I could go further into the whole long-form brooding thing again, and I am sure you would all really enjoy that (he said, voice dripping with sarcasm) but tomorrow is a therapy day and I am all tired and sleepy now (cannot get sleep right bad robot) and not in the mood to dive into my navel lint and root around, so instead, I will just share some stuff with you and tomorrow we get get back in the pool.
Even though I slept all day, I totally want to get back into bed right now. God damn it all.
First, an apt neologism, and for once, it is not one of my own dubious confecting.
Instead, it’s from a place with the delightful name the Oxford English Fictionary, which aims to collect words which are not in the English language, but should be. In other words, apt neologisms. Neato!
The one that caught my eye is this one :
Anticoagulatorical (adjective): characterizing a speech, essay, presentation, etc. that pursues multiple directions and creates multiple threads, but fails to pull it together in any semblance that makes any sense.
A bit of a mouthful to work into everyday conversation, admittedly. So it loses points on that. But I think we have all talked with someone who has this problem. Someone who, viewed charitably, has so many thoughts that they want to convey, and the thoughts occur to them so rapidly and so violently, that it is all they can do to start one before another jostles its way in to get started, and so forth and so on, till the whole thing collapses in a pile of unfinished mentation.
Uncharitably, one could say that the person is dimly aware of speech being about saying things, and so, parrotlike, they mimic the sound and style of interesting conversation, but being simple creatures, they have completely missed the parts about having a point or going somewhere with what they are saying, and hence annoy the heck out of people who actually listen to what other people are saying and who have therefore come to expect such luxuries as conclusions.
Personally, being a writer and being also both heavily media saturated and narratively driven, I have noticed this most recently in television and movies. Take, for instance, a movie I watched recently, The Fourth Kind.
It had all the modern horror movie elements : emotional rawness, innovative scene composition and cinematography, decent use of music, and so on. And indeed, the movie knew how to seem very intriguing and really give you the impression that this was all leading up to something.
But alas, it was not. The movie’s ending was a total dud, concluding nothing and just leaving me saying “So… that’s it, huh?”.
How very anticoagulatorical of them!
Meanwhile, this is totally what it looks like when a fox smiles :
Who could say no to a face like that? Click to enlarge.
Just when I thought foxes could not get any cuter, I find this. I mean, don’t you just want to pick him up and cuddle him and pet those perky ears?
Of course, if that is a wild fox, he would probably bite your face off.
But still, you would want to do it!
OK, after that marvelous little tonic, we are ready to deal with the somber but interesting subject of whether or not Alan Turning’s death was a suicide.
The standard story is that Turing committed suicide via a cyanide-laced apple after being hounded by authorities for his homosexuality and forced to take hormones to “cure” it. As narratives go, it is satisfyingly tragic and cohesive, and makes Turing an excellent example of historical injustice, homophobia, and ignorance.
But a Turning expert named Professor Jack Copeland argues that the evidence surrounding the great thinker’s death does not support a verdict of suicide, and suggest that it may well have been an accident caused by incautious experimentation.
If that is the truth, let it be known, though honestly, I think the public will continue to think it was suicide simply because that is a much better end for the story than “oops”. We would hate to think such a great person, a person who arguably won World War II for the Allies by cracking the Enigma code, could die in such an absurd and ridiculous way.
No, I suspect we will keep on thinking it was suicide. After all, nobody would blame him.
Then we have this fun clip from the folks at Improv Everywhere :
I like this one because while it not as marvelously elaborate and amazing as some of the Improv stuff, it makes up for it via sheer geekish appeal, and more importantly, by causing such obvious delight in the impromptu audience. And that is really what it is all about. Wonder, and delight.
I thought the lady playing Princess Leia did a very good job with her lines, especially considering that she (like Carrie Fisher before her) had to delivery them wearing enormous ridiculous cinnamon rolls in her hair. Still, I have to admit, they frame her face well.
Maybe those Alderan chicks knew what they were doing after all.
Our Vader does not do quite so well with his lines, but in all fairness, his lines are what actors call “complex” because he has a lot of words in complex sentences to deliver, and as someone who has done a little acting, let me tell you, those are a total bitch.
That is why the people who play the science exposition type characters on genre shows deserve extra recognition as skilled actors, because they have to deliver long lines full of techno-babble and pseudo-science all the time, and do it while looking like they know exactly what they are talking about, too.
And when it comes to science fiction, it is not even possible for them to know what they are talking about. It’s fictional technology! You can’t actually learn how a warp core works. Nobody knows!
I assume that past a certain point, they just stop thinking about what they are saying and just concentrate on the acting part of it, and the sad part is, that makes them more believable.
Mkaes you think about who in the real world we believe just because they are good actors, doesn’t it?