Say It Ain't Stole

pococurante (po-ko-koo-RAN-tee, -kyoo-) adjective

Indifferent, apathetic, nonchalant.

The thing that burns most about the violation of home burglary rests on the very fact that people, that fellow humans, carry out the action. No one can blame stolen laptops on javelinas or raccoons, and no monkey pries open a window in search of digital cameras. People commit crimes. People steal from people. And yes, surely the animal kingdom houses a similar level of opportunistic creatures that pillage from others, but the major difference between animals and humans--here comes the mighty generalization--lies on the balance of instinct and choice. Although every animal and every person engage in distinct, individual lives, their biological predispositions entitle them to a varying slate of survival choices. A person's history may point to certain options, but, ultimately, the person chooses their direction, chooses how they want to continue living.

A person chooses to distribute additional acts of human suffering.

It's Hip To Be Aware...pretentiously

pertinacious (pur-tin-AY-shuhs) adjective 1. Holding resolutely to a purpose, belief, or opinion. 2. Stubbornly unyielding.

There's something funny about someone choosing to use "pertinacious" in a sentence and then having to define it when questioned, as though they're purposefully defending both their word choice and their character. Like when a hipster abbreviates the name of an unknown band hoping you'll then ask, "Who?"

"Lost Sock Monkies."

"Oh."

"They're like Bloc Party. Only, you know, good."

"I like Bloc Party."

"Their E.P. was okay."

Hipsters: Always Justified. Makes you wonder what would happen if Pitchfork reviewed food and not music, whether hipsters everywhere would shun pizza.

Scene Is Believing

slaver (SLAV-vuhr, SLAY-vuhr) verb tr., intr. 1. To slobber or drool; to smear with saliva.

I recently read the Onion AV Club interview with Terry Gilliam, a director that consistently chooses challenging films and tends to produce, in my opinion, movies with incredible visuals. Anyway, during the interview he muses about the state of television and film, comparing the image-driven genres to radio. The link to both story-telling methods, he alludes, is imagination (or, in terms of his critique, lack thereof). While imagination and radio seem obviously connected, imagination and film seem connected by mere suggestion, akin to the difference between reading a novel and then watching its "equivalent" on screen. Gilliam contends that the determining factor for a film's success directly relates to the degree the audience incorporates imagination into the production.

This high regard for engaging imaginations struck me as quite noble--the amount of money and judgement implicit in the movie-making process could easily squash one's creative perspective. Furthermore, Gilliam's comments reminded me of my own goals as a creative person and, I suppose, the most fundamental rule of artistic creation: show, don't tell. TV's Grey's Anatomy and Lost come to mind as immediate culprits of daily entertainment no-nos, constantly soundtracking every tear, every chase, and every quirky little moment of comedic relief. When these shows leave the characters alone in their environment and pursue each shot with intent to capture the scene and not the feeling, they succeed.

Yesterday and Today

I suppose the hardest part about writing a daily blog lands on the matters of discipline and free time, both of which, for me and this blog, still exist in their infantile stages. Not to extend excuses--this is hardly a doctoral thesis. I created this blog to challenge myself and, well, maybe I set the initial stakes a little too unrealistically. Nonetheless, this morning I've decided to mull over the best formatting for my forthcoming entries.

The title of each entry will consist of that day's word. Incorporating the definition--which I learned with yesterday's word, "senectitude", is a definite must--tends to create the most problems. Should I provide this at the beginning of the entry, the end, or simply provide a link to the wordsmith.org site? Giving the definition at the very beginning seems a little dry and reminds me of a trite marketing meeting or some kind of hackneyed movie trailer (one of those romantic comedies where a narrator defines the word "love" over quirky scenes of actors slipping down stairs, stealing flowers, and kissing in front of city skylines) . Then again, placing the definition at the end serves virtually no purpose other than to hide potentially valuable information from the reader in order to skirt conforming to---- ahhh, screw it. Let's just see what it looks like.

First Things First

Alright. So I finally created my blog, named it as appropriately as possible, and subscribed to http://wordsmith.org for all my random word-generating needs. The whole process reminded me distinctly of my first venture into the now rigorous and, seemingly, ubiquitous feature directing me to create an apt-and-easy Username and Password for whatever site or service I find timeworthy. These security measures certainly make sense--especially given the prevalence of spamming and identity theft--but circa 1997, as a lad whose primary goals in life centered around concepts like "cool" and "free-throw", the Username and Password presented itself as a nearly insurmountable personal challenge: Write a unique word that represents YOU. Really, to a teenager, demanding a character-specific self-imposed label is like a teacher declaring, "Okay, class. Today I want you to write a one-word personal essay describing all of your talents, interests, and aspirations. It may also include a number. After class, we will read them aloud in social judgment."

It's even more complicated than that, actually. I remember sitting at the public library and sifting through what seemed like a million word combinations, each one more brilliant than the next, each one inevitably already in use by some creative demigod or, worse, some asshole email name collector. In all honesty, I think that the process of creating of my first email address taught me the true lesson of metaphor. My email search could've easily ended with Zach7882@hotmail.com, but I wanted a representation, something that I could write on the back of a notebook that would register a new or immediate recall of me. Something special, something individual, something applicable.

And when all of those were taken, I took a color I liked, something that sounded cool, and separated it with an underscore: sapphire_haze@hotmail.com