The asexual is lying in bed, staring at the ceiling. Above her is the extroverted pansexual, who has a giant grin on her face.
The extroverted pansexual says: “So, what are we doing tonight?”
The asexual turns to look at her, with a blank expression.
The extroverted pansexual repeats herself, louder this time.
The asexual shuts her eyes tightly and thinks for a moment. She gets out of bed and goes to the kitchen area, where there is a giant stack of pancakes waiting to be made into fluffy omelets.
“Oh my god,” she says. “I have to make dinner.”
The extroverted pansexual, still grinning, says, “That’s cool. Just name it, I’ll do it.”
The asexual, now fully dressed and moving slowly, says, “You don’t even know what kind of food I like.”
The extroverted pansexual says, “Well, that’s great! What do you like? I mean, what are you going to eat?”
The asexual sits slowly down onto the bed. “I’m going to have an anxiety attack.”
The extroverted pansexual puts on an expression of genuine concern. “Tell me about your anxiety. What makes it so?”
The asexual looks up at her with steely eyes. “I don’t want to have anxiety about making dinner.”
The extroverted pansexual says, “Okay, let me have one of those.”
The asexual says, “Fine. You can have one of my giant stacks of anxiety.”
The extroverted pansexual smiles. “Thank you.”
The asexual nods curtly.
She stares at the extroverted pansexual for a moment, then turns and walks back to her room.
The extroverted pansexual, hands clasped behind her head, says, “Shit. What a day it’s been.”
The introverted asexual, lying in bed, thinks, “I’m going to make sure I never cook for anybody ever again.”
The extroverted pansexual, back in her room, says, “Wow, you’ve got an arrogance there.”
The introverted asexual thinks, “I am completely and utterly invulnerable to any criticism, because I am not a person.”
The extroverted pansexual says, “I don’t care. I’m gonna call all your friends.”
The introverted asexual says her own thoughts, aloud: “I don’t like food. I hate people.”
The extroverted pansexual walks out of the room. “Fine. If you don’t like people so much, why don’t you ask your ‘friends’ to leave you alone?”
The introverted asexual says, more to herself than to the pansexual, “I hate people so much. I hate people so much.”
The extroverted pansexual, having finished making a call, walks back into the room, full of energy and purpose. “I’m going to go out dancing, and it’s all your fault.”
“Can’t you just stay at home and relax?” the introverted asexual says, eyes still shut tight. “It’s my birthday and I’m not even going to have a good day because you went out drinking with your friends.”
“Well, fine,” says the extroverted pansexual. “I’m not even going to buy you a birthday present.” She walks back out the door. “I’m going dancing. See you.”
The introverted asexual turns off the lights and lies down in the dark. “You are not a person. You are not a person. You are not a person.” She repeats this thought over and over, quietly but with increasing volume, until the lights go back on in her apartment and she turns on a movie to distract herself.
The extroverted pansexual, still in the same place she was before, says, “I’m gonna do a bunch of other stuff.” The smile has faded from her face. The rest of the night consists of the extroverted pansexual going about her other plans, and the introverted asexual sulking in her bed.
The extroverted pansexual goes out and buys some ice cream. The introverted asexual, still feeling that none of this reality is happening to her, says, helpfully, “What flavor?”
“Oh, what flavor do you like?” says the extroverted pansexual, whose face has begun twitching again.
“I don’t eat ice cream.”
“Oh. Well then, I’ll just get some chocolate for myself. Here, have some fucking chocolate ice cream if you’re so fucking paranoid.”
The introverted asexual, in a monotone, “I’m not paranoid,” actually says, “That’s not necessary.”
The extroverted pansexual, face now red with anger, says, “I’m going to eat that now.” She walks out of the house.
The Introverted asexual, eyes open now, sees the extroverted pansexual’s face reflected in the window behind her bed. She is wearing an expression of pure hatred. She puts a fist through the reflection.
The extroverted pansexual is walking along the sidewalk, thinking about how she’s gonna go dancing and get laid. Meanwhile, across town, the introverted asexual is sitting on her bed, rubbing her head, trying to make her stupid lump that happens to be her brain go away.
…
In a city in California far away, there is a party. A very fancy party. The kind of party that is usually reserved for people who are important and powerful. A lot of pretty people in expensive clothes are drinking wine and looking at each other, smiling. A band made up of extremely pretty people with very good hair are playing very good music and making the people dance and have fun.
In the middle of the party is a group of, well, not exactly friends, but certainly friends-of-friends. There is an extroverted pansexual, and an introverted asexual, and an introverted bisexual, and a couple of introverted homosexuals. They all seem to be having a really good time.
But the extroverted pansexual is not having a very good time. She keeps going to the bathroom to throw up. The rest of the partygoers seem not to notice.
The introverted asexual wanders through the party, trying not to notice the extroverted pansexual.
The introverted asexual thinks, “None of this is real. I’m just going through the motions.” She tries to think happy thoughts. She thinks, “What’s for dinner? I’m hungry.”
She thinks, “I am a person.”
She thinks, “I don’t like parties. I don’t like people. I hate people. I don’t like people.”
She thinks, “Why is it that this party has so many other people in it? I don’t like parties. I don’t like people. I hate people. I don’t like people.”
(The introverted asexual has not noticed that there is a very special someone at the party. He is a boy, and he is very shy. He wears a hooded sweatshirt most of the time, because people tend to not notice him much. He has not said two words to anybody else in the entire party. He keeps his head in the hood, and he watches the partygoers through the interstitial gaps between the hood and the headband on his headphones.)
The introverted asexual thinks, “None of this is real. I’m just going through the motions.” She thinks, “Oh, wow. The band is playing 'Ai No Corrida’.” She thinks, “I don’t like these people. They’re not people to me. I don’t like people. I hate people. I don’t like people.”
(Suddenly, one of the partygoers turns to the introverted asexual. She is very excited. There is a giant sparkly on her finger.)
Extroverted pansexual: “Oh my god! You have a giant sparkling rock on your hand! Can we have that?”
Introverted asexual: “I don’t want your stupid rock.”
Extroverted pansexual: “I’m going to dance with this stupid rock!”
Introverted asexual: “I’m going to throw this stupid rock out the window! I hate you so much! Hate hate hate hate hate.”
(She takes a big sip of her drink and walks over to the window.)
The extroverted pansexual is now dancing with her very handsome boyfriend. He’s holding her close to him, because she loves him very much. She thinks, “I’m happy. I’m happy. This is the happiest I’ve ever been. I’m happy. I like people. I like people. I like people. I like people. I like people.”
Suddenly, the introverted asexual, face now twisted with hate, walks up to the extroverted pansexual and says, “I’ve been thinking about killing you.”
I know the word “snek” already. Have you got anything else? What about “jelrosian” or “grombacious”, what do those words mean?
Other words that come to mind:
champ – a very happy person, basically
dervish – a person who is very ecstatic and frenzied and moves very quickly and is always doing new and interesting things
dilettante – a person who loves social activities but isn’t very good at any of them and instead just talks a lot about social activities
equanimity – being very calm and balanced, and not worrying about things
grog – hard work, mostly
indolence – being too tired to do things, or being lazy
maladies – illness
meditation – very deep and important thought about stuff
metempsychosis – reincarnation. i think. this is one of those things that i don’t think is actually a real word but i don’t know what it would be without it
reincarnation – being reborn, i.e. starting over, like you were born again
shenanigans – trouble, trouble in the form of physical actions
shoebox – it just means “little box,” and I don’t know what it would mean without it
upbringing – the way that you are raised and taught to act, and the way that your parents raise you and teach you to act (this one is more complicated, but basically means the same thing as “bringing up children”)
wicked – very evil, really really evil and full of bad stuff, not just a little bad. more like bad-seeming. like, if you’re not wicked then you’re righteous and good and pure
zeliomb – having babies
zeligoot – being a baby
zeligreen – the color green because it’s associated with babies
zesty – very sharp or keen (a zesty person)
The last word is kind of “chaste-faced.” It just means very good-looking, but in an old-fashioned kind of way, without a lot of makeup or anything. It’s kind of like the original “handsome,” as used by Shakespeare.
1. Attacked a man. Seriously. Like really violently. In front of lots of people. Then took this guy’s hat, stole it, and walked away. Went back and did it again. And again. Then, somehow, my friends took me to the police and I ended up in jail for a few days.
2. Got so wasted on beer at my grandma’s house that I ended up pecking at my own beak.
3. Tried to kill a guy, then found out that the guy was a martial arts master and started beating the shit out of me. Then one of my friends who was there and not a martial arts master saw this and asked me “are you still gay.” I was like “well I was kind of gay back then”
4. Went down to the beach. Got sand in my eyes. Woke up the next morning like “wow, what was that nightmare?”
5. Fucker stole my bag with all my books in it. I swear that was the hardest I’ve cried in my entire life.
9. Fell out of a really tall tree, or something. Woke up in the same tree, but this time with half my head covered in mosquito bites and a seagull pecking at my ear.
10. Stood on the roof of a house with a bunch of other seagulls. We were all freaking out because the roof was about to collapse and one of my friends fell off. One of the other birds said to me, “your problem is you love animals too much; but I am a seagull and I love birds so much that I can kill birds,” as it literally pecked at my face and neck. I screamed and the two of them ran away.
1. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: quetzalcoatlus) because they are the coolest looking birds in existence and also I am a bird
2. (The forbidden species that has captured nearly all of my interest: tyrannosaurus) because they are cool and terrifying and have this really beautiful bony crest thing going on
3. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: gomphothere) because I’m a mammal and they were pretty neat at the time
4. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: trilobite) because they look cool and the name sounds cool and, again, really cool-looking
5. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: homo erectus) because they were kind of a big deal and, like trilobite, are very cool-looking
6. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: aparis arigatzu) because they are cute, in a certain incongruous kind of way
7. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: varanus) because they are terrifying and probably were at some point
8. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: moray eel) because they are scary and sometimes you have to be very scared to fuck one, if you know what I mean
9. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: chamomilegeodont) because they have funny little bumps and they remind me of kangaroo teeth but I am not a chamomilegeodont
10. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: kriosavirus) because I’m pretty sure it’s the sexiest virus there is and also a pretty good song
11. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: pterodactyle) because I’m a reptile and they are so darn cool
12. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: dinornis) because there is a species of raptor called a dinornis and that’s pretty cool
13. (The forbidden species that has captured most of my interest: plesiosaur) because they are super cool and so pretty, and even more because they are so giant, and that’s pretty cool
Not if you eat a fair amount of people in the course of trying to become more human in your own private, non-moral sense
Remember: when you become more human, you get to be an animal again, and that means you get to run, you get to hunt, you get to have a life full of purpose again
What if you’re a huge-chested woman who wants to talk about big-busted chicks but you keep running into a certain kind of narrow-minded Internet troll who insists that your favorite media characters “really” have to belong to a certain tiny caste of incredibly-sexual hyper-feminine super-women with pointy anime noses who are all named Ruka
“I didn’t say it was the only way!”, they whine at you, wringing their hands. They have the best interests of big-busted women at heart!
While I don’t have much use for cocaine itself, I am kind of amused by how the entire culture around it seems to be totally unaware of how it actually works
I’ve been reading this Gawker article about a certain rich guy using a certain cocaine-like substance (actually something between a nasal spray and powder, supposed to get you “trusted by people in powerful positions”), and the guy is an actual user of this stuff and he has a strong first-person account in this article, stuff like what kind of effects you’d expect from it (not overwhelmingly great, but real and interesting) … and no one even tries to talk about the ethical issues, about someone using a real-life pharmaceutical drug to get rich and powerful by exploiting the trust of people with no real knowledge of what they are doing, about how this is exactly the evil we wish away by treating drugs as this mystical, untrustworthy Other
I’m not even sure what to say about this
I’m hard-pressed to imagine any group less able to handle the facts about this stuff than feminists, and yet here they are, blogging manically about nasal cocaine as though it were the stuff depicted in Apocalypse Now
This is a document for our project entitled “Twenty-one.”
All participants are invited to add to this document and to contribute to the eventual presentation of the work.
Project Theme
The participants are invited, and indeed required, to respond to the overarching theme of a film, which is given to us, the participants, by the very nature of the medium. Specifically, the film selected by the group for analysis is the recently restored print The Great Dictator, directed by George Stevens and starring Charlie Chaplin.
It should come as no surprise to the reader that the centrality of The Great Dictator in our project is significant. In essence, The Great Dictator represents the apex of the comedic film. It was filmed in 1939, prior to the US’s entrance into the Second World War, and its themes involve, as noted by John Darnielle, the “embarrassment of riches” that is “the human animal.” Indeed, one of the recurring sayings in the film is the motto “A Joffler is not a a Joffee.” The film’s plot is simple but effective: Chaplin plays George Biddlecombe, a naïve, idealistic, and well-intentioned immigrant to the USA from England. Biddlecombe, along with his business partner, Joe Hardy (Mel Brooks), attempts to start up a small shoe repair shop in the poor, but down-on-its-luck, part of town. Of course, everything goes wrong. Biddlecombe falls in love with the town’s cynical and domineering matchmaker, Wilma Hardy (June Harold), and Hardy has a series of slapstick misunderstandings with the local gangster, Slim (Walter Catlett), and his bodyguard, Joe Jefferson (played, at various times throughout the film, by top comedic actors Hoot Gibson and Cedric Hardwick, as well as the uncredited Larry Semon).
The plot is simple, but it is the film’s comedic tone that gives it power and impact. As we have seen from previous remarks, this tone is at times a bitter-yet-winking one, even a tragicomic one, all of which results from Chaplin’s performance. Of course, it is a common comedic method in film, and one which is especially suited to the form, to draw the audience into a set of false conflicts and mistaken alliances, and then to release the tension, usually by way of some final, dramatic reversal. We see this method in use again and again, most famously in numerous Marx Brothers films throughout the 1920s and 1930s. Even in more abstract comedies, such as No Exit (Arthur King, 1962), one can observe an overarching tone of cruel irony which provides the audience with tension, while, at the same time, it induces a number of painful, false conflicts and mistaken alliances, all of which results in the ultimate catharsis of the film’s happy ending.
Obviously, in the case of The Great Dictator, the film’s centrality to our theme prevents us from creating a similar “mock film” which, as in No Exit, induces an overarching tone of bitter irony and cruel detachment, and creates many painful, false conflicts and mistaken alliances in order to reach its ultimate catharsis of the film’s happy ending. The centrality of The Great Dictator requires something more complex.
At this point, we should note what is obvious: that the film was, in fact, produced as both a social and commercial satire of the political and social climate of the time. By “time,” we mean the lead-up to World War II, particularly the late 1930s. However, we do not mean to make any specific political statements. We are simply stating that, at some level, the events and situations of The Great Dictator are either hyperbolic, exaggerated for comedic effect, or the product of the film-maker’s personal prejudice. The film was, in a sense, a “tragicomedy” about immigrant life and economic conditions in America, and, indeed, the country’s growing political tensions prior to its entrance into the war.
One final note before we proceed. As noted in the instructions, we are to respond to the film as a unique, original work by an unidentified group of writers, directors, and performers. That is to say, there is no single, “authorial” voice that can be identified in the film. This has profound theological significance, since in the Christian tradition, it is possible to speak of two coexisting “Lives” of a person, one before and one after the moment of their baptism. From a secular perspective, we might think of these “Lives” as being the film-maker’s pre- and post-The Great Dictator films, Chaplin’s earlier work The Tramp and his subsequent work A Countess from Hong Kong, or simply the film-maker’s pre- and post-war films. However, without abandoning reason or adopting mystical methods, it is possible to see The Great Dictator as expressing the very tension involved in the Christian Life of FAITH and Works. Within the film, there is a fundamental division between Biddlecombe’s naivety and lack of experience (Works) and his eventual triumph over these factors (FAITH).
All of the above considerations lead to the notion that our project must ultimately be presented as a deconstruction or, perhaps, a “twenty-one gun salute” in honor of The Great Dictator’s fifty-fifth anniversary. We will, as an organized group, watch the film and then generate a “contest” of responses to the film’s characters, plot, etc. The responses will range from relatively straightforward to extremely innovative. However, we will always refer back to the film itself, which will serve as the ultimate arbiter.
We should also note at this time that the identities of the various participants in this group will be revealed in a set of “submitted” works which are to be attached to this original document for reference. Of course, the identities of the participants will remain a secret until the last moment, at which point the works will be edited and the identities removed so as to conceal their origins or associations.
-2-
Document 2: Anonymously Sent
March 26, 2011
•
Subject: twenty-one
•
“A picture is worth a thousand words.” It is difficult, if not impossible, to imagine a group of people who would have less in common than a random selection of artists, philosophers, and writers, despite the fact that many of these groups could, in theory, be joined with the sole purpose of creating a cohesive and unified, unified body of art. And yet, this common goal of creating “art” acts as a bridge, at least, for a moment of, if not unity, then at least a common bond that transcends the numerous and specific differences of any organized group. It is with this in mind, then, that we would like to formally invite you to submit your responses to “Twenty-one.”
•
We will be watching The Great Dictator.
•
No, zero percent correct, Frank, I’m thinking of “chick lit”, the light novelistic form like Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’ Diary or Amy Sohn’s Run Catch Kiss (and later many gay male authors under pseudonyms), about young women starting up the career ladder in “creative class” office jobs in the back-to-the-city rush at the turn of the millennium, facing adult workplace and romantic challenges for the first time simultaneously (but without the wounded infantilized victimism of the current cohort)
- It is essential for automation to let Pals do the manual work. Build a factory and place Pals in
it. They will work forever as long as they’re fed until the end of their lifetime.
Oh man I want this so much
Me too, Frank. I don’t want to be evil, though.
My favorite MIRI-adjacent fact is that even though AIs won’t have to deal with a concept of “consciousness” in the same way anything else does, they’ll have to get their basic software to recognize people as “people” somehow, and to do the hard work of creating what we call “a person” in the first place.
If you mean “how would I like to be treated based on my answers,” I am a generally very nice person who would like to be treated well, and not screamed at.
