Nature is green

You know what one of my favorite things about working with kids is? They're usually willing to go along with my nonsense.

Last year when I was teaching Spanish at a summer camp, a couple friends and I were given a group of six 10-year-olds and two hours to fill. Our only guideline was "nature activity". As we started off down a path on our nature walk, we pointed to some grass, or some ferns, and made all the kids repeat, "es naturaleza". When we asked them why they considered these plants to be nature, one kid said, "...because it's green?"

"That is exactly right."

And with that, our two hour nature walked spiraled out of control as we led these poor kids less on a journey through the woods and more on a journey through our own nonsense.

Shortly after we established that nature is green, we came across a plastic chair in a clearing in the woods. My fellow staff members and I pointed at it and asked, "is this nature?" Since these were fairly smart kids, they looked at us like we were crazy and told us that this plastic chair couldn't possibly be nature. "But it's green," we pointed out, and we made them all repeat, "es naturaleza".

In the same clearing, there were some raspberries growing on a bush. "Is this nature?" Their intelligence remained resistant to our game, as they informed us that these raspberries were obviously nature. "But they aren't green," we responded.

At this point they were beginning to understand. As we continued our nature walk, they would point to things like rocks and sticks and declare, "no es naturaleza", or they would indicate their own green t-shirt, which was obviously the most natural thing around. Now we were all playing the same game, and we were having a blast.

About an hour in, one of my friends stopped and picked up a fallen branch. "No es naturaleza!" we all yelled in unison. My friend's only response was, "this is my wand." We proceeded to spend the rest of the activity using our stick wands to cast spells on our imaginary enemies.

When we got back to camp, the kids immediately informed their friends that their green shoes were nature but those purple flowers were not, and then they used their newly acquired magic wands to turn everything into Jello, because they had deeply internalized our very important life lessons.

Teen Celebrity Secrets from 2008

I own a lot of crazy nonsense. I've recently been going through all the things I own and I've found some torn out pages from teen magazines I used to have, like, for example, a Corbin Bleu trading card and a tiny quarter-page poster of Chad Michael Murray. I have a lot of other posters (I know I used to have one of Shia LaBeouf fully clothed in a bathtub, I can't imagine why I got rid of that one) but what's more interesting are two pages that feature "actual content" according to teen magazines.

I bring you, "things you didn't want or need to know about teen celebrities from like 2008, but apparently I felt I would still need to know 8 years in the future". 

Something called Yikes! Magazine printed this photo of Taylor Lautner eating lasagna

with the caption, "Taylor, werewolves don't use forks!" just to give you an idea of what time period we're talking about. It also features Miley Cyrus eating ice cream and Demi Lovato eating a shark shaped gummy candy. 

Some vitally important celebrity secrets revealed on the bag of this page:

Robert Pattinson's sisters used to dress him up like a girl named Claudia. 

Zac Efron has show tunes on his iPod. Or at least, he did 8 years ago. 

Ashley Tisdale likes to listen to "Bye Bye Bye" by NSync, but then again, who doesn't? 

And then some other stuff about some other celebrities that I don't recognize. 

J14 asks, "Growing up, who was your invisible friend?" 

Now this one I understand why I tore it out and saved it. This is super important information. 

Selena Gomez answered, "My stuffed animals!" Underneath this response, J14 confirms that she got two turtles for her 16th birthday! Wow! 

Ashley Tisdale's invisible friend was a mouse. So... I mean was playing with an invisible mouse even fun? Was it just a regular mouse, or was it magic or giant or talking or something? I have so many questions.

Sterling Knight's invisible friend was "a woman named Lockey." She sounds delightful. 

And finally, Jason Dolley said, "I made friends with the towels in my bathroom." I mean, wow.



So... you're welcome for sharing. Honestly, I wish I kept more of my teen magazine stuff, because these pages entertained me thoroughly. And yes, I am going to keep them for at least 8 more years. 

Now back to cleaning my room. 

Slightly Serious Saturday: The Manic Pixie Dream Monster

FIRST OF ALL: “Slightly Serious Saturday” is something I stole directly from a YouTuber called Laurology. She’s makes me laugh a lot, you should check her out. I recommend this video. 

Next: This is something I did for my final project for this class I’m in right now. I tried to clarify anything that may not make sense outside the context of this class, but sorry if it remains a bit disjointed. If you want to know more about Manic Pixie Dream Girls, you can check out the two articles I cited at the bottom, or alternatively, Google it and read the Wikipedia article.

Okay. Go.

            When I watched (500) Days of Summer, it made me really angry, but I couldn’t figure out why. It was weird because usually I’m not opposed to romantic comedies and stupid, unrealistic romance movies that exist in that fascinatingly inaccurate world where these stories take place, in which everyone inexplicably lives in nice apartments and has enough money to buy extravagant things even though their jobs seem to be only marginally important. For whatever reason however, maybe because I was watching it through a lens critical of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Trope, this particular movie just ground my gears. When it ended, I couldn’t figure out what it wanted from me. I didn’t know if it wanted me to be optimistic and love, or if I was supposed to not believe in it. It was confusing. I then went to meet some friends for dinner, and was cranky and cynical for the entire meal.

            The thing that struck me most about both Penny and Schwyzer’s articles (cited below) is that they both addressed real-life people who they identified as Manic Pixie Dream Girls. It fascinated me that this trope was something that could be taken as far as to define real people. I feel the same way when people discuss Zooey Deschanel as the definition of a MPDG, because she’s a real person. She just happens to play a lot of MPDGs in movies. Real people can’t fall into Nathan Rabin’s (the guy who coined the term “Manic Pixie Dream Girl”) definition of someone who "exists solely in the fevered imaginations of sensitive writer-directors to teach broodingly soulful young men to embrace life and its infinite mysteries and adventures".

That’s not a real thing, or at least it shouldn’t be, and it’s pretty alarming to think about, yet Penny refers to herself as at one point in her life being a MPDG, and Schwyzer recounts a story of a Manic Pixie Dream Girl in his life. Penny, of course, overcame this trope as she continued writing and realized what kind of damage the MPDG could do, and Schwyzer’s dreams were torn apart when he realized he was wrong about the MPDG in his life.

            As I thought about the horrifying connotations of real people really believing that Manic Pixie Dream Girls can actually exist, it reminded me of this quote from Jeremy Dauber’s essay, “Demons, Golems and Dybbuks: Monsters of the Jewish Imagination” (A dybbuk is a monster in Jewish mythology): “Today, of course, these accounts of dybbuk possession might be read as case studies of mental illness, as allegories for some of the religious, political or social issues affecting the Jews, or simply as terrifying stories. It appears, however, that 16^th- and 17^th-century readers readily believed in the existence of dybbuks” (Dauber 2).

Maybe today we talk about monsters like they are fictional beings, but at some point in history, people really believed in them. Maybe today our scope of science and technology has disproven the existence of such monsters like the dybbuk or other scientifically impossible beasts, but who’s to say that monsters haven’t just evolved and taken on a new form, maybe as a trope found commonly in stories perpetuated onto real human beings?

 So I made some posters, inspired by WPA posters.

The first poster is a warning

 

It's a warning to men of the dangers of the MPDG. I wanted it to serve both as something that you would maybe expect to see from Tom’s perspective from (500) Days of Summer, in that the blame is being put on the woman, instead of at all on the man. Tom would probably warn that girls like that seem perfect but end up breaking your heart.

It could also be interpreted from the perspectives of Penny or Schwyzer, discussing the dangers of the monster-like trope of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl, instead of the MPDG herself.

The woman on the poster is taken from the WPA poster, “WPA women painters, Federal Art Gabllery, 50 Beacon St.,Boston”. The woman is painting some “scary eyes”, representing the monster-like characteristics of the trope. I left the background in the thought bubble white to represent the nothingness of the environment in which one would find a disjointed trope such as the MPDG. The man in the poster who is imagining her has imagined nothing but the girl herself, allowing her to float from situation to situation without becoming a specific and real being.

I framed the warning in the same context as the WPA poster, “Be careful near machinery”. It amused to me to draw a parallel between “machinery” and the MPDG, because that’s sort of how tropes work, like machinery creating the same product in an endless loop.

I liked the idea of using a featureless man, like in the poster, “A young man’s opportunity for work, play, study & health”, because it allows the poster to apply to anyone. He’s wearing black, because black is a simple color. I made the world around him a faded green color, to emphasize the mundane nature of his world, providing him with the need for a brightly colored MPDG.

Be the hero in your story

            The text on my second poster reads, “Women: Be the hero in your story”. This is more of an empowering poster for women in danger of becoming MPDGs, like how Penny felt she did. Penny says, “Men grow up expecting to be the hero of their own story. Women grow up expecting to be the supporting actress in somebody else’s”.

I used the same woman as the other poster, but she is painted in “Superman colors” (blue and red), and instead of painting a canvas with the eyes of a monster, she’s painting a comic book style effect bubble that says “Hero!” The background is sky blue, and the words are floating in white clouds, so it appears that she’s flying, because if I know anything about superheroes, it’s that most great heroes can fly.

          

Both of these posters I think work together to provide, in WPA style, warnings against the dangers of the MPDG. I hoped to express not only the dangers of the trope in stories, but also the potentially damaging effects of applying tropes to real people, because that’s what makes a modern day monster.

Works Cited

"Laurie Penny on Sexism in Storytelling: I Was a Manic Pixie Dream Girl." NewStatesmen. N.p., 30 June 2013. Web. <http://www.newstatesman.com/lifestyle/2013/06/i-was-manic-pixie-dream-girl>.

Schwyzer, Hugo. "The Real-World Consequences of the Manic Pixie Dream Girl Cliché." The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, 9 July 2013. Web. <http://www.theatlantic.com/sexes/archive/2013/07/the-real-world-consequences-of-the-manic-pixie-dream-girl-clich-233/277645/>.

Carrots

Let's go on a carrot journey...

Once upon a time, a friend of mine introduced me to the Carrot Facts twitter account. Check it out if you want to enjoy the mis-spelled (and often false) adventures of our carrot-obsessed friend as he suffers through heartbreak and attempts to get over his ex-girlfriend, Megan. It entertains me endlessly. Also it irritates my friends when I recite false facts about carrots at inopportune moments, or just for hours on end. I would list my favorites, but I could never narrow it down, or do it justice.

Speaking of carrots, can we talk about how much better carrot sticks are than baby carrots or shredded carrots? Baby carrots are just so unnatural looking, and you can't carry shredded carrots around in your pockets the same way you can with carrot sticks. That would just be a mess. Carrot sticks on the other hand don't make a mess and are a very useful snack to have in your pocket in case of emergency.

There's also the whole carrot, but that's just silly, unless you're a reindeer. I feel like reindeer are the assumed authority on carrots. Kinda like how monkeys are the assumed authority on bananas, which to be honest I've never understood. Like when people say that the correct way to open a banana is from the bottom because that's the way monkeys do it? Who died and made monkeys the kings of bananas? I'll open my banana however I want to open it, thank you very much.

You know what else is great about carrots? Versatility. I mean raw carrots are great, but so are cooked carrots, in like a really good beef stew. Also, carrot cake. I love me a good carrot cake with cream cheese frosting. Cream cheese frosting is probably my favorite kind of frosting. Cream cheese is delicious. It's even a part of my favorite sandwich!

In conclusion, I think carrots are great. Thank you, carrot sticks, for being the best part of meatless Tuesday in the dining hall.

Convos with Strangers: The Rainbow Diet

Sometimes I talk to strangers, and sometimes those strangers say strange things. These are their stories. DUN DUN

Stranger: "I'm thinking about doing the ROY G BIV diet.

Me: What diet is that?

Stranger: Where you eat only foods of one color each day and go through the rainbow every week.

Me: Are there foods that are blue?

Stranger: I don't think they have to be naturally-occurring. Like blue M&M's would work.

Me: So couldn't you just put food coloring in all of your meals?

Stranger: I guess, but that would sort of defeat the purpose.

Me: What exactly is the purpose of this diet?

Stranger: I want to feel more at one with the rainbow.

List of Things I Think Someone Should Write Songs About

I often find that I have a hard time to relate to songs about things like partying, and love. So... most songs.

Here is a list of things I think would make more relatable song topics:

1. Carrot sticks, and why they're so much better than shredded carrots or baby carrots
2. The many uses of Google, and also how Google will likely take over the world
3. Different kinds of doors
4. The experience of shopping at WalMart. You know how you always feel mildly guilty because of all the horrible things you hear about it but at the same you know that sometimes it's your only option?
5. Extreme couponing. Seriously, you should watch that show, what a rush.
6. DisneyWorld
7. That feeling you get when you finish binge watching a show on Netflix, and everything is over and you no longer know what to do with your life
8. All the things you do when you're procrastinating.
9. When you go on Facebook to quickly check your notifications and next thing you know two hours have gone by and your looking through the pictures of your brother's friend's girlfriend's mom's friend's new puppy.
10. How disconcerting it is when Facebook is like, "Good afternoon, Jordan" but doesn't even ask you to post about it. Seriously, is that as upsetting for everyone else as it is for me? I mean at least when it's a holiday and it wants me to post about it, I understand it has a hidden agenda. But when it's a random Tuesday? Get out of my life Facebook, we're not friends.
11. That horrible feeling of getting spaghetti stuck in your throat. That's the worst.
12. That feeling of pure joy you get when someone shows you a cute picture of a hedgehog, and all of your problems immediately fade away.
13. Ducks in hats
14. The weather in the midwest. An endlessly fascinating topic, always full of surprises!
15. Objects that we often take for granted, like shoelaces.
16. The rainforest, because it's amazing and terrifying, kinda like life a lot of the time.
17. That time Corbin Bleu's Wikipedia page had been translated into the 3rd most languages, only less than Jesus and Obama
18. When you get on a random school bus and it takes you roller skating
19. Ice cream businesses, and how they're surprisingly successful in Minnesota in the winter
20. Blanket forts
21. Pancakes
22. When you bring your Argentinian friend to Bingo night and your grandma doesn't stop talking about him for months
23. Dinosaurs
24. How restaurants should really give kids menus to everyone so that maybe people would put down their phones and do a maze in crayon instead
25. The Animorphs. They deserve a song. They saved us all from an alien invasion.
26. When you accidentally eat an entire cake by yourself on Valentine's Day. Which is something I've done twice.
27. When you spend two hours trying to beat the same level of Super Mario Bros. but keep falling into the pit of lava.
28. Finger painting!
29. The weird things your parents took pictures of you doing as a kid
30. How fun it would be to be a squid for a day

I could go on.
If there's any musicians out there looking for some inspiration...

Also now I'm thinking about all these things so I'll probably write blog posts about them. If I can't write a song, which I cannot, a blog post will have to suffice.

64 Pack Crayola Crayons: An Unnecessary Guide

Everyone likes crayons.

I'm here to provide you with an unnecessary guide to the colors included in the Crayola 64 pack. 

Violet red: It's like red, but a little bit more pink. 

Brick red: A slightly darker red, but no quite maroon. Maybe the color you would expect to find on, let's say, a brick. 

Red: A classic.

Wild strawberry: A lot like violet red, but in my opinion a bit more red. Not as red as a strawberry, despite the name. More like the kind of red you would expect to see dried on a paper plate that used to have strawberries on it.

Scarlet: Starting to move towards orange, but mostly still red. Very vibrant.

Red orange: Orange, but a little bit more red. Scarlet, but a bit more orange. 

Bittersweet: Pretty much the same as red orange, but maybe a tinge more brown? No. I think it's the same. But what kid doesn't need a color to evoke both pleasure and pain? 

Orange: Just your classic orange. Like the color of an orange. An orange orange, not a green one. Or a yellow one. 

Yellow orange: Barely more yellow than regular orange.

Macaroni and cheese: A fan favorite. It's a more pastel orange. More like the color of orange sherbet than macaroni and cheese. 

Melon: Reminds me of a grapefruit, but lighter. Sort of a light orange/pink. 

Gold: A color that is theoretically gold, but isn't actually shiny so it sort of just looks like an ugly yellow/orange/brown. It's clearly trying to be gold, but it's not fooling anyone. 

Goldenrod: A little bit duller yellow, but not so dull that it's ugly. Honestly I'm impressed that Crayola was able to make so many yellow crayons that aren't ugly. 

Dandelion: A deeper yellow, the tiniest bit more orange than regular yellow. 

Yellow: Regular yellow. 

Green yellow: Yellow that is so barely green that it just looks like regular yellow. Not to be confused with the completely separate color, yellow green.

Spring green: A green so light and so yellow that you can barely see it. I often question the existence of this crayon, and only use it when I begin to feel guilty about using all the other crayons more often. I worry that it doesn't feel loved. 

Sea green: Not actually the color of the sea. Often referred to as sea foam green. Possibly the color of sea foam, but to be honest I don't know what color sea foam is. 

Yellow green: Your classic bright green, or lime green. Not so bright that it's neon.

Olive green: Actually the color of a green olive. I think it's kind of gross looking, but that could just be because I hate olives. 

Forest green: A darker green that you would maybe use to color in a forest. 

Asparagus: A slightly darker olive green. Like the color of asparagus. Crayola was pretty spot-on with a lot of the green names. 

Granny smith apple: In between sea green and regular green. Should "smith" be capitalized? Like is Granny Smith a real person who grew apples? 

Green: Green.

Robin's egg blue: Actually the color of a robin's egg. A bright color I would expect to see worn by old people. 

Blue green: Blue, but greener. Technically the name implies that it's green, but bluer, but it's definitely more blue than green.

Pacific blue: Blue green, but slightly less green. Like the pacific ocean, presumably.  

Turquoise blue: Blue green, but lighter. 

Sky blue: Light blue. I've always felt that sky blue isn't really a fair name because the sky can be all different colors. And not even just different shades of blue. I mean we've all seen a sunset. 

Cadet blue: Actually gray. A blue gray, but still gray. Don't trust the name. 

Periwinkle: Light blue with more purple. Also, a fun word. 

Cornflower blue: Very soothing, less bold blue. The color of my retainer, except my retainer glows in the dark. This crayon does not. 

Cerulean: A brilliant blue. One of my favorite shades. 

Blue: Also brilliant blue, but slightly less bright. 

Indigo: The color that comes in between blue and purple. Highly under-appreciated and often ignored in today's society. 

Blue violet: Falls in between indigo and violet. Makes me wonder why it's not called indigo violet instead. 

Purple mountains' majesty: Light purple. Fun fact: There are three different spellings of this color on different generations of Crayola crayons: "Purple mountain majesty", "purple mountain's majesty", and "purple mountains' majesty". This is fascinating, since the actual lyric it references from "America the Beautiful" is "purple mountain majesties". 

Wisteria: Also light purple, but less blue than purple mountains' majesty. 

Violet (purple): Thanks, Crayola, for clarifying what you meant by "violet". 

Plum: A deep purple. 

Orchid: A purplish pink pastel. I find the experience of the color of the wrapper next to the actual color the crayon to be very unpleasant. 

Mauvelous: One of my favorite Crayola crayon names. It's a pun. Get it? Because it's mauve. And it's also marvelous. Oh Crayola, you tickle me.

Lavender: A lie. It's a pink crayon, but I was always under the impression that lavender should be purple. Light purple. Like purple mountains' majesty or wisteria. 

Salmon: A little bit too pink to actually be the color of raw salmon, but a solid effort nonetheless. 

Carnation pink: Because apparently "pink" wasn't a good enough name. 

Tickle me pink: A slightly darker version of carnation pink. So still pretty much regular pink. 

Magenta: A slightly darker version of tickle me pink. Fun fact: It's the only crayon in the box that doesn't have the name translated into Spanish and French. I assume this is because it's the same name in all three languages. 

Red violet: Violet, but more red. 

Mahogany: Brown.

Burnt orange: Like orange, but burnt. So, brown.

Chestnut: Brown. 

Raw sienna: Brown.

Burnt sienna: Brown.

Tan: Brown.

Sepia: Brown.

Brown: Brown. There are many shades of brown, useful for drawing many shades of people.

Tumbleweed: Light brown. Another fun word. 

Apricot: Very light brown. 

Peach: The same as apricot. It was unnecessary to put them both in the box. 

White: The most useless crayon in the box, unless of course you have watercolors and you do the cool thing where you paint with watercolors over crayon and you can see the white crayon underneath it. 

Silver: Silver, but not shiny. So, gray.

Timberwolf: Light gray. 

Gray: It's that color you get when you mix black and white together. Of areas, and matter. 

Black: The darkest color. I feel pretty strongly that there should be an extra black crayon included in every box of crayons, because it always seems to get used up very quickly. It's a useful color.

You're welcome.