Not-So-Guilty-Pleasure: Bones: Making it Look Super Cool to have a PhD

So I am not going to write a ton about this show. It has been on for five seasons now, but I just recently started watching it because it was recommended to me by...Netflix! This is based on my preferences for crime drama shows. While composing my syllabus, I find it necessary to keep myself entertained by putting this on for background noise. What I love about this show: It makes getting a PhD seem so so so cool!!

The main character Dr. Temperance Brennen is a forensic anthropologist who works for the Jeffersonian in Washington D.C., helping the FBI, specifically agent Seeley Booth, solve crime through analysis of you guessed it: Bones! Bones serves as a double entendre, as it also serves as a pet name for Brennan by Booth. In this show they use state-of-the-art technology to recreate faces of fragmented skulls, bug/environmental analysis to determine time of death/burial/site of remains, and cause of death through specific weapons/objects etc. I mean it seems so far-fetched, but even Brennan's nerdy team of squints seem to be pretty neat-o! The squints have these totally unreal jobs (although supposedly the show is based on series creator Kathy Reichs' life) and Brennan gets to go out solving cases kicking some @$$ with her taekwondo or whatever..something she probably learned traveling and living with various indigenous groups throughout the world. Oh if getting a PhD was only so glamorous...

I must admit, I do not buy into all of the science i.e. Dr. Temperance Brennan and her team can tell someone's ethnic/racial origins based on their skeletal remains. For example Brennen can often make the distinction between someone of African decent from someone of one of the many white European decendants' ethnicity/race. Sounds like an updated version of racist Phrenology. At least she is not in charge of discerning who is smarter based on skull size, bumps, and brains. Brennen has learned so much about "others" by identifying their remains, as she says, "It's like I know them." Uh huh? I want to think it is that cool, but I must admit I think human life is more than abstractions made from various skeletal remains. I do think Brennen is coming to terms with this throughout the show.

The other thing I am not a huge fan of: Making Emily Deschanel appear socially awkward and only understanding of human contact and interaction as a means of biological drives and positivistic science. I feel that someone who went through graduate school with an anthropology degree, even physical anthropology, would probably not be quite this dense. And Deschanel doesn't play this well. Every once and awhile her misunderstanding of a certain colloquial or pop cultural icon/moment/saying seems faked. For example, she questions what the expression, "What's up buttercup" means? Her socially awkward (and poorly portrayed social awkwardness at that) Zack, must explain to her what this means. While I understand this is a.) supposed to make her seem out of touch with reality b.) appear more intelligent than everyone else c.) not concerned with trivialities like such expression it makes the character look like she must have been living under a rock for her ENTIRE life. And I do believe at some point she was a child (we see flashbacks of this) and probably did not always have her PhD and may have been exposed to life outside academia for say 18 years or so of life. Even without a PhD, someone could probably discern what such a statement would mean, or give it an educated guess. So far I like season two's lack of this incredibly stereotypical representation of "Dr."

Below I offer a really horrible you tube clip of the show. I recommend just watching it on the ol' Netflix watch it now if that is a choice for you.

Summer Television self-indulgences: The Real L Word

On top of reading, I have been watching a significant amount of not-so-guilty, yet pleasurable (sort of) television.

The Real L Word

Like the fake L Word, the Real L Word is poorly scripted, flat, full of drama (although lesbian), reifying of heteronormativity, and I JUST CAN'T NOT WATCH IT. Sunday nights, I am drawn to this Lesbian themed reality television like I am to my Crackberry. Little red light flashing=previews for that night's episode. Then after seeing the opening credits, Jill and I discuss who we like and dislike, although, obviously I am more invested in this than she is. I realized most of them I hate but I keep coming back for more, hoping for some redeeming qualities. Always trying to find a point of (dis) identification, I am trying to find which character I belong to. In this, I see no hope. Of course the "fake" L Word left us all hanging with the "Who killed Jenny" fiasco. Redemption for Ilene Chaiken may be impossible.

Whitney
I like to describe her as smokin' hot with THE MOST annoying personality EVER!!! Her misnomer, "I don't like drama" is getting old. She is the epitome of LESBO drama. Oh I don't know why you piss off every girl you play with, maybe because you date all of them at once. I am fine with polyamory as long as everyone involved is open and aware of what is going on. Obviously this is not the case with all of Whitney's flings. At least this week Sara (why the fuck do they say her name like SADA?) gave her a taste of her own well-deserved medicine. Oh poor Whitney's getting her heart broken...ABOUT TIME!!! Quit trying to figure out if Whitney will commit and be ok with her commitment-phobic attitude and allow her to be free as long as she is respectful of the women she is free with.And for all the women in love with her...Get a freakin' clue. She's just not that into you!

Mikey
A total mysoginist, Mikey at least had a couple moments of shining. First when yelling at that modeling agent she really almost started crying, although I don't think she would ever honestly admit that. Second, offering her aunt that make-over, performed by one of Whitney's flings, Romi. This was a touching moment of the series where one of the bos actually appeared to have a soul. A rarity. Her mood shifts are pretty intense, from loving Raquel and wanting to marry her to hating her for playing a pretty harmless joke and pretending to not be at Mikey's beck and call.

Rose
Supposedly Papi is based on Rose's life of partying and womanizing. It's cool, I liked Papi, although short-lived and a highly stereotypical portrayal of the Latin lover. I hate Rose. Papi was likeable, she didn't treat the women she was with like little children but managed to at least appear on some level to love all of them. Afterellen.com sums up Rose best in their minicap Rose cares about Rose and treats her girlfriend Natalie like poo. Condescension and paternalism are just two of Rose's faults, amongst her lying (I'm just hanging out with my friends actually a "bromance" night with strippers rubbing boobies in her face), and all over rude demeanor. I am sick of Natalie being treated like a five-year-old little girl, with mama Rose protecting her. Please Nat, DO NOT work for Rose, you will regret it. Or maybe do it so the break-up will come faster.

Jik/Nill
It is annoying that in this couple the two individuals seem to have collapsed self-identities. They are no longer two seperate people but are defined by their primary pairing. Self-defined as the straightest gay people they or at least Nik knows, they are in the midst of planning some hideous glamarati wedding. Oh it is Betina all over again, one person has more money and power then the other and we all saw how well that worked out! I'm not saying don't celebrate your love but why does it need to be so extravagant? At least they vetoed the custom dresses-those were ridiculously expensive. There are few words to explain the ick-factor that these two embody. How is being straight-gay something to celebrate and exclaim from the television rooftops?


Tracy
Finally, the ONE character that does not constantly annoy me! In fact most of the time I feel bad for her, she's too young to be a mother of three. And I don't think she really wants that sort of responsibility yet. I am kind of waiting for her to realize this and for the other shoe to drop. On the other side, Stamie is funny, charming, and interested in helping Tracy with a modeling career. Well-worth it in my opinion. So I continue to root for them. Is there any way to kick the kids out of the picture? Just kidding. It's way gayer this way. Dogs and kids and keys oh my!

The one thing I liked about the "fake" L Word was that all the women were at least at various times all friends with one another. When are the Real L Word characters going to all meet up and become friends. I think Iw as hoping for something of a Real World (Watch what happens when six lesbians live in a house in Los Angeles stop being polite and start getting real!!) Like lets round up six lesbians, put them in a cage, and voyeuristically observe them in their unnatural habitat. Ok, so that isn't a good idea either, but I was hoping for some camaraderie amongst the cast, some relationships being formed, hot tub scenes being filmed, cat fights breaking out! You know the things that make for good reality television. Alas I will have to settle for the soft-core porn of Whitney effing SADA in the shower. I am not a big fan of this hypersexualized performance of lesbianism and I don't need to see the line-crossing sex scenes. I don't find them hot, but weird, and again ick factor. And I'm a lesbo. Not good when Real lesbians feel intrusive into these personal moments in a non-sexy way.

all in all middle to down thumb with hope for the future.

Being and Vibration

So I recently finished reading Being and Vibration by Joseph Rael for my week-long workshop at Naropa with Julie Patton.

It was an amazing week and I should have written about it more at the time. Julie asked us to try and not write with our computers at all during the week and I have to say it was very liberating to not be tied to a machine. Of course here I am back to it. But at the time of the workshop the way I took my notes was through writing letters to two friends, sharing parts of my experience. I am tying to carry over this practice as much as possible by not tying myself down to computers, my cell phone, etc. It is summer time, not time to be in connection with everyone, because, it is the only time I get to connect with myself. THE WHOLE PURPOSE OF THIS BOOK READING, REVIEWING PROCESS.

Back to the book. I cannot say I understand. The combination of metaphysics, sound, tone, vibration, energy is not something I usually jive with on such an explicit level. For instance, Rael, a man of Ute (as combined with other American Indian) heritage, offers a variety of ways to chant various words both in solo and group meditation settings. He describes ways of focusing on vowel sounds, i.e. "PEACE" becomes "peeeez" stretching the "ee" sound for purposes of sound meditation. This is not necessarily a new idea for those people who practice various forms of sound meditation, including the "Om" at the end of yoga practice. Rael relates much of sound vibration to a sort of transcendent form of being, the medicine wheel, and directionaiy (NSEW) and identifications with directions.

I thought this was crazy and didn't get it. Just kind of blasted through reading it. Until I met Julie, who is a poet. Some might call her a sound poet, meaning she makes poetry through sounds, not always human language, but language none-the-less. But she calls herself a poet, and I respect her process of self-identification. She is this amazingly beautiful black woman, with huge greying dreds, and a penchant for being with nature, observing, and knowing how to survive without monetary gain. Pretty impressive. We spent one workshop observing a blue heron, and then blindfolded, translating the sounds we heard in the natural setting of the Boulder Creek into sounds humans can make. One person took dictation while the other person made noises (not words necessarily) creating a soundscape. The next day we read these "sound poems" out loud to dogs. Seems strange right? But dogs respond to sounds. Not words. Even those dogs that are very well trained are responding to various forms of vibrational patterns that words make coming out of a human's mouth. Often to train a dog it requires more then simply saying a word. It requires saying it in a certain way, raising or lowering pitch, tone, speed. That is what dogs respond to.

So why are humans so out of touch with these vibrations? Because we have been socialized that talking with animals (as many of us do as children) is something only crazy people do. As both Rael and Julie say we have lost our ability to listen often relying on sight as a primary sensing skill. If you think about it humans can see many things at once and even notice the amount of things they are seeing, while only able to focus on one sound at a time. This is of course not true for all humans, there are always cultural factors playing a role into one's ability to do anything as well as ability. Those who are blind often have very keen other senses out of necessity.

The point however, is that if we think of communication as vibration, we hear a lot more, and open ourselves up to the possibilities of communication in a new form of language, one not limited to words. And I LOVE words. But I am open to experiencing beyond the word too. And I am also a person who usually says we cannot exist outside of language and I believe that, but maybe we need to be more open to what language is and work on erasing the hierarchy of human language, not only the language of dominance (white, masculinist, heterosexist, upper class) languaging over those of "others," but also the hierarchy of human language over language of animals, nature, etc. Not unproblematic, or uncomplicated, but I am open to being in conversation with this idea. I may not get Rael on his own, but I get Julie's translation of him and the practical use of his book for performers who work with vibration and silence to create meaningful performances.