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About This Author
I am SoCalScribe. This is my InkSpot.
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Blogocentric Formulations
Logocentric (adj). Regarding words and language as a fundamental expression of an external reality (especially applied as a negative term to traditional Western thought by postmodernist critics).
Sometimes I just write whatever I feel like. Other times I respond to prompts, many taken from the following places:
Thanks for stopping by! 
February 22, 2013 at 2:21am February 22, 2013 at 2:21am
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I took a couple days off work this week so that my wife and I could go home and visit family. We're at the end of our first stop; two days in Sacramento to visit my wife's sister, my brother, and my parents and grandmothers. This is where my wife and I spent our formative years, so there's always the occasional high school friend to meet up with as well. Tomorrow morning we're off to the Bay Area where we'll see my wife's father, grandmother, and assorted aunts, uncles, and cousins.
What strikes me most about these trips home is how much my hometown has changed... and at the same time, how nothing's really changed at all. The last time I was in Sacramento was last July for my brother's wedding, and in those seven months an entirely new shopping center has been finished and countless stores have cycled in and out of local storefronts. It still has the same look and feel of the town I grew up in, even if the Borders is now a Famous Footwear and the Ralph's grocery store that's been empty for years is now a Fresh & Easy... but the experience of being here hasn't changed. I grew up in a very consumer-driven area; shopping, dining out, and entertainment are the main pastimes, and even if the Dimple Records in the old part of town is long gone, there's a relatively new Best Buy to fill that niche. The Century Theaters where I spent years hanging out and watching movies has been all but replaced by a brand-new theater in the brand-new shopping center. And the family-owned coffee shop that was struggling to keep its doors open is now a Starbucks.
People in my hometown are still doing the things they've always done; shopping, eating, and looking for entertainment. The only difference is that the shopping centers where you can do these things have been renovated or replaced, and the establishments you can find are more and more often national chains and huge conglomerates rather than locally-owned shops. Perhaps most depressing of all, because of the current state of the economy, even when they do put in a new shopping center, half the storefronts are empty because they can't find anyone who can afford the lease rates that make the center profitable for its investors. Back when the center was in the design phase, they figured a new center in a prime location would net premium rental rates. But few businesses can afford to pay premium rental rates anymore. 
I'm not really sure what I'm trying to say with this blog post. I spent part of today driving around my hometown and seeing what was new, and felt a pang sadness being there, seeing the brand new shopping center and the new big box stores that have replaced the former big box stores that had to close their doors. I was driving through a town I barely recognized for all the new construction and new businesses springing up... and yet it felt like nothing had changed in the ten years since I've lived here. It's a strange feeling when you visit a place that looks like home, acts like home, and even used to be home... and yet also feels so different.
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February 20, 2013 at 1:35pm February 20, 2013 at 1:35pm
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Well, I found my first "must read" book of 2013. I've read a few good ones already, but this is the first one that I completely and unreservedly recommend that you read, especially if you are of high school age or have children of high school age. Fair warning; the book does deal predominantly with the theme of suicide, but it's a fascinating look into the mind of a teenage girl who decides to end her life, and what led her to ultimately make that decision. The book is:
| ASIN: 159514188X |
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Amazon's Price: $ 7.57
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SYNOPSIS (from Amazon): Clay Jensen returns home from school to find a strange package with his name on it lying on his porch. Inside he discovers several cassette tapes recorded by Hannah Baker - his classmate and crush - who committed suicide two weeks earlier. Hannah's voice tells him that there are thirteen reasons why she decided to end her life. Clay is one of them. If he listens, he'll find out why. Clay spends the night crisscrossing his town with Hannah as his guide. He becomes a firsthand witness to Hannah's pain, and learns the truth about himself-a truth he never wanted to face.
In a word, this book is heartbreaking. As Clay listens to the tapes and you hear Hannah explain the events that led to her decision to end her life, there are times when you just want to cry because of the way so many small things caused such a tragic outcome. The thing about the thirteen reasons is that most of them are relatively innocuous and the people who did these things to her at the time would probably have no idea how much their actions affected her if they hadn't heard the tapes. I won't spoil too much for you, but the first two reasons are the guy she shared her first kiss with spreading a rumor that he also let her feel her up... and the second was another juvenile classmate putting her on a list as having the "best ass" in the freshman class.
What's so poignant about this book is that it's little things like that, and the ripples they cause later in the story, that are at the root of Hannah's depression. It's not some manufactured melodrama centering around deep psychological issues like sexual abuse or neglectful parents; it's the story of a lonely girl who decides to end her life because rumors and jokes and childish behavior and the betrayal and inaction of people she thought were friends led her to believe that life was just going to be a series of hurtful disappointments. And it's truly heartbreaking because, as you follow Clay and the progression of the tapes, you realize that all it would have taken to convince Hannah not to kill herself was a kind word here, or a ray of hope there. A kind word or a ray of hope she never received.
This is easily the best book I've ever read about the issue of teen suicide and depression. It so clearly shows how even the little things can have a huge impact in another person's life. You don't know what that person is going through, or the other things that are happening in their life, so you'll never truly know if that rumor you spread or that note you pass around or that time that you could have stood up to someone being bullied and didn't is just another day, or if it's the day another kid decides that there's no reason to continue living.
It's a heavy book, and I sat in my car (I listened to this one on audio) for a good twenty minutes after the book ended just reflecting on what I'd just read/heard. If you want a better understanding of why suicide is such a concerning issue, especially among youths, and how even the smallest things can have a disastrous impact on the mental well-being of a teenager... all told within a compelling narrative... I highly recommend you check this one out.
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February 10, 2013 at 6:45pm February 10, 2013 at 6:45pm
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I'm reading a fascinating book right now called Supergods: What Masked Vigilantes, Miraculous Mutants, and a Sun God from Smallville Can Teach Us About Being Human: ($15.03 from Amazon.Com) by Grant Morrison. In case the extensive title isn't enough, the book is about the history of comics and the influence they've had on people since their inception. Grant Morrison is an accomplished comic book writer and playwright who wrote this analysis of the comic medium in 2011.
In the book, it talks about Dr. Frederic Wertham, a German-American psychiatrist who was an outspoken opponent of violence and perversity in mass media. His criticisms of comic books resulted in a Congressional inquiry, which resulted in the Comics Code of 1954 which was a particularly restrictive set of creative limitations on comics to protect the innocence of readers in the same way that the Hays Code "protected" movie audiences in the 1930s-1960s. Among many of Wertham's accusations were that Batman and Robin (and Alfred) condoned and celebrated a homosexual lifestyle, and that Wonder Woman's island paradise home of Themyscira perpetuated a BDSM lifestyle, especially since a strong, independent female character clearly promoted lesbianism. 
Ultimately, Wertham's argument (however ridiculous his individual accusations) is the same argument that many people still make against video games and other forms of media today... that violent or "perverse" imagery is harmful to children because they don't have the capacity to fully determine right from wrong, or fact from fiction. When there's a school shooting or a suicide, it's the music, or the video games, or the movies, or some other kind of form of media that's scrutinized for contributing factors to the tragedy.
In Supergods, though, Morrison offers a counterpoint to that argument:
"I tend to believe the reverse is true: that it's adults who have the most trouble separating fact from fiction. A child knows that real crabs on the beach do not sing or talk like the cartoon crabs in The Little Mermaid. A child can accept all kinds of weird-looking creatures and bizarre occurrences in a story because the child understands that stories have different rules that allow for pretty much anything to happen.
Adults, on the other hand, struggle desperately with fiction, demanding constantly that it conform to the rules of everyday life. Adults foolishly demand to know how Superman can possibly fly, or how Batman can possibly run a multibillion-dollar business empire during the day and fight crime at night, when the answer is obvious even to the smallest child: because it's not real."
I have to agree with Morrison. When I was a kid, there was a very clear distinction between fact and fiction. When I saw Aladdin in the theater, I didn't go home and start rubbing all the lamps and teapots in our house trying to conjure a genie. When I played the Goldeneye video game (and watched the movie), I didn't think I was a secret agent that could go around shooting people and participating in car chases. The things I watched and the games I played were entertainment... and when they were over, I went on about my business. Maybe I imagined what it would be like to fight alongside the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but the closest I ever got was taking martial arts classes in the safety of a dojo under the supervision of an instructor. I honestly didn't expect anything to jump out of a sewer grate outside and attack us.
Now that I'm an adult and work in the entertainment industry, I do think about things like realism and logic. I read a story and ask myself, "But how did the protagonist learn to be a black ops soldier?" Or, "How can they expect us to believe that an encounter with radioactive toxic waste could give someone superpowers instead of killing them by means of horribly unpleasant radiation poisoning?" Or, "How many times can this same serial killer/arch-villain escape from prison before people lock him up and throw away the key?" Somewhere along the way, I lost that part of myself that I had as a kid, where I didn't need any explanation or a direct link to the real world in order to accept that incredible things were possible. As adults, we can still suspend our disbelief... but it'll never be as easy as it was as a kid to just say, "Hey, I accept that ludicrous premise or explanation because it's supposed to be fiction."
Obviously, there's an exception for those mentally ill, damaged, or imbalanced people who legitimately can't distinguish fact from fiction or reality from imagination, but if we're talking about the same average audience that Wertham is so concerned with protecting, I have to agree with Morrison that kids aren't the ones who have difficultly distinguishing fact from fiction... adults are.
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February 9, 2013 at 2:13pm February 9, 2013 at 2:13pm
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Hard to believe that on the 15th of this month, I'll have been a member of Writing.Com for 10 years. 
I'm amazed at all the things that have changed in the past decade. For Writing.Com itself, the The StoryMaster  and The StoryMistress  have managed to consistently and impressively update the website to keep it updated and fresh. I remember a time (and boy, it doesn't feel like all that long ago!) where there were no such thing as cover images, or notebooks, or even the nice dynamic way our portfolios can expand folders to show us what's inside. Once upon a time, us old folks had to click on the folder and open a new page to see what was inside the folder! What the SM and SMs have done with the site over the ten years I've been a member has been nothing short of remarkable.
For me personally, though, I'm more astounded by the things that have changed in me. I spent a lot of years lurking around the site, really uncertain about how to jump in and get involved. At that point, I was just a college kid who enjoyed creating stories and had been told by a few English teachers that he had a knack for writing. It wasn't until I started getting involved with Writing.Com that I really started to develop my voice as a writer. I entered dozens - possibly hundreds - of contests over the years, writing anything and everything I could. I read and reviewed other stories, including my competitors and the winning entries. Over the years, I worked on my craft and learned to be a better writer.
During those years, the staff also saw fit to promote me from a Registered Author to a Preferred Author, and again from Preferred Author to Moderator. I remember being surprised (and nearly getting into an accident) when I checked my email on the way to work one morning and saw that shiny new yellow case. And almost falling out of my chair at the communal internet computer at our hotel in Paris when I absconded downstairs to check my email and realized that my case was now blue. Those were two of the most memorable surprises of my life, and I've been trying to live up to the honor ever since. By running contests, organizing groups, reviewing thousands of items, donating to activities and the account upgrades of fellow members, etc., I've done my best to give back to an online writing community that's already given me so much. Still not sure I'm doing enough to live up to the trust they've put in me, but I'm never going to stop trying.
Thank you, Writing.Com, for the past ten years. For making me a better writer, and for giving me an online community to call home. I plan on being here for a very long time... and if the past ten years are any indication, the next ten are going to be even better!
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