What are these? Feelings?

A lot has happened since I last posted up here and I could never put it all up here because it pains me too much but the only reason I come back is the same reason I started this blog. To run away from the crazy, to keep myself sane, I’m not sure if it helps but I sure as hell don’t need it in my head.

To Missy Lee Burton;
Why the fuck did you do this to me? I don’t understand; I suppose I never will but shit, come on. You don’t even know how much it hurts–sure your all broken over Keaven, what the fuck do you want me to do? Understand from that? That doesn’t even make sense your logic is as fucked up and twisted as your head. I meant what I said when I called you a shit friend, because you are; you held me up, let me touch you, promised me more then said “Fuck this let’s be friends!” Yet you still don’t seem to get me; for me anything close is a fucked up pipe dream because I just don’t get close to people. Then why do care at all, Missy? What makes me care; nothing, nothing at all. I have nothing to live for and nothing to lose you won’t believe me but I can see my life a whole lot better than you. You say I’m being to dramatic; do all the sad broken kids you fuck with just leave you alone? I’m not even asking that you come back at this point I don’t want that shit, I just want closure; which obviously is too much to ask from you. I care enough to still want to be you friend but I’m fucking losing it–all of it I’m forgetting simple shit, people are getting pissed, and I want to do is crawl in a hole. I care for nothing Missy and for some reason that is too big of a concept for you.

Morgan

PS
I definitely did not proofread any of this. cheers!

In The Works

When I finished up school the school for the summer I really wanted to try some free style writing, maybe a novel. This is the first page of what I got, so don’t kill my self-esteem. But, I really want to know what you all think…

He woke up that morning with his face the texture of carpet fiber; he had fallen off the bed during the night. It couldn’t have been that long ago, his arm was still asleep from cuddling the previous night with his wife.

He peeled himself from the floor noting the fact that his legs had joined his arms, shuffling over to a chair he sat and waited for the feeling in his legs to return.

Getting up from the chair he continued his stagnant limp over to the bathroom—something that he had picked up far away in both distance and time.

His wife still slept heavily, he knew her—he knew every facet of her personality but he didn’t know her. Her face always seemed different, he assumed it stayed the same but he didn’t know for sure; he smiled at her always but he didn’t know why.

The man looked into the glass that made up the mirror in front of him; he had two eyes—which has normal I guess. He looked into his eyes, one was blue and made of ice the other was green and made of glass—he wiped a tear from that eye. It had always wept, ever since he lost. He wept, one-eyed, throughout most of his life he could never see plays or concerts because—that eyed bawled.

He wiped his eye and walked down the stairs; shivering he looked towards the basement, there was a breeze coming from under the door. Someone had left a window open, in the basement no less! Cowering from the cold Alaskan night he felt the cold brush his face, he looked to the only window in the room. One of the panes in the tiny two-pane window was broken; one was still glass but through the other the ice flowed in. The ice left frozen trails down cinderblocks that made up his damp dank basement; it made it look like the wall was crying cold frozen tears. Tears frozen in time.

The window was so clogged with ice he simply didn’t try to board the widow closed; he picked a wool blanket from the corner of the room and stuffed it until the small opening left in the window. The breeze finally stopped and he pulled himself up out of the dark; he shuffled into the kitchen and sat down with a glass of orange juice and vodka—it might have been far too early for that but he didn’t care.

He let the delightful warmth spread out to his fingers and he leaned back and closed his eyes.

***

“What do you mean he’s going to be here tomorrow?” I said exasperated. “Well,” she replied back her heart in her mouth “You asked him here! He is your friend not mine, so where are your memories again?” I knew my memories were not where I wanted them, “I locked them away and forgot where I put them!” I cried defiantly.

Silvia was not impressed. He could tell it in her face—her name! He remembered her name! He didn’t understand really but he felt that it was significant. His face must have given up some of his realization because Silvia’s face softened and in turn so did his.

They smiled and hugged as they whispered in each other’s ears, “Well no matter what he’s going to be here might as well get ready.” she coed. “High school right? Does he know, did I tell him, does he remember?” he pled—more to himself then anyone else. She replied in the softest tone she could, “Yes, and I guess we’ll find out when he gets here.”

The Death Machine

Review, read it and then the book or go to http://machineofdeath.net/ and read for free…

Death Machine

Some would say a book about a machine that could tell you how you were going to die would be slightly morbid—even to an excessive level. When I saw Machine of Death sitting on a bookshelf me thoughts were no different—but as it turn out I am rather fond of existentialism. So, picking that paperback book I looked at the front page and I realised just how strange and wondrous this book actually was. It took a while to read the premise and the introduction but without that crucial step the collected stories that makes up this book makes little to no sense. When I started reading the book I could not help but realise how brilliant this book really is; and I loved it.
The book Machine of Death edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennard and David Malki; is a book up of short stories by various authors. All based around one single premise—what if a machine could tell, just from a sample of your blood, just how you were going to die? “It didn’t give you the date and it didn’t give you specifics. It just spat out a sliver of paper upon which were printed, in careful block letters, the words ‘DROWNED’ or ‘CANCER’ or ‘OLD AGE’ or ‘CHOKED ON A HANDFUL OF POPCORN.’ …[T]he machine was frustratingly vague in its predictions: dark, and seemingly delighting in the ambiguities of language. ‘OLD AGE,’ it had already turned out, could mean either dying of natural causes, or being shot by a bedridden man in a botched home invasion” — from the introduction. It started a comic and a bright green T-Rex who suggested just how fantastic a story written from that premise would be. Then a group of wonderful Internet people organized a book out stories people sent in, this is the result.
The stories themselves are interesting, and fun to read despite being from many authors—I expected that at least a few of them should bland or boring. Though strangely I liked every single one of them my favorite is only one sentence long! The story HIV INFECTION FROM MACHINE OF DEATH NEEDLE by Brian Quinlan goes like this, “‘WELL,’ I thought, ‘that sucks.’” When I read this I laughed, now you might think I’m a terrible person but I’m not—really I’m not. I laughed at the extreme irony, and that what this book is for; a chance to laugh at the ultimate irony, a chance to laugh in the face of death and have death laugh right back.
It’s true that other feel the same way about this book, Hannah Strom-Martin from STRANGE HORIZONS says “…This sort of Man vs. Fate dilemma has obsessed us since Sophocles, so it’s not shocking to report that Machine of Death hooks you from page one. But where this collection could have been a one joke wonder or merely skated by on its own cleverness, it turns out that it’s a lot deeper than that. A lot more intelligent. A lot less predictable than its theme of inevitability would have you suppose…” When I finished this book I felt a slight feeling of disappointment, I don’t get that a lot, and it has always been my sign of a good book. I really truly loved this book—it might not have any literary merit—yet I would recommend it to anyone who asked what my favorite book was.

Sources:
-Strom-Martin, Hannah. “Strange Horizons Reviews: Machine of Death: A Collection of Stories About People Who Know How They Will Die, Edited by Ryan North, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki !, Reviewed by Hannah Strom-Martin.” Strange Horizons, a Weekly Speculative Fiction Magazine. 16 Mar. 2011. Web. 05 June 2011. .

-North, Ryan, Matthew Bennardo, and David Malki. Machine of Death. Web. 05 June 2011..

Into Thin Air vs. Everest

Now don’t go using this for your English class.

The 1998 IMAX documentary Everest, directed by David Breashears, suggests that climbing Everest is something that can be obtained by even the most unfit people; it also focuses on the sheer importance of getting up–not getting down. I couldn’t disagree with this point of view more. If you have read Into Thin Air, written by John Krakauer, which was focuses on the same climbing season and you can compare the two and see what I mean. Krakauer’s perspective is that of a critical, and unrelenting realist and it provides a stunning contrast to the documentary.
In the documentary, the perspective of the film is limited only to that of the IMAX team and only a very short time is spent on the disaster happening higher up the mountain–the whole movie seems sugar-coated. It lends to a contemptuous and obsequious tone of the movie; while Krakauer’s book gives off an air of objectivity and reflecting. The stark contrast is seen from the very first steps of either works; The book starts with a glimpse at the summit with Krakauer’s on top of the world and he takes a moment to reflect. The film starts with an optimistic look forward as they plan to go to Everest, the book does this to but the first chapter of Into Thin Air does a lot to place an apprehensive cloud over the book.

The ending of the movie also adds to what seems like purpose of the film–to add to the commercialism on Everest. Perhaps a strange coincidence because Krakauer went up to Everest to write an exposé on that very subject. No matter–the film’s ending is of them reaching the top of Everest and relishing in their victory and barely progressing down; yet it’s not important whether you get up or not what if more difficult is getting back down. One popular saying from those people who climb mountains is “Going up is optional–coming down is mandatory.” The movies seems to glaze over the most important and dangerous part of climbing Everest, the lack of oxygen, the cold and it even sugar-coats the technical hazards of climbing such a dangerous mountain.

Even the soundtrack seems to make the movie feel very jovial in the way it is used; the soundtrack does what the first chapter does for Krakauer’s book–it sets a tone. The tone through which you view the rest of the movie, all I saw was an enthusiastic and lighthearted run at something that killed many people. The song they chose to play behind the ending credits, “Here Comes the Sun” by The Beatles, is a song of happiness and rejoicing. What about the people how perish on that mountain, the ones who will never see the sun again? We know that David Breashears and Ed Viesturs helped when disaster struck but why wasn’t that the focus of Everest? The movie focused on nothing more that the materialistic pursuit of reaching the highest point on the planet and glossed over the fact that, in that season 12 people died. For that reason I prefer Jon Krakauer’s book, it provides a solid base and does not leave any stone uncovered. Into Thin Air is a story that was written by a reporter and you can tell that from the beginning–he holds none of his opinions back. Everest is not, it was filmed to entertain and that is quite plain. Everest is to Into Thin Air as Star Wars fan-fiction is to Shakespeare– Krakauer’s novel has real meaning.

Long-ass essay

You really have no concept of how freaking long this took me…

Appreciate it!!

If there were ever an idea custom-made for a Craig Ferguson monologue, this was it: the stupidity of the news. Isn’t that like your own, personal way of indirectly shooting the messenger? Whatever happened to important news, stuff people really care about? I sympathize with these sad new casters, though, perhaps because if I had to talk for an hour I’d run out of important things to talk about as well. The news is an important source of information and it comes in many forms; television, newspapers, magazines and though the Internet. We all count on some form of this for what we know about the nation and about the world, reporters are the eyes of the people who read or watch the news. That’s why reporter take care to make sure that their information is correct and that they do not direct to much of their opinion through their stories. It is important that reader and viewers get the whole story so that they can make up their own mind—not all news agencies do this but most at least try.

When someone reads through a paper or starts to watch the news what are they looking for? Is it fair to say that a person would be more likely to read an article with the title “Suspected Jewelry Thief Tackled, Placed In Choke Hold” rather than “Chinook Salmon Season Reopens”; or do I have that backwards? There has to be someone interested in that—either way it goes—right? When I read stuff like that I think exactly that; there is someone else who would like that but not me! When I read headlines like “OSHA Investigates Toxic Gas Leak” I get kinda mad not because it’s not important; it’s just that if you had followed this story you would know that a cloud of hydrochloric-nitric acid was released into the air. Although when you look more in-depth at the reports of the incident it wasn’t that bad; no one got hurt even though there were very few people who actually complied with the warning to stay indoors. City officials deemed the risk minimal and only told people within a half mile to stay indoors; one new agency made such a big deal out of this that 911 was swamped with calls—even though the correspondent was at the scene breathing the air just fine. This kind of hypocrisy is a perfect example of media that made the situation far, far worse than it was. So, when I read that headline i see a story that an agency just won’t let drop even though it is far from the most important thing that is happening in America.

Something else that makes me doubt the credibility of a news source is when instead of covering real issues and things that have real importance; they go off and start playing a segment on cutesy viral videos the took the Internet “by storm” that week. That just makes me want to stand up and yell “What!” I just heard about the violent killings in some third-word country I could really care less about some dog who can only speak three words. Now, don’t get me wrong here I really think that they need to throw in some uplifting stories after hearing about all the terrible things that happened that day; and don’t throw me off my soapbox because I don’t appreciate a cute little bunny, I do really. I just think that when you’ve got one hour to tell me what level of hell the world has sunk to today—why don’t you just get it over quick, like a band-aid. Please, please don’t drag it on and make me wish that I never bought that magic box that’s currently talking to me; it just makes it worse, it really does.

When I hear about stories that really matter and ones that I care about like “Supporters of Portland Public Schools bond and levy go door to door as opponents speak out” I listen I get concerned about those involved and I wonder how far off stuff like this is at may school. But when I get to a story like “Driver Survives Plunge Down Portland Embankment” I ask “Why?” because you got to ask why is this really new; is it really news? I mean I’m happy for the guy, still, it’s an embankment not a freaking cliff and I’m pretty sure most embankments have a one hundred percent survival rate. So, I guess I am asking the news industry to not be  stupid for a week, two weeks, maybe forever? I guess what I’m asking is that news makers do so without bias, without cutesy show tricks and with out stupidity; I am asking that reporters use intelligence instead of scare tactics to drive home their point.

Every news agency does it and it’s probably near impossible to drop all bias and it will always help to have a little fluff to draw in the crazy people but it is possible to cut out a good portion of it. At the risk of getting in on larger debates about the bias of larger news corporations; John Moody, Fox News Channel’s senior vice-president for news and editorial said, “There’s a certain sameness to the news on the Big Three [networks] and CNN. . . . America is bad, corporations are bad, animal species should be protected, and every cop is a racist killer. That’s where ‘fair and balanced’ [Fox’s slogan] comes in. We don’t think all corporations are bad, every forest should be saved, every government spending program is good. We’re going to be more inquisitive.” Now coming from someone in that position, you would have to assume that even these companies know that these things are happening; so, either they don’t care or there is something else behind. I’m not one to speculate on the deeper meanings of why men with power do things, most because I do not honestly care. I do know however that the stuff that they put out pisses me off and while there is not much I can do about it there is something a large group of people could do. Maybe with a pen and a petition in hand; what’s that saying again? The pen is mightier than the sword?

Essay thing

blahblahblahblah essay about Doctor Who…

[I had to redo this for English, I liked the new version better so this is it (with sources)]

What is the first thing that pops into your head when someone says ‘risk’? Do you think about financial risk? Maybe the Hasbro board game? You may think that personal loss and putting your life on the line define risk; but for me it matter not whether you risk your life or not, it’s what you risk it for—and whom. The Doctor, who has spent over 900 years traveling in his very own Police Call Box embodies risk. In his time he saved Earth far to many times to count and not just the Earth, he has fought back hoards of nightmares and saved more planets than he has controls on the console of his TARDIS.

He is a Time Lord from the planet Gallifrey, and with his stolen time machine he travels around the universe; doing the best he can to turn bad situations into good. With many terrifying enemies—from the shrieky-voiced Daleks, to the mustache-twirling Master—almost as strange as the Doctor himself. It is hard to not get the feeling that he fights a forever losing battle. In an episode he materializes on board a space ship that has punched holes in time; the clockwork repair bots are fixated on Madame de Pompadour and had followed her throughout her life to find her at the age of 27. The Doctor, when confronted with this jumps back and forth  through the holes in time stopping the ‘automatons’ from taking her while also confronting them back on the ship; he manages to keep his companions and Madame de Pompadour safe—but at a cost. In his last attempt he destroys his only way home, trapping the Doctor in 18th century France, he manages to find himself a way back—though he never expected it. He risked his life for a person he barely knew; knowing full-well that he may never be coming home. Alan Riquelmy, who wrote a review of the episode, explains; “A lonely angel, she calls him. … [The Doctors’] … not above the petty emotions of humans. He feels, he hurts, he loves.”

Others are quite familiar with The Doctor’s charismatic manner The Telegraph reports in an article published in July of 2008; “…[He] discovers some sinister plot, which he thwarts in the most entertaining and seemingly accidental manner possible.” The people he brings with him also add a bit trouble to the situation, having an inexperienced time traveler can sometimes complicate things more that simplify them. One companion Rose Tyler, accompanied the Doctor when earth was invaded by the grand armies of both Daleks and Cybermen; gets pulled into an alternate universe with no hope of ever returning. That is why the Doctor is always so alone even though he when surrounded by friends, he has to live with the weight of all of those who didn’t make it. He lived through the Time Wars and ended them as well, he killed his whole race to stop and endless war; the last of his kind he still wonders the universe keeping the universe in check.

He once broke the rules, laws of his people, and it nearly cost him his sanity; a mission to mars—the first really—had been there for months when the Doctor arrived. When he arrived he immediately figured out he shouldn’t even be there, these people’s futures were already set in stone, and when things went wrong; he broke his rules and saved those he could. There was a cost though, one crewman ended her life and changed the future so dramatically that brought about the end for that version of the space-age Macgyver. The alien from Gallifrey, a man with 11 different faces and two hearts; he embodies the true meaning of risk to me and while risk is something that means different things to different people I hope you can see that the Doctor does it in the truest sense. To borrow a line from one episode; “This song is ending, but the story never ends.” Ood Sigma explains that the Doctor will continue to do good no matter what happens.

“Dr Who Profile: Britain’s Favourite Alien – Telegraph.” Telegraph.co.uk – Telegraph Online, Daily Telegraph and Sunday Telegraph – Telegraph. The Telegraph, 03 July 2008. Web. 29 May 2011. <http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/profiles/2241353/Dr-Who-profile-Britains-favourite-alien.html&gt;.

Smith, Dominic. “The Girl in the Fireplace.” Doctor Who. Web. 29 May 2011. <http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_tv15.htm&gt;.

Smith, Dominic. “End of Time.” Doctor Who. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_tv46.htm&gt;.

Smith, Dominic. “The Waters of Mars.” Doctor Who. Web. 30 May 2011. <http://www.drwhoguide.com/who_tv45.htm&gt;.

Riquelmy, Alan. “New Who Review: The Girl in the Fireplace.” Revolution Science Fiction. 03/06/2006. Web. 30 May 2011..

“Doctor Who?.” Who is Doctor Who?. Web. 30 May 2011..

King Lear

This is an essay I wrote for english about the Shakespeare play King Lear.
 

Shakespeare was a stunning writer and playwright for his time. Arguably one of the best of all time and like all the greats of literature Shakespeare is a master at analyzing life; he brings forth issues that a person would not normally think about and turns them into the driving force behind his characters. Actions that reflect the best and the worst of mankind through, the sometimes subtle contrasts between the two, actions that can be observed most clearly in one of his later plays, King Lear.  Shakespeare uses his play King Lear to display the, at times, seemingly ridiculous contradictions that mankind possesses.

One of the ways Shakespeare does this is through the ironic wisdom of the Fool, who while a polar opposite to the king is one of the few characters that openly mock the King. For example after Lear fires Kent and banishes Cordelia; Lear hires back Kent while he is in disguise the Fool says “Sirrah, you were best take my coxcomb.” Kent replies “Why, fool?” and the Fool says back “Why, for taking one’s part that’s out of favour: nay, an thou canst not smile as the wind sits, thou’lt catch cold shortly: there, take my coxcomb…” (1.4.96) Here the Fool is saying that Kent should take the hat of a fool because by coming back he is a fool himself and the way things stand he will be found out. This is ironic because the King is present the whole time making no comment and showing no recognition of the Fool’s riddle. It also shows that the Fool is far wiser than the King to see though this deception, though the King remains ignorant to it. Another example of how wise the Fool is, is when the King is talking to the Fool shortly after the King gives all his Kingly possessions away. He says the “Fools had ne’er less wit in a year; For wise men are grown foppish, They know not how their wits to wear, Their manners are so apish. (1.4.148) Here the Fool if talking about how the wise men have concerned themselves with things less important and how their manners are not very good, this turns out to be more foreshadowing on the part of Shakespeare. For Lear will soon lose his mind and become what the Fool is talking about here. From these points a point could be made that the Fool acts not as a fool at all but as a wise man.

The betrayed Edgar also shows this very well through his betrayal and the way he gets back to his position, requires admiration and pride for him. After Edgar leads his son to Dover disguised as a bedlam beggar leads him to the Cliffs of Dover though he really leads him to the middle of a field. Edgar says “Give me your hand: you are now within a foot Of the extreme verge: for all beneath the moon Would I not leap upright.”(4.5.25) Ironic considering they are I the middle of a field and the son he declared a traitor lead Gloucester there. Edgar then says (aside)“Why I do trifle thus with his despair Is done to cure it.”(4.5.33) He is asking himself why he worries with the woes of his father and how this despair on his part is done to cure the despair. How ironic that the father who would have his son killed would be lead to his place of death by that very thing, and even though the hated from his father his son would endeavor to save him.

The all-knowing, wise King the one who should have the most wisdom, yet showing the qualities of a man who has lost the ability to be wise. The King, we jump into the story sometime after his point of most power and we can see straight from the beginning that he has lost something of himself. After a speech by two of his three daughters his youngest says very eloquently, that she would not lie to her father about her love for him that “ [She] love[s] your majesty According to.. [her] ..bond; nor more nor less. That she would not lie to her father about how much she loves him even if it means to lose her take on the land her father is offering. Lear says” Here I disclaim all my paternal care, Propinquity and property of blood, And as a stranger to my heart and me” (1.1.93) He dissolves his parental care of Cordelia and then banishes her immediately from his kingdom. Even though he says at another point that he loved her most and even though Cordelia was right in her actions to follow in the steps of her sisters would have been to show no love at all. In act 4, scene 7 Cordelia finds the king and tends to him lovingly even though the king has gone mad and has shown that he wants nothing to do with her. She tends to him and is happy for him though his madness to be with him again. At this point an Insane King finally understands she was trying to say before and says” I know you do not love me; for your sisters Have, as I do remember, done me wrong: You have some cause, they have not.”(4.7.105) This is how he shows his remorse the king going back on his word to apologize to his dearest daughter, for he realizes he has done her wrong.

In King Lear Shakespeare displays the, at times, seemingly ridiculous contradictions that mankind possesses. From these points a fair case has been made that Shakespeare had far more in mind than just entertainment when he wrote his stories. The subtle influence of real life experiences must be what drove him to write the way he did and the way Shakespeare mirror opposites to contrast the change in the characters over the course of the play. The tiny hints he leave throughout the play on how the story will turn out can clue you in far before the point to which the clue refers. In this way the story leads itself to it’s own end in definite finality.