I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality… I believe that unarmed truth and unconditional love will have the final word.
– Martin Luther King, Jr.

I sat down and listened to the “I have a dream” speech today – and realized that I had never actually heard it before! Sure, I’ve read the speech, and others of his perhaps a dozen times, but I never actually listened to it, all the way through, as spoken by the man himself.

It was surprisingly enlightening.

I spent most Martin Luther King holidays during my teenage year angry, not perhaps at MLK himself, but at the importance that people attached to him. It seemed completely justified at the time – he was a plagiarist, a hypocrite in a variety of other ways, etc. (and I was influenced by my moderately racist local culture). After I became a feminist, I added his occasionally poor attitude toward women to the list.

Eventually, of course, I realized that most of his supposed failings were either fabrications or exaggerations made by a rather nasty group of people (there’s a nice write up here, if you’re curious). But even more important, I think, was realizing who Martin Luther King Jr. actually was.

Martin Luther King Jr. was a great speaker. He wasn’t a philosopher or a scientist who single-handedly discovered some great truth. And while he was an excellent leader, I don’t think that’s really why he’s important. Martin Luther King Jr. real impact was that when he spoke, he wasn’t just speaking for himself – he was speaking for an entire community. Even more, perhaps – he spoke for a whole group of people, black, white, women, men, who had one thing in common: they cared about equality.

MLK didn’t just speak about race either, as some would have us think, he spoke about war, about poverty, even about technology. His genius was that he said what the people said; in listening, we can hear the people (including, perhaps, ourselves) speak.

And we would do well to listen.

(Crossposted at Fourth Wave Feminism)

Then some smart person invented the wax cylinder record and the wire recorder (like a tape recorder, only with a wire). They sounded terrible. Really terrible. From a modern perspective, they are rather hard to listen to.Here are some halfway decent pre-1910, as an example.

But things got better very quickly. Microphones improved dramatically, magnetic tape and vinyl records were invented, all the way to 24 bit DVD audio and $10,000 sound systems. And here’s where it all gets stupid.

Now, recording engineers are obsessed with headroom, with avoiding distortion, with getting the cleanest, ‘hottest’ recording at all costs (it is their job, but still…). Audiophiles, when they’re not buying the latest gadget, are debating the benefits of 24 bit vs 16 bit vs vinyl. And musicians (who were the actual inspiration for this post!) are obsessed with being recorded properly, with getting just the right equipment, and on and on and on.

I’d like to offer a simple solution. It doesn’t matter! Listen to this recording. And this one. Yes, there’s clipping, noise, distortion. Yes, Armstrong’s trumpet sounds strange and muted, significantly different from the true sound. Yes, the tape hiss on the Heifetz is almost as loud as the music at times. But they both are wonderful performances! Would it really make a difference if the recordings were better? Really? Sure, I might listen to the better one if I had it (or not! I’d have to hear it first – I’ve been known to prefer live versions of e.g. the Indigo Girls over studio versions.), but would I enjoy it more? I somehow doubt it.

Maybe all that really matters in music, is, well, the music.

Just a thought.

This ends today’s impassioned rant.

They just published another post about the wonderfulness of immunizations, wherein they do a nice job of steamrollering over any opposing arguments. But I’m not going to write about that.

During the lack of discussion, Roxanne said this;

Vaccinations are a gamble: Will the reduced chance of a future disease outweigh the chance of complications now? Everyone has to make the choice for themselves. No medical procedure – and that includes vaccination – should be required by law. Period. End of sentence.

and then, Giacomo said this:

Roxanne, I’m sorry but you are wrong on “No medical procedure – and that includes vaccination – should be required by law”.

The right of the human race to survive as a whole overrides the right of individuals to be careless. If an epidemic is endangering society as a whole, collective and democratic bodies have the right to impose vaccination. I think this thread made it quite clear.

Is that so?

Say that the population is falling from too few births. Does the ‘right of the human race to survive as a whole’ trump the right of a woman to refuse to have children? Not quite ‘being careless’, I suppose, but still the same principle.

And there is hardly an epidemic that is endangering society as a whole. For the sake of argument, though, let’s say that there is, or say that if a significant number of individuals don’t take some action (preventing themselves from being sterilized by radiation, perhaps) or any other event, human race will become extinct. Is there some moral mandate to preserve the race at all costs?

Another fun example – some people seem to think that it’s extremely important that we place a ‘backup’ of humankind on a planet. That way, if decide to nuke ourselves, human life will be safe! After all, everybody knows that human existence has made such a valuable contribution to the advancement of the universe, that it is imperative we continue existing.

Remind me again: How does the universe determine value? Why do you care what happens after you and those you care about are dead? If humans suddenly, painlessly, ceased existence, why would that bother you? And if we die out naturally, where is the loss? Heck, some ecologist-types believe we deserve to become extinct!

Here’s the point: if it is wrong to not be vaccinated, or if anything else is wrong, it is wrong because it hurts people. Not ‘the human race’, not ’society’, but individual, specific people, whom are hurt by your specific, individual choice. You don’t have proof that anyone beside yourself exists. Humans are not a hive mind. We do not exist collectively. We infer others’ existence, and we act based on that, but we only care because we assume they are like us, that they feel our pain. Even more specifically: I care about you, because you are like me. Nothing more.

More on this later, when I can come up with some counterarguments.

Sigh…

I don’t understand this. Is it really true that a person’s enjoyment of a story could be dependent on not knowing what’s going to happen? Look – there’s only one ending to any story: “They died.” It doesn’t matter whether the story goes, “She lived happily ever after in a little house on the coast,” or “He was pushed off the cliff by a pack of wolves,” the end result is the same. “and then they died.” Okay, okay – I suppose, “they lived for eternity,” is a possible ending, but that make… two? You know how the story’s going to end already! This applies to Harry Potter too – guess what! He’s going to die, either now or later.

Get over it.

And the plots in the middle aren’t much better. I once read a Dickens novel (Hard Times, I think it was), which had an introduction containing this sentiment: (paraphrased) “Nobody but a small child would read this book to find out whether the [protagonist] foils the [antagonist]. Instead, we read it for the characters, the emotional meaning.” I think that this is true of everything. Remember Shakespeare? He’s supposed to be a pretty good writer, right? (I happen to think that he’s overrated, but still…) Get an edition of his plays containing plot summaries of each play, and just read the summaries. Than go read the ’soap update’ in TV Guide. Shakespeare’s plots suck! They really do! Now, I suppose you could make an argument that they were fresh and original when they were written, but I doubt it. Fortunately, we don’t watch and read Shakespeare for the plots – in his case, it’s the language that matters. And that goes for most other books. You read Austin and Tolstoy and Alcott for the characters, Asimov for the ideas, etc., etc., etc.

That’s not to say that plot only exists to provide a vehicle for characters and language, of course. I’ll argue all day that the plot is the main feature of The Handmaid’s Tale. (It’s mostly indirectly expository, but still plot) But in order for a plot to be worth caring about, it has to stand up to scrutiny, to bear repeated readings or watchings, not fall apart when you find out the ’secret’!

So please, people, don’t be so crazy about being ’spoiled’. If it was worth seeing in the first place, it won’t hurt anything to know about it beforehand.

Note: Spoilers for games are a legitimate worry – if you know the solution to a puzzle, it’s often not as much fun. But: 1. Puzzles are usually meant to only be solved once, and 2. These sorts of games are not literature!

And now for something completely frivolous!

Xena fans have expended an astonishing amount of effort on analysis of lesbian subtext. Is it really there? How intentional is it? How much of it is there? Let’s make a complete list of every possible subtext moment in every single episode! Let’s make subtext the whole point of the show, and interpret every single phrase out of context! Let’s declare that that scene/line/episode never happened, because we don’t like the implications it has on X&G’s relationship!

Now, don’t get me wrong – there is nothing wrong with any of this. In fact, it’s amazing what we have accomplished – the fan fiction alone is absolutely amazing. And I certainly appreciate the need to re-imagine something in order to identify with it. But in the end, I like to think that the authors’ story is, well, the real story! Call it artistic integrity, if you will. (I’m guessing that my classical music background has a lot to do with my opinions on this subject – ‘composer’s original intent’ and all that.)

Anyway, I’m going to try and write something that I haven’t seen yet – an analysis of Xena subtext that is completely canon. (Excepting, of course, the intentionally out-of-character comic moments.) It will consider all of the relationships, and try and ‘connect the dots’ in a reasonable way. In other words, it’s the story, told as I would have wanted to see it, without ignoring what was actually written. And as a bonus, it’s yet another take on the Xena chronology; I make no claims as to accuracy.

So, here goes!

Part 1: Pre-Gabby Xena

Xena grows up in her little village. She’s a pretty typical kid, blah, blah. Then the evil warlord guy attacks, and she starts out on the warrior princess road. She starts out by simply trying to protect Amphibolis – but pretty soon she gets bored, and starts trying to take over as much of the world as possible. She’s drunk with adventure and power. She uses random men for sex – evil seductress stereotype, anyone? But she’s not evil, not yet. She’s a bit crazy, a bit ambitious, but she’s still happy, still in love with life.

M’lia

Then, she meets Caesar and M’Lila. She falls in love with Caesar, but becomes ‘friends’ with M’Lila. Notice the difference between the two relationships – with Caesar, it’s is all Power and Sex, Sex and Power, the two conflated with each other. But Xena and M’Lila develop a real, if strange, friendship. It starts with M’Lila teaching Xena the Pinch; remember how important is was to Xena to teach Gabrielle the Pinch in Friend In Need? After their exchange of near-death experiences, Xena says, “come on,” and it’s almost as if she’s talking to Gabby. Xena might have the hots for Caesar’s power, but M’Lila is her best friend, in an ‘almost soulmates’ sense. Were they lovers? No. Xena still has the men=power+sex complex. But M’Lila is her first real friend since her brother died. As for M’Lila herself, I think that she was completely in love with Xena. Why else was she hiding on the ship? Why else would she so readily put herself at Xena’s mercy via the pinch? And of course, she cuts Xena off of the cross, takes her to be healed, and dies by taking an arrow that was meant for Xena. All that because it ‘wasn’t Xena’s time to die’? I doubt it. Xena feels it too – she was merely mad at Caesar before – if that, but after M’Lila dies she goes completely I-hate-the-world insane!

And since she’s even more obsessed with power than before, when she meets Borias she jumps at the chance to exploit him. He’s a warlord with a bigger army, and she’s just the right mixture of insane dark power and inexperience and weakness (courtesy of the broken leg) for Borias to fall for her. But Xena doesn’t even pretend to care about him or what he thinks. She just wants his power.

Lao Ma

As a result, she falls for Lao Ma, but can’t stand it. Lao Ma is the first person who’s loved her since M’Lila, and that scares Xena, makes her feel powerless. So she rejects Lao Ma, and runs back to Borias – she wants her power back. In physical terms, I don’t think that the relationship went very much farther than we saw on screen. It was going further, though, and the whole thing scared Xena – Lao Ma was more than her equal, was older, wiser, and truly cared for Xena. Borias was simple and easy to screw over – both literally and figuratively. Xena wasn’t ready for a real relationship, so she took the easy route out.

Akemi

She doesn’t love Borias any more than before, though, and she misses Lao Ma. So when Akemi shows up, Xena goes for the rebound relationship. Akemi is rather similar to Lao Ma in a superficial way – she has a bit of that ‘air of wisdom’ about her. She’s younger, so Xena feels like she can be in charge in the relationship, and Xena likes that. And so when Akemi dies, Xena is even more heartbroken than she was before!

Alti

When Xena meets Alti, she’s pretty much a wreck. She has an unhealthy, partly sexual, relationship with Alti’s apprentice, as a surrogate for Akemi. Also, Xena has the beginnings of a codependency problem with Alti that is reflected with the apprentice. When the apprentice dies, Xena goes to Alti.

I’m not quite sure what to think of Xena’s relationship with Alti. The little that we see seems similar to her relationship with Borias – power, power, power (I’m starting to sound like a Buffy record…). Xena wants Alti’s spiritual power. Alti wants Xena’s physical power. Perfect match, right?

Right.

Back to the subtext – do they sleep together? I can’t decide! I think that they might have once or twice, in a I-miss-;ltAlti’s apprentice;gt-sort of way, but I just can’t see it working very well – they’re both too crazy.

After Alti, Xena doesn’t have any other relationships with women (that we know of). Until…

Season 1- Xena’s revelation

Xena meets Gabby… and it’s just not love at first sight. I know, I know, there are a few subtexty moments, but it’s just not really happening. Xena is Gabby’s hero, her idol, not her lover. Gabby thinks of Xena as a teacher and a mother/older sister figure. Xena, for her part, sees a bit of herself when she was young – brave, idealistic – and perhaps a bit of Akemi, but Gabrielle is more like an annoying kid sister who she can’t bear to send away. The just don’t see each other as equals at this point. But They bond as Xena teaches Gabby about the world, and while they have their little love affairs, nothing seems to stick. The ’soulmates’ concept is introduced.

Gabby meet the Amazons. She learn to fight – she becomes a little more like Xena, and Xena starts to see her differently. She’s distracted, though, by meeting Marcus, and her relationship with Gabby is put on hold for a while. I’m speculating a bit more than I’d like to here, but I think that Xena becomes scared of love after meeting Marcus again. After all, the people she loves have a nasty habit of dying!

By the end of the season, though, Xena has recovered, both from her evil induced funk, and from Marcus. She acknowledges her true feelings (to herself, anyway) in Is There a Doctor In the House. When Gabrielle almost dies, Xena realizes that she really loves her.

Season 2 – Gabby’s revelation

Gabrielle still doesn’t feel it, though! In fact, she’s rather scared by the idea of being with Xena forever, so much so that she marries Pertecus rather suddenly. She decides to marry him right after he gives up fighting – she is obviously reacting to her growing dislike and fear of violence. Xena lets her go – I wonder, if Callisto hadn’t killed Pertecus, did Xena think that Gabrielle would miss her and come back?

Callisto kills Pertecus. Gabby is heartbroken – she can’t bear to think about another relationship anytime soon. When she finally starts to get over her loss, she starts to move closer and closer to Xena, and their relationship becomes more and more romantic. After The Kiss as it’s called (From The Quest 2×13), things heat up even faster. To answer the big question, they make love for the first time sometime before A Day In the Life, which would explain the couply behavior in that episode. From this point, they are definitely together.

So why does Xena fall for Ulysses (temporarily, at least)? It’s simple – she’s a big cheater! Xena is incredibly commitment-phobic, and with good reason – most of her lovers or potential lovers have died! Her relationship with Gabrielle was getting too serious, so Xena tried to reject her. Ulysses was a boring sort of average person (from Xena’s point of view), so he would have been easy to have a fling with and throw away. She couldn’t bear to do that to Gabrielle! To her credit, Xena is improving – she doesn’t reject Gabby like she rejected Lao Ma.

Season 3 – The Rift

Having overcome Xena’s hangups, they appear to be heading toward ‘happily ever after’. Then, disaster strikes, in the form of Dahok. Whatever else we can say about the Rift, it certainly blows Xena and Gabby’s love life in to a million little bits! Their relationship doesn’t recover quickly, either – I don’t think that they were back together by the time Gabrielle pushes Hope into the lava pit. It’s the old story – you fall in love, and they betray you, only this time it goes both ways, at least to some extent.

It’s probably worst for Gabby. She’s already lost one love. To have Xena betray her could almost make her give up on love completely. But since she and Xena are soulmates, she just can’t give up. So she keeps traveling with Xena, trying to convince herself that they can still be together.

Season 4 – Exploring

I would imagine that a near death experience would change one’s views on almost anything, and that seems to be Gabby’s experience after she survives the lava pit. She finally gives up on Hope (her daughter, I mean), completely. She finally grows up – she’s lost the childish innocence of the earlier seasons. She’s having an identity crisis – she’s not sure whether she can keep fighting. And most importantly, over the course of the season, she falls completely and permanently in love with Xena. To be sure, she sometimes toys with the idea of leaving – with Najara, especially, but while Najara obviously wanted a romantic relationship with Gabby, Gabby doesn’t return any of Najara’s advances! Her idea seemed to be that Najara and her would be merely business partners, of a sort – and she really didn’t want Xena to leave. In the end, she stays with Xena despite everything. She just can’t help herself!

Xena, on the other hand, is having the opposite reaction. She’s haunted by the vision of Gabrielle’s death. Her fear that she will kill everyone she loves seems to be inescapable. The whole season for Xena, is like one long breakup. She knows that if she doesn’t leave her, Gabrielle will die – and Gabby won’t leave.

In the end, of course, they both die – and both come back again. Xena’s fears were unfounded.

Season 5 – Confusion

Xena, of course, isn’t convinced. She’s still resisting the notion of a permanent relationship, even as her and Gabby’s lives become even more intertwined. And Gabrielle is resolving her identity crisis – by becoming far more violent than she ever had been before! Baby Eve and the Gods only makes things worse.

They’re both confused. Xena is still attracted to Ares. She contemplates cheating on Gabby with Antony. Gabrielle is still completely committed to Xena – but doesn’t know how to convince Xena that it’s okay to feel the same way in return. Eventually, though, they work through their problems – 25 years frozen and a rebellious daughter doesn’t hurt their relationship any, either!

Season 6 – Together at last

Finally, Xena gets it. Gabby’s over her identity problems. And they are finally are really together – still facing all kinds of external crises, to be sure – but never really confused about their own relationship (at least, when not turned evil or under a spell!) They’re finally able to clean up most of Xena’s remaining messes, and it’s looking like they may live happily ever after…

But, of course, they don’t. I think that the ending can be taken in two ways. Either Xena really was redeemed – the only way she could be was to sacrifice herself. In a way, this could almost be the cumulation of her relationship with Gabrielle. She’s reformed, atoned for her evil, passed on her warrior destiny to Gabby, and finally sacrifices herself for the greater good.

On the other hand, perhaps her sacrifice was really the last expression of her fear of harming Gabby. And, since her spirit will apparently live on at Gabby’s side, she felt like she could leave Gabby, with a good excuse, and still not lose her entirely.

Whew! That was long!

So there it is. I hope you found my little analysis entertaining!

Yes, I realize this is weird and geeky of me. Essays are supposed to br those annoying things you have to write in English class. You turn them in, you get the grade, and you throw them away. Nobody is supposed to like essays.

But, what is an essay? The dictionary thinks that is a “…piece treating a subject from the author’s personal point of view.” So basically, it’s what you think about something. And really, who doesn’t have an opinion? I have an old book called Never at a loss for an opinion. As far as I can see, this describes almost everybody.

Just pick a subject, any subject. Dental Hygene? Bulldozers? Fly Fishing? It doesn’t matter. If the person in question knows anything about the subject at all, they’ll usually tell you all about it. Most will, anyway. A few people are wise enough to know when to keep quiet. Everyone else (and this includes me, by the way), will tell you what they think, and make fools out of themselves in the process.

I’m not sure that this is all bad, though. Sure, airing your stupid opinions on subjects you have no idea about is useless, but surely everyone has a few worthwhile thoughts. Thoughts that others would benefit from hearing. So, if you write these down, you’ll have an essay – and one that is worth reading. While you’re at it, why not put it on the Internet so anyone can read it?

Maybe this is what blogs are – a continuous essay of life. I don’t think so, though. Most blogs don’t have opinions, or arguments. They have information, often, news – sometimes, and lots of pointless rambling. now, back in the good olde days, pre-web 2.0, there used to be what might be called “essay site’s”. At least, that’s what I called them – I never saw anybody else use the term. But that’s what they were, websites full of essays. Coolest. Sites. Ever.

Unfortunately, most of them have shut down. The only one of my bookmarks that didn’t give a 404:

Curry Bucket’s Controversial Web Presence

It’s a pretty good example of what I’m talking about – but it’s also as dead as a doornail. Now the guy has a blog. (Which is not as cool – it’s all poetry)

And that was the problem with those sites. There really wasn’t any way to keep people checking the site day after day, like a blog, so the blogs won. But blogs don’t encourage the essay format at all. They are meant to be read soon after they’re written, and then disappear into the archive, never to be seen again. And who wants to read thorough endless archives to find a few dozen essay-quality posts.

So what’s the solution? An essay page. If you write something worth reading again, put it on a seperate page with a short summery of the post. That way you can use a blog, and people can find really good stuff without looking through endless archives.

The only page like this that I can think of is at the shakesville blog – they have
a feministing 101 page – basically an essay page. I’m sure there are others, but there need to be more. Every blog ought to have one.

Or maybe not. Maybe nobody really care what anybody else actually thinks. I know that I’d rather read an essay than see yet another picture of someone’s dog.