Gina Harris's Blog, page 154

Band Review: Tempting Fate

Tempting Fate is a metalcore trio from Hollywood.
As might be expected, many of the tracks come through as angry blasts. There is still interesting nuance that comes through, especially on "Questions" and "This Is A Warning". I appreciate how the different musical elements come together in "Mutilation Line" and build the song.
Tempting Fate appears to be working on a new album now, but their previous album, Illusions, is available as a free download on their Bandcamp site.
https://www.facebook.com/WeAreTemptingFate
http://temptingfate.bandcamp.com/
https://www.youtube.com/user/TemptingFateBand
https://twitter.com/TemptingFate

Chloroform

Chloroform has disappointed me lately.
Working on Hostage (working title), well, obviously the title implies some sort of being taken into captivity. We've all seen the chloroform-soaked rag covering the face until the victim loses consciousness; it was the obvious way to go.
Unfortunately, I like things being accurate, and I'm curious. I started doing some internet searches to find out how fast it works, how long she would stay unconscious, and what waking up would be like. The middle question was the one that complicated everything. It only puts you out for 2-3 minutes.
Chloroform is not a sleeping potion. It's an anesthetic, keeping you out while you are inhaling it. Knocking someone out before transporting them seemed practical, but keeping them out while transporting them would be pretty dangerous, especially without a qualified anesthesiologist and monitoring equipment. They don't even put you out for surgery unless they have to.
This resulted in searches for other ways of rendering someone unconscious. I know if you're arrested for a crime, they do check your browser history, and mine would look pretty bad right now. I have no criminal intentions, so I'm probably good, but it does feel a little dicey. (But not as much as that guy who seemed to be looking for a way to do it in real life, and not just for writing something.)
Sometimes you see people being injected with something, but I can't find any subcutaneous sedatives. If it has to be intravenous, that can be hard to do on a struggling person in a dark room.
Sleeper holds can be hard to administer correctly and not a lot of people know how to do them. More to the point, I could never feel comfortable portraying one, as I associate them too strongly with police disregard for human life. (That's not just Eric Garner either, because I still remember Lloyd Stevenson.)
Knocking someone unconscious with a blow to the head is even worse. To hit hard enough to result in unconsciousness without resulting in serious injury is kind of a misnomer, because the unconsciousness makes it a serious injury. Odds are good of them having some memory loss, or lost sense of smell, or some other lasting damages. (I know people are talking about chronic traumatic encephalopathy a little now, but that could go a lot farther.)
It may be resonating more with me now because I have been reading a lot about brain function anyway, especially in regard to memory, and it's a fascinating thing. There are interactions that you wouldn't expect, and there is plasticity and healing power that can be miraculous, and yet there is also a real fragility. It's a good reminder of why you don't just hit people - even if they are annoying, or low down, or protesting your candidate. Assault is illegal and it should be.
And even though real life appears to be more boring than the movies, it can be more endlessly fascinating. Knowing more, it is even more impressive to me that he did pull off the kidnapping. It takes a lot more skill than I had previously anticipated.

Being a strong female character

Although I had scheduled all of the appointments before I knew I was going to be unemployed, I just finished the last of them, so it feels like this time has been very much about taking care of business. My teeth have been examined and cleaned, eyes checked and new glasses ordered, regular doctor and endocrinologist visited, and I finally got my hair cut. It had been September! My layers and ends were in sore need of maintenance.
I hadn't gone because of money. I was filling my hairdresser in on all of the things that had been leading to financial stress and belt-tightening, and it wasn't until I was relaying it to her that I realized something. I finally got all of the money issues caught up on February 19th. I got laid off on February 25th. It was less than a week of calm. I did not appreciate it enough.
Tina was supportive and encouraging, and one thing she said was that if all of this was happening to her she would fall over.
I don't believe that's true. She handles the things that happen to her, and I believe she would handle this. It would look different, because we are different people, but she would.
Periodically there are discussions of "strong female characters", or whether certain characters are feminist, and of course the Bechdel test. I pay attention to that because representation is important to me, and feminism, and also good writing.
I had been thinking about it a little more lately as my sisters and I have been enjoying "CHiPs" reruns. There was a two-part episode with some female trainees (they're coming back soon for an episode that was a spin-off attempt), and they were just obnoxious. Also Bonnie suddenly took a turn for the shrill the other night, which was different for her. Usually her niche is background competence and dazzling smiles.
I think for Bonnie, the issue is worse writing staff. It's about the right season for that to happen (5), based on other shows I like. With the trainees (from the previous season), there were things about the writing that worked well, especially Ponch having to give his trainee essentially the same lecture that Getraer gave him earlier. However, nothing felt realistic about the women. That is probably a decent writer who is male and can only really comprehend males.
In these cases, there will often still be a conscientious attempt to make the woman not conform to the stereotypical idea of a woman, but that might be done by making her brash and impulsive, while really tough - hence the "strong" in strong female character.
Women have other options for being strong besides imitating men, but one of the things I had been thinking earlier is that I have written very few characters that would describe themselves as strong. Sarah in the Family Blood series wouldn't; if she had been strong she should have been able to save her brother. As she progresses in her martial arts training she may eventually feel stronger, but she would probably still never use that as an adjective for herself. Other people might use it about her.
That's not that a woman shouldn't be able to know her own strength either. There are a few in the screenplays that probably do, and some secondary characters as well. Mostly, that is probably a reflection of my hyper awareness of my own shortcomings, but also I keep going and doing what needs to be done. Some of the people that I spend the most time writing end up being like that too. But that's not about feeling strong or brave, which almost never happens. Instead it's about doing what's right, and pushing through, and generally facing it head on.
Perhaps I need to branch out more, but one thing that works well is that my characters feel human to me, and real. I try to give that to all of them, not just the main ones. It helps if you can imagine lots of different lives and motivations and relationships.
There was a quote recently that I thought expressed it well, from Kate McKinnon about Paul Feig:
"Paul has let women be tough cops, CIA operatives, and lovable drunken flailing losers… but his most revolutionary act has not been just in casting women as scientists and badasses. We’ve seen that before-ish. No, his true subversion lies in creating female protagonists who are striving for the universal goals of friendship, connectedness, justice, and personal growth. These golden fleeces have always been the sole province of male protagonists. They don’t call it an everyman for nothing, and by building stories around female protagonists who are striving not for romance but simply to become their best selves, he has permanently changed the game for us all."
The first woman on film who talked tough and drank hard and was an ace shot could have been revolutionary. She may also have been largely defined by her relationship with and desire for a man. There's more complexity available, and it's a lot more interesting. Using that can result in much better movies, but it can also result in a better world where individuals are more valued.
At least those are my basic goals.

Glamour-less shots

In the personal writing I have been working on my body issues, and it felt necessary to get a few things out of the way, selfie-style.
Obviously my main body issue is my fat, but because it is so always there that there is a certain level of acceptance in it. Yes, I am still cringing at it showing in the pictures (we are only on Day 21), but I know it is there, I know I can't really hide it, and I have made some peace with that.
There are two other things that I am kind of sensitive about, but can conceal to a certain extent, therefore baring them is more difficult, and more necessary.
The first is my hair. You probably don't think I hide my hair, but what you may not realize is that I wake up with a head like an unruly lion's mane.
Water and conditioner brings it back under control, although through the course of the day it keeps getting dryer and thicker. FYI, such thick hair isn't great for scalp health.




Usually I have captured it in a pony tail before it gets that far, and that feels like the right hair style for me. Tying my hair back conceals it, but my hair is continuing to get bigger and fluffier all day, and then sleeping on it results in that state where really, I don't think anyone should have to wake up next to this.


I know I have married friends who have assured me that they see horrible things, and stuff like this doesn't matter, but they are still better looking and I feel like that matters.
I do sometimes sleep in a silk nightcap, which makes it less wild in the morning, but that's not particularly attractive either, "sexy lunch lady" not being one of your more popular fantasies.
Then there's my bad leg. It's the right one.

You may notice a crease on the left side. In the center of that is a scar. When I was taking down an above ground pool, one of the side supports recoiled and cut me. I cleaned it, got a tetanus booster, and didn't think about it anymore for a few years, until I was on a business trip and started feeling like I was getting the flu.
I got home feeling sick and crashed on the bed. The next morning my leg was inflamed from ankle to knee, red and painful. It was cellulitis and I had diabetes. Something else had gotten in there, and lay dormant until my immune system got weak enough to let it flare up.
I was in the hospital for a few days getting IV medications, and then I was on oral antibiotics for another month, but my leg never got better than this. It's still kind of distended, still kind of discolored.
I say it's the reason I don't wear bare legs, but I didn't really wear bare legs a lot before this. I didn't think my legs were shapely then either, but they were better.
So now they are out there in the world, and images on the internet never go away. I have to accept them as part of me too.
To even things out I will try and do a duck lips selfie soon. Those are glamorous, right?

Band Review: Consider Me Dead

I've had a hard time knowing what to say about Consider Me Dead, a trio from Arizona.
I think part of that comes from a disconnect between the look and the sound. At first glance you see black T-shirts, flannel, and tattoos. In addition, shortly after being followed by them and following back, I found myself in an unexpected discussion about the superiority of marijuana over alcohol, at least from a health perspective. While I didn't expect them to be straight edge, I was kind of expecting something post-core.
That is not the case. The only real growl-shouting comes on "The Anthropologist", and even then it is offset by a delicate keyboard accompaniment.
Actually, my first auditory impression was "boy band", based on some of the vocal elements. There is a strong electronic influence, most noticeable on "The Island". The band sounds softer than they look. This isn't necessarily to criticize the sound or to call it soft, but I think the cognitive dissonance may have thrown me for a loop.
"Finding Our Own" is a good example of what Consider Me Dead does well, and "Breathe Me In" makes me take notice when it comes on. "Let Go" is fun. Overall, though, it feels like the songs blend together, and don't leave a lasting impression. That is even more true on their second album, Young At Heart; all of my examples are coming from their 2012 release, Up in Lights. There is potential here, but it could use more development.
Still probably a good bet for fans of danceable electronica.
http://considermedead.com/
https://www.facebook.com/considermedeadofficial
https://soundcloud.com/considermedead
https://www.youtube.com/user/ConsiderMeDeadBand
https://twitter.com/considermedead

Band Review: Time And Distance

Time And Distance is a pop/rock band from West Virginia.
They just released a new song and video, "Something More", in January, but have been together since 2002. They probably fit in fine with pop punk bands of today, but sound as if they would have been perfectly comfortable in the '90s.
"War" reminds me of The Get Up Kids, circa Something to Write Home About. I may get a slight All-American Rejects vibe as well. I like those bands a lot, so that's praise.
"Little Disaster" is a good introductory song for the band: energetic, relatable, and fun. I love the intro on "Live A Lie".
There are a few tour dates currently listed. Nothing West is currently showing, but it sounds like they make regular appearances at music festivals.
I see different information on Facebook versus Reverbnation, so it looks like there is some room for improvement in their web presence, but that is worth doing. They are worth checking out.
https://www.facebook.com/timeanddistance
http://timeanddistance.bandcamp.com/
https://www.reverbnation.com/timeanddistanceband
https://www.youtube.com/user/timeanddistancemusic
https://twitter.com/TimeAndDistance

Enforced socialization

Yesterday I found making comprehensive statements about internet usage difficult because there is so much variation among analog humans and their digital tools. That can continue today.
Contrasting what happens online to "in real life" feels disrespectful of how meaningful some things that happen through the internet can be. That being said, physical proximity is important. Fresh air is important. Conversations that get too deep to tag with LOL are important. Also, there is something to be said for waiting and anticipation versus constant immediate gratification.
Facebook is great for casual keeping up. I like seeing that the children of people I know are doing well in school or that they have cute pets. It is gratifying to see that they like what I am doing. Status updates and reactions (because now you can do more than just "like") matter, but they are still somewhat shallow. (Plus that algorithm can mean that you start only seeing the same few people, plus ads.)
However, it can be very helpful for arranging contact. Of the last few times I have gone out, most were not set up through Facebook, with occasional phone or e-mail arrangements. Those exchanges are fun, but then the conversations that we have while out are much more satisfying. I mention this because I am at a place in my life right now where I both really need that and am unlikely to arrange it.
Not being employed is scary. Focusing on my writing is somewhat exciting, but there is also anxiety around it, and whether it will work, and how quickly the time is passing by. Combine that with worrying about my mother, and wanting to give time to her, and thinking about what I need to be in a position to help her, well, there's some stress there.
That stress makes it important to not stay holed up with my fears and my responsibilities, but to get out of the house. It also means that time is at a premium, and I get tired more than I would prefer. All of the literature on similar situations stresses the importance of self-care and socialization. It's completely logical, but it would be really easy to skip.
Faced with this sort of conundrum, my tendency is to make a list. There is one of those old big calendar sheets that I love so much on my desk. (It's for September 2015, actually, because I got it in January, but it was a 16 month calendar.)
There are eight categories of things I need to do, with lists below them, but one of the lists is "People", and there are people I need to remember to see or write to.
I'm not moving through them that quickly, but it's something. And it's something that I love doing, but that I have to force myself to do. We're strange creatures, humans, but that can be worked with.
If you want to get on the list, let me know.

Internet use

For my long reading list, both of the books I read relating to the internet were a bit disappointing, though they had interesting points.
The People's Platform: Taking Back Power and Culture in the Digital Age by Astra Taylor, 2012.
The problem with this one was that a lot of the problems with the internet she touched on had already been gone over in the other book (which we will get to). She referred to the author, and I believe I grasped her book better because I had read Lanier's book, but that made her book repetitive. Then she had just a few pages on potential solutions that started to get exciting right as the book ended. Really, she should have reversed the percentage of pages devoted to each aspect, but I suspect she might not have had enough more to say on solutions.
On to the other book.
You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier, 2010.
I think this came off as better not just because I read it first, but he gave more of the history, especially relating to Web 2.0, which did a better job of establishing context.
One of Lanier's points that stayed with me was that improvements to search engines had been detrimental in some ways. Before if you had an obscure interest in something you had to find obscure little Usenet sites, and relationships were formed through these common interests. Now people just look things up on Wikipedia.
It resonated with me because I remember when the first response to every search started being Wikipedia, to the point where for various topics I go there first. I also remember hanging out on the old IMDB message boards, hoping for chances to answer obscure movie questions, and still getting fond of the people who usually answered the questions first.
That also shed some light on what I was looking for, though I shall get there in a roundabout way.
The issue that I was looking at was not really one issue. There is growing lack of empathy and lack of depth and shorter attention spans, but also less interest in paying for things that we used to pay for (like music and news) because so much can be gotten free, which of course affects how we value the people who provide content, and there is a lot of abuse there, but that may relate to the lack of empathy, and so on.
There was not a good question that could be stated succinctly. "How can we not let the internet make us worse people?" Because the internet has good, and good people use it, and it's certainly not the only factor in people becoming dumber and meaner.
Without it being one clear question, there was not one simple answer, and I already knew parts of the answers. What I was hoping was that the books could give an answer that was clear and electrifying; something that could be passed on and people who needed it would recognize their need and go "Yeah!" In retrospect, it sounds naive.
One of the things that I remembered with this is that I am unusually good at internet research. That may not sound like a real skill, because internet research is so easy. It is to a point, but because there are some things that come up so easily, if you want something a little bit off from that, then phrasing can become very important, and knowing how to refine the search. Knowing what will give you the wrong results is really helpful.
The reason I am good at internet research is that I had a job once where we were researching things a lot, and it was before Google. We collected different search engines, because none of them would find everything available. Of course, there wasn't as much information on the World Wide Web twenty years ago anyway, but there was still a lot, and getting there took more effort.
Yahoo! was the best at the time, and generally where I started. We also used Lycos and Dogpile, and Hotbot and Infoseek. AltaVista was okay, but I loved it most for Babelfish. I tried Ask Jeeves, but did not find it useful. Northern Light was the one I discovered, and it would come through at the oddest times.
I started this job in 1997. Google came out in 1998, and it blew the rest away. I loved Google. I love Wikipedia. Without taking anything away from them, my point is that even if it only lasted for about a year, that time period where I was scrambling, without the cushy search engine and online encyclopedia, was good for me. I developed not just skills, but frames of reference and ways of understanding that are still useful.
In the same way, that time period of my life before the internet (and I love the internet) was good for me. I have the ability to concentrate, and to read, and think deeply, and to write letters and socialize.
Younger people may not have ever known that time when the internet wasn't there, but they can still step back. We don't have to hand phones and tablets to toddlers. Face to face communication can happen without emojis, when empathy is built. There are things that we do that are easy, but not required. Some of it is just a matter of establishing priorities.
I believe the internet does me more good than harm, but I also come to it as a person who is looking for good, which any of us can be.
That is only helped by periodic unplugging. Maybe an internet connection is only as good as your other levels of connection.

Writing update

This is only a brief update because today has been a pretty busy day. (Not just for writing and self-improvement. I also did yard work and mixed pie filling.)
I'm trying something new now.
I found I was not moving forward on Powers at all. It was ridiculous, and I felt like time was slipping away, and the writing time this month is really essential. Plus I kept thinking about Hostage. So I just decided to open all three projects at once instead of doing it consecutively. That way I could just write the scenes that were currently in my head.
I have read that this is a great way to never get anything done, because you just keep jumping to more and more new products. That is not impossible. At the same time, one of the writers I follow would frequently refer to projects 1 through 6, and she was getting paid for at least some of them.
I am trying it because at least so far it is helping me be more productive. If I did open up project four and five, that might not be the case, but I really want all three of these done this month, so I would theoretically work on all of them around this time period anyway.
The other thing that I'm doing is posting updates of the pages written for the day each night. I haven't been consistent about it, because I still have questions about whether or not it's an obnoxious thing to do, but it keeps me accountable and it can't be more obnoxious than the daily selfies.
So perhaps one big lesson for March is to not worry about annoying people. At least in terms of Facebook and Twitter, it's probably easy enough for people to mute me if they do find me annoying. Also, maybe people don't get annoyed that easily when you are doing things to help yourself, not things specifically intended to annoy them.
(Which makes it interesting that Facebook has an option to "poke" people, because poking is annoying. I never poke anyone.)
Anyway, I would like to have at least 11 pages done by the end of today.

Band Review: Ask My Bull

Ask My Bull is a flamboyant jazz punk band from Manchester who just launched their new EP.
In this case, flamboyant means gender-bending and visually outlandish. For example, you might see guitarist Fritz Lindner playing in a short green cocktail dress, garters, and fairy wings, or maybe Tom Le Cocq playing bass as a shirtless cowboy. On another night, they could all be wearing zombie makeup.
That can add to a party-like atmosphere, but perhaps what it should do is prepare you for things to be a little different, like mixing in punk with your jazz.
Having seen references to a two-piece, then a four-piece band, and now with five members as Fritz and Tom are joined by Elliot Slater and Luc Phan on saxophone and Alex Martin on drums, there is a feeling of something that has been growing and building. That is appropriate for jazz.

(Edited to add that Elliot Slater is new to the band since the completion of the EP.)
Their self-titled EP has five tracks. "Machete" is probably the most innovative, but I have a fondness for "Murunken". "Keep Pace You Wimps" lets you feel the funk.
I don't know what any of the titles mean. I'm not sure I'm supposed to.
https://www.facebook.com/askmybull
https://askmybull.bandcamp.com/album/ask-my-bull-ep
https://soundcloud.com/ask-my-bull/sets/ask-my-bull-ep
https://www.youtube.com/user/AskMyBull
https://twitter.com/askmybull