Turkey Time Troubles

Turkey time has come for most Americans. Most people are satisfied with the overview (fantastical at best) of the historical event. I am not. Maybe if their weren't reservations and obesity/alcohol issues, maybe if the Bureau of Indian Affairs didn't exist, and maybe if Casinos and making dream catchers for roadside stands weren't their only sources of income. Maybe if their oppression was overcome and heralded like some other race that were unfairly treated was a modern reality. BUT it is not.

The one thing I find interesting is how offended people get by my refusal to celebrate Thanksgiving day. I don't judge others for choosing to mask over the reality of the day and abide by the commercialized version of football and family time.  I do it with Xmas. I do not have a religious belief attached to that day, but I do for all intents and purposes enjoy the magic that the commercialized version brings. The farther it gets from the fact that it doesn't actually celebrate the actual birthday of an important figure in history, the happier I am. The more people realize that Xmas was the repositioning of a pagan Yule Solstice celebration so that people can be indoctrinated under one religion, the happier I am. Xmas for me is about a magic in the coldest part of the year.

But Thanksgiving, despite its lovely intention of name is not celebrated anywhere but America. It is not a religious or a pagan holiday. It is the National Day of Mourning for most Native tribes in the Northeast and some tribes celebrate it, some do not.  However, I ask those to  respect my decision, without a quirky look or trying to convince me that I should view it from their universally accepted interpretation.

 I get it. You like the modern day ritual that it has become. But for me, just like most holidays, I don't buy into it. One, I prefer to pay homage to my Native American and my daughter's two fold tribe Native roots. Two, I have no love for the particular food that is traditionally served, and three, I sincerely love to go to the theater and spend all day free from a schedule and watch movies.

 But the anxiety that comes over me when someone kindly offers an invitation, knowing that I am going to have to carefully explain why I don't celebrate it, and then listen to their reasoning in an attempt to make me realize the error of my ways, and just come hang out =  the reality of discrimination. Because I actively chose not to conform to others ideals, they become offended and form some sort of opinion about me as a disagreeable person.

I take pride in not following the flock, not pandering to mainstream ideals, and at the same time I do not infringe on anyone else's right to enjoy what they enjoy. It would be lovely if one day, I received the same indifference.

This was my Superman. Man of Steel Commentary.

There have been many opinions out there about this new vision of Superman. There isn't one that I have read that I totally agreed with and many that if I had telekinetic powers I would have singed a few brains over. However, I need to write my opinion because, this is one thing that I am THAT passionate about.

What I love about this re-imagining of the Man of Steel, is that one, I am not a terribly sentimental person. I do not believe that everything should be held to canon. As we change and evolve in our society, the goal is to root out what doesn't work, what does. We do this with law, with culture, with language, etc. No, it doesn't always go the right way but that is change.

Each person who has taken to writing Superman has taken liberty with certain things here and there, some artists draw him in ways I find atrocious, and some nail it on the head. But these are my perspectives and film-making is the same. It is an interpretation of a collaboration of people who saw something in a character that just didn't fit with the current reality and changed it. For the better in my opinion.

Psychologically, it never made sense to me that Clark Kent was a bumbling idiot, because well obviously he wasn't, so he was faking it- acting like it, and that to me was always something disingenuous about the character. So to me that was the flaw in the writing of the character. A trait of a person high on the psychopathy spectrum is someone who openly and charismatically lies to the faces of people to achieve a goal in their own favor. The fact that it was not present in this incarnation of Superman was this movie's greatest triumph to me. It was real, visceral. There was a stoic manner, a contemplative and intelligent manner that Henry Cavill brought to it, a calm assurance of a man with immense powers and the patience to understand the right time to use them without flaunting them or pretending to be something he isn't. Superman was an introvert. Someone forced to hide his greatness, his intelligence, and his emotions in order for the greater good of a world he loved. He is genuine, thoughtful, and well mannered. He never needed to be dramatic nor showy like other superheroes that came after him. The deep level of humility and grace was overwhelming driven by Cavill's performance.

The other great thing about this film is we didn't need another regurgitation of the growing up of Clark. We all know his history, what made him who he is, and I am so glad that I was not forced to suffer a lengthy progression of his childhood development, but given pivotal moments that reaffirmed who he was. It made so much sense in terms of the Hero's Journey that after the death of his father, he traveled, he explored the world, and kept himself hidden until it was time not to. Goyer mastered the truth of the character and what he would genuinely do as a human or someone raised as a human.

The back story of Krypton, the speech of Zod about being a product of his world, so poignant. This was a testament to a blind love for a culture and being unable to see past it to the very devastation of themselves.

Zack Snyder has been a film maker who isn't afraid to push the boundaries, and I for one have adored everything that he's ever done. But his films are not those you can watch once. He performs a ballet of film-making that is aggressive and violent but if you step aside from prejudice is enormous and immense. There was not one moment of false bravado.

The battles were bombastic and people whined about the destruction and some crap about 9/11 reminders, so every movie that came before 9/11 that destroyed cities is apparently exempt from this? Are we that fragile? Are these same people griping about fictional body counts devastated at the demolition job we did to cities in the Middle East, or rolling around in their beds mourning Hiroshima, Nagasaki, etc.p or the lives continuously lost in Afghanistan, or are we only morning the soldiers that are from our country? You are really that upset and short sited about a film that has done the same thing every single movie has done in the last 10 years? Iron Man, Avengers, Thor... they were exempt because they apparently care less about damage control so this gives them a pass, but because you hold Superman to a higher standard; he is villainous? He was forced to kill Zod, because he couldn't let him kill people RIGHT IN FRONT OF HIM and it devastated him to do it. But these "fans" are all put off about it.

I am glad that this was not another attempt at telling the origin story. I love that Lois was not some easily bamboozled reporter, but that her prowess was portrayed as the daughter of a military man was explored by her reporting on war issues. I was tired of Lois Lane being the supposedly strong willed person but ended up being unable to see past a pair of glasses? Really? I don't remember Clark ever having the power of fairy glamour?? I love that she knows Clark's secret from the get go. It makes their impossible romance so much more real and not a product of some man projecting how he would live two separate lives.

I could go on and on, but mostly, this was my Superman and I am very happy that despite the NaySayers and hapless critics, I will have the version of Superman that was always living in my mind. That was the one I always dreamed of and imagined and was written the way I would have written him.

The Words We Live By

     When raising children one happens to get into a rut of mantras that you tend to say over and over again. For most parents, this is some form of "Because I said so" in terms of motivation. I don't believe in extrinsic motivation as much as I believe in intrinsic motivation. Most of the time what we say in my house is "No Excuses, Find Solutions." This works on so many levels, and eliminates (hopefully) the need for lying in order to avoid punishment or avoidance. But today we came across a problem that this motto can't account for entirely since we really were working on solutions to... math problems.
    My daughter has inherited this odd family gene where we can DO math, but we can't show or explain HOW we do it. Sure we get the right answer but we don't know why. It's like our brain skips ahead but when you ask it to slow down and explain it, all the information disappears. So what to do when I have an child staring at a problem that she should be able to solve but well she can't.
    First we identify the real problem. She's a bit lazy. Then she resigns that she's lazy and admits defeat. So we talked about accepting that she's a bit lazy and because of that she has to work harder but gets frustrated easily. But I told her that there is a middle ground between being lazy and working harder because of it. One that in essence allows you to avoid working harder, and helps you get things done faster. She was interested.
    I talked about how math isn't a trick, doesn't deceive. Numbers are numbers and they are what they are. So if you stop looking at math like it's trying to trick you and start understanding that it is a pattern of facts then math isn't so daunting. She said okay explain... I explained that when you memorize math facts, your brain will start doing the calculations when it looks at something and you won't even realize that you are doing it! It's called working smarter. If you already know the math facts, then solving an equation is simple.
   She never understood why she had to memorize all those math facts, and to be honest as a kid neither did I. Math was always a source of stress for me. My parents were never helpful and while I usually made A's and B's in math, it was never my fondest subject. Not because I was a girl, not because I was under the impression that I would never need math, but because I never understood how math worked and why it worked that way, but my brain somehow without my help could do the problem. Then I would be asked to show my work. See I have a strong gift for logic and reasoning, so I can look at something and make a logical deduction... such as a list of possible answers on a test... but if I had to show HOW I got to that answer, I was screwed. My mother does this as well, and now so does my daughter.
    But you can't rely on this forever, and yes it tripped me up in Algebra and Calculus. So I don't want this to happen to my "I wanna be a Scientist" daughter. Working Smarter is the only way out. I am not a fan of drills and memorization in the sense that it should be a do or do not thing in terms of success but I do know the value of memorization. So now she wants to learn to work smarter. That means memorizing the math facts that she had been rejecting and that is now causing her to become frustrated.
    "WORK SMARTER, NOT HARDER" is now one of another of those words we live by.