Collections are now under way to supply the hairy, reclusive children with a nice, warm meal.
Their habitat is shrinking. Every day, more wild places are being transformed into cities. Skyscrapers are becoming the norm, replacing tall trees, altering horizons. If this trend continues, there may be no place left for the big-footed children to live. Not only that, but their usual diet of grubs will be permanently disturbed as well, because the grubs live in the wild places too.
Every Sasquatch child deserves a warm meal, exactly like their Himalayan cousins the Yetis.
Even though he’s the bad guy, the antagonist, dressed in all black. He’s even part human, part machine, which should make him scary or creepy. He has powers which allow him to manipulate objects from great distances without touching them. Such a power should be frightening.
Afraid to harm others, he is not, though he doesn’t often kill. He prefers, it seems, to torture those who get in his path. (Once, he set out to torture his own daughter.)
Though he possesses talent with a light saber, he doesn’t strike fear in the audience, only in other fictional characters within his fictional realm.
This is an odd dynamic for an antagonist. Compared to other, equally infamous, antagonists in fiction, such as Moriarty, or Sauron, or Voldemort, or Thanos, or Count Dracula, he, Darth Vader, is not so repulsive. Each of those other antagonists in fiction mentioned above have something about them which turns the audience away from them.
A repellent feature.
Darth Vader makes you feel sorry for him. You sympathize with him. When you discover Vader’s head is scarred, it might seem a bit off-putting, but by then you’ve also realized the sound of his breathing apparatus is not so much a terrifying sound as it is the sound of someone struggling to stay alive. He’s essentially a man who takes his CPAP with him everywhere, while he’s awake. Because of this he gains your pity. By the second movie when it is revealed that he is Luke Skywalker’s father, his pity factor skyrockets. You might feel bad for Luke too, because he has a weirdo cyborg father, though not to the degree that you feel sorry for Vader. He suddenly seems a desperate old man in a mask, trying impotently to regain a relationship with a son he never raised.
What’s worse for him is that when he makes the attempt to regain the relationship with his son—he’s rejected. He’s not only rejected, but soundly rejected. A face can’t be more contorted than Luke’s was at the moment he discovered the dark secret of his past. Luke wanted to go back in time to any point at which he didn’t know familial facts. Any point.
And yet, in following films, after that second offering from George Lucas, Luke gets on the pity wagon too. He tries to sway his father back his way, back to the “Light Side”. If there was a piece of dialog missing from the franchise, it was, “Oh Vader, you poor scarred thing, let me help you.” And Luke could have given the line. Any number of characters could have delivered the line.
It can be tough. You try to get your money’s worth. You have to make decisions, and yet, the decisions, the options, they’re increasing daily.
There’s a generic option of every thing. There’s Avatar: The Last Air Bender and there’s the generic Highschool of the Dead. With the first one, you may laugh, you may find edge-of-your-seat action, you may wish you had your own sky bison, and you know you’re going to be entertained. The second option has the potential to turn you into the living dead.
Some choices aren’t so easy as that last example. If you need to save some money, you might choose the lower quality, knock-off brand of chili and cheese corn chips instead of the Chili-Cheese Fritos on the next shelf. You might save a couple of dollars. You might have the lingering aftertaste of ferrous fungus for a day or two. What matters is that you made the choice that was good for you.
In a similar vein, what do you do when you look straight at the generic tarts right before you see the Pop Tarts, and the generic ones cost one dollar less? On the one hand, you know you won’t be wishing for more flavor. On the other hand, you saved a dollar so you could buy twice as many. Twice as many flavorless tarts. In this case, it all depends on how desperately you want to save that dollar.
Another top-of-the-line versus generic comparison is that of gospel singer Lauren Daigle and her pop music sound-alike Adele. Adele is good. Her music will temporarily fill a void. Listening to Lauren Daigle though, you might wonder where she’s been all your life. Her sublime melodies will fill the hole in your soul in such a way you’ll never know the hole was even there.
Musical comparisons are extremely abundant so here’s another for your rumination. Consider the generic blues sound of The Black Keys for a moment. Now consider the amazing, unstoppable blues sound of Blackwater Fever. Suddenly The Black Keys look like unfrosted, flavorless tarts, don’t they?
Now we’re getting into the dramatic differences. Beware of this next comparison. Beware doing your own research on the subject. Some people don’t even like the Transformers, so they’ll say, “Well, how could Transformers be the higher quality choice?” Trust me, if you had ever seen a movie as bad as Transmorphers, you would agree the choice should be easy. You could probably find the generic, knock-off brand of this comparison for less than nothing, but, in this case, the price reflects its worth. So be extra cautious, this generic could be like the first one mentioned in this post and leave you brainless.
Are there moments in your day when you’re loud? Are there moments in your day when you’re quiet? What changes your volume? Is it who you’re with? Is it location or time-of-day? Do you feel like happenings are urgent? Do you rush about as well? Does your volume determine your speed, or vice versa?
Sound is supposedly connected with adrenalin. Did you know?
Adrenalin is the boost you feel when you’re frightened or otherwise excited. By raising your blood pressure, adrenalin gives you that feeling. The natural substance, adrenalin, is produced by adrenal glands which are “next to the kidneys”. Ad-renal is Latin for “next to the kidneys”. Epi-nephros is Greek for “next to the kidneys”. You’ve probably heard of epinephrin if you know anyone who is allergic to something. If you know anyone who has an epi-pen around for emergencies, then you’ve heard of epinephrin. It is the same exact chemical compound as adrenalin. Your body can produce it, or your pharmacist can produce it. You can carry it around in your guts, or you can carry it around in your pocket.
Some folks carry an epi-pen in case of a heart attack. Some folks carry one for allergic reactions.
Other people carry adrenalin junkies around in their pocket, waiting for a fight, ready to throw them at any threat that comes along.
Still other people ARE the adrenalin junkie in their own pocket, ready to jump out and thrill ride on whatever presents itself.
Did you know you can stimulate your own adrenalin production by screaming? It’s true. You can get that adrenalin fix by thrusting sound violently from your lungs and larynx. Get up and do it. I dare you.
In the days of John Lennon, they called it a “primal scream”. Now there’s a band named Primal Scream.
Does Primal Scream do any primal screaming? Are the members of that band adrenalin junkies? If you listen to Primal Scream, do you get a boost of adrenalin? If you listen to Primal Scream, does it cure allergic reactions?
Every sometime comes to my view a person using a Nook or a Kindle, you know, those crazy tablets designed specifically for reading books from Barnes and Noble or Amazon. Not often, but every once in a while I see people using those. And though it’s not my preferred method of reading, I still admire those who enjoy that way of consuming words.
Truly, I admire anyone who reads. The written word, the wise have said, will keep men out of incarceration and free those who are already there.
Whether those words are found in paper books or digital, they have the potential to make the world a better place. The reader’s world and the world they influence.
At the risk of sounding idealistic, the child who learns how to read will lead a healthier life than the child who doesn’t learn how to read. Also, any person who learns to read critically will have a definite advantage over anyone who does not.
Take, for example, an opinion such as: “The downside of a Nook is that you can’t take it to the beach. What if you get it wet?” Can you criticize it?
Hmm. Sure. But, how about, have you ever gotten a paper book wet? They don’t handle very well after the wetting.
So perhaps the person with the quoted opinion above was thinking of taking their favorite book to the beach, but they assumed the digital method was inferior. Granted, if you took your Nook and got it wet, you might be destroying more than one book, but even that argument falls short with offsite storage, a.k.a. “the cloud”. Only the Nook itself would be damaged. The words and books would still be readable.
Could anyone even make that argument if they couldn’t read up on how a Nook works?
One more part of the argument a person might make is that a Nook, currently, costs about 100 bucks. Getting the Nook wet would be more costly. Have you seen the prices of some books lately? It depends on what you read, right?
What do you like to read anyway?
Is it science fiction? Is it romance? Do you gravitate toward mysteries? Do you like horror, autobiographies, or humor?
Regardless of what category you prefer, I admire you for reading at all. Whether you like Nooks or Kindles, beach books or beach tablets, mystery-romance or memoir-horror, it’s my opinion that you’re the reason the world is still spinning. Keep reading.
Xenosthesia.com 