c) Why bother having long hair if you always wear it up?
d) You should leave your job.
e) You don't like your job.
f) You should wear makeup.
Words in my head that are mine:
a) I'm unhappy because my friends keep telling me I'm unhappy instead of listening to me or knowing whether I am or not. Oh, wait. Maybe I have less friends than I thought. Hang on, this one might be right.
b) I like my hair, but I usually wear it up. It's a challenge to see if I can get to Grandma length, ie, bum top length. But I really want blue foils. Should get on that.
c) Because I'd really, sincerely, rather not rinse other people's blood out of my hair in case of a flying spill. Tying it back, or up, is a good choice.
d) When you're paying my bills, you can tell me what I can or can't do...no, wait...wait...eff off.
e) Yeah...hmm. I've worked a long time to get here, and I'm good at it. I don't like the hours I work, even with their perks. And I have more to learn. But if you like, give me day shift with no boss person...I'm there. But otherwise? It's a good job, I'll stick.
f) Make-up? Oh, for shit's sake. So the orderlies think I'm hitting on them? Eff off. Or the peeps I work with do? I've never worn makeup at my current work, unless I've come from a dinner out where I have. I'm not starting now. They're quite free to believe I'm ugly. I don't.
FFS, it's clearly a scam if the grammar is shitty, or if you're asked for account details via email. We've been online for a long time kids: the AFP do not send out infringement notices via email, and if your bank insists on only email contacts between you: either change banks, or you have so much money you don't care/it doesn't matter/you're laundering money.
And stories-slash-jokes. For shit's goddamn sake, as with email ten-to-fifteen years ago, the same fucking stories are going round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round and round.
Like that kid with cancer who just never fucking dies because everyone shares the post, it's all about heartwarming stories of this wonderful person who was kind to someone, or someone getting back at a shithead (and no one ever seems to notice that the get-backerer is often just as much of a shithead). Yay for them. I'd rather see or do it myself than read about it, especially when the details not only ring a bell, but are either a story I read years ago (ever noticed how those click-bait sites have no dates on their articles? Bit of a giveaway, ay wot?), or just a rehash.
And then, and I'm starting to get a headache from the screeching inside my head from this, AND THEN, "type Amen in the comments"...because otherwise you are clearly shit on a stick. Fuck off. I know far more bible-thumping dorks than I'm comfortable with. The ones who assume they are good people because they go to church once a week (and may even show up through the week, who cares) - and the rest of the time behave like massive arseholes.
You're not a great person if you spend the rest of the time judging everyone else: you're just a judg-y dick. You're not a great person if you delight in sharing the apparently scurrilous details of someone's life to affirm your position as someone who does better: you're just a gossipy shit. And if you bring someone's mental health or lack thereof into it...sympathy is a wonderful thing. Perhaps you should try it. Empathy may be beyond your reach, but wow. Here's a thought: I assume from the outset I am not a good person. I'm not. I don't say that to get a flurry of comments about how I am: that's my personal assessment of myself. I try. I try to do the right thing. Sometimes I get that right, and sometimes I get smug about it, but then I fuck up, or have an arsehole moment, and my head goes back to its normal proportions. While I'm about it, though...
Don't fucking preach at me about colour, race, religion, gender or orientation. I don't give a shit about those things beyond how they're important to you. You, a person I actually know, as opposed to a voice in the fucking ether. If I just met you, I assume we're both at zero. So quit yelling at me about how I'm supposed to DO SOMETHING TO MAKE IT CLEAR WE'RE ALL EQUAL. Like what? FFS, we're equal.
While I'm on about about preaching, STOP YELLING AT ME FOR NOT BEING WHOLEHEARTEDLY ON BOARD WITH YOUR POLITICAL STANCE. Fuck off. I'm engaged, I care, but I don't have to agree with you to be a decent person. I'm a conscience voter, and you don't get to be my conscience.
Ahem. What started this rant off was a post on Facebook: "click like if you think the world needs more Happy Days than Kardashians".
The world does not need more Happy Days, Family Ties, Touched by an Angel, Dr Quinn, Star Trek- actually the world does not need more reruns or reboots of the same old shit. I don't mean I won't watch them...but I am over them. We don't need Kardashians either, as far as I can tell, but I'm sick of seeing the same shit recycled, and then crowed about as some kind of golden age. We're dangerously close to simply repeating our past(s). (Thanks, Television! That "chewing gum for the mind" motif has really hit its lowest level! We've gone past the sudden release of flavour (after a half-hour's chewing) to basically chewing glue! Well done! Industrial carpet never tasted this good!)
Nobody forces you to watch anything, and you could, I don't know, buy some DVDs if television really shits you that much. Or read a book. I'd rather watch something new and interesting (or even boring) than be launched into ever-recursive loops about superheroes/trailblazers and how 'x' played it so much better. Maybe because MASH is a lot less funny than I remember, but really: history, we're doomed to repeat it. Quite a lot of the shows I grew up with are now nigh-on excruciating to watch: the idea of ethnicity or gender being quaint, or a show addressing either being seen as edgy is just so much fucking petrified horseshit, as far as I'm concerned. Old news. And I won't even begin to pick on golden age movies and their treatment of women. But I also don't want an emotionally fraught conversation about how the death of a character is really "necessary" - particularly if it's unexpected or in the context of a reboot. It's a story. I'm saving my emotion for swearing at politicians, and dickheads who can only drive at night with their high beams on.
It isn't that I don't care, because stories - however ephemeral or devalued by constant rebooting - tell us how to live. But it isn't exactly an interesting conversation if your argument is based only on feelings rather than exploration of theme, context, broader impacts, or even, dare I say it, clever framing to tell that story. When the conversation starts with, "it was good, but..." and doesn't get much beyond you didn't like it, well, bye. You don't like it, okay. I might or might not like something: do I really have to be harangued about how you either did or didn't?
I should sidebar here to explain my vitriol on this one. It's because of Shaun of the Dead.
I once said I kinda liked it in company that didn't: when I tried to point out the utterly lovely mirroring sequences of Shaun's trip to the local grocer on the day before the zombie pseudo-apocalypse, where he is totally oblivious, to his trip the day of, when he's hungover and also oblivious...or the beautiful moment the morning of, when he and Ed (his perennial loser-ish friend) stumble home singing with each other and assume a zombie moaning at them is a drunk twat (they hear the archetypal moan from an unfortunate and attempt to make it it trio rather than a duet of their own drunken singing - it's a gorgeous satire moment. (We know, watching, that that's a fricken' zombie; they go with drunk tit.)) I tried to point that out: I was summarily shut down. At the time, I didn't really like the movie, as such: I thought it was just silly...except for those lovely moments.
And those lovely moments made me look for more in it, which I subsequently found...rather than dismissing it out of hand. I kept looking because I didn't entirely like it but liked its moments: I didn't think it should be "better". Better in the sense the person who shut me down thought: that was an exercise in reduction. They thought it should be something serious. Oh please. Silly is just as good as serious in exploring deep thoughts: anyone who thinks humour is a waste of time is basically a boring bastard, though they may have redeeming qualities. Thinking that the seriousness of pop culture tropes is more important than the actual point of them makes you not the intellectual you think you are but rather dull. And possibly a tit.
I should have been asleep hours ago, but I made the stupid mistake of checking Facebook after reading some Grantchester stories. And now I'm wound right up. As with The Hanging Tree, I rather hope this means it will be out of my head now it's on a page, but it didn't work last time, and the internal four-letter-word monologue now running through my head says the same will happen here.
If you haven’t seen or read The Hunger Games series or trilogy (as appropriate), there will be spoilers in this post.
We finally watched the Mockingly Part 1 last week. I’d say we’re slow, but it’s really that it’s grim and depressing. I’ve read the books, so I know how it all ends: the journey is harsh.
But it’s “The Hanging Tree” I want to talk about, particularly in the film. Some of the imagery has a chilling resonance with a completely different trope to that of rebellion. Katniss interprets the song for herself, and the reader. I don’t necessarily disagree with her interpretation, but I think there is a bit more going on metaphorically than a single dead murderer singing. There are numerous interpretations of “The Hanging Tree” all over the internet: try The Hogwarts Professor’s, or Amelia Mason’s take on it, they also explore the lynch mob influences that litter American History and song.
While those influences are important, I’m not American, so my take on it is inevitably different. I don’t wish to take away from its cultural roots, but it is applicable in other, if similar, contexts.
The song itself runs:
“Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where they strung up a man they say murdered three.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where the dead man called out for his love to flee.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Where I told you to run, so we’d both be free.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.
Are you, are you
Coming to the tree
Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.
Strange things did happen here
No stranger would it be
If we met up at midnight in the hanging tree.”
There are differences in the song in the movie that have to do with the delivery of the music - I’ve typed this out exactly as it appears in my copy of Mockingjay, and I’ve had to resist amending the punctuation to get it “right”. The only important change is by no-longer-gamesmaster Heavensbee from “necklace of rope” to “necklace of hope”. He says himself “it’s a bit on the nose, but ‘"of course so is war”. It’s more than on the nose, it’s twee. Given the subject matter, and the oppression the Capital practises, it’s also unnecessary. The Districts know what they face in rebellion, and I’ll be coming back to this later (with a short video interlude), because it deals with the resonance I mentioned at the beginning. It is in keeping with original rebellion trope, because District 13 does seem to treat this as a game with real players. I don’t doubt their resolve, seriousness or ultimate aim, but the ending surprised me not at all. (I’m not going to give that much of a spoiler, sorry kids.)
The song, then (which I’ll describe by stanzas, because it’s easier).
The language in the first unique line is telling: “they strung up a man they say murdered three”. Not “a man was hanged”, but he was strung up, which suggests a midnight lynching rather than due process of law (yes, yes, cultural root, I know). And then, “They say murdered three”. In most of the critiques I’ve read, much is made of the “they”, and quite rightly so, but I’m more caught by the “say”. Say anything you like, it doesn’t make it true.
The second unique line is probably the easiest to understand. Run. Away. The third Katniss believes to be the murderer calling his love back to him, and thinks it’s confirmed by the last line. In a straight reading…yep, okay. But in the context of a banned song that is used (in the film at least) as District 13 propaganda to foment rebellion, it’s a little more complicated.
What strikes me is the meaning of the surrounding verse, and the interaction of meanings with each unique line.
The surrounding verse in each stanza could be taken to describe a physical gallows: in a state of total oppression, where the state murders its subjects, the gallows is a central place where the populace must gather at the behest of their masters. However, what the people see and feel is more often different to their masters’ intention than not. While the oppressor may aim to subjugate, the oppressed will eventually rebel or flee entirely than remain oppressed. History is littered with examples, and here the cultural roots are amplified, but the examples are not limited to those roots.
And here, while the gallows is something of a meeting place, “strange things did happen here” has several meanings. The meanings: that the Capital persecutes rather than rules; that the accused may not be guilty of the crime for which they are punished; that the watching populace is not entirely subjugated but ultimately doubts the wisdom of such treatment; that the hanging tree becomes a metaphorical place to meet; and that the hanging tree becomes a metaphor for rebellion (or freedom, depending on your point of view).
The metaphorical meaning of the hanging tree changes subtly with each unique line. If we take the entire song as a call to rebellion or revolution (as District 13 would have it), then the personal story of one murderer” doesn’t hold water.
With the first stanza, the straightforward reading of the hanging tree as an execution point appears correct: the impact of the stanza comes from the unique line. The warning is implicit (“they say…”), rather than overt.
In the second stanza, the hanging tree itself becomes the warning as the singer warns his love directly. The surrounding verse is then more ominous. It tells of the price of rebellion. I take the inference that the only way to avoid the hanging tree is to flee.
But in the third stanza, taking the second unique line into account, if fleeing isn’t an option, then die for your freedom. The hanging tree itself, as characterised by the surrounding verse, is becoming a metaphor for freedom.
The fourth stanza calls for solidarity in death. “Wear a necklace of rope, side by side with me.” In this the hanging tree is completely a metaphor for rebellion/freedom: fight or die, there is no flee.
And here I get chills. The song is beautifully written and performed in the film (props to Jennifer Lawrence - see what I did there?), but it’s the District 2 footage that chills me.
The song is catchy with a wonderful rhythm, despite its content…or maybe because of it. Though I criticised it earlier, the light moment of Haymitch saying (in his usual sarcastic tone), “Oh, you are a true wordsmith.”, and Heavensbee explaining himself is heartening. That Beetee details his contribution to both the security and breaching of it underlines the rebellion trope.
It’s a beautiful segue in tone: when the voices of the people join in with Katniss (at 1:59), with that weight of numbers and the curiously soothing thing that is human voices in chorus happens, it becomes downright terrifying. Or did to me. Those people are going to sacrifice themselves.
What disturbs me more is that the imagery is very much zombie horde approaching normals. And sure enough, they act with no regard for themselves: they are mown down, but still keep going…or coming, depending on your point of view. That they succeed at all is utterly marvellous, but no, oh no. In the context of the story, there is no other way: the song makes this clear. Foreshadowing, if it be needed, take a lesson from this one.
I’ve always thought of zombies as simple metaphors. Pick your representative thing. Go with it. Whatever you’re an individual about, the zombies are the them. You are the us. Yay. Straightforward. But that this uses similar imagery is disturbing.
Musically, here’s a more intricate version:
Lovely, right? But. Though less violent, the imagery is similar: a horde standing in backlit fog, then screaming and running into the enemy.
I don’t have an answer to this, but is this us? Are we the zombie horde now, and our governments/authorities/people in charge/media the “normals”? I’m not asking to make some crap joke because I don’t like the Libs: have we shifted from prizing our individuality to wanting nothing more than strength in numbers? By what are we so threatened?
So here is a story, unlocked by another story. But I am going to add several metaphorical (if not actual) parentheses (they will not be apparent as actual parentheses).
I'm reading Making Money by Terry Pratchett (I'm working my way through the Discworld), and I came across this:
"...in the muted silence of the banking hall, the click of the green pen being deployed had the same effect of the sound of the axe-man sharpening his blade."
And I remember Pat (previously known as my foster mother...at least as far as this blog is concerned), telling me a story.
She had a degree in economics, with a side of accountancy (it always does one good to learn a trade). But in her day, women could only ever make seventy-five percent of a man's wage at best, and could not, under any circumstances, be in charge (unless, well, she opened her own business and got called a prostitute all the time, regardless of what the bidniz actually iz). Ahem.
So there she is, an accountant, in a bookkeeping farm. (A bookkeeping farm is like a server farm, except that instead of hard drives, you have people adding up profit and loss thingies for the accountants to deal with so they can formulate...the balance sheet.) (That should probably be punctuated as "The Balance Sheet".)
And she worked for this utter stereotype of a man: long lunches, no work (hey, she did it, but since it was done...he did it, right?). But he was the kind of twerp who would pull up the smallest mistake of an underling. So as to make a big deal of it? So as make it clear he was in charge? Probably both, that part I don't know, I only know what she told me. But I'll go with the latter...it validated his job, this pointing out of others' mistakes, rather than teaching them how not to make them. And he'd mark those in green pen.
Green pen, the scourge of bookkeepers everywhere.
So she knew the underlings' work and workload, and she'd watch as the overlord vetted: he would find increasingly small errors, and then SCORE THEM WITH THE GREEN PEN.
The caps are important, because she used to watch this, knowing any mistake would be small, but that he would make that junior's life a misery once the green pen thus spoke.
And one Friday (of course these things happened on a Friday, so better to let everyone stew over the weekend), he read the reports. He pulled out the green pen-
"DON'T YOU DARE!" Thus spoke Zarathustra. She cursed him. She wished him dead: in the moment for what he was doing, but really, because of what he was (I'm adding my own interp here: an immense twat with delusions of grandeur).
She went home assuming she was not only fired, but could never find work again. She duly showed up to work on Monday morning. She wasn't fired.
She wasn't fired. He'd had a massive heart attack, and died that Friday.
But she thought for years that her curse had worked. That she had wished him dead, and thus he was. She told me this as a way to understand how powerful words (and actions) are: mean what you say, and do what you mean. Never be frivolous about any curse you throw, because even if it's all bunkum: if it comes true you have to live with its consequences.
It might seem paradoxical, but given how poisonous I have felt her parenting to be...it's good to have found words to live by that I have tried to live by.
