Marriage: For the Bad Times

As anyone who's ever shacked up with someone nubile enough and willing knows, you don't need marriage to bind two people together in a happy home life. At least for the first six months or so. That's what all the crazy hot monkey sex is for.

That's right: I said "crazy hot monkey sex".

Once you get past that initial period, though, the ardor which infused you every time you saw your mate, which drove you mad like a mandrill seeing a female's shining red posterior, tends to fade. The need to do the ol' Oop-Oop Ack-Ack Go-Bananas Throw-Bananas fades with time. The good news is, it won't necessarily stay quiet forever. With proper stoking, that furnace can be made to heat up on a pretty regular basis. The bad news is that, if you stick around long enough, it will eventually run silent and run deep for a while.

So: what keeps people around for those dark and sexless times?

Commitment.

Love is grand, but love with a legally binding contract is better. Many people think marriage is for the good times, for when you love each other, for being soul mates and dying at the exact same moment rocking on a porch somewhere, wrinkled hands stretched towards each other in a gesture of the everlasting bond that transcends even death.

Not so. First off, almost every marriage contract lets you out of it when you die; if heaven does exist, then you go there single and ready to get some. Second, marriage isn't for those times. Marriage is to get you to those times.

Marriage is for the bad times.

If you are ever married, there will come a time -- okay, many, many times -- when you will want to leave your spouse, even if it's just to go get an ice cream sandwich. Love will not be enough to keep you there. You will need paperwork.

You know in the cop movies, where they say "I'd shoot you, but I don't want to have to do all that paperwork?" Well, that's marriage.

"Wait -- if I shoot my wife, does that generate even more paperwork, or do I get off work early?"

As I noted in How to Have the Perfect Wedding, Mrs. Wag and I wrangled greatly over our vows. This is because we knew we were imperfect people, and the contract that bound us together would have to be strong indeed. A couple Anniversaries ago, I printed them up on some really nice paper, framed them, and gave them to Mrs. Wag as a token of my affection and the fact that I'm not going anywhere.

Here's what it says:

What I Have Promised

I have promised you Fidelity, Honesty, Patience and Love.

I have vowed to keep your Counsel , and to trust you with mine.

I have vowed to act in your Absence as I act in your Presence.

I have vowed to Cleave to you in all things and in all circumstances.

I have vowed to Have you and to Hold you, in Sickness and in Health, in Good Times and in Bad.

I have vowed to strive at all times and in all things to be the Best Spouse that I can, for as Long as we both shall Live.

In addition to being a wonderfully inexpensive romantic gift, it has the benefit of being a solid and specific reminder of the things I am contractually obligated to do for Mrs. Wag. I would be constantly forgetting that "keep your Counsel" thing otherwise. As it is, I only forget it often.

May your vows be just as strong, and may they come to mind right when they need to.

-- The Prolix Wag
Wondering why Mrs. Wag puts up with him since 2005.

Molecules Do Not Have Memories

In the wake of Salon laying the smackdown on the Huffington Post for its ludicrous pro-crackpot "health and wellness reporting", I'd like to take a moment to gangpile on one of my favorite Stupid Things People Actually Believe: Homeopathy.

Now, there is a great deal of (understandable) misunderstanding about what homeopathy actually is, and what it means to call something "homeopathic". When you say the words "homeopathic medicine" to someone, they often think of "holistic medicine", which is not nearly as stupid an idea.

Homeopathy is stupid in two ways, one understandable and the other oh-my-god-where-do-people-come-up-with-these-things whacktacular. We'll get to the latter in a second. In order to understand the former, we have to start with a little history.

Once upon a time, some peasant somewhere in Western Europe got stabbed in the foot. It hurt. A lot. So the peasant started to hobble home, only he tripped and fell, and banged his head on a rock. It hurt. A lot. But the peasant suddenly noticed his foot didn't hurt any more.

Thus the peasant discovered the principle of counterstimulation: the idea that you can treat pain in one part of the body by introducing a different sensation, even other pain. It actually works quite well, because the body can only process one sensation at a time. Tiger Balm does nothing but make your sore muscles tingly, but since your brain can't process tingly and sore at the same time, you feel only the tingly, and thus the sore "goes away". Of course, the muscles are still injured, but what do you care? You can't feel it! You can get a similar effect by pinching the nerve in your hand in the muscle between your thumb and forefinger if you have a headache: it will hurt, but you won't have a headache as long as you pinch it hard enough.

Useful principle to know, right? Problem is, the peasant thought he'd discovered a cure for stabbed foot. And then started telling people he was a doctor, and hitting them in the head with rocks. And thus was born the concept of heroic medicine, which is essentially the idea that the way to treat any injury or illness simply has to involve inflicting a further injury or illness on the patient, or else it simply can't be "good for you". This is where we get bloodletting, purging, and cutting off peoples' limbs just because they have the sniffles.

"See? Just like I told you: you can barely feel that hangnail now!"

This was the medical tradition in Western Europe for centuries. (Ironic side note for the people who value alternative medicine as "ancient wisdom from the Orient": doctors from the Middle East and Asia who visited Western Europe at this time were horrified by this barbaric crap). Then someone invented the scientific method, and this brought to peoples' attention the fact that people are a lot less likely to survive their illnesses when you stick leeches on them than if you just leave them alone in a field somewhere to die.

Science marched on, but a seed was planted: the idea that you could cure something by causing more of the initial symptoms with something else. This came to be called the "Law of Similars". It's the basis of all homeopathy: the active ingredient in each homeopathic remedy is something that causes similar symptoms to what it's trying to cure. Say, onions to cure hay fever, because both give you red, watery, irritated eyes.

Stupid? Yes. But understandable. Alleviating symptoms (through, say, counterstimulation) can look an awful lot like a cure, and we tend to extrapolate larger patterns from impactful experiences.

The other stupidity of homeopathy, though? I have no idea where it came from, or how people can possibly believe it. No friggin' clue. I'm still in total "Aroo?" territory over this one.

Quizzical dog is quizzical.

See, it would be one thing if they took that counterstimulative/heroic/just plain worthless active ingredient, mixed it in some water, and slapped a "Cures Cancer!" sticker on it. But they don't: they take the mixture and dilute it. Not just once, twice, or ten times, but a LOT. Enough times that there's none of the active ingredient left. Not a single molecule. By, like, a factor of ten, or a hundred.

Now, what do you get when you take orange juice, mix it in with water, and dilute it that much?

Water.

What about plutonium?

Water.

How about the hopes and dreams of a little girl that someday her parents may get back together if she's good enough, oh and by the way can she have a flying rainbow sprinkles unicorn?

Still water.

What's the difference between a homeopathic remedy -- ANY homeopathic remedy -- and water? Not a damn thing. Except that these people believe that water has a memory.

Water doesn't have a memory you say? Au contraire, says the homeopath. You just have to shake it by hitting it just right between each dilution.

That's right: in direct contradiction to everything we know about physics, chemistry, biology, common sense, and the things your mom smacked you upside the head for saying because they were so dumb, people who believe in homeopathy believe you can make water remember things if you slap it hard enough.

Let me say this once, and let it rest there: MOLECULES DO NOT HAVE MEMORIES.

"I beg to differ. All I need is that taste: The taste of the little piece of madeleine which on Sunday mornings at Combray (because on those mornings I did not go out before mass), when I went to say good morning to her in her bedroom , my aunt Léonie used to give me, dipping it first in her own cup of tea or tisane."

Sorry if I've ruined anybody's placebo out there, but there are plenty more where that came from. Try putting tic-tacs in an ancient Pueblo medicine bag; it'll do you just as well, and your breath will be minty fresh.

-- The Prolix Wag

Not afraid to make an absinthe molecule quote Proust.

10 Boardgames You Need to Play Right Now, You Stupid Monopoly Monkey, Part 3

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Hidden the bodies? Found new friends to play with? Good, let's get back to it:

6) Agricola


Welcome to Puerto Rico on steroids.

Thought it couldn't get any better, didn't you? So did I, once upon a time. Ah, yes, I was young and foolish once, too. But like you, I had a hunger for something more than Sorry, more than Mousetrap, more than Trivial Pursuit. I had the Eye of the Tiger (Boardgame Edition). I can see that you do, too.

This time around, instead of trying to become governor of Puerto Rico, you're trying to feed your family as a subsistence-level medieval farmer. Which, as you know by now, doesn't matter a lick, right? Fluff is for sissies. What matters is that you're playing Puerto Rico, only there are about seven times as many jobs to pick from, and they include things like having babies so you can have more workers in your family so you can have more chances to pick more jobs. If your head didn't just explode from the awesomeness of that thought, I have failed completely as a teacher.

Buy it here.

That's right, a $70 boardgame (well, $47 on Amazon, which is awesome, but let's not quibble). And you're no longer looking at it thinking, "How could people spend $70 on a boardgame?"... you're thinking "Where do I get my hands on $70, and how much are the custom-made extra deluxe wooden sheep and cows?" You've come a long way. I'm so proud. *sniff*

7) Race for the Galaxy

Welcome to Puerto Rico as a card game, with a twist.

The twist being that you reveal your job picks simultaneously, and that you're taking over PLANETS, and going PEWPEWPEW! a lot.

Even the cat wants to take over PLANETS, man.

Wait, didn't I said that fluff doesn't matter?

Ah, Grasshopper, like all great teachers, I have lied to you, so that you might see deeper truths. Fluff matters a great deal as long as it's got some great gameplay underneath. Especially if that gameplay reinforces the fluff.

Buy it here. The expansions are also worth picking up.

But wait: did somebody say "gameplay reinforcing fluff?"

I believe they did. Which makes it time to taste the flavor of:

8) Arkham Horror

You may not know who H. P. Lovecraft is. That's okay; we'll take care of that part of your education at a later date. For the moment, suffice to say that he's the Father of Modern Horror Fiction. Thought that was Poe, didn't you? Nope. Poe is more like the Great Uncle of Modern Horror Fiction, Who Was Rich and Left It a Lot of Money. But that's neither here nor there. Prepare yourself for two to three hours of getting your face chewed off by mind-bending Horrors From Beyond Space and Time.

Along with your family and friends.

That's right, this is a co-op game. You and your friends are investigators from various walks of life in 1920s New England, in a race against time, trying to close and seal enough Gates to Beyond before the Great Old One shows up and... well, eats everything. The game absolutely drips with flavor, from the spooky board to the terrifying Events written down on the Way Too Many Cards, to the way someone winds up going insane every five minutes. There are very few games out there where you can have this much fun losing.

Also, it's about as close to a Role-Playing Game as you can get without actually playing one, and will tenderize you nicely should you decide to make the leap to the even deeper waters of Dungeons and Dragons.

What's that? Ah, yes, you noticed. You have dice now. It's as I told you: once you needed them, you would no longer want them. You have been liberated from the Chains of Randomization, so you may use the dice, instead of the other way around. Also, there is no spoon.

Buy it here. Be forewarned, though: you will need a large table to play on, especially if you buy one of the innumerable (yet still awesome) expansions. Also, buying a small fishing tackle box at Target or someplace similar is a really good idea; god bless Fantasy Flight, but they cannot resist making a little cardboard piece for every conceivable purpose, and then making twelve dozen more. You won't be able to fit it all back into the box without bending time and space, and we've seen from playing the game itself what the consequences of that are.

9) War of the Ring
Now we're getting into perfect-marriage-of-form-and function territory.

You'd think it would be impossible to make one game that simulates both the War of the Ring (with the huge armies of Orcs and Elves and whatnot crashing against each other) and the Other War of the Ring (with the scruffy band of Hobbits sneaking around and crying every time Gandalf gets killed). But no, they did it, and they did it brilliantly. As the Good Guys, you cannot hope to win a military victory; you have to keep the Armies of Darkness at bay just long enough for the Hobbits to do their job. As the All-Seeing Eye, you have to keep the Hobbits delayed long enough to crush all military resistance and render their mission moot. And it comes down to the wire pretty much every time. Taut, razorwire pacing and all kinds of cool plastic bits round out the package. I don't get to play this one nearly enough.

Buy it here. Bit of advice: the Nazgul on Flappy Things pieces are incredibly annoying, as not only do they keep falling over, but they knock all your Haradrim and Warg Riders nine ways to Sunday when they do it. Superglue a nickel to the bottom of each one. Works like a charm.

10) Battlestar Galactica


Welcome to Nirvana, Grasshopper. Well-designed, well-balanced mechanics. A co-op game where a third of the players are actually killer robots trying to blow everyone else up. Where half of them are sleeper agent robots that don't actually know they're on the other side until halfway through the game.

And it's FRAKKIN' BATTLESTAR GALACTICA.

Some of the best storytelling moments I've ever had have come from playing this game. Where else can you be President Roslin, beg an extra action off of Apollo to take care of the three Cylon Boarding Parties on board, use it to throw him in the brig instead, blow up the Armory with three people in it, then escape to the Cylon fleet, laughing maniacally all the way?

With this game, I have given you the power to blow mens' minds. Use it wisely, use it often, use it well.

Buy it here.

-- The Prolix Wag
What do you mean "Because you're ALWAYS a Cylon"?

10 Boardgames You Need to Play Right Now, You Stupid Monopoly Monkey, Part 2

Part 1 is here.

We begin our lesson with a clear table, a clear mind, and a crapload of games you just got by blowing the kids' college fund on Amazon. They'll get over it. Like all great sensei through the ages, I begin by robbing you of all that binds you to the past; I sweep you clean, creating a tabula rasa upon which I may scribe the new you.

So, no dice.

Also, no board.

That's right: we start our list of Board Games You Need to Play Right Now with a card game, bitches. Did I just blow your mind?

1) Bohnanza


3-5 players, simple enough for the whole family to play, homicidal green bean on the box cover. Play it, live it, love it. You're supposed to be planting rows of beans or something, but they're crazy German beans, and it doesn't matter anyway, because what matters is that the core gameplay mechanics are solid as steel. There have been a bazillion expansions and variations, but they all play roughly the same: you will find yourself learning simple (if slightly strange) rules, cards will be flung about the table, beans will be stacked and grouped and planted, and then shortly thereafter you will be having insane amounts of fun, and you won't quite be able to point to why. I'll give you a hint: it's not the cartoon beans. It's because you've started playing the kind of game where they print the name of the designer above the title.

That's right, children: in some countries, they actually design their games. Some of those designers are so good, I'll buy a game sight unseen if it's got their name on it. It's a lot like having a movie with a director: they're not all good, but it at least creates a chance that the experience won't suck completely.

Unlike, say, anything Milton Bradley publishes.

Buy it here.

2) Carcassonne


Okay, still no board, and no dice, but let's take those cards and upgrade them into cardboard tiles. I'll also let you have some pieces, but I will not hesitate to take them away if I feel you're abusing the privilege.

2-5 players, still simple enough for all but the youngest players, you're building a city in medieval Europe, blahblahblah. Or, if you prefer, you can be hunting mammoths and shit. Ultimately, it really doesn't matter, because again, we're talking solid core gameplay mechanics. It's a topography/territory grabbing game, not unlike Go in some respects, but you don't need to worry your pretty little head about that. Just play, and thank me later. Or send money. You know what? Just send the money.

Buy it here.

3) Ticket to Ride


That's right! I'm letting you have a board. Still no dice, though. You could do all kinds of harm to yourself. This game is all about laying train tracks across the United States; you can also get the sequel, which lets you do it across Europe. Or Switzerland, or Norway, or you can get the Super Train Nerd version. Whatever floats your boat. 2-5 players, insanely easy to learn, very hard to master, and will have you at your friends' and family's throats in no times because they cut you out of Pittsburgh. You're welcome.

Buy it here.

4) Pandemic


YOU WILL HAVE DICE WHEN YOU CAN SNATCH THEM FROM MY HAND AND NOT A MOMENT BEFORE! Do you think you can take me? Do you?

Well, alright then. Moving on.

Allow me to introduce you to a little thing called a co-op game. That's right: you don't get one winner when you play this game. You all win, or you all lose, together. Given that it's about saving the world from a global pandemic of... well, everything, that makes a great deal of sense. It also makes for an entirely different, and very, very fun, gameplay dynamic. Don't get me wrong: competition, and the resulting resentment, can be fun and even healthy, but sometimes you want to do things as a team, especially when you're playing with your family. Also, I can say from personal experience that it just plain gets boring winning all the time. This way, I am still be the smartest and prettiest person in the room, but I'm lauded for it instead of resented.

Well, maybe lauded and resented.

I can live with it.

Amazon doesn't seem to stock Pandemic. Buy it at your local game store, or here.

5) Puerto Rico


You don't even miss the dice any more do you? I didn't think so.

Okay, now we're hitting the big leagues. This is the first game on this list you'll have to play a couple times before you really get the hang of it. But you will love it. Every nongamer I've gotten to sit through their first game of this has been frothing at the mouth for their second. Hell, my sister loves this game.

It's about growing stuff on plantations in Puerto Rico and shipping it back to the Old Country, but by this point you know better than to care about stuff like that, right? You want to know about how you get to pick one "job" a turn, and that determines what everyone does that turn, only you get to do it better, because you picked the job. And then the next player picks the Ship's Captain, and everything ships before your corn was ready, and you reach across the table and tear their throat out with your hands, and for the first time in your life, you know what it means to be alive, really alive, manslaughter charges be damned, and no jury would convict you anyway, because they picked Ship's Captain and you would have had, like eight corn ready to go in just one more turn.

That bittersweet, coppery taste in your mouth? That's probably blood. But underneath that? That's the taste of fun.

And it only gets better from here.

Oh, and buy it here.

-- The Prolix Wag
Touch that Construction Hut token and I will rip your arm clean off. I swear it.

10 Boardgames You Need to Play Right Now, You Stupid Monopoly Monkey, Part 1

Most Americans think of boardgames as kid stuff, or at best, teenage-geek-boy-stuff (re: RISK). One could blame them, but, philistines that they are, they are not really at fault. They have been raised to think that Monopoly is a good game. When, in fact, Monopoly is not a game at all. It is a dice-rolling exercise created by Satan to spread human misery and strife.

I thrive on the taste of human souls. Tee hee!

First created in 1904 (under the name "The Landlord Game"), sales of Monopoly really took off during the Depression, probably because people needed imaginary soul-crushing despair and boredom to distract them from the real soul-crushing despair and boredom all around them.

Every game of Monopoly ever played has gone like this:

1) Yay! We're going to play Monopoly. I hope I get to be the racecar!

2) People are buying stuff. How exciting!

3) I just passed go and collected $200. How gratifying!

4) Most of the stuff has been bought. Things are really heating up!

5) Someone landed on someone else's stuff. The owner of said stuff has now started winning.

6) They're winning more.

7) Huh. They're still winning.

8) Yep. Still winning.

9) I'm going to go get a snack. Let me know if they stop winning while I'm gone.

10) Yeah, sorry. Mom called while I was in the kitchen. I kinda got into the conversation. Did you know my little cousin Kevin is going to college this Fall? Isn't that crazy? What? Two hours? Really? Well, thanks for playing my piece for me. Are they still winn--? Wow. They still are. I guess I'll... sit down and... play, then.

11) Dear Diary: Just passed Go again. My fingers are numb. Tell Laura I love her.

12) JESUS CHRIST WILL THE MADNESS NEVER END? WILL WE NEVER SEE THE DAWN!?!

13) Oh, look at that. They won.

14) Honey, I want a divorce.

Feverish delusions of apophenia aside, there is no goddamn strategy to Monopoly. There is no actual decision-making on the part of the players. There is the illusion of such ("Railroads are a good deal! Utilities are a bad deal! I feel just like Sun Tzu!"), but let's face it, it all comes down to the dice. Monopoly is essentially Craps, except without the glamor, and you can't buy a hooker with the proceeds if you win. The only important decision you ever make is which piece to play. As we all know, you should always go with race car or terrier, and never shoe, thimble, or hat.

The retarded monopoly pieces.

Compounding this is the gameplay dynamic outlined above, where you can predict the winner of a given Monopoly game approximately thirteen hours before the end. If someday you try to design a game to produce the opposite of fun, good luck doing better. The thought that such an inelegant, un-fun artistic abortion even exists gives game designers the shivers. The fact that most Americans consider it a game at all drives most of them to deep despair. The thought that it has sold bazillions of copies, and that many people actually play it on a regular basis, drives many of them to suicide.

Oh, quick side note for those semi-geeks out there who are feeling all superior about playing RISK instead: RISK is the same thing, only you can see who's going to win as soon as they pick Australia.

"Hm. Can I win by attacking Kamchatka, or Yakutsk? Oh, that's right: I've already lost. I'm playing RISK!"

Other countries, especially Germany for some reason, are under no such delusions. They know a good game when they see one. They play games that are games, by god, and they have fun doing it. They play them at all ages, in all social settings, and their lives are richer for it. Some of us have plumbed the depths of these foreign gaming cultures, and have come back with forbidden lore that can save us all from crap like Monopoly. There are worlds undreamed of in your philosophy, Horatio, and you and your family could be having fun in them on a Thursday night. Tomorrow, I shall lay out for you a list of such treasures.

Until then, go to your closet, get down your Monopoly board, take it out in the back yard, and burn it. You'll not only feel better; you'll be a better human being.

-- The Prolix Wag
Candyland? CANDYLAND?!? I swear to god, if you weren't three, I would smack you in the mouth for even saying that word.

Linky Linky Sunday: Premiere Edition

Okay, so I've decided I'm going to give myself a couple light days a week by dedicating Saturdays to some sort of fun picture gallery (no necessarily of hot cosplayers, but I reserve the right to revisit such a deep and rich theme as often as necessary to plumb the depths... as it were). Sundays shall be dedicated to all the link and video weirdness I was able to dig up during the week.

So.

Let's start with a little hot Olivia Munn-in-a-music-video action as an aperitif, shall we?



...and then downshift immediately into the Egg Masturbator.

It's not what you think.

It's worse:



God damnit, Japan! I mean, really.

Really.

Let's wash that away with WGN News anchors Robert Jordan and Jackie Bange enjoying a commercial break:



"Anime Iron Man"? Why yes, don't mind if I do:



"TRON Legacy"? Oh, I don't think I could possibly... well, all right. One more bite.



I'll have more and better next time when I've got some forethought and planning handy. Until then you'll just have to make do. Somehow.

-- The Prolix Wag
I can even condescend on my day off.

Behold the Power of Cosplay

In honor of the fact that I can't go to ComiCon in San Diego, and as a companion piece to my essay about why you should put on the metal bikini and sex up your man, and as a vain attempt to get Mrs. Wag to someday dress up like Ivy from Soul Calibur, I have decided to share a small collection of Hot Cosplay Pics.

For those of you not familiar with the term "Cosplay", it's a melding of the terms "Costume" and "Play", and is basically what we all do on Halloween, with the following exceptions:

1) It involves dressing up as characters from various geeky media, like comics, video games, scifi and fantasy movies, anime, cereal boxes, etcetera.

2) It's usually done at conventions.

3) They seriously kick it up a notch.

4) They all go back to the hotel afterward and have crazy roleplay sex with each other. Or at least I hope so. It had better be so. Looking at some of these costumes, it's their goddamn civic duty, okay?

I recognize that, for every one of the samples of Smoldering Nerd Hotness below, there are dozens of Overweight Slave Leias and Guys Dressed Up Like He-Man. But we at The Wag like to present a vision of the world as it should be, not as it necessarily is, and you can find enough visions of cosplay horror to stain your soul forever within thirty seconds on Google. Plus, I understand even they get laid at the parties.

Ladies, for bonus points, go through this gallery shot by shot with your man. The one where he coughs looks furtively around the room and says "Yeah, she's alright, I guess?" That's the one. That's your get-out-of-everything-free card, should you ever need one.

First off, a shot that's actually from ComiCon this year: Loki, from the Thor comic book. I had no idea Loki was a chick now. I need to start reading comics again... Hm. On second thought, I just need to look at cosplay pics more often.

See? Not only do girls play video games, they play as video games. Taki and Sophitia from Soul Calibur.

And here I always thought Molotov Cocktease's costume was a physical impossibility. Screw you, laws of physics.

And here I thought Power Girls physique was a physical impossibility. Screw you times two, laws of physics.

Cammy from the Street Fighter games. The laws of physics are really taking it on the chin today. For those of you who find this image exploitative, that's because the entire reason for the existence of the character of Cammy is her ass. That, and fast-crouching-kick cheese. So she's just being true to the character.

That, and it is exploitative.

Totally exploitative.

Yeah... moving on!

This is what happens when a pro steps it up: they can even make World of Warcraft sexy. I know. I was shocked, too.

Ivy from Soul Calibur. Now do you understand?

...

Honey?... Sweetie?... Where are you going?

And now, to cleanse the palate, the only thing better than Jennifer Aniston as Slave Leia: Olivia Munn as Slave Leia.

...aaand the only thing better than Olivia Munn as Slave Leia: a Slave Leia Pillow Fight.

You're welcome.

-- The Prolix Wag
My sexuality is more adult than yours because I'm willing to dress up like Green Lantern.

How to Adapt Anything Into Anything

The absolute best movie adaptation of one of Shakespeare's works is, bar none, no doubt, gainsay-me-and-I'll-smack-you-in-the-mouth certain, Akira Kurosawa's Ran.

I'm certain there will be some Branagh-sniffers out there who will whine about his Henry V or (god forbid) his Hamlet, but there are always mouth-breathing philistines in any debate, no matter how obvious the outcome. Don't get me wrong, I love me some Branagh, but everyone knows the list of Best Shakespeare Movies goes like this:

1) Ran
2) Throne of Blood
3) Olivier's Henry V
4) MacKellan's Richard III
5) Olivier's Richard III
6) Scotland, PA
7) West Side Story
8) 10 Things I Hate About You
9) Strange Brew (It's an adaptation of Hamlet -- look it up.)
10) Anything by Kenneth Branagh. Except Hamlet. Because that sucked.

Well, everybody knows that, of course. But what a lot of people don't get is why Ran is so freaking fantastic, so incredibly successful in capturing the essence of King Lear on film. Well, here's why:

Because the whole damn thing is in Japanese. And therefore doesn't contain a lick of Shakespeare's dialogue.

(This is known in some circles as the "Baz Luhrmann's Romeo + Juliet would have been an awesome silent movie" rule.)

The mistake most people make when adapting something from one medium to another is that they base the adaptation on the surface elements of the original work; the shiny-pretties that strike a casual reader/viewer/audience member as "cool". The problem is, what works in one medium seldom works in another.

Shakespeare is a prime example. As I noted in First Thing We Do, Let's Kill All the English Majors, blank verse works like gangbusters on stage. Don't know why, but it does. It soars, it flies, it takes off like a giant goddamn bird if you deliver it right. On screen? On the page? Blechy-blechitty-blech-blech. Utter crap.

Similarly, giant explosions (preferably with the hero and his sidekick jumping to safety in slow motion in front of them) work wonderfully on screen. On stage? On the page? Yeah, not so much.

Which is why Kurosawa's decision to jettison all the dialogue in King Lear was key to making his film so damn brilliant. He turns the daughters into sons! Regan and Goneril are one guy! There's a freaky buddhist nun that you're all, like, "What the fuck?" about, but by god, it's LEAR. It's more LEAR than any other LEAR has ever been. The essence of the play is there, in spades.

"That's right, bitches! Hundreds of color coded samurai! Giant burning castle! It's all in the first folio -- look it up!"

Watching Ran won't tell you a thing about how to stage Lear, or how to read a particular line in the play, but you will get what that play is about. You will get King Lear. And it's just a flat-out amazing movie.

So, for all those movie execs eying Green Lantern and World of Warcraft and salivating, I present the Three Steps To Adapting Anything to Anything:

1) Determine the Essential Thing That Makes the Original Awesome

In other words, figure out What it does. What sets this work of art apart from every other... why this work was worth creating in the first place. It very seldom has much to do with the surface things that most people would notice about the work at first glance. What makes it fun? What makes it compelling? What makes it moving? Star Wars isn't about lightsabers and exploding Death Stars. MacBeth isn't about witches and swordfights. Moby Dick isn't about a goddamn whale.

As we all know, the Essential Thing That Made The Golden Compass Awesome was the nuanced allegorical examination of religion from a humanist standpoint, standing in opposition to C.S. Lewis's Chronicles of Narn--BEARS! BEARSBEARSBEARS!!! BEARS IN ARMOR! DURRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!

2) Determine how the effect was originally created.

In other words, figure out How it does it. Star Wars isn't about lightsabers and exploding Death Stars, but those were important means to an end. To adapt a movie, you have to understand cinematic structure and how camera angles can build tension. To adapt a play, you have to understand how language works in a live space. You don't have to be able to do what the creator did in their original medium, but you have to be able to see the wires that made Peter Pan fly.

3) Use the tools of your own medium to achieve the same effect.

In other words, Do what it did, but not in the same way. Use your mastery of your own chosen medium to create the same artistic effect with the things that work in your medium. Don't try and re-create the old work in the new medium... you're not going to make a movie of Huckleberry Finn that's a better novel than the original one was. But you can make a great movie out of it.

Every bad adaptation that's ever been made can be traced to a failure in one of these three areas, and every great adaptation has hit on all three. Bear this in mind as you go forth to create.

Remember: Only you can prevent... whatever the hell this was.

Oh, and if you meet Uwe Boll on a road? Kill him. Please.

-- The Prolix Wag
This is why I only read The Smurfs in the original French.

How to Have the Perfect Wedding

Okay, first off, watch this. If you don't find yourself more than a little bit giddy afterwards, email me and I'll send you a quarter so you can buy yourself a soul:



There's an entire subgenre of human interest stories that involve Weird Weddings. You know, when you tune in on your local news, and they play some footage of the happy couple saying their vows in a hot air balloon/while bungie jumping/naked while the anchors cluck their tongues and laugh at just how weird people can be. Because, you know, they're not doing the normal thing and dressing in big pouffy dresses and tuxedoes and doing that same little high school graduation step down the aisle that no one can ever get quite right.

You know what? Fuck them.

Let us consider, for a moment, what a wedding is for. A wedding doesn't make two people married; that gets done down at the county courthouse. No, a wedding defines a marriage for the community. It says who the couple is, and who they will be as a married couple, to their family and friends.

And my advice is, if you're defining what your marriage is going to be, be honest.

You may mock, but the divorce rate among couples who get married wearing forehead prostheses is shockingly low.

Some things to think about if you're planning your wedding:

1) A marriage ceremony is theatre, and you are not the audience.

The wedding ceremony is not for you. It's for the people you invite, so they can see you getting married. The reception is not for you. It's for the people you invite, to thank them for coming.

The honeymoon? That's for you. Get the hell out of the reception as soon as possible and get going.

Trust me: approach the ceremony as theatre, and things will go well. If you can involve someone who does theatre for a living in the planning (clergy are good; actors and directors are best), things will go even better.

If you can do what I did and marry a stage manager? Best of all possible worlds.

2) Theatre isn't about sets or costumes or the biggest venue. It's about creating a truthful, expressive moment.

More is not better. Our wedding was stupid simple and stupid inexpensive, and people have consistently said it was one of the most (if not the most) affecting and beautiful ceremonies they'd ever been to. Of course, we're both theatre folks, so we knew what we were doing, but intention counts for a lot. If you make your wedding about showing how much stuff you've got, well, that's how you're choosing to define your marriage. Good luck with that.

3) Don't spend money. Spend forethought and effort.

See the video above. As another example, my wife and I fought for two days running about our vows. I mean fought. Tearful, wrenching, things-being-thrown arguments. But the vows were important to us, and by god, we got some pretty great ones.

By putting thought and effort into the wedding ceremony, you're putting thought and effort into what you want your marriage to be.

Oh, but ladies? I'm not talking about picking out the flower arrangements. If your guy is into that, more power to him, but if he isn't, don't torture him. You know what you want; don't pretend you want to have an actual discussion about it.

4) Require audience participation.

Before we said our vows, we made everyone except us raise their right hand and promise to support our marriage; to treat us like a married couple from that moment on. It was a wonderful moment... and although I haven't had to remind anyone of that promise yet, I'm glad it's there.

Plus, people love that shit. Especially grandmothers.

By god, if you're going to get married in the rubber Admiral Akbar mask by a Slave Leia...

...then you'd better damn well make grandma wear the stupid plastic Amidala hair.

5) Get somebody else to do the grunt work.

A lot of rehearsing for a play is drumming your lines and blocking into your body so that you don't have to think about any of it during performance; so that you're free to play the thing. Part of your planning and forethought should be centered around making sure that you have as little to think about as possible on the day of the ceremony. So that when you say your vows, you can say them with all your being.

That means probably means rehearsing some. But it mostly means getting your hands on someone else to run the ceremony, and then letting them do it.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm going to go watch that video again. That wasn't my wedding, but it sure as hell was theirs, and it gives me joy that they found each other, and that I found mine.

-- The Prolix Wag
I'm never wrong. She's just more right.

Me and My Mood Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Part 5

Part 1 is here.

Part 2 is here.

Part 3 is here.

Part 4 is here.

Mental illness carries a stigma for two reasons: first, as I've already discussed, we often confuse it with a personality or character flaw because, well, it profoundly affects personality and character. Second, it disturbs us (even more than other illnesses) because it fucks with our ability to read other people. Your social instincts and skills, honed over millions of years in an evolutionary sense and over your whole lifetime in a more personal one, often spit out a big DOES NOT COMPUTE when confronted with someone with a mental illness because, well, their responses and social cues don't make a lick of sense. And people that don't make sense are unpredictable, and that's scary.

Is he going to kiss you or bite you? Hug you or eat you? You just don't know.

My problem with the stigma attached to mental illness isn't that it isn't fair -- although it often isn't -- it's simply that it often keeps people from getting the treatment they need. People don't want to admit to themselves that they're crazy or broken, that the essential them they know and love is nuts. And so they put off getting treatment, and wind up miserable at best and dead at worst. Which is why I try and be as open as possible about my own condition.

I don't wear "Has a Mood Disorder" like a merit badge, and I don't tell everyone on the street about how well my meds are working. But I do try to treat it casually, like any other chronic, treatable medical condition. Like diabetes, say. It's not necessarily everyone's business, but I'm not afraid to mention it in conversation if it's relevant.

The couple times that people have opened up to me about their own experiences with mental illness because I was open about mine have been extremely gratifying. Let me tell you, it doesn't get much better than having one of your students tell you you "saved their life" by being a friendly ear, and a hardass about making sure they kept going to treatment.

If you have a mental illness, my advice is, wait until you've got it handled -- until you're getting treatment, until you feel like you're starting to master the beast. And be careful about it at work. I work mostly in the performing arts and academia, where the reaction is usually not "You have a mental illness?", but rather "What's your dosage? Because I had some real problems with Restless Leg Syndrome when I was taking 250 mg". Not having a mental disorder of some kind is looked on with just a hint of suspicion. But in other industries, people can be real dicks about it. So watch your back.

But that aside? Pay it forward. People are dying from this every day, and living the kind of lives where they might as well be dead. I don't know if you owe them anything, but you can help.

Oh, and if there's anyone out there wondering how the people close to you will react if you "come out of the closet", as it were? Trust me, you were the last to know.

"What would they think if they knew the real me?"

Finally, I'd like to close with a little bit of advice for people who have to deal with people who are mentally ill:

1) It will take time. A lot of time. Like, years.

2) It is perfectly normal to want to beat them to death with their own leg. Mentally ill people are irritating as fuck.

3) Be prepared to forgive anything but avoiding treatment or not taking meds. Someone with a mental illness cannot be responsible for a lot of their behavior... but draw a line in the sand when it comes to doing what it takes to get better. My wife puts up with a lot... but if I skip meds, accidentally or not, her wrath comes down like the fist of an angry god. As well it should.

The last time I skipped meds.

4) Talk of harming oneself or others is not to be fucked around with. If you're asking yourself if they really mean it or not, they do. Call someone.

Get well, be well. Remember, Better Living Through Chemistry is still Living Better.

-- The Prolix Wag
Better Living Through Being Smarter Than You

Advice to People with a Mental Illness

My muse struck, and I must follow where she leads. Back to the series about my mood disorder tomorrow. At least this is related.

Advice to people with a mental illness:

1) Keep telling yourself that it is what it is: a disease. Not a personality flaw, not a thing to be ashamed of. You won't believe it for a long time. That's why you have to keep saying it to yourself.

2) Get treatment. You know those annoying people who bitch and bitch about how their tooth hurts but won't go to the dentist because they're pussies? Yeah, that's you, except instead of the tooth it's your personality, and it's making everyone miserable. Suck it up and be responsible for your own health. GO TO THE DOCTOR. You deserve to get better. The people around you deserve a you that isn't such an annoying, irrational asshole.

N.B.: The first step should be to go see a regular old internist to get some blood work. If it's (say) a thyroid problem that's causing the ruckus, you can treat that a lot quicker and easier up front. Once you've exhausted what your internist can do for you, go see a specialist. Just like you would for any other illness. (Funny, that).

3) Do what the doc tells you. Self-medication is one of the tools in your toolbox -- Winston Churchill got through WWII with Bipolar by medicating his downs with booze and his ups with bricklaying.

"It was either this or bomb Dresden... by myself... without a plane."

...but it's only one tool among many, and a lot of ways of self-medicating have nasty side effects (the carpal tunnel from obsessive gaming is not that bad... heroin is not so kind). Remember what I said about medicating your brain being like taking a ball peen hammer to a malfunctioning watch? Still true. But using a fifth of bourbon instead is like dropping a wrecking ball on the thing.

4) If you don't like what the doc tells you, say so. Even though there will be vast swathes of it you won't be able to be objective about (see number 9 below), you know your disease better than anybody. Speak up, and speak up often.

5) If you still don't like what the doc tells you, get another doc. Giving up on treatment entirely because your last psychiatrist/therapist was a moron buys you nothing but an excuse to stay miserable. Congratulations.

6) Your disease will lie to you. It's what it does. It is, by definition, irrational and stupid, although your rational mind laid on top of it can make it very, very crafty. Those little voices telling you to kill yourself? They lie. Tell them to fuck off. They won't. Do it anyway.

7) Exercise. I hate this one. I fucking despise it with the passion of a cat thrown into water. But it works. Do it when you can.

Yeah. Pretty much EXACTLY like that.

8) Be patient, and be kind to yourself. This shit will take time. Serious time. It took me close to two years to find a blend of meds that really worked for me, and it's under constant revision. Be patient, and don't blame yourself when you don't get better right away. Blame the disease.

The perfect pill for you is that one. No, wait... that one.

9) Find an advocate. Find someone who can speak for your interests when you're not being rational. Someone who can go to the psychiatrist with you when you just can't face it alone. Someone you can trust when they say "you're not thinking straight". Then believe them when they say it.

10) Get laid. This will often involve the person from number 9. I have no idea if this has any therapeutic benefit, but it always helps my mood.

Above all, find someone you can talk to about it. If you don't have someone, message me. I'll tell you exactly what I said here, but it will be personalized. I understand that helps some people feel special.

-- The Prolix Wag
Don't hate me because I'm smarter than you. Hate me because I'm a dick about it.

Me and My Mood Disorder Not Otherwise Specified, Part 4

Wherein we try to discuss depression in a way that isn't depressing.

Part 1.

Part 2.

Part 3.

A couple years ago, I saw a truly stellar production of Sarah Kane's play Crave at Signature Theater in Arlington. It was acted with tremendous skill and passion by all involved, and the design and direction were impeccable.

For those of you not familiar with the play, it involves four nameless characters talking to themselves, the audience and each other in a largely plotless exploration of the human psyche. It's written with no small measure of poetic and lyrical skill. Kane, who struggled with severe depression for many years before killing herself at the age of 28, makes depression manifest theatrically through the play. For the hour-or-so running time, you really get what it is to be depressed, to deal with a depressed person, to be in the presence of depression. Speaking as someone who's dealt with depression, I've never seen a more accurate portrayal.

Which is why it's the worst play ever written.

Here's the thing: depression is stupid. Depression is boring. Depression is incredibly annoying.

Depression is incredibly difficult to depict artistically because, if you really get it right, your audience is going to want to punch your depressed character in the face after about five minutes. And not in the good, gee-I'm-really-mad-at-Willy-Loman-for-being-such-a-schmuck kind of way. No, I mean they'll really, truly want to punch the characters in the face. They'll have difficulty staying in their seats and not doing just that. Just like, if you're ever around a depressed person for more than five minutes in real life, you'll start looking around for heavy objects to bludgeon them with.

Crave does for depression what Irréversible did for rape -- which is to say, it gives you way too goddamn much of it. If Kane had managed to give you maybe two minutes of that pure, mainline shot of what it is to be depressed, and then written an actual play around it, she would have had something pretty brilliant. Instead, she barfs it out onstage and makes the audience wallow in it. Because, like all depressives (myself included), she was addicted to the deliciousness of her own misery.

Actor John Lescault fondles the pulverized hopes and dreams of the Signature Theater audience.

The funny thing is, a lot of the time when you're depressed, you can see how annoying you are; you can see how little sense your own emotional state makes, how out of step it is with the reality of your life.

But you can't help it.

For me, the thing that's horrifying about depression isn't just that it feels like you're in the grip of some evil, alien force that distorts the entire world... it's that the evil, alien force is you. It's your own brain. Your own personality.

And on some level, it feels... well, not good, but... yours. It's addictive, in the way that teenagers find their own overblown emotional drama way more interesting than anyone else ever could.

That's it, actually -- you want to know what it's like to be depressed? Imagine all the emo parts of your teen years, then multiply them by ten. Oh, and you can't get out of bed.

WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!?

Note that I said can't get out of bed, not won't. There were mornings, back before I got treatment, when I wanted nothing more than to be able to roll over enough so that I would fall out of bed on to the floor, never mind actually being able to get up to do anything. And while getting up would have been about as hard as bench pressing three or four tons, I felt incredibly guilty, because all that was keeping me in bed were feelings. Like, the feelings that make it hard to get up on a Monday morning... but turned up to 1000.

I could go on, but... well, I don't want to be Sarah Kane. It's bad enough they keep rewarding her for killing herself by producing her plays. Suffice to say that depression sucks, in the way that having your collarbone broken "hurts". You really can't describe it much better than that, but the word doesn't quite do it justice. Thank god for Wellbutrin.

I'd just like to state once more for the record that the folks I saw do Crave at Signature did an incredible job with it. It's just that the play itself is a theatrical abortion.

Girls, girls... you're both... incredibly depressing.

Next time, the politics of mental illness, or "Why I'm Telling You All This Crap".

-- The Prolix Wag
I have an obligation to share my brilliance. It's like noblesse oblige, only a little less noblesse.