Top 5 Live Action Star Wars Character Meet-ups I want to see

The Disney+ Star Wars series have given us so so many amazing opportunities to see characters that have only ever been in the animated shows. We have also had the chance to see older live action characters like Boba Fett interact with new ones like Fennec Shand and the Mandalorian Din Djarin. But these worlds are so big and there are many characters who over the years have never had an opportunity to ever interact with each other. Maybe we will see some of these meet ups in Mandalorian season 3, Ahsoka, or the upcoming Cassian Andor show. For the sake of clarity, these are all characters who could canonically meet each other and I'm not cheating by using Force ghosts either because if I did Kylo Ren and ghost Anakin Skywalker would absolutely be on there (I could go on forever talking about how I think it should have been Anakin that talked to him not Han Solo in Rise of Skywalker). Anyway, all these meetings COULD and I would argue SHOULD happen either in a live action show or movie sometime in the future.

5. Din Djarin and Sabine Wren

Of all the pairings on this list, this is the one I think that is actually most likely to happen and happen pretty soon. Sabine, as fans of Rebels know, was a previous wielder of the Darksaber. She was taught to use it by Kanan Jarrus but then gave up the saber to Bo-Katan, whom she felt was the rightful person to lead Mandalore. As we know from The Mandalorian, because Bo-Katan never won the Darksaber in combat, she was not considered to true master of the saber in some kind of weird Elder Wand logic that had not been previously mentioned. Given that Sabine has been cast for Ahsoka (Natasha Liu Bordizzo) it seems pretty obvious that her meeting Din Djarin is going to happen pretty dang soon and that's gonna be pretty rad but since it is kind of a given I put it lower on the list. 

4. Grogu and Yoda

Ever since Grogu first appeared on season one of The Mandalorian, he has been called "Baby Yoda." Whether he is truly Yoda's son or just a member of the same species, we know that the two of them lived on Coruscant at the same time prior to the fall of the Republic. When Luke was training Grogu he asked him point blank whether he remembered Yoda, but we have seen that Grogu's memories are a little spotty. Still, it is not outside the realm of possibility that we get some kind of flashback of Grogu's time before Order 66 where he was trained as a youngling. In fact, I would argue that Grogu unlocking some of his previous memories will only lead him to becoming even more powerful. Could it happen? Technically yes, but I am putting it low on the list because it seems like Frank Oz is pretty done being Yoda and I don't know if they would bring in Tom Kane (who voice Yoda in The Clone Wars) to do this in live action. An animated Grogu I think might be more likely. 

3. Han Solo/ Lando Calrissian and Hondo Ohnaka 

Hondo Ohnaka is one of those characters that is so fun in the animated shows, and even appears in the theme park on Smuggler's Run, but whom we have never seen in a live action show or movie. We actually got a canon meeting of Han and Hondo in a spinoff children's novel called Pirate's Price and some of the Star Wars Adventures comics, but that absolutely is not enough for me. I really want to see Alden Ehrenreich, Donald Glover and a live action version of Hondo in the rumored Lando series having all kinds of wacky hijinks. Will it happen? I don't know. The Lando show is one of those things that they keep talking about here and there but Donald Glover seems like a busy dude. Given the box office and general reception of Solo I'm just not sure if they want to play in the sandbox anymore. However IF the Lando show happens, then 10/10 Hondo needs to be a part of it. 

2. Boba Fett and the Bad Batch/ Rex

I really really want to see Boba Fett interact with other clones, particularly as they are older and wiser now. We got a lot of animated young Boba/ clones stuff, but nothing in live action. Is Boba the only clone left after Return of the Jedi? As of this writing we don't know. There is a rumor that Rex may show up in the Ahsoka show which would be very cool. If he does, then it is not outside the realm of possibility that he could meet Boba Fett. And what about The Bad Batch? Do they survive beyond season 2 of their eponymous show?  I want to see Temura Morrison going full Orphan Black acting against different older clones. I think it would be neat. If Dee Bradley Baker can do it, why not give Tem a shot. 

1. Chopper and K2-SO

My number 1 pick is actually the easiest one, the most logical one, and the one that is the most delightfully chaotic. Fans of Star Wars who listened closely to the scene on Yavin before the battle of Scarif in Rogue One may have noticed they announced "General Syndulla" on the intercom. This refers to Hera Syndulla, captain of the Ghost and mom to the droid Chopper, the most loveable war criminal in the Star Wars universe. That means that canonically Chopper and K2-SO were both on Yavin at the same time (along with R2D2 and C3PO). Who knows what kind of crazy adventures those droids got up to while their humans were off doing important meeting stuff. We do know that K2 sadly perished on Scarif, but given Cassian and Hera's roles in the rebellion it really makes a LOT of sense if a live action Hera shows up in the Cassian prequel show, which by extension means that K2-SO and Chopper have lots of opportunities to meet. We also know that Dave Filoni loves Chopper. Not only did he create the character, he voices him in Rebels as well. This lends me to believe that Chopper's appearance in a live action show is only a matter of time. While seeing Chopper (and by extension Hera) in the Ahsoka show or one of the others set post ROTJ would be fantastic as well, I am really hoping to see him interact with K2, creating the Wario/ Waluigi to R2 and 3PO of my dreams. Imagine it: just droid shade 24/7. Amazing. 

Are there any meet ups you want to see? Any you think I've missed the mark on? Let me know in the comments. 

Roll Me

I haven't written anything in a very long time, but I want to start getting back into writing again even if I don't really have any regular posting schedule. At any rate, here is a story I wrote after asking my family for a prompt. My inspiration comes from both my cousin's suggestion (the mistyped lyrics to "All Star") and my new favorite movie Everything Everywhere All at Once. Enjoy

Somebody once told me the years are going to roll me. From my experience, that has been a crock of shit. It has been over ten years that I have been a rock atop this mountainside, and no amount of weathering or rain or time has moved me in the slightest. Ten years. Has it been ten years? Time has no real meaning for a boulder. I’ve seen at least 6 clutches of swallow eggs in the nest on the crag above me hatch and fly away. I think those swallows only lay once a year but who knows. Are they even swallows?

I honestly think the lack of internet access or books has been the most difficult thing about this kind of un-life I have been un-living. You would think with all the beauty of nature that I could learn something but observation really only gets you so far from a scientific perspective. I can perform no experiments, no thorough research. All I can do is observe, all I can do is to be. What kind of rock even am I? I will be honest and say I never paid very much attention to geology. I don’t really know that a category of form really matters all that much in the end. I will say that my 360 degree field of awareness is rather intriguing. I observe the mountain and the valley and the sky and the dirt upon which I rest all at once and all the time. I have observed things grow and die. I can sense things crawling, sitting, or defecating upon my person, but feel neither cold nor heat, pain nor fear, and I am, as I have said, immovable.

I read a book once about a situation like mine. A donkey fleeing a lion foolishly wishes himself to be a rock while holding a magic pebble. The pebble rolled away and it was only when his parents placed the rock on his back that he could wish himself back again. If only things were so simple for me. It started as a wish too, of course. Of course it did. It always starts with a wish. You would think with all the movies I’d seen, all the books that I’d read, that I would have known that wishes were dangerous. But I couldn’t have known that it wasn’t enough for me not to wish on the wrong kind of stone, not to make wishes of genies or monkey paws or women in the woods. I needed to be fearful too of those who would make wishes about me.

If you asked him, I’m sure he would say that I stole his heart. “Eventually women will always steal your heart,” he would say. I suppose from his point of view he was entitled to turn me into a rock for all the harm I had done him, then. Nevermind my feelings on the matter, nevermind my point of view, nevermind my intent. Nevermind that NOBODY DESERVES TO BE A FUCKING ROCK, MICHAEL. Men are dangerous, my mother always said, powerful men more so than others. I knew he was a powerful man, but I didn’t know he was capital P powerful until it was really too late to do anything about it. In a world of science and facts and books, nobody ever suspects things like magic can be real. I mean, I had always hoped it was. Don’t you always have a little hope that things are a little magical, a little more than the mundane? Whether it was aliens or fairies or wizards or elves, since I was a girl I imagined that something MORE existed in this world and that something beautiful and powerful and meaningful would happen to me. Perhaps I would be tasked with a great quest in a kingdom in a wardrobe or told that I was the heir to a magical treasure. Being turned into a god damned rock was not on the list, but really beggars can’t be choosers I suppose.



For want of anything better to do, I have spent the past few years pondering the nature of magic and what it means for its existence in the world. Surely there are others who have some measure of magical ability besides my ex boyfriend. Surely there must be some kind of authority or oversight committee or council of elders or whatnot who would frown upon people being turned into rocks willy nilly, you would imagine. There were times I dreamed a passing owl was really another wizard in animal form and he would recognize me as not being an actual rock. He would turn me back to the human woman I was, whisk me away to a castle where we would reveal all of Michael’s crimes to some very aged old man, maybe Merlin himself, and he would be stripped of his power and I dunno… also turned into a rock. Fuck it, I’m not very creative. Some days I still hold out hope that such a thing is possible. Other days I feel that this rock life, this un-life, is all I will know until whatever self still exists has devolved into madness. If other magic people do exist in this world, as I am certain they must, then they are obviously as incompetent as any other people in power.

It’s funny but in the beginning I didn’t even mind so much. I know that’s a strange thing to say. But the truth is, in the very very beginning there was of course the terrible fear and the anger and the confusion, but that later led to a kind of peace and happiness. I have no need to eat so I don’t need to buy or hunt for and cook food. I have no need for shelter so I don’t have an apartment to constantly clean. Nobody perceives me so I don’t need to make my body look a certain way. I don’t have a job I need to go to every day, so my time and my mind are entirely my own. The lack of responsibility, lack of societal expectations and rules was an intoxicating freedom for the first several years. For a long while I thought I might be able to learn astral projection or be able to attain nirvana through meditation, but, alas, I suppose I am no Buddha.

Still, I find myself in meditation most of the day, thinking on the nature of existence in a way maybe no one in history has before. Perhaps if I ever return to my human self I will be able to impart a kind of wisdom that people will find profound, but I dunno. If there is a god I haven’t found him. If magic is for something more than causing harm I haven’t seen it. If being this rock means something more than just the outcome of a petty man’s rage then I haven’t discovered it. The self is a collection of thoughts. I think, therefore I am. Real original stuff. I would write a book if Descartes didn’t get there first. Who knows, maybe he was also a rock.

Long ago, a lone hiker stopped and rested on me. This isn’t a particularly well trod trail I am on so visitors are few and far between. He was the first person I had seen in many years and I surprised myself with how excited I was to see him. This was at the time of my confinement when I was certain the key to happiness was to eliminate all attachment and believe my rock self to be superior to the human I had once been. It was a coping mechanism, I later realized. A way to deny my own profound sadness. The real truth was that I missed being a human and being around other humans desperately. I luxuriated in the sensation of the man’s backside on my rocky surface with a kind of ecstasy that you could have called sexual if you could attribute such feelings to a rock. The man, thinking himself alone, began to mutter to himself about this and that as he sat and ate a bag of trail mix.

“This fucking trail is too damn steep, he began.

He was an older man, which surprised me. Mid 70s with a wiry muscular frame.

“I can’t be doing trails like this anymore, I don’t think,” he said, “The years have caught up with me. I could have fallen back there and then what?”

For a while he just sat there on me looking off into the distance. But as he rose he gave me a little pat,

“Years are gonna roll you too someday I’d wager.”

I always wonder if maybe he knew I wasn’t just a rock. I don’t think I’ll ever know.


I sometimes wonder what would happen if I did roll down this mountainside. If the rock self breaks into pieces would I have awareness of all the parts? Could I exist in different places? There is this forest I heard about called Pando that is all the same tree. Like it's just clones of all the same tree, a whole forest of one. Were my rock body to be broken into a million different pieces would whatever exists of my soul be in all of them? Or would I die? Can I die? Ashes to ashes, dust to dust and all that. Would I just be dust in the end, then? Would my consciousness become the whole world? If there is a heaven, would I go to the heaven for people? Would I have gone to heaven anyway? My parents were in their 70s when I left them. Maybe Mother died today. Or was it yesterday? Maybe if I die I will see them again. Or maybe they will never know their only daughter is lost to them forever, dust on the wind.

I think if I really tried I could do it. Roll, I mean. It isn’t as though I’ve never tried to move before, but I wonder if I really exerted all my influence on one task, if I really focused all of my energy, I could will myself to roll. Maybe what was holding me back before was the fear of rolling, the fear of not knowing, the fear of death. I don’t… I don’t know if I fear death anymore. I don’t know that I exactly welcome it, either. I don’t know if you could properly call me suicidal, but 10 years as a rock has made me… apathetic I guess. Well, no, that isn’t exactly true. It’s made me curious, or at the very least it hasn’t taken away my curiosity. Maybe I’ve learned as much as I can in this form and whatever comes next whether it is millions of pebble selves or death or even just getting stuck slightly lower on the mountain it would be something NEW. I think I’m ready for it. There are no wizards coming to save me, there are no magic spells. There is just me and this mountain and my own force of will. I will. I will? I WILL. Ok… I will. I will. I will I will I will. I…

I am.. I am? I am?? Ok I am. I am actually rolling. What the fuck? Ok. This is a very odd sensation. Obviously I have no inner ear so I have no experience of dizziness from that perspective but the sensation of moving around and around is incredibly disorienting. I can kind of perceive the bottom. It’s getting closer. Fuck maybe this wasn’t a good idea. I don’t know. God dammit, I don't know anything. Maybe this was not the smartest plan. No. Stop it. Stop second guessing. I willed this. I did this. I have my own magic and this is my magic I made myself move. I am in control of my own destiny. I know myself. I am me. I am a rock and I am me and I am not a rock and I am not me but I know myself. Whatever happens I did this. Whatever happens I took control of my own future. I’m getting closer to the bottom. Fuck fuck fuck. Ok. Here we go. Here we go. This is it…




After several moments of darkness I realize that… I could still realize. That wherever I am, whatever I am, I still have some perception of self which is very good. Ok. Self. Thinking. Descartes. Awesome. It is dark. Why is it dark? I started rolling during the day, was it night time? No, it is still hot outside. It couldn't be night. Wait. Hot. It was hot. I was feeling that it was hot. I can sense the temperature of the air. The air. The air I was breathing? I am breathing. I take a deep breath. I have breath. I have lungs. What else do I have? The darkness. Hesitantly I open my eyes. My eyes. My eyes, my eyes, my eyes. And I see. I can see. And with my eyes I can see my hands and my legs and my self. MY SELF. Me. I’m me. I’m fucking me??? I’m… I start to cry. I cry and I cry and I cry. Then I run under a tree because its fucking hot and I realize belatedly that I’m naked. But I’m me. I have life. And I have purpose. And he will pay.

Top 5 favorite Aquaman moments

So the truth is I am writing this at 3:30am after another horrible night's sleep. I haven’t been sleeping well. I’ve been waking up with headaches or too hot or having to pee or some other issue lately. It’s probably all tied to anxiety but shit who ISN'T anxious these days? How do you fix a condition that isn’t just in your head? No idea. One of my continual frustrations is my lack of close friends. I have friends with whom I feel I COULD become very close but I don’t have any ride or die, this person is like a sibling to me, I tell them everything, they will randomly stop at my house when I text them I am sad kind of friends. I don’t have any friends I have finished a carton of ice cream with. I haven’t had that kind of closeness in a long long time. So it goes.

I feel like the potential is there but at 37 years old everybody has already decided who their best friends are and somehow I missed distribution day. That’s fine, I’ve made my peace with it. I am grateful I have such a loving and wonderful husband because he is really my best friend other than my parents and sibling I guess. Unlike my ex, I can be completely emotionally vulnerable with him without judgement and as a result our relationship is incredibly close and supportive. We just have this bad habit of not really socializing all that much so we end up getting high and watching TV together which I have to say isn’t the worst way to spend the evening without kids with the person you love most in the world. Last night I had the bright idea for us to play 5 Grand Prix of Mario Kart as well which was pretty brilliant of me because we are so evenly matched (he did end up winning 3-2, though). After that we watched Aquaman on HBOGo again which was also my idea because Aquaman is a perfect fucking stupid movie. It really is. It isn’t a great movie, it is a stupid fucking movie. But a perfect stupid movie and for that I truly love it.

Sooooo after much rambling preamble here are the top 5 moments from the 2018 film Aquaman

 1. The part where he is training with Vulpix (yeah I know that’s a Pokemon, whatever the Willem Defoe character is named) when he is a kid and he flops out of the water like a dolphin. This moment is so absurd that I wait in anticipation for it eagerly. It is literally like that merman scene in Zoolander. Just perfection

2. That part when he is battling OCEAN MASTER (DUN DUNNNNN) for the first time (side note I love how it goes DUN DUNNNNN every time someone says OCEAN MASTER) and before they begin, an octopus plays the drums like in Little Mermaid. Like this whole scene is insane, including but not limited to the fact that they show their “stats” on a display screen for the audience like this is a WWE match and Arthur has no pros only cons, but the octopus playing the drums just really tips this over the edge for me in its absurdity bc it is literally exactly like little mermaid and that is fucking hilarious.

3. When he finally gets the trident and rides on the back of a giant seahorse while holding the trident because it looks just like the comics and it is so silly and perfect. I mean all the riding on sea horses and shark scenes are amazing but when he stands on the back of that sea horse it is just like ::chefs kiss:: this is Aquaman, ya know? 

4. Mary Poppins, the Kracken. Or whatever the fuck that eldritch monstrosity was supposed to be. That Pacific Rim looking crab squid that was inexplicably voiced by Julie Andrews. How did they get Julie Andrews to voice a giant crab monster? Now John Rhys Davies voiced one of the regular crab people and THAT is perfectly logical because like dude is just leaning into his Brian Blessedness and that is definitely a career choice I respect, but Julie Andrews??? Wow. 

5. Oooh picking a 5 is actually really hard. I nearly went with Randall Park as crazed Atlantean obsessed science dude, but in the end I have to go with the very end of the movie where Atlanna and Jango Fett get to fuck again. The thing I like about Atlanna and Jango Fett fucking is that it is so rare you get a happy ending like that, ya know? BOTH parents get to live! This is a really sweet thing given how parents are usually fridged in superhero movies. Good for you Jango Fett. You get that sea pussy. Sidebar, but do Atlanteans get their period bc that would be weird in the ocean. Presumably their reproductive system is similar to ours because they can interbreed with surface people. Lot of questions. I’m also assuming they are all just peeing in the ocean while they are battling, ya? They just pee right there? I mean what else do they do just like swim away to pee? Wouldn’t the pee just float back? Nah they have to just pee right there. Anyway, hurray for happy endings. Everyone gets to fuck. Even the crab people and the fish people who I am going to assume, as they evolved from humans (they said this happened in the movie though how they evolved into fish people so quickly is beyond me) that they all have penises like in shape of water how his dick is hiding. Hooray for fish people sex. Everyone get some.

Being American

My ancestors came to this country from Russia and the greater Eastern European region between the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th.  They were all Jews.  I did a Family Tree DNA test a few years ago that came back 97% Jew.  Yep. I'm a Jew.  Jew, Jew Jewy Jew.  The other 3% was probably some Russian dude who raped my 4x great grandmother or something, who knows.  We are new to America.  New, being a relative term.  Certainly, there are immigrants who came to this country in the later part of the 20th century and the 21st, but we came recently enough that important pieces of our cultural identity, of Eastern European Jewry, still permeates our everyday lives.  Those are my people.  American Jews. I guess for the longest time I operated under the assumption that most white people were like me when it came to their American-ness, that their ancestry was REALLY English or Irish or Italian or Polish.  I thought that "white" was a category invented to deprive people of their ancestral culture under the guise of white supremacy and the devaluation of people of color, that most people could and SHOULD say what they were culturally instead of just identifying as white in an effort to dismantle an artificially created racial dichotomy.

Doing my husband's genealogy made me confront the fact that some people defy such easy categorization.  One branch of my husband's family came from France to settle Canada in the 1640s.  Another branch was British and settled the Massachusetts Bay colony, one even coming aboard the Mayflower.  Another branch was Dutch, settling New Amsterdam in the 1660s. Another branch of his family were Spanish rancheros in old California, the oldest one I have found born in Mexico in the 1740s.  Another branch was German, settling the Germantown, Pennsylvania area in the early 1700s. The more "recent" branches settled from Ireland in the late 1840s and from Germany in the 1850s.  His family has been in California before it was a state. His family has been in America/ North America since before there was an America, several of them fighting in the Revolutionary War.  In fact, some even fought in the French and Indian Wars (On both sides of that conflict).  In many, many ways I am jealous of all the history.  Jealous for the ability to know the names of ancestors, to see them written in books, that Wikipedia articles are written about them, that someone in his family has fought in every single war this nation has ever fought. It is a gift to have so much knowledge.

I know my people were Russian Jews.  That will probably be all that I will ever know.  Any distant cousins I may have had in the old country were invariably killed by pogroms or in the Holocaust.  Maybe I am descended from some great Jewish thinker, though probably I am just from tailors and farmers who lived humble lives in the ghettos they were forced to live in. My culture is the culture of Ashkenazi New York in the early 20th century.  Recent immigrants to this country have the shared knowledge, culture, pride and cuisine of their homelands, even if they don't know the names of their great grandfathers.   Black Americans descended from slaves will never know from which African tribe or country their people were from, but they share a beautiful and rich American Black culture that is unique and distinguished from more recent immigrants from Africa.  Indigenous descended people may have been removed from their cultures by force in some cases, but many can make the conscious decision to reconnect with their tribal Nations now if they so choose.

And yet I have heard my husband say that he guesses he's "just a big European mutt." It is a gift to have so much knowledge about your ancestry, far far more than most people I know, more than the descendants of slaves who will never know their real names, more than the nameless indigenous people who were slaughtered in the name of conquest, but what does it really mean that your 10x great grandfather on your father's mother's side was some British lord if it doesn't bring any kind of sense of identity or belonging?  When I thought about it at first, I found that concept profoundly odd in ways I couldn't quite put my finger on, and it made me sad.

People talk a lot about America as a nation of immigrants, though such a designation ignores both involuntarily transported slaves and indigenous peoples.  But I think it is also not quite accurate in other ways.  All white people came from somewhere else to be sure, but when their people came from that somewhere else so long ago, long beyond living memory, how are they to think of themselves as anything else other than "American," whatever that term is supposed to mean, other than white?  The rah rah America attitude displayed by a lot of people on the right I think is indicative that a lot of people latch onto whiteness when they lack any other strong cultural upbringing.   Thankfully, my husband doesn't have any of those inclinations, though there are certainly members of his family who do.  It isn't that I don't blame them, I think blame when it comes to white supremacist thinking is a really complicated topic but that ultimately regardless of upbringing people are responsible for their own behavior, but I do understand a bit better now how, lacking anything else to bind them to each other, some people choose whiteness.  The melting pot has melted away everything else. 

America is such a beautiful mixture of so many different kinds of people, like my husband is.  We need to find a way to uplift a concept of American culture that is not dependent on a known cultural background, which I think is how the language was used in the past, while also including those for whom cultural pride is everything.  Nobody should be asked to give up what makes them uniquely from their cultural group, but at the same time, those without an established culture should be able to say their heritage is "American" in a way that is more inclusive, positive, responsible, and aware of its history than is currently common.

What Comes Next

I was going to write this in the style of one of my imaginary conversations, but elected to forgo the pretense.  Here's an old fashioned blog entry.

For the past two years I have felt a growing dread about our future as a democracy.  I have had people try to tell me that it isn't as bad as all that.  I've had my father say that he "lived through Nixon" and "this is just another terrible thing that will pass."  I've had people on the right laugh at me openly about my concerns.  I have listened to and read the words of people of color who have spoken to the racism they experienced their entire lives and their frustration with white people who are just now figuring out how fucked things are because we see it on social media.  They aren't wrong.  Maybe none of them are wrong.  Well except the right wing assholes.  They can get fucked. I dunno.

All I know is what I know and what I feel.  Here's what I know.  What I know is that the other day I saw somebody on Twitter sharing the tips their grandfather used when they were in the Resistance fighting the Gestapo.  And this list had lots of detailed points on what people in the Resistance did, what everyday people can do can muck up the works of a totalitarian government.  What I know is that somebody else who grew up in another totalitarian government shared their experiences and what they did to survive it.  What I know is that I took notes.  What I feel is that whether history repeats itself exactly or just creates a new spin on an old theme, things are happening now that ARE different from other things that have happened in the past 36 years of my life.  What I feel is that all of it: the anger over police brutality, the spread of social media, the crackdown in immigration, the oppression of minorities and people of color, the rise in mass shootings, the racist rhetoric on the right, the wealth inequality in this nation, the loss of jobs oversees due to tariff wars, and global warming, among a host of other issues that are happening all at once are leading to something...bad. I don't know what the bad thing will be.  I don't know if the bad thing will be another terrorist attack.  I don't know if the bad thing will be a civil war. I don't know if the bad thing will be nuclear annihilation.  I don't know if the bad thing will be a Fourth Reich.  I feel, deep in my soul, that whatever it is will be the end of America as we know it.

I don't know when the thing will happen.  I don't think this is a next year thing.  But it feels like something major.  Like something WW3 major.  Like something Napoleon major.  Like something French Revolution major.  Like something cataclysmic. I talk to my friends about this and it is shocking to me the number of people who are also in agreement that yeah we are basically fucked.  I have a few friends who remain optimistic about 2020, but I just can't.  I used to think that as soon as Mueller finished his report then it would be all over and this nightmare would be done and we could go back to how it was.  Lol look how that went.  I realized there is no going back.  I don't even know if there is going forward.  I really and truly don't know that if Trump loses the 2020 election he won't just declare the election illegitimate and make himself dictator for life.  I really, really don't.  Even those more optimistic people have trouble coming up with concrete answers to my questions.  I

The other day I was reading an article about disinformation campaigns and how bots were creating whole image composites of people in their efforts to sow discord and those images looked so real that I think I failed this test to spot who was the fake.  So like robots are posing as people to influence our democracy and spread hate and are we living in a fucking movie right now because if you say it like that it is legitimately insane.  Do we even need Terminator if we die by a thousand cuts?  Or warm our earth so much that our crops will start dying?  Apparently the administration is investing a lot into space now.  Of course they are.  Because the rich will gtfo this planet before it dies.  That's why they don't care about the rest of us.

I'm tired.  I'm trying to live a normal life and plan my wedding and help the kids with homework and go to Trader Joes and still live in this sense of utter and complete bewilderment whether the life I see as normal will be what life will be like 20 years from now.  I mean, I knew there would be changes, technological changes.  But just seeing how fast things have changed from the 90s to now makes me really wonder what 2040 will look like, whether anything will be recognizable at all.  I wish I had a time machine not to go into the past but to go into the future just to check to make sure we were still okay.  Just a peek.  Then I could come back. SOME kind of reassurance that we, and by we I mean this nation and the vast majority of people in it, will be alright.  I guess nothing is ever that easy.

Done with Seuss

So Dr. Seuss' birthday is coming up and I am frequently asked to read at schools for this occasion. I have very conflicted feelings about Dr. Seuss. On the one hand, his books were among the first I remember reading, in particular A to Z and Hop on Pop. On the other, his books often contain racist characterizations, the "Chinaman" in And to Think that I Saw It On Mulberry Street, for example, and his art from the WW2 period was extremely racist as well. Seuss himself said that his story Horton Hears a Who was dedicated to a Japanese man, Mitsugi Nakamura, as a way of atoning for his past misdeeds and racism, but I'm not sure that allegorical storytelling is sufficient to make up for the real harm inflicted upon Japanese Americans because of his racist art.  On top of this is the issue of Cat in the Hat and how he, as well as other classic cartoon characters of the period, exhibit all the tropes of minstrelsy. More information on this can be found here.  For this reason I have not decorated my library for Dr. Seuss' birthday or otherwise celebrated it the past two years.

A lot of people push back against this notion of not reading Dr. Seuss or not watching some old movies because they believe that the racism in them was typical of the time and thus should be excused away. There is this notion that things in the past, things one has grown with as a child are somehow sacred and should always be the canon, should always be taught to the next generation. "Oh its just X what's the big deal?" they say with a shrug. Why? Why do people feel the need to defend things that don't need defending? I love sharing Star Wars and Princess Bride with my daughter, but I don't feel the need to read her Little House on the Prairie because how incredibly racist it is to Native and Black people. I don't know if you are aware of this, but more books have been written since you were in school. I hate to break it to you, but your childhood favorites aren't inherently better because they were loved by you when you were children. Why must we prop up Dr. Seuss over any other author, over authors of color, over women, over people whose characters have not be blasted all over lunchboxes for the past 50 years?

When I was asked by a school to read today, I did so but with a caveat: I asked if I could read another book from the library. Instead of reading a Dr. Seuss book, I read Wild About Books by Judy Sierra and Marc Brown about a librarian who opens a library in a zoo. It is a fun rhyming story in the style of Dr. Seuss and even mentions Dr. Seuss among the books the animals at the zoo read. I read to three classes today: 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade. All of them are older than the typical audience for Dr. Seuss anyway which makes me wonder why this holiday is being celebrated in their classes in the first place. With the younger two classes I simply said "I don't have a Dr. Seuss book today, but this is another fun story that has a lot of great rhyming words." Then I came to the 5th grade class. These are 10 and 11 year old kids. A sea of brown faces: the school is about 90% Latinx. I said, "Hey, so I don't have a Dr. Seuss book today. A lot of older Dr. Seuss works are, frankly, kinda racist. I kind of have mixed feelings about Dr. Seuss because I grew up with him but I thought I would share this other fun book instead. If you like silly rhymes I encourage all of you to write! One thing Dr. Seuss was great at was making up a lot of crazy words. Maybe you can try it." It was the first time I think I was that blunt with a group of kids. I wondered why that was.

If we are going to create a new generation of kids who embrace diversity, who understands the role that race plays in our daily lives, who deconstructs old notions of gender, then we have to do some real work. Some of that work requires us to let go of the things we used to love and accept that, yeah, maybe that mammy in those Bugs Bunny cartoons was pretty gross, and maybe the crows in Dumbo were pretty gross, and maybe all those books we read as a kid with monkeys as main characters looked like blackface caricatures. For many white people, it is hard to acknowledge one's own racial biases, especially when you perceive yourself as an otherwise liberal person. So you voted for Obama and you hate Trump and you are against the wall. Great! So why when people of color or Native people are telling you that the old books or movies you like are hurtful to them do you push back? Is it simply that you are willing to be a "good" person when it is easy and not when it requires you to make any kind of substantive changes to your thinking? I am trying to do better. It is hard. It takes work. But if my fellow white educators, parents, and librarians put in the same amount of work what a wonderful world we could live in. A world where an author of color rolls off the tongue as quickly to every school child as Dr. Seuss' does.

Nothing

I've often wondered if part of my problem making friends is that I just can't commit to having a "thing."  People with "things" always seem to have friends, or really they have many acquaintances that might develop into friends, but that's much the same thing isn't it? If you are super into biking you meet cycling friends.  If you are super into music you meet musician friends. If you are super into D&D you meet D&D friends, or at least have the few people you regularly play with at any rate.  If you are into goth you meet goth people, into cosplay you meet cosplay people. Shit people super into furries and stuff could probably meet other furry people more easily than I can make friends.  This is not to say that I don't like things or even that I am not passionate about things.  I think if you took a random sampling of people I know they would all acknowledge that I know about and like Star Wars and Game of Thrones and other sci fi and fantasy stuff.  But I don't write fan fiction, I don't care enough about Marvel movies to make long YouTube videos speculating what will happen next.  I don't care enough about books to even regularly write book reviews just to meet other book people.  When I enjoy something, I enjoy it, and sometimes I will gush on Twitter or Facebook but I just don't have this identity I think that is defined by things I do or like.  Lots of people online talk about their "brand."  I don't really know what mine is. I don't think I ever really have.  The other day I met a dude who has 47K Instagram followers because he has some internet famous cat.  I don't even like my cats enough to devote the time and energy it would take to actually be a "cat" person.  Who am I even?

This isn't a new phenomenon for me.  When I was a kid I was the same way. I liked to act when I was little but never "got into" theater in high school to the point where all my friends were theater friends.  I was in choir but wasn't really a "choir person."  I listened to some alternative music but never committed fully to an alternative or goth aesthetic because it just seemed kind of silly to me. I remember once in 9th grade wearing black to school on the day I was going to be seeing Smashing Pumpkins in concert.  A few people called me a poser.  An attempt was made.  The truth is, I just never got having "things."  How could you limit yourself to only liking one genre of music?  How could you dress yourself to conform to an arbitrary identity defined by others?  I was a poser because I just never really got it, I never really got any of it.  I've never liked something so much that my identity or "brand" is built around it.   Shit even now as an adult, I really love people with cool colors of hair but the time and money taken to maintain just feels like more performative unnecessary bullshit to me.  I am Jewish but I'm not like one of these SUPER involved in the temple or Israeli dancing Jews.  I'm political, but I'm not really an active member in organizations. I'm a librarian but I'm not involved in ALA.  I just don't have it in me.  I just... don't really DO "things."

I think the closest I have come to "branding" myself is the fact that I usually walk around with an R2D2 purse which is basically my minimal effort attempt at nerd social signalling that I, too, like the space wars.  Other than that... I dunno.  I think a lot of my struggle in life has come from this notion that I am supposed to have a "thing."What if not having a "thing" is ok, though?  What if just being kind of interested in a lot of stuff and not really being a stan for any one thing exclusively and not really doing stuff all the time is ok?  What do I really need out of life that I am not currently getting?  Why get jealous of other people's lives when I don't really want what they have?  I get so stuck on what I should be doing that I get down on myself.  I see other people's busyness and question my own slothfulness when the truth is I am much happier not doing than doing the vast majority of the time?

The past few years of my life I have come to know myself better than I did when I was younger.  What I've realized is that the energy I spent trying to fit in was kind of pointless. The difference now is that I have a partner I really and truly enjoy doing "nothing" with.  "Nothing" is sometimes my favorite part of the day! Doing things makes me tired.  That's ok. It is ok to acknowledge that brief interludes of social activity can be followed by periods of inactivity.  It is ok to acknowledge that I work in a public facing job, am surrounded by people all day, talk to people all day, enjoy talking to people in the capacity of my job, or talking to friends, or talking to my kids or my fiance, but that making socially awkward chit chat is unappealing, and in my spare time can spend hours saying nothing to anybody and really enjoy it quite well thank you very much.

I made a goal for myself to be more social this year, to actually reach out to people and attempt to hang out with them.  But I've realized I can do that without a "thing."  Maybe just hanging out is ok.  Maybe I'm alright the way I am. Or maybe I'm not.  That's ok too.  I just need to be honest with myself.

Who Lives, Who Dies, Who Tells Your STOOOORYYY: Infinity War Wrap Up

DO I HAVE TO TELL YOU THERE ARE SPOILERS IN THIS

WHY ARE YOU READING THIS IF YOU DON'T WANT SPOILERS

SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY

DUH SPOILERS

LIKE SERIOUSLY COME ON NOW

AT THIS POINT YOU ONLY HAVE YOURSELF TO BLAME

I AM DOING THE BEST I CAN DAMMIT

Ok, hello there.  If you are here, then you have either already seen Infinity War or you don't care about spoilers.  I don't know why you are here if you haven't seen the movie, but ya know what?  I won't judge your life decisions.  In my last post, I predicted the following characters would/ could possibly die in Infinity War:

Black Widow

Captain America

Gamora

Nebula

Drax

Iron Man

Loki

Vision

So who actually died?

Heimdall - I had completely forgotten to mention Heimdall in my last post, but I actually figured he might die on the ship.  I did predict that Valkyrie would show up in a brief appearance guiding at least some of the Asgardians to safety, but that did not happen.  I still think that Valkyrie and possibly Korg are still alive until proven otherwise

Loki - Yep, I figured this would happen and he died pretty much as I assumed he would.  Rest in peace you beautiful, horrible jerk. 

Gamora - Did not die as I expected her to, and actually in a much more dramatic and emotional way than I expected her to, but I did expect that her ties to Thanos made her a target.  I was genuinely surprised that Nebula did not also die in this film.  

Vision - As I predicted, Vision died when Thanos took his stone, despite Scarlet Witch's attempts to save him.  Will he remain dead is a question for the next movie.  I believe Shuri imaged his brain before he died so that she could resurrect him in some capacity.  If anybody could it is her.  She is the smartest person in the MCU.

That's it.  The other characters who "died" in the film are: Spider-Man, Black Panther, Bucky, Black Panther, Dr. Strange, Scarlet Witch, Star Lord, Groot, Drax, and Mantis (and Maria Hill and Nick Fury in the stinger at the end).  I put "died" in quotation marks because it is pretty clear that Thanos' snap which killed half the universe's population in one swoop is going to be undone.  

A lot of people were very emotional at the end of the movie because of so much loss, but for me... I dunno.  As soon as they killed Spider-Man who is headlining his own sequel in a year I knew that these deaths weren't permanent.  This is a common trope in comics, but didn't work quite so well for me in a movie. It was impactful but not in the way, say, a death like Tony Stark's would have been.  In fact, when Tony got stabbed and nearly died my audience reacted much more strongly then the deaths of everybody all at once at the end, which left many people walking by me on the way out just saying "what the fuck?"  I'm not saying it wasn't necessary to the storytelling or will make the next movie really interesting, but, as an example, Guardians of the Galaxy 2 spent 10 minutes on Yondu's funeral only to have literally all the Guardians except Nebula and Rocket just die in a poof?  That just kind of hurt.  

The rest of the movie was absolutely spectacular.  I LOVED all the pairings of the characters, in particular Thor+Peter and Thor+Rocket.  I loved the Tony/ Strange/ Spider-Man dynamic too.  The movie even made me like Scarlet Witch and Black Widow which I thought would be impossible.  Pairing Natasha with Okoye was a good idea.  The writing was really fantastic and pulled together a lot of different threads very well.  There were 5 different plots/ locations at times and I didn't feel lost or that they were doing too much.  It definitely counted on you remembering certain details from previous movies, particularly Guardians, Thor, and Doctor Strange, but that is to be expected.  What was definitely NOT expected was how little Captain America was in this movie.  Really interesting how somebody like Rocket ended up with more lines in the movie than some of the original Avengers. It was WAY more of a space movie than the trailers let on.  I think that was for the best.  It brought the humor and tone of Ragnarok and Guardians to the rest of the Avengers and everybody benefited.  So many hilarious lines. 

I absolutely can't wait for the next movie and I can only hope that it retains at least some of the humor, though with everybody "dead" I know it probably won't be as much of a laugh riot as this one was.  

Who Dies? My Infinity War Predictions

Hey all!  So Avengers: Infinity War is coming out in just a few weeks and according to the Russos, there are going to be some of our favorite characters who don't make it out of the film alive.  How many?  Who will live and who will die?  Here is an alphabetic breakdown of who's who in the MCU and my predictions on how they will fare against Thanos. Now my guesses are not based on comics, simply based on what I know about the films, the actors, etc. The MCU really is its own beast.  Trying to predict what happens based on the Infinity War comics is pretty pointless as there are SO many narrative differences.

A
Ant Man - Given that Ant Man and Wasp come out this summer it is safe to say that Ant Man lives. Heck, I don't even know if he is in this movie much/ at all. His skill set doesn't really lend itself to intergalactic battles, but he could probably shrink down and scuttle away from any danger imho. 

B
Black Panther - Lives.  I'm gonna go ahead and jump right out and say that Shuri and Okoye live too.  There is no real logical reason why they would live against Thanos, but their movie was so super popular that I seriously doubt Marvel wants to get rid of them.  I think we are going to lose at least a few Wakandans though, maybe even audience favorite M'Baku.  He was a stand out in the Black Panther movie, but his death will raise the stakes.  Listen, Ragnarok killed off all the Warriors Three.  T'Challa has to lose at least one partner.

Black Widow - I strongly suspect Natasha will bite it this movie.  There is literally nothing about her skill set that screams "useful" in this fight.  She had a part to play in Civil War and definitely Winter Soldier but in every other fight she is just been pretty ineffectual.  The only way I can see her living is if she realizes this battle is too big for her and just gets out of dodge (see my entry about Hawkeye below)

Bucky - Lives.  I think Bucky will either take up the mantle of Captain America (see entry below) or will go on to become the White Wolf of Wakanda.  I would personally rather see him in the latter role as his chemistry with Shuri was really strong (not in a romantic way, just in a fun playful way) and I think it would be nice to see them interacting more.

C
Captain America - Sorry Steve, but you and your sexy butt are gonna die.  This has been pretty
heavily telegraphed for a very long time.  Who will take up the shield after he falls is up to debate, but Cap is not long for this world.  It is time to move on to different things.

Captain Marvel - Not a question of whether she dies but if whether she shows up.  I think they have to do some kind of appearance even though Avengers 4 is where she is really going to shine after her solo film.  Possibly just a post credits sequence appearance, though

D
Doctor Strange - Lives.  I think Strange has a lot more to do in the MCU and his magical skill set will keep him pretty safe in this fight.  Wong may die though, unfortunately.

F
Falcon - I think Sam will deffo make it out alive.  Will he become Captain America after Steve dies?  I think yes, though Bucky is a more popular choice.

G
Guardians of the Galaxy - I do think that some of the Guardians might die in this film, though not the entire team since they are going to be making a 3rd Guardians movie.  Rocket and Groot are safe, Groot especially since he just died.  Gamora and Nebula are definitely questionable though, particularly due to their ties to Thanos.  I think Nebula of the two is the most likely to die since her redemption arc is basically completed (see also Loki below).  Mantis is too new a character to die so unceremoniously.  Drax is an iffy for me.  He thinks he is stronger than he is, which lends me to believe he will do something stupid. After all the big emotional beats from Guardians 2 I think Star Lord is pretty safe, though he doesn't have the abilities he had in that film anymore now that Ego's planet is destroyed.

H
Hawkeye - Hawkeye doesn't even get a character poster for this movie.  He isn't in ANY of the marketing of the movie.  Poor Hawkeye can't catch a break.  For me, this is actually good news because it means that I think he is going to live.  In Age of Ultron Hawkeye basically said he was retiring and going to live on his farm up state.  While he came back for Civil War I strongly suspect he might just sit this whole fight out or get out of there when he realizes he is out of his depth. If not he will die pretty quickly, though the indignity of dying without even getting a hero poster is pretty sad.  I really want them to bring on Kate Bishop as Hawkeye and have him as a mentor figure.  This would be a good way to intro Young Avengers.

Hulk - I think it is a safe bet that Hulk makes it out of this movie ok.  He is one of the strongest characters in the MCU.  Less certain is Bruce Banner.  In Ragnarok, Bruce says that if he turns to Hulk another time he worries he won't be able to come back.  Given that Mark Ruffalo's contract is over, I suspect this is what is going to happen.  Hulk will remain in Hulk form and they can bring on somebody new to do the mocap for him.  Maybe at a later date he will go back to Bruce for a while, but it won't be Mark doing it.

I
Iron Man - I thought he was going to die in Civil War, though given his mentorship of Spider-Man I'm glad he didn't.  Still, I feel like he has worn out his usefulness as a character and given the events of the previous films he just doesn't have a place in the new version of the Avengers that will emerge from this film.  Obviously i could be wrong, but I don't want to be.  I'm over Tony.  Plus RDJ is getting on in years.  He can't play Iron Man forever.  Once his bro Mark Ruffalo is gone as Bruce and only Hulk remains, Tony won't have any "grown ups" to talk to either.  I think he's gonna go.

L
Loki - Loki is gonna die.  As with Nebula, Loki's journey from bad to good back to bad and back to good again is pretty much done.  I think he will actually sacrifice himself this time, giving him the heroic ending that he imagined for himself from Dark World (and Matt Damon). Without an Asgard to fight over, I don't know that his character has anything left to do in the MCU.  I also think Tom Hiddleston is done with the character and longing to do something else.

N
Nebula (see Guardians of the Galaxy above)

S
Scarlet Witch - I think she makes it, though her character in the MCU is soooo boring.  Still, I have a strong suspicion that they are going to do things with her and Vision's kids Wiccan and Speed and they need her to live for that to happen. 

Spider-Man - Lives.  Peter Parker has a nice long career ahead of him before they decide to bring in Miles Morales.

T
Thor - This is a SUPER iffy one for me.  The trailers put him in a pretty precarious situation, but I think he is a strong enough character to make it out of this alive.  I am pretty sure Loki will sacrifice himself (and that Tessaract) in order to save him somehow.

V
Valkyrie - Valkyrie doesn't have a character poster for this movie, which lends me to believe that she may only be in it for the briefest of appearances to get some of the Asgardians away somehow.  Hopefully that means Korg will live too, though the trailers make it look like Thanos kills quite a few people on board that ship.

Vision -  His entire self is powered by an Infinity Stone so once that is taken away I don't see how he makes it out alive. But like I mentioned with Scarlet Witch, I think his living and having kids with Scarlet Witch is necessary to create the new generation of superheroes.

W
War Machine - After NEARLY dying in Civil War I think Rhodes is going to make it out of this film alive.  To kill him now would be like an afterthought and I don't think they are going to do that.

So there you have my predictions. I will be checking back in after the movie comes out to see how right or wrong I may be.

A Millennial Memento Mori

When I was 16, Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold shot up Columbine High School.   A fear grew in me then, a fear I had never experienced before, that at any moment something like that could happen to me.  The fear lingered in the back of my brain, its tentacles burying itself deep into my subconscious. But time went on. School rolled along.  I had other things to think about.  The fear was still there, though.  Always.

I turned 17 that summer.  By then all anyone could talk about was how the world was going to end on Y2K.  I didn't believe it, not really, but as December 31st drew nearer there was a very small part in the back of my brain that thought "maybe."  It was a small part, a silly part, and it went away as January 1st turned into January 2nd and on and on.  But it was a concept, wasn't it.  Not just that I could die but that everything could die, that the world could end.  It's a complicated thought for someone who is 17.  We had learned about global warming in school.  I had heard about the ice caps melting, about the hole in the ozone layer.  I would remember that as the years went on.  Maybe the Earth was going to die.

I was 18 when I campaigned and voted for Al Gore.  He lost.  I was worried about my rights as a woman, I was worried about Bush destroying our country, I was worried about the environment.  It felt like the end of the world.  It wasn't.  But I was confused.  What did it mean that Gore won the popular vote but didn't become president?  What kind of country was this anyway? Nothing seemed fair or right or as it should be.  I was afraid. I was angry.

I was 19 on 9/11.  That felt like the end of the world.  It wasn't, but it felt like it was for a while.  A new fear grew in me then, a fear that terrorists could bomb us at any moment, that the world was changing into something new, something scary, something I didn't understand.  The fear grew.  That fall I decided to lose my virginity.  Why then?  Because I was horny, because I was young.  All those things are true.  But the other part, the secret part, thought "What if it all ends?" Would I have waited if 9/11 never happened?  I can honestly say I don't know.  That day burned into me a sense of restless urgency, a need to do something quickly before it all went away.   As the years of war rolled on, as I grew accustomed to taking off my shoes at the airport, the fear dulled into something familiar.  I didn't live every day as if it were my last, but neither did I think all that long and hard about the future.

The years passed and there were more shootings, more terrorist attacks, more bullshit.  When Obama became president things felt differently but this fear of the end never really quite went away.  The Earth was still dying.  Global warming wasn't getting any better.  People kept killing people and nothing felt as safe and normal as it did when I was younger, in that time before I felt the fear.  Maybe that was part of growing older.  Maybe everyone looks back on their childhood as a time of hope and safety and normalcy and their adulthood as a time of fear and uncertainty. Or maybe it was the relentlessness of a neverending war, neverending hate, cable news.  I remember a time, long ago, when we wouldn't know anything until the 6 o'clock news.  And we would be anxious then, worried.  But the worry would end when the news did, and Jeopardy would come on and then the prime time shows.  You would go through your day and the horrible things would be out of mind until you saw it in those 30 minute increments.  Can you remember?  It is hard to sometimes.

I was 31 when my husband asked for a divorce.  That felt like the end of the world.  It wasn't.  In fact it was the best thing that had happened to me in a long time in the long run.  But it reminded me that nothing is permanent.  It reminded me that at any moment it could all go away.

I was 34 when Trump was elected.  It felt like the end of the world.  Maybe it will be.  I don't know yet.    It was the worst I had felt since 9/11.  Every day since has been a struggle, every day since the fear of the end grows stronger in the back of my mind.  Las Vegas, Florida, so many dead.  Our democracy at risk, our climate warming, my community on fire, floods destroying the highway, the doomsday clock ticking closer, Nazis, police brutality, pain, murder, death, disease.

Certainly those who grew up in the Cold War felt the world could end too.  The people who lived through World War II, who lived through World War I, who lived through the Russian Revolution, the Civil War, Napoleon thought that everything they knew could come to an end.  Was it any different?  Is this just what being in the world feels like?  But maybe this feeling is something that is unique to my generation, a generation who came of age at the dawn of the Millennium.  I think back, from time to time, to those three years 1999-2001 that seemed to define me, to define my generation.  I think something happened.  I think something broke.  I don't exactly know what.

I'm not anxious all the time, not in the same way I was when I was in my late teens and early 20s and went on medication.  A lot of people of my generation are on medication.  A lot of people of my generation are anxious.  I don't think its a coincidence.  I am stronger and feel more confident about myself and my relationship with my boyfriend than I ever did when I was younger and unhappily married.  I am happier now than I've been since my teens.  And yet... And yet.  One part of my brain thinks about my daughter 10 years from now, 20.  I think about her growing up and going to college and discovering who she is.  And then another part, the fearful part, the part that grew on my brain on an April day nearly 20 years ago and has only swollen since wonders whether hers will be the next school on the news, whether the future will even look anything remotely like the world now, whether we will even have country to live in, whether the Earth will have been warmed so much that our summers are intolerable, certain foods unable to grow.

I wish I could rationalize away my fear of the apocalyptic.  I wish I could tell myself that this too shall pass.  I wish I could remind myself that even in the time of Ragnarok, at the end of the world, the Norse believed there was a renewal, a rebirth, a new start.  I wish I could tell myself that its just anxiety trying to control me.  Then Trump makes jokes about nukes. The ice caps are still melting. The rich hoard their impossible amounts of wealth and children go hungry.  People are getting angrier.  It feels like eventually people are going to break.  Revolution?  Death?  What happens?  Maybe just another day.  Those are just thoughts.  Not new ones.

Cornelis Norbertus Gysbrechts
Vanitas Still Life (c. 17th century)

The Dutch masters created vanitas still life paintings, reminders that all things are transient, that all things must die.  It was an art form not made from fear of death but acceptance of it. How can you see friends and family die of plague, die so young, and not accept that death comes for us all?  We are a generation who has been forced to adapt.  We may have started our school years with no computers at all and ended them with internet.  We never had a phone, not even a pager, then we got phones and computers and smart phones and tablets.  One day there is a popular thing the next thing you know "that is so last year."  Then there is a meme and it is so last month, last week.  Constantly adapting, constantly changing, constantly having to change.  Everything is transient.  Everything dies. Sometimes I wonder if our morbid jokes about eating tide pods or "This is Fine" memes amount to much the same thing as Baroque skull drawings.  Perhaps we are a generation so inured to death that we have almost resigned ourselves to it.  So accustomed to constant change that changes almost mean nothing.  Another person shot, another day.  This is horrible, but we are joking it isn't.  So it goes.  Here is something different.  Here is something new.  Our Millennial Memento Mori looks like the schizophrenic nature of the online world:

A puppy

Someone's food

A dead body

A penguin wearing a sweater

Someone's children

Hate speech

A hot actor

A baby otter

A child covered in blood

In the Japanese tradition of mono no aware the beauty of a thing is defined by its ephemeral nature, by its impermanence.  Perhaps the path away from nihilism is an embrace of the fragile nature of our existence without fear, by seeing the beauty in the fallen leaf and not its tragedy.   Yet we have been asked to change so much, become so accustomed to change, that I think sometimes it is hard for us to remember that things can be different.  Sometimes it takes an external force to remind us who became jaded so quickly by all the horrors that we should not treat it as normal.  ICE isn't normal, its only 15 years old.  School shootings aren't normal, we were shocked by them just a few years ago.  War isn't normal.  We didn't used to always be at war. It is possible to recognize that death and impermanence are a natural part of life and also NOT accept that we must die at the whims of those in power, NOT accept that horrors are inevitable, but it is hard balance to find. It is that balance I am always striving for, for my sanity more than anything else.  I haven't found it yet.

Star Wars: The Last Jedi - A Film for 2017

SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS OBVIOUSLY

SPOILERS

JUST IN CASE THE PREVIEW STILL SHOWS THIS SPOILERS ALSO

This is not going to be a comprehensive review of Star Wars: The Last Jedi, though I have a lot of thoughts and a lot of emotions about the film.  Rather this post is about a very specific feeling I got walking out of The Last Jedi that made me realize the film was perfect for this specific time and place in a way I have not seen in a major blockbuster since Captain America: The Winter Soldier.  There was no specific moment like in Revenge of the Sith where the current political situation was referenced so specifically (Anakin's "If you're not with me, then you're my enemy" echoing Bush's "You are with us or you are with the terrorists," for example) but its message is one that is decidedly political and timely.  

The history of the Star Wars cinematic universe is one that has asked us to rely on singular hero figures, namely Skywalkers, whose actions determine the course and fate of the universe.  If the prequels are to believed it was Anakin's turn to the dark side that caused the Empire to rise.  If only he had chosen another path things would be different, he could have defeated the Emperor.  If the original trilogy is to believed, it is Luke's destiny to defeat the Empire by destroying the Emperor and redeeming his father.  The fate of the galaxy, then, rests on the shoulders of individuals.  The Force Awakens doesn't shy away from this premise.  We need to find this map so we can find Luke.  We need Luke because without him we fail. Rey is a Jedi and she needs to train with Luke so that she can continue the legacy.  Maybe Rey is his daughter or niece or Obi Wan's daughter who needs to continue the tradition of singular heroes saving the galaxy.  We need to destroy this one thing, this Death Star, this Starkiller Base, so that we can save everyone.  

The Last Jedi is fundamentally different in its premise and ideology.  In many ways it shares more of its DNA with Rogue One, a story about an anonymous band of rebels who sacrifice themselves for the greater good.  Their sacrifice did not destroy the Empire.  They stole the plans for the first Death Star.  That was all.  Their sacrifice didn't magically upend the political order of the galaxy, it was simply one part in an ongoing war against Imperial aggression. Did their sacrifice matter?  Of course it did.  But given its context, the film forced us to see that even one action doesn't solve a greater problem.  In Return of the Jedi Emperor Palpatine dies.  Snoke apparently replaces him. Who is Snoke?  Does it matter? He was the next guy.  He was Pence.  He was the one who came along.  The truth is there will always be another to come along. Snoke dies and Kylo Ren replaces him.  If Kylo Ren died, Hux would take over.  The Empire and the First Order both are not dependent on the mythology of a singular leader.  Theirs is a vision of domination and control and power.  If you look at the indignant expression on Hux's face when Kylo takes control it is clear that were it not for Kylo's Force abilities he would be out of the First Order entirely, and that certainly doesn't mean that the First Order would be gone.  In fact Ben Solo's pathological obsession with both Rey and his family's legacy is often the cause of the First Order's failures.  He is a liability, not a strength.  I'm sure Hux would have been happy if Luke dispatched him on the sands of Crait.  And galactic domination would go on.  The Last Jedi forces us to see that the world, the galaxy, does not care in the long run about the petty disputes of the Skywalker family.  

The sojourn to Canto Bight, which some critics have said is unnecessary, I felt was an important reminder that the galaxy is comprised of a whole host of people who are neither wearing stormtrooper uniforms nor sitting behind the seat of an X-Wing.  The Kochs of the world, the residents of Canto Bight, are just as culpable for the slaughter as the stormtroopers who carry the weapons they provide, and they will continue on as long as the system in place to give them power exists. That system didn't go away when Darth Vader killed his master and it certainly didn't go away when Kylo Ren killed his.  Last Jedi makes us see that there is no singular hero that can fix all that is wrong with the galaxy, all that is wrong with the world.  Belief in a mythical savior, from all sides of the political spectrum, leads individuals to do stupid things.  Salvation will not come from one politician, one general, one soldier, one sword, one assassin.  The galaxy, and our world too, is the way it is because of the choices and actions of many groups of people: people who are true believers, people only out for themselves, people who seek to profit, people who are apathetic, people who are oppressed, people who are oppressors.  Even if one leader is destroyed, there will be others to take his place.

One thing that was so powerful to me in the film was the way in which it makes its main protagonists and antagonists alike confront the notion of heroism and villainy they have always been lead to believe.  Poe, Finn, and Luke all learn that hubris can lead you to make stupid decisions and that sometimes being the hero means doing something other than what you assumed to be true. Kylo Ren learns that even if you save the girl you don't automatically win her affection and even if you follow in the actions and footsteps of the people who came before you, that doesn't make your power assured. It is beautiful that all four of these men learn these lessons from powerful women who have their own agency. In fact if anything is defeated in this film it is the male ego, which is why I think the film has gotten quite a bit of criticism from men.  The women in the film, specifically Rose Tico, Admiral Holdo, General Leia and Rey, go on their own personal and emotional journeys as well.  Rose realizes that the sacrifice she admired in her sister isn't the only way one can be a hero.  Holdo realized the opposite: that sometimes even when you want to be practical and less reckless that self sacrifice is necessary for the better good.  Leia realizes the lesson Luke was trying to teach her all those years ago on Endor, that this power was in her the whole time, that he would never be the only one that was needed to keep the Force in balance.  Finally Rey learned that good and evil are more complicated things than you wish they would be, that it is the choices we make not a destiny, not an ancestry, that makes us who we are.  Rey is not a Skywalker or a Kenobi or anybody but herself: a powerful wielder of the Force, a hero because she decides to be, because she wants to be.  

As President Obama famously said, "We are the change we seek" and The Last Jedi, while not paraphrasing these words exactly, sets up a future of the Star Wars universe where change comes not from "chosen ones" but from individuals, from ordinary people making choices, learning lessons, failing, growing, helping each other.  Real change to the galaxy will not come from Rey or the maybe 20 or so people who survived from the Resistance, it will come from people on all the worlds across the galaxy.  Nobody is coming to save those enslaved children on Canto Bight, nobody is coming to rescue the other people on Jakku or Tattooine who are oppressed.  Nobody is coming.  It all comes down to you, to us, to the people, to rise up and defend their homeland, to take down their oppressors. The Force does not belong to one group of people and the power of the Force does not belong to Jedi alone.  The Force exists and will exist regardless if people are there to use it to float rocks, and you don't need to be able to float rocks to take down systems of oppression.  We are the Resistance, we are the change. 

The Bad Things

What do I tell her about the bad things?
That they just happen?

Well you see, my dear, sometimes
Your ice cream melts
You don't win the race
You can't go where you want
You get sick
You are teased by kids at school
You see dozens of people have been killed

It's just one of those things.
Is that it?
It's just one of those things?

What do I tell her about a country like that?
That it just is?

Well, you see, my dear, sometimes
People go hungry
People lose everything
People aren't allowed into this country
People can't get health care
People hate other people
People kill

It's just one of those things.
Is that it?
It's just one of those things?

What do I tell her we do about it?
That we do nothing?

Well you see, my dear, sometimes
We raise food prices but not wages
We don't take care of our poor
We restrict immigration
We don't give people medical care
We systemically discriminate
We murder our own citizens

It's just one of those things.
Is that it?
It's just one of those things?

What do I tell her about the president?
That he is monstrous?

Well you see, my dear, sometimes
He profits off our misery
He mocks our pain
He turns away refugees
He doesn't care if we die
He supports white supremacists
He kills us with his words

It shouldn't be this way
Should it?
It shouldn't be this way?

What do I tell her we should do?
That nothing changes?

Well you see, my dear, sometimes
We give to charity
We call Congress
We protest
We tweet our thoughts and prayers
We try to find blame
We cry again

It's just one of those things.
Is that it?
It's just one of those things?

I guess so

Imaginary Conversations: Strange Days

I haven't done an Imaginary Conversation in a while. Enjoy.

"Strange Days"

So you know what's odd?

Everything. Literally everything lately.

Ok, yes, point taken. Actually, that is kind of the whole crux of what my argument was going to be, but thanks for summing it up so succinctly.

 Sorry. You were doing the whole "you know what's weird" and then I was supposed to reply with a "huh" and then we were going to have a conversation.

Pretty much, yeah that was what I was going for

Ok, do you want to start again? Or.. here I will help. What is odd?

Ugh this is not working out how I wanted to

Do you want to talk about something else?

No, I really want to talk about this but now this conversation is going absolutely sideways

You mean how everything is going completely sideways

Yep

So what is odd specifically that you wanted to talk about?

Well ok, yeah everything. I wanted to talk about how fucking odd everything is lately. But I guess specifically I wanted to talk about Elon Musk building this giant drill

Still have that hard on for Elon Musk, huh?

I don't have a fucking hard on for Elon Musk the guy is just an asshole capitalist like all of them that's not my fucking point.

Yeesh, sorry.

So my point is that Elon Musk could build this giant drill and then hold people hostage like an honest to god supervillain and people would be like "oh, huh... I guess that's a thing now"

Oh, I see what you are getting at.

Yeah, like he could announce he has a robot army and people wouldn't bat an eye. Like the world has gotten so fucking bonkers that nothing is phasing anybody anymore.

Well, that's not true. People are marching and doing all of that.

Oh I know, I mean... I dunno its hard to articulate. I think we talked about it a while ago where that lady is keeping track of all the crazy shit that happens every week in a totalitarian government so that we can really see how much has changed.

Yeah yeah.. and you were saying something like how so much shit has changed it is hard to even keep track of all the shit that has changed.

 Yes, exactly. It's like... man we have gotten used to the world being fucking bonkers haven't we?

I dunno. I am not "used" to anything. I feel like I am living in some kind of alternate reality still

Oh yes absolutely. I'm not saying that. I guess I mean... It's like we are living in an alternate reality. Like there is just so much fucking horrible crazy shit that if more horrible crazy shit happened it would just be like "ugh jeez more horrible crazy shit. Well that's to be expected in this horrible crazy shit-verse we live in now"

I get ya. Like it is just more shit piled on to the old shit. It isn't new shit anymore. It isn't as surprising.

No, not at all. Its like... well, ok so this is kind of homophobic, but its like how there is this trope now that super anti-gay Republican politicians are actually secretly gay. Like that wasn't a trope that really existed before a bunch of them turned out to be secretly gay. And now it is this, albeit somewhat homophobic, trope that the Congressman doth protest too much. It wouldn't surprise anybody of any super right wing guy was discovered with a secret gay lover because we are just used to that by now. 

I see what you are saying but I absolutely hate that trope as a thing

I know, I just meant it as an example. I didn't mean to offend.

I just fucking hate that shit.  I hate the whole making Trump and Putin gay in pictures shit.  It just reinforces stereotypes about masculinity and homosexuality.  It is total bullshit

I get it, I'm sorry. I just meant the example.  Like it doesn't surprise people anymore, is what I meant. I guess the point I was trying to make is that things are so horrible that more horrible things are just added onto the pile of horrible things that already exist.

But doesn't resigning to the inevitability of horrible things happening enable them to happen?  Isn't it our complacency in things like police violence, our lack of a reaction, that lead to such things becoming normalized?

I guess that is true.  I suppose I was just kind of acknowledging that it is true you know what I mean? It is insane to me that the most bonkers thing could happen and people would just accept it as a matter of course.  It is insane to me that people who voted for Trump still support him even if they believe that Russia helped him win.  Like, its one thing if they don't believe that Russia helped him.  I get that.  Like I get it is hard to know what to believe and fake news and blah blah.  I really do understand that part of it.  But they did this survey and these Trump supporters were like yes they support Trump even if he collaborated with Russia.  Like they are ok with treason now.  When the fuck did THAT happen?  When did people become ok with just whatever?

9/11

Really?  Because I kind of feel like this is a newish development. Are you talking about like 9/11 truthers specifically?

Well yes and no.  Mostly just the act itself.  It was insane wasn't it?  They flew airplanes into buildings and caused them to come crashing down, killing thousands of people.  I mean that's not a thing that happens in real life.  That is like some movie shit.  That isn't real.

Yeah it was pretty insane

But it happened.  And from that moment things were just different, things were just a little off. People were more afraid.  People were scared that something like that could happen again.  I mean this thing that nobody thought could possibly happen ever, nobody could imagine, now people were afraid.  It was like Godzilla had come and stomped around and then even if Godzilla died there is this lingering fear like "Oh shit, what if there is another Godzilla."

I think I am following

So the aftermath of 9/11 were all of our shitty wars and all of that.  And the thing is, the way people talked it was as if we lived in a different world.  People who were against torture for their whole lives, who may have even voted Democrat, suddenly started saying things like the terrorists don't deserve sympathy, that torture was ok, that bombing was justified if it got one bad guy.

Ugh, yeah.  I heard so many people I thought were pretty liberal say some seriously jingoistic weird shit in the early 2000s

Those weird impulses didn't go away all because Bush did, all because we had Obama.  I mean, people just started to accept continuous war as a thing.  We have been at war continuously for like 16 years.  Like ok we are mostly done with the war stuff in Afghanistan but not really.  We still have troops on the ground getting killed and killing others.  We have just accepted this. Continuous war was not a normal thing.  But now we just accept it. We accept that in this world "full" of terrorists that it is ok to be continuously at war.

Shit, I never really thought about it that way but yeah you are kind of right

I mean before that we had the Cold War, that was the normal.  It was normal for people to think that nuclear war could happen at any time.  It is new to us thinking about that because we haven't thought about nuclear war in a long time, but that was totally normal for them back then.  Anything completely bonkers becomes normal if it lasts long enough.

You know what is REALLY odd, though?

Ok, I know how to play now.  What?

That we have all these villains.  We have HYDRA basically, but we don't have any superheroes.

Well, I mean come on super powers aren't exactly realistic.

Yeah I know that.  Vigilantes I mean.  I mean even old school Scarlet Pimpernel or Zorro style vigilantes.  Like these poor people are being detained by ICE and deported and stuff and you are telling me that we can't even get like ONE dude dressed as Zorro freeing people from detention centers?  We have these hackers going around releasing emails for the other side, but not ONE is really doing good for the resistance?  What the fuck is up with that?

Oh honey... I have some bad news for you.

Huh?

People are shitty.

Well, I mean there have to be SOME people who aren't shitty, right?

You would think.  But there you go.  Nobody IS out there dressing up in costume and fighting the man like that.  Yes people are marching, yes people are resisting in ways that might get them arrested and released but nobody is doing that definitely illegal stuff that would get them sent to prison for a long time on behalf of anybody.

Well there are Antifas

Yeah there are Antifas but come on have you seen one of them REALLY do anything other than punch a few Nazis?

Well, that is something right?  What do you want them to do?

You were the one who said you wanted to see superheroes.  I'm just saying that's about all you are going to get.  Nobody's gonna do anything that will get them more than a misdemeanor assault charge or a little dumb vandalism of banks.  What do YOU want them to do?

Well, I probably shouldn't say

If you response to the question is "I probably shouldn't say" then I'm going to DEFINITELY say you shouldn't say and lets get off this topic of conversation as swiftly as possible

Fine without specifics I am just curious why nobody is willing to do more than just punch the occasional Nazi.

Well why aren't you?  You read enough comic books.  You could go to the gym, get jacked, put on a suit and fight crime.

I don't have time to go to the gym like that.  I mean like... I dunno... an ex military person or whatever.  Somebody with skills to actually be a superhero.

You don't have time to go to the gym... that is your response to why you aren't fighting fascism.  I am.. I just don't even have any words.

Oh fuck you.  Why aren't you going out there fighting crime?  You are more fit than I am

Oh, that's a really simple one:  because I enjoy my life and I don't particularly want to die or get incarcerated for the rest of my life.  Also pain is ouchy.

Pain is ouchy.  I just...

What?  You asked.  I mean I tried to tell you.  There aren't superheroes in real life because nobody wants to take risks like that.  We did get Chelsea Manning.  She WAS willing to risk prison to release information she thought would help our country, to reveal things she thought were wrong.  That's about all you are going to get, ya know?  You are asking for some kind of hypothetical person who is hyper competent in multiple ways (fighting, computer skills, espionage), who doesn't have a family or is willing to leave their family behind, and who is willing to put themselves in harms way for no reward other than the betterment of mankind.  This person doesn't exist.  They exist in comics because that is what people wish was real but real people aren't like that.  There isn't anybody in real life who is like that.

Really, you don't think there is anybody like that?

I mean YOU were the one who asked the question.  You were the one who said it was weird.  I'm saying it isn't weird at all.  It is human nature.  We imagine heroes because there aren't any in real life. It is wish fulfillment precisely because it is a wish, not reality.  The reality is, as we have learned in the study of history, that people and their governments are more often shitty than not.  That people are motivated by greed, that absolute power corrupts, that even well-intentioned people do terrible things. I DO still feel like we are living in this strange alternate reality.  I DO feel this sense that things have gotten worse.  I guess I just have started to realize that "bad" is kind of the default.

That's awfully pessimistic isn't it.

I think its realistic.  Even before the election you were talking about how you didn't want to have to join the resistance like you were Katniss or in Star Wars or whatever.  Nobody does.  Those people who were REALLY part of the resistance, the French Resistance?  A whole lot of them died.  We idolize them and we remember them because they were remarkable not because they are the norm.  Making a conscious decision to sacrifice your life for a cause is not something that everybody can do.

Yeah...

Listen.  Everything IS crazy.  Everything IS odd.  Nothing seems to make sense.  And complacency IS bad and by no means should you accept that things are going to be like this forever and get defeatist.  But.... and a BIG but, no hero is going to come and save us.  Heroes don't exist.  I would believe in supervillains before I believe in superheroes.  We don't need heroes, we need people to do the hard work.

That sounds hard

It is

Fuck

Yep

I just hate how shitty everybody has become lately.  How the shitty people have been emboldened by this administration.  What are we supposed to do?

Just be less shitty.  Just do what we can to be less shitty.  That's all anybody can do.

That sucks

I know

A lot

I know

Fuck

Yep