Let's go exploring!!!
I owe most of my sense of humor to the Zucker-Abrams trio, Alan Meiss (http://www.aaaugh.com/meiss/humor.html), The Simpsons, and Gary Larson. If not for these and other scattered media, I would likely be watching Leno.
I owe all of my musical devotion to Radiohead’s Ok Computer. If not for this album, I would have never cared about anything post 1975. And had I bought Rage Against the Machine instead of this album in January 1998, I would likely be a much different person. (I still remember the person I was with when I bought it (Brad Dick) and the place (the now defunct Waves music in Keystone Crossing in Indy), and the movie we saw after (Good Will Hunting).
I owe my view of my relationships to my parents. For better or worse.
I owe my unflapping hope that good will overcome to Lucas, Spielberg, and 80’s cartoons.
Yet, I don’t know if I owe the whole of my personality to any one text more than “Calvin and Hobbes.”
I remember being truly heartbroken when I was looking over the last single strip of the clips 10 year run, with the line “lets go exploring!”
For the better part of my middle school and high school year, I read the collections of Calvin and Hobbes every night before bed.
I bring this up because the LA time has begun to run the strips again. Looking at them next to the rest of the page is like looking at modern sitcoms vs. Arrested Development.
There is just something that takes it to a higher level.
Perhaps the most powerful thing about Calvin and Hobbes is that it was made in what was a traditionally child geared medium. It was a strip that was fun for kids because of the notion of an imaginary friend. With the added bonus of The Far Side, it was enough to draw the elder crowd back to the comic page of the paper.
The strip worked on a emotional dichotomy that few texts have ever achieved. It was about the glories of being young; yet, the main character had a vocabulary men would kill for. It was a frank discussion of real life problems, balanced with grounding in a world that no longer existed for most of the readers who could understand. It took you as the reader back; and at the same time it made you question where you were now.
The fact that it was about children was all the more wonderful (and I mean wonderful as in my post about the movies about 2003: http://ineverlovedyou.blogspot.com/2004/03/in-reqiuem-for-2003.html), it was a text that reminded you of the glories of being young. The ability to believe that those things that adults know are impossible (bed bugs, aliens, and imaginary friends) can still be possible for those people whose beliefs have not been tainted by experience.
There is something wonderful about the ability to cherish the communal. I read Bill Simmons because he not only gets what it is to be a man in your 20’s- 30’s, but because he is able to perfectly illustrate the major concepts. I don’t mean this on a high level. I mean this on the lowbrow end, which Simmons is truly not.
It is one thing to have a diary of what it is to be 19. It is another to dissect it into a level of generalized or specific statements, a la philosophy. Which I am not discounting, by any means: it is that when it comes to relation to a time in one’s life, and not the ultimate actions, one has to understand the minute. Any look at life (yet not the lessons), has to come from an angle of experience, not of supposition. Philosophy works because it focuses on the whole of a life’s angle; the flaw (and something no one can ever do) is that is provides tenets, not paths. Maybe that’s the distinction between religion and philosophy; one tells you how; the other tells you why. Neither really work, but at least philosophy teaches for the worse and hopes for the better.
I bring in Simmons because he has a way of relating to male tropisms in the way great comedic movies do. His columns are close enough to men’s real lives; they echo the idiocy of our faults and puts the blame on the external causes. From women, to sports, to videogames he is able to put the reader in the mindset of their life (which is benefited from the fact that his readership is almost certainly around 98% male and in their post-formative years). I doubted Simmons’s talent for a while, thinking he was merely a composition of male intellects you knew growing up, but formed into a singular voice. But his talent is exactly that, yet doing it on a level that always surprises. He still is that guy who makes you laugh by pointing out foibles of a guy on deck, or bringing up a movie quote at exactly the right time. Yet, he knows his voice is a persona; it’s relatable because it’s familiar. His balance and saving grace is that he doesn’t truly admit it; that his voice is only a skew. It’s not his real life, it’s his take on the familiar.
Simmons is a lot like Watterson in this aspect; they both rewrite a period of one’s life with a distant, and usually sarcastic edge. Both understand and are able to capture what it was to be at a certain place in one’s life.
Both do their philosophizing; and both are usually on.
The difference is that one will still hold relevant as you grow on, while one seems to be of a dissident era. We all realize that we need to grow up.
This is perhaps the greatest shame of humanity; it is that we are taught to fall in line with the culture before us before we can question our own reality. It’s almost natural in terms of human growth. And it’s a shame. As soon as we feel we are accustomed to life, we start to look for problems instead of things that should amaze us.
Which is why I tend to still return to Watterson more than I do Simmons, and more of the reason I resent his retirement. One of the constant themes of the strip was Calvin’s escape from reality. We had Stupendous Man (which is a great theme about men wanting to be more than who they are) Spaceman Spiff (a lot like the same, but in more obvious exploratory terms), as well as Hobbes, who represented a world of friends we could trust---and believe in—and keep them in our life.
But above all, I still think of Calvin’s obsession with dinosaurs. The idea of something that once was. A greatness of which we revere because it may never will happen again.
I remember a part from my first screenplay. It was all about how the characters (all men 16-18) would choose seeing a dinosaur or alien over having sex with a supermodel. Even though I am biased on the introduction because it was my work, I still stand by it because it’s something I still kind of believe in; that I would eschew something for my future for the ability to see something from my wildest dreams as a child.
In my list of things I’d like to see or have happen in my life the list is:
7. SC winning a national title
6. Seeing the Pacer’s win the finals
5. Seeing the Colts win the Super Bowl
3. (Tie) Meeting and marrying the love of my life
3. (Tie) Seeing the US men’s soccer team win the World Cup
2. Seeing the Cubs win
1. Seeing a dinosaur or an alien.
And I think that’s somewhat due to Calvin and Hobbes, but I don’t discount it.
For the duration of 4 or less strips a day, and even more so in combination, Bill Watterson was able to address something childish in our lives. He was able to tap into the universal selfishness and wonderment of what it was to be a kid. The notions of “why can’t things happen my way” paired against “why are things needlessly complex when they shouldn’t be.”
I promised myself when I was 15 that I would never ever discount the beliefs of a kid under 14, or disregard what they are saying because I knew better.
They will learn the course of my beliefs soon enough. And they will probably treat the past as a fallacy of immaturity or lack of knowledge. Which is sad, because they are likely more right than I am wrong.
I think we all know that we have become too partisan to one side or another to admit that the simple idea doesn’t work.
But Calvin and Hobbes reminds of a time when it was so simple. And Watterson, better than anyone before him, understood that maybe the kids have it right, because at one time or another, we understood the world without sides or intricacies.
Philosophy is for the individual. It’s a respect for the trials.
Calvin and Hobbes was for the child within us that is buried. It’s a question of why; with the knowledge of the problems to come. For a little bit, we were able to relish in a time that was not more simple because we didn’t have the weights of adult life, but because we didn’t care to know about anything more than the wonderful.
I owe all of my musical devotion to Radiohead’s Ok Computer. If not for this album, I would have never cared about anything post 1975. And had I bought Rage Against the Machine instead of this album in January 1998, I would likely be a much different person. (I still remember the person I was with when I bought it (Brad Dick) and the place (the now defunct Waves music in Keystone Crossing in Indy), and the movie we saw after (Good Will Hunting).
I owe my view of my relationships to my parents. For better or worse.
I owe my unflapping hope that good will overcome to Lucas, Spielberg, and 80’s cartoons.
Yet, I don’t know if I owe the whole of my personality to any one text more than “Calvin and Hobbes.”
I remember being truly heartbroken when I was looking over the last single strip of the clips 10 year run, with the line “lets go exploring!”
For the better part of my middle school and high school year, I read the collections of Calvin and Hobbes every night before bed.
I bring this up because the LA time has begun to run the strips again. Looking at them next to the rest of the page is like looking at modern sitcoms vs. Arrested Development.
There is just something that takes it to a higher level.
Perhaps the most powerful thing about Calvin and Hobbes is that it was made in what was a traditionally child geared medium. It was a strip that was fun for kids because of the notion of an imaginary friend. With the added bonus of The Far Side, it was enough to draw the elder crowd back to the comic page of the paper.
The strip worked on a emotional dichotomy that few texts have ever achieved. It was about the glories of being young; yet, the main character had a vocabulary men would kill for. It was a frank discussion of real life problems, balanced with grounding in a world that no longer existed for most of the readers who could understand. It took you as the reader back; and at the same time it made you question where you were now.
The fact that it was about children was all the more wonderful (and I mean wonderful as in my post about the movies about 2003: http://ineverlovedyou.blogspot.com/2004/03/in-reqiuem-for-2003.html), it was a text that reminded you of the glories of being young. The ability to believe that those things that adults know are impossible (bed bugs, aliens, and imaginary friends) can still be possible for those people whose beliefs have not been tainted by experience.
There is something wonderful about the ability to cherish the communal. I read Bill Simmons because he not only gets what it is to be a man in your 20’s- 30’s, but because he is able to perfectly illustrate the major concepts. I don’t mean this on a high level. I mean this on the lowbrow end, which Simmons is truly not.
It is one thing to have a diary of what it is to be 19. It is another to dissect it into a level of generalized or specific statements, a la philosophy. Which I am not discounting, by any means: it is that when it comes to relation to a time in one’s life, and not the ultimate actions, one has to understand the minute. Any look at life (yet not the lessons), has to come from an angle of experience, not of supposition. Philosophy works because it focuses on the whole of a life’s angle; the flaw (and something no one can ever do) is that is provides tenets, not paths. Maybe that’s the distinction between religion and philosophy; one tells you how; the other tells you why. Neither really work, but at least philosophy teaches for the worse and hopes for the better.
I bring in Simmons because he has a way of relating to male tropisms in the way great comedic movies do. His columns are close enough to men’s real lives; they echo the idiocy of our faults and puts the blame on the external causes. From women, to sports, to videogames he is able to put the reader in the mindset of their life (which is benefited from the fact that his readership is almost certainly around 98% male and in their post-formative years). I doubted Simmons’s talent for a while, thinking he was merely a composition of male intellects you knew growing up, but formed into a singular voice. But his talent is exactly that, yet doing it on a level that always surprises. He still is that guy who makes you laugh by pointing out foibles of a guy on deck, or bringing up a movie quote at exactly the right time. Yet, he knows his voice is a persona; it’s relatable because it’s familiar. His balance and saving grace is that he doesn’t truly admit it; that his voice is only a skew. It’s not his real life, it’s his take on the familiar.
Simmons is a lot like Watterson in this aspect; they both rewrite a period of one’s life with a distant, and usually sarcastic edge. Both understand and are able to capture what it was to be at a certain place in one’s life.
Both do their philosophizing; and both are usually on.
The difference is that one will still hold relevant as you grow on, while one seems to be of a dissident era. We all realize that we need to grow up.
This is perhaps the greatest shame of humanity; it is that we are taught to fall in line with the culture before us before we can question our own reality. It’s almost natural in terms of human growth. And it’s a shame. As soon as we feel we are accustomed to life, we start to look for problems instead of things that should amaze us.
Which is why I tend to still return to Watterson more than I do Simmons, and more of the reason I resent his retirement. One of the constant themes of the strip was Calvin’s escape from reality. We had Stupendous Man (which is a great theme about men wanting to be more than who they are) Spaceman Spiff (a lot like the same, but in more obvious exploratory terms), as well as Hobbes, who represented a world of friends we could trust---and believe in—and keep them in our life.
But above all, I still think of Calvin’s obsession with dinosaurs. The idea of something that once was. A greatness of which we revere because it may never will happen again.
I remember a part from my first screenplay. It was all about how the characters (all men 16-18) would choose seeing a dinosaur or alien over having sex with a supermodel. Even though I am biased on the introduction because it was my work, I still stand by it because it’s something I still kind of believe in; that I would eschew something for my future for the ability to see something from my wildest dreams as a child.
In my list of things I’d like to see or have happen in my life the list is:
7. SC winning a national title
6. Seeing the Pacer’s win the finals
5. Seeing the Colts win the Super Bowl
3. (Tie) Meeting and marrying the love of my life
3. (Tie) Seeing the US men’s soccer team win the World Cup
2. Seeing the Cubs win
1. Seeing a dinosaur or an alien.
And I think that’s somewhat due to Calvin and Hobbes, but I don’t discount it.
For the duration of 4 or less strips a day, and even more so in combination, Bill Watterson was able to address something childish in our lives. He was able to tap into the universal selfishness and wonderment of what it was to be a kid. The notions of “why can’t things happen my way” paired against “why are things needlessly complex when they shouldn’t be.”
I promised myself when I was 15 that I would never ever discount the beliefs of a kid under 14, or disregard what they are saying because I knew better.
They will learn the course of my beliefs soon enough. And they will probably treat the past as a fallacy of immaturity or lack of knowledge. Which is sad, because they are likely more right than I am wrong.
I think we all know that we have become too partisan to one side or another to admit that the simple idea doesn’t work.
But Calvin and Hobbes reminds of a time when it was so simple. And Watterson, better than anyone before him, understood that maybe the kids have it right, because at one time or another, we understood the world without sides or intricacies.
Philosophy is for the individual. It’s a respect for the trials.
Calvin and Hobbes was for the child within us that is buried. It’s a question of why; with the knowledge of the problems to come. For a little bit, we were able to relish in a time that was not more simple because we didn’t have the weights of adult life, but because we didn’t care to know about anything more than the wonderful.
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