the · sea · of · fecundity

 prejudice runs deep, hides in circles, and kills quietly.  i am probably not the only one who would like to think they're judgement-free.  and i'm as vigilant as any when i suspect myself, so i ask here for judgment. 

 the movie is 'two hundred pounds beauty', a korean romance about prejudice and desire.  hannah does ghost singing because she's 'too fat' to perform herself.  ammy lip syncs to hanna's voice but doesn't like being dependent on her.  both feel han sang-jun could fulfill their dreams.  the fat suit hanna's actress wears is unconvincing but so is the mirical surgery performed later.  but anyhows.  when hanna receives a dress from han to wear to his birthday she wears it against her best friend's advice.  then ammy turns up to the party in an identical dress.  at this point i laughed. 

 did i really believe someone in the room would get it, and it would all be a good joke, surely as hannah had turned up first?  as it dawned on me the dress had instead been sent by ammy to humiliate her, i tried to cling to the belief the stunt wasn't working.  ammy's desperation must be obvious, everyone must know she is the baddie, as there must be one.  am i bigoted, perhaps the adoration i hold for the adipose is misplaced?  or am i a fool, easily convinced, willingly deceived?

 i remember muttering 'it is korean', loosely expecting that to explain how it differed from expectations.  of course that does not necessarily mean everyone's, indeed it may only refer to mine.  so what was i thinking, perhaps that korea has a lower tollerance for tollerance than i can tollerate?  in preference i'd explain that i was allowing for potential cultural differences i wasn't aware of to explain why no one cared enough to speak out and ammy kept smiling.  i have often felt i'm gullible but this is just daft.  even in a fiction about prejudice tolerance and beauty i just rejected the possibility that the characters are dim bigoted archetypal cards.

 it may seem like alot of tripe over a movie, but seriously people, we should have come further than this.  wearing the dress you're given is not the wrong thing to do, it reveals others more than yourself.

quite simply it's already there, there's no need to express anything, there's nothing to admit or deny, and there's nothing that will change for the better by saying anything that could even be mistaken for bigotry. since if someone experiences it as bigotry, malicious, hurtful, offensive, then it is! if someone is out in public, an individual sharing the world with you, then they are not 'on your property', are they? they're not your problem, are they? they're not changing anything about your experience of the world that you haven't already made a problem of. really they're not. ask them.

don't go to your mate and say 'there was a right stupid idiot walking down our road today' because what can a real mate say but 'yeah?'. nobody will ask 'was this person stupid or am i missing something?' if they don't want to know, yet it's easy to take the 'was this person stupid or what?' as a rhetorical assertion. that is to say, a 'joke'.

it's certainly not a joke, but if it's not a question, then why say it? the truth is guarding yourself is second nature, and sharing experience is a way of life where we involve our society in strengthening each other. it's a good thing. yet if little is known about the person, or whatever has been noticed, then what do you call them, or it? believe it or not too many people are being called 'it'. ask them.

why argue about who hates who, when nobody said 'hate' first? why fear some people and be told how it hurt others? why stand accused of bigotry when you're the one who wasn't understood?

there's no massive conspiracy, there's no organised oppression, there are no bigots. you are not a bigot, are you? if you have ever heard "you're only saying that because of the way you are" or "takes one to know one" said to you, then someone thinks you are. that's just the way it is. you haven't lost anything, you haven't turned bad, you are not a bigot, you just sounded like one.

the only true answer is, people often sound bigotty, and what they meant was "i'm sorry, i just don't understand"

isn't is so much easier to identify with stick figures? it's like their personalities are just that much easier to associate with your own or those of people you know (or at least think you do) and so much more fun to imagine in otherwise dreadful circumstances. i rationalise too much. but anyhow, xkcd.com has had me riveted for a while. wayhehehay better than stickdeath.com at least to my sensitivities.

well, is doodling easier than writing? is it depersonalised enough, or too much? once there are recognisable characters and personalities involved, does that change? surely it's harder to keep the sticks on the page when you see them as a part of you. your hand becomes a translator. the stick people become subjective and more alive. more understandable yet less you. and then maybe less recognisable, at least not how you thought they would be, at most simply indefinably better.

there is a series i was working on for a while, called .o0(princess)0o. which i feel would perhaps be less easily understood, or with less universal appeal, but my doodles were fun to do. maybe they will come out of the little books someday, it's a difficult decision, though i don't believe anyone would be harmed, just princess deals with more emotional content. certainly not as cold as stickdeath can be. overall i guess that, looking in, the content will be easier to accept or dismiss as a viewer than an origin so i guess that's ok.

have i just blogged myself into this? oh well, better check the box of crafts, school reports, unsent letters and journals under the bed. i would have to make another drop.io for them. the link will be in the list here (to the right, under 'on your way out) if and when i get somewhere with that.

a perfect collection of a myriad of movies, tv series', and short films is hard to come by. dearest kiz just found one though, it's called stagevu, and it works.

have some mindless fun seeing the difference between 'the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy' tv series and 'the hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy' modern movie. i recently watched a few recently released, and will go back to see how far back their collection goes. what number of dusty vhs are now liberated? some things change without us, where some never can be changed. what light through yonder window breaks? guess i'll need more cocoa.

http://stagevu.com/index just be careful with spelling movie names, even the difference between hitch hikers and hitchhiker's has an effect.

xo

the only time i've ever seen our baby was when i last saw sarah. i had the impression i would bump into sarah since leaving kevin's place with him that morning. i was facing a shop entrance kneeled down putting my shopping in a bag when she passed me on western road, i wasn't sure she had seen me. sarah ignoring me didn't fit with how she had explained her position to me on the phone, and it was a crowded street, so i explained to my friend kevin "hold on, i need to do this", and caught up with her. i said "hi, sarah ..." briefly placing my left hand on her right shoulder, she stopped walking before looking up and making eye contact, her expression was quite blank, possibly tired. i moved back slightly. she didn't come accross as 'cold' but was quite nervous, and i stopped short of asking if she had seen me as her eyes glazed at me before the words formed. i passed my eyes around to take in her situation while i rephrased it to "i thought you hadn't seen me". her child sebastian was harnessed to her left wrist and was patiently staring into the space ahead, and our child sapphire was mostly covered without much head movement and tired eyes had chosen to listen intently to the world's facinating chorus. the pram was heavily laden, as was sarah's tradition, but seemed balanced well so was probably loaded underneath too. sarah answered it as a question anyway "i did ... see you". the succsinct doubled-up clarification made my gut tumble, somehow there was alot more going on than she had let on. it was about 100 yards to her bus stop so i suggested "let's walk along ..." and took another step ahead sideways along the street, but as i turned forward she remained still, only a tiny push on the pram, enough to make sebastian turn to her squinting at her silhouette. "i can't go anywhere" she said and pushed a short breath, staring at a point in space just ahead of the pram, an invisible blockage. i tried to see if it was exasperation, her eyes turned to me briefly as her words froze. i remembered her voice on the phone the last time she changed track and pushed a breath like that, "i can't be in touch with you at all" she had said. now again i tried to see how this could be true, if social services had said this to her i doubt she would have taken it litrally without them giving her a just reason, which according to her they hadn't. i saw kevin step into her field of vision, and just managed a "sarah, kevin. kevin, sarah". sarah went through the hi motion but didn't actually make eye contact, kevin mumbled "yeah, i know, hiya" and moved awkwardly aside for other pedestrians. sebastian was fidgiting now. i stepped toward her again unsure if i was able to talk with her or if i was about to say goodbye somehow. kevin had gone back to a bench and was speaking to someone else. sarah said "it's difficult ..." i wanted to reassure her that i knew, so at a distance, hand to her shoulder, i offered "i know". at this she raised her right hand up flat, not making contact with me, reinforcing it with "don't touch me." going stone cold and fixing her eyes ahead again. i stepped away quite shaken, but ok, of course i'll respect that. after a moment i looked ahead and back, and sarah started walking very slowly. i offered "i'm not here to make your life difficult ...", sarah smirked, i tried to qualify it with "we just need to talk ..." struggling i continued "i'm not even trying to take a photo of our baby!". i felt stupid for saying it even before sarah's eyes rolled, with heavy lids. "you're busy with mika" she declared, like a stage direction. it was a strange jump but if i took it as a question easy to answer. "kerry's with mika and demitris in ireland, i just got back from visiting them". sarah seemed unhappy at that, i took a couple of quick steps to draw level with her. at the time i wasn't even allowing myself to consider the break in contact to be sarah's own choice of actions, social services must have said something powerful, "what is it? what have social services done?". "nothing!" she replied. calmly? coldly? it perhaps even sounded chirpy, completely disconnected. "they must have said something or you wouldn't be doing this" i said, wondering what 'this' was. our child? sarah's distance? something inbetween? maybe she would tell me, she prepared her words as she went, "... they've told me to cut all contact with you ... for reasons that they can't tell me because of confidentiality". nothing to do with her then, i didn't really see the relevance as i know her well enough to know she wouldn't stand for that herself normally. "and that was good enough for you?" i asked. there was a pause, we came to a side road and a bus squealed down to the main road. sarah replied but i couldn't make it out for certain as the bus came to a stop infront of us, she looked it up and down and sebastian shook his head at it. it contained "what you said to me" but i wasn't sure it was an answer. i backed away to the right a bit to show faith that she'd tried to express something anyway. i prompted "we need to talk about this" more emphaticly this time, quite certain this time i meant the social services pressure and her own, possibly seperate, reasonings. allowing myself another moment to look at our baby, i saw her close her eyes and move her arms up under the blanket. sapphire had had quite enough of the noise, it was upsetting her mum, and that's all she knew. "give me some space" sarah said, as the bus cleared the corner and she pressured the pram handles. "i think you've had quite enough!" i blurted, as she moved away, adding "this our families we're talking about here" to try and soften it, or explain my anguished retort. sarah shrugged, as if slipping an invisible bag off her shoulder, and negotiated the far curb. i found myself turning up the side road as i called out "get in touch" in the tone of a friendly goodbye. or at least i hoped it was, realising how off balance i felt, my gut still tumbling and my legs weakened, and without having said goodbye to kevin, i was walking up a side road with no idea where i was going.