why we do it

_{list from foundmagazine.com}

In trying to understand a thing or to about my own proclivities, I have stumbled upon this insightful article. You see, I am a list maniac. I carry around a small spiral-bound notebook full of things to do, things that need to be restocked, words that I hear and like, snippets of conversations, and books, movies, music that others may mention in passing. Sometimes I consult the book multiple times a day adding to it, crossing things off, or rewriting the list on the very next page. It is tiring, I'll tell ya. And it has become my addiction. If I don't have the book, I write things down on whatever I can find in my purse and hope that I'll remember to enter it into the book and make it official.

I once found a list in the parking lot of my local supermarket. It was a curious list, ranging from shopping list items, metaphysical to-do's like treat Mary with compassion and then the practical: financial snapshot of assets. How crazy would my lists of balafone, 1 lb halibut, and ask people sleep appear to someone else's eyes?

Should I be writing on post-its and just throwing them away? Should I try not to rely on the book so much? Should I do away with the act of listing altogether? The therapist in me thinks perhaps some things should change. And am I really getting that much more accomplished when I have to write down on my list relax?

Here is an excerpt from the article. Or just read it in its entirety. Caveat emptor: this is from the Canadian Journal, The Walrus.

So here is a list of thirteen possible reasons why, for better or worse, human beings love to list:

1. A list turns information into technology. We're all too busy to contemplate, for god's sake. We need to prioritize. A list is about the bottom line: Tell me what I need to know, fast.

2. A list conveys authority, hierarchy, and a sense of order. This is comforting in a world of falling towers and bad TV. A list implies that someone is in charge. A list is also post-post-modern. Everything is not relative! But we're busy, so we need an intellectual valet--a list.

3. A numbered list seems scientific, and therefore more credible than the stuttering human voice of prose. A list radiates the calm algebra of objective truth--even though most lists (and especially the short lists for book prizes) are wanton acts of subjectivity.

4. Lists prosper in times when open political debate is considered mildly treasonous. A list has the look of a corporate decision, or a memo. A list has no sense of humour. (Harper's Index is an exception: a list of neutral statistics reorganized in the service of irony and political satire.)

5. TV shows such as American Idol, Canadian Idol, or The Greatest Canadian allow us to weed out the weaklings, an unpleasant human pre-disposition we never seem to outgrow. From the pecking order of the schoolyard to the high-school prom queen competition to rating women in a bar, we love to rank, and be ranked. Maybe it's biological; we have to know where we stand with others, who the alpha males and queen bees are. Or maybe the wound of not being chosen for the dodgeball team is partly healed whenever we vote someone else off the list. When we dump the talented, unslick, slightly plump girl off Canadian Idol.

6. Lists run deep, they are primal. This is the only explanation for the success of the Bo Derek movie 10.

7. In music, the individual iPod playlist has become a form of musical expression in itself. The new version is iPod shuffle, which takes your playlist and randomizes the sequence. This has a modern, biodynamic flair, like the endless possible recombinations of the genetic code. What is the slogan for the iPod shuffle? "Life is random." This pretends to subvert the traditional, hierarchical list--but a list it remains!

8. Numbers look more modern than words. Text messaging uses "2" and "4" because they are shorter than the words. Numbers are tidy, minimal, and lower-case: the equivalent of the neutral, non-narrative geometry of modern interior design. Words are fat. Numbers are thin. Numbers are cool.

9. Lists represent the triumph of personal opinion over evidence or informed debate. Bush didn't need hard evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; it was his opinion that they existed, and that was enough. Invading Iraq was simply on his list of imperial to-do chores as president.

10. Lists are the spawn of journalism and the media, used to eliminate fine shadings and contradictions. The belief that truth might reside in small, incidental details belongs to the world of fiction. Journalism works on the principle of prioritizing--what belongs on the front page, what news story should lead. This requires a number of subjective decisions that create that simulacrum of objectivity--The News.

11. The indented paragraph begins to have a dated look. Magazine editors now "package" stories, breaking up scary blocks of text with sidebars, boxes, and snappy design elements intended to make print look more like TV. I can always tell the ages of my email correspondents by whether or not they use paragraphs. Punctuation, upper case, salutations--that's for people who don't have a life. Imagine Virginia Woolf ending a letter to Vanessa Bell with an emoticon...Dear Vanessa, I fear one of my headaches is coming on, so I must be brief. Do tell me what you think of my recent scribblings. ;) Virginia.

12. Here is a list of the narrative elements of the novel Mrs. Dalloway: i) Mrs. Dalloway buys flowers for her party; ii) a former boyfriend shows up unexpectedly; iii) a variety of emotions are experienced by the hostess and her guests as the party unfolds.

13. What is the opposite of a list? A personal letter, a poem, a page of a diary, a piece of music, possibly the last bastions of uncommodified, unranked, un-numbered self-expression.

Rize

There are some things at my age you learn to concede. I will never write the Great American Novel, chances are I will never win the Nobel Peace Prize, and I will probably never learn the stripper dance. What's this stripper dance, you ask? Go see David LaChapelle's Rize and get krumped.

I get equal parts excited and agitated when I see documentaries that really wow me. It's a love/hate relationship because I understand what goes into them and how damn hard they are to make. At the same time, I am that much more critical...Especially when someone who's obviously well-connected and well-endowed like celebrity fashion photographer David LaChapelle is at the helm. Add to it that I am trying to finish one myself and any movie-going experience can potentially become a recipe for disaster. But Rize, you just gotta see it to believe it. I'm not saying there aren't problems with it. When a white guy comes in and falls in love with the beauty and power of black bodies, much like Mapplethorpe, it makes sense to be wary.

So clowning, krumping, and stripper dancing are all things that go on in South Central. Kid get together--kids with incredibly cut bodies, I might add--and they paint their faces--some even dress up in clown costumes and rent themselves out to parties--and then they dance. Fiercely. Think break-dancing, vogueing and capoeira only on serious amphetamines. Think like nothing you've ever seen before. Think young people with not a lot of options, but a helluva a lot of rage, venting, representin', coming together and swinging back.

Rize proudly states at the beginning of the film that no part of the film was sped up. And so LaChapelle sets us up; we anticipate something truly out there and LaChapelle delightedly keeps on serving us up. With an obvious nod to Paris Is Burning, we see, over and over, the dancers carefully applying their make-up while reflecting on how hard their lives have been, what few choices there are, and how necessary these surrogate families have become for each of them. Clearly, LaChapelle wants us to see these men and women as urban warriors. In fact, LaChapelle keeps knocking us over the head with that same metaphor.

It's not a very complicated documentary. But beauty, like a Bruce Weber photograph, he does capture. And he does a pretty decent job of letting the dancers just speak, or rather krump, for themselves.

Can you spare a smile?

Guess what? I am feeling all optimistic and cheery today for no apparent reason. Hey, it happens sometimes, even to me. Chaulk it up to Mercury being in retrograde, the charming prosethetic device on my foot, the beans-n-rice-I-took-too-much-vacation-time diet I am on, or perhaps the awkward run-in with the single dad this morning who reintroduced me to his two kids as if I had never met them! Really there is no good reason. But so the gods have deigned it to be. Casey is happy.

(\/)
(O.o)
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where in honey lies the sweetness?

The good news is I survived another wedding. That, despite the fact that the wedding was for someone I once dated and the fact that I attended sans date. At least I allowed myself the delicious pleasure of removing das boot for the evening. Actually, the ceremony--and more importantly the officiator--convinced me that marriage can be a positive experience. Perhaps the fact that it was a Hindi wedding attributed to the overall pleasantness I had as an attendee. I'm not saying I am totally convinced, but philosophically he had some meritable and poetic points. And the theatre was damn good.

There was lots of rice, flowers, fire, jewelry and well, a whole lot of words. The standouts for me were when the bride and groom's garments were tied together and they were told that they would be connected for one-hundred years. Such an exact number! It wasn't until fifteen minutes later that he explained he was speaking figuratively. When the priest announced that they were, from that point forward, one and hence inseparable, for who can say where in honey lies the sweetness? where in night exists the darkness? I was sold. Finally, he offered that marriage like all relationships is an adjustment not unsimilar to a visit to the chiropractor: adjusting to the other person's quirks, kinks and, particular to this wedding, culture and enormous foreign-born extended family.

While I did not meet my soulmate, I did have a nice conversation with a landscaper who was admirably well-versed in 70's American cinema, which happens to be my favorite epoch of the artform. There was a young boy of about 6 who regaled us with magic tricks throughout the evening such as turning a brown leaf into a green leaf by magically walking around the corner and returning with the exchanged leaf in hand. I even chatted with the groom's mother who vaguely remembered me and admitted that she too was single and didn't those laid back Californian waiters look pretty hunky?

My heart sank as I realized, no, I was not sitting at the same table with the well-versed-in-70's-American-cinema landscaper and yes, I was seated at the table with the exes. Don't get me wrong they were all nice, many of them artists to boot, and at least we knew enough not to ask each other now how do you know the groom? But it did make me wonder why was I invited? The excellent channa masala, biriyani and the cute papadam inscribed with the bride and groom's names on it, made me forget that question at least while I was eating.

I did make a vow, however, that this will be my last wedding attended without a date. Or how about this: my last wedding without a groom in tow.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears

_{"Engagement" by Midori Harami}

I am not positive--for when my mother was recently queried neither could she seem to recall--but I am pretty sure I performed this time-honored speech from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar at the annual elementary school talent show. In any case, my mom says I memorized it--for reasons unbeknownst to us all now--in the second grade. Ostensibly, I must have done it for a reason or performed it for someone--although that someone could just as easily have been her and her coterie. I also memorized a monologue from Alice In Wonderland in the fourth grade (Alice falling down the well, of course!) in lieu of doing a book report. I remember my mom coaching me, Drama and AP English teacher that she was, so that I really looked like I was falling.

Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him;

But back to the talent show. I remember standing on the stage.

The evil that men do lives after them,
The good is oft interr'd with their bones,

I remember wearing something akin to a toga. And I remember looking out at my audience, the ubiquitous multi-purpose hall in which we all played Bingo Thursday nights and had Spaghetti Fridays during the day.

So let it be with Caesar...The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:

I remember Armand Zaharian who preceded me. I remember his trick: stacking quarters on his bent elbow and then catching them in his fist.

If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answered it...

Armand started with two quarters. With grace he caught two quarters in his fist. Then he simply said "three" and stacked one more quarter.

Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest,
(For Brutus is an honourable man;

Armand caught three quarters in his fist and then stacked four. "Four."

He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;

I stood in the wings and rehearsed my lines. "Six."

I speak not to disprove what Brutus spoke,
But here I am to speak what I do know.

When Armand reached eight, the sound of quarters rolling on the floor stunned a normally rowdy hall into silence. But Armand simply picked them up and continued. "Eight," he repeated.

O judgment! thou art fled to brutish beasts,
And men have lost their reason...Bear with me;

At twelve Armand finished and quietly left the stage. It was a hard act to follow.

My heart is in the coffin there with Caesar,
And I must pause till it come back to me.

The hall was filled with light. I could see my audience. I took the stage and lifted my arms out to them: Friends, Romans, countrymen.

Peg-leg Casey

_{not the author's actual legs}

Today's post will detail all the positive attention I have been getting for the most recent addition to my life: the walking cast or as we in the non-medical field like to call it the boot. I feel much like how a bride must feel on her wedding day, or how a very pregnant woman must feel going for a stroll in the park, or, at the very least, that is how I am choosing to see it. Everyone has a perky comment (although many of these are of the obvious kind), everyone seems overly concerned (who doesn't like to be fussed over?) and I, in turn, get to make up a dramatic lie for each of them. The boot is not a remark on my general lack of grace or failure to control my own balance, but rather an invitation to a dialogue. And I get to wear it for 4-6 weeks!


Last night, on the way to my local public house, a man commiserated with me as he had just got his boot taken off and offered much sagely advice like You know you can get temporary Handicap plates for that? Today as I was walking towards the post office, another man ran ahead of me and pushed the wall switch enabling the automatic door opener. And from the look on his face, I think he must have expected a genuine Thanks. I am looking forward to the two weddings to which I have had the good fortune of being invited and having the most brilliant excuse imaginable of why I cannot dance. All because of a minor hopscotching accident, oh wait, I mean, bareback llama-riding whilst doing Machu Picchu, or was it that overly ambitious Macarena at my third cousin's Bat Mitzvah last weekend?

Sigh. So much for my learning to drive stick shift this July. Or helping my friend move out of her house this weekend. I'm just not going to be much of a help there. And as for picking my parents up at the airport with all the luggage they insist on traveling with, I'd really like to help, but me and my peg-leg would probably be one more security risk not worth taking.