Are You Not Entertained?

Last Friday night, some friends and I went to an improv comedy show based on Grimm's fairy tales. Unfortunately, the show itself was a mixed bag. In all fairness, we had been warned. The group's website recommended an audience age of 18+. The warning was all too apt.

The actors were a group of amazingly talented, funny people, who had me shaking with barely controlled laughter for at least half the night. The other half? Spent cringing at raunchy and/or profane humor. Why oh why? These people were genuinely hilarious without falling back on the tired standbys of sex and swearing. The crudity came about equally from audience participation and cast members, and, to be honest, maybe one or two of the off-color jokes were actually funny. But everything else was just the same ol', same ol' -- people trying to shock and giggling at their daring in making naughty jokes. ::eyeroll:: Please. Every sophomore guy in the history of high school has made these kinds of jokes before. You're not actually being that clever by tossing around the f-bomb like confetti. 

There is no imagination in this kind of humor. It has neither the hilarious absurdity of screwball comedies and Jeeves & Wooster nor the sophisticated wit of Jane Austen and Oscar Wilde. It doesn't even aspire to the cleverness of innuendo, which only suggests at something not quite kosher and allows the intellect its own enjoyment at unraveling the veiled hints. 

Ultimately, raunch and swearing are deeply boring and mind-numbing. Let's face it, after the shock of the first few cracks has worn off, there are a very limited number of places you can go before you're merely repeating yourself. I noticed this in the improv performance, and it was only an hour-long show. Compared with the richness of the rest of the English language, curse-words make up an infinitesimal percentage. The same thing goes for sex or potty humor.

Listen to this trash long enough, however, and it has a corrosive effect on your brain. When you only listen to jokes about poop, well, pretty soon that's the only kind of humor you'll find amusing. Like any other attempt to raise your standards above the mediocre (or in this case, the down-right rancid and soul-smothering), it takes an effort to learn to appreciate the higher things, whether they be humor, cooking, painting, literature, science, architecture etc., etc. But do you honestly want to settle for the bare minimum? Even if it takes a heck of a lot more work to improve yourself, physically, mentally and spiritually? This kind of humor is only one of the many ways in which we fail to push ourselves toward something higher and better, looking beyond the comfortable to the truly noble and worthy.

Come on, people, we've all heard these things before. Can't we start acting like adults and stop laughing at fart jokes? Seriously. Why does humor so often descend to the level of the lowest common denominator? Is it because this is the easy humor, the old reliable jokes that have gotten laughs since preschool, or in the case of sex-related humor, junior high? Supposedly, humans ripen mentally as well as physically, reportedly reaching a half-mythic stage of existence called "maturity" where we can have "real" conversations about literature, politics, science, fashion, life after death, and any number of other serious topics that involve some sort of intelligence. Be a lady (or a gentleman) and get your mind out of the gutter and into something worthwhile.

Curious Insanity

Some of my friends support me in my Avatar addiction. Others scoff.



Actually, most of them scoff.


So, let me introduce you to this other guilty pleasure of mine. One, I think, that few of my friends can rightly and in good conscience encourage my attachment to.

It is:

*drum roll, please*


When Curiosity Met Insanity.

Do you hear that sound?

That is the sound of my heart melting. I can't help it. I love that webcomic to pieces. (Yes, I just said webcomic. It happened. You can start scoffing right about now...)

What makes this webcomic (Okay, okay! Enough with the scoffs already...) so appealing?
I'll break it down for you:

A) Alice in Wonderland is a weird and bizarre fable, no argument there, but yet it's fascinated and/or repelled us for a century and a half or so. There's obviously something Lewis Carroll got right. (I wouldn't venture to guess what it was, but something...) WCMI is based on this enduring and popular tale. And Alice is an utterly endearing character-even when she's annoying, she's still charming, because she's completely unpretentious.

B)If you're a Disney fan, you'll enjoy how the authoresses expand and delve into some favorite characters. Peter Pan and Belle are the two most delightful supporting characters. Peter's boyish charm make him a fitting suitor for Alice's hand and heart, and the perfect rival for Reggie (The Mad Hatter). Although I couldn't have imagined Alice and Belle really gelling, Belle seems to fit in perfectly as a kindred spirit for Alice. Ultimately, the two protagonists, Alice and Reggie, are deliciously written-oh my stars and garters are they well-written! The whole comic has an absolutely scrumptious manner to it that defies all verbal description. The sarcasm, quaintness, and colloquial style make my heart feel super happy. And, the romantic banter is giggle-inducing, witty and utterly adorable.

C)The illustrations are the last word in epic. So amazing. And it's an adorable love story.

Here's the first installment-it's a sweet story, but there is some innuendo, and Reginald's history sounds veers on the sketchy side. So use discretion whilst reading; 'discretion' meaning: don't read it aloud to your 5-year-old siblings. Thus, consider thyself duly warned.

Caution: Contents of When Curiosity Met Insanity contain extreme cuteness. Paroxysms of cute may occur.

How Much Does a Stamp Cost, Anyway?

We good Catholic homeskillets here like to write letters. I mean actual, physical pen-and-stationery letters. Facebook updates? Nice to keep tabs on friends over the summer. E-mail? Eh, it's okay, but it's still only words on a screen. You can't touch them. Phone calls? It's great to hear somebody's voice, but once the phone call ends, that's it -- there's no lasting record, nothing to hang on to and remember the call by.

And there are letters. Something that you can hold in your hand. Letters not only express the writer's unique personality and traits, laid out on the paper for you to see and hold on to, they represent valuable time taken from the writer's hectic life and spent on you, the recipient. The writer chose the paper, filled it with their soul, and gave it to you. How cosmic is that? And, if you're anything like the ladies of this blog, the margins are crammed with doodles, coffee stains, and random outbursts of life. At no extra charge.

I have a thing for blank paper of any kind. I've been known to spend hours in the stationery aisle, selecting the perfect ream of paper, elegant or whimsical; some stationery I even pick out with a specific friend in mind, one who would get a particular inside joke, or get a kick out of a cheesy pattern. But blank paper isn't enough -- you have to fill the blank pages with thoughts, jokes, anecdotes, and memories.

I've always adored the thought of letters, permanent keepsakes and milestones of a relationship, collected and tied with ribbon to be enjoyed years later. You can't do that with texts and e-mails. They just don't carry the same level of meaning. There's something so very impersonal about them. Don't get me wrong. I use and enjoy the convenience of e-mail and Facebook just as much as other people. But there's always a zing of excitement and adventure when ripping open an envelope that has traveled half-way across the continent to reach you. What tales will those ink-covered pages unfold?

Hat tip to Karen Edmisten for inspiring this post.

Dirty Words (and more)

So, since the Femininity Summit kicked off last week with a prelim meeting, I've been having a lot of conversations about the importance of language and how we carry ourselves when we converse (thanks so much for your wonderful brains, my friends!), which started my mind on a train of thought about swearing. In her post about On the Verge, Desdemona mentioned swearing as a way of getting attention from those around us. It's such a cheap way of getting attention, too -- curses don't express profound ideas or relevant facts. They are spoken merely to grab the attention of listeners and attract it to the emotions of the speaker and how he chooses to express himself. Or, worse, the swearing is merely a habit.

Whatever the reason for swearing, the fact remains that, besides being totally unladylike and inelegant, it's just so boring. Honestly, if you actually stop and think about it (although why you'd really want to, I don't know... :P), there are only a handful of swear words that are constantly repeated and reused. As Desdemona joyously proclaimed, the English language contains so many delightful, scintillating (:D!) words that precisely describe an emotion, situation, or characteristic. Antediluvian. Portrait. Bureau. Sanctimonious. Alizarine. Incorrigible. Desolate. Pudgy. Dichotomy. Bumpkin. Neophyte. They cannot be applied to many situtaions because they convey such an exact idea -- they are vibrant words which paint a living picture in the minds of those who hear or read them. They bring ideas to life.

As Desdemona also pointed out in her post, life is an adventure. If you look at it any other way, you're simply going to end up sobbing your eyes out over some trifle that doesn't really matter. Sure, that C I got in class was horribly disappointing (I'll be honest: it flayed my pride alive), but really? If my final goal in life is to please God, get to heaven, and, God willing, help others to reach heaven, then each moment can and should be lived with the knowledge that I know how the story ends: this may be news to some people, but God wins. The End. Joy is an intrinsic element of the Christian life -- there are no gloomy saints. Every moment can be sanctified, and we were not made to walk through this valley of tears alone. Thank God for friends because otherwise I would have gone insane long ago.

Ultimately, does that C matter in my life? Maybe. I don't know, and there's no point in worrying about it now. There are too many other wonderful and perilous things going on in my life right now for me to spend precious hours fretting over a grade from one class in my freshman year at college. God has a plan for me (another news flash), and it will all work out fine.

This started out as a post about swearing and morphed into a musing on...pretty much everything else. Which is just fine on this blog.

Lessons from The Verge

"I've seen the future and it is slang."--Fanny, On the Verge

Recently, I read a thoroughly excellent play entitled "On the Verge." (see picture). Basic premise: three Victorian explorer women set out to explore "Terra Incognita," and end up travelling into the future. Highly recommended. It made me realize how many fantastic, delicious words ther are in the English language. There's a whole treasure trove of words out there just begging to be used!

Resolution #1: Polish up vocabulary.

In contrast, the show I just finished working on, columbinus, had a different sort of vocabulary. It was gritty and realistic and very rough, which was perfectly fitting for the show. The constant barrage of dirty words made me realize how pointless foul language is. Its only point is to shock and seek attention. But after you've been bombarded with those words thousands of times, they loose their power. But words like: incandescent, sunset, creamy, cerulean, ebullient, effervescent, melifluous, snowfall, sparkle, celestial, vibrant, beauty, quintessence, and love will always radiate beauty and meaning. That's what language is supposed to be.


Also, I was surprised by how much I identified with the character Mary (there are three main characters-Fanny, Mary, and Alexandra). Throughout the play, I never felt like I had a good sense of who Mary was, until the end. Half-way through the play, the women settle down in the 1950's. But Mary wants to travel on, she wants to find more and more adventures---"I have such a yearning for the future! It is boundless!" I love that spirit of adventure-it reminds me of that Chesterton quote: "An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered, an adventure is an inconvenience rightly considered."

Resolution #2: Look on life as an adventure.


Finally, one of the big debates that exists in the play is whether or not the women should wear trousers. (Trousers! Shocked gasp.) Alexandra is all for it, Fanny is dead set against it, and Mary says: "The civilizing mission of Woman is to reduce the amount of masculinity in the world. Not add to it by wearing trousers." I would argue with Mary that we're not supposed to reduce the amount of masculinity, per se, but rather counter it with an equal amount of femininity. These three women are strong, gracious, and playful. Despite their idiosyncratic flaws, they're all admirable literary characters.

Resolution #3: Be a part of "On the Verge" someday, somehow, somwhere.