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Friday

The Theory of At All Least One

I believe in what I call the Theory of At Least One. The Theory of At Least One means that there is at least one person out there who thinks a certain way or supports a certain cause or has a certain hobby. I believed this long before I became a web surfer (which appellation I really can't claim; I prefer other people to do the surfing and then tell me what sites are cool to visit). In other words, the Theory didn't grow out of me studying the Internet, it grew out of my understanding of human nature. But the Internet backs up the Theory.

Basically, the Theory of At Least One can be described by the phrase, "Well, there's at least one person out there who thinks . . ." But the important thing about the Theory of At Least One is that it doesn't, necessarily, refer to things like conspiracy theories. And it also doesn't, necessarily, refer to a small group of people or fans all agreeing on something. It refers mostly to the individual. So, I will think to myself, "Well, there's at least one person out there who makes gorilla sounds on the underground." Or, "Well, there's at least one person out there who thinks Happy Gilmore is an existential poem about the futility of life." Or "There's at least one person out there who owns a dog named Tolstoy." Or "There's at least one person out there who thinks that some minor soap star is the best actor in the world."

The Theory of At Least One doesn't apply, particularly, to craziness. I'm sure there's at least one person out there who thinks he/she is an alien (possibly, more than one person!). Nor does the Theory apply to deliberate fantasying, like those of us who created our own stories to add to Tolkien's universe. Rather, the Theory refers to the idiosyncratic nature of human beings.The Theory of At Least One keeps me humble. It also kept me from being overwhelmed by the machine-like and didactic certainty of the Marxist feminist thinkers who unfortunately over-accompanied my college classes for the last two years. (Everyone else didn't believe in anything much; I believed in something but became tongue-tied in exasperation at the way everyone else just fell on the bandwagon of socio-politico-economico determinism.) Anyway, the Theory of At Least One isn't an answer to higher education's insistence on external causation but it does represent, for me, a basic underlying belief in human individualism. (I'll leave discussions of free will and such for another time; to paraphrase Neo, I believe in free will because I want to.)

Anyway, the Theory of At Least One can be applied broadly or nit-pickily: at least one person today in Maine is glad it rained; at least one person is out there in Portland protesting something (despite the rain). At least one person somewhere today is thinking of watching all their Star Trek DVDs from the beginning. At least one person is vomiting at work. At least one person is wishing they could meet David Hasselhoff in person (really, I bet there is). I least one person is writing an angry letter to CBS News. At least one person has just decided that Tim Farrington is absolutely the best writer of the last fifty years. At least one person has just decided that they will never watch baseball again.

Every show ever made has at least one fan who thought it should never, never have gone off the air. Every book ever written has at least one reader who cried and wished it would never, never go out of print. Every actor has at least one fan. Every episode has at least one detractor and one enthusiast. And so on and so forth.

At least one person will read this blog. (It's a hopeful kind of philosophy.)
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Things I Wished I Liked . . .

Eggplant: Seems every time I'm in a restaurant, they are serving things with eggplant, things I normally like. People tell me it is good, and I imagine if I didn't know eggplant was in the sandwich or the salad or whatever, I would be fine. "Umm," I would say, "that has an interesting texture." As it is, the minute I hear eggplant, I start thinking slime, which isn't fair to eggplant. Or to slime, I guess, depending on your point of view.

Andre Norton: When I was a kid, there were TONS of Andre Norton books in our local library. They always had great covers and really fascinating plot summaries. I would try one, and get bored, try one and get bored. I wish I could have found them the most fascinating books ever; all those books just waiting to be read--sigh . . .

Drew Carey: Actually, I like Drew Carey, and I really enjoyed the improv show he sponsored. But I could never get into the sitcom. I tried. I really tried. I wanted to find it funny since there were a number of actors on the show that I find individually funny (like the guy who does the Fig Newton ads). But I never did. In fact, watching the Drew Carey show was rather a surreal experience. Usually, I know why I don't like a sitcom: too silly, too unintelligent, too many potty jokes. I could never figure it out with Drew Carey. I would sit there, thinking, "I know this is funny. I know this is supposed to be funny. Why am I not laughing?"

Silly feminism: It would just make my life a lot easier. Besides, it's instant-pesto no-responsibility: you can blame men and society and bosses and George Bush and economics! So many roads to self-justification. And I could get along with people in my college. But I have neither the inclination or the lack of humor that would allow me to perpetuate such a fantasy. (No ideology that can't survive a hearty laugh is worth the time it takes to argue its merits.)

Chips: They are one of those easy snack foods. A sugar-fiend like me can't (and shouldn't) eat donuts and brownies 24/7. Chips would be a good substitute. But I've never really cared for chips: potato, dorito, etc. On the other hand, not caring for chips gives me a faint feeling of superiority. Well, okay, I don't have the best diet in the world, but at least I don't eat chips.

The Da Vinci Code: I'd liked to read it. I get it out of the library every now and again. Three weeks pass, back to the library it goes. I understand it is a fun, fast read. But unfortunately, I know just a tad (not a lot, just a tad) too much about early Christianity, and I'm afraid that I'll spend the entire book going, "Oh, puh-lease" which kind of spoils the adventure/fun-read part of the equation.

Networking: Which would make job hunting and fiction publishing a whole lot easier.

Tom Cruise: But I just can't. I think he is kind of skanky. And not because of the whole Katie Holmes/Christian Science thing, or whatever it is. Personally, I find the tabloids' attitude here rather disgusting. Taking photos of stars in bathing suits is one thing; constantly harassing a Hollywood star about his beliefs is another.

That said, I don't care for Tom Cruise. Whenever I catch a glimpse of him in a movie, I always get this faint suspicion that here is a guy who feels really, really sorry for himself. The movies always seem to be about misunderstood men who are being persecuted by their wives or society. And, okay, there's a genre for that, but the men are always these James Bond types. And I simply can't watch a James Bond type movie AND feel sorry for the hero at the same time. It's too weird. But, like Andre Norton, the movies usually seem pretty interesting so I wish I could get into them.

Music: I am, I'm sorry to say, one of those people who hears a song on the radio and says, "Oh, yeah, I like that," and then never remembers the title or the singer or half the lyrics for that matter. I have enormous respect for people who enjoy music (any kind of music) and become well-versed in performers and styles. It seems very relaxing and another form of entertainment. Kind of like abstract art. But I require people and plot in my art forms, which is probably why I prefer the Pre-Raphaelites and musicals. Still, I consider it an aesthetic failure on my part. (I feel the same way about poetry, more or less. On the other hand, I don't care for the cubists, and it's pretty fine with me that I go on not caring.)

Exercising: I like to swim, but I'm afraid it's more splashing about in the water kind of swimming. I find any other kind of exercise dull in the extreme. In college, we had to do one cardiovascular exercise three times a day for twenty minutes. I chose walking, and I just about died with boredom. I'm not really a nature girl. And I can't get into houses or buildings. I like scenery, but you know, scenery, backdrop to my life. As it was, I didn't develop a habit (the point of the exercise), I just developed a dislike for walking to places for no reason. Which is a pity. One of these days it will come back to haunt me. (It should come as no surprise that I took golf and fencing for my next two gym classes.)

Widescreen format: Oh, wait, I've already talked about that.
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CDs v. Cassettes and other things

So, on the subject of previous rantings, and at the risk of sounding like a Luddite, I much prefer audiocassettes to CDs. I listen to a lot of books on tapes, and CDs leave a lot to be desired in this category. You can't, for instance, take them out of one machine and put them in another and have them start from the same point. It's harder to fast forward to a specific spot (I realize this has more to do with my machine than the available technology). As a teacher, I prepare a lot of material at home, and then take it in to the college where I use the available machinery there. It's a real pain in the neck to do this with CDs (with DVDs too, but I really like DVDs, despite the whole widescreen issue). Instead of just sticking the thing in and hitting play, I have to put it in, find the correct track and then, often, fastforward within that track to the right location (or, if the machinery is dated, listen to the track until it gets to the right spot and hit pause). The beauty of audiocassettes is you don't have to do that. You can cue to a very precise position on, say, a Wednesday, and still have the stuff ready to go on Friday.

I think the solution (and again, the technology appears to be out there, I just don't have it) is to create systems where you can mark your place on a DVD or CD. The only problem there is, like rewinding, the renter has to remember to unmark the DVD or CD before returning it to Netflix or the library or wherever. Otherwise, the next person who watches it will be carried instantaneously to the scene with Frodo and the eagles or the blowing up of some ship or whatever.

On a completely different subject, does anyone actually read the blurbs on the backs of books? Not the summaries but the parsed out quotations of reviews by famous people? I don't think I've ever bought a book in my life based on those quotations. Perhaps, they're like eye candy. We expect them to be there, but nobody actually reads them. In any case, what do we expect them to say? "This book is kind of good but I didn't care for the middle." Or, "Read this book only if you have absolutely nothing else to do." Maybe the quotes do say that, and nobody reads them closely enough to know it. (Actually, occasionally I have looked to see who, rather than what, reviewed the book, but that's usually after I've already started it.)