(no subject)

[johnpalmer]

I was going to return to posting with a bit about this scene and song:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr0RSnLn23Q

... but instead I felt moved to talk a bit more about my chronic fatigue and how I kind of lost February.

And then I decided, you know, if I'm going to battle despair in public, let's steal a meme from Last Jedi and fight for what we love, rather than against what we hate.

That scene is from Ant Man and the Wasp, a superhero flick from the Marvel Comics Universe. It's a cute song where Scott Lang (canon: the second Ant-Man who actually did get the costume by stealing it from Hank Pym.) is dealing with house arrest (no, not because he has a mystery malady - that would be House M.D. Arrest) trying to get right with the government so he can be part of his daughter's life more regularly - but he's forced to risk it all, to save a life.

But I also found myself fascinated with a relentlessly cheerful song I remember from the 70s. It had to be the 70s, right? The Reagan era DEA surely classified such songs as Schedule I - high potential for abuse, no known profitability medical value for drug companies. One line stuck out for me...

"We had a dream we'd go traveling together,
Spread a little loving, and then moving on..."

What a dream! Go to a place, spread some loving, then find another place, and do it again! Can you imagine a more wonderful dream? I don't mean a better dream *for you*, because dreams are personal (it's very hard to get someone to dream on your behalf, after all!). But for a person who can *have* that dream?

Seriously: can't you picture the world's surliest curmudgeon grudgingly admitting that, okay, for fools that have dreams like *that*, it's a pretty good dream, even if it's totally unrealistic. And that thought would come to them no more than 30 minutes after they harrumphed away the starry eyed idealist's iteration of the dream. Heck - if the curmudgeon's a gift giver, they might even donate some traveling stuff, not to pursue some cockamamie dream, but, you know, ":if you're going to be traveling off on some dumb fantasy, you might as well travel a bit (better/safer/etc.)."

I love how my brain sometimes pulls bits of music out of context to find delight. Today, I can also add the *next* line of the song, and my childhood recollection.

The song continues:
"...Something always happens whenever we're together,
We get a happy feeling when we're singing a song...."

Remember, I was, like, 4, when the Partridge Family came out (the song is the theme to the Partridge Family - and IIRC, the 3rd number 1 hit from a fictional band) but to that child's brain, the two parts to that line were completely independent, and stated
"this is one episode of a TV show, wherein something happened, because we were together" and
"by the way, we get a happy feeling when we sing a song."

Seriously: how many four year olds infer the episodic nature of TV, realizing that *something* must happen to create the episode, and that each episode must show one of those somethings? (I also realized that Snuffleupagus had to be real because *HE MADE DECISIONS*. We'd *see* him decide to wander off before Big Bird's friends came back to see him. A kindergartener was rocking Descartes! ("I think therefore I am" - something/one must be contemplating existence).

("Snuffleupagus?" An elephant/mammoth on the TV show Sesame Street. Initially, he was intended to be Big Bird's imaginary friend. Later, the writers realized that having adults constantly insist to a child that something real and visible didn't exist wasn't exactly *right*, so his existence was revealed. I nevertheless insist they'd already forced the issue by showing independent action and decision making.)

Another beautiful interlude happened when listening to "Ain't No Mountain High Enough." Talk about out of context - there's one bit about "since I set you free," and damn if it didn't make me cry. See, overblown "I love you, my sex/romance partner, and would do anything for you!" songs are a dime a dozen - cheaper, if you can find the collections of "almost big hits".

Ah, but songs that say "Hey, you, you *aren't* my sexytimes person, but I still care. If you needed me, there's no mountain I wouldn't climb, no valley I wouldn't cross, no river I would not ford, to help..."- well, they can also be a dime a dozen, especially because they don't tend to sell as well, *but* they're far more precious. Sex and romance are fine and wonderful but there's a deeper love that is more fundamental, and far more powerful (and empowering, IMNSHO).

Which brought me to the final bit of modern movie making I wanted to share, since I'm all over love today. I've come to a deeper appreciation of the Guardians of the Galaxy movies. They have the troubled family vibe ("You're not friends! All you do is yell at each other!" "That's right, we're family! We leave NO ONE behind! (pause) Except maybe you." Hands up for those who love a family with lots of yelling, but which knows how to close the circle when necessary!)

See, love isn't always as well appreciated or seen as strong, but in the second movie, there's this wonderful turnaround. It's a minor spoiler (not much worse than "oh, the good guys win, and it starts with...") so I'll put it behind a cut tag (I hope).

The setup is simple - Ego (the bad guy) is telling Peter (sorry, I mean "Star Lord") how to use the power that is his birthright. Peter can't figure it out, and Yondu mentions to him "you think I fly that arrow (Yondu's magical, nigh-invincible weapon) with my head, boy?"

That sets it up perfectly well, right? "Don't use your BRAIN, use something else!" Except...

See, just before the turnaround, we get to see the destruction Ego is causing throughout the galaxy, and we get to see each of Peter's team being trapped and sure to die, just as Yondu calls out that he doesn't fly the arrow with his *head*, he flies it with his *heart*! (this last drowned out as the trap closes on him.)

That's enough, right? Peter can just, you know, try to look serious, but not like he's constipated, and fight back.

No, it's not. He thinks back - to his mom, and all of the friends trapped here, remembering that he loves them. And then, with a lovely, powerful theme song that builds at just the right speed(The Chain - but it's best seen in vivo, so to speak) he strikes back.

I'm not sure if this is canon, but I can't fail to notice that he's now going toe to toe with someone who's used this power for literally *millions* of years longer than he... but a man who has no heart.
(Well, technically, he created a body with a four chambered organ that pumps blood. We also know, due to Drax's curiosity, that his body includes a penis. Ego's also the kind of person who says "It broke my heart to put that tumor in (your mother's) head... okay, now, I know that *sounds* bad!")

For bonus points, Peter also mentioned having a general love of people in general, and as he strikes back, they *also* show that he's stopped the destruction Ego was wreaking through the galaxy. You can totally believe he was fighting on their behalf, too.


We value courage - the ability to do what's right, even when you're scared, because you realize there's something bigger than your fear. We don't always value love, which is one of the strongest motivations for courage.

I'm kind of glad that our stories are starting to talk about, and demonstrate, love a bit more. We need more talk about, thinking about, and use, of love. I don't know if anyone said it better than Jimi Hendrix: When the power of love is greater than the love of power, the world will know peace.

Comments

[dubhain]

Heh. I was five, nearly six, when The Partridge Family debuted in 1970. I loved that show, as a kid.

(Just a nitpick: You've the first quoted line from its theme nearly right. It's actually "We had a dream, we'd go travelin' together, / We'd spread a little lovin' then we'd keep movin' on." Whomever wrote their songs was always putting more words into a lyric than should strictly be there, but managed to make them work.)

I also remember when Sesame Street made its debut, in 1969. I was in Kindergarten, and they sent us all home with announcements, mimeographed upon bright yellow paper, with a drawing of Big Bird, telling our parents to have us watch the show.

As to love: I remember the 'sixties better than most people my age (I have very good recall of my early childhood, due to...reasons.) As they're remembered today, they're basically a wireframe model of the actual era. That said, there was a genuine belief that, if we as a people would simply decide to put all the hatred and the bullshit aside and concentrate upon loving and being good to one another, we could transform the world. Well, sadly, that didn't exactly happen as expected. Then again, I also recall a lot of adults telling me about pendulums, and that our society would swing quite far in the opposite direction, eventually, because it'd swung so far to the Left and toward the notions of Peace and Love (capitalization per the period) at that time. I suppose those adults must've been right.

One of my favorite movies from the period is The Lion In Winter (1968. Peter O'Toole, Katharine Hepburn, Anthony Hopkins, Timothy Dalton, &c.) It's a delightfully vicious movie, in which everyone goes picnicking upon each other, frequently viciously (so it fulfills your 'argumentative family which nonetheless can come together' criteria.) Everyone's playing for advantage, and plotting and moving against everyone else. But, in the end, much of what they're doing to each other is actually motivated by love for each other, and — strangely enough — there's a great deal of talk about both peace and love. Love, naturally, is what saves them all, in the end. And peace...of a sort...is managed after all. Also, the acting is utterly superb, and it's brilliantly written. So there's that....

I recall the transition, in our media, from an emphasis upon getting along, solving our problems, and loving each other. It showed-up first, in Science Fiction. Suddenly clean, futuristic, scientific sets and scripting were out; dystopian hellscapes and ships that looked like flying junkyards were in. Not too much later, advertising and then mainstream television shows became 'edgy,' which was another word for cruel and vicious. The word was that everything had to be 'edgy,' in order to market to the new and upcoming 'Generation X.' Gen-X wouldn't buy nor watch, if it weren't 'edgy.' Shortly after 'edgy' took over, it was paired with 'extreme' everything. Normal and ordinary were no longer any good. Getting along was for suckers. Nice guys and gals finished last. Suddenly, instead of the cops in the cop shows talking about how maintaining rule of law and the rights of the people was paramount, the shows were all about the cop who had to 'take the law into his own hands' or go 'beyond the law' in order to make sure the 'bad guys' got their comeuppance. And, of course, they always got away with it, by out-maneuvering the silly brass, who secretly sympathized with them, but were stupidly still insisting that the cops play by the rules and operate within the law. (Which was, of course, portrayed as being ridiculously naive.) 'Street Justice' was a frequently mentioned phrase, as I recall.

There was a sort of attempt to get away from all that and back into "Don't be a dick" messaging in advertising, during the '90s, as well as a few shows of that nature. But then it was discovered that 'Reality TV' was cheaper to make than just about anything else, and could be made even more vicious than the scripted programs. And we were off, again, which brings us to here (and, incidentally, to Trump, but I'll refrain.)

Personally, I think our social pendulum will swing back, again. But it's going to take beyond my lifetime to undo the damage that's been done, and get us back to where we were, socially, at the end of the '70s. Yes, we've had some major advancements since — marriage equality being a major factor, as well as the increased acceptance of interracial marriage / dating. Even so, we've digressed more than progressed, socially. The social safety net is nearly nonexistent, now. And the bigotry and racism that was always smouldering beneath the surface of our society, like a fire in a peat bog, has flared-up again to an extent I haven't heard since somewhere around 1970-1972. Minority voter suppression is back, and all the old tropes are sneaking back in for a reprise. Hell, we're even working like hell at restarting the Cold War with Russia, for cats' sakes.

Do I think there's hope? Yes. I do. Very much so. But I also think it's going to take decades. And, sadly, I won't be around long enough to see us pick-up and progress from what we once achieved. Nor will I live to see where we could've been, now, had we not engaged in an idiotic countermarch back to the bad old days.

Tl;Dr — I agree with you, wholeheartedly, that love conquers all. But, being a realist, I also know that it's almost always one helluva road to travel, before one arrives at the 'love conquering' bit, at the end.

Be well, eh? May the universe treat you and yours gently.

[elainegrey]

We just watched Interstellar recently and there's some heartfelt focus on the transcendent power of love there, too.

The Lion In Winter: oh, should watch that again. It was a pleasure to watch.

Love is a helluva road to travel, but it beats the short cuts.