To Sleep, Perchance to Dream?

My dreams suck.

Really, really suck.

I'm not talking like "creepy" or "nightmare" or "why did I eat all that pizza ten minutes before I went to sleep" suck. I mean mundane suck. Here's an example of a normal person dream:

"So I was driving my new Maserati down the block, right, past my old high school, and things are pretty sweet. Like all my friends are there asking for a ride, and I'd give it to them, right, but then I see some shadow. And I look up and see this massive alien flying saucer! Well, I'm thinking, holy crap, there's aliens here, but that's not even the freaky part. I see the little ramp thing from the bottom of the flying saucer open, and guess who I see? My old Latin teacher! And just as I'm about to walk up and talk to him, that's when I wake up."

And now, here's a dream that I might have had in its place:

"For whatever reason, I was in the Publix in Centerville, and I was, uh, buying groceries. I was with my friend Brian, I think. Then nothing happened for a while. Then Brian wasn't there anymore. Okay, then, um, I'm not grocery shopping anymore, but I'm at my house, playing Mario Kart."

Here's an example of a recent dream I actually had: I was at my desk, checking my email. I get an email from Gina, my grad student, telling me when I should be in the lab.

Pretty exciting, right? Oh yeah, all of that actually happened and does at least once or twice a week. The only thing remotely out of the ordinary about it was that it wasn't my current desk, it was my old one from last year. If you fancy yourself a dream interpreter, suck on that one for a while.

A slightly more interesting one: Brittain was serving corn dogs for lunch. And guess what was for lunch that day?


Currently listening: Room Noises, Eisley

Triptych

Review: Singularity be Mae

Inevitably, delays plague "products that I want." Sometimes it's a simple matter of a few days, like a store not having the Game Boy Color in stock yet; sometimes it's an as-yet infinite delay like the case of Mother 3 coming out in America. Singularity had a relatively reasonable delay of a couple of months from the first "announced" release date of June 2007. Truthfully, it's almost good that it was delayed like that, because otherwise I would have had to speculate as to the music's quality while I was in France rather than listen to it as it came out.

If you're not familiar with my feelings toward Mae, let me preface this review by saying that The Everglow is probably my favorite album ever. It's hard to say why. Musically, it's nearly flawless but lacks the sterility that a technically superior performance often sadly carries with it. There are heartfelt emotions, and the total-album organization and presentation is incredible. I don't know of a single other collection of songs, save possibly Green Day's American Idiot, that just works as an album as well as The Everglow does. Even better, Mae isn't politically preachy!

Critically, Mae has done all right. Popular opinion was pretty much uniform for their first album, Destination: Beautiful. A solid indie rock album, though perhaps not brilliant; well-crafted songs even though the production fidelity was a little shaky at times; nothing revolutionary but very positive and enjoyable all the same. The Everglow had more contrast in opinion, ranging from people who feel the same way as I do about it to those who condemn it as "Disney rock." Those people are probably the same ones who think that something that is easy to understand can't possibly have artistic value, that something dark and disturbed is automatically more genuinely emotional than one that dares to be happy or optimistic.

Then what of Singularity? Nobody really seems to know, I don't think. People are ambivalent to the point of not posting reviews of the album. It's no The Everglow, but I wasn't realistically expecting it to be. Nor did it really need to be, because doing that same thing again would be redundant at best and a complete cop-out at worst. The one thing that's sure is that it takes a completely different approach than either of the previous albums. Asking which of the two Singularity is more similar to is sort of like asking if angel food cake is more similar to lasagna or caesar salad. They're all in the vague general category of "food," and there are a lot of good things about all of them, but drawing similarities just doesn't make sense.

I think the most obvious comment to make about the new album is a stylistic one: everything seems harder, faster, louder on Singularity. Instead of comparisons to emo bands, the more apt comparison is to post-punk "alternative"; Motion City Soundtrack immediately springs to mind as a stylistic similarity; Something Corporate and maybe even Guster are audible in parts. And that's not necessarily a bad thing. The downside of this is that everything that Mae delicately, beautifully constructed for The Everlow is pretty much gone. A critique of The Everglow said, probably disparagingly, that Mae won't do anything that a music theory class wouldn't approve of. And you know what? All that music theory made their music sound really good. Now you have chord progressions, transitions, and instrumentations that sound a lot more dissonant in places. It's not inherently bad, but from time to time, I caught myself wincing and wondering what the rationale could possibly be for putting in that minor sixth.

A far more serious flaw is Mae's possible "lack of new ideas." I'm used to lyrical mastery form Mae, willing to forgive them if they slip into mere excellence. Contrast "when the lights first came upon us/and we saw The Everglow./And the moment's magic swept us away/and the young man's dream/was almost seen so plain" with "we'll get through anything/are you, are you falling for me/like I'm oh I'm falling for you" and tell me which one is better. Singularity does have its lyrical bright spots, though. "Telescopes" contains at least a triple entendre, talking about "subjects," "objects," and "predicates" in reference to either grammar or actual telescopes, or a conversation, which is very clever writing.

Bottom line is there's not enough of that. I'm not going to delete Singularity or anything drastic like that. I'll probably keep listening to it every once in a while. But looking at my top 25 played tracks in iTunes, twelve of them are tracks from The Everglow. I don't exactly see Singularity making it into there.


Currently listening: The Four Seasons, Canadian Brass version

J'aime le bifteck

Or: my roommate Hershel's approach to the entirety of the French language. Mine is more along the lines of "j'aime les croissants" but I think either is equally valid.

Now here's an amusing anecdote, drawn from somewhere in the Stygian marsh. Before the trek to the City of Dis (alternately known as the Swann Modern Languages building), the petitioner is confronted with the Placement Test. Now, generally, a placement test when taking a language makes sense. If you had a really slack high school teacher who only taught you how to count to fifty in your first semester of French as opposed to the more standard seventy, then you might not want to jump into the strenuous demands of "count to one thousand" that French II springs at you. If, on the other hand, your most recent French experience consisted of writing a nuanced thesis on the competing influences of Abusrdist versus Existentialist thought in Albert Camus' L'Etranger then French II might not be the best choice either.

That said, the "multiple choice" format for said placement test may well be the worst idea I've heard in a long time. First off, a multiple choice test examines only one skill (reading) when in fact there are four that go toward determining fluency. This test format utterly ignores the ability to write French, or to speak or comprehend spoken French. Reading is the easiest one of these skills to develop because you get things like context clues. Take a test question I ran into. The question presented me with several paragraphs of French, which to me seemed like "word word word-with-funny-accents, 'he is going to,' word word more funny accents." The question asked me "What did the boys do with the watch?" and it's funny, because except for that question I wouldn't have known a watch was involved at all. So I started to do a little creative guessing: I recognized the words for "earth" and "gardener," and one of the answer choices involved "soil." The thing is, I'm pretty darn sure I got that question right. And so it went.

A question asks "what verb means the same thing as 'to make the paintings'?" I didn't think "peinter" sounded good, so I went with "peindre." A quick Babelfish query after the test was over confirmed that one. I've never had a formal education of what food names were, but damned if I didn't go to Cora every week and learn "pomme" and "artichaut" and "chou" for "apple," "artichoke," and "cabbage" by some sort of advertisement-osmosis.

Apparently that osmosis worked better than I'd ever imagined. Or my good Qi chose a strange time to manifest itself. Possibly both; I'll never know. What I do know is that based on no evidence of ability to write, speak, comprehend, or interpret French, I'm apparently good enough to skip French II.


Currently listening: "Hold On," KT Tunstall (via our friends at YouTube)

Discussion of Europe, Part 3: Where to Go

If you're going to be abroad for two and a half months, like I was, you probably don't need a great deal of direction regarding where to go. Chances are you won't be spending upwards of half your time in Metz, France in that case either--and you're better off for it. Nothing against Metz, really. It's a fine town: plenty of history, one of the best cities to experience Lorraine culture, and all in all a decent place to spend a few hours in a train layover. The Moselle's Obligatory River Shot compares to some of the finest in Europe, like the Rhone or the Saone. That said, Metz falls short in two key areas.

The first is "having anything to do after 8 pm." This includes getting anything to eat anywhere except for maybe the kebab shop. (Of course, even if that restaurant is still open, you'll pay eighteen Euros for the pleasure of eating there.) Apparently there's a couple of clubs hidden somewhere if you're into that sort of thing, but some of my classmates who are into that sort of thing didn't seem too impressed with the local nightlife in any case. You can always see whatever big American movies are out with varying degrees of success in their French dubbing. Word of caution: it's better to see a movie that you don't really have to think about what's going on. Pirates 3 was not a good choice in this regard. The bus schedule even ceases running normally after 9 pm, when you'll have to rely on the once per hour "Route tardif" to get anywhere at all.

Metz's only other shortcoming is "having anything to do at all in the Technopole." You hear "college campus" and you think it's going to be like Tech's. Spread out and too much car traffic, an unacceptable amount of construction most of the time--but otherwise peaceful and attractive. Green space, places to buy food and necessities in walking distance, amenities and at least some sort of solidarity-building locations, traditions, etc. There's really none of that. College campus here means you're in a dorm (which is actually a little nicer than Tech dorms) in walking distance to your one academic/administrative/student services building. And in between? Road. Offices. Urban bus service. More offices. You can go to the grocery store, certainly, but it'll take 20 minutes to walk there, then you have to walk back with your junk.

Where to, then, if not Metz? First off, you know I'm no big fan of France. Overrated in almost every regard, you can get just about everything that you can get in France elsewhere in Europe except 1) cheaper and 2) with better service. A major concern when going to Europe, of course, is willingness either to speak English or to navigate their way through your broken attempts at the local language. Now you might be conversational in German, or approaching fluency in Spanish, and that's really impressive. If you're going to say that you have the same level of mastery of Dutch or Catalan, I'm going to go ahead and call BS on that. People use English as a sort of mutually agreed upon mediation language. Take the Viennese tower I visited. The German-speaking man who was handing out information on the tower and the Korean man who'd brought his son finally settled on an informational flyer in English. Or the Italian train conductor who was trying to negotiate with the Russian man about his passport? English again.

English proficiency is generally very good in Germanic countries, or in countries where Germanic languages are spoken. Maybe that's due to linguistic similarity, maybe to straight-up cultural differences; I'm not sure. But it's very easy to communicate in English in Germany and Austria, and not too bad in Switzerland and the Netherlands (or Dutch-speaking Belgium). Spain and Italy fall a little behind, but communication is still generally possible. Even people who don't speak a word of English (like the owners of those wonderful "little granny hotels") really try to get across what they're trying to say.

Now that you're able to talk to the locals, what's worth visiting? A country-by-country guide:

In Spain, one of my travel guides said trying to choose between Madrid and Barcelona is like trying to choose between London and Paris. This is apparently a more difficult choice for the author of this book than for me. I'd compare it more to trying to choose either New York or Chicago. Both are wonderful cities, both are worth a visit, and honestly I think it's better to shortchange them both by spending half your time in each than to miss either. Madrid is Spain. Bullfights, sangria, and flamenco, and everything else you could think Don Quixote missed out on while he was jousting against windmills. Barcelona is something completely different: artistic, independent, and modern. Apparently it has a great club/bar scene too. Both are culturally phenomenal.

On any trip to Europe, London is not to be missed. I was in London for longer than any other single city (except Metz, of course), and here is a list of things I didn't get to do that I'd still like to.

• Go inside the Tower
  
• National Gallery
  
• Harrod's
  
• Afternoon tea
  
• Other half of the British Museum
  
• London Eye
  
• Some boat thing down the Thames
  
• Globe Theater
  
• See a play (the theater district rivals or maybe even surpasses New York's)
  
• Go into Westminster Abbey
  
• Observe Parliament

and even here, I'm probably forgetting things. London is a remarkable city, with especially easy public transportation, and English generally spoken. Even though it has a funny accent.

In Germany, I think Munich is essential. Bavaria in general is great--and that's not just the inherent Catholic bias I have. Pretzels, check. Sausage, check. Cuckoo clocks, check. Dirndls, check. Magnificent palaces, check. Depressing concentration camp sites and other World War II memorabilia, check. Beer... you've got no idea. And unlike most other countries' beer (especially America's), it's actually worth putting in your mouth.

I've already discoursed on Rome. Go there. The only danger in visiting Rome is that Roman ruins across the rest of the world seem a lot less impressive. Naples is sort of dirty and obnoxious, too urban for my tastes. Two huge saving graces: the best pizza you will ever taste, and Pompeii, which is the quintessential Roman ruin. Switzerland is really pretty, though too Protestant for my tastes. I mean, 20 foot statue of John Calvin in the middle of town square in Geneva? That's a little much.

Finally, towns that I would have really liked to go to, and would very much like to visit on a later European excursion: Dublin, Edinburgh, Amsterdam, Prague, Florence, Venice, Berlin, Budapest. We'll see if that ever materializes.


Currently listening: Singularity, Mae. Review soon to follow.

Interlude

Review: In Our Bedroom After the War

Taking a break from the discussion of Europe for the time being--don't worry, it'll be back in full force discussing things like why London is better than Paris, and some specific commentary on the GTL program--I'd like to review the new Stars CD. If you don't know Stars (not "The Stars" interestingly enough, given the preponderance of similar bands whose names start with "The") you really ought to. Think a little Postal Service but less electronic, a little Rilo Kiley but less folksy, perhaps a dash of the Arcade Fire or Sufjan Stevens? Now move it north across the border, and you've got the best thing to come out of Canada since... well... it's good music.

Upon listening to this album for the first time, I committed a cardinal sin of music review: doing something else besides listening to the music. That's right: I reduced In Our Bedroom to background noise while I was conducting room inventories. (Most of the towel racks were actually there!) And it's not deserving of such a fate, really. So I resolved to change things the second time I listened to it. And what ended up happening? Door decorations and welcome letters, that's what. Frustrated, I vowed to set aside time to listen to this music and do nothing else. Then I started humming "Take Me to the Riot" and "The Night Starts Here" without even realizing it.

This is one of those albums that starts too strong for its own good. The aforementioned songs are excellent, certainly the two highest quality here, and a couple of the best I've heard since Wincing the Night Away came out. After that, the rest of the songs seem to fall a little flat, when they certainly don't deserve that. Final Fantasy fans will be interested to hear that one of the more creative songs on the album is called "The Ghost of Genova Heights"... a reference to Sephiroth's mom? "Personal" is lyrically brilliant, then we get to some songs whose names I can't remember, then the title track ends the album better than any last track I think I have ever heard.

AbsolutePunk.Net loved this album too, maybe even a bit more than I did. The reviewer there said not since Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise had he heard something to magnificent. While the comparison to that great bastion of indie music might be a little unwarranted, the point is made: In Our Bedroom After the War is an excellent collection of music, and not to be missed.


Currently listening (additionally): The Official Lost Podcast, ComicCon edition

Discussion of Europe, Part 2: Food

Being something of a culinary adventurer, of course one of the biggest things about Europe was being able to taste various local cuisines in their natural habitat. From fried squid sandwiches on Madrid to a good old pile of sausage in Austria, I certainly got to run a delightful gamut of meals over the last few months. Of course, in all that, one can't discount the prominence of the French hypermarket in the equation. Described by one of our American program coordinators as "Super Wal-Mart multiplied by three," the term "grocery store" doesn't begin to do Cora justice. A few further observations:

Restaurant food is really expensive. I mean, I guess it sort of is in America, too? Not nearly that bad. Let's look at, say, McDonalds. Admittedly, I don't know how much things cost at McDonalds. I don't eat there. That's not a reactionary Morgan Spurlock-eqsue movement, more of a "there isn't one on campus" combined with "I like Burger King better anyway." But there's no way that a Big Mac, medium fries, and medium Coke costs $6.15. That's how much said food cost, in Euros. So if there's no way it costs that many dollars to begin with, factor in the exchange rate to get $8.49? How they get off making me spend an Atlantic Station movie ticket to eat a hamburger, I don't know.

When we're not talking about MacDo (as the French are fond of calling it), stuff gets really pricey, really quickly. Take my lunch in Paris: a sandwich. Eight Euro. And it wasn't anywhere near as good as say a Quizno's sub, which would have cost me the same thing but in dollars.

French food is overrated. "Okay, guys, let's take a hunk of meat, slice it really fancy, and pour some sauce over it. Sweet. That's gonna run you thirteen Euro." And yet, people the world over have the impression that if it's French, it has to be marvelous. When I'm 1) abroad and 2) in a country that does not contain the Eiffel Tower, I don't need to eat at a French restaurant. Look in a travel guide for the best places to eat in most given cities, though, and what do you see? Something that starts with "Le." (Or any of the imaginative variations on "le" such as "la" or "les" or the dreaded "l-apostrophe.")

And what the hell is a Michelin star anyway? If it were up to me, I wouldn't have DeAndray and Bubba Wayne who just changed my tires cooking me food. I pretty much see it as "okay, now we can serve you less food and charge you more money for it, provided we serve it creatively." To quote the Wikipedia article on the subject, "the inspectors use secret criteria, unknown to even the most experienced chefs" and "As the Michelin Guide is published by a French company, some international food critics have denounced the rating system as inherently biased toward French cuisine." Shocking.

As with many things in Europe, the Germans have it right. Plate of sausages and sauerkraut for seven Euro? Wiener Schnitzel and weird potato ball things for nine? Good choices all around. Austrian cooking is basically the same level of deliciousness and cheapness. Bavarian is a slight variation on the theme, with the addition of the "großebretzel" or "giant pretzel." This is about a foot in diameter, and you won't spend more than three Euros for it.

A trip to Europe turns out to be a great time to drink some alcohol. Now I'm not exactly a partier. I don't think I've ever been per se "drunk." But unlike anything else you might want to ingest, the booze in Europe is surprisingly cheap. And it's really, really good. I never had an American beer that I liked. And I only had one or two European beers that I didn't like. The Hofbrauhaus is amazing. French wine is amazing. Belgian beer, Spanish sangria, the list goes on and on.

And finally, the grocery store is totally bizarre. You think you've seen weird things at your friendly neighborhood Publix? You haven't seen anything until you've browsed a French store. Walking down the meat section, you see the familiar labels of "porc" and "boeuf" and "poulet" (chicken). Then... wait a second, surely you can't buy horse here? But there it was, "cheval." The juice selection was incredible, but there wasn't a jar of peanut butter in sight. Baguettes? As far as the eye can see.


Currently listening: "Rocknroll," Lovedrug

Discussion of Europe, Part 1: Trains

Things are winding down here at GTL. Finals are being taken (albeit not taken seriously), 6:45 am train reservations to get to Paris are in place, and plans have been made to go to the most ghetto McDonalds in Hartsfield-Jackson airport, order a large Coke, dump it down the drain for the hell of it, and get a free refill. Oh yeah. I don't know of anyone who isn't glad to be getting back to the US of A, even the most stridently progressive worldly-minded among us.

At this point, I think I have the experience to consider myself a reasonably experienced European rail traveler. I've taken trains in eight different countries, ranging from the crappiest regional Belgian train between Namur and Charleroi to the state-of-the-art German high-speed "tilting" train from Kaiserslautern to Munich. I've exercised my Eurail pass literally past the breaking point--I've had to apply at least three remedial staples to keep it attached to its cover. And I have but one more train trip to take before I can get to the airport and fly home. First, a few comments on the Eurail pass.

You might be surprised at what the Eurail Pass doesn't do for you. Clearly, it doesn't just let you hop an overnight train. You're going to have to pay a premium for those--20 Euro for a couchette bed seems to be the going rate. It might be a few less or a few more depending on who's operating the train and where the destination is. Is a couchette worth it? Generally if you're going to be getting what you deem a good night's rest, then yes. They're a little small, and the pillows suck, but you at least get a bed and a blanket. Often you'll get amenities too: a bottle of water is common, and if you're especially lucky you might get breakfast upon arrival. Oh, and don't be freaked out when the Italian train guy says "I take-a your pass-a-port." He's protecting you from it getting robbed over the night.

The other thing it doesn't do for you is get you on many high-speed trains. Germany's ICEs are free. In Italy, it costs a whopping 15 Euros for the exact same service. And everywhere else is anywhere in between.

On the other hand, you might be pleasantly surprised at what the Eurail pass does do for you. At one point, it became necessary to take a bus to the middle of nowhere, France, to a little town that doesn't have rail service. We observed other people showing their train tickets to get onto the bus for free, so we figured why not? The first person in my group to get on the bus showed his Eurail pass, and after several minutes of scrutiny, the driver said what I believe to be the French equivalent of "I don't know what this is, but I think it's okay." A few weeks later, in Geneva, we were welcomed aboard a Lake Geneva ferry with a hearty "bonjour!" by showing the Eurail pass. The German subways in every city are part of the Deutsche Bahn system, so they're covered too.

A big question is what sort of rail pass to get. In relation to the GTL program, it might be tempting to get one of those flex pass things, because after all, you're not going to be traveling by train every day of the summer. That only works, though, if you're sure you're only going to be traveling on whatever dates you set. Miss a train and have to try again the next day? Out of luck. It's possible to time the two month pass exactly right and only have to buy one additional train ticket, but it's a lot easier just to go with the three month, I think.

And finally, all trains are not created equal. German trains are remarkably efficient, and all of them are covered by the Eurail pass. They're clean and spacious, and every once in a while you're lucky enough to get an announcement in English too. Italian trains, on the other hand, are often the better part of an hour late (at one point, more than half the trains coming into Naples were delayed at least 15 minutes). They're not awful quality, except that you pay out your nose if you want to get anywhere remotely close to quickly. French and Belgian trains are unremarkable.

If you want service, though, Germany and Austria are the best places to go. Here's an anecdote illustrating the superiority of the Austrian train system over the French. A few friends and I wanted to book an overnight train from Strasbourg, France to Salzburg, Austria. We go down to the train station to do this, because there's no way that anyone can figure out to do anything online. My friend asks, "Parlez-vous anglais?" The woman responds "un peu." Things are looking up, because this is a lot more anglais than most French train people parle. "We would like to book a couchette from Strasbourg to Salzburg," my friend continues. The woman types "Stras" for the departure and double-clicks the arrival. Then she types in... "De" and brings up Germany? "No, Salzburg is in Austria," I volunteer. "Autriche."

The woman boredly hits backspace a few times, and puts in "As." Now, if I had to guess a country code for Austria, I think "As" would be a fine guess. This woman, though, should not be making a guess. This is her job. Eventually, she figures out that "At" is the right code. She looks at it for a while before declaring "No, it's not possible. All full." To be fair, this is reasonable. It's Tuesday, and we're looking to travel Friday night. Maybe it is full. "How about another way to get to Salzburg?" asks my friend. The woman says "No, the only way." I give her the benefit of the doubt and think that she understood the question as "are there any other overnight trains." So I clarify, "Are there any trains during the day on Saturday?" She doesn't input anything, but tells me "No, all full."

Things are starting to seem a bit fishy. She's telling us that the only way to get to Austria at all on Friday or Saturday is on an overnight train that's full? We already know that's not true: we have a last-ditch itinerary worked out that involves taking ICEs across Germany and getting into Salzburg around 10 hours after we left Metz. That sucks, but it's at least a way to get there. My friend and I have a quick sidebar in English. We'd really like to go somewhere East, and we're not entirely set on Austria. The guy I'm with then asks the woman, "How about Budapest?" She considers typing in "Romania" and both of us automatically respond "Hungary." That's full too.

Another English sidebar, and we decide that we might as well resign ourselves to trains all day Saturday, but at least we might be able to get one for the way back. That's a Monday night, almost a week away, and during the middle of the business week. No way that's full, right? Alas, "It's not possible." At that point, my friend and I are forced to just punt and walk out. Now it's looking like we're going to have to travel all day Saturday and all day Monday, leaving only Sunday to see all of Vienna and Salzburg. We enact out last-ditch itinerary of "travel all day Saturday" and immediately upon arriving in Austria, we ask the OBB guy if we can reserve the couchette on the way back.

"3 beds?" he asks. "60 Euros total."


Currently listening: "Benzin" from Rosenrot, Rammstein

The Final Word in the Final Sentence

...is no longer "scar." But we knew that a while ago.

Review, Discussion, and Plenty of Shameless Spoilers: Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Come on, guys. If you haven't read the book yet, don't say I didn't warn you. And now it's time to have a little chat, in what I promise will be the last Harry Potter post for a long, long time.

Let's start with that "scar" while it's fresh on my mind. I can't quite comprehend why the last word wasn't "scar" anymore. I mean, it's not as if "scar" was erased from the epilogue--at least in the British version, it was on the very same line, for goodness sake. Rowling could easily have rewritten it to keep her ten year old promise to us. Instead we came away with "all was well."

Really, that unexpectedly weak last sentence underscored an unexpectedly weak epilogue in general. Samantha eloquently characterized it as "Grade F fanfiction." (As if there were some other sort.) Intellectually, I realize this is probably Rowling's attempt at a "feel-good ending" for all the little kids who got screwed up by all the Bad Things that happened during the book. Literarily, it was sort of a letdown after a powerful final installment that could have easily stood on its own without "awww, Harry and Ginny made some babies."

Now let's talk about the title. Thinking back on it, it was foolish to assume that we could guess what the title meant. There was no way we could have guessed what the "Chamber of Secrets" was based on the first boo. No way we could have guessed the "Goblet of Fire" from the first three, etc. And yet, the fan community was adamant that it knew what the Deathy Hallows were before reading the book. Half of it (myself too) thought it meant Horcruxes, half thought it meant Godric's Hallow, and both camps were completely wrong in a sort of interestingly half-correct way.

Thinking back to the earlier books in the series, remember how every book was considered "the darkest book yet"? The first one, sure, a few creepy things happened, but it was essentially a children's story. The second and third, creepier stuff happens, like possession. Then, at the end of book four, somebody finally dies. A couple more deaths, now significant ones, in five and six. And by maybe a third of the way into Deathly Hallows you find yourself thinking "wait, we thought a single death was 'dark' before?" The first three hundred pages or so of the seventh book were far more intense than the rest of the series, put together.

I think a lot of what made the series succeed in the past was the fact that there was a lot of "normal school stuff" balanced with "heroic saving the world." The seventh book had none of the "normal" stuff, which made it sort of weird. Like I've said before, one of the strongest points in the series has always been its immersive depth of setting, and Hogwarts was the critical element of that. People commented that it didn't make sense for Harry to go back to school, because he had more important things to worry about than Potions essays. The thing is, one of the reasons the books were so good in the past is because all of us have had our Potions essays to trudge through, our Draco Malfoys to combat, our Hermione Grangers to try and live up to. The first six books had some of their most brilliant moments in offhand comments made by some Weasley, in History of Magic lectures that you swear you've had to sit through, in Minerva McGonagall's mood swings.

It's clear from the start that if the seventh book is supposed to succeed, it's going to have to carve an entirely new path for itself, utterly abandoning everything we already grew to love about the series. And that's not exactly a reassuring thought. Ultimately, Rowling succeeds in concluding her series, but at the cost of systematically breaking down each and every reason we read the first six books. Or is it "with the added benefit of redefining why we liked the first six books?" Tough to say. If she was going for "make you feel utterly hopeless by the halfway point," then she did a really good job. You know that Good has to triumph over Evil in the end, but around that halfway point, you're not entirely clear on how that's going to happen.

Rowling's greatest strength in this book, then, is making the reader feel exactly as demoralized or emboldened as the characters are at any given point. And at that halfway point, when we meet the white doe, the grand pendulum starts to swing out of "sheer desperation," for both the characters and the reader. Only then do Good Things start happening instead of death and flight everywhere. How incredibly significant that white doe seems when you think about it, and who it symbolizes, after you've finished the novel. Of course, that symbolism is Lily Evans through Severus Snape.

The other assertion that I've made about the series is that Severus Snape is the only interesting character. I don't actually think that's true, after reading the final book, but he was undoubtedly the most complex. And... well, I got my wish, didn't I? Snape, neither truly good nor truly evil. Working for the Good Guys, yes, but not because of a desire to do good. The book's most interesting issue to think about is Snape's ultimate motivation in his actions for the last fifteen years. Was Snape actually in love with Lily, or was it a sort of obsession instead? Did he actually want to honor Lily's memory, or was he instead disgruntled with/fearful of Voldemort and wanted a back-end way to work against him? I'm mostly satisfied with how our friend Severus turned out, although I do find one thing a little strange. Whether is was obsession, fear, revenge, or actual love, does it make sense to have one and only one goal drive all of your actions for fifteen years of your life? I can't see it, at least for myself.

And now, death. It's in the title, so you've got to be expecting it. I think the many deaths in this book can be roughly divided into a few categories:

1) Characters I expected to die who did. I thought some member of the Order would probably die, such as Moody, Lupin, or Tonks. Turns out we hit the trifecta. I thought some Weasley would die, because it's so improbably for all of them to have survived--probably Molly. We got Fred instead. Voldemort. Bellatrix (though I thought for a sense of poetic justice, Neville would have brought her down). And finally, Snape, no matter what side he turned out to be on.

2) Characters who I never saw it coming. Hedwig? Seriously, Jo? I mean, damn. She didn't even have a noble death--just green flash, squawk, thump, boom. And... Dobby?

Finally, I really appreciate the new dimension we got for so many of the main characters. Who'd have thought the exalted Albus Dumbledore would have been simultaneously into immortality and a massive coverup to hide his family secrets? And who'd have thought that Neville was actually a hero?


Currently listening: "Black Wave" and "Split Needles" from Wincing the Night Away, the Shins

Eighteen Come April

You probably haven't heard of the English folk song "Seventeen Come Sunday." I hadn't until I played it as part of Ralph Vaughan Williams' English Folk Song Suite in concert band. On a side note, this is one of the best wind band pieces I have ever played or even heard... incredibly complex counter-melodies, "hummable" melodies, intriguing dynamic and solo work. If you have heard and liked Holst's Suites for Military Band, Folk Song Suite is more of the same, and probably better.

And even if you have heard of "Seventeen Come Sunday," probably by means of Folk Song Suite, you probably didn't know that it had words. I didn't, until one of those famous Wikipedia binges, where you start on "hydrofuran," end up on "Voltaire," and pass through "Mythology in Final Fantasy X" in the process. On one of those excursions, I discovered this, which lists all the lyrics to this song. They're absolutely hilarious. I figured that if it had words, they would probably be about war, because it was a march. Given that the title was "Seventeen Come Sunday," I figured it had a coming-of-age theme, and so I assumed that the narrator of sorts was off to join the army as soon as he was old enough. Turns out that's not exactly incorrect...

Here's the Reader's Digest version: some guy is walking through an English village one morning, and he sees a cute girl.
Guy: Hey, what's up?
Girl: Oh, not much, just doing some errands for my mom.
Guy: Right... how old are you?
Girl: I'm seventeen come Sunday.
Guy: Yeah, about that... do you really want to be doing errands for your mom?
Girl: Well, I guess not. Let's screw.

And now we turn our attention to the lovely Miss Emma Watson, who plays Hermione in the Harry Potter movies. She, of course, is eighteen come April.

Now, Emma Watson being not quite eighteen, I obviously don't have a thing for her. Not until April 15 2008, that is. This is an unfortunate temporal arrangement, but it doesn't preclude me from planning for the future. Interestingly, hers is a very badly-written and edited website. It needs someone else to maintain it... me, for instance. And if I'm going to be applying for this job in 38 weeks, I'm going to need to do a little background research. Here are a few of Emma's favorite things, taken from the website, and with my own commentary added below.

1) Colour: pink
Fabulous. This suggests that she's girly, and that's instantly attractive.
2) Band: the Postal Service
Amazing. She likes good music, too. I'm holding out hope that she too detests the Black Eyed Peas.
(skip a few that I haven't heard of)
5) Musical: Chicago
Acceptable. I might have preferred something satirical like The Producers or Spamalot, but at least it's not something totally lame like South Pacific.
6) Actor: Johnny Depp
Excusable. For all the overhype he receives, the man actually does know how to act.
(skip a bunch about which I'm unqualified to comment, like fashion)
14) Food: spaghetti
Delicious. Who doesn't like spaghetti... and yet putting it as your favorite food is sort of gutsy.
15) Comfort food: Toast and hot chocolate
Intriguing. I'm going to have to try this.
16) Drink: orange juice and lemonade
Imaginative. As long as it's not "cheap beer" I have no objection.
17) Car: I don't know anything about cars.
Fine. Neither do I.
18) Holiday destination: France
Disappointing. Hopefully this is a product of "lack of worldly experience" and not "genuine love of France." Unless she's flutently bilingual, which would be totally hot.
19) Sport: field hockey
Unusual. Though not entirely bad. I wonder what she thinks of good old American football?
20) Animal: cat
Adorable. How can you not love cats?
21) TV show: Friends
Unfortunate. There's a lot out there that's a lot funnier.

And finally, she is apparently artsy, too, having drawn an illustration for her own website. Lovely. Of course, we already know that she's a sort of artsy, being an actress and all...


Review: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix

Let's be honest here, seeing the movie was not the primary reason I went to see the movie. It was so I could go the wonderful Utopolis theater in Luxembourg, which it turns out is an amazing little slice of America. Liter of Coke for 3 Euros? It just doesn't get any better than that. Well, okay, it does, but only in American grocery stores. In super-expensive Europe, that drink price is even cheaper than American theater drink prices! Add theater-style (read: drenched in butter) popcorn, and you've got a great reason to skip Thermo.

And even so, the movie turned out to be pretty good too. Primarily, I think it was as true a 2 1/2 hour adaptation of an 800 page book is going to be. And that's going to be the main reason anybody is going to want to see the movie. They're not expecting astonishing cinema; they want an adaptation. The movie had its strong points--the wizard duels were particularly convincing, and the Department of Mysteries was exactly as I think it should have been. It had its weak points, too--I take issues with how the centaurs are portrayed. In the books, they're supposed to be incredibly intelligent and rightfully offended when Umbridge calls them "creatures of nearly-human intelligence." In the movie, they're portrayed as just that; merely grunting and shooting arrows at her.

I don't have an eye for good/bad editing, but even I saw a few clumsy transitions and the like. A few scenes I think really should have been in the movie, like Harry's emo rage when he smashes all of Dumbledore's crap in the office, or when Harry finds Sirius's mirror, or when Harry and Cho start screaming at each other on Valentine's Day. Finally, the whole Cho thing seemed a bit odd; making her out to be the traitor tidied things up cinematically... except that it didn't, because of the equally as bizarre use of Veritaserum. In the end, though, that's probably a minor point.

I get it from a reliable source that Rupert Grint is supposed to be attractive, and I get it from an equally reliable source that Daniel Radcliffe is supposed to be attractive. My feelings on the matter? Rupert Grint looks sort of dorky--how else do you describe a guy whose hair comes down to his nose? And Daniel Radcliffe looks sort of geeky. Yes, there's a difference. A little more on casting decisions: my feelings regarding Emma Watson are well known. I think that Luna was cast perfectly (apparently Rowling thinks so too). She's young, but has lots of attractive-potential, possibly more so than the character warrants.

Next post, of course, will be the fourth Harry Potter-themed one in a while, where I very carefully discuss the new book without spoiling anything. Or completely open the floodgates on what happens and give my opinion on all of it; I haven't decided yet. At any rate, there's no point making predictions at this stage, when spoilers are probably abounding all around me anyway.


Currently listening: Love, The Juliana Theory

Expatriation

Think of the strangest 4th of July experience you could have as an American citizen. You may be having fanciful visions of oppression in Iron Curtain Europe, or malaria in the jungles of Panama, or subsistence in some remote African village where they may not even know it is the Fourth of July, or even care for that matter. And yes, you'd be right, those would be strange Fourths of July indeed. How about sitting in the common room of a French campus of an American university? This would involve colored mood lighting--not red, white, and blue, mind you, but red and orange. It would incorporate that most American of music genres, jazz, as performed by a duo of French musicians. The food would not be entirely out of place: sausage, chicken, and pork on the grill, but with a strange European twist of paprika-flavored potato chips. (This was later determined to be a conspiracy, as these tasted strangely similar to barbecue chips back from the States.)

And the day's entertainment? No fireworks, of course, but that can almost be excused on the basis of a rainy morning and afternoon. This rainy morning and afternoon, spent in the World War I battleground of Verdun. Verdun is a strange choice for such a day of American patriotism, as no American regiments actually fought at Verdun. One American was killed at the battle, an ambulance driver who volunteered with the French army, but the good old AEF would not enter the way for another year at that point.

More than just being a strange place to celebrate American patriotism, Verdun is a strange place to celebrate much of anything. I think the operative word here is "somber." Touring the inside of Fort Douaumont is at least historically interesting, and the memorial has plenty of military relevance in the form of artillery and old uniforms. Taking a look around, though, you see acre after acre of shell-shocked land, miniature hills and valleys that have been a part of the landscape since 1916 that nobody has any reason to think will ever go away. Then you come to the graveyard: row after row of "mort pour le France," "mort pour le France." Taking all of this in combination with weather that Seattle seems to have modeled itself off of, and you get a 4th of July that's more depressing than anything.

And apple pie? Forget about it, though there were some tasty apples available; imagine crust and cinnamon and sugar and you're almost there.


Tangent: I just found the drop-down that lets me access Blogger in English. This made me very, very happy, despite the cloud cover that is still reminiscent of an Atlanta February.


I know when I've been beaten, and it looks like time to clarify my position on the Harry Potter finale just a little bit. It's interesting how negative the reaction has been to using Norton's standards of "classic" to describe the Harry Potter books. Even so, I believe my argument remains essentially the same, even disregarding the entire "classic/not a classic" framework. To quote Nick's comment from the previous post, "there is substantial difference between a book that is enjoyable and layered throughout [...] and a book that sacrifices all of that hard work for the sake of a pat and satisfying ending." And to me, making Snape a clear-cut Good Guy or a clear-cut Bad Guy is doing exactly that: taking the only morally intriguing character in the series and defenestrating everything that was interesting about him.

One hallmark of a good piece of literature--whether a "classic" or whatever else you want to call it, is allowing the reader to consider what's happening in it and make his own conclusions about at least a few points. In Harry Potter, we're told virtually everything else outright; allowing her readers to make their own conclusions regarding Snape is the least Rowling could do.

One comment Gina made on the Book of Faces goes like this: "Snape is too intelligent not to understand the bigger picture and to have an opinion on it." Too true. And the only thing that makes sense, given everything that we know about his character from books 1-6, is that this "opinion" is "how do I manipulate everyone so that I come out the best for myself?" He's a Slytherin, so he's nothing if not ambitious.

One further comment by Gina: "If she does have him turn out to be good, it further enforces what Sirius (or perhaps Lupin) says in Order of the Phoenix, 'The world isn't broken down into good people and Death Eaters.'" This one I definitely disagree with. If he turns out to be a Good Guy (or a Bad Guy, for that matter), it shows that the world absolutely is broken down into Good Guys and Bad Guys. When I read that quote, I immediately thought of Snape. Virtually everyone else we know of it one or the other (aside from the people at the Ministry of Magic, who are probably the least compelling and developed characters in the series). I still argue that not only does the setting Rowling has created benefit immensely if he's somewhere in between, it actually suffers if he's not.

A final question on the issue: what does everyone think about having Snape's allegiance go completely unresolved? What if Rowling were to kill him off before we knew for sure? We already know that this isn't going to happen of course, but I'm interested how people would see that. A cop-out, merely a literary trick to escape making a tough narrative decision? Or an act of realism, a final stroke to give the reader something to think about once the book is finished?


Currently listening: "Kalimba Story," Earth Wind and Fire

Sound the Keening Bell

...for Harry Potter, of course. The release of Book Seven, alternately known as Deathly Hallows in English and Relics of Death or even more morbid options in other languages, is probably the biggest book news of the year, maybe of the decade. It marks the end of one of the most successful literary enterprises, ever, probably next to Gutenburg's rendition of the Bible. And I'm really, really apprehensive about how this book is going to turn out.

First, a little background of my experiences and interactions with the Harry Potter series. Like almost every semi-literate twelve-year-old, I picked up the first book when it came out, and liked it. I kept reading the books, faithfully, from the second to the fifth. I considered them to be truly good books, and they held my interest over half a decade. My peer group and I, of course, are exactly the right age to enjoy the entire range of the series, from its innocuous childlike inception (when we were in middle school) to its dark and somewhat depressing antepenult (when we were nearing the end of high school and ready to handle such heavy matters).

Enter Patrick Norton, one of my five most respected high school teachers, who taught my AP Lit class. One of the obvious foundations for an advanced treatment of English is its classic literature, and to understand that you have to first define what a classic is. Norton used the counterexample of Harry Potter to define what a non-classic is. To be a classic, among other criteria, a book must have a point beyond mere storytelling, it must be unique or at least creative and lucid in making that point, and it must show us rather than tell us why that point is important. Harry Potter does none of these things, according to this instruction.

Why use Harry Potter as this counterexample? First, because of the contemporary relevance of the series. For an intelligent bunch of teenagers in the mid-2000s, there was a good chance that their recent literary development at least had a flavor of Harry Potter in it, if not outright dominated by it. Second, because of its overwhelming popularity and fanbase. People are fanatics about these books. Sure, John Grisham, Robin Cook, and Dan Brown, just to name a few, have their loyal readerships. But nobody's proclaiming The Firm, Toxin, or even for all its attached controversy and resultant staggering popularity, The DaVinci Code a classic. And yet, Harry Potter apologists are more than willing to do so for their books.

So, according to Norton at least, Harry Potter is not a classic... not that there's anything wrong with that. The immediate follow-up to the "what is a classic" discussion was the "what makes a book good" discussion. Just because a book isn't a classic doesn't mean one can't find it entertaining, exciting, or even thought-provoking. And just because a book is a classic doesn't mean one has to agree with or enjoy it.

At the time, though, I wasn't so ready to accept Norton's assertion. After all, these books did have characters that were at once deep and relatable, they had literary devices peppered throughout, and they had a staying power that far outmatched most popular fiction. Didn't that qualify as a classic? Once I finished that class, I read the sixth book in the series. This one was even darker than the previous, bordering on horrific (or at least occult) in some places, and it introduced a completely new plane of moral ambiguity into the series. That much further emboldened my intellectual position that, if Harry Potter wasn't a classic, it at least had admirable classic-like qualities.

So, the more Harry Potter I read, the more convinced I was that the series shouldn't be immediately dismissed as non-classic. And now, the more I read about what book 7 is going to be like, the more convinced I am that JK Rowling is sabotaging her own position. The biggest fear I have about this book is that it's going to attempt to explain too many things, to tie together too many loose ends. Loose ends are okay. In the real world, things don't come together nicely. Granted, a world with wizards and flying brooms and evil necromancers isn't real, but once you accept the premise of those things existing, you can at least shoot for verisimilitude. Explaining every last unknown destroys that.

To paraphrase JRR Tolkien, the undisputed founder of the modern fantasy genre and an author to whom JK Rowling owes virtually the entirety of her inspirational credit to, "in a fantasy setting, there are some mysteries that don't need to be explained." Tolkien cited Tom Bombadil, the yellow-booted primordial guardian of nature, as one of those mysteries. He's been there as long as Iluvatar (God) himself. He played into the main storyline of the series, but wasn't central to it. He comes and goes as only a being that ancient and powerful can please. None of this is addressed in the books, and Tolkien correctly asserts that it does not need to be. That's because Tolkien was building a setting in which the reader was supposed to believe that many things were happening: the story of the One Ring, and many other complex lives, tales, and events that didn't necessarily interconnect. That's the mark of good world-building.

Rowling had the potential to do the same thing. Her world is cleverly crafted, and from the start of the first book, we're awash in believability of setting. With her promises to make things all come together at the end, though, it's clear that she's crafting a story, not a setting. Take her mention of bringing Dolores Umbridge back. In the real world, a character like Umbridge would come and go, making her indelible mark on the environment, and then departing when the time was right. If Rowling brings her back, it's only for fan satisfaction and the exploitation of an inside joke.

Finally, there's the Snape dilemma Rowling has worked herself into. If Snape turns out to be a Good Guy, then there's an inconsistency with him having been so much of a jerk to everyone of the other Good Guys. There hasn't been any narrative justification for him to have switched to the Good Guys; nothing in it for him. If he turns out to be a Bad Guy, then Dumbledore, the smartest, wisest, and most amazing Good Guy ever, was wholly wrong for decades. There hasn't been any narrative justification for Dumbledore to even be capable of making a mistake that big. My own feelings on Snape are well known; it only makes sense for him to be out for himself and playing both sides. And it makes the world more believable. If Rowling neglects this opportunity to make Snape neutral, she's put the nail in her own "Harry Potter is nothing but popular fiction" coffin.


Completely unrelated to Harry Potter, a loyal reader may have noticed that I never posted a review of 300. That's because I didn't have a lot to say about it. The first time I heard of this movie was at a friend's apartment, when I was shown the trailer for what was proclaimed to be "the most amazing movie, ever." A lot of people still held that view after they saw the movie. I was not one of them. I was skeptical of the movie from the first time I saw the trailer, and I still held that view after I saw the movie. But posting a somewhat negative review of 300 on the "This! Is! Sparta!" obsessed Internet would be akin to posting a critique of the Church's position on birth control somewhere in Vatican City. It just wouldn't have any impact.

Someone with a larger reader contingent than I do, though, may get noticed. Take, for instance, someone who had been noticed by Digg. Someone like these guys, who feel exactly the same way about 300 that I do. Give their review a read.


Currently listening: "Clark Gable," the Postal Service

Bong Hits and Americanism

No, I'm not into illegal drugs. And apparently, even if I were, I couldn't advertise it on a school campus. If you haven't heard about the "Bong Hits 4 Jesus" case, now would be a good time to familiarize yourself with it. Here, the Supreme Court limited rights on student free speech, or so it would seem. If you read the deliberately sensationalist headlines on any news reporting service (CNN included) it would seem that it was a new development that schools were allowed to censor their students.

If that were the case, then why hasn't this become a Constitutional issue already? It has never been allowed, for instance, for a student to wear a shirt with a pot leaf on it. This is a clear limitation on that student's free speech, though, so is that a Constitutional issue? A friend of mine reported Southern good old boys being very disappointed indeed when shirts bearing "Old Dixie" on the front and a picture of black people working in a cotton field on the back were banned. A certain Georgia Tech fraternity may also have been dismayed at this news, but it was of course widely supported at the school. Nevertheless, isn't this a limitation on free speech, too?

Looking at other Constitutionally guaranteed rights, students can't bring guns to school. Neither, for that matter, can teachers, staff, parents, or visitors. But that's a limitation on everyone's second amendment rights to keep and bear arms, right? A minor cannot sue anyone for a perceived injustice against him, and neither can a second party bring a suit against a minor. Is this a limitation of a student's eighth amendment rights? Finally, the ninth and tenth amendments reserve non-enumerated rights to the people. But there are all sorts of laws telling minors what they can and cannot do--driving a car, getting married, and entering contracts, to name a few. That should be an abridgment of a student's Constitutional rights too.

In conclusion, of course a government has an ability to limit the rights of its minors. Whether that's right or not is another issue, and one that I'm not well enough versed in Constitutional law to comment on. But the fact is that it exists, for better or for worse.

Now for the kink.

If you dig a little deeper into this case, the incident took place outside of the school. Granted, the students were participating in a school function at the time, and that's what actually makes the case interesting. To me, this was less a case of how a student's rights can be limited, and more a case of how far a school's jurisdiction extends, and under what circumstances. Of course, the Justices thought it was about drugs, and we'll have to assume they know more about the law than I do.

Said Chief Justice Roberts: "[the principle] failing to act would send a powerful message to the students..." About what? It's not like this kid had a bong to offer hits from in the first place. Said Justice Stevens, in dissent: "[this case establishes] a special First Amendment rule permitting the censorship of any student speech that mentions drugs..." And here, I disagree too, because I still maintain this case is not about drugs.

Regardless of which side you back, the one person who was clearly wrong in all of this was the student. He contends, ""I find [the sign] absurdly funny," which it's simply not.


One topic that's always interesting to think about is the degree to which politics are acceptable in music. On one hand, I've always been adamantly "keep your mouth shut and sing" or act, direct, or otherwise entertain. On the other hand, politically-driven music can be remarkably good. One of the best examples of contemporary politically-motivated music is, of course, American Idiot by Green Day. I like American Idiot for the most part. "She's a Rebel" is probably among my top twenty favorite songs, and of course "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" was near-ubiquitous my senior year of high school, so it has a sort of pleasant nostalgia associated with it.

That said, it's way too political for me. Regardless of how you interpret its message and if you agree with it or not, this album produced the unfortunate contradiction between "this is music I like" and "this was produced by means I disagree with." It's recently come to my attention that the lead singer of the Killers, another band I really like, had something to say about American Idiot too. According to Brandon Flowers, the album displays "calculated Anti-Americanism." He further goes on to assert that "[English and German] kids aren't taking [the message] the same way that [Billie Joe Armstrong] meant it. And he knew it." Well done, Mr. Flowers.

I contend that neither Sam's Town nor American Idiot is anywhere near as representative of slices of American life, of joy, of change, and of heartbreak as Sufjan Stevens' Illinoise is. But that's just my indie-pop sensibility.

One more note on indie-pop: Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna, Are You the Destroyer isn't as bad as it was as I first listened to it. I think the reason I hated it so much for so long is due to a recency effect. Even after a second chance (one that redeemed most of the album), "Faberge Falls for Shuggie" is truly a horrible song. And the track titles are too pretentious. And there's too much unwarranted use of gapless playback. And a lot of the harmonies are so thick that they become dissonant. But other than that, it's not a bad album.


Currently listening: "Suffer for Fashion," Of Montreal

How to Change a Life

I'm not going to assert that Barcelona was disappointing. On the contrary, it was a lot of fun, a thoroughly enjoyable trip. Evidently it was supposed to be a "life-changing" experience, though, and that it just wasn't. Maybe if you're the type that organizes weekend trips around bars and getting drunk, Barcelona is the place to be. I don't necessarily subscribe to that method of travel... oh well. Then again, the guide to Bruges told me not to spend any money on chocolate (and spend it on beer instead) and that I didn't care about the Michaelangelo sculpture in the cathedral. So perhaps I just don't fit into the "backpack across Europe" stereotype either.

So far, Rome has been the closest thing to "life-changing" that I've seen. It was a Bad Idea to attempt to see all of it in a day, that's for sure. How do you do Rome in a day? Simple: skip the Fountain of Trevi, the Pantheon, the Circus Maximus and Old Appian Way, the Capitoline Museums, and the Vatican Museum. Clearly, that's not idea. So, in the spirit of the multitude of travel guides that I've relied on thus far, here's my advice on seeing Rome.

Before you arrive, you'll need to consider where to stay. There are three things you want in a hotel: location, quality, and value. Pick any two. You will not be able to find a cheap and decent hotel in the city center. For that matter, you will probably not be able to find a cheap hotel at all, regardless of quality, in the city center.

Don't try to see the Eternal City in anything less than three and a half days. Arrive one day in the afternoon or evening, and don't rush out to any of the premiere destinations that day. Instead, get some coffee or gelato, wander by the Fountain of Trevi, or do anything else that doesn't demand a huge investment of sightseeing effort.

The next day, wake up early enough to get in line for the Colosseum the second it opens. The line for the Colosseum is enormously long, though it moves faster than you might think. Gawk at the men who have the best jobs in all of Rome: the costumed gladiators who point their swords in the right direction to get in line. Once you're inside, have fun archaeologing it up. The ticket costs eleven Euros, and don't bother trying to get a student discount unless you're a student who lives in an EU country. That doesn't include taking classes in an EU college if you're not a citizen. If the eleven Euros doesn't seem quite worth it once you've gotten there, I sort of agree. For pure ruin potential, Pompeii is much better and a Euro cheaper. Luckily, that ticket also allows you admission up the Palatine Hill and the gardens and ruins there. You'll see the Roman Forum below you; don't be tempted to see that today. Spend a little quality time on the Palatine: after you've walked around the Colosseum and up the Palatine, the gardens are an excellent place to relax. Eat. Now go a bit to the south, and see even more of the ancient landmarks, like the Circus Maximus and the Old Appian Way.

Next day, devote the entire thing to the heart of the ancient city. Start with the Roman Forum, and see the temples, the Arch of Septimus, the New Senate House, and the original SPQR arch. If you can, try and stumble upon a guided tour. I managed to find one that was at once free and extremely informative.

I'm a bit of a Roman history/culture geek, and even I learned some things about how ancient Rome worked. For instance, the reason the Christians were persecuted in Rome wasn't because of their belief in Jesus. On the contrary, the Romans were the most religiously tolerant empire until the Mongols, twelve centuries later. The persecution only came when they refused to bow before the image of the God-Emperor Julius Caesar. The tour guide likened this to JFK in America: an extremely popular leader who was killed. What if his successor, Lyndon Johnson, built a temple to JFK in the National Mall near the Capitol building and made the entire country pay their respects to him as a god?

See the rest of the Forum. Eat. Now walk up the next hill, the Capitoline, and spend the rest of the day in the museums there. You can see ancient artwork and statue dating back from Etruscan times.

Last day, see the Vatican. If you're of a religious (ie, Catholic) bent, go to a Mass here; you'll need a special pass that you can only get a few days beforehand. I don't know how to go about that. The Basilica itself is too touristy, with a line almost as long as the Colosseum to get in and half of it roped off at any give point. But it's still impressive. Be sure to see the Pieta. Go see the treasury, which showcases the immense power and wealth of the early church, located in the basilica itself. Gawk at crystal monstrances and cloth of gold vestments. Afterwards, climb the steps or take the elevator to the dome. Finally, see the grotto, with tombs of most popes since 1300. Eat. Devote the rest of the day to the Vatican Museum, which is supposed to be really impressive. Just be sure to make sure it's open. Specifically, don't go on Sunday, unless it's the last Sunday of the month. Get there before about 2 pm; otherwise you might not be let in.

Now have some more coffee or gelato, and you're done!


Currently listening: "Oh Comely," Neutral Milk Hotel

Nostalgiae

A few weeks ago, in the Gwinnett section of the AJC, a graduating senior from UGA offered a column of her advice to graduating high school seniors. This proved two things: 1) the high school-college transition is about the same level of "complete paradigm shift" no matter where you're leaving from or going to, and 2) people from UGA actually can do at least a few things well. I have my own spin on this, in part inspired by the recent high school graduation of many of my friends, and in part by things I miss from back in the States.

To begin, enjoy your high school graduation. Yeah, I know that's a couple weeks late (but hopefully not too many dollars short)--maybe make some internal conversions to past tense or something. Two years ago at this time of year, I started to run out of sheet cake from my own graduation... hopefully you still have some left. This is almost certainly the biggest event of your life to this point. Aside from your birth (which I'll wager you don't remember too well) and perhaps a handful of religiously significant occasions, this is the one time where so much attention has been focused on you. High party concentration, lots of generous relatives, and the chance to see all those people one last time is sure to be memorable.

Advice for graduating seniors regarding the summer:

First and foremost, appreciate your hometown. You know that "barely a step above ghetto" movie theater downtown? The one where at any given time for the past five years, you had a decent shot of knowing at least somebody working there; the same one where sneaking into movies wasn't even worth the challenge because it was so easy? As strange as it sounds, you're going to miss it. Because, wait, that was also the place where you had your first real date. The place where your friend famously smuggled in a pound bag of ginger snaps and a quart of milk. Heck, for its sort of crapped out condition now, you remember when it was built when you were just a kid.

You also, of course, know that Steak and Shake right next door to it; the only place in miles (besides any one of seven Waffle Houses) that you can get any food after your 9:30 movie finishes; the one where you actually started to get to know the waitress because it seemed there were only ever two people working there at midnight. Remember that Steak and Shake well.

Maybe you've taken an interest in local politics, maybe not. Maybe you use your county parks, and maybe you don't. Maybe you care about local events, new businesses, fairs, and hometown doings, and maybe you couldn't care less. Chances are, though, your little corner of the world means at least something to you, and you might be surprised at how much you miss it in the fall.

Appreciate your car, too. As a graduating high school senior, there's a good chance that you at least have access to a car. By "have access to" I don't necessarily mean your name is on the title. You may or may not be the primary driver. But to get to any given place at any given time, there's at least a decent chance you can procure some manner of motor vehicle. That's not necessarily going to be the case in college. On some campuses, parking is so abundant, affordable, and convenient that there's practically no reason not to bring your car. At others--my own Georgia Institute of Technology among them--it's damn expensive to get a space that might be a half mile walk from your dorm room anyway.

Therefore, the corollary to "appreciate your car" becomes "get used to walking." Things are surprisingly far away when you start having to hoof it over there on your own. Oh, sure, you can rely on your college's bus/shuttle/trolley/generalized people mover system, but it turns out that one Immutable Law of College is your college's public transportation is never effective. Maybe it's inefficient, maybe it doesn't go the places you need it to, maybe it's overcrowded, maybe it's on the unsanitary side. Probably, it's some combination of the above to which any given college student can add his own bdelygmia.

This summer, watch what you eat. Dietarily, I recommend eating less popcorn and fewer Pop-Tarts, cutting back on macaroni and cheese by at least half, and avoiding ramen entirely. No, this blog hasn't turned into Health Food Lovers Anonymous. But you will eat more of those foods in college than you ever thought possible. "Wait, Easy Mac and ramen, that's a total college kid stereotype!" Well, yes, it is. It also happens to be entirely true. The girl who wrote the article in the AJC suggests "Eat your mom's cooking. You will miss it. A lot." That's excellent advice too.

While you're busy eating your mom's cooking, do as little as possible this summer. Okay, I don't actually mean that. A better phrasing might be "do as little as possible that you don't want to do." Specifically, don't be in any sort of hurry to get a job. If you genuinely like working, sure, keep your job. If financially you need it to support your Out of State habit, that's acceptable. But between summer internships, summer classes, study abroad programs, and finding yourself by backpacking from Dar es Salaam to Nairobi, you're going to be awfully busy during your college summers. After you graduate from college, let's face it, there's not going to be any summer discretionary time anyway.

Finally, have fun preparing for college. Take advantage of any parental offers to buy anything for you, whether it be dorm furnishings, food, clothing, books, or whatever. As that AJC article pointed out, this is going to be the last time until your wedding that your parents are going to be so willing to spend money on you. And that's probably a long way away.

Now a few things not be to be so nostalgic about:

Forget high school sports. Maybe not entirely--it can be a lot of fun to go back and see a football game. If you went to a Shiloh-style high school, you can relive the good old days of having about a 3 in 4 chance of watching your team lose. You're probably thinking "but I like high school football! I always had fun there." Probably. Once you've been to a college football game, though, this will make perfect sense. From the scent of frat-boy flasks being broken out in the first quarter to their drunken dates asking you what inning it is; from screaming your lungs out with friends to "instant social program" with the residents; from devastating defeats to thrilling last-minute comebacks, there are reasons why the football game is the premier college entertainment. And aside from trying to predict whether your team will lose by four or five touchdowns, high school football doesn't hold a candle to it.

Bid a good riddance to high school drama. (This isn't about theatrical productions, but those are probably better in college than in high school too.) Oh, that's not to say that drama doesn't exist in college--quite the contrary. It's just better drama. Often, high school drama isn't all that far removed from "Do you like me? Check yes or no." College drama, on the other hand, isn't too far removed from that guy you've known since he was 13 getting married. Of all the things to leave behind from high school, being that 15 year old emo kid who spends the night with friends talking about which girls you love and how you;re never going to get any of them... that's a good one to forget.

In the fall, look forward to a sort of companion piece to this one, which will be a discussion of what to do once you're actually in college. For now, enjoy the summer... you'll miss them.


Currently listening: "Jenny Was a Friend of Mine," the Killers

Things Liked and Disliked, In Brief

Europe is a lot of fun, no doubt about it. But if there were an official Bureau of Complaints Against Europe (such a thing probably exists in Brussels), I would have the following to register:

Graffiti. Seriously, people. Spraypainting "socialisme" on a fence on the outskirts of Barcelona is not a cutting-edge political statement. If you've never been to Europe, think of the intersection of Boulevard and Memorial Drive and multiply the amount of graffiti you anticipate by about ten. I don't know if it's more graffitiers, fewer resources dedicated to getting rid of it, or just an overabundance of spray paint available. It's a big problem, whatever is causing it. It makes otherwise beautiful and historic cities look rundown.

And on the other side, for the Bureau of Good Things about Europe:

Old-fashioned granny-run hotels. It's nothing short of amazing when you can hand a little old lady a 50 Euro bill and get a medieval looking key to a three bed room in return, no questions asked. No Spanish? Doesn't matter. As long as a private shower and a fancy bar of soap to take home aren't your top priorities, you're good to go.

Look again at Photobucket, this time updated with Spain picutres.


Currently listening: "Sea Songs," Vaughan Williams

Insights from a Master of Trivia

Review: Brainiac, by Ken Jennings

On my British Airways flight across the Pond, halfway between the free wine and free cappuccino, I started to read Ken Jennings' book. If you haven't heard of Ken Jennings, here's a quick primer: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Jennings. In a nutshell, he's the guy who won Jeopardy! seventy-four consecutive times and raked in over two and a half million dollars. His book integrates three "spheres" of trivia culture: his own Jeopardy! experiences, various depictions of the American trivia scene (mostly focusing on college quiz bowl teams), and actual trivia questions to be answered by the reader.

It's a wonderfully entertaining book, and I'm not surprised. Looking at Jennings' demeanor while he was on Jeopardy, he's easygoing, conversational, and clever. In fact, Jennings reminds me of myself... granted, a somewhat more knowledgeable and much more successful me. He writes a lot like I do, too, with the critical distinction that he actually has something worthwhile to talk about.

One of the main themes of the book is the relationship between intelligence and success on Jeopardy. A cursory look at the situation would probably suggest that of course a smart person is going to succeed at Jeopardy because he knows lots of things. Jennings disputes this, saying that there is indeed a link between intelligence and Jeopardy success, but that it has comparatively little to do with knowing stuff. He himself knows a lot of stuff, and he's a smart man. But knowing stuff doesn't exactly translate into being intelligent, or vice versa. Jennings admits to being a "pretty mediocre computer programmer," acknowledging that his success in trivia and his mastery of information doesn't necessarily make him good at anything except knowing things.

Knowing things, of course, is a valuable skill to have on Jeopardy. But it's not the only skill. Another skill, the one that does have a direct connection to intelligence, is knowing how to play the game. It's things like knowing what time to press the button, how to wager well, and what the questions are going to be about. This last one was particularly important to Jennings: the most-asked topics on Jeopardy include US presidents; opera, ballet, and 19th-century poetry; and alcohol. The first was an old standby from college quiz bowl days, so that was an easy one. The next three didn't naturally appeal to Jennings as a computer programmer--who knows what the differences between Wordsworth, Keats, and Longfellow are? The last presented a problem as a Mormon--after making mixed-drink flash cards to study from, Jennings says that he could make a hell of a bartender even though he hasn't actually tasted any of those drinks.

Anyone who's ever planning to go on Jeopardy should probably read this book to follow Jennings' advice (look at the number of records on that Wikipedia page). But even if you're not a Jeopardy aspirant, this book is entertaining, insightful, and absorbing. Test yourself as you go through the book (there's even a question about Georgia Tech!) and allow yourself to be amazed by the utter trivia obsession of some of Jennings' contemporaries.


Currently listening: "Run," Snow Patrol

I Just Can't Wait to be (Deputy) King

Tanna, obscure island in Melanesia. Part of Vanuatu and famous for cannibalism, resistance to modernization, and John Frum cargo cults. And I have a tenuous connection to its royalty.

I know a guy (Forrest) whose dad knows a guy (Dr. Heinz Egli) who may or may not be king of Tanna. He's deputy king at the very least. On this island, there was a legend of a white man who would appear on a raft after an earthquake and a volcano eruption. Enter a man whose name I forget, who is clever enough to sit on a raft during an earthquake and wait for the volcano to erupt (as it does every few minutes). Sailing up to the island, he is hailed as King. Things are happy in Tanna for a while.

Now enter the British, who colonially own the island. They're afraid of an armed rebellion--as well they should be, with the one rifle on the island. A detachment of one hundred soldiers lands on the island to seize its rifle and flag, but the King will have none of it. He gives the British a day to withdraw and return the rifle and flag or he will declare war on them--and on the French for good measure. And after a day of noncompliance, the King of Tanna writes a letter to the Queen of England, the President of France, and the Secretary-General of the United Nations to declare war.

The war is ended in a day when British troops arrest the king and imprison him.

Now enter Dr. Heinz Egli, international activist and advocate for Tanna's traditional movement. He manages to get the King out of jail and help the natives a bit, and for this, he is rewarded the title of Viceroy. A bit of a snag here: he's Swiss, and like the Americans, the Swiss can't accept foreign titles. But a loophole presents itself: the Swiss government wouldn't object to a title that they didn't know the significance of, and English not being an official language of the country, Dr. Egli can accept the title of Deputy King.

Sadly, the King passed away a few years ago, and astonishingly, lines of succession aren't clear in Tanna. Should the Deputy King become King? The King's son? Should an entirely new legend be written to predict the next king? Until this matter is resolved, Dr. Egli is content to be Deputy King.

His duties? Go there once a year and help them to advance while still maintaining traditional customs. Oh, and have songs composed and pigs slaughtered in his honor. Sounds like a fine job to me.

Pictures of Dr. Egli's castle/current home can be found at the Photobucket page: http://s183.photobucket.com/albums/x157/Teravius/ Those interested are encouraged to check the page repeatedly, as new pictures should show up at least weekly for the whole summer.


Currently listening: "Piano Concerto in F," George Gershwin

Transalpine Gaul

Naturally, if I'm going to be blogging from Europe, I'm going to use the most pretentious terms possible to describe what's going on. And technically, Lyon and Grenoble are not in the Roman province of Transalpine Gaul, but close enough. A few scattered impressions to start things off:

France is energy-conscious, it turns out. Obsessively so. You can't leave the lights on in the hallways, no matter how hard you try: most of them are equipped with 60-second timers. Now, turning off the lights when you leave the room is one thing; not having air conditioning is another entirely. The only building in GTL that's air conditioned is the computer lab, from whence this entry originates. Dorm rooms? Nope. Classrooms? Out of luck there too.

I also don't know how these people stay hydrated. Water fountains are as rare as air-conditioned rooms, and a bottle of water is something extortionary like 2 euros. That makes old water bottles and sinks very valuable things.

The Decemberists have it right: Orangina is an amazing beverage.

The Brits, on the other hand, have some very bizarre tastes in beverage. Here's a new one. The guy next to me wanted tomato juice with his pretzel snack (I got Sprite). I thought that was a little weird, but whatever. The thing is, the attendant, without missing a beat, asks "Worcester and lemon?" to which the guy responds "please." She then proceeds to shake in a few drops of Worcester and put in a slice of lemon and hand it to the guy. Then the same scene repeats with a woman two rows behind me.

On my quest to become a wine snob, I've bought one bottle. It was a Pinot Gris from the Moselle (the river that runs through Metz), a white that was really good chilled. I don't know how to properly use words like "crunchy" or "refreshing minerality" yet, but I'm sure it was both those things too.

The French, for some reason, really like their pizza. But it's bizarre pizza, like Roquefort cheese and onion pizza. As for food, apparently Lyon is the cuisine capital of France, or something. So at the restaurant we went to, I decided to have a Lyonnaise specialty of "(word I can't read) sausage (words I can't read)." This turned out to be tripe sausage, which I believe to be rolled up intestine in a sausage casing. It was chewy and a little bitter, but not terrible.

One of the weirdest things is the cars you see, like Renault, Peugeot, and Citroen. It's almost a breath of fresh air to see good American cars like Toyotas and Mercedes.

And I'm going to be staying in a castle for the weekend.

For those interested, here are some pictures from the first week: http://s183.photobucket.com/albums/x157/Teravius/


Currently listening: "My Slumbering Heart," Rilo Kiley

Tingling

Review: Spiderman 3

I don't know how spoilery I want to get here, but some of this is just too amusing not to talk about. First of all, Spiderman 3 is not a great movie. You probably weren't expecting it to be, granted. It's one of those movies that couldn't possibly be released in any month other than May (except for maybe June), one that probably cost five hundred million dollars to make but will rake in two thirds of a billion, one that has virtually no cinematic artistry to it but is based off a character and setting that were successful in another medium and so will be successful here, one that people who otherwise aren't movie people will go in droves to watch because it's the Summer Blockbuster.

I seem to remember talking about one of these around a year ago. Coincidence?

This one was in the previews, so I don't feel too bad about discussing it. At some point, Spiderman gets some black gunk over him, which of course makes his suit change colors too. In turn, this leads to a Personality Change and an Internal Conflict. The payoff here is awesome, not for any rhetorical or artistic purpose, more for the amusement. Peter Parker is usually this happy-go-lucky kid, but now we get Emo Peter Parker. And Spiderman is usually good, but he becomes pretty damn neutral in the middle of the movie. Neutral Spiderman is a sight to behold. Can we say "retribution"?

As usual there were special effects, and as usual I didn't care. We've seen it all before.

If there's some attempt at moral message here, it's most likely something along the lines of "Revenge is bad, mmmkay?" The symbolism is stifling here: when Spiderman has the need for some good old fashioned vengeance, he puts on the black suit; when he puts on the black suit, he gets less good. I liked it better the first time, when it was called Star Wars. (Although Harry did bust out a rather lightsaberish dagger during one fight scene.) On a whole, the plot was predictable. Of course Spiderman is going to have his Spiritual Redemption and become good again. And of course he's going to win the Final Battle.

Finally, where's the vaunted Spidey Sense? It didn't tingle once this movie. And boy, would it have helped in more than a few situations.

A bit of commentary on Mary Jane. That girl is ridiculously needy. Poster child for "high-maintenance." Not to mention jealous and mentally unstable... Peter Parker would to well to break up with her. I mean, if he's going to be busy being Spiderman and saving the world, the last thing he needs is some overdependent girlfriend to weigh down on his emotions. Evidently the man's got no trouble picking up girls... why settle for a mental case?


Currently listening: "Red Oyster Cult," Guster

Projection and Attraction Theories

An opening note: nothing in this post has anything to do with quantum mechanics. No virial equations of state here.

A point of interest in roleplaying is the presence of the female avatar. Quick operating definitions: "roleplaying game" is any sort of game where you, as a player, construct a character then play the game as that character. This can range from Web MUDs and their successors like Kingdom of Loathing, to console RPGs like Final Fantasy, to MMOs like World of Warcraft (my second-favorite game ever, next to Halo), to tabletop games like Dungeons and Dragons, to creepy live-action roleplaying, or LARPing. "Player" is the real-life person who is playing the game, and "character" is the in-game character that the player creates. "Avatar" is your character, or more precisely in the context of electronic RPGs, the visual conception of that character. It stands to common sense, reasoning, and conventional wisdom that most roleplayers are male... but there are many, many female characters out there.

Statistics back this up. According to Andrew--and realistically, if you're going to listen to anyone on the topic of WoW, it should be Andrew--about 90% of WoW players are male, but the male:female character ratio approaches gender parity. Assuming that almost all female players play a female character (and I'll explain in a bit why this is a good assumption to make) then fully 44% of male players are playing as a female character. Of course, nothing prevents a male player from playing as more than one character, so maybe one male player has two characters, one male and one female. Or maybe some males play exclusively female characters, and some, exclusively male.

Regardless of the distribution of number of players versus number of characters, the fact remains that probably a third of males--and quite possibly more--are playing at least one female character. The natural question is why? Andrew says the prevailing opinion in research on the subject (yes, apparently such a thing exists) is that it serves as an outlet for gender role reversal, something that everyone is socialized from a very early age to avoid like a high-maintenance girlfriend. That is, otherwise masculine males take this opportunity to act in a way that would otherwise get them suspicious looks at best and completely ostracized at worst. I disagree with that explanation for three reasons.

First, I've noticed that willingness to play an opposite-gender character decreases with increased personalization of a character. In a tabletop setting, which is much more intimately social than a computer setting, male willingness to play a female character is comparatively low. This is because in addition to looking like a female, players in this setting are supposed and expected actually to act like a female. In games like Kingdom of Loathing, on the other hand, males play female characters completely without reservation. This even changes among different incarnations of the same character. A reasonable explanation for this is that KoL is only tangentially an RPG. You get to watch the numbers go up, there's some sort of tun-based battle system, and a large focus of the game is on quests and equipment. But there's really very little role-playing involved.

Second, attention. In any MMO, there are a lot of emo little fifteen year olds as players, not-quite-men who don't have any female friends, much less girlfriends, and are convinced their lives are beyond redemption because of it. Therefore, they will take any available opportunity to interact with girls. Even supposed, electronic ones. Female characters, as their players of either gender will tell you, get a whole lot of attention. And most males who play female characters will admit that this is the worst part of playing as a female. Regardless of anyone's individual position on MMOs, it's pretty easy to agree on a position of being hit on by an emo fifteen year old: avoid it at all costs.

Finally, that prevailing opinion assumes that every male has some sort of secret inner desire to act like a female. Freud and Jung would doubtless agree. I do not.

My counter-explanation for this? The female avatar in RPGs fulfills the same role that the Mary Sue does fiction. That is, the female character is some sort of wish or unfulfilled fantasy that can really only come true in an unrealistic setting. During character creation, great care is often given to making the character look as "hot" as possible--never mind the fact that she's made from pixels. One the developer side, items that the character can acquire--armor is often particularly egregious--are designed to enhance this "hotness." The most ridiculous part is the "dance" that MMO characters inevitably perform. While male characters' dances are often designed to look as silly as possible, females are actually constructed to include a large element of sensuality. Remember those fifteen year old emo kids, who really want nothing more than to spend time with girls? The Mary Sue MMO character is a projection of that desire: if they can't spend time with real girls, it might as well be with electronic ones, and if those girls are going to be fake anyway, they might as well be as unrealistically perfect as possible.

So why does this only happen with males playing female characters? Surely there's some fifteen year old girls who are equally as emo as those boys? Undoubtedly. Why, then, wouldn't a female project that desire into a male character? The answer lies in the same attention reason that I don't buy the gender reversal explanation for males playing female characters. Females are going to get a whole lot of attention in an MMO... especially if they're actual girls. Therefore, there's no reason for a female to pretend to be a male. Furthermore, if that doubtlessly Freudian/Jungian idea of an inner desire for gender role reversal were true, we'd see about a third to half of female players with male avatars. That just doesn't happen.


Currently listening: "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist," Avenue Q