"Daddy, Daddy, I can't sleep 'cuz my nose is stuffed up!"
Right now I'm suffering from a sinus infection/allergies, or a Code in the Node, and my nose is NOT pleased. I have been using nasal sprays for some time, both OTC and prescription (I know, bad girl), plus lately Ocean, in an attempt to clear it up, but to no avail. My nose, pardon the frankness, is still stuffy, crusty, hurts, bleeds, and feels like there's a hole up inside between the two passages.
I have long been a user of cold products and Sudafed. 17 years ago, we were living in Minnesota, yes that wonderful, fascinating, but god-forsakeningly frigid state.
Now my ex loved his brand new CRX. His first new car, and he babied it like no other. So he refused to drive it that first winter. And since he worked shifts at area hospitals, and odd hours, he needed the Buick. So my one year old daughter and I walked to her daycare, pushing her in a flimsy umbrella stroller over rutted snow/ice covered sidewalks (if you don't shovel religiously, you get deep ruts - same with streets: don't plow and you get ruts - once so bad it was like slot cars on our side street). But I digress. It was a cold winter, and that meant temps up to -20 for a high and wind chills up to -50 below. We had to walk about 2 miles to her day care at a woman's house, and I had to walk another mile to the bus stop, and repeat on the way home. By the time we got to our destinations, we were crying and the tears had frozen our eyes shut; our nose hairs had also frozen together, and our lungs and exposed skin burned.
Every day, for 3+ months. Needless to say, we both got very sick that winter, I developed a raging URI, and coughed for 48+ hours straight, no respite. They tried everything, and I finally landed in the ER, where he gave me a hydrocodone syrup that knocked me out enough so I could sleep and the reflexive cough would go away, and 120 mg doses of Sudafed. He said that was what it needed and to use that in the future if it got bad again. So after that, the weak family lungs kicked in, and I was sick with URIs almost constantly, 3 months for each: first a cold, then laryngitis, sinusitis, bronchitis, and even pneumonia. Then do it all over again.
Although Sudafed made me jumpy (I'm sensitive to meds), when it got rough, I took that 120 mg, every 6 hours, so about 3 times a day, or 84 pills a week.
Now, an example current law states as reported in the Idaho Press Tribune (date unknown - source: http://www.myidahopress.com/sundayfeature/data/061209/a21.php:
"The law restricts the sale of products containing pseudoephedrine, a common nasal decongestant and meth ingredient. It went into effect July 1.
The law also requires that retailers ensure that pseudoephedrine medicines are located either in an area where the public is not permitted or inside a locked display case and that sales of the products must be conducted by an employee.
No pseudoephedrine products can be sold directly to customers off the shelves.
In addition, store employees can sell no more than 9 grams of pseudoephedrine in a single sale. That's 300 30-milligram tablets. The Sudafed brand name sells packages of 24, 48 and 96 tablets.
It is now also be against the law for anyone to buy more than 9 grams of pseudoephedrine in any 30-day period. Violations will be treated as a misdemeanor charge.
Purchasers throughout the state are also required to present government-issued photo identification, typically a driver's license, when buying these products.
"We've had this scourgeof meth for a while now, and we continue different angles and different methods to try to stem the tide of meth," McGee said." (emphasis added)
The actual law, for legalphiles is found at:
TITLE 37: FOOD, DRUGS, AND OIL CHAPTER 33 RETAIL SALES OF PSEUDOEPHEDRINE PRODUCTS 37-3301-6
http://www3.state.id.us/cgi-bin/newidst
Now, as I see it, I can consume about 84 pills a week, or if the cold lingers, 356 a month, well over the legal limit, which would make me guilty of a misdemeanor if I tried to purchase it. And if I try to stockpile in the fall against coming colds, for all three of us, using a variety of products, such as Sudafed, Dayquil, and other cold preparations, I can't. I get stopped, like a criminal.
Now, I can't even examine the box of the remedy - I have to rely on the card in the tray, take it to the pharmacist, and pay for it there, all like I'm a drug kingpin. What about the poor Dad, sent out in the middle of the night to find some cold medication for little Joey, who's been crying all night, only to find the pharmacies are closed, and that he has to search town for an all-nighter?
Now I finally kicked the bad cold habit in Hawaii - that wonderful warm, moist, fragrant air - that's what I talk about - not the sandy beaches, the sunshine, the luaus, but the air, the air. After two years there free and clear, and then coming back, I got smacked with a cold. This particular one snuck through now, as it's tenacious - half my 15 yr old's school is down with it. SO hence this topic.
But NyQuil, a family favorite, in a move to position itself above the rest, changed it's formulary to remove the offending pseudoephedrine and keep the box on the shelf. Maybe smart marketing, but death to those of us who believe that NyQuil is the agent of all that's workable for a cold, and the closest we come to a drug. I had found NyQuil through a Denis Leary show called "No Cure For Cancer" and was intrigued. The complete transcript can be found at: http://www.endor.org/leary/
Now a warning: EXPLICIT LANGUAGE at the site. I have tried to "block" the worst below, but the topic is not for kids.
"I don't do illegal drugs anymore. Now I just do the legal drugs. Tonight I'm on NyQuil and Sudafed. Let me tell you something, folks. Forget about cocaine and heroine. All you need is NyQuil and Sudafed. I'm telling you right now, I took the NyQuil five years ago. I just came out of the coma tonight before the f*&*ing show! Claus Vanbulo was standing over my bed going, "Denis, get up! There's something the matter with Sunny! Hurry up!" I love NyQuil. Man, I love it! I love it. I love it. I love it. It's the best thing sh*t ever invented. Isn't it, huh? I love the name alone. NyQuil - Capitol N, small Y, big f*&*ing Q! I love that f*&*ing Q, don't you!? What a great advertising idea! Put a huge f*&*ing Q on the box. They'll get high and stare at it. "The Q is talking to me! The Q is talking to me!"
I love NyQuil, man. Because NyQuil has never changed, man. It's never changed. All the other medicines are doing that inner-child thing. "we know that there's a small child inside of you, so now we have grape and cherry and orange flavor." Not NyQuil! They still have the original green death f*&*ing flavor!(*) You know why!? Because it doesn't matter what it tastes like! It's so strong you go, "*wheeze* Hey this stuff really tastes like.." Bang! Yer in the coma already! "What happened?" "He said tastes like and he went right into the coma, it was unbelievable!" We have reached the point where the over the counter drugs are actually stronger than anything you can buy on the street. It says on the back of the NyQuil box, on the back of the box it says, "May cause drowsiness." It should say, "Don't make any f*&*ing plans! Kiss your family and friends goodbye."
So reach for the newly revised NyQuil and sigh for the good old days, for as George Orwell pointed out so well in "1984," (Part One, page one - available at: http://www.online-literature.com/orwell/1984/1/):
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU...
I'm paranoid, so sue me, K : )
Friday, February 8, 2008
The Mythos of Star Wars: a reader's perspective and research
This started out as a comment on the use of technology in Star Wars on my SF reading group:
"Now when does any Star Wars movie appreciate laws of physics?" asked one gentleman.
It then took on a life of its own as shown below. I have added to the comments I made for further study and clarification.
In answer to the above question, I found the SW databank, which outlines all the tech, starships, vehicles, weapons, etc. Sort of like Orion's Arm? But nowhere does it say anything about the science - merely expounding on the fantasy world he created. And it's a Lucasfilm site, so it's officially sanctioned:http://www.starwars.com/databank/. I found the real answer in that Star Wars is not a "hard" SciFi story as the group defines Hard SciFi (technically plausible science as based on our understanding today), but rather it was a fantasy, a myth.
The Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian had an exhibition called Star Wars: the Magic of Myth, which closed back in 1999 (toured until 2003), but some info remains. See: http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/sw-unit1.htm
From the opening page:"Star Wars: The Magic of Myth was inspired by Joseph Campbell's story of the "hero's journey" presented in Hero With a Thousand Faces, and by comments on the Star Wars films in the book and video series The Power of Myth."
It's interesting how some view it as fantasy, others as a mythos. One thing is clear to me - it's a part of our culture and will be for generations to come. We have invested too much of ourselves into the movies and their world for it not to be.
A long reply ensued, which I can't quote here verbatim for privacy reasons, legal etc., but she had said that we (meaning the average moviegoer) are "uncomfortable with SW and such being 'myths'". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology
Her reply included that the "connotation of 'myth' is much more epic than 'legend, and far more so than 'story', even though that's what it literally means." And it sounds so much better "than 'fantasy' or 'world', which is why you hear countless references to the Harry Potter or Buffy or Star Wars 'mythologies'. It kind of has an implication of something that goes so far beyond the original that it can almost be considered functionally separate."
She mentioned Henry Jenkins and his book "Texual Poachers" that talked about this and fan fiction. The blurb on the book says in part:
"'Get a life,' William Shatner told Star Trek fans. Yet, as 'Textual Poachers' argues, fans already have a 'life,' a complex subculture which draws its resources from commercial culture while also reworking them to serve alternative interests. Rejecting stereotypes of fans as cultural dupes, social misfits, and mindless consumers, Jenkins represents media fans as active producers and skilled manipulators of program meanings, as nomadic poachers constructing their own culture from borrowed materials, as an alternative social community defined through its cultural preferences and consumption practices.
Written from an insider's perspective and providing vivd examples from fan artifacts, 'Textual Poachers' offers an ethnographic account of the media fan community, its interpretive strategies, its social institutions and cultural practices, and its troubled relationship to the mass media and consumer capitalism."
She said that most people would view Star Wars and such being myths. I replied that I wouldn't bet my last supper on that. I would think that most people would NOT view it as a myth - I replied that I used mythos as a way of primitizing the word. To pull it back to it's origins.
Jospeh Campbell's "The Power of Myth," which I fondly recall watching all umpteen episodes of (and I have the book), was a huge influence on Lucas:
"George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to openly credit Campbell's influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces' and other works of Campbell's."
"I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what's valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is...around the period of this realization...it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books...It was very eerie because in reading 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs...so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I'd been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent...I went on to read 'The Masks of God' and many other books."
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
see also: http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/sffilm/camplink.html which also has an essay on the Hero..., and Star Wars and also The Matrix.
see also: http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/lucaswhich details Campbell's very favorable impressions of Star Wars.
Indeed, according to Wiki, the "Power of Myth" documentary for PBS was filmed at Skywalker Ranch. There is also a companion DVD available at the PBS store (no, I don't have a financial stake in PBS, just an interest in seeing it survive... )
Wiki goes on to talk about later connections including the Smithsonian exhbit I mentioned earlier.
See also:
An American Mythology: Why Star Wars Still Matters http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/articles/starwars.html
Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time by Andrew Gordon: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/starwars.htm
And at the The Center for Story and Symbol, see also "Move over Odysseus, here comes Luke Skywalker, by Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times Film Critic, at: http://www.folkstory.com/articles/petersburg.html
and last, but not least, "Episode One - The Phantom Menace: Star Wars as Personal Mythology," by Jonathon Young at: http://www.folkstory.com/articles/starwars.html
Jonathon Young was interviewed in the History Channel's documentary entitled "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed."
So my use of mythos was purposeful. To bring the concepts back to their origins. Myth connotates something less to some, something "not true," since it has dual meaning, and many use the latter meaning. Mythos has only one meaning - mythology with it's archetypes.
In "Myth and Ideology in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction," the author, Daphne Patai, writes that the word mythos derives from the Greek word mu, which came to signify "word":
"Over time, mythos came to be distinquished from other Greek terms for word - "eops" and "logos": 'Mythos became the word as the most ancient, the original account of the origins of the world, in divine relevation of sacred tradition, of gods and demi-gods, and the genesis of the cosmos, cosmogony: and it came to be sharply contrasted with epos, the word as human narration, and - from theSophists on - with logos, the word as rational construction.
Today the term myth seems to be used in all three senses, and in additional ones as well. The range of uses in which the word is used is matched only by the vagueness of the claims put forth in the name of myth, on the one hand, and by the contradictory defintions of it and it's functions, on the other." pg.27
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=IR194Q_AS-sC&dq=myth+and+ideology+in+contemporary+brazilian+fiction&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=uNN1N0c8Ra&sig=OehOeKSFyNqPE_NVZk3AlitnBa8
For more on myth and it's origins, should anyone even care (I find it fascinating, but then Campbell was integral to my earlier life): http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/foamycustard/fc042.htm
So, does mythos explain the power of Star Wars - that it grabs at our most inner belief structure? Or is it just entertaintment?
"Now when does any Star Wars movie appreciate laws of physics?" asked one gentleman.
It then took on a life of its own as shown below. I have added to the comments I made for further study and clarification.
In answer to the above question, I found the SW databank, which outlines all the tech, starships, vehicles, weapons, etc. Sort of like Orion's Arm? But nowhere does it say anything about the science - merely expounding on the fantasy world he created. And it's a Lucasfilm site, so it's officially sanctioned:http://www.starwars.com/databank/. I found the real answer in that Star Wars is not a "hard" SciFi story as the group defines Hard SciFi (technically plausible science as based on our understanding today), but rather it was a fantasy, a myth.
The Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian had an exhibition called Star Wars: the Magic of Myth, which closed back in 1999 (toured until 2003), but some info remains. See: http://www.nasm.si.edu/exhibitions/StarWars/sw-unit1.htm
From the opening page:"Star Wars: The Magic of Myth was inspired by Joseph Campbell's story of the "hero's journey" presented in Hero With a Thousand Faces, and by comments on the Star Wars films in the book and video series The Power of Myth."
It's interesting how some view it as fantasy, others as a mythos. One thing is clear to me - it's a part of our culture and will be for generations to come. We have invested too much of ourselves into the movies and their world for it not to be.
A long reply ensued, which I can't quote here verbatim for privacy reasons, legal etc., but she had said that we (meaning the average moviegoer) are "uncomfortable with SW and such being 'myths'". See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mythology
Her reply included that the "connotation of 'myth' is much more epic than 'legend, and far more so than 'story', even though that's what it literally means." And it sounds so much better "than 'fantasy' or 'world', which is why you hear countless references to the Harry Potter or Buffy or Star Wars 'mythologies'. It kind of has an implication of something that goes so far beyond the original that it can almost be considered functionally separate."
She mentioned Henry Jenkins and his book "Texual Poachers" that talked about this and fan fiction. The blurb on the book says in part:
"'Get a life,' William Shatner told Star Trek fans. Yet, as 'Textual Poachers' argues, fans already have a 'life,' a complex subculture which draws its resources from commercial culture while also reworking them to serve alternative interests. Rejecting stereotypes of fans as cultural dupes, social misfits, and mindless consumers, Jenkins represents media fans as active producers and skilled manipulators of program meanings, as nomadic poachers constructing their own culture from borrowed materials, as an alternative social community defined through its cultural preferences and consumption practices.
Written from an insider's perspective and providing vivd examples from fan artifacts, 'Textual Poachers' offers an ethnographic account of the media fan community, its interpretive strategies, its social institutions and cultural practices, and its troubled relationship to the mass media and consumer capitalism."
She said that most people would view Star Wars and such being myths. I replied that I wouldn't bet my last supper on that. I would think that most people would NOT view it as a myth - I replied that I used mythos as a way of primitizing the word. To pull it back to it's origins.
Jospeh Campbell's "The Power of Myth," which I fondly recall watching all umpteen episodes of (and I have the book), was a huge influence on Lucas:
"George Lucas was the first Hollywood filmmaker to openly credit Campbell's influence. Lucas stated following the release of the first Star Wars film in 1977 that its story was shaped, in part, by ideas described in 'The Hero With a Thousand Faces' and other works of Campbell's."
"I [Lucas] came to the conclusion after American Graffiti that what's valuable for me is to set standards, not to show people the world the way it is...around the period of this realization...it came to me that there really was no modern use of mythology...The Western was possibly the last generically American fairy tale, telling us about our values. And once the Western disappeared, nothing has ever taken its place. In literature we were going off into science fiction...so that's when I started doing more strenuous research on fairy tales, folklore, and mythology, and I started reading Joe's books. Before that I hadn't read any of Joe's books...It was very eerie because in reading 'The Hero with a Thousand Faces' I began to realize that my first draft of Star Wars was following classic motifs...so I modified my next draft [of Star Wars] according to what I'd been learning about classical motifs and made it a little bit more consistent...I went on to read 'The Masks of God' and many other books."
see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Campbell
see also: http://virtual.clemson.edu/groups/dial/sffilm/camplink.html which also has an essay on the Hero..., and Star Wars and also The Matrix.
see also: http://www.online.pacifica.edu/cgl/lucaswhich details Campbell's very favorable impressions of Star Wars.
Indeed, according to Wiki, the "Power of Myth" documentary for PBS was filmed at Skywalker Ranch. There is also a companion DVD available at the PBS store (no, I don't have a financial stake in PBS, just an interest in seeing it survive... )
Wiki goes on to talk about later connections including the Smithsonian exhbit I mentioned earlier.
See also:
An American Mythology: Why Star Wars Still Matters http://www.decentfilms.com/sections/articles/starwars.html
Star Wars: A Myth for Our Time by Andrew Gordon: http://web.clas.ufl.edu/users/agordon/starwars.htm
And at the The Center for Story and Symbol, see also "Move over Odysseus, here comes Luke Skywalker, by Steve Persall, St. Petersburg Times Film Critic, at: http://www.folkstory.com/articles/petersburg.html
and last, but not least, "Episode One - The Phantom Menace: Star Wars as Personal Mythology," by Jonathon Young at: http://www.folkstory.com/articles/starwars.html
Jonathon Young was interviewed in the History Channel's documentary entitled "Star Wars: The Legacy Revealed."
So my use of mythos was purposeful. To bring the concepts back to their origins. Myth connotates something less to some, something "not true," since it has dual meaning, and many use the latter meaning. Mythos has only one meaning - mythology with it's archetypes.
In "Myth and Ideology in Contemporary Brazilian Fiction," the author, Daphne Patai, writes that the word mythos derives from the Greek word mu, which came to signify "word":
"Over time, mythos came to be distinquished from other Greek terms for word - "eops" and "logos": 'Mythos became the word as the most ancient, the original account of the origins of the world, in divine relevation of sacred tradition, of gods and demi-gods, and the genesis of the cosmos, cosmogony: and it came to be sharply contrasted with epos, the word as human narration, and - from theSophists on - with logos, the word as rational construction.
Today the term myth seems to be used in all three senses, and in additional ones as well. The range of uses in which the word is used is matched only by the vagueness of the claims put forth in the name of myth, on the one hand, and by the contradictory defintions of it and it's functions, on the other." pg.27
http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=IR194Q_AS-sC&dq=myth+and+ideology+in+contemporary+brazilian+fiction&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=uNN1N0c8Ra&sig=OehOeKSFyNqPE_NVZk3AlitnBa8
For more on myth and it's origins, should anyone even care (I find it fascinating, but then Campbell was integral to my earlier life): http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/foamycustard/fc042.htm
So, does mythos explain the power of Star Wars - that it grabs at our most inner belief structure? Or is it just entertaintment?
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