var Kentucky = new Array("Wired", "Hickish", "Amish")

Awhile back I wrote about how Kentucky's long-held hillbilly image was being reconsidered in light of efforts to wire every corner of the state, and to woo tech-heavy businesses to the area (See: When did Kentucky become cool?). Unfortunately whatever steps forward Kentucky made to look like a progressive region, it took leaps back recently when the media latched onto the controversy surrounding the opening of the Creation Museum (technically Northern Kentucky, but might as well be Cincinnati). The media has us looking like hicks again.

I'm not going to comment too much on the Creation Museum myself, except to say that if you're going to invoke science as a religious explanation, it's no longer under the scope of religion. It becomes the realm of science, which automatically makes it subject to peer-review. If you don't want the criticism, don't invoke science.

That's not what I wanted to talk about here, though. What we're talking about is stereotypes. Kentucky is actually pretty diverse. My question: How can any universal statement be made about a region where you routinely encounter the following at the local supermarket?


(photo shot by mobile phone, apologize for the quality)

Obviously the region isn't that homogenous when Amish are shopping at the grocery store, while I'm running around snapping pics with a mobile phone and checking my email on a laptop that's swiping wi-fi from the Super 8 motel down the street : )

Kentucky != "Hick". Kentucky = Array.

No more Jeremy spoke in class, thanks

I like my name, Jeremy. Unfortunately it's not as common as John. Even more unfortunate is that the name is most widely known for Pearl Jam's song by the same name and porn star Ron Jeremy. I can live with Ron Jeremy jokes, but the Pearl Jam song really sucks. Don't get me wrong. I love Pearl Jam. The song sounds great. The problem is that every now and then, on meeting someone for the first time, I have to endure them semi-singing, "Jeremy spoke in class today," as if the song has anything at all to do with me. The song has nothing to do with me. The song was inspired by a newspaper article about a 16-year-old boy named Jeremy Wade Delle from Richardson, Texas, who shot himself in front of his English class in Richardson High School on the morning of January 8, 1991. I am deeply saddened by that, Columbine, and the Virginia Tech massacre that led to this post. I think we can retire the song "Jeremy," at least around me.

At some point we could have said — no

So the last two posts were leading up to this one so I can talk about a movie I really like: Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. I know, I know. Ask me what time it is and I go off on a sidebar of how to build a clock. I've been accused of that before and all I can say is sorry. To quote the movie: "Words. Words. They're all we have to go on."

Now the movie is based on the 1967 play by Tom Stoppard but I'm going to recommend the movie version (1990). The reason is because they're almost exactly the same and in the movie you've got Tim Roth and Gary Oldman as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and Richard Dreyfuss as The Player. Awesome cast. It's also more likely that you can find the movie at Netflix than you'll find the play at your local theater.

The story is the inverse of Hamlet. It takes the two most underdeveloped characters in literature and breathes life into them, shining the spotlight on their existence while placing the other characters and events of Hamlet in the background. It not only inverts the story, but also disconnects from it; Rosencrantz and Guildenstern have their own story where Hamlet himself plays a minor role. Whenever the two stories overlap, the duo remains in character, acting and saying the lines from Hamlet that they are supposed to say. When the two stories break apart, they are left wondering why they said those things, viewing Hamlet's circumstances as completely absurd.

For example, when Claudius summons the two to question Hamlet as to his strange behavior, they understand what they are supposed to do, but fail to understand why, considering the whole thing to be obvious. They debate on how to approach the subject with Hamlet:

Ros: It makes you think.
Guil: Don't think I haven't thought of it.
Ros: And with her husband's brother.
Guil: They were so close.
Ros: She went to him —
Guil: — Too close —
Ros: — for comfort.
Guil: It looks bad.
Ros: It adds up.
Guil: Incest to adultery.
Ros: Would you go so far?
Guil: Never.
Ros: To sum up: your father, whom you love, dies, you are his heir, you come back to find that hardly was the corpse cold before his young brother popped onto his throne and into his sheets, thereby offending both legal and natural practice. Now why exactly are you behaving in this extraordinary manner?
Guil: I can't imagine! (Pause.) But all that is well known, common property. Yet he sent for us. And we did come.

They get what they're supposed to do, and when they're supposed to do it they perform exactly as it is written. They just don't understand why they're doing any of it. They don't exactly, but sort of, realize that they are characters in a story that is predetermined.

Here's part of the blurb from Wikipedia:

The two characters, brought into being within the puzzling universe of the play, by an act of the playwright's creation, and those they encounter, often confuse their names, as they have interchangeable yet periodically unique identities. They are portrayed as two clowns or fools in a world that is beyond their understanding; they cannot identify any reliable feature or the significance in words or events. Their own memories are not reliable or complete and they misunderstand each other as they stumble through philosophical arguments while not realizing the implications to themselves. They often state deep philosophical truths during their nonsensical ramblings, however they depart from these ideas as quickly as they come to them. At times Guildenstern appears to be more enlightened than Rosencrantz; at times both of them appear to be equally confounded by the events occurring around them.

The question that is really posed here is what does happen to our beloved characters when we're not looking, when they're off-stage. Are they aware? Do they know that whatever ambitions they have were already decided and written long ago? Do they conspire against this? Do they plot against the plot? Or do they simply cease to be when the curtain draws?

When does Jack Bauer use the bathroom?

A greater question beyond the literary is whether our plots were written long ago. Is choice just an illusion? Am I a footnote in your story, or you in mine?

Guildenstern: "There must have been a moment, at the very beginning, where we could have said — no. But somehow we missed it."

What I left out in the above is how hilarious the movie is and how clever the dialogue. My favorite scene:

Guil: What a fine persecution — to be kept intrigued without ever quite being enlightened. . . . (Pause.) We've had no practice.
Ros: We could play at questions.
Guil: What good would that do?
Ros: Practice!
Guil: Statement! One-love!
Ros: Cheating!
Guil: How?
Ros: I hadn't started yet!
Guil: Statement. Two-love.
Ros: Are you counting that?
Guil: What?
Ros: Are you counting that?
Guil: Foul! No repetitions. Three-love. First game to —
Ros: I'm not going to play if you're going to be like that.
Guil: Whose serve?
Ros: Hah?
Guil: Foul! No grunts. Love-one.
Ros: Who's go?
Guil: Why?
Ros: Why not?
Guil: What for?
Ros: Foul! No synonyms. One-all.
Guil: What in God's name is going on?
Ros: Foul! No rhetoric! Two-one.
Guil: What does it all add up to?
Ros: Can't you guess?
Guil: Were you addressing me?
Ros: Is there anyone else?
Guil: Who?
Ros: How would I know?
Guil: Why do you ask?
Ros: Are you serious?
Guil: Was that rhetoric?
Ros: No.
Guil: Statement! Two-all. Game point.
Ros: What's the matter with you today?
Guil: When?
Ros: What?
Guil: Are you deaf?
Ros: Am I dead?
Guil: Yes or no?
Ros: Is there a choice?
Guil: Is there a God?
Ros: Foul! No non-sequiters, three-two, one game all.
Guil (seriously): What's your name?
Ros: What's yours?
Guil: I asked you first.
Ros: Statement. One-love.
Guil: What's your name when you're at home?
Ros: What's yours?
Guil: When I'm at home?
Ros: Is it different at home?
Guil: What home?
Ros: Haven't you got one?
Guil: Why do you ask?
Ros: What are you driving at?
Guil (with emphasis): What's your name?!
Ros: Repetition. Two-love. Match point to me.
Guil (siezing him violently): WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?
Ros: Rhetoric! Game and match!

You can't profile a prophet

I figured that if I'm going to go around saying that I know a thing or two about web design, I can't really get away with a minimalistic profile. So I set out to create a unique MySpace design that I can call my own. I figured I'd kill two birds with one stone and update my personal site as well.

Personal site. MySpace. Both are all about identity. So I got to thinking about identity in general and how one defines it. I came up blank. I can no more say what it is that makes me me than I can say what it is that makes you you. Heck if I know who I am. So I scrapped that line of thought.

I finally ended up thinking about identity like people do today, as records in a database, as a percentage chance that we'll fit some mold. Much of who we are is defined by statistics. I imagined going to a club and getting scanned, and all that information being right there on the computer screen. The bouncer's trying to decide whether to let me in. You know, Future Shock. The design also plays with today's ideas of privacy and the conflict between creating a personal site and trying to remain a private person.



The hand was a gimme. What's more personal than a hand? I was orginally going to go with just a fingerprint, but changed my mind after I put my hand through the scanner (the hand and face were shot separately). The lines on a hand are perfect for the metaphor. Fingerprints are truly unique because there are no two alike. But most of how people are identified has nothing to do with uniqueness. It's all about educated guesses. Predictions made on assumptions. In short, it's a lot like palmistry. It looks personal, but really it's nothing more than demographics. You've got a nice Heart Line there Jeremy. We'll put you on the A-list.

Fingerprints never change, and they've been there since birth. I like these "Life Etchings" better because you earn them.

When you get right down to it, profiles are a categorization of people. People that are truly unique (not saying I am one of them, of course) can't be profiled because they can't be categorized. You can't profile a prophet.