Captured Thought: Am I A Genre?

This morning I was listening to the radio, NPR, of course, and on came a man who's about to release a movie about a middle-aged man dealing with his life's problems, including being left by his wife and daughter, by reconstructing New York city and his life in model form. The movie's title is a fancy word basically meaning a symbol or metaphor that can be used on both a local and global level. The example they gave was "The hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world."
In any case, the interviewer the host of the show called The Host's Name's Weekend, asked the famous movie maker, formerly a writer trying out directing, whether or not he was aware that other movies made in his style were being named after him, and are being considered an independent genre.
The writer/director answered that he really didn't consider his work and that modeled after it to be a genre so much as his work continuing to possess the trademarks of his personality and style, and that being a consequence of his concerns and values, not so much a deliberate effort to reproduce movies in the same model.
This got me thinking. Obviously, I'm not influential enough to have people outside of my immediate circle to consider any type of action or thought "Mitchel-esque," but what if I was, or more realistically, what if, in a post-modern twist, things that I did consistently or uniquely were packaged up, and used on some grander scale, to characterize a "Mitchel-esque" style of thinking or living or being. It's a bit heady to think that someone could be innovative, interesting, or important enough that they would be sucked up and their traits labeled, but clearly the instance of this writer/director shows that there is still room for innovation, and for that innovation to be modeled, in this cluttered world.
On a purely personal level, I wonder if I could be called a genre. Not whether or not my life would fit into "coming of age movies," but whether I'm predicatable and formulaic enough to be replicated. I probably am. In fact, I'm probably following a model right now.
So much for being a genre, now the question is can I break out of one?

What if?: I Never Get Out of Bed

In the poem Love Calls us to the Things of this World, Mr. Wilbur seems to reach the cynical conclusion that morning is beautiful until we realize we have to get. That made me wonder, what if I never got out of bed.
Would things be better if I never had to face the day? Wake up to take in the beauty of the morning, maybe have some breakfast, in bed, and then go back to sleep. Maybe not go back to sleep, maybe just lay there. I could even try just finding the paper, reading in bed, listening to the radio, and procrastinating. Either way, I'd never have to actually face the day. Does that fix or create problems? School, debate, and whatever else it is I do would take a back seat to pure relaxation and being at ease, but after a while those would be distant memories of a past more stressful. After a while, lying in bed would become a monotonous reminder of why people got up in the first place. There are things to be done, and, sometimes, a day to be won.

Blogging Around

Jenna's best of the week was about Margot's comment on how Hosseini used sugar in tea as a metaphor for worldview/outlook in The Kite Runner. She also commented on how she'd like to use this technique too.
I commented:

Jenna,
I think that the tea metaphor is very interesting as well. I've noticed that a lot of different authors use similar techniques to help with characterization.
These can range from the type of clothes someone wears representing their personality to the weather taking on someone's mood.
It's very useful for someone to be able to feel stormy without it explicitly being said.
I've noticed that in my own writing when I try to use these types of mechanisms to show mood and emotion, as well as reflect characteristics, they appear painfully obvious, and only later, when blended in with the story do they feel natural.
Better luck to you, and nice post.
Mitch


Kyle wrote about weapons manufacturing and distribution and the accompanying moral conflict, as well as whether it saves lives and how wars should in fact be fought.
I commented:

Kyle,
Gatling, the inventor of the first automatic gun, the Gatling Gun, thought that by creating a better weapon he would save lives by reducing the need for as many soldiers. Little did he know...
I think you touch on two very different ideas when dealing with the same umbrella title "weapons manufacturers."
First are the domestic weapons manufacturing giants with big time Department of Defense contracts. Companies such as these, domestically and internationally, manufacture most of the weapons across the world. Iron Man creates a fantastical character based on weapons developers and the like who work on creating the weapons of the future. Although some men like the character probably do exist, there's a reason it's a comic book superhero movie and not a documentary.
Second are the illegal arms transporters and states, such as China, who ship large amounts of weapons to rebels and insurgents, in places such as Darfur, to promote or protect US interests. The US of A has a long history of such activities, the first example I thought of being the Kennedys and Cuba. In to this category fall underground dealers in high-grade uranium and other potentially catastrophic weapons and weapons-grade materials. These people do not manufacture weapons, but do make them deadlier.
Certainly there is some moral conflict in creating things to be used to kill, but often having a better weapon is a matter of life or death for the good guys, and they make more than a pretty penny. It's immaterial whether better weapons save lives, the bottomline is that weapons are inevitable, as are people who will try to use them against us. We just have to stop those people from getting weapons in the first place, and fantastic weapons help us do that.
Mitch

360 Degrees: Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin was recently chosen to be John McCain's running mate. She'd be the first to remind you she's only been at it for 5 weeks. This might be a bit of an off-beat interpretation of what constitutes an "issue" that can or should be viewed from 360 degrees, but there is perhaps no issue more current or pressing than the choice of Palin, effect and how it will alter the presidential race.

There are four primary angles from which to examine Palin, those of the Democrat, Independent, and Republican, leaving me with 356 to dream up. Maybe some other time. Let's start with the Democrats. To them, Palin is anything from a joke to a threat. A funny-talking hick, picked as a last-ditch cynical attempt to knock of Obama, Palin represents everything that is wrong with modern religious right-based conservatism. Alternatively, she's a threat to Obama, who could do enough to rally the conservative base to win the election. In both cases, she represents something new on this level, and intimidating in her uniqueness and the potential it brings.

To the Independents. This key voting group's perception of Palin is often founded in their demographic background. For the religious Independents who had been waiting for a candidate of their conviction to enter the race she is energizing. To those who are truly open to either side, she's a fresh face brought into the race to show that the entire Republican party isn't over 70 years old, and can have a record of fighting corruption. Their judgement will be passed somewhere beyond her personality. For the final group of independents, the borderline Democrats nervous about Obama's lack of experience, Palin is the push over the fence. They resent both her religion-based views, as well as complete lack of experience in Washington, a selling point to others. Palin's selling points seem much more oriented to more religious, often rural, voters, as these same facts turn others away.

Final the Republicans. Evangelicals were by-and-large energized by Palin's selection, which probably solidified the party's base. The more highly educated Republicans, however, only begrudgingly accept Palin, and, although it won't cost McCain their votes, some have called for her resignation, because she has the potential to be so polarizing. Even with a base solidified, Republican strategists see this as Palin's only asset.

Sarah Palin's candidacy, like her platform, can be broken down fairly simply. The various interpretations and emotions different groups take and feel from this platform vary across the board. But it seems that even if the base is solidified and energized, the trade off of losing appeal with those concerned about Obama's experience and non-religious independents will only be counteracted if the Evangelicals do a lot of campaigning.

Metacognotion: Kite Runner

I'm writing an essay on The Kite Runner. It discusses the role of secrets and our pasts in driving and defining our current actions and thoughts.

In crafting the thesis and outline I found some unexpected but welcome surprises. Foremost among these is how I was actually writing about the central theme of the book. I was expecting to be able to find some text to support my claims, but the pure quantity astounded me. This changed my tactic in doing in-book research from one of quickly finding relevant passages to selecting and considering which passages had the highest quality. It became less about "is this a secret?" and more about "what does this secret mean?" My thought process benefited from this. I became enthralled in the hunt for evidence, and felt much more connected to Amir when I realized how every major movement of his life was driven by his past. This spilled over into my life, and helps my psychoanalyze, sometimes too much, the motives and deficits my actions attempt to cover up. Finding that was surprising. That being said, I also need to be careful not to become over-invested in psycho-analyzing Amir, the book does that already. Instead, I need to focus in on how specific actions at specific points of Amir's past, beyond Hassan's rape, correlate into specific actions in Amir's present. Then, I'll be able to appreciate Amir not only for a man with a haunted past, but a man defined by it.