The notion that this is a new phenomena is preposterous.

So we live in an extremely competitive world where we have to strive and stretch to do our best not just in our business but our personal lives.  Those that can’t look good while being good will find the path to success much more difficult.

 

Posted in: activities, business, culture, life in general, skills