Beauty or Brains?

This ad for Palmolive Soap says, "Most men ask, 'Is she pretty?', not 'Is she clever?'" The ad goes on to say, "Brains or beauty? But why choose? Combine beauty with cleverness, charm with wisdom. Develop your beauty to bring out the sweetness of your personality. That's what thousands of girls have done - and found new happiness as a result."

Where, or where, to begin with this one? I'll begin with the ending, the last couple lines of the ad. "Note carefully the name of the wrapper. Palmolive Soap is never sold unwrapped."

It seems wrapped a little too tightly, in my opinion. There is no room in this ad for the possibility that a "girl" might choose brains over beauty. There is no room for the possibility that the "girl" chooses not to be sweet because she is less vulnerable as she is. Heaven forbid that she be entirely disinterested in men in the first place.

This musing isn't intended to be bitter though it might come across that way. It is, in fact, entertaining to read vintage advertisements because they say so much about where we have come from and how far we have yet to go. It leads me to wonder what nit-picking and finger-wagging will come from readers 100 years from now when they look at our products and what the ads have to say about who we have been. (Will there even be a readership or will it be an audio-visualship or a tactileship or a smellyship?)

Some things, perhaps, shouldn't have changed in the past few years. An advertisement in a 1922 copy of the Breeder's Gazette (a newspaper for farmers in case you're wondering) says of the "new" Dodge Brothers Business Sedan, "... one that offers weather protection and comfort the year round; a car dignified in appearance and economical to run." Something other than horseback that is economical to run? That's what I call a "concept car".

Another thing that has to be said for the vintage advertisements is the quality of the artwork. There is real beauty produced by hand and pen and ink rather than keystrokes on a computer or a digital camera. Even the photographs of over eighty years ago are quite amazing considering what the photographers had to work with at the time.

It's just a shame that some of the brains and beauties of days-gone-by weren't as valued in their time as they are today. Maybe this means our value will appreciate as well.

Jumping, Spinning ... Earthquake???

In my last blog, I mentioned that I might jump and spin the following morning. It wasn't actually the next morning that got me jumping, but this morning at 4:30 a.m., I jumped and spun when the 5.2 earthquake shook me and the dog. Because I experienced our "big one" here on the Madre Fault in Illinois in 1968, I immediately realized what was happening. However, since it wasn't accompanied by the huge explosive sound that I remembered from 1968, I nearly talked myself out of believing it was happening again.

Of course, I then blamed the dog for the fact that my bed was shaking. In the past, she has intentionally bumped up against my bed in order to wake me up, and, this morning, she was clearly up against my bed as closely as she could manage it. Nevertheless, I couldn't really blame her for the fact that something on my dresser continued to rattle.

There is an interesting bit of synchronicity involved in this blogging and jumping phenomenon. That is that my friend, Joanna, on her most recent blog, wrote about our changing weather patterns here in the Midwest and noted that the one weather event least likely to be predicted with a high level of accuracy is the tornado. Granted an earthquake isn't a weather pattern (as far as I know), but it's interesting that while I was thinking about jumping up in the morning to begin the day, she was thinking about the unpredictability of nature's events in the Midwest. If you would like to read her blog and, perhaps, her next prophetic entry, you can find her at http://sceamingyawndog.blogspot.com/.

You can continue to find me here with at least my fingers on the keyboard doing the jumping, spinning, and pouncing ... I hope.

GIVE US THIS DOG ...

My dog is very much in tune with my schedule, or should I say "my undisciplined day." Every morning, I hear her stir in the living room when my alarm clock goes off the first time. Her "stirring" is just the changing of positions on the couch because she knows I'm a long way from getting out of bed. There's a bit more stirring the next time I get up to smash the snooze setting. She begins to get her hopes up when I go into the bathroom, but she knows that it is not a given that I'm going to stay up. However, her excitement explodes when I finally come into the dining room to shut off the second (emergency) alarm clock. She jumps, she spins, she pounces. She knows this is it!

The day has officially begun! When she sees me slip on the laceless taking-the-dog-out sneakers, she smiles (really). She romps to the back door and stands wiggling her behind, sniffing at the crack in the door frame. The world has awakened, a new day has begun, and the sun has risen in brilliant splendor. There is new stinky stuff to roll in, new pedestrians to frighten, and new grass on which to defecate.

After putting her in the back yard, I come back inside the house, closing the door between me and smells, the pedestrians, and the sunshine.

I pop a couple pills with my Diet Coke and wonder what she knows that I've overlooked. Tomorrow morning, I'll jump, spin, and pounce ... maybe.

HATE IS NEVER AMUSING

I am never surprised when a person expresses hatred across the board. That is what hateful people do. They hate themselves and everyone else. I get that.

I am, however, surprised by a member of any minority or oppressed group that expresses bitter, angry words or actions toward a member of an oppressed group outside of their own. One might think that someone who has been a victim of hatred would have a special sensitivity regarding the feelings of another oppressed person. It doesn't seem to work that way. I receive the cruelest, sickest "jokes" via e-mail from a person who has probably been many times on the receiving end of similar nastiness.

Apparently, sensitivity is overridden by pecking order. It is as if this mean-spirited "jester" feels a need to "even things up" but is too cowardly to confront the individuals that ridicule him.

Why have I not confronted this person regarding his meanness? Up to this point, I have ignored and deleted the cruel words that apparently amuse him. I have tried to retain a morsel of respect for him as a person. I have tried to understand the pecking order and the fact that he is a target in the pecking order as well as a participant.

Today, understanding has worn thin. I'm feeling hateful and I'm tempted to blame him for making me feel that way. I refuse to join the pecking order.

P.S. Since venting about this, I contacted the person and asked that I not be forwarded any more insensitive "jokes" as my patience has worn thin. I received a very gracious reply. Perhaps, if we all became proactive (belated as mine was) in dealing with the barrage of hateful, forwarded e-mails, we will reduce the number of uninvited spam-and-slam crap in our inboxes. It's worth a try.

Abuse and Neglect of Characters

The movie, Stranger than Fiction, starring Emma Thompson as a writer whose main characters were always killed by the end of the novel, explored the writer's responsibilities to her characters especially regarding the ending of their lives. However, even when it is not a matter of life and death for the characters of fiction, does the writer bear some responsibility for the characters' well-being? What if the writer is guilty of abuse and neglect of her characters?

Every thirty-eight seconds, a fiction character is a victim of psychological abuse. Psychological abuse occurs when the writer toys with the emotions of a character, arousing a warm flame only to douse it with ice water. For example, the character experiences joy and rapture having just met the man of her dreams with whom she will share a forever-and-ever ending. Then, invariably the writer steps in and dashes all hope by introducing the dream man to the wealthy widow who just moved in next door. Another example is the noble story of surrender and acceptance of a character deserted on an uninhabited island. He learns to survive, cope, and even thrive with only a chimpanzee by his side. Again, the writer is so presumptuous that she will send a helicopter in to return him to the pampered wife and child who were yet to notice that their breadwinner hadn't returned from his business trip. As pathetic as these circumstances are, there is an even more despicable affront to characters by far too many writers. These writers, whose immense numbers are difficult to estimate, are guilty of neglect.

The neglect of characters usually starts with a relatively benign act by the writer such as filing away a chapter in a three-prong folder or saving a file on a flash drive. While these acts appear to be responsible and even conscientious, the worm soon turns. The character waits for the writer, unaware that the writer, whether intentional or not, will not return. The character fails to thrive while in the file cabinet. Hidden away from sunlight and social contact, the character begins to shrivel and fade. What was once a well-developed character having contradictions, strengths and foibles becomes reduced to scrap paper. On the flash drive, the character waits behind documents recently opened. The longer the character waits, the further she falls behind other, more pretentious documents, like spreadsheets, for example.

What can be done for these neglected characters? Is there any hope? There is, but it involves a difficult form of treatment. The character cannot simply be returned to where her story left off. If there is to be any salvation for her, she must suffer in order to be saved. The writer must put her in some precarious situation in which only the cruelest wordsmith would be willing to abandon her a second time. Either the character must be immediately immersed in a powerful, threatening series of events that threatens either her existence or the existence of a loved one, or the character must face a competing character in another book by the same writer and be willing to grab the limelight, outshining the competitor, and subsequently once again securing an honorable place in the writer's note cards.

If writers have a heart, which they claim they do, they must no longer avoid looking into the pale faces of their forgotten characters. The abused and neglected characters, the forgotten leaders of tomorrow's best-selling list, deserve to be given their God-given rights and privileges. Write your congressional representatives today and ask them to support the Filed and Forgotten Universal Character Keeper (FFUCK) Act. Thank you and God Bless America!

Fearless Moment

When does the fearless moment occur? Where are we when it happens? Why is it that the fearless moment usually lasts for only a moment and then we return to our normal state of anxiety? Is being fearless overrated? Is it so bad to be in a state of anxiety if that is indeed our normal state? Aren't these just artificial labels for the purpose of ... what purpose?

We are like drug addicts that have once experienced that perfect high and spend the rest of our lives trying to re-enact it. We think of those moments that we felt like King Midas and everything we touched turned to gold. There were those moments of perfect synchronicity when the planets are correctly aligned and we are blessed with miracles. We recall those rare experiences when time seems to slow down and we are acutely aware of our every perception within every second. Of course, then there is that illusive zone where creativity thrives in spite of our fearful nature.

We analyze those seemingly sacred moments in an attempt to induce the birth of just one more. We tell ourselves that we could do so much more, enrich our lives and the lives of others, if only, if only, we could ... Yet, for all our efforts, we stop and ask ourselves, "When does the fearless moment occur?" and there is no answer. We sit quietly and we wait. In the waiting, we find breath. Like a butterfly that hovers nearby, the fearless moment seems so close. We see it, we reach for it; we reach for it in the belief that to grasp it is to have safety, to be fearless. However, the grasping fingers tremble. The fearless moment is gone.