Here's a little gem I found in a comment thread to an article on Yahoo about reducing the national deficit:
Raise taxes to pre-Reagan era rates. Billionaires like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet giving away big chunks of their fortunes to charity (even if it's your own charity) is certainly laudable. However, why was the tax system so lax that people got *this* rich? Even after giving a ridiculous amount of money to charity, Bill Gates still has as much money as the GDP of Equador. Does he work as hard as the entire country of Equador?
I know I probably shouldn't be wasting time arguing in the direction of somebody who can't even spell 'Ecuador' correctly, but the semester's over and I don't have to go to work for another three hours, so here goes.
First off, yes, Bill Gates works just as hard as the country of Ecuador, if not harder. I know it's difficult for you redistributionist, friend-of-the-working-man hags to believe, but being the CEO of a huge corporation is not all kicking back on the beach with a pina colada and letting your underlings handle everything. Yes, some CEOs of huge corporations think it is, but in the business, that sort of thing is widely referred to as "doing it wrong", and their companies ultimately do poorly because of bad leadership. Managing an organization is still work, and it's the kind of work that doesn't leave you alone, that has you keeping your Blackberry (or prototype Windows Phone in this case, I guess; hell, Bill Gates might actually have a cyberbrain already.) glued to your ear or spending holidays working out some upper-management kinks that most people wouldn't even understand the significance of. Just because he's not out there with a hammer and a sweaty brow doesn't mean it's not work.
Second, when did the country of Ecuador ever produce a software system that billions of people around the world use and buy products for? Bill Gates' obscene amounts of money didn't just fall from the sky; he took a risk, spearheaded a company to make things people wanted, and it paid off. He continues to profit from that initial risk. Even if the profit amounts to more than the GDP of a South American country, so what? Whose place is it to say that anyone has too much money, and that some of it needs to be taken away?
Lemme clue you in on a little secret, commenter; the world is not fair. Some people have more money than others. And you know how this usually happens? They provide things that other people need and are willing to pay for. Becoming that rich is not easy, by any means. For every Bill Gates, there are a dozen people who thought they were going to develop the next big operating system but never got it off the ground. And yet, why do you think people take risks in creating products? Because they want to be as rich as people like Bill Gates. Without possible wealth as a motivator, how many ground-breaking technologies do you think would have gotten off the ground? If companies didn't want to sell their products and make money, do you think they'd put as much effort as they do into making them useful and user-friendly? If we start penalizing the rich simply for being rich, who's going to want to take that kind of risk anymore?
It's easy to look at rich people and say they have too much money. And you know why it's easy? Because it doesn't require the least modicum of rational thought. People like you are the reason we have Commander-in-Chief Penismouth on watch. It all sounds pretty and harmonious until our society starts stagnating because nobody ever has to work for a goddamn thing.
12/21/10
12/17/10
The Curse of St. Christopher
When I acquired my first car, the lady from whom my parents purchased it on my behalf gifted me with a pendant bearing the image of St. Christopher. She told me that, although she herself was not Catholic, she had been given the pendant when she got her first car and had kept it hanging from the rear-view mirror of each car she had owned, and that it felt right to her to pass it on to me, with what would be my first car. While I thought that a more useful gift would have been to remove all traces of the horrid vanilla air freshener that had been clipped to the glove box, I appreciated the sentiment and thanked her warmly, and St. Christopher stayed in his place of honor, dangling just behind the windshield. I felt, as I rocketed through the Ohio countryside in this vehicle of which I was still getting the feel but with which I had already fallen in love, somehow safer, as if this pendant, given with such honest intentions, would actually protect me from harm.
The trouble started about a month later, after I'd settled into the car, which I'd christened Akio (after Akio Ohtsuka, the voice of Batou in the various animated incarnations of Ghost in the Shell.) It was a windy day, over which hung a mass of roiling gray thunderheads, coyly waiting for just the right moment to let loose and start raining in earnest. I was on my way home after a trip to the nearest Pat Catan's for art supplies, and as I was nervous about taking the highway with the threat of heavy rain looming, I had decided to take the long way back into town. Unfortunately I'd forgotten what those heathens in Indian-name-nobody-can-spell-unless-they-live-here Falls called the state route I needed to get onto, and as the intersection was not marked with any sort of number-bearing sign, I'd ended up driving quite a ways out of the way looking for it. I was at an intersection, preparing to turn right into a parking lot where I could check my map, or at least turn around and find an alternate route through the streets I recognized from my commute to work, when it happened.
WHAM.
The first thing I registered was that the open bottle of Coke in my cupholder had exploded onto my seat, the shifter, and my pants; the realization that someone had just rear-ended me came a few seconds later. The car seemed okay - it was rumbling away as usual, and Megumi Hayashibara was still belting out Omokage through the stereo. I checked my mirror; the driver of the car behind me was signaling that he'd turn into the nearby parking lot as well, and as soon as the light changed, I, still shaking madly, trundled cautiously around the corner and pulled into the nearest empty space I could find, terrified that the back end of the car was going to fall off.
As it turned out, Akio was fine. There was barely even a scratch, and my novelty bumper stickers survived unscathed. The man who ran into me was very nice about the whole thing, and he seemed relieved that I wasn't going to call the police or anything (I didn't see the use, as there was no damage to either myself or the vehicle, and I was positive they had better things to do than come look at a little nick in my car. After he'd make sure I was all right, he left, and I turned around and went home by the first street I recognized. By the time I got home, the incident had changed from terrifying to interestingly funny in my mind, and when I told my parents the story, I think I even joked about how St. Christopher should have been protecting me from something like that. He can't be everywhere at once, said my mom, and we went on with our lives.
A few weeks later, I was stopped at a red light on my way to school when the motorist behind me tapped on my window and informed me that I had a flat tire. I hadn't noticed any of the tires being low when I'd gotten into the car, so I assumed it had been punctured by something and pulled into the parking lot of a nearby community center. I called my parents to let them know what had happened, and my dad came out to help me change the tire. Neither of us could see any sign of puncture in the flat tire, and he suggested that I try just filling it up with air, putting it back on the car, and then keeping an eye on it. The next morning, I braved a chilly rain to do just that, and the tire behaved perfectly from that point on. How odd.
Finally, things got serious. It was November 2nd, and I was having a wonderful day. I'd gotten up early to go help vote in a more conservative congress, had just participated in an extremely enjoyable art class, and was on my way home to change clothes before heading out to the job that I didn't exactly enjoy, but which I liked well enough for the awesome people I did it with. I was about a block away from my house, crawling through the midafternoon traffic jam, one hand tapping the steering wheel in time to Bad Apple!!, wondering if I could make it to work on the same playlist I'd been going through since I'd left the house that morning.
WHAM.
It was a more intense WHAM than the first time, and shortly after it came a second WHAM. Envisioning a pileup, I decided to curl up in a ball and wait for everything to stop, wishing that someone would turn that bloody music down (in my panic I'd forgotten how to work the stereo.) I raised my head from the fetal position when I heard the driver of the car behind me tapping on my window to see if I was all right. I nodded, and shakily piloted my car around a corner onto a nearby side street. I remembered that, although my first collision had felt terrifying as well, there hadn't been any damage to the car whatsoever, and I expected to see maybe a scratch or a dent, something more along the lines of a battle scar that could become an interesting story once everything stopped being so scary. However, as I got out of the car and looked toward the rear end, a sick feeling began churning deep down inside my stomach as I noticed the driver's side taillight hanging very visibly out of its socket.
Basically, Akio's back end was a complete mess. Half of the bumper was in shards, and a large chunk of it had actually fallen off. The lid of the trunk was crumpled upward, to the point that I had to force it open and was unable to get it to close again. My stickers were ruined: "What Would Gordon Freeman Do?" was in admittedly still readable ribbons; "Kayabuki - Aramaki 2012" was fragmented beyond legibility, and all that remained of "D0G is my copilot" was a tiny shred of a corner. Wanting very much for someone to hug me, I called my mom, and she walked over almost at once. After taking some pictures of the damage, collecting the necessary insurance information, and filling out the police paperwork, Akio and I limped sadly home. I wondered aloud why St. Christopher had allowed this to happen, and my mom reminded me that his area of expertise was travelers, not vehicles.
Incidentally, I had to call off of work for an entire week due to an injury I sustained to my shoulder during the crash.
To make matters worse, the repair estimate for the car --my first car, my Akio-kun, the one I was supposed to drive into the ground and have all sorts of awesome stories about-- came back as 'chuck it and get a new one'. I was understandably heartbroken; I'd had the thing for all of three months, and everything about it, from the look to the space to the way it handled, fit me like a well-sized glove. However, insurance companies don't factor sentimental value into settlements, although ironically I ended up receiving an amount very near what it would have cost to fix the old car with which to pay for a new one. The last time I saw Akio was when I went to pick up the plates and leave my keys with the shop that would be handling the salvage. I took a piece of the bumper to remember him by, and I still have the personalized charm I made for him hanging in front of one of the windows in my room.
The proceeds from the settlement went entirely toward my new car, another 2002 ZX2, which I named Atsuko, after Atsuko Tanaka, the Japanese voice of Major Motoko Kusanagi. My reasons for doing this were many; first of all, I name all of my name-worthy possessions after voice actresses or singers; second, we have something of a Ghost in the Shell theme going with car names in my family (my mother's Prius is actually named Motoko because it's more computer than car, and I jokingly refer to my dad's Subaru Forester as Ishikawa because it's old and ugly and smells like cigarettes); third, it sounded reasonably similar to 'Akio', which seemed appropriate as it was the same car only in a different color (dark blue as opposed to red); and fourth, because I am not at all a fan of Ms. Tanaka's portrayal of the aforementioned Major Kusanagi, and I was determined not to love this car in the same way I'd loved the other. Also, one of my computers was already named 'Mary Elizabeth', and this car was undeniably female and didn't feel much like a Barbara or Yoshiko, so my options were limited. Still, in an attempt to make the best of things, I made a new charm for Atsuko, fitted her out with the rest of my car bling, including St. Christopher, and tried to move on. I still hadn't made the connection.
Atsuko had brake problems starting about half an hour off the lot, but about $600 at the repair shop cleared that up, and we settled into a grudging respect for each other. Then winter came, and with it, my first experience driving in snow. Not just any snow, mind you, but the snow that's been barreling across the Midwest, that caved in that one footballing arena, and that's left streets everywhere barren, inhospitable icy messes. I did all right on the drive down to school; I got into the flow of steering into the skids, and I was practically crawling anyway. On the way home, however, the roads were much clearer, and as I felt that the car was gripping better than it had on the trip there, I decided to speed up a little (though still not to the extent I would have had there been no snow at all.) Everything felt fine. The car started to skid slightly to the left, and I corrected it. Then, suddenly, the car spun in the opposite direction, and the next thing I remember is finding myself stuck in a snowbank. I'd also destroyed someone's mailbox. Oops.
After returning home, deeply ashamed of my mishap, I marched straight out to the car and removed the St. Christopher pendant from the rear-view mirror. Enough was enough - he was obviously happy where he was and hadn't taken to me at all. Although I hadn't come to any serious, lasting harm through my various vehicular misadventures, my cars, through what I can only assume is some sort of loophole in the Saint Code, hadn't been so lucky. Akio was sitting in a scrapyard being slowly picked apart, and now here was Atsuko with an enormous dent in her driver's side rear quarter panel, a dent that I interpreted as a warning shot. I'd have to be an idiot not to get the message at this point; I've been a licensed driver for all of five months, and I have owned multiple vehicles. That isn't right.
So we'll see how things go from here. Either it was the curse of St. Christopher all along, or I just have really bad luck when it comes to cars; if I get in another accident, I'll know. I'm happy to report, though, that on Monday I drove in weather just as bad, if not worse, than that of the previous Monday, when the mailbox incident occurred, and although at one point my car skidded so badly that I was perpendicular to the road, with oncoming traffic in both directions, Atsuko and I both made it home safe and sound.
The trouble started about a month later, after I'd settled into the car, which I'd christened Akio (after Akio Ohtsuka, the voice of Batou in the various animated incarnations of Ghost in the Shell.) It was a windy day, over which hung a mass of roiling gray thunderheads, coyly waiting for just the right moment to let loose and start raining in earnest. I was on my way home after a trip to the nearest Pat Catan's for art supplies, and as I was nervous about taking the highway with the threat of heavy rain looming, I had decided to take the long way back into town. Unfortunately I'd forgotten what those heathens in Indian-name-nobody-can-spell-unless-they-live-here Falls called the state route I needed to get onto, and as the intersection was not marked with any sort of number-bearing sign, I'd ended up driving quite a ways out of the way looking for it. I was at an intersection, preparing to turn right into a parking lot where I could check my map, or at least turn around and find an alternate route through the streets I recognized from my commute to work, when it happened.
WHAM.
The first thing I registered was that the open bottle of Coke in my cupholder had exploded onto my seat, the shifter, and my pants; the realization that someone had just rear-ended me came a few seconds later. The car seemed okay - it was rumbling away as usual, and Megumi Hayashibara was still belting out Omokage through the stereo. I checked my mirror; the driver of the car behind me was signaling that he'd turn into the nearby parking lot as well, and as soon as the light changed, I, still shaking madly, trundled cautiously around the corner and pulled into the nearest empty space I could find, terrified that the back end of the car was going to fall off.
As it turned out, Akio was fine. There was barely even a scratch, and my novelty bumper stickers survived unscathed. The man who ran into me was very nice about the whole thing, and he seemed relieved that I wasn't going to call the police or anything (I didn't see the use, as there was no damage to either myself or the vehicle, and I was positive they had better things to do than come look at a little nick in my car. After he'd make sure I was all right, he left, and I turned around and went home by the first street I recognized. By the time I got home, the incident had changed from terrifying to interestingly funny in my mind, and when I told my parents the story, I think I even joked about how St. Christopher should have been protecting me from something like that. He can't be everywhere at once, said my mom, and we went on with our lives.
A few weeks later, I was stopped at a red light on my way to school when the motorist behind me tapped on my window and informed me that I had a flat tire. I hadn't noticed any of the tires being low when I'd gotten into the car, so I assumed it had been punctured by something and pulled into the parking lot of a nearby community center. I called my parents to let them know what had happened, and my dad came out to help me change the tire. Neither of us could see any sign of puncture in the flat tire, and he suggested that I try just filling it up with air, putting it back on the car, and then keeping an eye on it. The next morning, I braved a chilly rain to do just that, and the tire behaved perfectly from that point on. How odd.
Finally, things got serious. It was November 2nd, and I was having a wonderful day. I'd gotten up early to go help vote in a more conservative congress, had just participated in an extremely enjoyable art class, and was on my way home to change clothes before heading out to the job that I didn't exactly enjoy, but which I liked well enough for the awesome people I did it with. I was about a block away from my house, crawling through the midafternoon traffic jam, one hand tapping the steering wheel in time to Bad Apple!!, wondering if I could make it to work on the same playlist I'd been going through since I'd left the house that morning.
WHAM.
It was a more intense WHAM than the first time, and shortly after it came a second WHAM. Envisioning a pileup, I decided to curl up in a ball and wait for everything to stop, wishing that someone would turn that bloody music down (in my panic I'd forgotten how to work the stereo.) I raised my head from the fetal position when I heard the driver of the car behind me tapping on my window to see if I was all right. I nodded, and shakily piloted my car around a corner onto a nearby side street. I remembered that, although my first collision had felt terrifying as well, there hadn't been any damage to the car whatsoever, and I expected to see maybe a scratch or a dent, something more along the lines of a battle scar that could become an interesting story once everything stopped being so scary. However, as I got out of the car and looked toward the rear end, a sick feeling began churning deep down inside my stomach as I noticed the driver's side taillight hanging very visibly out of its socket.
Basically, Akio's back end was a complete mess. Half of the bumper was in shards, and a large chunk of it had actually fallen off. The lid of the trunk was crumpled upward, to the point that I had to force it open and was unable to get it to close again. My stickers were ruined: "What Would Gordon Freeman Do?" was in admittedly still readable ribbons; "Kayabuki - Aramaki 2012" was fragmented beyond legibility, and all that remained of "D0G is my copilot" was a tiny shred of a corner. Wanting very much for someone to hug me, I called my mom, and she walked over almost at once. After taking some pictures of the damage, collecting the necessary insurance information, and filling out the police paperwork, Akio and I limped sadly home. I wondered aloud why St. Christopher had allowed this to happen, and my mom reminded me that his area of expertise was travelers, not vehicles.
Incidentally, I had to call off of work for an entire week due to an injury I sustained to my shoulder during the crash.
To make matters worse, the repair estimate for the car --my first car, my Akio-kun, the one I was supposed to drive into the ground and have all sorts of awesome stories about-- came back as 'chuck it and get a new one'. I was understandably heartbroken; I'd had the thing for all of three months, and everything about it, from the look to the space to the way it handled, fit me like a well-sized glove. However, insurance companies don't factor sentimental value into settlements, although ironically I ended up receiving an amount very near what it would have cost to fix the old car with which to pay for a new one. The last time I saw Akio was when I went to pick up the plates and leave my keys with the shop that would be handling the salvage. I took a piece of the bumper to remember him by, and I still have the personalized charm I made for him hanging in front of one of the windows in my room.
The proceeds from the settlement went entirely toward my new car, another 2002 ZX2, which I named Atsuko, after Atsuko Tanaka, the Japanese voice of Major Motoko Kusanagi. My reasons for doing this were many; first of all, I name all of my name-worthy possessions after voice actresses or singers; second, we have something of a Ghost in the Shell theme going with car names in my family (my mother's Prius is actually named Motoko because it's more computer than car, and I jokingly refer to my dad's Subaru Forester as Ishikawa because it's old and ugly and smells like cigarettes); third, it sounded reasonably similar to 'Akio', which seemed appropriate as it was the same car only in a different color (dark blue as opposed to red); and fourth, because I am not at all a fan of Ms. Tanaka's portrayal of the aforementioned Major Kusanagi, and I was determined not to love this car in the same way I'd loved the other. Also, one of my computers was already named 'Mary Elizabeth', and this car was undeniably female and didn't feel much like a Barbara or Yoshiko, so my options were limited. Still, in an attempt to make the best of things, I made a new charm for Atsuko, fitted her out with the rest of my car bling, including St. Christopher, and tried to move on. I still hadn't made the connection.
Atsuko had brake problems starting about half an hour off the lot, but about $600 at the repair shop cleared that up, and we settled into a grudging respect for each other. Then winter came, and with it, my first experience driving in snow. Not just any snow, mind you, but the snow that's been barreling across the Midwest, that caved in that one footballing arena, and that's left streets everywhere barren, inhospitable icy messes. I did all right on the drive down to school; I got into the flow of steering into the skids, and I was practically crawling anyway. On the way home, however, the roads were much clearer, and as I felt that the car was gripping better than it had on the trip there, I decided to speed up a little (though still not to the extent I would have had there been no snow at all.) Everything felt fine. The car started to skid slightly to the left, and I corrected it. Then, suddenly, the car spun in the opposite direction, and the next thing I remember is finding myself stuck in a snowbank. I'd also destroyed someone's mailbox. Oops.
After returning home, deeply ashamed of my mishap, I marched straight out to the car and removed the St. Christopher pendant from the rear-view mirror. Enough was enough - he was obviously happy where he was and hadn't taken to me at all. Although I hadn't come to any serious, lasting harm through my various vehicular misadventures, my cars, through what I can only assume is some sort of loophole in the Saint Code, hadn't been so lucky. Akio was sitting in a scrapyard being slowly picked apart, and now here was Atsuko with an enormous dent in her driver's side rear quarter panel, a dent that I interpreted as a warning shot. I'd have to be an idiot not to get the message at this point; I've been a licensed driver for all of five months, and I have owned multiple vehicles. That isn't right.
So we'll see how things go from here. Either it was the curse of St. Christopher all along, or I just have really bad luck when it comes to cars; if I get in another accident, I'll know. I'm happy to report, though, that on Monday I drove in weather just as bad, if not worse, than that of the previous Monday, when the mailbox incident occurred, and although at one point my car skidded so badly that I was perpendicular to the road, with oncoming traffic in both directions, Atsuko and I both made it home safe and sound.
12/9/10
COMING SOON TO A THEATER NEAR YOU
[[NOTE: For this post to reach maximum effectiveness, imagine it as a chick flick trailer with the instrumental music for the establishing part and then the sappy ballad when the drama kicks in.]]
FADE IN:
INT: ART ROOM - MIDAFTERNOON - ESTABLISHING
Dusky gold sunlight filters in through the worn curtains, illuminating the motes of dust hovering in the air. A dozen students are working at easels scattered in a rough circle around the room, drawing a still life consisting of several glass bottles of varying sizes, lit by a standing lamp. THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST is sketching furiously on a pad of newsprint with a piece of vine charcoal. Her hands are ground in with black dust, which is also visible in smudges on her face. She is approached by THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY, who studies her drawing, looking between it and the still life.
The Snooty Art Teacher Lady gives her the sort of look where, had she been wearing a monacle, it would have fallen into her cup of tea. The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist smiles and returns to her drawing. A school bell rings, because in movies, institutions of higher learning still have "change class" bells for some reason, and they go off without warning.
CUT TO:
INT: UNIVERSITY HALLWAY - AFTERNOON
The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist is walking with HER GENERIC ETHNICALLY DIVERSE MALE FRIEND at her side, other students passing by them in both directions.
CUT TO:
A series of shots wherein The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist sits in front of her computer in her dark bedroom, enthusiastically working at her tablet, then shows a near-photorealistic piece to an instructor, who shakes her head disapprovingly.
CUT TO:
UNIVERSITY HALLWAY
CUT TO:
A montage of scenes, wherein The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist teaches The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate the ins and outs of painting in Photoshop. There are many shots of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist standing close behind her, looking over her shoulder, and a lingering shot of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist's hand closing around that of The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate as she holds the pen tablet.
ONSCREEN TEXT (WHITE VERDANA AGAINST A BLACK BACKGROUND): IN A WORLD WHERE THE LINE HAD ALWAYS BEEN CLEARLY DEFINED
The montage continues; The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist is shown sitting alone in her dark bedroom, the only light coming from her computer screen, with tears sliding down her cheeks. Her knees are pulled up in front of her, and her tablet rests on them; slowly, she rests her forehead against her knees and hugs the tablet against her chest.
ONSCREEN TEXT: SHE SELECTED THE BLUR TOOL
The montage continues further, with various tasteful shots of The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate posing nude as The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist sketches her with the tablet. There is an extended shot of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist making out with The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate in the rain, because these movies always seem to have a part where somebody enthusiastically kisses somebody else during a violent downpour.
The montage continues on with intermixed shots of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist working at her laptop, holding hands with The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate, and laughing about various things with The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate and Her Generic Ethnically Diverse Male Friend, finally ending with a shot of her putting up her three final project pieces for display. The screen fades to black before they can be seen clearly.
TITLE TEXT: FREE TRANSFORM
The title is shown skewed out of proportion in a bounding box, until a cursor comes onscreen and drags a corner of the bounding box down until it is legible. This fades after it has been onscreen long enough to be read.
TAGLINE TEXT: DEFINE YOUR OWN BRUSH. DISTORT YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
-------------
Well? I think I might actually have something here...
FREE TRANSFORM - TRAILER
by hako
INT: ART ROOM - MIDAFTERNOON - ESTABLISHING
Dusky gold sunlight filters in through the worn curtains, illuminating the motes of dust hovering in the air. A dozen students are working at easels scattered in a rough circle around the room, drawing a still life consisting of several glass bottles of varying sizes, lit by a standing lamp. THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST is sketching furiously on a pad of newsprint with a piece of vine charcoal. Her hands are ground in with black dust, which is also visible in smudges on her face. She is approached by THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY, who studies her drawing, looking between it and the still life.
THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY
(nodding slowly)
Very nice. What do you think?
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
(without looking up)
Well, honestly, I'm still getting used to the feeling of actually drawing on paper, not to mention the conspicuous lack of 'undo' command. If I was doing this on the computer, I'd probably be personally ashamed of it.
The Snooty Art Teacher Lady gives her the sort of look where, had she been wearing a monacle, it would have fallen into her cup of tea. The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist smiles and returns to her drawing. A school bell rings, because in movies, institutions of higher learning still have "change class" bells for some reason, and they go off without warning.
CUT TO:
INT: UNIVERSITY HALLWAY - AFTERNOON
The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist is walking with HER GENERIC ETHNICALLY DIVERSE MALE FRIEND at her side, other students passing by them in both directions.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
(gesturing animatedly)
I don't get it! Drawing with a tablet is just the same as drawing with a pencil and paper! It's not like you just press a button and pictures pop onto the screen!
CUT TO:
A series of shots wherein The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist sits in front of her computer in her dark bedroom, enthusiastically working at her tablet, then shows a near-photorealistic piece to an instructor, who shakes her head disapprovingly.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST (CON'T, V.O.)
They tell me to paint, I paint, and then they get all mad because it's not on a canvas that takes forever to dry and would have been a pain in the ass to lug back and forth from my car every day? I thought I was here to study art, not FACISM!
CUT TO:
UNIVERSITY HALLWAY
HER GENERIC ETHNICALLY DIVERSE MALE FRIEND
Hey, it's just the way things are. It's the way it's always been. Drawing and painting are for charcoal and oils, and Photoshop is for graphic design. Live with it.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
Yeah, well, maybe it wouldn't be that way if people stopped saying that!
CUT TO:
ART ROOM - MIDDAY
The Snooty Art Teacher Lady stands in the middle of the circle of easels, addressing the class.
THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY
Your final project will be a series of at least THREE drawings, sized 18 by 24 inches, illustrating, in some form, motion. I don't care about the subject matter - I want you to choose something that has some personal meaning to you.
The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist is shown in closeup.
THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY (V.O.)
Use whatever medium you'd like.
The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist's eyes widen.
FADE IN WITH WOOSH NOISE:
INT: CAFE - AFTERNOON
The room is small and crowded with other young adults. Dim light comes from mismatched lamps and sconces with frilled shades. The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist sits at a wooden table with Her Generic Ethnically Diverse Male Friend. Her laptop is in front of her, and the reflection of a Photoshop file in progress can be seen in the lenses of her nerdy-but-not-too-nerdy glasses.
HER GENERIC ETHNICALLY DIVERSE MALE FRIEND
I dunno if this is such a good idea, girl.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
She said to use whatever medium I'd like, and quite frankly, at this point in the semester, I am sick of charcoal, pastel, and conte crayon. The project is three drawings, 18 by 24, showing movement, and that's what I'm doing.
HER GENERIC ETHNICALLY DIVERSE MALE FRIEND
Okay, it's your funeral. And hey, I thought you liked pastel!
The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist glares at him, then leans in toward her laptop.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
(whispering)
All lies, sweetheart - you're my one and only, I promise.
Her Generic Ethnically Diverse Male Friend rolls his eyes.
CUT TO:
INT: ART ROOM
Everyone is working on their projects, with easels and bristol board in front of them, except for The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist, who has her laptop on a table in front of her and her tablet on a book in her lap. The Snooty Art Teacher Lady walks up behind her.
THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY
And just what, exactly, are you doing?
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
(smiling)
My final project.
The Snooty Art Teacher Lady narrows her eyes.
THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY
I'm sorry, but this is an art class, not a collage-wherein-the-president's-head-has-been-switched-with-that-of-a-dog class, and I expect you to take it seriously.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
(loudly)
I'm taking it just as seriously as anyone else!
THE SNOOTY ART TEACHER LADY
(more loudly)
Then put your toys away and get to work!
The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist gives The Snooty Art Teacher Lady a bitter look, then slams the lid of her laptop shut.
CUT TO:
INT: ART ROOM - EVENING
The room is empty except for The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist, who is seated at an easel, sketching forlornly on a sheet of bristol board, drawing and erasing repeatedly. She hears a soft creaking noise and turns around; THE OBLIGATORY ATTRACTIVE FEMALE CLASSMATE, who looks sort of like a cross between Juna Ariyoshi and Yoko Kayabuki and has the approximate voice of Merle Dandridge, has been watching her from the doorway.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
(sullenly)
Yeah?
THE OBLIGATORY ATTRACTIVE FEMALE CLASSMATE
I...heard what she said to you earlier.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST
You and everyone else in the room. What do you want?
THE OBLIGATORY ATTRACTIVE FEMALE CLASSMATE
(smiling)
I want to learn how to paint the way you do.
CUT TO:
A montage of scenes, wherein The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist teaches The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate the ins and outs of painting in Photoshop. There are many shots of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist standing close behind her, looking over her shoulder, and a lingering shot of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist's hand closing around that of The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate as she holds the pen tablet.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST (V.O.)
Most people think it's just tracing whatever you can find, recoloring it, and calling it your own, but it's not. It's just as much self expression as painting with a brush, or drawing with charcoal.
ONSCREEN TEXT (WHITE VERDANA AGAINST A BLACK BACKGROUND): IN A WORLD WHERE THE LINE HAD ALWAYS BEEN CLEARLY DEFINED
The montage continues; The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist is shown sitting alone in her dark bedroom, the only light coming from her computer screen, with tears sliding down her cheeks. Her knees are pulled up in front of her, and her tablet rests on them; slowly, she rests her forehead against her knees and hugs the tablet against her chest.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST (V.O.)
They think that just because it doesn't make a mess, or because you can't mix your mom's ashes or your own bodily fluids into your media, it's not art.
ONSCREEN TEXT: SHE SELECTED THE BLUR TOOL
The montage continues further, with various tasteful shots of The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate posing nude as The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist sketches her with the tablet. There is an extended shot of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist making out with The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate in the rain, because these movies always seem to have a part where somebody enthusiastically kisses somebody else during a violent downpour.
THE SPITFIRE EVERYGIRL PROTAGONIST (V.O.)
But it is art, and I'm not gonna let anyone tell me different.
ONSCREEN TEXT: AND SET THE PRESSURE TO 100%
The montage continues on with intermixed shots of The Spitfire Everygirl Protagonist working at her laptop, holding hands with The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate, and laughing about various things with The Obligatory Attractive Female Classmate and Her Generic Ethnically Diverse Male Friend, finally ending with a shot of her putting up her three final project pieces for display. The screen fades to black before they can be seen clearly.
TITLE TEXT: FREE TRANSFORM
The title is shown skewed out of proportion in a bounding box, until a cursor comes onscreen and drags a corner of the bounding box down until it is legible. This fades after it has been onscreen long enough to be read.
TAGLINE TEXT: DEFINE YOUR OWN BRUSH. DISTORT YOUR PERSPECTIVE.
-------------
Well? I think I might actually have something here...
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)