Running

"Some people create with words or with music or with a brush and paints. I like to make something beautiful when I run. I like to make people stop and say, 'I've never seen anyone run like that before.' It's more than just a race, it's a style. It's doing something better than anyone else. It's being creative." – Steve Prefontaine.

Running has been on my mind for as long as I can remember, but it has been even more so in this last month because of the 12 kilometer Bloomsday race in Spokane, Washington. A race that draws people from all over the United States and the world even, a race that includes ages ranging from 8 to 80 years of age, a race who’s numbers reach 50,000 on a yearly bases.  This idea of getting outside of ones self in order to truly see the world from a different view point is amazing to me and it is something that I try and achieve each and every time I lace up my running shoes and head out for yet another out of the body experience.

I run. More that most people think is normal, a lot more. I love it, especially when it sucks and I collapse at the end of the day smiling because I’m dog tired and sore as hell. Pure bliss, by my definition, consists of nothing more than miles of trails stretching forever in front of me, mine for the taking. I love the feeling of pain fighting for control during a race. I hate being called a ‘jogger’. I need to hurt; it proves that I’m alive. I hate running almost as much as I love it. The most quintessential form of art, the human body pushing itself beyond the maximum, into the unknown, while all ideology flies by, like and human…dissolving. I was born to run, not born to run faster than everyone, but given that desire…I’ve met few people with the same passion for running. It never ceases to amaze me that after 20 miles of torment I can wake up the next morning begging for more.

I can’t say that I know what an out of the body experience feels like but as far as I’m concerned, running and long segments of physical exercise is the closest anyone can really get to reaching that sense of enlightenment at this stage in our world with the technology that we have.

When I am running, I enter a different zone, a place where I can think about everything and nothing at the same time. A place where everything makes sense, but at the same time nothing does. I ask myself why I go run and there is only one answer.

Runners High.

No, its not any kind of drug you can find on the black market or what not, it is something that comes from within yourself. Runner high is that feeling you get when you are dog tired, dead on your feet yet you feel so great that all you can do is smile. The feeling I have at the end of a long race is like nothing I can fully explain. Runners High is ‘The Other’ in this case because it is something that many of us do not understand either because we do not run or because we have never run fast or hard enough to reach that level of knowledge. To know that I have just pushed my body to its limit is what makes me believe that this is an out of the body experience.

"A lot of people run a race to see who is fastest. I run to see who has the most guts, who can punish himself into exhausting pace, and then at the end, punish himself even more. Nobody is going to win a 5,000 meter race after running an easy 2 miles. Not with me. If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself." –Prefontaine.

A couple Random Thoughts

Just a warning, this blog has two random thoughts that don’t necessarily relate to each other but they have been on my mind this week and I figured I should put my thoughts into words.

         For me the readings in this class are very interesting but at the same time they are confusing and at times very hard to follow simply because they are such foreign topics to me. The classroom discussions are what really help me to understand what is going on in each book and how they relate to the world around us. While I’m reading I try to make connections to my life because it really helps me to grasp the concept of each book.  That being said, on page 85 Baudrillard was explaining that “you can enjoy all of the positive aspects of your own culture, but you also absorb all of its stupidity; you are much more sensitive to it than in other cultures. So it always feels good to get away from your culture.” I was an exchange student during my junior year of high school. I traveled to South Central France, in a town called St. Etienne. I was one of the lucky students because I was placed into a country where I had some background knowledge of the language, having taken three years of high school level French previous.  I know exactly what Baudrillard is talking about when he says that you are more aware of your own cultures stupidity when you are in other cultures. I stayed with a host family, and being completely immersed in the culture gave me a totally different outlook on the way we live our lives here in America. Every Wednesday in France the children have half days at school and parents come home from work to have a large family lunch that will usually take the majority of the rest of the afternoon. Here in America we would never dream of leaving work or school on one day a week to spend some quality time with the family. The concept of family life and meals in France is totally different and rather refreshing, coming from a culture where we are always on the go. We stop at a fast food restaurant on our way to work instead of waiting the extra hour to spend quality time with our loved ones. Living in France for that period of time was an amazing learning experience, I learned about the French culture and about different aspects of American culture that I didn’t think about before. In the future I want to return to France and live there separate from an exchange program.

            I wake up thinking of what needs to be done today, go to class wondering if I have finished all of the reading for today, get ready for bed reflecting on the day and anticipating the following day. I am never truly living in the present, constantly making lists of things that must be accomplished, one right after the other. A close friend told me recently that for one day, and one day only I should not think about anything except the subject at hand. He mentioned this because I am always stressing about the various things in my life that need to be accomplished. I never ‘live in the moment,’ I never stop to look at the world around me and really appreciate it for what it has to offer. Coming to class on Friday, the 17^th made me step back and really try and live just in that moment, not thinking about anything else that was going on. This classes forces me to learn in a totally different way that I’m used to. So far it has been a steep learning curve with plurk and posting a blog every week, but I am getting used to it and I really enjoy this English class.

You have nothing to fear but Disney itself.

We interrupt this laziness that has defined this blog of late for an urgent message regarding an insidious evil which threatens the very fabric of Western civilization.

I'm not talking about Cyberterrorism or the apparently unkillable Tony Almeida. I'm talking about Disney.

Yes that's right, Disney. The one with mouse ears, cuddly woodland creatures and the majority ownership of ESPN.

As of late I've been compelled as a normal human to protect anyone from the swirling winds of crappiness and loserfication which has buffet Jacob and Benjamin every day. I valiantly and successfully kept the purple dinosaur at bay, and I've saved them from the cuddly suckiness of Boobah and Teletubbies until the day I passed them a joint for the first time. But i was blind to that old friend, who every Sunday night of my childhood dished out healthy, wholesome doses of Chip 'n' Dale, the Apple Dumpling gang, and Escape to Witch mountain.

Unbeknownst to me, Disney's marketing team was not content to roll back and forth on their private islands made of Krugerrands fairy tears. Sensing a vulnerability in the young psyche, they stole a page from George Lucas, wrapped their hands firmly around the withered, chapped teats of their glorious past, and squeezed out a dastardly plot to desecrate their legacy for spectacular profits.

Thus was spawned the bane of my existence -- Disney Princesses.

Don't ask me how this malevolent force swept past our defenses. I've rocked back and forth late into the night, my knees clutched close to my chest, trying to comprehend how it gnawed through America's floorboards, crawled into it's daughter's ears, and wrapped itself around their cerebral cortex.

As I was at Hastings I noticed a mother and her young daughter. The daughter, not much older than 10, was wearing a princess dress.A debate took place between the two. about not whether to wear another princess dress, but which one. And for the love of god what sadistic fuck invented the Pretty Pretty Princess game? You've already taken America's young minds, Disney... must you also take the dignity of the parents?

And what sort of lessons are these princesses teaching? You'll never be happy with out a big, strong handsome prince? Living in the woods with seven vertically challenged miners is a good idea? And let's not forget that if life kicks you in the teeth you should just suck it up, cause eventually a fairy godmother will materialize and fix it all? You know, just like in real life. *

I'm all for introducing kids to strong female role-models. I think Disney even dabbled in some of their own for a day or two. But from what I can tell these cel-animated bitches have done nothing but reinforce the importance of coordinating jewelry with your gown, which might cut it in fair-tale land but not here. If this shit continues I might have to send my future daughter to Dagobah to "unlearn what she has learned."

And one last thing... Don't even get me started on the impending whoring of my beloved Muppets, whose de-coolification began with their last Christmas special and will probably continue until Fraggle Rock is revealed to be behind the auto shop at East High School.

* By the way, have you ever gone back and read the original fair tales these princesses are based upon? Holy crap, there's some seriously messed up shit going on! At the end of snow white the wicked Queen has to wear heated iron shoes until she's dead! I read one version of Cinderella in which her step-sisters were struck blind! And there's a lot of huntsman with axes roaming around doing things that would get you a part in the Cannibal Holocaust sequel. Grimm times, indeed...

Putting on a Show

Could someone or something switch us off? Could it possibly be true that our world is just a hologram, or a dream, or a performance? Although it's about the weirdest thing one could think of, there are some tantalizing clues this might indeed be the case. The English class entitled Nanotexts discusses this topic within the first week of attendance.

Donald Duck was putting on a show for himself and whoever else wanted to venture into his back yard to observe this scaled down world he had created. When something ‘out of scale’ enters the back yard, in the first case, the naturally growing tree was out of scale according to the new world Donald was creating, he pulled it out of the ground, greatly disturbing Chip and Dale who called that tree home. And so the battle begins, Chip and Dale, run away and hid from the crazed Donald and finally they are able to come to a compromise. The hugely out of scale tree is put in the middle of the train track, becoming a tunnel and everyone is happy, the tree is no longer ‘out of scale’ in Donald’s eyes and Chip and Dale still have a home. A sign that is hung on the tree shows that these characters are putting on a show for us, they are always been putting on a show for us and therefore it is possible for us as the observers to simply switch off the television.

“Lose yourself.” When we travel to the Universal Studios Theme Parks, we are told that we can be something that we are not normally in the real world. We are told that if we want to we can tear off our shirts like the Hulk; we can wear a white dress and stand over a vent just like Marilyn Monroe; wear cocktail dresses and gorge ourselves with ribs and other messy meat products. These are all actions that most of us would never dream of doing in our day to day lives here in reality. That is what Disney is good at; they have this down to a science. They know that all of us want to get away every once in a while, we do in fact want to lose ourselves, we want to act like children without a care in the world for what others think. But how much of this caries over into our day-to-day lives? The answer is none. I try not to stuff my face with meat on a daily basis because I know that it is not only unhealthy but also it is looked down upon in society. When we are children we are more carefree, we don’t care what people think, we just want to have fun and experience everything that we can. Disney is putting on a show for us and we completely buy into it while we attend the parks and in turn put on a show ourselves.

Morel brings a group of tourists to an island and proceeds to take photographs of them without their knowledge for a weeks time. At the end of the week they vanish and the fugitive tries to come up with different theories as to what is happening. As it turns out, Morels Invention has somehow processed the photographs from the previous week and now the images are replaying on the island and they will continue playing for all eternity. The fugitive has to watch the woman he had fallen in love with everyday until he decides to record himself in the machine and it kills him. This is another example of a show, well; more of a hologram in the sense that it can be played over and over again but the people are not really there. They would just be figments of our imagination if we were to be on that island witnessing the goings on.

Our universe could fold up. The dimensions we live in could be wrapped up. The very fabric of our physical world could be disrupted by some unprecedented, weird physical event. From one second to the other, our reality would no longer be there. You never know what will happen tomorrow.