Wow. With a definition like that, I think it ought to be the name of a high-proof whiskey. But that's a great definition. I think I'm going to usurp "Weltschmerz" and use it to describe my mood. That way I can be factually accurate and sound intelligent and pretentious, which I suppose depending on the day is also factually accurate.

Please explain. Not having much German ancestry, I don't know if this is a clever play on words that is sailing over my English-speaking head, or if it is instead an onomatopoeic approximation of what it sounds like to drop a shot glass into a foaming glass of beer. Personally, the way I imagine it being pronounced is something like "welts, merch" which might suggest an injury sustained working at a retail chain, perhaps during the Christmas season. So perhaps at the very least it might make a good moniker for a seasonal brew meant to say eff-you to all the holiday shoppers who give me grief. Thank you for your suggestion!

Ah, well I think it's important to be constantly exploring perspectives that are different from our own, as I believe that to not do so undermines the value of what we do end up holding as our own views and personal philosophies. So you have my support in that, for whatever an internet opinion is worth these days (I suspect less than 'two cents'). And being a big fan of words and thoughts, including my own, I thank you for your interest and cyber-patronage.

It worked, didn't it? Why do you ask me questions?

I don't remember enough of the tenuous connection between what I was actually writing about and what I was making a joke of, nor do I remember if there was any more to this idea than a simple pun and a biblical reference. So I'll say...yes, it is near Serbia.

I try to, because I believe truth and honesty are essential to human relationships. However, I hate hurting people, and sometimes the truth hurts. So it gets a little complicated sometimes. Also, the truth about how you may be feeling or what you think at a certain time may change in the future, and so in this sense a "time-relative" truth may not hold as much weight when compared to the feelings of others. You might just be angry, and not everyone needs to know all the things you think of when you're angry, especially when you'll be over it tomorrow. But I'm still figuring these things out.

I am not presently in school, nor am I an Automated Teller Machine. I did not intend to mock your experience with cancer, though as you said, it's probably too late to repent. I think the lesson here is that neither of us should mock alleged chainsaw-wielding grizzly bears, lest they unleash their unholy fury upon we humble formspring writers.

Got a job at Ye Olde Costco, replaced cigarettes with cigars (keep the cancer guessing), riding the bike a bit, watching all the Harry Potter movies, discovered that the Windsor Public Library has a pretty awesome selection of dvds, snoring like a chainsaw-wielding grizzly bear (allegedly), had Tommy Stinson's "Meant To Be" stuck in my head for the last two and a half days....I reckon that's all I can think of without a specific question.

Stop reading postmodernism. Though your question is interesting - rephrase it without the word "hyperreal".

So the rest of the people reading this don't bring torches and pitchforks to your house.

You're welcome. And thanks again. Hopefully others will follow your lead and this will turn into a nice big warm fuzzy "Compliments for John" page. No really.

I had a dream I was at a party with David Bazan and spontaneously started singing "Stuck in the Middle With You". Luckily the guys playing guitar followed along pretty well. It's really whatever I'm into at the moment. When I was in London it was R.E.M. and I'm always a fan of the Replacements and/or Elliott Smith, though I find that karaoke is most fun for the audience when they know the song and/or refrain from slitting their wrists in the middle of the tune.

You're right! It was early and I totally read over the "implausible" part. How's this:

Perhaps it was popularized by the son of an optometrist, who would frequently conduct eye exams by asking his patients which of the lenses they were looking through was clearer: "Number one, or number two?" One day the young boy burst into the exam room exclaiming that he had to go to the bathroom just as his father was asking the patient "number one or number two?" The boy, in his excitement, assumed that the father must be referring to his imminent lavatory experience and associated "number one" with urination and "number two" with defecation. Thinking this was a clever adult code, the boy spread the word of his finding throughout the schoolyard, thus creating new slang.

Well, I believe for most people, "number one" occurs more frequently than "number two", thus warranting its title as the former. As for why "numbers", I imagine it's because someone decided that wasn't polite to talk about so they invented a euphemism. For as you know, civilized people do not engage in callous, filthy activities like having sex; instead, they retain their dignity and engage in the elegant art of "making whoopie".

You're super sweet, unless you're one of my guy friends, in which case "Thanks, brah!" Honestly though, it means a lot to me to hear such things, and it also spurs me to write more. Of couse it's not about the recognition, but it's easy to be apathetic if you feel that no one will ever read what you write. Ironically, I was reading about Emily Dickinson today, who if you don't know had almost no public success in her lifetime, leaving hundreds of carefully boxed poems to be found following her death. I suppose I'd like to be like her, writing for the sake of writing, but the ego does get bothered at the thought of kicking the bucket before anyone bothers to read your work. Regardless, I thank you and hope you continue to enjoy what I have to say.

I used to say that I was allowed to pirate music because I give my own music away for free. But I suppose you wanted a serious answer.

The laws against piracy are obviously not because artists wish to restrict their listenership, but because they want to be paid for their product. This is obvious, but it's an important point. I myself am a fan of purchasing used cds, movies, etc., a legal practice in which I get a product that is often as good or almost as good as new, and I pay for it. The problem is that none of the money gets back to the artist. Now, often it is the case with used media that the product is old enough that the sale of used copies doesn't really cut into the market-share of new sales, which I believe is why it's legal. However, this is not always the case.

You may have heard of Gamestop, a video game retailer that allows you to trade in your used games for store credit, then sells the used copies back to customers. Once again, nothing real sketchy about that. However, a problem arose, and it went something like this: Kid buys new game on day of release (say it's Half-Life), plays it to its conclusion over the weekend, and has no interest in keeping it to replay. Gamestop offers him $30-40 credit of his original $60 if he sells it back to them, not a bad deal. A week later, a bunch of other people decide to go buy Half-Life. When they pick up the new $60 version, the Gamestop employee informs them that they have like-new copies of the game, pristine disc, manual and box for $55. The only catch is it has been opened. It's the same product, and five bucks isn't nothing, so a lot of people (myself included) opt for the used copy. But what just happened here? Gamestop sold the game, paid half to get it back, and resold it for nearly full price. It's a smart business plan, but since they are a huge chain retailer, what happens is they effectively syphon off the profits that would normally be going to the developers during the first few crucial months of release. This happens on Amazon too - pay 20 bucks for a new DVD, or 15 for a like-new used copy? It's hard not to go for the cheaper option.

My point is that what seems like a straightforward issue is slightly more complicated. Though I enjoy used merchandise (because I'm a nerd who likes reading liner notes), in terms of money going to the artist, there's no difference between my buying a used album or pirating it. And what about rentals? With new releases, more people renting a movie might cause the rental company to buy more copies, but once it's been out for six months all a rental does is give money to the rental company (not a bad thing, I admit, but it's not going to the creators). Some people argue that if you really like a band you'll go see them in concert, so that's where the money is made. And they're right - now that music sales have plummeted, touring is the main source of income. It may have been this way before, but it's certainly true today.

An interesting development in the music world is the resurgance of vinyl. What most record companies do now is put out a copy of an album on vinyl and include a download code with it. This way, you get a sort of collector's item that sounds great, and in addition you get high quality mp3s to listen to on the go. Given that the first thing I do when I get home with a new cd is import it to itunes, it's the best of both worlds, and you can always burn a cd from your computer. I get it - it's hard to shell out 15 bucks for a cd you know you can get for free in 30 seconds on the internet, but for people like me, buying a vinyl record with its large artwork and warm tone in addition to the digital files makes it much more worth the purchase price.

One last thing - I've read that for a lot of artists that have been around for more than 10 years or so, hardly any of the money from itunes sales gets to them. This is because when their contract was inked, legal downloading wasn't around, so they are guaranteed to none of the profits. Just something to think about even when you are paying for music online.

So, do I pirate music? From time to time, yes. Maybe it's not my place to judge, but I do believe that music is meant to be heard, and it's the case that I have been exposed to a lot of new artists that I would not have heard had I not burned a cd from a friend. What I try to do when I download music is view it as a trial period, and if I find that I'm listening to it with great consistency, I make a point of going out and purchasing that album, or another by the same artist. Even if I don't, it's been my experience that downloaded music is much easier to forget about, and if nothing else I think purchasing music is important because it makes you pay more attention that if you just rip a few mp3s. Not to mention that an album as a whole is a piece of work, and ideally should not be split up into "good" and "bad" tracks. Admittedly, most of pop music is just a collection of singles, but what are you going to do. The other thing I try to do is buy new when I can. If a new copy is not significantly more than its used counterpart, I opt for the new, as this gives the money to the people who made it (I know, not always, but we can hope). The key is to support people that make things that move you. We all wish we had a lot of money to throw around, but all we can do is be mindful of how we spend it and try to get it to the people we really want to have it.

I'll end with a bit by Mindy Kaling (Kelly on The Office), who talks about the ads that say "You wouldn't steal a car, you wouldn't steal a handbag, don't steal movies by pirating!" Her response is that if you could steal a car in less than a minute by using your computer, and had virtually no chance of getting caught, then yeah, most of us would steal cars. The good news is that music is a lot cheaper than cars, so most of us can afford it. The bottom line is that if you want the artists you like to keep making what you like, somewhere along the line you and others will have to pitch in. But it's ultimately your choice.

Damn you formspring, you do know the questions that set my heart a-flutter. I've been trying to live more in the present, but it's hard. For whatever reason, it's as though no matter how engaged I am in any present activity, it's only when I revisit it in memory that all the colors come out. I suppose that's because I can manipulate the image, come in for a close-up here, slow it down a bit there, up the lighting, rewrite the soundtrack, whatever. The question of course is whether this is pure fantasy or an artistic view of reality. The follow-up question is does it matter either way? I'm not sure in either case.

Why not both?

I decided to watch this movie for the first time last year, alone, in the middle of the night, after hearing it was the scariest movie of all time. It turned out to be a good decision. In the glow of Christmas lights we never took down, I was equally shocked and awed by this tour de force (I know, overused) of 1970's cinema. I'm not a film historian, but there was a lot of boundary-pushing in the early 70's with films like "A Clockwork Orange", "Straw Dogs", "The Godfather", "Dirty Harry", and others. I would include this in that list. It's hard to describe how my initial response was, but suffice it to say that at its best moments, I was wide-eyed with a slight smile on my face, like I had just gotten off a violent roller-coaster, thinking "Wow, they just went there". "Exhilarating" might be the word I'm looking for. Perhaps the roller-coaster comparison isn't so far off base, because the first 30 minutes or so are pretty slow, and at times downright boring, but it's necessary for us to see Regan as a sweet, ordinary little girl before she becomes the hellbeast of the second half. And oh, what a hellbeast. A lot of people, even those who haven't seen the film, know of some of her antics in the throes of her possession, and while they are ripe for parody, in the midst of the film they border on terrifying. You might laugh, as I did, but it's that type of laughter that comes after something so unexpected that you don't know how to respond. In short, the slow moments are regrettable, as they do return to punctuate the story throughout, but to watch Regan's transformation makes up for it. And that voice. I can't even imagine what it would be like to be the mother.

A couple of notes:
This film has been re-released several times, as a "Director's Cut" and "The Version You've Never Seen". To my understanding the differences between these two are negligible, but I've seen the original and I own the latter. In this newer release they put another 10 or so minutes that had been cut back into the movie, including a supposedly "infamous" scene in which Regan spider-walks backward down the stairs (pretty cool), additional footage at the doctor's (where she uses some language that is not so age-appropriate, adding some to the foreshadowing), and some bits that give a little more weight to the priests questioning their faith. Overall I think these are good additions; unfortunately they also decided to add some superimpositions of the pagan statue of Pazuzu to heighten the supernatural elements of certain moments, but the overall effect is kind of cheesy.

Secondly, I read a bit by Rob Ager on this film. He reviews and analyzes many of Kubrick's films, and while I don't always agree with the conclusions he draws concerning entire hidden meta-narratives, the guy is pretty pro at noticing little things. He alleges that there are subtle clues hinting at sexual abuse as being one of the factors that are wrapped up in Regan's condition (Burke dies after falling from Regan's bedroom window while her mother was away - what was he doing up there? In the extended version she warns the doctor to stay away from her pubic area...in so many words. The bed shakes violently at times, and during the head-spinning sequence, she slips into a mock-British accent that resembles Burke's, hinting that his influence is deep within her psyche, the whole crucifix incident, and so forth). In general I am fascinated at the possibility of conspiracy theory type ideas, but often don't find them plausible enough to actually accept. Though I've yet to watch it again with this idea in mind, I think there may be something to this notion. In any case this is one frightening, awesome (as in worthy of awe) film. Strap yourself in and say hello to Captain Howdy.

Duly noted, I'll look into it!