Memories of Christmas Past

Christmas is all about cliches so forgive the lack of originality in the title. I originally scrapped the idea of a Christmas post, but my friend and talented blogger encouraged me to follow through. A little over a year ago, I wrote a paper for my medieval drama class about the true meaning of Christmas as seen through several modern and medieval works of art. I talked about how most contemporary representations of Christmas are based on the materialistic idea of gift-giving, the gluttony of the feast, and the lack of regard for the Baby Jesus and the rest of Christianity. Although I firmly believe that this is the "true" Christmas, it is not the Christmas I experienced growing up. And I'm sure many of you would agree.

I grew up in a somewhat secular household, but Christmas was still celebrated here. The 24th always consisted of a big dinner at my grandparents' house that included cousins, uncles, aunts, grand-uncles, grand-aunts, and other relatives. It was a way of getting the entire family together in celebration of...well...family I guess. The dinner would always include large plates of moro(a combination of rice and beans), pastel en hoja(boiled dough with a mixture of ground beef and victuals), honey-glazed pork, wine, and a large turkey turkey with stuffing. It would be a way for adults to enjoy wine, liqueurs, and good conversation, and for kids to have one last night of anticipation capped off by fireworks before the big day.

This is how I remember them.

The next day was pure joy. We would wake up and check out the extensive collection of gifts of all sizes and colors under the tree before ripping them open. I could never get enough toys, but I hated clothes more than anything(ironically enough, it's the other way around now). From Toy Story toys, basketball hoops, Nintendo 64 games, bicycles, baseball cards, and cash, there was no way to disappoint me as a kid back then. Sure, I didn't get every single item from my absurdly long Christmas list, but kids only feel their worth in the world through stuff and entertainment. And affection I guess.

But it's different now. The holiday does not have that magical aura anymore--if this was 1997, I'd be playing Donkey Kong on my Game Boy Pocket right now. Christmas will never be as great as it was back then, and that makes me sad, but it still reminds me. It always puts things into perspective and brings back a little bit of that ecstasy back. I sometimes feel like the Grinch, overwhelmed by food and family and just the general spirit of it all, but it's the long-lasting tradition and the memories created by it that make me look forward to it every year. I warned you at the beginning that Christmas was cheesy so there's no other way to explain it (sorry). But after it's over, there's nothing left to do but move on to normalcy again, and try to bring back some of that joy with you.

The Ridiculously Stupid Way Some People Are Destroying Globalization in Soccer

I have recently become annoyed with certain soccer fans and the way they express their passion and pride. In the last month alone, there have been a series of racist and sexual remarks by thousands of fans that have tainted the international spirit of the sport.

I only became a big soccer fan a couple of years ago, but I quickly became a fan of the way that the sport embodies and promotes the idea of global unification. I'm not talking about the world peace cliche that Miss Universe candidates always talk about in beauty pageants--I'm simply talking about how, in comparison to other global sports, soccer has managed to break down every single barrier out there.

Soccer exists in Europe, South America, North America, Asia, Africa, and even Australia has been on the rise lately. More importantly, these countries all have multiple leagues full of international players from other countries and continents. Just look at the Union of European Football Associations(UEFA), the European soccer association. It combines all of the other national European associations and has tournaments(such as the Champions League and Europa League) where teams from different countries and leagues can play each others. On top of that, each country's leagues is full of international players from all over the country that give it even more of an international presence.

My point is that these leagues are constantly reaching out to players and teams from other countries in order to get the best players they can get. Sure, leagues like the MLB and NBA have been branching out as well, but they don't play against other continents or even countries during the season...which is why you would imagine that soccer is bereft of cross-cultural problems, right?

Well, not exactly. My whole point with this post was to address Italy's Lazio's anti-semitic remarks towards Tottenham, a British teams with a large Jewish fanbase. Last month, they played a competitive match where fans started chanting "Spurs Jews" and "Free Palestine" in order to instigate the Tottenham fans. Only half a week after that when Tottenham played West Ham United, their fellow Englishmen followed in Lazio's footsteps and even took it up a notch by making remarks about Adolf Hitler, the Holocaust, and concentration camps.

I admire the passion in soccer fans and their originality in their chants of pride, but I am at a loss for words when hearing about these low blows. Despite all the progress that soccer has made in a world that is still slowly becoming accustomed to the ever-growing globalization, there is still a shocking level of ignorance dominating some people.

The incident that really made me want to write this article was when the Russian Zenit St. Petersburg largest fan group issued the following statement in writing:

"We're not racists but we see the absence of black players at Zenit as an important tradition. It would allow Zenit to maintain the national identity of the club, which is the symbol of St Petersburg."

I understand the idea of tradition and trying to maintain cultural values, but traditions and cultures change, especially in soccer. The fact that they talk about having "an abscence of black players" instead of only having Russian players is what bugs me the most--it's a clear sign of racism instead of national pride. Would they lash against a black Russian? Thankfully, the team did not agree with their fans' sentiments, but it is still very concerning to see how people deal with their love for the game and their national pride. Unsurprisingly enough, these same fans also asked their team to stay away from homosexuals and other sexual minorities.

I know that this is a lot of venting, but I can't help but be surprised by the fact that the World Cup continues to be the biggest international sporting event of a single sport, and there are people in Russia lowering black people that way. And I don't understand why the yearly UEFA Champions League final is the most respected and prestigious sporting event in the world(I guess that's subjective but it is the most watched event of the year, even over the Super Bowl), yet Jewish people are being reminded of the terrible fate of their ancestors by tasteless Lazio and West Ham fans imitating the sounds of 1940s gas chambers.

An Unexpected Journey

The first time I heard that "The Hobbit" was being split into two movies, I figured it was just Peter Jackson and the producers' way of cashing in on the $3 billion dollar success of the Lord of the Rings trilogy. But after I heard that they somehow had enough material to expand it into a third film, I was sure of it.

I was both excited and disappointed when I first learned that a 300-page children's book was being made into some epic trilogy that could rival Tolkien's masterpiece, but I soon learned that Peter Jackson's new creation was no longer The Hobbit. I went to see the first installment of the series, "An Unexpected Journey", with a few friends, and it was really more of an off-shoot of the original book. Sure, the main storyline is still there--it's still about a hobbit, a wizard, and a bunch of dwarves going on a journey to kill a dragon, but the story is still drastically different.

Frodo is in it for some reason.

Without going into too much detail, Jackson and the other writers took the novel "The Hobbit", some material from the preface of "Lord of the Rings", and fleshed out everything. Literally everything. There were characters and plot points in the movie that weren't even mentioned in the book.

I have a feeling that many die-hard fans will be disappointed, but it's something that should be accepted for what it is. Some people say that art doesn't belong to any one person, but to everyone, and that philosophy is part of the reason why I wasn't seeing it as a Tolkien novel. Jackson created a Middle-Earth story drawing from the world of Tolkien and created his own story, and even gave characters other than Bilbo Baggins their own arc.

The LotR films are a great example of a book adapted into a movie that worked, but The Hobbit is much more self-indulgent when looking at Peter Jackson's vision. All bad puns aside, I guess that really makes the new Hobbit, an unexpected journey.

Perks of Being a Teenager

I saw Perks of Being a Wallflower a few weeks ago and loved it immediately. I was a bit skeptical at first since watching a coming-of-age high school movie at age 22 didn't seem that appealing to me, but seeing Paul Rudd in the cast convinced me. In case you haven't seen it, it's a film adaptation of a Stephen Chbosky novel of the same name focusing on a high school freshmen called Charlie looking to fit into the judgmental label-maker that high school is. He soon meets seniors Patrick and his step-sister Sam who invite him to be part of their exclusive group of outcasts known as The Wallflowers.

Without giving too much away, the movie then becomes a story about how Charlie gradually manages to fit in with The Wallflowers and finds himself through them. I liked this movie for several reasons. I like the fact that Charlie was truly unique in his personality, interests, and fashion style. Whereas many movies fail at trying to create an empathetic individual with a fascinating arc, Perks succeeds. It was refreshing to see Charlie and the rest of the Wallflowers all have their own thing going on.

Although my teenage years weren't revolutionary enough to inspire a book, screenplay, and critically acclaimed movie, watching Perks brought back a lot of memories. Even though some argue that people don't truly find themselves until their 20s come along, I still place more importance in what life was like back then. I feel like being a teenager was sort of like a coming out party--being a kid allows to hide behind the protective bubble that is childhood but the teens give you that first taste of reality. And yes, I'm talking about realizing how much everything sucks.

I remember feeling all the frustration that came from the inevitable adolescent angst. At the time, it felt like there was a collective opinion about every aspect in life that resided within each teenager. It felt like catholicism was the only acceptable religion, skinny jeans and a young girl's t-shirts equal hotness, not caring about school made you super cool, and that horrible, vile, black plague known as emo music that consumed the world for the worse part of a decade was badass.

An image of a wealthy, white male with happily married parents before cutting himself.

In case you couldn't tell, I was turned off by the trends that dominated my high school years. Not all of them, but most. But I'm glad that those things existed and I'm glad that I wasn't a follower because it made me discover things I might have overlooked otherwise. I enjoyed stepping outside of my comfort zone and discovering music on my own and listening to it because I truly enjoyed it and connected to it. From the raw aggression and passion of Slayer to the soothing, "stoner" space daze that The Verve provided, I found new ways of expressing myself even if it was by myself, facing a computer and an iTunes library on my shitty iBook.

Meeting people at 15 was another eye-opening moment that I hadn't previously experienced. Sure, I had some friends and family who loved me, but early 2006 really marks the moment where I started to expand my circles and started meeting people who were genuine and cool. I found others who appreciated Slayer, pretty girls who didn't think every guy was a decaying pile of feces, and even a few cool emo rockers(as hard as that is to admit).

Back then, I learned that even being unique meant having to conform to certain things. For me and my friends, and I say this with no shame, was the phenomenon that Myspace was at the time. It was just so much cooler than Facebook. You had a Top 8 Friends list(where I always had the amazing Marty Friedman at #1), different layouts for your page and background, a display picture, and many other sweet gadgets you could use to customize your page to your personality.

Who didn't love Tom's updates?

Sure, Myspace faded into obscurity with the coming of Facebook, but living in the times and choosing how to live them is what makes the teenage years unique. And that's why Perks of Being a Wallflower resonated with me. Even though it is set in a different era, 'unique' would be the right word to describe it by. Instead of trying to appeal to a very specific audience, Chbosky chose to do his own thing and create a group of characters that represent the rite of passage that being a teenager is supposed to embody.

Part of the reason why Perks succeeds is the fact that it was not only a novel written by Chbosky, but he also wrote the screenplay and directed the movie. That means that he created his own soundtrack, developed characters who have depth and flaws, and edited the movie into a compelling collection of scenes that accurately portrays all the shenanigans, victories, awkwardness, and heartbreaking moments that exist with every teenager without sugar-coating anything.

An Incomplete List of Small Pleasures

Well I had several ideas for what to write about this week, but I kept changing my mind until I stumbled into this. Frank Chimero is an artist of several mediums interested in expanding the curiosities of other artists (check out his library) by exploring their own minds and surroundings in more depth. As an aspiring artist, this exercise seemed like a good idea to do some exploration, so here goes my own "incomplete list of small pleasures":

-Playing FIFA. A lot of FIFA.
-Reading a Cracked article, then opening related ones until I have twelve tabs of interesting, but useless trivia articles to occupate my time for the next hour. And doing this every day.
-Actively listening to my favorite bands' entire discography in bed while trying to be productive, but failing at it.
-Running in the wilderness(or on a treadmill) while passively listening to a wide array of random, catchy songs.
-Playing poker with friends while alternating my hands between stacking up my chips in neat, uni-colored piles and sipping a drink.
-Watching How I Met Your Mother(or anything really) in bed with my girlfriend while eating microwaved Chinese food.
-Late night runs to 7/11 for possibly unhealthy, but delicious snacks.
-Going on a walk either by myself or with good company without caring about my surroundings, the time, or the future.
-Weekend movie marathons.
-Long, hot showers on a cold, dreary day.
-Going to a ballpark, buying overpriced chicken fingers and beer, and yelling at the outfielders.
-Going on a long bus/train/car ride and staring out the window until I slowly doze off.

 

Although this post seems slightly self-indulgent, you sometimes need to like outwards before looking inwards. In art and in life, finding yourself is only possible by really taking a look around and figuring out what is exciting or soothing. Feel free to make your own list, I'd love to hear what you have to say.