BEDA 11: Tiger & Don

Okay, so my Blogging Every Day in April effort is not quite EDA enough . . . but I'm not upset. And while I am in between Game of Thrones and Mad Men, I thought I would drop a quick hit blog post about something.

Credit: www.sterlingsatellite.com

Here at WWYG?! I am no stranger to weird theories. I've been spinning them for years--damn the consequence. So, I was all in a few years ago when my oldest brother worked on convincing me about a theory he had heard (for one summary of the idea, see this Bill Simmon's mailbag link and the note from Josh Peterson in Omaha) linking interesting parallels between the real-life fall of noted golfer Tiger Woods and the fictional fall of noted ad-man and serial-philanderer Don Draper. If you search the two men, you can probably find some good summaries of the two men's parallel fall from "grace" a while back--Tiger's public fallout with his wife, the holiday mishap and driveway accident, the eventual reveal of sex addiction and whatever. Along with that was Don's break up with Betty, the singledom, all culminating with eating pancakes and whiskey while his daughter watches.

So, at the start of this season of Mad Men, we were noting the upswing in Tiger's golf rankings, his favorite status at this week's Masters golf tournament, and the return of Mad Men from a loooong hiatus. Would Don's life follow a similar upward trend this season?

Well, after seeing the two-hour premiere of Mad Men last weekend and seeing Tiger's travails at Augusta this weekend, I'm here to suggest that the parallels are still there--and they aren't good.

Don can't see the suicide metaphors right in front of his face during his missed ad pitch to the hotel chain. He's got so much of the Hawaiian surf pounding in his ears he  can't understand what is going wrong with his life. But he knows that his fake life of Dick Whitman is slowly unraveling for all the world to discover.

And Tiger? He also found trouble this weekend, also amongst water, as he made his own falsification with his errant ball drop and the incorrect scorecard. Sure, the golfing powers-that-be let his continue his Saturday and Sunday efforts, but nothing came of them. And nobody at Sterling Cooper Draper Price is going to be firing Don/Dick anytime soon either (unless they can lure Peggy Olsen back into the fold to take Don's place?). So Don, like Tiger, will continue to go through some of the motions. But how much longer can they hold themselves together before it all crashes down on them with finality?

BEDA 10: Room 237: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and See the Hidden Messages

Credit: craigskinnerfilm.com . . . and Stanley Kubrick and Warner Bros. films, of course

The first time I watched The Shining, my family was visiting my 2nd brother Andy's college apartment in Florida. I was, I think 15 years old? As I watched the film, in the dark apartment, in the evening, I was completely creeped out by the imagery of the film. The way the camera was always following Danny as he Big Wheel'd his way down empty hallways, turning corners to confront I never knew what. The creepy twin girls, the flowing blood from the elevators, the flashes of previous atrocities committed by previous residents of the Overlook Hotel, Jack Torrence's descent into madness. I'm not surprising anyone when I say that the movie is just straight up creepy.

And, so I watched most of the film with a couch pillow in front of my face. Or I determinedly focused my eyes on the bottom third of the screen, watching feet and carpet patterns and snow drifts and whatever I could to avoid seeing faces and emotions and whatever.

I have since read Steven King's book and I even sat through the TV miniseries that starred that dude from Wings.

So, I thought I would tonight watch Room 237, a film in which Kubrick obsessives try to convince you that Kubrick's film The Shining is not about the horrors of demonic madness or simple insanity or writers block or the inadvisability of living in the Rockies during the winter.

No, this movie is about 

a.) the destruction of the Native Americans or

b.) the Nazi Holocaust or

c.) how Kubrick helped fake the moon landing footage and then used this film to admit his complicity or

d.) less sensationally insane theories that just want you to realize that there are many, many layers of meaning here.

It's interesting and infuriating at the same time. Because while I admire the ingenuity of the theorists, I just want to yell at them that sometimes a continuity error is just a continuity error.

My favorite theory was the one in which the dude rigged up a way to overlay two simultaneous runnings of The Shining--the first starting at the beginning and running to the end, the other starting at the end and running to the beginning. He claims that THIS is the way that Kubrick meant to show the film . .  or at least this unlocks some of the secret storytelling connections about how Kubrick constructed the story. It does show some interesting moments where  overlapping moments of the film(s) have symbolically intriguing moments. But to a normal person, this is probably just the inevitable result of a movie only having three characters, who are bound to overlap in resonant ways during the film. The brain is just going to see a pattern.

My next favorite theory was, again, not one that tried to unlock some secret Kubrick message, but one that acknowledged how bizarre the hotel was and how the physical layout of the hallways as shown in scenes demonstrated this. Now, I don't know how accurate this theory actually was, but I did love the maps.

If you like conspiracies and you like Kubrick, give this movie a try.

BEDA 9: Nerds Like Us

Milestones achieved today:

1. I put on shorts when I got home; the girls were outside playing. Thanks goodness that Spring may have finally arrived.

2. Hannah can now self-propel herself on the swings. This makes it possible for her to play in the backyard independent of us. (A good thing, in case you weren't sure.)

3. I completed two minor room decor updates in the house--both super nerdy in nature.

A.) I bought a frame so that I could give Grace a wall-worthy version of a recent Entertainment Weekly cover.

Since Sarah recently got furniture upgrades in her room; and since the old furniture was passed down to Hannah's room, I thought that Grace deserved a small piece of something new. And since she started watching Doctor Who before Sarah, I thought she would like it.

B.) I also framed the John Green poster that I had purchased back before Christmas. So while I was at the store for the other frame, why not get another one as well?

But once home, where to hang it? I thought that it would most likely end up in the basement--and when Lynda asked where I thought we could hang it, that is what I said. But she (to her enormous credit) said, "No. I mean half of the people in this house are nerdfighters, so don't hang it in the basement." Isn't she awesome?

So, it is hanging in the TV room, on an opposite wall from the Tree of Gondor quilt.

We are so nerdy!

BEDA 8: Videos and other entertainments

I recorded a video to serve as today's BEDA post. And I see that the problem with using the YouTube Capture program is that I set my other digital spaces to "speak" about the video--rendering this version of it (the intended traffic point) to become uninteresting. (Depending on when the video uploads or when you choose to read this post, you may have already seen the video about the iPhone app.)

That's the problem with multiple digital voices--which one is the main point? Is there a rationale for maintaining a central "depot" that all the other places serve, or should they all independently maintains a distinct voice? And is that effective or does it just water down whatever impact you are trying to achieve? I don't know yet what is the best way for me to present things? Or if it even matters.

So, to prevent this post from being entirely redundant, here is a picture of Sarah working on a Doctor Who spec script that she and Grace started talking about over the weekend.

Future writer at work.

 That's right everybody. My oldest daughters are now trying to write a script for television. Once they are done--and after I read through it--if I honestly feel it is warranted, I'll mail it to the BBC. Why not?

BEDA 6: Weekend Edition

Much of this day has been spent doing office work. Lynda has been nice enough to help me out, so I feel good about the amount of things prepared. I hope I can relax a bit during the night without spending all of it doing more work.

The weather is still cold, but at least the sun makes things look nicer. But I'm starting to think about the need for cleaning up flower beds and mulching. It's not my favorite things to do, but it is nice when the yard is neat and inviting.

(Got to take a break to read bedtime books to Hannah.)

And that is as much as I wrote yesterday. Forgot to post it.

The weather today continues to be sunny and resembles Spring. (At last!) thanks to Lynda's help, I might be able to get outside and have some fun today.