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which means we may not be as unique as we like to think but i digress with the ability to share experiences with those who did not experience them comes another possibly darker ability to choose the means by which we present those experiences one can be straightforward and use simple description or one can emphasize de emphasize aspects shift details employ different words metaphors and otherwise change the impact of the experience both for the listener and the teller by shaping the narrative one can call this a form of refined interpretation since it uses choice to distill the essence of the experience down to its basic form as it relates to us rather than as a free standing collection of facts rather than a simple description of events the record now becomes a tool by which we can convey what we wish to convey to another using the experience what might be said to be the lesson to be learned from the experience and we ve moved from factual description into interpretation when we hear someone use the word apple it s no longer an isolated term now it has to be centered in a context does the person speaking like apples dislike apples want an apple or have an apple to sell the word no longer has an objective meaning in relation to the world we inhabit it s surrounded by a host of sub words memories expectations and other intangibles it s no longer about the term it s about the web of interpretation through which all communication passes communication itself becomes secondary and interpretation becomes the primary information passed in conversation how many times have we been asked how ya doin knowing the correct response is fine you other than the shaping of sounds what exactly has transpired here words have been stripped of their meaning does anyone ever answer how ya doin with a list of ailments and complaints but information has still been transmitted how ya doin fine you is a shorthand method of acknowledging recognition we re back to the dogs saying i remember you we played together but it s recognition for its own sake not as an introduction to further exploration it s a way to fit another person into our framework it doesn t communicate so why do we do it what s the purpose is there a purpose and can we know it being language creatures or does it lie outside our cognitive abilities we ve come full circle while our mouths and our minds are transmitting noise forms to one another some other aspect of our species is communicating on some hidden instinctual level that we seem to have out clevered ourselves from sharing through our use of language specifically the use of language to shape reshape and otherwise obscure experience think of how often language is used against us in advertising for example the process of communication itself has become the main information communicated between humans the actual content still has a measure of importance but it only achieves its true relevance when it s placed into a context another stone in the mosaic the language itself has become almost decorative rather than informative i blame poetry honestly the first person who said my love is like a red red rose instead of my girl s pretty probably had no idea what sort of slippery slope he just stepped onto because once the language is used in an interpretive way there s no turning back the next person came along and had to say yeah well my love is even redder than that because the bar was now raised language has been turned from the exchange of information into its own entity which existed solely to obscure simple statements in the most clever way i ve never claimed to understand poetry but i do like the use of language in works like andrew marvell s to his coy mistress there s some striking imagery in that but if you boil it down to its essence marvell is asking his gal for sex and that s it i m not saying we should abandon poetry or humor or songs or anything they re all enjoyable in their own right even if they fail as communication thanks to these things the employment of language has become more central to us than what the language itself conveys we re steadily losing our ability to communicate meaningfully except by exchanging chunks of autobiography here s how you fit into my worldview is how a lot of conversations seem to go listen to me and reflect me back at myself in the way that i m convinced i am consequently there s no way for you to know if what you re reading here is what i m actually writing or your interpretation of what you think i m saying and i m not telling standard posted by beckoningchasm posted on december 8 2005 posted under anime creativity entertainment and culture thoughts and theories comments 3 comments even when they aren t you probably recognize this guy as no face from spirited away if you haven t seen spirited away you should stop reading now sign off the computer go find a copy and watch it it s that good it s one of the very very few films that i recommend without any reservation at all if you haven t seen it please don t read any more of this because this film really deserves to be seen with innocent eyes there are many wonderful characters in the film but no face is my favorite he s an example of what i m starting to think is my favorite kind of character the monster who isn t as a monster he s very powerful as demonstrated in the most destructive scene in the film when he runs amok in the bath house even yubaba s magic can t stop him also like most monsters he has a limited ability to communicate he can t really speak except by using someone else s voice in shall we say rather special circumstances he communicates mainly by gestures and a kind of soft moaning his mask also changes a little bit from the normal somewhat happy look seen above to surprised confused angry or sorrowful it s quite remarkable how expressive this simple mask is what he seems to want most desperately is a place to belong and a small measure of acceptance he doesn t demand love or admiration he seems as if he would be happy to be ignored as long as he was ignored among friends we get no hint of his origins and he remains a mystery to the end but that he s very lonely and has been for a long time is quite apparent in his first interaction with sen she shows him kindness by leaving a door in the bath house open so he can come inside out of the pouring rain in return he helps her to get a needed bath token when the guy in charge of such things refuses her sen s gratitude i get the impression this is the first emotional reaction no face has ever been given inspires him to procure a whole handful of tokens thinking that this is what one does to be accepted give people things and he s genuinely puzzled when she tells him she doesn t need and can t use any more tokens confused he continues to insist but she still can t accept the tokens he simply hasn t interacted with other beings before so he doesn t know the rules but he also doesn t give up he somehow takes note of the how the river god s gift of gold was received and tries his gift giving again creating gold nuggets which he gives to an eager bath house frog he s much more successful this time he then swallows the frog whole and begins taking on his physical characteristics and speaking with his voice and he seems to take on the frog s greed as well figuring i think that he s finally hit the right note that this must be the basis of friendship soon the other bath house attendants are fawning and fussing over him as he produces gold from his palms when the realization dawns on him that it s the gold that s been accepted and not him that s when he becomes monstrous he seems intoxicated by actually receiving emotional responses and is distressed that they re turning out to be false he demands to see sen the only person who has shown him genuine kindness he wants to be liked by her that seems to be the one thing in his world that has any meaning for him but he doesn t know how to be likeable all he s learned from the bath house is greed so he tries to offer her enormous handfuls of gold the one gift that has never been turned down again sen doesn t accept it and again no face can t understand this especially in contrast to the other workers when it s demonstrated that simply giving gifts is valueless as a means of friendship my impression is that he wants to smash the entire hollow world that he s constructed around himself and it s the bath house that suffers he does manage to cough up whole and unharmed everyone he s swallowed his rampage at the bath house is not the result of his monstrous nature instead it comes about because his desire for acceptance is only partially fulfilled partially because he seems to be the center of attention but this attention isn t about him we ve seen similar sequences in other movies where the unpopular nerd is treated nicely by the cool kids only to discover that they did so only because he just bought a cool car or has a winning lottery ticket or has a famous rock star hiding in his house in other words it s not because of who they are but what they have it s only natural that the bitterness that results is much more than simple disappointment you had everything you ever wanted and it all turned out to be hollow purged of the rage and greed as well as all the physical stuff he absorbed in the bath house this place makes him crazy sen observes he returns to his usual form meekly and humbly following sen as she undertakes a difficult journey in order to save haku s life and at the end of that journey he s the one who finds a home a place where he s accepted and his talents are appreciated if only all such monsters could find such a place probably the monster that comes closest to no face is boris karloff s version of the frankenstein monster he s another powerful being who s not monstrous at all he simply isn t beautiful looking and he can t communicate in erudite language which is ironically the one thing that probably best hides a man s nature from others but i digress i do that rather a lot you ve probably noted of course no face has one advantage over frankenstein s monster he doesn t look like a human being so we cannot look at ourselves and compare him unfavorably to us we are apples and oranges frankenstein s monster on the other hand was created specifically to look a lot like us and has clearly fallen short of any ideal with which he can be compared so yes it s appearance in this case that determines standing among monsters no face as the other can be seen more objectively than the frankenstein s monster s parody of humanity interestingly the baby in spirited away learns a similar lesson transformed into a mouse he s disappointed that his mother doesn t recognize him appearance and not our true nature has become the standard of judgment some might include godzilla or king kong in this misunderstood monster company but for me they re disqualified because the destruction they cause is clearly the end of their actions rather than a reaction to being disappointed by the world and themselves the hulk maybe ben grimm definitely day of the dead s bub yes why do i like such monsters probably because i am such a monster i have no idea what the social contract entails i just make up something that seems plausible or more likely copy what i ve seen others do on television i ve unwittingly caused pain because i didn t know what to do and i ve also stood there not knowing how to respond when a response was clearly needed each and every time i feel like i m just something odd hidden in a regular envelope i d sure like to find the place where i really belong this doesn t seem to be it i suspect a lot of people feel the same way like no face we re not destructive because we re monsters it s just that that is what monsters do so we must be monsters when we are destructive i also seem to create such creatures in my nanowrimo project i had a monster a destructive killing creature that could not be defeated no matter how brave and determined my hero but something changed my hand as i wrote and i suddenly found myself with a no face he immediately became my favorite character and story and world suddenly shaped themselves to accommodate his new nature except for the fact that he can t talk i would eagerly do another novel all about him well i say with a shrug they say all art is autobiography and every painting is a self portrait who am i to argue with them i like monsters standard posted by beckoningchasm posted on october 17 2005 posted under entertainment and culture thoughts and theories by any other name i went to see serenity this weekend and i liked it it was a fun movie with some interesting plot twists and turns and some really good special effects the whole thing was very intelligent and well thought out except for the title honestly when the word serenity appeared on the marquee of the local theatre my first thought and i can t be alone in this was oh hey it s one of those sensitive films about young girls coming of age i mean that even sounds like a tv show title where young women experience laughter heartbreak love and friendship all separated by carefully timed commercial breaks nothing wrong with that i hasten to add heck i like a good cry far more often than i should be admitting in public but that isn t here or there so the fact that it s a science fiction western may come as a shock to those of you who didn t dig too deeply and that s my main point the film is a spin off of sorts from a failed television series firefly something i never watched but fans have a passion that will not be dimmed at the imdb show times screen it was quite instructive to see that other films in the theatre i go had a few hundred votes some had four thousand or so but only serenity had over seventeen thousand that s quite a fan base and that s quite a fan base for a film that is let s face it preaching to the converted who is going to dig deep enough to see what this film is about and then go to see it other than me i mean people showing up for a sensitive chick flick are i hope going to be warned away from a pretty violent and sometimes gruesome science fiction shoot out people who are going to look for a science fiction shoot out are i guess watching something else on dvd since they may not be aware of this film but the firefly fan base they re going to be out en mass which turns out to be not much of a mass wouldn t it have been better to call the film something a bit more a propo like urm killer cannibals from space granted that would have tied into the schlock movie crowd like me and wouldn t have alerted the fans of quality idea films that here was something they might like but then the title serenity didn t do that either spoiler alert it s the name of the spaceship for despite the fact that i went to see it it dropped off the charts this weekend who s to blame well it s hard to say the whole set up is so insular that one imagines the fans of fire...
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