12/24/21
12/20/21
STOP BUYING THIS HORRIBLE ENVIRONMENT CRIPPLING STUFF NOW! (OVER A DECADE OF CHRISTMASTREE-LESS CHRISTMAS!)
TOTALLY UNNECCESSARY - OFTEN CRAP FROM CHINA (or some other place that manufactures easily breakable and discardable crap) - YEARS - SOMETIMES HUNDREDS - TO "BIODEGRADE" - the WORLD does not need the pollution!
ARTIFICIAL CHRISTMAS TREES. A Germanic Pagan custom that spread throughout Europe and brought to the U.S. and other parts of the world - supporting electric lights, various decorations - sure a tree can look beautiful, even inspiring. Those little lights are so fragile that they easily malfunction and break so you have to buy more.
If you must, buy a live tree that can be replanted, use your old decorations or make new ones from biodegradable materials - or go without. If it's Christmas in your heart, it will still be Christmas.
So much razzle dazzle decorating is crap that breaks and needs replaced. You do not have to recreate Whoville to have a beautiful holiday.
This will cut down on the Christmas tree bonfires too.
Consider putting your ornament collection in bowls to set on tables...
ARTIFICIAL PLANTS and FLOWERS. Ever think it's a real succulent and it's plastic? Some people use fake plants outdoors as well as indoors. If you are too busy or lazy to water or don't have a green thumb go without.
For gifting stop the bouquets that will be dead in a week and go for live plants that can be transplanted or kept in the house. If you must have cut flowers, consider using them in a compost heap. For weddings and other events consider live plants with just a few cut flowers woven in.
PLASTICS: Plastic has it's place but everywhere should not be that place. Oh the plastic shit all over the sidewalks waiting for landfill pick ups. Especially children's broken toys,
It's out of your site but not really gone away.
FAKE GRASS which is really plastic or synthetic carpet. Really bad for the environment. Weeds will still poke through at the perimeter. Whatever you use as a grass substitute, you still need the natural drainage that actually filters into our aquafirs. Consider having your own little subterranean clay "pot" beneath your soil that will retain rain water. Plant over it and you'll reduce how much water you need to grow native plants and small bushes or trees.
BOTTLED WATER. More plastic - and it will leach into the water if you reuse the bottle. Three reuses is all that's suggested for most of these plastics. Some of us remember life when we did not take water everywhere with us. Maybe the earth was cooler then, but we were alive and well without guzzling huge amounts of water. Water can be filtered at home and taken with you in aluminum or other containers.
This is the short list.
12/19/21
EVE BABITZ DIES
LA TIMES EVE BABITZ WHO CAPTURED AND EMBODIED .... the culture of Los Angeles, dies at 78 by Mark Olsen, Staff Writer
EXCERPT : Her writing described a world of decadent glamour with fine-tuned detail but also a sense of open-hearted joy, often shared with the dishy candor of a close friend deep into a soggy late-afternoon lunch.
12/12/21
ANNE RICE DIES
LA TIMES OBIT ANNE RICE DIES AT 80
I'm not a huge vampire fan but I loved the book and the film Interview With A Vampire. The film has a scene in it which has informed a particular nightmare I had a few years ago. Anne as a writer of these and other Gothic tales, often played with the grays between bright white good and dark black evil, between animal instinct and human morality.
12/8/21
OVER 150 HAVE SIGNED ' A MORE SPECIFIC LETTER ON JUSTICE AND OPEN DEBATE" RESPONSE TO CANCELL CULTURE
DAILY MAIL : DOZENS OF ACADEMICS, JOURNALISTS BLAST CANCELL CULTURE
***
As soon as you're thinking "I better not write that" or "I better edit that" because you are afraid of being not politically correct, not woke enough, or because you fear being punished for not cancelling, you have basically SELF CENSORED. I agree, this blocks creativity.
Worse than that, we begin to feel we cannot report our personal experience or our own reality because IDEALISM is supposed to replace it.
Sometimes I think this is all part of the whole POSITIVE THINKING culture as well.
12/2/21
ANNE LAMOTT on WRITING : WHY PERFECTRIONISM KILLS CREATIVITY
THE MARGINALIAN: ANNE LAMOTT - PERFECTIONISM KILLS CREATIVITY
Excerpt: What makes Lamott so compelling is that all of her advice comes not from the ivory tower of the pantheon but from an honest place of exquisite vulnerability and hard-earned life-wisdom. She recounts her formative years and where she headed once she e3ncountered that inevitable fork in the road, where we can choose between being shut in and shut down by our traumatic experiences, or using them as fertile clay for character-building.
11/29/21
JOYCE CAROL OATS DOES NOT WRITE QUICKLY
THE GUARDIAN; JOYCE CAROL OATS :PEOPLE THINK I WRITE QUICKLY by Hermoine Hoby
EXCERPT : Oats, a five time Pulitzer finalist, might be "very intensely interested in a portrait of America", but clearly she has no truck with the ego-vaunting, personality driven paradigm of contemporary celebrity. She appears more to belong to some other, long-passed era, with a pronounced gothic streak colouring much of her fiction, which tends to be peopled by powerful men and introverted women who frequently experience sexual shame.
11/18/21
TRIVIAL or SUPERFICIAL or LIGHTHEARTED THE LIST OF THE MOMENT
AM I WHO I KNOW? (or DON'T?)
Top Model I Think is Most Heart-Stopping Beautiful : Gigi Hadid
Actor With Talent Who Is Also My Heartthrob : Jack Huston
Actor I'll See Any Film She Makes : Jennifer Lawrence
Actor I'll Always Miss - I Like (Most Of) What He Did : Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Poet Who Always Gets To Me : Dylan Thomas
I'm Curious About: Jack White (Musician.)
Enough Already : Harry and Meghan, especially Meghan
I'd Be Totally Embarrassed If She Were My Mother : Madonna
So Bad - So Good : Fenty Savage Fashion Shows (For starters, I hate lingerie and never buy it or wear it Secondly, there's anorexia and then there's ugly fat. The masturbation and sex act indicative dance movement are "savage" and not at all titillating. They are gross. And if Demi Moore doesn't give it a break soon, she'll be on my Enough Already list. Sorry! But I appreciate that all a dance production is a cross over with fashion and innovative rather than runway shows where mostly anorexics unnaturally walk one foot almost crossing over with the other: amazing that more models are not going splat on the runway.)
I Might Just Be Done With : Daily Mail Online (So Obviously Anti-Biden with their hideous headlines it's totally unbalanced reportage.)
Historical Person I'd Like To Interview : Benjamin Franklin (What really went on in the Hellfire Club Ben?)
If I Could Travel Back In Time : The Beatles at the Cavern after Berlin
I'd Like To Meet But Won't In This Life : Jimmy Page
(New!) I Could Care Less : K-Pop
My Favorite Person Is : My dog.
AM I WHAT I INDULGE?
Oldie Film(s) I Just Had to Watch Again : Into the Wild, Titanic
Oldie Film(s) I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Grey Gardens, The Talented Mr. Ripley
Not So Oldie Series I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Boardwalk
Newish Series That I Was/ Am So Impressed With : The Wilds
I Just Watched and Loved It : A series on YouTube about dealing with Narcissists.
Oldie Favorite Album I Blissfully Recently Listened to from Beginning to End : None
Oldie Band I Didn't Grown Up With That I'm Listening To Now : None
Oldie Songs I've Been Listening To A Lot : Don't You Care by the Buckinghams. Easy To Be Hard by Three Dog Night
Book I Recently Read Cover To Cover : None
Book(s) I Keep Meaning To Reread : Patricia Highsmith's Tom Ripley series, Erica Jong's Fear of Flying
Person I Get and Nobody I Know Understands : Andy Warhol
AM I WHAT I EAT?
Favorite Cheese Of The Moment : Irish Butter
Tortilla to Beat All : Trader Joes Whole Wheat Wraps Olive Oil
Condiment / On Pizza : Olives - Black Olives
Chocolate : Peanut Clusters
Canned Soup I Miss That I Don't Think They Make Anymore : Campbell's Scotch Broth
Meal I Miss That I Can't Recreate: Pressure Cooker Stuffed Cabbage
I'm No Longer Into Like I Once Was : Pasta
I'm Drinking : Cheap Von's Signature Brand Instant Decaf (Horrible) and Freshly Roasted Ground Guatemalan out (No Shakes).
AM I WHAT I BUY?
Scent : Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange
Shower Gel : Hemp Sweet Orange by Clean and Beauty (defunct business)
Winter Top : Thrift Store Find by a fashion brand company whose clothes I really like though it upsets me to hear that the local store in Studio City is not nice to its employees. (Won't Buy New.)
Casual Shoes : Skechers
.
AM I WHAT I MISS?
Alone Time - A Long Stretch
Soaking in a Tub (I'm barely showering, trying to save water)
A long deep honest in-person conversation (with a sane and empathic person).
Sleeping nine hours straight no problem.
LATEST FASCINATION(S)?
Doreen Virtue's Conversion to Fundamentalist Christianity.
The Heidi Planck Disappearance Case - all that Hollyweird Connection.
I SHOULD :
Take Yoga Again. Go Swimming.
I WISH:
It Would Rain
I HAVE: Lost My Patience with:
Snobs. (Including Organic Foodies.)
Garcetti and any other politician who criminalizes homelessness when there aren't enough affordable housing units anywhere. (A statistic I would like to see is how many people voted but chose NOT to vote for an individual in a category. You can vote on what you want or who you want on a ballot but NOT VOTE for a person too. This is better (i.e. None of the Above or I'm a Democrat but Not This Guy) communication than NOT VOTING AT ALL.)
Malignant Narcissists
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
Ask yourself the same questions.
Don't let me influence you.
11/12/21
11/10/21
THE SHIPS NOT COMING IN
There are over a hundred ships full of containers waiting to get into the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. There are trains backed up 35 miles into Chicago. Truckers with empty containers and nowhere to put them are dumping the containers on streets in Wilmington - even blocking driveways.
Tied into this is that Dollar Tree and 99 Cents Only Stores can no longer stick to their nothing- over- a -dollar price policy; sadly this is also effecting the pricing of food that they started selling when they got sensitized to the fact that millions of Americans rely on some form of food money from the U.S. government.
Yesterday a woman told me that at her son's school each child has been given a card with a $300 food benefit. No questions asked. No income verification needed.
When I took my dog for a walk this morning we went past a school and saw that some children had dumped their plastic bags full of food onto the street. These contained yogurt, sliced apples, a tiny burger, chips, and a couple other snaky items. As children they do not have to earn the money to buy these things and neither do their parents who cannot afford to feed them. We the People are trying - some of us anyway - to take care of our own.
I think those ships waiting to come to port are full of junk and mostly plastically easily breakable throw-away junk that will be in our land fills for hundreds of years, crap that people do not need, but I know they are also containing food. Canned food, including cat and dog food which does not have to bear the place of origin on the can, is also coming from China.
On my way home from work I stopped in at these stores looking for some inexpensive canned vegetables and there was none. But I noticed there was meat and fish - protein - at Dollar Tree while the shelves had not one can of beans.
I have to admit I never much thought about one of the nations largest ports being in Los Angeles County or how that factored into the economy here. It's still a mystery to me. I know this, however, all that incoming means that the American economy is depending on factory production elsewhere and those manufacturing jobs were exported too and that is the fault of both Democratic and Republican administrations.
I met a Longshoreman recently. He has spent his life, it seems, driving vehicles off ships, but he owns a house because of it. He can barely stand to do the last few months before he retires and keeps stalling them out, not sure what is next for him.
At Vons, a local grocer not known for the lowest prices, I couldn't believe it when I saw some ground turkey for $6.99 a pound. I skipped the produce section entirely.
The woman with the son who got a $300 food benefit card at school tells me she just spent near $300 sending a box of things to her mother-in-law in Guatemala - including dried beans. They don't have beans in Guatemala? I suspect she is married to an "illegal" and there is some form of fraud going on there but I don't really know that.
Meanwhile, I follow what's happening with President Joe Biden, who is under attack because he is trying to do the right thing. Yes, his age is showing, but then, so was Ronald Reagan's. Not the constant crisis, the constant self promotion of Trump, who got us used to daily doses of anxiety and flash, Biden seems dull, but he has gumption and morality. Remember that? Remember the Real Gospel - the feed, cloth, and shelter Gospel - rather than the "Prosperity Gospel?"
You have to have a fortune in the bank not to feel what has happened in our economy due to the Covid-19 shut downs. In recent years I've met more people who not only believe the End Times are coming but cannot wait to be raptured.
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
10/26/21
POSITIVE THINKING and THE INABILITY TO EVALUATE - FICTION and NON FICTION by CONTENT CREATORS
I've been posting on self censorship because I can tell you that as soon as you start EDITING for the professor, the TA, the church, the "religious philosophy" of the school or the company you work for, or really anyone, you are out of flow.
You have lost the ability to declare an alternative position. You may not be a radical. You may simply think otherwise. You may be capable of debate - of stating your opinion in a civilized manner without intent to create upheaval. You will be quickly shut down by someone with a more dominant status or bearing. You will perhaps decide it is no longer worth communicating with an individual because you can tell it will always be combative - if you are honest. And you may hate your coworkers or your job because you're secretly so uncomfortable with the form or degree of political correctness involved. But where you gonna go?
Imagine my friend who is volunteering for a nonprofit thrift store with a oversupply of jeans in sizes 7 and below for women. (i.e these are for such small hips one wonders how such a woman could give birth and survive.) She suggested they have a sale for these sizes - skinny people - and was told that would be DISCRIMINATORY! I'm beginning to wonder if they will be able to continue to hang women's clothing separate from mens (that said, I'm sometimes partial to the unisex look and don't personally care if a man wants to wear women's jeans or visa versa but I can tell you, having tried it, that clothing patterned for the opposite sex rarely fits.) In actuality, it would be discriminatory to only sell those sizes to skinny people but it is not discriminatory to sell them to anyone who wants to buy them.
I've been thinking about these issues which have become increasingly prevalent in recent years.
People are expressing themselves all over the Internet but I wonder if this is because they cannot in their ordinary life? (What to call it? Personal Life (is there such a thing?) Real Life? I suppose it is real if you are living it. Ordinary - as in NOT in the virtual world of the Internet?)
For those of us who remember life before there was Internet - or cell phones - we remember a certain feeling of connection with other human beings as well as overall, MORE TRUST that people would be honorable in their intentions.
I've TRUSTED a people who proved to be UNTRUSTWORTHY, and I understand. But you have a choice in life to go around paranoid and to put everyone you meet on trial first, or trust them and let them prove themselves worthy of being hung. (It helps if you believe in karma and think you would not want theirs.) There are so many con artists out there, for instance people who say they will pay you and then profit from the theft of your intellectual properties, that really we all need lawyers. (Now there's a thought.)
I would say that I meet few people these days who TRUST anything or anyone - not the government - and often, not even their partner they're having sex with. While being open minded to ideas and opinions and information in general, THERE IS A SEVERE LACK IN THE ABILITY TO EVALUATE THE SOURCE.
Also I see that POSITIVE THINKING - combined with certain forms of religiosity - Christianity - can wipe out your ability to grumble to others as well because they won't hear you. Complain and someone will be negating your pain while telling you to BE GRATEFUL. Positive thinking or talking yourself out of what you're experiencing or feeling is a form of self censorship.
Gratitude is not for the things you earn or deserve. Gratitude is for the things you are given without earning or deserving. (Saying please and thank you can still go a long way.)
Following the Gabby Petito /Brian Laundrie case, I lost hours of my life clicking on YouTube videos with FAKE VOICES providing SPECULATION and THEORIES in search of information with some foundation. I wondered at these people who post these things - is it for hits - and eventual payout by YouTube? Some of the more sickening stuff was a person who posted cartoonish videos of Brian being eaten by alligators. These people are called CREATORS or CONTENT CREATORS - and I wonder if their work should be labeled as FICTION. (How about it YouTube?)
i.e when it is the news = journalism - it should be called NONFICTION.
VERY FEW OF THESE PEOPLE WHO WERE SUPPLYING CONTENT had the ability or reason to RESEARCH so they were basically supporting their take on the situation by leaning on others who also were not supplying content based on research.
A BUNCH OF LIARS.
SOME OF THESE PEOPLE WERE INDULGING IN NEGATIVE THINKING. They indulged in character assassination. They put Brian and his parents on trial. They apparently do not endorse Americanism. (OK, I get it that the legal process has not been trusted since the spectacle of the O.J. Simpson trial.) They do not believe in the law or the legal process, or an individual's rights.
I know - I'm meandering and this needs to be edited. But I'm in flow. I'm letting my thoughts out.
DO YOU DARE READ THE FLIP CITY SITE?
Sort of like Mad Magazine against liberals... A comic book format. It's true that we have to dare to laugh again.
10/24/21
EIGHT OF TEN ARTS AND CULTURAL EMPLOYEES SELF CENSOR CONSERVATIVE VALUES
DAILY MAIL - STUDY 8 out of 10 in Arts and Cultural Affairs STAY SILENT on CONSERVATIVE VALUES
Excerpt: ArtsProfessional Editor Amanda Parker said the findings show 'deep division between public perception and the reality of working in the arts and cultural sector.'
'Our survey shines a damning light on the coercion, bullying, intimidation, and intolerance that is active among a community that thinks of itself as liberal, open minded, and equitable.'
10/22/21
A QUARTER OF COLLEGE STUDENTS ARE SELF CENSORING THEIR OPINIONS TO SUCCEED IN COLLEGE
DAILY MAIL : QUARTER COLLEGE STUDENTS SELF CENSOR DUE TO WOKE CULTURE ON CAMPUS by Max Aitchison for the Mail on Sunday (Daily Mail UK)
This was going on when I was in college and I felt as if I was being indoctrinated rather than being taught to think for myself or rely on my own experiences, I can only imagine how horrible it must be for creative writing students there today. I felt like I was going to a religious school rather than a university with government funding. The notion that you could only get away with creating characters whose ethnicity, race, religion, sexuality, or values were yours was strong. The notion that there is no such thing as fiction or imagination really - that cut creativity.
Excerpt: In the latest evidence of the free speech crisis engulfing campuses across the country, 27 percent of students said they have actively 'hidden' their opinions when they are at odds with those of their peers and tutors.
More than half of those who 'self-censored' did so because of their political views A further 40 percent withheld their opinions on ethical or religious matters for fear of being judged.
***
YOU CAN BE DOWNGRADED IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THE PROFESSOR'S OPINION. I experienced it.
10/17/21
NATIONAL DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MONTH - THE IGNORANCE ABOUT WHAT DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INCLUDES IS ASTOUNDING
I'm not sure of this, but I don't think I know of anyone who has not been involved in or affected by DOMESTIC VIOLENCE at some point in their lives.
REALIZE THIS:
The stereotype is that domestic violence is Heterosexual man against Heterosexual woman, that domestic violence is PHYSICAL VIOLENCE, and that domestic violence is only among couples - who presumably are married, living together, partners, who are "romantic" or who have sex. (And many programs and shelters including those funded by our government, only recognize this as well.) But DOMESTIC VIOLENCE includes parents who for years on end verbally demean their children without raising their voices, it includes gay couples and daters who live apart, It can be someone you went on a first date with AND MOST CERTAINLY INCLUDES DATE RAPE, it includes entire families who pick on one family member - shunning or otherwise screwing them over - in a unified abuse. There are many more examples I could bring up here, but the point is, it is an EPIDEMIC.
Consider THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD overhearing the horrible verbal abuse including the words "I'll kill you" heard many nights for YEARS ON END that go on between an adult man in his 50's and his aunt - unofficially a caregiver - who has nowhere else to live. The man OWNS the apartment building - is that why he gets away with it? The tenant above his apartment whose sleep has been disturbed for years has been overhearing this horror for over 20 years because she cannot afford to move. There are times when the yelling GOES ON FOR HOURS and you can also hear neighbors out there pleading with him that they need their sleep. Really this man is insane and needs to live in a mental hospital where he is strictly monitored. He is angry and he is a danger.
I've called the police on this man twice and they NEVER CAME OUT. Another neighbor says she reported the situation on one of those TIP LINES including stating that she fears it will become physical and she has no reason to think anything happened as a result - no visits from Mental Health. The police have probably been called dozens of times, but they do NOT show up or REMOVE THIS MAN FROM THE PREMISIS, not for one night. Adult Protective Services is not coming out to remove the aunt to another place - where is she gonna go? A homeless shelter where she'll be surrounded by dozens of abusers?
THE ENTIRE NEIGHBORHOOD takes this DOMESTIC VIOLENCE as simply a fact of life. When I mentioned that this was informing and teaching the CHILDREN in the neighborhood that this is OK, normal behavior, a grandfather blanched.
I think collectively as neighbors we need to take notes, keep calling the police, and so on, but I'm reminded that mentally ill people may have more rights than those who are not. The aunt has been psychologically and emotionally murdered for years on end. Apparently no one cares about her and she has nowhere to run to. Actually you could move and end up living in hearing range of yet another domestic violence situation as it is so common.
*
Consider also a once upon a time friend of mine. He had not dated much when he met a woman who also had not dated much, a single mom years older than he. She was a person who bit by bit managed to convert him to eating her way, and that was just one of the ways she CONTROLLED him. They'd have long conversations about things, sure, but in the end he always had to agree to do things her way or she'd allow him some choices - such as what to order for dinner or which shirt he wanted to buy - because being a unified couple was just so important. She bit by bit by bit managed to find reasons to eliminate all his friends or get him to, in particular his woman friends. She ISOLATED him. Yep, he let her. Was he that lonely that he didn't want to reclaim an independent life? I knew he thought of himself as having been raised an abused child. Why had he not seen this relationship as the same? He'd had some trouble in his employment and finally found a decent job which held responsibility and in which he used his intelligence and skills but was convinced by her that the job was killing him and instead he had to let her support him. He LOST HIS INDEPENDENCE.
I learned after we no longer were friends that their arguments for all to hear in the apartment building where they lived sometimes went on for THREE DAYS and NIGHTS.
The therapists they saw seemed to strengthen their individual and couple self righteousness and sense of entitlement about how they were to be treated by everyone outside their relationship. Meanwhile they both appeared at poetry events reading love poetry to each other and so many listeners thought of them as so lucky to have that love that this couple oozed all over each other. People were charmed by how devoted they were to each other and to causes. Out in the world they had the reputation of being "peaceniks."
*
So Gaby and Brian are now on the posters. How could their relationship come to what it did? Do they not seem happy with each other - genuinely so - in those photographs and videos? Well, I think LOTS OF PEOPLE KNEW - friends - parents - other family members - and neighbors - maybe also teachers. I wonder how many of them MADE EXCUSES FOR ONE OR BOTH OF THEM or just stayed out of it. For while Gaby is portrayed as an angel - with WINGS - she too was involved in domestic violence with and to Brian.
WHY IS THIS SO OFTEN THE CASE?
10/6/21
10/4/21
A MOMENT OF COMPASSION FOR THE LAUNDRIE FAMILY : IN THE UNITED STATES A PERSON IS PRESUMED INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY
Like millions of others, the story of the young engaged couple with the high drama relationship who decided to try the "van life" has captured my imagination. I'm watching YouTube videos and reading dozens of articles following the story.
Terribly, it is also a story of citizen vigilantes, show-stopping grabs for personal notoriety (Duane Chapman - Dog the Bounty Hunter), lots of speculation called fact, lots of name calling (Sorry, John Walsh, but when you started calling the family Dirty Laundry you plunged to the depths of a name calling school yard bully - very unprofessional) and people who never knew Gabby driving hundreds of miles to be part of a spectacle funeral and harassments of the parents at their home including the use of bull horns and drones.
The parents are trying to keep to their daily life as best they can while traumatized and frightened. So what if they went shopping or camping or worked in their garden? They too await some horrible possibilities such as never seeing their son again, or their son being discovered dead, or perhaps never having a private life again.
Each and every one of these harassers should be charged with public mischief and/or disturbing the peace.
The Laundrie family cannot win. All of these harassments and in particular the judgement against Brian's sister - which I will get into in a moment - PROVE THAT THE LAUNDRIE FAMILY WERE RIGHT TO ENGAGE AN ATTORNEY SPOKESPERSON and keep their mouth's shut. If and when they are sworn under oath in a court of law to speak, then they should tell their truth.
ALL OF THESE PEOPLE who have gotten themselves involved HAVE GONE AGAINST A FUNDAMENTAL FACT, that in this UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, an individual is presumed innocent until proven guilty. And so many people are spinning stories on YouTube, on the backs of stories by the supposed experts.
For the Laundrie family is not supposed to be accused, judged, or condemned - not yet. If we cannot individually or collectively give them that space and grace, then we should not expect it either when we are, perhaps, falsely accused.
Instead Brian and his sister and her family have never once, been thought of or reported as stunned, stymied, lied to, or perhaps in their own deep grief. Asking themselves what they did wrong or could do better? The parents, like any parent living a normal life, may be going through confusion and disbelief that their son could ever murder his girlfriend.
Posts showing the couple clearly in love and enjoying themselves are now supposed to help prove not all was well when like many a couple who indulge in drama do in fact love each other deeply. I'm not making an excuse here for abuse or saying that you should stay in such a relationship but I'm saying it's not all black and white. As my mom used to say "It takes two to tango."
Brian and the family are in a situation where the MOB RULES - they are actually in danger.
As for his sister who gave a compassionate statement a week or so ago that she loved Gabby and her children did too, she is being accused of being a liar simply because she said she had not TALKED to Brian. She was not asked if she SAW him. What is the difference?
How many times have you seen a friend around and NOT ACTUALLY TALKED TO THEM?
Saying Hi, hello, how are you, and making chit chat is TALKING but that is a very basic and literal interpretation. Mine is that what she meant was that she had not talked to him about anything particular to the case. That she did not have a heart to heart conversation with him.
I once had a friend who called me and asked if she could come and visit and stay with me.
I agreed and thought we would spend some quality time together and have that heart to heart talk. Days went by as we went to restaurants and otherwise spent time together, but it never happened. In fact at one point we were sitting together watching horses being trained and she seemed to not know I was sitting next to her, so non communicative she was. I felt she needed that superficiality, that she had too much on her mind at that moment, and was not especially offended. I knew she had wanted to visit me to get the hell out of her town where her ex was remarrying and I respected her privacy. I figured if she wanted to talk about it, she would.
Other reportage states that the parents didn't even ask their son where Gabby was. In fact we do not know that.
Frankly, since it seems the couple were off and on for several years - Brian could have come home and said that he and Gabby split, or that she took off and he couldn't find her, or that he decided to drive the van home and wait for her there. As for him using her credit card without her permission, sorry but couples who live together often share credit and pin codes. If he used the card, he had to know the codes. If he charged gasoline to get the vehicle home rather than leave it in the wilderness in another state to be towed as abandoned, then he was actually trying to respect the ownership and value of the vehicle.
I know it looks bad for Brian, but please, consider what American Citizenship is about here and DO NOT HELP TO REMOVE OUR BASIC RIGHT.
It would be more helpful to say a prayer for justice and for the family than to a vigilante judge and jury.
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
10/3/21
MUKUNDA ANGULO's TED TALK HOW MY IMAGINATION SET ME FREE
9/27/21
GABBY's DEATH SOCIAL MEDIA and UNFAIRNESS ABOUT MISSING PERSONS
Gabby Petito made headlines in the worst way possible, through her death. And since then, because of her presence on social media - specifically YouTube - as she and her boyfriend attempted to document a carefree "van" lifestyle, citizen activists and citizen sleuths have been trying to help law enforcement solve the mystery. I watched dozens of these videos, much of them repetitive without much new to say. It helps to use the filter "last hour" to make your way through some of these.
A criticism that I think is unfair is that Gabby got all the media attention because she's a blond, blue eyed White woman. While I do suspect that Black missing people might not get the same attention as White in some places, the reason this story - one of an easy half million missing people a year in the United States - grabbed our attention was:
That the couple did seek attention in the first place. Like others who document their van life hoping to gain a following and enough interest to get paid by YouTube, the couple set out to depict their travels to National Parks.
The irony of their happy together photos and the reality that there was domestic violence taking place. (The Titanic was not the only steamship that sunk but we are riveted by that story because this was the ship that was marketed as unsinkable.)
Our ability to inspect the photos and judge. I think they did have many a happy moments together. I think it's difficult to fake such happiness in photos. We are all examining photos and making judgements about what has been Photoshopped or otherwise altered, be it happy photos or UFO photos.
Perhaps the racist idea that White women are so advantaged that they don't have domestic violence issues in relationships. (I've been told to my face that I'm advantaged for being born White and I think that's ignorant. People who say such things don't know the history of an individual or that White people come from various ethnicities and cultures. It would be like thinking all Native Americans have the same ethnicity or culture.)
The knowing that if this couple had therapy or learned anger management, the outcome could have been so different.
I'm writing this a few days ahead of some of the information that will be forthcoming such as the cause of death in actuality, the timeline, and the whereabout of boyfriend Brian. At this time I'm open minded enough to think it is possible that Brian, who is being tried and convicted in the media, might not have killed his girlfriend.
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
9/26/21
9/24/21
PORTLAND STATE SOCIAL JUSTICE FACTORY : PROFESSOR PETER BOGHOSSIAN RESIGNS FROM PORTLAND STATE
LEGAL INSURRECTION : PROFESSOR PETER BOGHOSSIAN RESIGNS FROM PORTLAND STATE One of many media sites with this story, I will excerpt from his resignation letter.
EXCERPT: Students at Portland State are not being taught to think, Rather, they are being trained to mimic the moral certainty of ideologues. Faculty and administrators have abdicated the university's truth-seeking mission and instead drive intolerance of divergent beliefs and opinions. This has created a culture of offense where students are not afraid to speak openly and honestly.
*************
I have to wonder what horrors creative writing students experience in my old writing program at a UC where 20 years ago they were on the cutting edge of indoctrination. I would imagine anyone not reflecting a professors bias would have a difficult time. I have to admit that when I wrote papers or stories that leaned into "what they wanted" it was always received well. I also hate to think that characters I might design not to be subversive might be deconstructed as such.
9/22/21
THE JOY OF BLOGGING OPINION and DAILY MAIL UK - and MAIL ON LINE - AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN BIAS and DISRESPECT OF PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN , THE KARDASHIANS, HARRY AND MEGHAN (2)
About the KARDASHIAN SISTERS and their other mother, which does tie into HARRY AND MEGHAN.
You see, most of the articles in Daily Mail UK - MAIL ON LINE are desperate to go against Harry and Meghan, and that's easy because it seems like Harry and Meghan have gone against Harry and Meghan.
Applying British notions to this couple, their choice in INTERIOR DECOR AND FURNITURE has even been attacked by an opinion personality at Daily Mail UK - MAIL ON LINE. So to set the record straight, their home is a California home, a home that is in the sunshine and weather of Southern California. I don't know anyone here who wants to live in an interior that looks like it's in England, where is is mostly colder, rainier, darker, and where many people are living in housing so old and decaying it would get the wrecking ball here.
The closest to stereotypical British décor I've ever seen in Southern California is in homes where the owners like antiques and clutter their spaces with them, including paintings and art all over the walls, and the use of dark paint or wallcoverings that give a cave-like experience. Our weather is better, we spend more time outdoors and don't seem to be so home bound as those who live in the colder, rainier, and older areas of the country. There is a more casual attitude about the use of homes in general when you're tracking in sand and fine soil.
On it goes, but the thing that has taken up so much media space, that has pitted the couple against the Royal Family in the media, is that someone yet to be disclosed had the nerve to wonder what skin color their children would have.
I'm going to state the obvious. This kind of wondering is NOT in itself any evidence of bigotry, prejudice, or anti-Black or anti-White sentiment and it takes someone really looking for shit to find it in that wondering. This kind of wondering is NOT something just people with "White" skin do. This kind of wondering and acknowledgement of a range of skin colors as possible even links into why some Black people name their children to honor their skin color such as Ebony, Amber, and even Snow. And I, and just about everyone I know has wondered about the range of skin colors of the White hued Kardashian sisters children who have been begot with Black hued men. It's why people for generations have looked at newborns and declared who they look like! People don't just comment on skin color, they comment on hair, and eye color, and toes and noses. It's just curiosity and most often in it is found beauty.
Further, if we go back a bit, we learn that Princess Diana has a "person of color" in her heritage as well, that person having been born of India, so red headed, blue eyed Harry is not 100% White. In fact he has "one drop" of East Asian.
No, if there is any weirdness at all, it is the way some cultures or subcultures claim a person as theirs over "one drop." We are all amazed at the advances in DNA testing and the acknowledgement that humans over generations have traveled, collided with other cultures, and mixed up their genetics, be that by loving consensual relationships or rape. Rape being the horror it is since forever, I wonder where aspects of my own DNA came in and maybe it was the 12th century.
This curiosity about skin color was once extended to the singer-dancer Michael Jackson and his children, be they begot with the woman he married or not, and still is.
I have no idea which Royal actually SAID something that might be construed as bigotry over what was probably curiosity, but I can bet it was a common curiosity, stated or not, of them all as well as that of the public. So if I were asked, and I won't be, I would advise Harry and Meghan to drop it, to not make an International case for bigotry over it.
An example would be Prince Albert II of Monaco and his son with African born Nicole Coste, with whom he had a long romantic relationship with, they being in the news lately as their son, who appears "mixed," reaches the age of 18. Albert is not apologizing, he's recognizing. The media condemnation that is difficult and abusive is the suggestion that he only married his wife, Princess Charlene, for her biology, as someone who might look more like his mother and keep their Mediterranean heritage more on the Nordic side.
Americans understand Harry's need and Meghan's, to be independent and earn their own living, pay back their debts, and to find usefulness and happiness in their lives. The transition into Americanism is a more difficult one for Harry, who is out of his element and who was raised to not give any opinions at all. He has to suffer being made the target of insults just like our President Joseph Biden does from Daily Mail UK - MAIL ON LINE. However, dropping the use of titles while in America is the American thing to do. The British Press needs to keep the titles of the Duke and Duchess of Sussex.
There is so much need out there, who can condemn anyone who is attempting to make service to society their reason for being?
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
9/21/21
9/20/21
9/18/21
9/17/21
THE JOY OF BLOGGING OPINION and DAILY MAIL UK - and MAIL ON LINE - AN AMERICAN REPUBLICAN BIAS and DISRESPECT OF PRESIDENT JOSEPH BIDEN , THE KARDASHIANS, HARRY AND MEGHAN (1)
One of the joys of blogging is being able to express your opinion, especially as it's not the prevailing popular opinion. That said, I confessed that during Covid, I got hooked on the publication out of Great Britain called DAILY MAIL - UK, also known as MAIL ON LINE, which is full of opinions, and opinions by British people who do not even live in the Unites States about American politics. (It seems to me there is an overlap of articles but I haven't checked - it would be a never ending task.) I'm in the process of getting un-hooked by using my knowledge of the reputation of other publications to chose which ones I read on line. Also, this publication is a TABLOID, yet it's too bad, because some decent journalism and journalistic photography does get lost in the mix.
Here is how I got hooked.
I got into the important news story of Edward Snowden's disappearance into the airport in Moscow and thought the Daily Mail coverage was quite good. Prior to this I was not at all hooked on any news story.
The Daily Mail format is that it almost appears a jumble of articles, and there is a repetition of articles, so basically your eyes go over articles you might not otherwise read, searching for ones you are interested in and it works like getting caught in a maze; you loose time.
Through Covid I began checking Daily Mail repeatedly, way too much. I own this. I've never applied to be interrupted by news by any news outlet so I do not use apps or sign up to be alerted. I was compelled to interrupt my own thoughts by checking the news. At some point, I realized that my interested in Covid and all that was happening due to the disease was more important to me than Edward Snowden or the issue of us being spied upon my our government or lied upon by our government when it was about national security. Both Covid and national security are about our survival.
Lately I've realized just how biased the choice of articles and how not journalistic many of the HEADLINES at Daily Mail UK - Mail On Line are. The headlines and articles are usually uncomplimentary to President Joseph Biden, and disrespectful to start by not using the title President. To me, a country that is obsessed with titles, the publication starts their disrespect by refusing to use the person's title. This would be like calling Queen Elizabeth, Liz, Queenie, or Lilibet. For years Kate was used instead of Catherine, and to this day the Princess, who goes by Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge, as married to Prince William, who goes by the Duke of Cambridge, is referred to as Kate Middleton. The press is making her earn her title long after the Royal Family did.
Is the Daily Mail UK - MAIL ON LINE referring to people incorrectly to save space? They are not. Daily Mail sometimes runs titles that pretty much tell the whole article or they used the same text beneath a picture that they use in the article so there is no space saving motive to not use titles.
There fails to be a mention in articles that read against President Joseph Biden that the Afghanistan war/problem goes back four Presidential administrations. Therefore these articles are not historically correct or making an attempt to be historically correct.
Daily Mail UK is read by many a Republican husband of Democratic friends of mine and they are the type to basically look for the cheese-cake - the sexual photos of the Kardashians and other desperate-for-attention celebrities who show off their bodies and post selfies or other photos that sometimes are porn. Church on Sunday and then the cheese-cake. There is never an equivalent photo run of males. I have no idea if males try to appear in the publication or are refused by a decision maker at the publication.
At the time that I began to loose time to Daily Mail UK - MAIL ON LINE , I didn't know who the Kardashians were. I heard of them but could not name the sisters. (Now I can and find them of interest due to their presence in pop culture, but I still have never seen any of their reality shows nor do I intend to and I'm critical of them.)
Our President, whoever it is, should be referred to as President Joseph Biden or President Biden, not Joe, not Biden, and not "Sleepy Joe" a derogatory term that the bombastic President Donald Trump started, that only belongs in quotes attributed to him. The use of this term otherwise by any media is an attack.
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
9/16/21
9/15/21
9/14/21
ONE MUST
"One must still have chaos in oneself to be able to give birth to a dancing star."
Friedrich Nietzsche
9/13/21
9/11/21
6/19/21
6/13/21
6/12/21
6/10/21
6/2/21
5/27/21
LAWRENCE CLARK POWELL : OCEAN IN VIEW
Powell is the man who the UCLA library is named after, for he was the head librarian there for many years. He and his wife lived in Westwood and then moved out to the Malibu.
Page 401)
Indians are buried everywhere from Mugu Lagoon to Malibu Creek. Every bulldozing operation brings their bones and artifacts to light, as one did just across Broad Beach Road from us - a dozen huddled skeletons, four or five hundred years old, talking no notice of their noisy resurrection. Our germanium garden, falling to Encinal Creek, is sure to be a burial ground, the gofers tell us. Mary Austin writes of the residue of personality that always haunts a place once inhabited by man. Jeffers' poetry is full of these hauntings. But I cannot say that I have encountered sprits here on the Malibu. Perhaps the diesels drive them away. I have no fear of them however. The Chumash were a gentle people, living on shell fish, roots, and acorn meal. We who are carnivorous may leave a different residue. Sometimes I wonder who will follow us here, and what they will make of our artifacts - books on discs ... and less tangible, though perhaps more lasting, our love for this marine mountainscape this world called the Malibu.
5/26/21
5/23/21
TRIVIAL or SUPERFICIAL or LIGHTHEARTED THE LIST OF THE MOMENT
AM I WHO I KNOW? (or DON'T?)
Top Model I Think is Most Heart-Stopping Beautiful : Gigi Hadid
Actor With Talent Who Is Also My Heartthrob : Jack Huston
Actor I'll See Any Film She Makes : Jennifer Lawrence
Actor I'll Always Miss - I Like (Most Of) What He Did : Phillip Seymour Hoffman
Poet Who Always Gets To Me : Dylan Thomas
I'm Curious About: Jack White (Musician/ His mom is Polish!)
Enough Already : Brad and Angelina (Give him the damn divorce!)
I'd Be Totally Embarrassed If She Were My Mother : Madonna
So Bad - So Good : James Corden
I Might Just Be Done With : Listening to Coast to Coast AM (and KFI)
Historical Person I'd Like To Interview : Thomas Jefferson
If I Could Travel Back In Time : Seeing my Immigrant Grandmother Young and Just Off The Boat.
I'd Like To Meet But Won't In This Life : My Great Grandparents
My Favorite Person Is : My dog.
AM I WHAT I INDULGE?
Oldie Films I Just Had to Watch Again : The Talented Mr. Ripley, Almost Famous, Chaplin,
Oldie Film I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Basquiat
Not So Oldie Series I Want To Watch Again Sometime : Boardwalk
Newish Series That I Was So Impressed With : The Romanoffs
I Just Watched and Loved It : Halston
Oldie Favorite Album I Blissfully Recently Listened to from Beginning to End : George Harrison All Things Must Pass (Remastered)
Oldie Band I Didn't Grown Up With That I'm Listening To Now : The Byrds
Oldie Songs I've Been Listening To A Lot : Led Zeppelin The Rain Song, Ersel Hickey, You Threw A Dart, Babyshambles, You Talk, Lou Reed Rock and Roll, Allman Brothers, Midnight Rider (I first heard all these songs as Oldies.)
Book I Recently Read Cover To Cover : American Sutra - A Story Of Faith and Freedom In the Second World War by Duncan Ryuken Williams
Book I Keep Meaning To Reread : Blonde by Joyce Carol Oats
Person I Get and Nobody I Know Understands : Andy Warhol
AM I WHAT I EAT?
Favorite Cheese Of The Moment : Havarti
Tortilla to Beat All : Trader Joes Whole Wheat Wraps Olive Oil
Condiment / On Pizza : Olives - Black Olives
Chocolate : Dark
Canned Soup I Miss That I Don't Think They Make Anymore : Campbell's Scotch Broth
Meal I Miss That I Can't Recreate: Pressure Cooker Stuffed Cabbage
I'm No Longer Into Like I Once Was : Herbal Teas
I'm Drinking : Vitamin C Fizzies
AM I WHAT I BUY?
Scent : Pacifica Tuscan Blood Orange
Shower Gel : Hemp Sweet Orange by Clean and Beauty (defunct business)
Summer Top : Calvin Klein Performance
Casual Shoes : Skechers
.
AM I WHAT I MISS?
Going out to a big screen movie theatre with a group of friends to see a film.
A long deep honest in-person conversation.
Sleeping nine hours straight no problem.
LATEST FASCINATION(S)?
Watching HERD Elephant Videos of the Jubalani Herd in South Africa. HERD ORG SOUTH AFRICA (A good cause.)
Antarctica
I SHOULD :
Take Yoga Again. Go Swimming.
I WISH:
It Would Rain
I HAVE:
Covid-19 Vaccination
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
Ask yourself the same questions.
Don't let me influence you.
5/21/21
SUMMER : EXPERIENCE TWENTY-THREE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
C 2018-2021 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
5/20/21
PLANT BASED DIETS THAT KILL? WRITING PARTNERS THAT KILL? ARE YOU A VEGETARIAN or PERHAPS A REVENGETARIAN?
When I was in college working on my Creative Writing, an instructor decided to make writing partners of sorts out of us by first quizzing us on our diets and twinning us with others who ate like we did. A notoriously vegetarian school, "Woke" a good twenty years before the state of California as is, thick with suffocating political correctness as a form of religion, a place where an on site eaterie actually served meat but you could get stared down for openly eating a tuna sandwich, I got stuck with the other meat eater.
I tried to be cooperative but the person I was stuck with was a jealous and competitive woman (i.e. she played real dirty beginning with threatening me that she was a witch) who wanted to be at the top of the hill and decided she'd say whatever she could to push me down it. When I think back on reasons why I hated the school (there were some reasons I loved it too) this woman and the whole bullshit situation with her including instructors coddling her and accepting her bribes (i.e. her delivery of home made casseroles on their doorsteps) is at the top of the list.
In short, the fact that we both ate meat did not mean we had anything in common, even if we both had meat eaters eye teeth or traditionally human intestinal tracks designed by Our Maker to digest meat. In actuality we were never close to writing "partners". She was only able to make smart ass remarks towards me and my work. And, by the way, I began to see that I was quite possibly unsuitable ethnically to be applauded by my instructors. After years of being passed by in many situations in life due to my ethnicity, such as being the butt of Polish jokes in another classroom, now I was too "White" and considered advantaged to be there, even though I was not one of the many Trust Fund Babies I was surrounded with and going broke. The bitch couldn't stop her whole "I am Mexican and a Single Mother and therefore I Deserve So Much More Than You," mantra, seeking every advantage such as living in the funky, sought after "married student" housing (Where was the husband?) and submitting work written years earlier as new in workshops which was unfair to everyone else there. I was older than her so I tried to be more mature and not respond.
I never bought into the school cafeteria plans preferring to cook for myself and budget. There were so many grocers in the area who carried "health food," begun in the 1960's when hippies settled, that it was easy to purchase vegetarian or vegan alternatives and afford to. So for about 6 weeks, maybe 8, I ate nothing but vegetarian food - lots of Tofu with sauces. This was not the time to do a lot of cooking and these packaged vegetarian meals were easy. I was so busy, possibly I never thought much about food or felt hungry.
One day a friend of mine, younger, a gentleman from Mexico*, who never played that card, and who drank a wicked twelve cups of coffee a day habit, looked at me and said something like, "Your hair! Your nails! You're not getting enough proteins." It was uncharacteristically open of him to say such a thing. I immediately confessed that I had been eating vegetarian. I immediately went back to eating some meat.
If I could do it over, I'd probably also be ingesting a suitcase full of the finest vitamins and herbs, and maybe make more of an effort eating in a food combining way. (One vegetarian from Germany there was only eating white pasta with tomato spaghetti sauce and tapioca pudding and no one thought this PHD candidate had an eating disorder.) I would also use the school pool. I was overall fit. A good weight. Lots of walking. But...
Lately, I'm beginning to think that the whole VEGAN MOVEMENT is actually a government conspiracy because there IS NOT ENOUGH FOOD FOR THE PLANET, including the United States, especially if you want to eat a traditional balanced meal. I know about the dubious food pyramids that have us eating way more grains than we should. I also know that millions of American have less than $2000 in assets because that's a requirement if you want to get Government Food Aid (ie.EBT, CalFresh, etc.) Of course the line ups for free food - miles long - preceded the line ups for free vaccines and there were just as many SUV's.
The other day I went into a Vons market and was shocked at the price of meat which, as an example, featured as a deal a pound of ground turkey for $6.99. The last time I bought a pound of ground turkey I paid about $2.99. I'm aware that food that travels well, such as garlic cloves, are being imported and sold at dollar stores such as 99 Cents Only, meaning that we are importing garlic when heck, Gilroy, California is the Garlic Capital. I'm not sure where else these stores are getting vegetables and salad greens but I'm sure that Mexico is one of those places.
Water shortages are another aspect of the Food issue. If your water bill doesn't do it, your awareness that there is a water shortage will make you consider Depression Era Sink Baths instead of daily showers. It's said that the reason meat is now so expensive is that feeding animals is more expensive because growing food is more expensive because water is so expensive due to water shortages.
WHAT IF YOU ARE BEING MANIPULATED INTO GOING AGAINST YOUR HUMAN BODY with this PLANT BASED DIET trend? Over the last couple weeks I've tried two newish products catering to the plant based diet folks, fake meat. Maybe fresh out of the package it was eatable but I wasn't fooled that it was meat and it soon started to slime. It was also expensive and processed to turn some form of plant-based sludge into what looked like wieners or slabs of lunch meat, thick and reddish between slabs of brown bread. I went shopping, with memories of one of my long gone friends saying "Try this, it's the best," and putting a Hebrew National hot dog on a white plate with a side of Kraut. I bought both. When I think back on food during my college days, I think humus piled on a bagel.
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
5/17/21
SMELL : EXPERIENCE TWENTY-TWO : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
Spend an hour writing down everything you smell.
Then write a short story in which you use smell and do your best to use adjectives or other creative means to describe smell so your reader can smell the smells too.
Perhaps everyone has their own particular sense of smell.
C 2018-2021 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
5/15/21
SOUNDTRACK : EXPERIENCE TWENTY-ONE : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
The last thing to do when we die, I hear (pun intended), is our hearing. Many of us have remembrances of music," earworms" or have a "soundtrack" for our lives.
Name a song - or two - or a hundred - or as many as you want.
What life experience is attached to that song, tune, or performance?
Did you hear it live, in concert, on the radio, as new music or as an "Oldie?"
How do you feel when you hear that song again?
C 2018-2021 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
5/9/21
WITNESSING: EXPERIENCE TWENTY : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
When you were a child, what was your exposure to fake violence (Film? Playing on the school yard? Video games?) and real violence (Neighborhood. Play turned mean?)? What role did you play within violence?
How did exposure to violence form or change you?
C 2018-2021 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
5/7/21
PRAYER : EXPERIENCE NINETEEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
What is your experience with prayer?
Have you been granted what you needed? Have you received the answers you sought?
Do you pray for other people? What do you pray for?
Or perhaps you have never prayed or given up on prayer?
C 2018-2021 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
5/3/21
WHY CHURCH IV
Here are questions to ask (yourself, other members, the minister or priest) before joining a church.
1) How many people belong to this congregation? Is there a sense of community?
2) Is there a particular political viewpoint or world view associated with this congregation? Is the minister or other people in authority telling you how to vote? Or are you comfortable because generally you're surrounded by like minded people?
3) Will I be expected to or told to bring in new members? Does the organization or the leadership do their job to attract new members?
Are they actively attempting to covert people or do they take a more passive approach?
4) Am I expected to tithe or support the church? Is it voluntary or is someone expecting to see my tax returns? (Most people do donate or volunteer to churches they are members of.)
5) Do people like and respect each other and get along or is there infighting, power plays, or other people issues that make it less spiritual?
6) If you need to talk, ask advice or need help, does someone call you back or meet with you quickly? At all?
7) If you left another church or religion, especially your family or heritage religion, how do people at this one think or talk about people of that other church/ religion?
8) Do they call themselves ecumenical or Interfaith? Are they really?
9) If you take time off or leave, will friendships you made end or continue? Will you be cut off or shunned or simply not be remembered?
10) Overall, are you experiencing a better life because you belong to this church?
11) Do you look forward to attending or do you do so out of Obligation?
C 2021 Christine Trzyna
4/28/21
WIT: EXPERIENCE EIGHTEEN : CHRISTINE TRZYNA WRITING WORKSHOP
In French farces there is a moment that translates to "the wit on the staircase."
It's when you are all the way home and half up the stairs and then you finally get the joke. Maybe just the opposite - a sad realization hits you.
When did you have such a delayed understanding or response to something?
C 2018-2021 Christine Trzyna
All Rights Reserved including Internet and International Rights
OK to use this post in not for profit situations. Please credit me. Send me love. It's karma.
4/25/21
ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD : CHRISTINE TRZYNA FILM REVIEW
Friends who like old Hollywood films decided to pay Amazon Prime about $15. to buy this one and admit they did so because the film got such good reviews. An hour into it they were disgusted and said they're never going to bother watching the rest and are mourning their expenditure. When I asked why, he said the acting was forced. He hated the scenes with the little girl and the dog. In particular, he felt it was too jammed with cultural references and wished just once someone could drive without the radio blaring. She said without specifying, "We are not interested."
But hey, they spent $15. So I asked if I could watch the film at their place and did.
To me the thematic of this film is violence, violence - over kill- in Hollywood fantasies juxtapositioned against the real overkill of the Manson murders in the Hollywood Hills. Of course our tension builds as we see the hostile situation going on at the ranch where the cult lives, which was once a ranch where Westerns were filmed. We know the era of cowboys and gunslingers depicted in film is near over by 1968 and so will be work for actors known for them.
(We haven't seen a modern cowboy film since Brokeback Mountain.)
From our current hip viewpoint the obvious racism that was taken in stride in that cowboy film era is cringeworthy. I'm so glad the film maker was true to that era and didn't rewrite film or Hollywood history. It gives us a reward, a sense of how far we've come.
These characters drink and smoke and aren't in AA or concerned they'll get cancer. (Remember that freedom?) They are macho. Maybe there aren't too many men like that left.
At the same time, the film successfully has pulled off something few ever do. We know the cowboy acting scenes have a fictive, fake feel yet we forget the Manson scenes are. We get to know Sharon Tate and her friends on an ordinary day.
The violence in the cowboy scenes is gratuitous. The violence in stopping the Manson killers, necessary.
Wes used to tell me how the Manson murders ended the peace and love hippie era in Hollywood, something, like the cowboy actor and stunt man in this film, he was never part of. People who never owned guns bought them and people started locking up. Back in the day Americans were still big on cowboys and how the West was won. Television Westerns and movie Westerns - John Wayne - Dale Rogers and Roy Rogers, Gene Autry - these were the heroes of children and adult viewers alike. Many a boy wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. These stories fueled pretend play in backyards.
There are still a few of those cowboy and cowgirl actors around. Trick riders on fast horses and the stuntmen too. They aren't all at Universal Studios. Many own apartment buildings.
As the Western genre has to be my least favorite, I admit my generally negative attitude early on in my viewing of Once Upon A Time In Hollywood. The cowboy actor (acted by Leonardo Di Caption) isn't appealing even as recreations of dialogues and the sets - saloons - shoot outs seem classic. Then I realized yes, there was something different about television acting then and the recreation was accurate.
The drastically different lifestyles of the cowboy actor whose got a house in the Hollywood Hills versus the stunt man living in a trailer near an oil pump that works (probably Van Nuys) : I have a reference for that. Many Hollywood stars stayed rich because they bought land in the San Fernando Valley - ranches - and sold off that land - real estate.
Of course in this reimagining, the Manson murderers are stopped before they can kill and when that happens, because you as an audience - or me - know what did happen and you hate those characters - so you - I - are laughing - yes entertained - when they get theirs. Meaning, once again violence is entertaining. It's fun to see an enemy over killed. The same guns, blow torches and fists that are fake on sets kill in "real" life.
So there you are in 2021 cheering on the good guys, though they are violent, which isn't very nice of politically correct you, in that way taking part in the violence. Just as children once cheered on their cowboy film favorites on the TV set after school. Bonanza reruns.
Art is participatory.
Quentin Tarantino
made me participate.
Thumbs up.
C Christine Trzyna 2021