Spanning the Tree of Life

Decompilation Log Begins
(This essay should help you compose your feelings for the film under appreciation)
Title

Spanning the Tree Of Life
Copyright (c) W.B.LEES
June 19, 2011
Formalities

Title: Tree Of Life (2011)
Director: Terrence Malick
Writer: Terrence Malick
Staring: Brad Pitt, Sean Penn and Jessica Chastain
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0478304/
What it's about

The Meaning of Life, Nothing More or Less
What would it mean if Father's Day is Arbor Day?
What this is like, this is like...something
"2001 A Space Odyssey"(1968) Stanley Kubrick; Stanley Kubrick, Arthur C. Clarke; Keir Dullea)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/
"La Jetee" (1962)  (Chris Marker; Chris Marker; Etienne Becker)
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056119/

• "Twelve Monkeys" (1995) (Terry Gilliam; Bruce Marker; Bruce Willis, Madeleine Stowe, Brad Pitt) http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0114746/

"Koyaanisqatsi" (1982) (tr. Life Out of Balance) (Godrey Reggio; Michael Hoenig, Ron Fricke; Lou Dobbs and Ted Koppel
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0085809/
"What Dreams May Come" (1998) (VincentWard; Richard Matheson; Robin Williams, Cuba Gooding Jr.)

What a coincidence (you can't make this stuff up)

• I first watched this film on the day before Father's Day
• My father-in-law was visiting
• my daughter graduated high school this week; this was the last class in the 1949 building when is being demolished.
• In the morning of the day I wached the film, I worked on a trail restoration project in the woods while it was drizzling and misty and verdant.
• the Pacific Northwest is so green this time of year
• Just two days before I watched the film, I recounting my Maternal and Paternal family histories for a medical record; this saga included my Father's strict New England upbringing and utltimately my Father's research work at World Health Organization in the 1960's; which funding was short-sightly cancelled; which is how I came to be born at Bethesda Naval Hospital; and how cuts in NIH funding redirected him from his planned research career and into medical speciality; and subsequently how events became directed so I am here writing this to you
• I tried to plant a fruit tree once, but it died
• My father once built a platform 30ft up in a tree; He designed it to adjust in the wind and expand as the tree grew; I remember falling from it in an attempt to race to climb it the fastest.
• I recounted the story just this week, that as a child we played with Rhododendron buds as lipstick one time, and my father caught us with tree on our lipes, and thought we had ingested them; My father he sat us kids down with bowls and gave us Ipacac syrup and made us throw.
• I am recalled of my father cutting my brother and my hair with buzz razor to give us crew cuts; our mother cried because we looked 'like convicts'.
• There's a giant 30 year growth Rhodie outside the window behind me reflecting in the glare of the screen as I am writing this piece to you as we speak (type).

Memorable  Key Quote (of a lifetime)

This quote appears at the opening of the film. It is Job 34:4 I believe. I don't know which translation. Here's one from KJV in context.

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Job+38:3-5&version=KJV

Job 38:3-5

King James Version (KJV)

³Gird up now thy loins like a man; for I will demand of thee, and answer thou me.

⁴Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.

⁵Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?

Here's a memorable quote from the film, that unlocked a flood and host.  He says, approximately:

"A Naval Officer must be present for the kneel-laying, but not necessarily for the launch."

Brad Pitt's character recites this line, which turns out to be a regulation from the naval code! He is a regulation disciplariane.  It is a clue. It brings an added richness to the character and formality and regimen of se-a-men father.

I encourage you to read and ponder the roles and responsibilities of these two ceremonies in relation to the film.

http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Ship_ceremonies
Top of Mind
Its Hard to (still) be Small

It was hard to sit through and watch this film and be "put through" your own life over again.

It was hard because I felt small. I felt powerless and trapped. I felt like a spearm rushing or being rushed through a fluid steam into a cosmicly large and infintesimal small happening that was becoming me and and I was becoming it. Watching this film is like being that cell and being powerless but to ride and experience and simply be those people and characters and situations. It's no coincidence the film is POV'd from a chid-like perspective looking up and being afraid to look up and being fearful and elated and ashamed.

It was hard because I felt beyond my control. Was my experience sitting in the theatre going throught he emotions and experiences in the film running time like my experience on earth? Fealing elation and joy and confusion and uncertainy and dread and generally not knowing what comes next or when the end would come which woud come but I didn't know which each frame whether the end was the end.
That was Me and I remember that but I don't remember it

I believe Roger Ebert's review of the film remarked that he feelt like he was that boy in the film and that was his life. Well no I was that boy. That was my upbringing. That was my youth and all those feelings and fears. I remember my father the disciplarian and one glass of spilt milk at the table brought a rage. I remember having to keep my elbows off the table and asking to be escused. I remeber the packs of children and the tree lined drives as the old houses with screened porches and waiting in the car while your parents talked to those older people.  I was born in '63 and I remember riding without seatbelts and your parents smoking in the car and my Dad watering the hard and repairing the car and being lectured on the not-slamming of the door. This film seems to be more 1950's suburbia and more midwestern industrial, but still that was my house and that was how I felt to see my baby brother and to sit with my mother on the grass playing with wooden toy animals. The film did not depict my exact reality but yet that was my childhood and I felt all those things altough I couln't have exactly. I am wondering if other readers from post boom generations feel that childhood was their childhood somehow,

Father Space-Time; Mother Earth Nature; Sun of the New Day; Tree is a Span

These Metaphors might work in undertanding the film as a physics microcosm

Father = Law of Space and Time, Prime Mover, Time Keeper, Business Law, Patents, Intellect, Music Classical Theory and master operator of the pipe organizational; enforer and the do-er of that which must be done despite the personal cost

Mother = firey hair, billowing, floating, beauty and energy and good and nature and softness

House and Yard = your space and time and gravity and place and your earth

Garden = as the family works and tills and sows and reaps, so does the garden

Power Plant and Architectural Center = Clockwork of the Universe, the Man's Ladder

Tree = the lifespan of a man, the life of man or boy or child, its the promise of the planter in a parents eye

Life's Lesson Lost
At the theatre, a patron left abruply after only 10 minutes muttering What Is This? and I'm Getting My Money Back! This life didn't seem to be what he expected. It used to be hard for me at 5 years old to sit through adult fare. Watching this movie is like that again in spades, because you know, that you thought knew what it is to grow up.

This film, like the trees growing and falling in the forest and the cycles of life and death and the cosmic collisions in the cosmos and the sperms that didn't read the egg every second of every day, is like reliving living and reliving dying and dying and living all over again, in the span of a film-life.

It's like being back in the child seat at the adult table, being strapped in and forced to sit through dinner at the adult conversation being talked about rather than talked to and being stuck there, unable to speak unless you have some more important to say. It's a privilege to be there at all and there's wonderful tidbits floating around that you don't completely get but again its the longest two hours of your short life.

Decompilation Log Ends

Essay #5: Play Fare

Play Fare

Copyright (c) 2011 W.B.Lees

Instead of a regular column, why don't we have a play at a row instead? Our themes for this essay are gearing up for self-motivation, soul sentiments, metaphorical self-contentment architectures, soul soles, and playing fare with the audience.

***

I'm working on not bringing work home, but it lingers with me on many week-day nights. I have noticed that when I am in my 'performance mindset', I find it difficult to employ reading for enjoyment and cooking for pleasure. When you drive for yourself, there's a different mechanic than what drives at work. Both reading for joy and cooking for discovery are activities that you give-yourself-into, and require a level of willing participation, to commit to an untasted outcome. Sustaining your pace and traction during your involvement erquires a different best operating "gear" for self-motivation. Navigating the passage of time through a story or recipe experiment has a different gravity and the variety of terrain (local relativities) to weign in.

Planning and executing a recipe cook-out requires that you pay attention to the physical textures and things can get messy. Reading for pleasure is also a sensorial participation-act where you can play along by sounding it out and acting it out. In participatory journeys, practicing pronoucation pays off. Its about the faces and the hands. There is escape in the physicality of the traversals. If your pleasure is lacking in the routine routines of your living, you may be bringing in your work-mate utilitarian who doesn't see the need for separate cocktail, dining and coffee tables. If smokin' isn't a pleasure, why bother?

***

What do the ideas of Fenway Park, Queen Mary, Rolls-Royce motorcar, Zion's National Park and the Circus have about them? Things that are worn (time spent in) and war torn and stand in the passage of time become worn-in soul, like rock sedimentary. They become more occupied. Places that take us places are metaphorical situations; the  (sites) are content in their own motivated elapsed time.  To spend time their (sic) is like a type or classic form  of motivational flow, perhaps being work and pleasure and hauling and sports and danger and living and dying. "Metaphoric things can have own souls." (LeesXI:XXIII,2) To be appreciating, books and recipes and pleasure vehicles, must spend alot of time to be well traveled and journals for the taking.

If you can get into it and get it started, you are carried away and through the metaphorical passage; and when you exit there is a motivational gift shop, where you find (out) what you came for: what was taken as needed, what was taken as desired and what was taken as directed. You are carried over the river, and when you awake the next day there is only the hangover.

***

A motivational vehicle has its own feel "ride". Being in an occupational hazard of your own choice is a secret passage. Being in metaphorical situation embodies choice and choices in the context. Metaphoric space-time has speical notions of "running" and "run-time".  When you are in the theatre of the mind and the show has started, just where you are and just what your doing, exactly?

What sets these person-place-things apart? These type  and sub-types of venue mass-market  are all the same and you could be anywhere.  When they include separable, fixed provision for the local values, they become a class to themself. They become unique and individually irreplacable where the concrete doesn't cure, the patches are wearing, and medal metals are showing.  As the "sight" wears, it becomes a soul in concrete shoes in exchange for loosing its newness. Like your bowl-plate meal that time at the Mongolian stir-fry places, its the dim sum of your choices, self-contained and self-contented.

While you are "riding the ride", you are not to be intrrupted, because you are in-the-running and might lose valuable context.   While you are "enjoying the show", you are making the rounds in a physicacal sensorial traversal, marking the steps in a mechanical clock-play. There will be no seating while the show is running and the bus is in motion.  Once you've paid the premiem and are booked into this line, it's a whole 'nother level that your getting. Theatre cruises having several things going for them at the same time.

Envisioning a line of "people moving experiences" with comfort accellerations and cruising altitudes and durations and clienteles and destinations is the beauty, function, purpose of having family-line architecture: each a new world of new worlds. For every architecture, there is an archtype. There are architectures, and there are family friend places.

***

There are soul minds and sole minds; there are soul proprietors and sole owners. From the sole minded comes the sole entry in its own directory a genre itself constituting. From the soul mind, long traveled, long worked and long experienced, comes the soulful sound and texture of my newest old place. In the soul are the comforts of spaces and times well worn-in and easy. Soul food places are overlooked and unassimilated, being where they are being their ownly advertisement which is no news to the locals.

 But it is the Grand unique self Architecture channels the sole mind arises the sole-mindedness of a abstract person-place-thing that is unique and "foreign" and "alien" to the establishment.  It took an eclipse on a mountain on the other side of the Earth to prove Einstein outside of our space and time. Is there anyone that Shakespeare did not invent? An architecture enhabits the greatest best use of space of its time. A Grand Architecture realizes its line and its dynasty and its time-true fidelities; it is of the space and time of lifetime, a space for a space for spaces, and a time for a time for times.

***

Final Act: Playing Fare with the Audience

We climax this performance final act, now showing, with the wisdom of the entrepenerial show man archmage P.T. Barnum: "There's a sucker born every minute.". Or more went finely: "No one ever went broke underestimating the Taste of the American Public."

To quote from Lees:XI:XXIII:5, "If you want life to 'play fair', you must play fair [pay fare]yourself and behave in the context in which you find yourself" (and yourselves).

There is a chance you are being watched right now somewhere and sometime on some network or cable or airwave; there's a chance you could be living your live story; there's a chance your show could be your series that lives on in syndication in other outlets. While you're in-the-running you need to be on your best behavior. You should be planning to make it good.

Here is wisdom to those who might be feeling that the life that they are living has not played fair with them from there (sic) point of view of the time.

It's elementary to our physical perception that there be  antecedents and there is labor and there are consequents of any lasting event. As any First Date will tell you, "there is no free lunch". "Nobody rides for free."

There are costs to be paid in advance, tips to be left, and prices to be paid at delivery. It all adds up, and there will be a reckoning. There are no bad Second Dates, if you are paying attention to score. There's a reason there are back and front seats, drivers seats and passenger seats. Your experience, and your perception of your experience, is in the seat of your pants and the seat of your jacket and the seat of the moment. You are paying for this seat and you get what you booked in advance and what you saved for and what you paid for and you'll get whats coming.

It is said that the first three most important qualities of Real Estate is Location, Location, Location. It is also said, that you never get second chance to make a first impression. You appreciate in space-time-value when you understand the time-space-value of money. There's a reason that monetary value is called currency: its what you paid for it and what you could get for it and what you have invested in it at this moment.

You being to learn to appreciate what you have and what you are having and what you could be having when you put a mental cost figure to where you are right now, and where you'll be having to be after that. You sense of "not being played with fair" is a temporal perception of where you are seated this time, creating what class you feel you are in.

You know what you have when you realize what it cost you and realize what it didn't cost you when you have reached your seat. You can find out what's next from whose next to you for free. It doesn't cost you anything to make the most of who and what's available where you are at. You can ask to be reseated and the staff will do their best to accomodate you.

It's second nature: once the movement gets underway you can reseat yourself anywhere you can reach out in time and once you're there no one cares if your in early or in late.

Are you player or audience? In the heat of the moment, there are many ways to play it.

Essay #4: Why Life Isn't Fun

Why Life Isn't Fun

Copyright (c) W.B.LEES

May 9, 2011

You and I can tell that writing and reading this essay is having fun. You can play with the parts.

Part I Its no fun where's the pun

it is inevitable that some events in life are no fun at all: death and taxes always come due.

Maintenance chores are not necessarily dreary.

Practicing to acquire the skill of the higher levels requires regular discipline investment, up to 10,000 hours, for a big payout.

Overanticipated expectations of aleady winning forces the point of disappointment.

Its fun when a surprisingly pleasant outcome happens to come together, but that doesn't always happen and it doesnt' count.

Its not fair play to have have fun.

Its never fun when you don't expect what is fair fare.

When your life is consistently non-fun, we begin to wonder if the system is being gamed.

It isn't fun to play when you already know the end points.

It's too fixed when the end-game comes pre-screwed.

It isn't fun when there no new game left in the system.

A good old roaring bonfire sounds fun, you are looking at the burn(ed) out.

Part II Does a pop quiz sound like fun?

Quoting popular culture references can be about as much fun as it you gets.

1. "In every job that must be done, there is an _______ of fun. Find the fun, and _____ the job's a game." What character says this? Trivia: in the movie, how many occupations does the male lead have?

2. "Its all fun and games until someone loses an _____" From what sport does this adage descend? Apparently in the ancient sport this was the only rule; to break it meant sure disqualification. (hint: it doesn't involve poking the ends of sharp sticks)

3. The phrase "are we having fun yet?" was make famous being quoted by what comic strip character? __ The ____. Trivia: coined by Bill Griffen in 1979.

4. "Have fun! Have a ____" is the slogan of what beverage in what year? Was it 1955, 1957, 60 or 64? Is drinking the beverage, in and of itself, fun? Is enabling fun, part of the fun?

5. It's fun to play the "Its about as much fun as ... ?" game. Each person tries to find a satisfying sentence that punishment demands. The funniest and most original is the best one.

Top this:

a) That's about as much fun as an electric chair execution catching fire. (Trivia: a class of malfunctioning electric chair was called Old Sparky)

b. that's about as much fun as drinking mouthwash

c. That's abuot as much fun as endodontic therapy. Trivia: the procedure goes by a more common name. Score: Its not fun because the procedure is widely known to be not fun, its not fun but actually not so not fun as it used too, and its not fun to use terms the audience is known to be not familiar with. Triple word score!

Part III top 10 lists are kind of fun

Rank this top 10 list of ways that "Fun is Not Fun"

____ Not having to be there.

____ Not saying something to someone

____ Saying to someone who was not there that "you had to be there"

____ Those nearby are banging on the doors and walls, saying "what's that noise going on in there"

____ "He makes me laugh" It sounds like fun when people are laughing

_____ Know the rule of law; know the limits of good and legal behavior; Know who issues the "no-rules" (disqualificatons and penalties); Practice playing by the rules so you can act like there are no rules and you don't have to quote rules.

____ No pushing or shoving

_____ First you play, then you have fun playing; practice to play, play to practice; the more you play, the better you get; better play gets better; you get better when you play well; after you play well, you can play around

_____ Save improvising for the very best; the best can improvise well

______ I don't mind; don't have anything in mind; its no fun to be re-minded of every little thing; discuss rule and plan changes in advance so you don't have to mind; I don't mind questions about the playing; I do mind your optinion of questioning the rules.

____ Its fun to know what was decided; when its over we should have decided something; on the way out we can decide what was best and what was worst and what was least and what was most and what was high and what was low; its not fun to have to decide later what was the outcome.

No matter what we think, not matter what opinion we espouse, we can all agree that we saw what we saw and and we heard what we heard and we all witnessed the same thing.

Part IV Fun is having a place at the table

Fun is scheduled and held

Fun is organized

Fun is not surprised that there will be surprises

Fun is knowing whether gifts are expected

Fun is a place, having a place at the table, fun is finding your place at the table

Its fun when your place is set

Fun is planned, paid in advance, prepared, set up, and prepared to deal with clean up costs afterward.

Fun is having everything you need in place, so you don't have to have anyone go out in th middle.

Fun is a state of the place, fun is remembering the "state of the place" by the end, fun is putting that place is "such a state" that never was before and never will again.

Fun is pre-purschased.

The fun is in the assembly.

Fun is when we have "taken out" all the toys and tools we might need; we know it will be fun when we are taking out alot of stuff to use; its fun when you have to get alot of stuff out;

fun is making a mess and having to do pick up and clean up and put away at the end.

Its no fun when there is nothing to take out for the occasion; its no fun when nothing was done to the place that needs to be put away again.

fun is being able to get stuff out.

Fun takes work; fun takes planning; fun takes time in advance; saving time ahead of time so that you have free time is fun

fun is time paid and saved; fun is earned time off; fun is a time already on the books and accounted

Part V Fun is what people bring

Fun is what the people bring to the feeling, not the facilities

Fun is the surprise that happens at the expected time.

When you have a sense of pace, you don't need to pace (back and forth).

Fun is keeping up with the change of pace.

Fun is pacing yourself so you don't come early or late; come up tall or short; come up running out or having too much left over money on the table

Fun is not too tired

fun is not hungry.

Fun is not bored.

Fun is about watching what the people do feeling

When the animals are lazy, its fun to rattle the cages.

Its fun to predict what a person would do in that situation. Its fun to imagine what other situations a person could be in.

its fun when you hear the crowd roar.

its fun if you keep well lubricated; lubricating is not fun in and of itself.

Fun is going somewhere.

fun is clearly making progress

Fun is knowing something (more) about the people you are playing with; fun is learning something more about the people you're dealing with.

Part VI wheels within wheels; games within games; games with games

On one level its a mechanical process

on one level its rules

on another level its a game

Fun is mixing business with pleasure

fun is mixing in

Fun is found when there is a mixture of opposite types and sexes

Fun is paying your own way; fun is knowing that theres no free lunch

Its fun when you can carry stuff in and carry stuff out

its fun to see what people are carrying

its a whole 'nother level of scoring when you can keep track what carries over

Its fun to pull something over in front of everyone in plain sight

Its fun to pull off a tricky maneuver that you practiced in advance

Itsw fun to show off a little

its fun when you know that you have practiced for this moment as much as you could

Its fun to bend the rules in a new way.

Its fun to have something in-appropriate hidding in plain site.

its fun to have spirits behind the bar for the adults

Its fun to plan, execute, and pay off on a cleaver prank that is clever and harmless and doing what could not be done.

its fun to trigger a loss of status in someone who esteems themselves of too high a rank

its fun to have a side bet in others on yourself.

its fun to meet a challenge when its private.

Having a handicapp makes it more fun for the less experienced; having a set of additional more demanding constraints to take on as well, makes it fun for the more experienced.

its fun to allow the rules to be relaxed and made lax for the beginning players; its fun to hold yourself to a more strict set of rules that you don't tell others about.

its when when you are experienced with the rules so well that you can notice when others are playing by a lesser or greater standand, and can selectively choose to point out those who are not playing by the rules at your discretion.

Its fun when you feel like you are in the place of an insider.

its fun to be inside the circle.

its not fun when you are outseide looking in.

Part VII Fun Thoughts while Watching "Its a Wonderful Life"

Its fun when people make the differencxe.

its fun when there are some jokers and wildcards in the deck.

Its fun to be doing what the others are doing; its fun to do what the others can do

Its fun when others notice something good about you.

Doing something by yourself can be fun if you do something that makes you laugh (to yourself) and makes a surprise (to yourself)

Fun is there when there is a record breaking.

Its fun when the sights, sounds and feelings are unique and special and only possible in that place.

its fun when you can make (out) the telling differences in people

Part IX whats the meaning of this?

You can't tell the players without a scorecard

Learn/Know the players names and positions; be on a first name basis with the players

Know why or find out the reason why this activity is special in the people, place, guests. Know who is the special guest star or host.

its fun when we're having something happen, when, while, along side you were doing and other people were doing.

Having fun is what we're having while we're doing what fun things we're supposed to be doing.

Not fun = not knowing while you're doing

Fun is getting to know something about someone while you are both doing

Part XII That would be telling

Life isn't fun because you alone can't tell if you were having fun

You can't tell yourself that you were having fun.

Life isn't fun if you can't tell or if others can't tell you about you.

you know you know something when you can tell something to someone, that it looks like/sounds like/smells like/acts like, they are having a special experience.

You can tell that you had fun when you can tell, someone, later, that you could tell at the time by what others were doing or not doing.

Its fun when we can tell things about what others are doing while we are together in the moment of this situation and it is also fun because we can't tell others later outside exactly what went on and what exactly was exchanged and what exactly was carried on.

Part X What was fun in this viewing of "Its a wonderful life"

its fun to watch a christmas movie in May

Its a fun coincidence that I picked out this movie months ago and it just arrived and was available for me to watch while I was writing an essay about why life isn't fun.

According to the angel, its against the law to commit suicide (take a fall).

It struck me this time that the movie is about what would be the meaning if you wished that you'd never been born.

The book that george receives is Tom Sawyer, who knows how to have fun.

What's fun about Its a Wonderful Life is that it becomes possible to imagine a non-wonderful life.

George's motto, George Lasso's the Moon, looks also like a noose.

Part XI there's no meaning to the notion that you wish you'd never been born

We can allow fun, when we are glad that are born.

The only way to truely lose is to refuse to play (along).

Its fun when you are glad that you are there, and that there wouldn't be a "there", then, without you.

Its fun when you attend, participate, play in activities that you know would not happen without you; its fun when you make it so that what happens wuold have happend that way without your being there.

What's fun about watching Its a Wonderful Life is that, at first, his life appears to be picture of the worst possible life with all manner of unique setbacks and misfortunes happening over and over. It is only later that we realize what we thought was a non-fun life was actually a wonderful life, becase it was a life that he created and lived and built and saved and endowed additional lives.

its fun to realize that what we thought was a miserable life is a wonderful life because, without our having been living it, there would be nothingness; that activies wouldn't be happening and lives would be living and places wouldn't be special places that exist.

Its fun when we can pause to notice the feeling of this special place and time, that we're enjoying at this moment, that we can notice and tell and know something special about this place and situation and ourselves that only did happen this once; its fun when we can notice something unique to this nexus of ourselves and our feedback with our surroundings; its fun when we detect and notice and tell and appreicate and share a little special something between us now that wouldn't have happened, wouldn't have existed, wouldn't have lived in us and wouldn't have been kindled in us if I hadn't exist and if you hadn't existed

Guest Essay #3: Misappropriation of Learning

Misappropriation of Learning

Copyright © 2011 N.W.LEES

May 9, 2011

Misappropriation of Learning

In modern society panels of experts and age old customs have established a unique system of educating youth from the youngest 5 year old all the way through the highly “educated” high school and college graduates.  Though schools are set up in a way to be inoffensive and cater to every student, it is curious how one predetermined line-up of teaching  somehow manages to be perfectly suited for every student that comes through the doors of a house of learning.  Though there probably isn’t much inaccurate or unimportant work that is taught within a public school, much of what a student learns is ultimately frivolous and irrelevant to what that child might practically need to know in their life.  During the journey from kindergarten through 12^th grade a young mind is sculpted and filled with customs, formulas, theories, cultures, and methods that are at that time deemed to be imperative to their success, but how much do they actually need to know?

It is obviously important that children are taught basic ideals such as simple arithmetic, reading, and writing, but is that vector calculus or trig III class ever given that man any help in his job as a fireman?  Usually it would not be.  Not to say that those skills are invaluable, mathematicians or carpenters might use that formula learned during fourth period every day, yet their job is specifically suited to use that kind of mathematics.  This misconception does not only stem from a misappropriation of classroom time from placement in that Trig III class alone, but also results from the forgetful nature of human beings.  While that equation about quadrant four on the third page of that packet in 11^th grade may never be used, that guy sitting  next to, who grew up to be a construction worker might, but who is to say he will even remember it? Classroom learning is filled with impractical knowledge that is ultimately irrelevant, or is completely relevant later yet was completely forgotten.  Almost everything that will need to be learned for a future career (other than reading, writing and addition) will be learned in a first week of training, from a coworker across the hall, or in college.  This quandary not only begs the question why did you waste your Junior year in Trig III, but why did the school even offer you the option of taking it in the first place?  Cursory learning of advanced concepts in Public learning institutions are superfluous and, ultimately, do not instill the pupil with what is promised.  Learning is done simply for the sake of learning.

This paints contemporary education negatively; however, it is due to be argued that by taking Advanced Placement Physics time is not wasted, the value of the class is not in the curriculum but in the ability to absorb it.  Earning a good mark in an progressive high school course on introductory debate skills will not by any means show that law firm you plan on applying to down the road that you are any good at being a lawyer, but rather that you have the interest, determination, and will-power to go through taking the steps to be one in the first place.  High School education is not done in order to learn much of anything that will be important to you; High School education is done to tell Harvard Law and that law firm you are going to apply to that you care.  By this realization it could be said that it doesn’t really matter what you decide to challenge yourself with in your Sophomore year, what matters is how well you do in whatever you decide on taking and that you care enough to sign up for it at all.  Although, If this were to be admitted, it would cause an immediate crash of the security that students, parents, teachers, and administrators cling to so desperately; the order would fail.  If learners interested in being doctors suddenly started taking advanced archaeology and sociology classes to prove their will power and determination they would never be hired, they would look like fools who are divorced from reality, but why does it matter? There are two courses of action that educational supervisors could take based on this observation: realize that class content is irrelevant and allow for widespread learning of all irrelevant subject material, or buckle down and teach the future adults of tomorrow what they need to know.

This leads to an altogether new dilemma in itself.  If teachers are expected to instruct their pupils on subjects that are applicable to them, what exactly is applicable to them?  The most efficient way of teaching tomorrow’s lawyers, carpenters, doctors, and firemen is to teach them how to be the best lawyer, carpenter, doctor, or fireman they can be.  In order to maximize a child’s time in the educational system they should be evaluated and placed in classes not only based on their performance within other classes, but on what they want to do with the education they are about to receive.  It does not make sense for a future lawyer with an IQ off the charts to be sitting in class next to a future carpenter with remarkable hand eye coordination while learning about drawing and painting, a class that will benefit neither of them, does it?   By streamlining the educational system it allows for both future doctors and future fork-lift operators to learn what they need to learn, have it thoroughly drilled into their heads, and get into the workforce where they can truly apply it.  Modern schooling is centered on the widespread circulation of various pieces of explicit knowledge while efficient teaching should be based on the instruction of focused, important tacit knowledge.

The act of implementing a system such of this would have obvious benefits, such as maximizing tax money spent on education and allowing people to enter the workforce sooner, but there are numerous other problems involved as well.  Students are limited in learning by the confines of their age, in other words, you cannot start teaching 3^rd graders calculus simply because they want to be mathematicians; they wouldn’t know what the heck you are getting on about.  In this way, maybe it could be said that the process of learning superfluous knowledge is really in place for this very reason: to “waste” time.  A 7^th grade child knows that she wants to be a physicist just about as much as she knows how to be one. Perhaps teaching that future physicist beginning musical theory in 7^th grade is not done to show that she can learn musical theory, or to waste her time on it, but to fill up the years with cursory knowledge of musical theology until she can be accepted as a physicist in college and high school.  How a child is educated is very much a grey area in regards to maximizing time within the educational system, but what is clearly apparent is that there is no one way to successfully go about doing so.  Even though the modern means of instructing youth is greatly comprised of frivolous concepts that will never be used that does not mean that there is not a purpose for teaching them.  Leading a Trigonometry III class might be pointless within itself, but as an indication of will-power, as a filler of holes within a class schedules, it could be of the upmost importance.

-NWL May 2011

Essay #2: Matrix, She Re-Wrote

Matrix, She re-wrote

An new appreciation of the film Stranger Than Fiction

Copyright (C) 2011

There is a glitch in your copy of the The Matrix final series (1999, 2003, Director: Andy and Lana Wachowski). The Machine City can't shutdown: there are hidden programs on the run. And there is an update available: Stranger Than Fiction (2006).

What happens to the characters that are killed off when a movie series finishes? What's next for them? Watching Stranger Than Fiction (2006) (Director: Marc Forster) gave me the strangest impression I was coming home again to the next generation of the ones that didn't get to ride off into the sunset. In High School we were once asked to write what happened to Raskolnkov and Sonia after the events in Crime and Punishment. For me, watching Stranger than Fiction was like a delicious glimse into the new lives and identities of Mr. Smith and the Oracle after the events in the Matrix series. Does the Machine City have a witness relocation program? Were their deaths taken off screen? Where are they now and how are they adjusting to private civilian life?

Taken at face value, Stranger than Fiction is a difficult film to appreciate. So much information is missing that its nearly impossible to comprehend where its coming from and where its going. You know what its like to arrive late to a party. You can feel the lack of emotional investment when you start a series near the end. Now imagine that you open a book to find only the Afterward, with no beginning, middle or end.

There a glitch in The Matrix, series. A continuity error big enough to demand a new ending. There's a possibility it might not have been the end. The Matrix, as a series of Matrices, could still be in development by some former insiders. There's a fan base that refuses to fully wake up, still waiting and dreaming at the possibility of some convert renewal. There are some loose agents that could be working and not all copies of the source material were accounted for.

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The Matrix, as it appeared in its 1999 version, was a perfect beginning that both changed everything and nothing. It was setup for renewal. It didn't need to tell us how it was going to end. It ran full out and left nothing behind. Nothing was shown that wasn't used. Nothing was left to chance. The piece was an end in itself. The narrative lived like there was no tomorrow. The Matrix, as it appeared in its 1999 version, was timeless, having its own good time. Change at that time was simple: a zero went to the One. There was only The Matrix and there was only one audience and there were only three kinds of minds: those that were seeing it first, those that were seeing it again and again, and those that were born after and never got the chance. In the 1999 Matrix it never got old.

The successor films, by their very production, both introduced and dealt with the realities of change and progression and aging and replacement and living in, out and along-side the Matrix. The audience and players of the  successor Matrix after the One were more sophisticated, having histories and prior lives and new roles and parts. The Matrix successors introduced and encountered Divergence from the One Matrix, allowing for mistakes and errancy and fallibility and personal flawed motivation and self-centered agendas. The Matrix became multiple personality,and multi-time-zone, a more interesting, complex but less tidy universe.

Just as the Matrix film series was revealed to be playing out over time, the production, development, logistics and practical demands necessarily introduced delays and latencies: it had to become apparent that nothing worthwhile happens overnight. As the Matrix neared its end, the Matrix and its audience had to wait, and the narrative begin to show the device of 'the wait'; that waiting and passing the time were a part of practical life when one knew that something better was coming.

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The truth that real life intrudes, that people have other lives when their off-camera, that life goes on, that things change in ways unexpected while we're living our own, that people and events become synchornized and unsynchronized and coupled and uncoupled in the background to our story: this is the spark that enlivens a new consciousness.

In the film Stranger Than Fiction, a writer struggling to finish her new-life-story, begins to perceive connections, correspondences, coincidences, feedback and ultimately creative cross self pollination between her working and her work, between the life she is living and the life vicariously lived. As the writer convergences on her masterpiece, the masterpiece begins to draw inspiration from her world, and her world begins to resemble her masterpeice. The truth is that things don't always work out the way we planned and expected. The fiction is the one that we alone create.

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Which brings us to the strangeness we encounter when we watch Stranger Than Fiction, and the glitch in the Matrix series which necessitated it.  As we have said, there is a difficulty embracing Stranger Than Fiction  at first because it is pure afterward and epilog. It is appropriate that, just as the The Matrix of 1999 is pure beginning (once upon a time), Stranger Than Fiction is pure home stretch material (and they all lived ever after): the satisfying tidy-up of the loose ends where the unjustly treated plot devices get to come in from the cold. The glitch in the Matrix, series, is that practical expediencies in the making of the series forced premature bad ends on good characters of good name and potential without any recompense. Stranger than Fiction exists as a compensating forward story to undo and properly credit and close out the fore-ordained destinies of Matrix characters which were allowed to be cheated and robbed as a plot emergency.

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There is a kind of story-telling that occurs once in a generation, and is so mythic and inventive and self-productive that it forms a perfect perpetual entertainment machine. Once in a generation a story-teller will hit upon a complete story universe that captures the minds of modern culture, that is so rich with potential that it demands successor episodes and practically sells itself. The creative mind behind the francise puts themselves in conflict. On the one hand, universe building is hard work and should an author happen on the right combmination of persons, places and things, its a creative and monetary goldmine to play out enough sequels and episodes to secure long term syndication package. On the other hand, true story tellers play fair with their audience: they don't leave out parts of the story on purpose, they don't add filler material not part of the original story, they don't unnecessarily prolong or elaborate a period of the story just to stall for time; honest story tellers actually have a story to tell, with a beginning, middle and end, and go about taking the audience through it. It is within this contract of the audience buying a epic series that spans time and space, that various difficulties can arise within the fulfillment of that creative vision that lead to a fan fiction.

Consider, for example, Star Trek the original series. Billed at the start of every episode as a five year mission, the series was cancelled prematurely after three seasons. This unfulfilled promise, this unexplored potential, this unfair treatment of money over creativity, this untimely death, creates within the audience a space of controversy and grievance and grist and what-might-have-been, which prevents the series from being canonized and creatively closed and allowing everyone to move on. This unexplored mental space in the minds of a generation has prolonged the topicality of the Star Trek universe way beyond what is typical for a series that runs its course. When a creative and generative series is allowed to complete, the fans reach closure and move on. Further, both authors and fans accept that the series is past, and open up their hearts and minds to next series that substantially recovers that same space. For examples, if the castaways of Gilligan's Island never returned home, there might not be room in viewers hearts for Lost. Which brings us to the introduction of artificial unfairness as a plot device. Is it fair or right for Gilligan to always be self-defeating. Shouldn't he just once be allowed to succeed and be the cause of their rescue rather than the contining cause of their abandonment. The fact that the writers artificially sacrified Gilligan's good name would be a cause of fan unrest and a hardening of their hearts against castaway shows if Gilligan were never allowed to succeed in the end. It is the absence of eventual closure, and recompense for the artifice and plot device which prolonged, that is the trigger for later creative works to bring that long sought release and restoration. Another example of retroactive restitution is the change that George Lucas made to Han Solo's behavior in later editions of episode 4 of Star Wars. In the early version of Episode 4, Han Solo fires first in the bar fight. In later versions of episode 4, an alternate ending to that scene has the alien drawing first, to amend any smerch on Solo's character. A useful example comes from the The Fugitive series, which by device continually frustrated a good man from reaching the one-armed man, through no fault of his own in effort or creativity. In the hearts and minds of the audience which faithfully followed the Fugitive year after year, it simply isn't right that his final recompense might be omitted or denied for reasons of money or schedule. Should the Fugitive never have been cleared by end of series run, the audience out never allow or accept another series of similar premise in the future.

A final example of a compensating and credit giving work is the film Galaxy Quest. Galaxy Quest stands in relation to the Star Trek series as Stranger Than Fiction stands to The Matrix Series. Galaxy Quest answers, fulfills and illuminates another backstory to the main series story: that the fans power of belief influences both the future direction of the series and the direction of our technology futures.  Galaxy Quest helps us realize that no series is complete, no story universe is completely closed, when the story potential and story impact live on in the hearts and minds of the adults that were children of the last generation.

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We return to the curious construction of Stranger Than Fiction. Our initial discontent with the film is not a matter of poor effort or technique; rather the film is too cleverly composed to be a case of bad screen writing. Rather, Stranger than Fiction is obviously methodically crafted to some end or reason; clearly designed as a response to something. However, not only is Stranger Than Fiction following some incomprehensible plan, it is also situated with a completely new and unrelatable story universe, with no trace of history or predecedent or backstory.

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When a flaw exists within a software program, enterprising virus writers construct a new virus in the analog of the flaw to exploit the unfilled potential. When a flaw exists within a software program, the manufacturer will issue a patch or update. The arrival of a new patch or update not only provides the new ending or new path that was previously missing. The arrival not only provides a better solution. The arrival of the patch reveals that some weakness or incompleteness was actually there all along, but unrecognized or unacknowledged until this moment. Such flaws are by their nature overlooked, being a lacking or undefined situation newly identified through a need or opportunity. The point being that, when a complex system misses something or allows for a new unexplored combination, such cases are only brought to our attention after someone else notices the potential or opportunity and makes the effort to exploit it.

In this sense, fan-written alternate endings are an attempt to complete by analogy a missing possible outcome in the play out of the creative series. When a fan-written alternative ending becomes popular enough, it demonstrates to the author the legitimacy and potential and unfilled creative vacuum in the series canon. Should the doorway of this unexplained and unfilled possibility provide access to a sufficiently large time and space, it behooves the owners of the francise to issue an epilog or sublicense the niche to a staff writer they can trust. The francise owner must balance the official message that the series is complete while still overseeing the filling of the void by an insider.

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What is the relationship between Stranger Than Fiction and The Matrix, series? What do the elements and manner of Stranger Than Fiction reveal about previous unfulfilled potentials of The Matrix creative universe, which was previously thought to be closed and complete? It what ways were the characters fulfilled here in Stranger Than Fiction where they were not in The Matrix series? Looking back at these characters during the production of the Matrix, were they in some sense denied or short-circuited or unjustly shortchanged in the process?

Stranger Than Fiction is the untold afterstories of the characters lost or omitted or shortchanged during the production of The Matrix. Stranger Than Fiction is story behind the making of the original story, the story about how the truth of deadlines and budgets and pressures forced the story into the mold we know it today. Stranger than Ficton is the realization that our beloved The Matrix series might have been otherwise were it not for a single external event beyond reason. And finally, Stranger Than Fiction is the realization that this life-changing influential event, in this case the untimely death of a crucial cast member, might itself have been preventable, calling the The Series itself into existential doubt. The canonical complete Series can't be entirely complete without admitting the possiblity that the Series fell short of its goals, and could have been, might have been more than it was.

The Matrix of 1999, of the first complete film, established the seeds of the mixed and conflicted natures of two key secondary characters: Agent Smith and the Oracle. Both were created of two minds and split personalities: bringing cookies on one hand and dealing life-or-death situations in the other. Both were in the untenable position of being part of the system, being the system, yet working at cross purposes resisting the system, sowing the seeds of its demise and hastenng the day when their function and they would be eliminated.

Stranger Than Fiction can be seen as the alternate character ending for the forced and strange and unnatural and uncharacteristic behaviors of the side characters from The Matrix Parts 2+3. What would have happened to these archtypes had they been free to tell the truth.

The character Crick in Stranger than Fiction is an analog or proxy for Agent Smith. Both are by the numbers, enforcers of the inevitable laws of the system. What is fulfilled for Mr. Smith is the development of his own personality, his own likes and wants and aspirations. What is fulfilled for Mr. Smith is his comedic destiny and his own potential for coupling and completion.

The character Ana in Stranger Than Fiction is the baking side of the Oracle, the nurturing, healing, funny, non-violent heckler throwing a monkey wrench into the works.

The character Eiffel is the smoking author side of the oracle, fatalistic, harsh, handing out life or death situations, putting others in situations where they have no choice. The is the writer of their fate, but she's learning that true fate isn't written in advance.

The executive secretary to Eiffel is the bodyguard and insurance policy, the continuity and survival and finishing side she only developed after her untimely death.

Prof. Hilbert is the teaching and coaching side of the Architect, and the author oracle's biggest fan.

The existence of the Matrix, the series, as we have it, and the existence of the film Stranger Than Fiction, would not be, were it not for the unscripted passing of Gloria Foster in 2001 during production. Ms. Fosters absense, her unfilfilled destiny, her unsatisfying story death off screen, her now executioner Smith, and her uninvested replacement, all were expedients for the sake of driving and contining the committed three part schedule. Were it not for the fact that parts 2 and 3 were green-lit and produced back to back, we might have stopped the story after part 2 without resorting to replacements or executions.

Would we have seen the Agent and Oracle develop and individuate and personify their characters. Would we have had the time for their personal stories. Would the pressure and deadline for a fixed two part conclusion not have been driving, we might have seen another side to these characters. We might have seen them grow. We might have seen them agonize or rejoice in their decisons, choices and actions. We might have seen them learn to reconcile their two sides and their two roles. However, pressure and commitments and action and an untimely death, all practical realities in running a practical business, sacrificed their stories to get the job done. The fixed forced nature of parts 2 and 3, the truth in this case, triggered not a strangness but a safe predictability to their fictitious lives.

The strange truth of the matter is that it didn't have to be this way and yet this was the only way it could be worked so that the whole complete quadrology could be made at all.

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What have we learned? That we can appreciate all four films and accept them in context for being what they are and why they are and how they are. We can appreciate the craftsmanship and attention to detail and the surpising challenges of time and continuity. We can stop questioning why the films are constructed as they are. We can accept change and forgive the lack of change. We can trust that the fans and the generations will ensure that the full and complete story will be told. And its reassuring and just to know that through the strange truth of fan belief and devotion and attention to perfection, all of the character promise and potential and seeds of destiny will be realized and explored and exploited eventually. We have our day jobs and we come home to our families. We all have other lives. Life goes on. We mix and mingle truth with fiction and fiction with truth. Life is a business and the business of life is what's new and what's surprising. And true.