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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #42

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

42

How could you not write about the Ultimate Answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything in Weekly Post-Ed #42? 

            Perhaps some context:

            Long ago on the distant planet of Magrathea, the greatest computer ever built, Default, was tasked to find an answer to the ultimate question of Life, the Universe, and Everything. For millions of years Default calculated all that it knew about existence and millions of years later, it was finally ready to reveal the answer.

            “42,” said Default.

            It’s a wonderful piece of comedy that comes from Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Over the weekend, I rewatched the 2005 movie adaptation starring Martin Freeman, Zoey Deschanel, Mos Def, and Sam Rockwell. From the opening musical number about dolphins leaving the planet earth from impending doom (the musical theater ballad, “So Long and Thanks for All the Fish”), I reverted back to being 14 again and why the movie meant so much.

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy DVD Box Art, 2005

            Up until that first viewing, I had known about the comedy of Monty Python, Mel Brooks, the Marx Brothers and so many others, but The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy opened up the entire cosmos of what could be funny. Whereas a Mel Brooks film delved into the world of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Young Frankenstein), or a saga of the wild west (Blazing Saddles), the jokes were related to the story’s characters, never central to moving the plot forward itself. Hitchhiker’s not only had outlandish comedy, but it was the reason the story existed at all.

  • Planet earth being demolished to make room for a hyperspace expressway? Yes, that’s the incident that begins the story!
  • A paperwork-obsessed, bureaucratic race of aliens with the stinginess of an elitist British Parliament? Why yes, they’re the villains of the movie!

            Anything was possible in the vast universe of Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (which I soon discovered were also a series of novels). You could poke fun of a religion’s odd celebrations and rituals, answer philosophical questions in meaningful but obtuse ways (the answer of 42 for example), and show that planets are really manufactured like any other product bought at a department store. All of this was possible to cram into a single narrative.

            “You can write things like this?” I thought, and suddenly I felt like I had been given the freedom to make whatever I wanted.

            After watching the film again, I also recalled that it was the major reason why I wanted to write fiction in the first place. Suddenly, it made sense to write big ideas into a concise, comedic packaging. There was a wider universe out there and I couldn’t wait to write all about it. 

            And I would go on to keep writing forever after.

            (Psst: more on those stories in the future!)

***

LOVE AT FIRST SIGHT

            I find that as I grow older, I watch my favorite movies from a different perspective. Nowhere in my personal experience has this been more the case than rewatching old Looney Tunes shorts. Packed inside those ten-minute episodes were layers of adult humor amidst the antics of Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck.

            Rewatching favorite movies and television shows after many years is like eating a favorite meal once in a while: you remember why it was so damn good to begin with.

            It must have been three or four years since I’ve seen 2005’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, which meant another round of life experiences acting as the lens through which I watched it. The biggest change over the course of the past few years has been my going on numerous dates, which I suspect has changed how I’ve viewed romance in movies. 

            Certainly, I have a much more prevalent sense of skepticism when it comes to the romantic “Love at First Sight” motif.

            The romantic spine of the 2005 adaptation of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (the books are much different) follows Arthur Dent (Martin Freeman) regretting his missed opportunity to capture the heart of Trillion McMillan (Zoey Deschanel). At a costume party, they meet awkwardly, but sweetly, and soon get to chatting. Then, Trillion says, “We should go to Madagascar.” Arthur is confused and thinks this means a new swanky club, but Trillion means the country off the coast of Africa. Arthur realizes she is serious and says he can’t just go to Madagascar. Trillion is let down when he offers somewhere local instead. Then along comes a man with flowing blonde locks, a faux Elvis Presley accent, and futuristic wardrobe.

            “Is this man boring you?” he says. “I’m from a different planet. Want to see my spaceship?”

            Trillion goes with spaceman, leaving Arthur behind, and that’s the extent of their meeting.

            Before, I never blinked an eye at this initial meeting. It works in the movie and I get it: Arthur likes her, she likes him, but along the way came a more interesting and adventurous man that swept Trillion away. 

            Cool, right?

            Not really.

            When thinking about the logistics of meeting someone at a party, I assume Arthur and Trillion knew one another for about two or three hours in total. This means that Arthur is convinced Trillion is someone significant over that short time. So much so, in fact, that he comes to think of her as “The One That Got Away”.

            I’m amazed at the confidence required to make Arthur think so. Either Arthur doesn’t get out and date very much (which is likely), or there was something wonderful about Trillion that quietly disposed of any other potential love interests he had. Since Trillion up and leaves him at a party for another man, I can’t imagine she showed him the affection he was looking for. So, what was the appeal at the party?

            I’m skeptical a man would be love-drunk over a woman like this who has experienced more dates. It’s unclear the amount of time that passes between this first meeting at the party and when the earth is destroyed for a hyperspace expressway (spoilers), but I think most would have moved on from the girl at the party after a certain length of time. As someone who has gone on many dates and has been ghosted for less interesting reasons, it’s amazing to think Arthur would remain hung up on this girl when she leaves with another man from the same party.

            This is why I’m concerned about Arthur’s mental state during this viewing of the movie–he’s willing to endure the thought of a girl running off with another man as karma for his not jumping on a plane immediately to travel with her to Madagascar.

            It’s a little sad, honestly.

            Later, Trillion and Arthur are reunited on a spaceship that improbably passed by the exact coordinates he was thrown off another ship into the vacuum of space. Aboard the ship, Arthur comes across the spaceman from the party, who turned out to be President of the Galaxy Zaphod Beeblebrox. Arthur’s first actions upon being on a spaceship after surviving the ether of outer space? He immediately inquires what became of Trillion after the party.

            If I’m Trillion, I’d be on my guard with this guy. Perhaps it’s the improbability of the two of them meeting on the same spaceship, but Trillion doesn’t blink when this guy immediately starts demanding “why didn’t you fall in love with me instead?” 

            Uh, what?

            The correct response for Trillion should have been: “Hey, we hung out for a while at that party, which was really great, but I CLEARLY left with someone else, remember? You were really nice, Arthur, but it’s not going to work out. Sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.”

            That’s it, problem solved!

            But that doesn’t happen. Instead, she hints that they shouldn’t talk about it in front of Zaphod Beeblebrox in order not to upset him.

            Not to be deterred, Arthur’s motive is to bring up their brief courtship whenever possible throughout the movie. He’s pleading his case that they were something special and should pick up where they left off.

            It’s downright creepy to assume that anything marginally approaching romance should exist between these two people. Couples who have sex have less incentive to think romance or a relationship is taking place! Why does Arthur’s reluctance to give up on Trillion mean that she’ll ever return his affections?

            I think the reason for their eventual romance is interwoven with the meaning of the film.

            Why Arthur loses out on Trillion at the party is because he refuses to give up his usual comforts and spontaneously travel with her across the world. He has a rational point—they’ve just met, he has a job to go to in the morning…it’s not realistic to do something so drastic. However, Trillion sees this as another sign of another disappointing man who isn’t adventurous and willing to see the wider world.

            What Trillion is asking of Arthur is if he’ll put in the effort for her. Yes, she wants the trip because she wants affirmation that the world has more to offer, but she’s also watching to see if he’s willing to fight for her.

            When Arthur joins Zaphod and Trillion aboard the ship to zip around the galaxy in search of the ultimate answer to Life, the Universe, and Everything, Trillion gets into all the danger. It’s up to Arthur to save her. Zaphod, the mysterious spaceman from the party, does not. While Zaphod Beeblebrox won Trillion over with a willingness to travel the universe on a whim, he also didn’t think of her anything more than collected cargo. Zaphod was only interested in fame, recognition, and Trillion was always an afterthought.

            Even when Trillion was imprisoned on another planet by the Vogons, he doesn’t think to go rescue her (although, his brain is technically being run on lemons at that point in the movie, so maybe a little leniency in his case). Couple along the reveal that Zaphod was the one who signed the order to demolish the earth in the first place, and Trillion really grew to dislike him.

            This left Trillion to ponder why the aimlessness of her life on earth has followed her through the cosmos. By going somewhere else, be it Madagascar or the vastness of space, she was seeking greater meaning.

            What she discovered is that there wasn’t an answer to her life, the universe, and everything (even if it ended up being 42). Bereft in space, she was without a home planet, without anyone. 

            She was done looking outward for answers and instead looked around. It’s then that she realizes she just wants to be loved by someone who wants her.

            Trillion now sees Arthur’s journey. He has learned how to fight for what he wants. His life is about embracing adventure so that he can be present for someone else.

            Now there may be romance between the two of them. He sees her, and she sees him.

            And they can roll around with their towels.

            But there’s one question that still bothers me: why her? With only a few hours of talking at a party, why did Arthur maintain that he missed out on Trillion this entire time?

            In my limited experience with truly remarkable women (since romance is the angle I’m writing this from), I can say there’s no logical reason. Once you see someone great, you just know it. It’s a recognition of something within them, perhaps something you can’t quite explain. And once recognized, there’s no going back to the way things were.

            Ironically, this is how I felt upon first watching The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. I couldn’t tell you why it meant so much to see this movie, but it did.

            I’ll just call it Love at First Sight.

***

THAT MCTAVISH SAVE

            Usually, I’d stray away from posting a hockey highlight, but the final moments of Team Canada winning gold at the 2022 World Junior Hockey Championships was one of the greatest moments I’ve ever seen in hockey. I’ll include the highlights below but be sure to watch the goal-line save by Mason McTavish who literally kept his team alive in Overtime by an inch.

https://youtu.be/N1F_1IbJNxw

***

  1. “Sweet (Single Edit)” by Jon Batiste, Pentatonix & Diane Warren
  2. “BDSM” by corook
  3. “Up” by Cardi B

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #40

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

CLUELESS ABOUT CLUELESS

            Apple Fitness has this masterful way of thematically curating music during workouts—and as it turns out a stint of Pilates (yup, not ashamed to admit it—Pilates kicks my ass) was rocking to the soundtrack greats from 90s romantic comedies, most notably 10 Things I Hate About You and Clueless. Since it has been a decade since I’ve seen the latter film, I loaded up my movie library Monday night and watched the cult comedy written and directed by Amy Heckerling.

            After the first ten minutes of the movie, I realized I had undergone a time warp. Watching Clueless today was nothing like when I first saw it at 10-years-old (yes, on television, those dark days before on-demand streaming services). What I was watching today was masterful moviemaking; but this wasn’t how I thought of Clueless as a kid. In fact, I don’t think I knew what to think of movies back then.

            At ten, I remember being aware of adult relationships but unsure of how they worked. Movies were the framework that I based my earliest experiences with girls on—a practice that landed me a 100% failure rate.

            When I first saw The American President starring Michael Douglas, for example, the first “flirtatious” move I learned was to compliment girls on their shoes—a famous Aaron Sorkin line from the film. This confused many girls who wore dated Nikes and grass-stained Adidas sneakers, as rightfully they should have been. The compliment was meant for dressing up at fancy State Dinners at the White House, not for footwear that befell the wear and tear of Michigan winters.

            I made a similar mistake after watching The Fast and the Furious when I thought a good move was to compliment a cute girl on her mother’s beat up red 1998 Grand Prix. “Your mom’s got a nice car,” I told her. She asked why I said this and I didn’t really know—I wanted to look knowledgeable about cars because that was impressive to girls in the movie.

            My rule was that if a movie said it, I should probably say it, too. Why else would these things be in movies if it wasn’t a cool thing to talk about?

            I don’t remember taking many social cues from Clueless, however. The relationships in the movie mystified me. For example, when Alicia Silverstone’s character, Cher, has a romantic fling with Christian, the new boy in school, I was COMPLETELY unaware of why the relationship didn’t work out and he abruptly left after their date. He seemed like everything she ever wanted, they seemed compatible…what more was there to it?

            I just assumed he was too cool for her…even though he didn’t compliment her shoes or her father’s make and model of car.

            Even after Donald Faison’s character, Murray, explains in the next scene during a disastrous car ride along a LA freeway, “He’s a cake eater!…He’s gay!” I still didn’t understand. I paused the movie trying to determine what “gay” meant at ten-years-old. I just knew people made fun of you for being it, but that wasn’t Christian in the movie. That guy was cool. He stood up for Brittany Murphy’s character, Tai, when she was held over the ledge of the upstairs railing at a mall. He gallantly pushed the two jerk guys who thought it funny. 

            If Christian was “gay”, gay seemed like the way to go.

            Coincidentally, a few years later, before the advent of my first girlfriend, there was a period of about two weeks when I seriously considered if I was gay or not. There was no evidence to speak of, but because I didn’t think all men looked yucky (think Brad Pitt or George Clooney at the time), I debated if other penises were in my romantic future. I guess I thought of being gay as a conscious commitment, like buying those orange/baggy cargo pants with a million little pockets down the sides. No one bought them unless they really wanted them.

            For the record, I wanted those orange/baggy cargo pants but never ended up purchasing them.

            I felt similarly about my choice with being gay—just didn’t make the purchase.

            (Go easy on me, I’m joking—I was 10-12 when I thought things worked this way.)

            Now, in the year 2022, I understand that Christian’s character from Clueless was a parody of 1950’s movie stars. He was a combination of members of the Rat Pack, with the wardrobe and slicked back hair donned by Marlon Brando. He even drove around in an old Nash Metropolitan, a car sold in 1953. All his lines are faux gangster, something that might have been said in the musical “Guys and Dolls“.

            I also understand now that Clueless is a sharp piece of satire and an homage to another literary work. The film is based on Emma, the famous Jane Austin novel about a young matchmaker proud of her ability to match up close friends and relatives with what she feels is best for them (except, she falls prey to the monsters she makes of them, leading to betrayals, etc). She must become humble, which mostly comes from the subtly flirtatious encounters of an older gentleman in her life (Paul Rudd’s character Josh in the Clueless) who wins her heart and ends her single-hood, as all romantic comedies must.

            The only thing that wasn’t lost on me at 10-years-old was that everyone in the movie didn’t look like sophomores in high school. They looked much older, much more mature than they ought to have been.

            Oh yeah! That, and the item donated to Cher during the canned good drive was pretty obvious. Some have said it was a bong, but I know that it was, in fact, a potato shredder (similar to a pencil sharpener, but for potatoes). They existed in the 90s (it did not) and were a dangerous kitchen utensil.

            Of that, I was correct at 10-years-old and still maintain that’s what the tinny device sorted as “Kitchen wear” was used for.

            Why else keep it in the kitchen?

***

EVO 2022

            I’ll be brief: this past weekend was EVO 2022, the premiere fighting game tournament held in Las Vegas, Nevada every year. It’s a storied tournament that was particularly eventful this year for several reasons, many of which deserve its own post on this website. So, this Saturday Sunday at 8 PM, I’ll be posting an essay of this year’s event and the storylines that unfolded.

            Look out for that Saturday Sunday @ 8PM EST (Sorry all, put the wrong day! Sunday instead of Saturday)

***

  1. “Tomorrow” by Young the Giant
  2. “Too Dramatic” by Ra Ra Riot
  3. “About Damn Time” by Lizzo

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #35

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

IS IT MAD OR MADNESS?

            Isn’t it exciting to write about the latest Marvel thing on a weekly basis? You gotta hand it to the scheduling and release partners at Disney: they know how to keep everyone talking about the latest superhero centerpiece (that goes for Star Wars, too).

            Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness did an incredible job in its promotional material. Throughout the trailers, there were hints that Wanda Maximoff (the Scarlett Witch) was going to accompany Doctor Strange on a Multiversal adventure. This ends up being true, but Wanda is the antagonist of the film, which paved a way for a horror/superhero mashup (thanks to Director Sam Raimi and his expertise of the genre) that explores the ideas of just how powerful someone in the MCU can be. Turns out with great power comes great potentiality for horror and gore.

            And also: just a ton of fun.

            Spoilers aside, this is another MCU movie that explores the larger idea of the Multiverse. And, I’m beginning to see a concern:

            If there are an infinite number of replacements that can fill in for any given hero dying, what does it matter if someone actually tragically gets killed? Can’t we just, you know, replace them with another variant from another universe?

            I immediately thought about Avengers: Endgame when Tony Stark (I suppose spoilers for those who have not seen it…but I’d also ask: what are you even reading this for?) sacrifices himself in order to use the Infinity Stones to stop Thanos. This moment kills Iron Man, as it did Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal of the beloved snarky genius/billionaire. Well, by the nature of the Multiverse, what’s to stop another Tony Stark (another that looked exactly like Robert Downey Jr.) to transplant into the current MCU timeline? Does it all mean nothing if we can replace the death of Iron Man with a brand new, fresh-off-the-shelf Multiversal variant?

            What about Captain America and his “retirement” to a life with his true love from WW2, Peggie Carter? Do we simply pluck another Captain America (specifically a Chris Evans portrayal of Steve Rogers) from the shelf and continue as though nothing happened?

            I think toying with the ideas of loss in this way is dangerous for how we feel about characters. If there are no consequences, why care about death and loss and stakes at all?

            And yet, I think this plays out much like the nature of playing video games. In a game, you get infinite lives, infinite chances to complete the level/story/playthrough.There are games that are more brutal than others, that punish the player for dying (any Souls-like game, really), but does that make them more satisfying to beat or meaningful to play if the penalty for losing a life costs that much more?

            I think the answer here is no.

            If the point is to see the conclusion of the game, perhaps there’s little value in placing strict punishment on the player for dying. 

            After all, we just want to see what happens next.

            And I think this is why we accept the notion of a MCU Multiverse: we care about the characters and respect who they were in any given story. Just because there’s a Tony Stark nearly identical to Robert Downey Jr.’s portrayal somewhere out there who could just take over the role…I don’t think that means the original fate of the original Iron Man meant nothing. I think it means just as much because Iron Man isn’t a commodity, he was a beloved character we built a relationship with. 

            Without that connection, without those key moments, it doesn’t matter how identical a character appears to be, they will never be the same thing as before. So, naturally, we care about BOTH.

            And we, the audience, understand the difference.

            I think this is encouraging in terms of story evolution. Will we like new properties that have yet to appear such as the Young Avengers and the Illuminati? Yes, I think so. If Marvel has done one thing with the MCU, they have kept things interesting. I want to know what happens next. I don’t know why, but I like what I’ve seen and I want to see more.

            If there’s anything a strong story has at its core it is the ability to make the audience want to turn the page and see what happens next.

            So, after having watched Doctor Strange and the Multiverse of Madness, I say:

            “Cool. What’s next?”

***

THE BEST TIMELINE OF ROBERTHYMAWRITES.COM

            Speaking of multiple universes, is it not likely that this reality (yup, the one you’re reading this from) is not going so well? It’s hard to look around in the year 2022 and think that everything is going swimmingly. It feels like an ancient Egyptian tomb was desecrated and a curse was placed over the land (a never-ending Pandemic, a political landscape close to implosion because of outright zany ideas about racial superiority and those that deserve more than others). 

            I mean, what’s going on? It feels like opposite world: yes means no, no means yes, and somehow everyone finds it ok to pay for internet when it should be free.

            This universe has gone sour.

            Naturally, I can only wonder if there’s a reality out there where Robert Hyma (me) is happy and successful with being a writer and owns a similarly titled website (perhaps called something snarkier like “RobertHymaCreates.com, a much more accurate depiction of someone who does more than just write). Maybe in this other universe, I’ve conquered my fear of possible success and showing people the creative works I make and have no problem accepting a compliment or criticism. Maybe I’ve ridden himself of the anxiety of perfectionism and wanting to make everything as great as possible before showing someone.

            Yes, in that reality, I would be happily married, with delightful children (who adore and respect me, of course—none of that, “Oh, your kids won’t appreciate you or what you do because MINE sure will…in this reality, that is). I will have found financial stability in a way that lets me give back to my parents and community that has been supportive and paramount in shaping me into the competent writer (creator) I eventually became.

            And on and on and on it goes…

            Yeah, doesn’t sound half bad.

            To be fair, though, I should give myself ONE debilitating attribute. No reality is perfect, so let’s say in the best timeline of Roberthymawrites.com I have a horrible fear of mice. I don’t in this universe, but in the other universe, I’m as afraid as Scooby-Doo and Shaggy are of g-g-g-ghosts! From my fame and name, there are those that still hate my work (which, even in the best universe is ridiculous to me, but hey, it is statistically likely that I’m going to be despised by about 33% of people who know of my work). So, they send package after package of live mice to my rather humble home (probably just outside a major city). Someone graffities a whimsical mouse character on my mailbox, my car, even tossing fake mice at my children as they walk to school (yes, in this universe walking to school is still a thing).

            The mice are getting out of hand, and I try to plead with these people to stop harassing my family and home with all the mice. But these mice terrorists are malicious. There’s no convincing them that firing mouse after mouse from home-made catapults is not only a violation of PETA, but causing a huge uptick in maggots and rodents in the area.

            I’m still happy, in this other universe, but the mice are a huge problem. Especially for my nerves.

            Anyway, that’s another timeline. In THIS timeline, I’m just an anonymous, small-town writer named Robert Hyma attempting to write another Weekly Post-Ed and this was my best idea.

            (In many ways, I think I’d take this material over the mice.)

            Still, through it all, I remember as the great philosopher René Descartes once said:

            “I think (I exist in other universes), therefore I am (probably happier there…minus the rodents).”

***

  1. “Rain On Me” (Purple Disco Machine Remix – Edit) by Lady Gaga, Ariana Grande, and Purple Disco Machine
  2. “Ring Starr” by Max Frost
  3. “Disposable Friends” by AVIV

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #34

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

MOONLIGHTING

            Watching the latest Marvel Disney+ series has become a weekly staple. WandaVision and Loki were experimental in ways that helped bolster the Marvel Cinematic Universe and expanded upon ideas that helps set up movies in ways that, perhaps, were not going to go over well if entirely introduced through films alone. Every little bit helps, especially with a concept like the Multiverse, and a rendition of explanations for how it all stems together (time travel, multiple selves, multiple realities, and the consequences of traveling from one to the other) makes it all a bit easier to swallow.

            If your head is spinning from that paragraph alone, then wait, there’s more.

            Moon Knight is a show that follows the superhero exploits of a man suffering from Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID) or commonly known as multiple personalities. Oscar Isaac plays two completely different characters mashed into one: the English-speaking Steven Grant, and the former mercenary Marc Spector who is responsible for donning the cape and cowl of the Moon Knight avatar in the first place.

            Oh, and not to mention that Moon Knight is endowed with the powers of the Egyptian god Khonshu, a 10-foot tall skeletal bird wrapped in mummy cloth and wielding a giant crescent staff.

            What floored me about the show was Oscar Isaac’s versatility. It was easy to care for Steven Grant, the personality imbued with goodness and someone down on his luck, the character we begin the show following. And when the supernatural occurs (Egyptian creatures chasing after the unlucky Steven Grant) it was easy to like Marc Spector, the typical hero type with a messy, violent skillset and scarred past to heal from. Both sets of characters complimented the other and were eventually forced to work together in order to defeat a bigger threat—yet another Egyptian god shaped like a anthropomorphic crocodile/lady named Ammit and her biggest follower, Arthur Harrow (as played by the great Ethan Hawk).

            The show builds around the mystery of how one personality (Steven Grand and Marc Spector) of hides from the other and just what happens when the two are forced to confront one another. In the greatest episode of the series, Marc and Steven are two separate entities attempting to escape death (or, really, an asylum designed by either Steven and Marc in order to cope with the realities of sharing a body between two completely separate personalities). It’s the deepest dive yet into the idea of self love, that even a made-up coping mechanism such as a personality (Steven Grant, it turns out) can be just as formidable and important as our original self, and that there can be love shared between the two. 

            My biggest gripe with the show is that the final episode felt rushed. A climax needed to take place with lots of action – and there was plenty with more Moon Knight fight scenes, giant kaiju battles between Egyptian gods, and another superhero borne from the action (whom I will not spoil) – and it felt like forty minutes was devoted to raising the ante. Maybe there was a question if the show could rebound with the previous episode being entirely devoted to the uncovering of backstory and the origins of Marc Specter and Steven Grant, but I think more trust needed to be placed in the two coming out of that headspace. Also, it was a heartbreaker that Ethan Hawk’s character, Harrow, was essentially tossed aside once the “true ” villain of the show emerged–a bit of an antithetical Dias Ex Machima in my opinion–I would have liked to see Harrow in the driver’s seat of his own actions and dealing with the consequences.

            It just felt like the show was over and quickly. I wish there had been another act to put everything to rest.

            But I suppose there will be a Moon Knight Season 2, so why give away all the tricks in a single run of the show? This certainly accounts for the twist ending in which [REDACTED] happens. Crazy, I know.

            Moon Knight was a very enjoyable watch. I’m always surprised and delighted at the subject matter Marvel explores with every new show, each new character. It truly is a big universe out there with the MCU, one that seems to never stop expanding.

***

DATES AND DETAILS #3

The Online Irish Goodbye

            Since dating apps bear no real consequences when it comes to messaging someone, there’s often a lot of ghosting (people who suddenly stop responding). Can you really blame anyone, though? Most ghosting isn’t malicious or intended to hurt anyone; it is just the result of too much volume. When matching with others, you aren’t waiting around for ONE specific person to reply. No, you’re casting a wide net and trying to get as many bites back as you can. This inevitably leads to many conversations going on at once, and in many cases, you just don’t have the conversational bandwidth to keep up.

            Some people get left behind. Or, that too much effort is required to keep the conversation going in the first place (ie. People who don’t ask questions, who don’t offer up details about their lives, and it makes it hard to comment–yeah, a little help on the other end would be nice).

            Conversations trail away and that’s just the way of online dating. Hey, people lead busy lives, what do you expect?

            But there’s another form of ghosting that’s unilaterally nasty in my opinion—and that’s un-matching someone without notice.

            In my experience, here are the only times to un-match with someone:

  1. After a consistent record of offensive comments has been said and the most viable option is to disconnect.
  2. It’s been a long time since any interaction has taken place, which likely means no date is imminent anyway.
  3. Ghosting by the other person and it’s been more than a week.

These scenarios make sense to drop someone.

            However, there are conversations I’ve had where someone un-matches MID-CONVERSATION. As in the three bubbles of someone typing their reply is on screen and suddenly…

            POOF!

            Un-Matched.

            So, why is this happening?

            Since people are not altogether menacing (in my experiences), I don’t think the intention is to hurt anyone. Rather, un-matching is probably about circumstances rather than the person (maybe she realized you live far away and didn’t realize it before, or he has a political/religious view or job that doesn’t mesh well with your lifestyle, etc). 

            Either way, the conversation ends the same way and that’s with a complete lack of saying goodbye.

            …which is kind of a rotten thing to do to someone, even by online standards.

            No one is obligated in the modern age to be cordial or kind on the internet. You don’t have to “officially” end anything with a line-in-the-sand statement to say it is over, but I think it does say something about the person who DOES the considerate thing and braves a little honesty. I think it speaks to how upstanding and aware of boundaries the person is, and I often come away respecting those who would say a brief, “Hey, sorry, but it’s not going to work out between us.”

            Of course, it’s easier NOT TO DO ANY OF THAT and, instead, give the ol’ Online Irish Goodbye where people just leave mid-conversation.

            But it is a bit strange. Even in real life.

            Have you ever experienced the Irish Goodbye? At party, say? Maybe you’ve been talking to someone, even platonically, and it’s going pretty well. You’re laughing. They’re laughing. Everyone seems to be enjoying themselves. And then this person just up and leaves??? You wonder what was wrong with that person. Why would leave without saying goodbye or having the decency to come up with a convincing lie?

            EVEN THE LIE IS MORE CONSIDERATE THAN JUST DISAPPEARING!

            Which is why, whenever I get the Ol’ Online Irish Goodbye, I come up with my own cover stories for those that suddenly disappear.

            So, Erin, let me just say this:

            “It’s ok, I get it. You’ve got a long history of OCD and when you see a stray dog from your cheap apartment window, you have to race after it, even at the cost of running into traffic and causing major accidents on rural roads (there were a fair few reported last week in the Grand Rapids area, please be forward and say you caused them, ok?). I know you wanted to check in with our pretty great conversation we were having, but the Sergeant in charge at the police station realized someone like you shouldn’t be dating, and immediately Un-Matched with me. He said it was for my own good. And you know? I have to agree.

            “So, Erin, this comes from the bottom of my heart (so you know it’s true): I am definitely too good for you and it was the right decision to disappear without a trace. Best of luck, and may all dogs escape your psychopathic need to chase after them into oncoming traffic.

            “Keep well (and properly medicated going forward).”

            Robert

***

  1. “This Time” by Sure Sure
  2. “CHAMPAGNE” by Valley
  3. “Honey” by Abhi The Nomad

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #33

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

ALWAYS NEW DEPTHS

            DISCLAIMER: I’ve hesitated to post this Weekly Post-Ed because I felt I didn’t have anything remarkable to say about Bloc Party beyond, “This band means a lot to me,” and so I’ve been struggling to come up with a better message. Since it is Thursday and the week is nearly through, I’ve decided that sharing how I feel on a personal website is totally fine.

            In short: I’m a huge fan of the band. Here’s why:

**

            I used to stay up late on weeknights to watch Late Night with Conan O’Brien in high school. If not for much needed laughs at the time, then for the musical guests that were featured in the mid 2000s. Unlike the Tonight Show, Conan’s musical guests were indie/alternative starlets making a big impact on the music scene. Many were European, a fair few coming from the UK and for good reason—the indie-punk revival was in full bloom over there when I was 15.

            And on one fateful night, Conan introduced the musical guest, “Ladies and gentlemen, Bloc Party!”

            The frantic back-and-forth guitar duet of the song “Banquet” jammed out through my old bedroom 14’’ CRT lightbulb television speakers.

            And I was changed forever.

            “Banquet” is the hit song from Bloc Party’s first EP, Silent Alarm. If you haven’t listened to that album, it’s one of the greatest and complete 54-minutes of music ever made. Every song hits because every song WAS a hit.

            Bloc Party was only the beginning. It felt like week after week I was being introduced to the likes of Interpol, Kaiser Chiefs, Foals, Shout Out Louds, Arcade Fire, The Hives, The Bravery, and all the other seminal bands of my teenage years who appeared on Conan O’Brien one after the other. But there has never been a band like Bloc Party for me. They were the first band where I appreciated just about every song they’ve ever made.

            Chris Rock once said, “The music you listen to when you’re a teenager is the music you will listen to the rest of your life.” The thing is I had heard The Beatles by this time. I’ve listened to countless hours of many of the 70’s bands my dad often listened to like Elton John, Chicago, or ABBA. I appreciated what I heard, but it never moved me. Bloc Party was different. Their music resonated on what I can only assume was a spiritual level for me. The licks of Russell Lissack’s guitar, the beats of Matt Tong on drums, Gordon Moakes on bass with an amazing rhythm section, and Kele Okereke’s piercing lyrics and guitar riffs combined to make music full of angst and energy that felt like the proper soundtrack of my life at the time.

And, as it turned out, for most of my adult life, too.

Original Bloc Party (Left to Right): Matt Tong, Gordon Moakes, Kele Okereke, Russell Lissack

            I didn’t know it at the time but the single greatest thing the band showed me throughout the years was the fearlessness of their musical direction—every new album offered something different, an evolution of character and music that spoke of a band growing up into fame and new influences in their lives. They wrote about deep personal issues in their music (about drugs, shallow love, true intimacy, and so much more) and in ways that only Bloc Party ever could. They embraced change, never repeating the same tricks twice, and this made each new album 3-dimensional and with a sense of purpose. When you listened to a new Bloc Party song, it was a hit on many different levels: lyrically, rhythmically, emotionally.

            This was the band that taught me (like another one of their hits) that there are Always New Depths. And even if I wasn’t aware of how influencial these ideas were while cranking up music to ten on my first CD player at the time, it’s something I’m cognizant of now as I make my own stuff.

Bloc Party, “Always New Depths”

            I’ll listen to everything they put out, if for no other reason than be fascinated by what’s new and different in the world.

***

THOUGHTS ON ALPHA GAMES

            Ok, so I’m no music critic. Very rarely do I listen to the lyrics of a song and understand the subtextual meaning, or how the composition of instruments and riffs adds to a theme of a song. Sorry, I’m very basic in my consumption of music: if I like it, I’ll listen to the song more.

Bloc Party, Alpha Games

            That being said, my first full listen of Bloc Party’s Alpha Games was underwhelming. Here, I was expecting the old Bloc Party, the high-tempo post-punk modern sound that burgeoned onto the music scene with their first EP Silent Alarm (and even subsequent albums A Weekend in the City, Intimacy, and Four). I was expecting a better sophomore approach from a rebuilt band that saw the likes of founding bassist Gordon Moakes and drummer Matt Tong depart in 2015.

            But after listening to the album several more times and gaining a better appreciation for what was attempted by this new Bloc Party, I think the biggest issue with the music was in my assumption of what the band ought to be for me.

            Bloc Party is still a big deal—one of those tentpole influences of my teenage years and, as it turns out, my adult life. Of course I associate a certain feeling with that brand of music and want more. I want that old connection, the one where I felt younger and fluid and full of energy. I’m sure Bloc Party, the band, felt the same way about their original sound, but that was 17-years-ago. Things have changed, not only in the makeup of the band (which now includes incredible newcomers in bassist Justin Harris and drummer Louise Bartle). To assume the band would reproduce an old signature sound isn’t fair; not only for an evolving band, but for the creative process, too.

Modern Bloc Party (Left to Right): Justin Harris, Kele Okereke, Louise Bartle, Russell Lissack

            And what Alpha Games turned out to be is like everything I’ve ever appreciated about Bloc Party: it’s another deep exploration into something new and the brave attempt to follow that instinct.

            It’s true that an album is like a relationship: the more time spent with an album, the more of a connection we feel with it. After my first listen, I wasn’t sure what I was hearing with the lyrics, and so looked them up. Apple Music has a neat feature with newer albums that includes interviews with the band. Kele Okereke, the lead singer, broke down each song with the intention behind the lyrics and the choice in sound and mood. After reading about the album, I liked it so much more and could better appreciate it. 

            After all, who doesn’t better appreciate Shakespeare or Byron after learning a bit more about the work they made? That’s what makes literature so alluring, that it can mean so many things.

            And I think Alpha Games is very much in this same literary vein.

            It’s one of the more unique Bloc Party albums to date, one I find myself listening to more and more, finding new reasons to listen to tracks I didn’t find musically interesting on the first playthrough.

            I hope there is more to come, more momentum to be gained with a proper infusion of new band members and new musical voices in the group. It’s not the Bloc Party that represented the energy and angst of my teenage years any longer

And that’s perfectly ok.

            Instead, Bloc Party’s music has grown u. Alpha Games is a matured and wisened album, one that comes from experiences of losing and finding love, and if it means anything in the end.

            In many ways, this is probably what Bloc party – the band – probably felt about themselves while making it: do they still mean something?

            For me, the answer is emphatically YES.

            I think they’ve still got it, and I can’t wait to hear more.

***

            Obviously I recommend the entire album of Alpha Games, but I do have a few favorite tracks that have been on repeat in the car. I’ll list them below:

  1. “Traps” by Bloc Party
  2. “Sex Magik” by Bloc Party
  3. “In Situ” by Bloc Party

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #32

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

Hey, Now I’m Perfect!

            I just finished reading Michael Schur’s book on philosophy called How to be Perfect: the Correct Answer to Every Moral Question. If you haven’t heard of Michael Schur, you’ve likely seen one of his famed television shows. He is a writer/producer/creator/director of such shows as The Office, Parks and Recreation, and The Good Place. The latter television show dealt with moral philosophy and its many dilemmas, none of which were easy to solve, and which drove the central problem of the show: can someone, should they really want to, become a good person?

            Through his experiences making The Good Place, Michael Schur wrote a book that finally explains fully and clearly how to be a perfect person.

            And ever since I concluded the final page, I feel MORE perfect (if such a thing were possible). 

            Before I started reading the book, I was pretty sure I was the most perfect human being imaginable (perhaps a minor league Jesus Christ, the second perfect person in existence), but now I treat people nicely, which, as Michael Schur stated over and over (almost a little annoyingly) in his book made for being a better person. 

            I don’t know; jury’s still out if being kind makes life better for anyone, but if it makes me a little more perfect, I suppose I can give it a try…

            *And so ends the sarcastic commentary*

            In all seriousness, Michael Schur’s book was a triumph not only because of the erudite and relatable explanations of the basic concepts of philosophy, but also because this was the first book I’ve ever read in which I ACTUALLY REMEMBERED specific things about philosophical argumement.

            Deontology? Introduced by Immanual Kant, it means there are universal moral laws that must be followed (don’t lie, don’t cheat, don’t steal) because, in this school of thought, there is a RIGHT and WRONG to every problem.

            Utilitarianism? Simply put, it’s the benefit of most that determines the right action (for example: if more people benefit from YOUR death, then, by all means, you must be killed to make other’s lives better).

            Contractualism? Easy: to agree on a set of reasonable rules that society must follow, and that these rules cannot be reasonably revoked by anyone (ie: you should throw away your trash; opening the door for others is a nice thing to do; running someone off the road is bad; etc).

            Michael Schur made every philosophical problem entertaining and interesting while only throwing in a few schools of western philosophical thought to balance each scenario. There are famous thought experiments – most famously the Trolley Problem – and how it isn’t such a guaranteed solution to think about. Should a runaway trolley be forced to either crash into one person or five on a split in the tracks, which would you choose? The lone person seems like a clear contender to die—but there are consequences in assuming this answer. What if a doctor needs an organ transplant and the only one around with a healthy liver is you? Does that mean you are obligated to donate it on the spot?

            This, along with tons of other examples made for a funny and enlightening way to read philosophy.

            As an aside, one section I appreciated the most was just why Ayn Rand’s idea of “Everyone for themselves leads to world happiness!” is such a stupid, childish idea. Michael Schur does a splendid job tearing this bad idea a new one and the book is worth the purchase alone just to read all about it.

            Seriously, what a dumb idea that was, Ayn.

            It was a joy to read How to be Perfect and I cannot recommend it enough.

***

NAIL CLIPPERS

            I don’t have a take on this true story from this week other than to say, “Ew!”

            At a staff meeting, I sat at a round table with six teachers. We were asked to discuss the most recent batch of data pertaining to children performance in our classrooms. The task was to come up with reasons the data worked, what was missing, and if there was any way to make recording the data a better experience.

            Across the table from myself was another teacher who happened to take out a neon pink silicon coin purse. The floor was hers to begin.

            “I think the data is pretty easy to fill in during the day,” she said, unclasping the pink coin purse. “Does anyone else have any problems?”

            “I wish we had more time to take notes and fill in tables like we’re supposed to. It feels like there isn’t enough time,” offered another teacher.

            UNCLASP. From the pink purse came a pair of nail clippers. The clippers readied on the left-handed pointer finger of the teacher leading the discussion.

            “Robert, any thoughts?”

            I didn’t hear the question. I was focused on the nail clippers and just what, in a conference room with forty teachers, they were doing there and about to do.

            “On the data?” I asked, not sure if I even said this aloud.

            “Well, duh,” said the teacher, shaking her head. She looked to her nails.

            CLIP. CLIP. CLIP.

            Like purple, glossed shrapnel, bits of fingernail flung away like some World War I dogfight shooting the hulls of their airplanes out of the sky.“Fire!” I heard a captain shout, and a pepper-spray of debris flew everywhere, entrenching the table with debris.

            “Robert?” asked the teacher, taking a break from clipping. “Did you hear me?”

            “Right,” I said, staring at the nail clippers. “Well, it would be nice if we had more time to enter in data,”

            “I think we said that already.” CLIP, CLIP, CLIPPITY.

            A nail flew upward, the apex of its arc certain to land in the open lid of my coffee. Quickly, I sealed the opening with my bare palm, the steam burning my skin to curdles. The shard of nail glanced off my protecting hand, which, induced a welling in my throat of near-vomit projectile.

            CLIP. CLIP. “Anyone else have any thoughts?” CLIP.

            I peered around the table, the other teachers either peering down at their data spreadsheets or sipping a frozen coffee from a straw from the plastic container—they were the lucky ones; the nails had no way to penetrate the Bigby Frozen Coffee lid defenses. And yet, seemingly no one paid any mind to the egregious thing happening before us. No one seemed to notice bits of fingernail littering the table like a surgeon had finished sawing through bone on the operating table, but hadn’t quite broomed away the calcified bone bits into the trash can (or wherever such things end up).

            “Maybe they should TRIM down our spreadsheets,” I offered, stunned by the nail trimmings.

            There was unanimous agreement around the table. No one had caught the pun, that I was mocking the woman with the nail clippers.

            “Ok,” said the teacher, inspecting all ten finished fingernails.

            I sighed in relief, unclasping the lid of my coffee. I turned my hand over and looked over the soaked third-degree burns I must have suffered by protecting the hot liquid inside.

            But the teacher was not done. She started pawing at the clippings, rounding them up into a frenzied pile. And then, with one quick swish of the hand (like a magician might) she flung the pile of nail trimmings off the table and onto the conference room carpet.

            I was agape with shock.

            “Ok, listen up everyone!” said our director. “I think we’ve had enough time to discuss the data. I think we could use a break and do something fun. Let’s get on the floor and share a bit about our classrooms, something positive.”

            “I have to go to the bathroom,” I declared, perhaps too loudly.

            And it was there I stayed, looking in the mirror, for several minutes, certain that the activity on the floor with the nail trimmings lodged in the fine carpet would be over. In the reflection, I saw the state of my nails and said, “Huh. Could use a trim.”

            I washed my hands and rejoined the meeting.

***

  1. “T” by 88rising, Hikaru Utada & Warren Hue
  2. “Nightmare” by instant crush
  3. “Cool Kids” by Max Frost

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #31

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

SEEING ‘TURNING RED’

            Only the foulest and most detestable of preschool teachers sets up a computer monitor and shows a movie to a classroom of kids at the end of a long week. Of course, I would never subject my kids to such “low education”. Any teacher that does should feel ashamed of themselves. Because when you have kids that are bored with the monotony of everyday life in a classroom, who just want nothing more than to get outside and play (but can’t because of this laughably unending Michigan winter season), and are still force-fed curriculum, indoors, and that, at this time of year, consists of dull and droning material such as, “Hey, did you know this type of plant grows, too???”

            *Insert facepalm GIF of your choice*

            …you feel tempted to shuck away all modes of teaching and just park the kids down with a snack and a movie and call it a day.

            Teaching, in actual practice (it should be noted) is oftentimes a war of attrition.

            So, supposing I were one of these lowly teachers that brought in a computer monitor just to show his kids the Pixar film Turning Red on a Friday afternoon, it might go something like this:

**

            It’s becoming a trend for me to say, “Yeah, so I just saw this movie that’s been out for, like, 3 MONTHS, and here’s what I thought of it…”

            How I see new movies is like my seeing a post on Twitter about the latest Wordle: I know vaguely of it, but I couldn’t exactly explain it or just when I’ll get around to learning about what it even is.

            Anyway, more on Wordle in my next Weekly Post-Ed…

            But why stop at simply seeing a new movie? Why not subject yourself to watching it with a bunch of 5-year-olds in a classroom—which is the audience you should see a highly anticipated movie with. Not only have all my students seen the movie before, they just want the highlights—mostly the 4*Town songs written by Billie Eilish and Finneas O’Connell. The rest of the movie is red fluff for them, which doesn’t bode well for a semi-professional writer who cannot help but get absorbed in the story and underlying themes of a movie. Not only that, but the film was a surprisingly dense and unique way of investigating teenage womanhood and the act of breaking free of parental norms to embrace individuality.

            So: let’s press PLAY and see how far we get.

            –TWENTY MINUTES LATER–

            “Mr. Robert, is the movie almost done?” asks the little girl closest to me. She’s tossed her teddy bear across her cot like a tumbleweed by this point, the stuffing frayed from blunt-force trauma.

            “No, it isn’t,” I tell her calmly, with a warm smile. After all, I’m enjoying the movie and am entranced with what’s going on and assume everyone else should be.

            The astounding thing about Pixar is how purposeful everything is in their movies. For example, a seemingly dull Father acts timid around an ultra-protective, oftentimes judgmental Wife/Mother? Sure, let’s have that in the movie.

            But wait! It pays off. You see, the Father is this way because, as it turns out, HE was the object of—

            “Is the movie almost done now?” wines a little boy next to the little girl who asked the first time. The blunt-force trauma of the teddy bear tossed between the two of them has me wondering if we should be teaching stuffed animal civil rights.

            “No,” I say, with a bit more growl, but still smiling. “It’ll be over soon.”

            “Ok,” they say, and I gesture to keep the teddy bear still for fear that it will end up in teddy bear E.R. with any more blows to the head.

            Where was I? Oh! So, the Father is the crucial element that helps Mei Lee, the hero, realize that the Red Panda transformation, which – and I skipped over this – acts as the magical embodiment for young womanhood that I spoke about before. And it’s such a great symbol! That’s because whenever Mei Lee turns into a Red Panda, it’s her true feelings that come out, thereby confronting her obligation to “honor” her Mother and remain a child—a necessary rite of passage. When the Red Panda comes out, it is a wild, freeing form of expression, and it is precisely what—

            “Mr. Robert?”

            It’s the first little girl again. I turn to her with what can only be described as Academy Award Winning patience and resolve. “Yes?” I smile, all my facial muscles wanting to succumb to irritation instead. “What is it now?”

            “Is the movie almost over yet?”

            I sigh. “It’s been three minutes since you last asked me,” I say to the little girl who seems to have the attention span of a goldish. I’m also wondering how this girl “claims” to have seen Turning Red if she interrupts every umpteen minutes to ask if it is almost over. IF YOU SAW THE MOVIE, YOU WOULD KNOW! *Counts to four, five, six, seven…* 

            “No,” I say with a smile, “we just started the movie 25 minutes ago,” and you can tell I’m addled; I quantified time in front a preschooler, which is pointless—5 minutes might as well be 5 hours to a kid that can’t tell time. “I’ll let you know when the movie is close to being over.”

            Which is a lie, but I mean no harm–I haven’t seen this movie and want to experience this great thing playing on a 27’’ computer monitor sitting atop a 2-foot tall Lego table at the front of the classroom.

            All is quiet again. I sink back into my chair and watch.

            Have I mentioned the role Mei Lee’s three friends play in aiding a journey into independent womanhood? I mean, wow! As a male, I have zero idea how the journey into womanhood works, and I was mystified (yes, MYSTIFIED) by the importance of community and embracing friendship as a means of overcoming the stresses and sheer terror of stepping out of that comfort zone of what we know as our honoring our parents.

            “Mr. Robert?”

            Same little girl.

            “Yes?” I ask, noticing my teeth turn into Red Panda-like fangs.

            “Is the movie almost—”

            “No,” I growl, red panda ears sprouting from my head. I also bounce up another foot in my chair when my Red Panda tail blooms underneath me. “The movie is not done. Not ten seconds ago when you last asked, and not ten minutes from now when the movie will still be going on! Does it look like we’ve arrived at the Act II climax? I didn’t think so!”

            “Uh…”

            (If you thought introducing quantifiable time was a problem for preschoolers, now I’ve just hoisted the notion of plot elements only writers care about as though it were something kids ought to know alongside colors, numbers, and letters of the alphabet.)

            I calm down and summarize to the little girl with a candid smile, “Just be quiet and enjoy the movie.”

            Anyway, as I was saying: Yes! The Mother in the movie is losing control just as her daughter is, representing the symmetry of BOTH mother and daughter having to let go of previous notions of who the other previously was! The mother is a Red Panda, but massive, her insecurities and fears of what will become this new daughter, this new identity, and she becomes a Godzilla-esque kaiju monster as a result! She’s about to storm the concert venue that Mei Lee has escaped to with her friends and—

            “Mr. Robert?”

            I don’t even let her finish. I grow ten-feet tall, my rabid Red Panda snout towering over this little girl who was given the option of sleeping during rest time or enjoying a movie, only to keep annoyingly asking (the audacity, right?) if we are done with the movie.

            Luckily, before I can claw her to bits, the Red Panda taking over my entire persona (as all teachers have their own Red Panda and have known this LONG before Turning Red was ever released), the credits roll.

            Oh no, I think, sitting down in my chair, I’ve missed the finale. I’m defeated. I was deeply enjoying the movie, but instead I had to hear the constant inerruptions of:

            “Mr. Robert?” asks the little girl, again…

            I smile back at her, meakly. I shrink back to normal size, the Red Panda gone. I feel a slight welling in the back of my throat. It was a wonderful movie, from what I saw of it. I look around at the dozen or so kids that were watching; they seem mildly pleased and are getting up off their cots. Most are interested in finding something else to play with in the room.

            “Yes, the movie is done now,” I say to her before she can even ask.

            “Can I have a hug now?”

            I open my arms, half annoyed, but mostly grateful to be able to give a kid a hug.

            That’s the other side of teaching: that if you can endure all the hair-ripping frustrations of it, you can still give a kid something they really need (connection, fun, or, most times, a simple hug), and it feels pretty dang good.

            “Did you like the movie?” I ask the little girl, expecting her to say she didn’t even watch it, blah blah blah.

            Instead, she says, “Yeah. It’s my favorite movie. I’m going to watch it at home.”

            It then dawns on me that I, too, can go home and watch the movie. And I can watch it in private, reverse-engineering how it was all put together to my heart’s content. It also occurs to me how stupid I was for getting irritated.

            “Can we watch another movie?” asks the little girl.

            I look to the other kids. Most come back to their cots, each with an idea of what we should watch next. I look to the clock, that mystifying circular object on the wall, and see there’s an hour and a half left of school.

            “Sure,” I say, “we have a few more minutes. Why not?”

**

            This is all fictional, of course. A teacher would never show a movie when there is important curriculum to be taught instead.

            I mean it; cross my Red Panda paws and hope to die.

***

POLIWHIRL IN THE RAIN

            In my quest to get better at digital illustration and draw every Pokémon card I own, I often get bored with the mundanity of some of the earliest cards (their poses, backgrounds, etc) and so choose to experiment with concepts of my own. I’m not sure why but when I think of Poliwhirl, I always think of a Broadway Musical Actor ready to break into singsong and choreographed dance numbers (maybe it’s those big, white gloves that would suit any tuxedo?). So, I’ve illustrated Poliwhirl in the pose of the great Gene Kelly from the movie poster of “Singin’ In The Rain”.

            Good idea or not, this illustration makes me laugh. I hope you all find some joy in it, too!

***

  1. “Almost Lost” by Saint Kochi
  2. “Downers” by Jalle & Issey Cross
  3. “Secret in the Dusk” by PENDANT

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #30

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

ROBERT HYMA, FORMER SEVENTH GRADE PIRATE

            There are times in my adult life when I think all my ideas are great ideas because – and I think we all feel this way – they come from me. There’s a system of checks and balances in place, certainly, but upon first stumbling upon an idea or loosely assembled philosophy I assume my ideas are justified mostly because I thought of them.

            During these times, there’s a specific set of memories I replay from my childhood that remind me of other “great ideas” I’ve had and how – get this – it turns out they WEREN’T great ideas. At all.

            So, I thought I’d share one of the memories from my childhood I reference for a reality check from time to time.

**

            When I was in seventh grade, I pretended I was a pirate for three entire months.

            Maybe some context:

            I didn’t quite understand how to be true to myself when I was thirteen. What I liked, back then, were characters in movies I had seen at the time because they were cool, capable, and unabashedly themselves—a complete mystery to my 13-year-old self. So: imagine a quiet, unintrusive middle schooler without a whole lot going for him other than being (I assume) not so annoying and fairly decent with grades.

            And then: Pirates of the Caribbean came out, and I soaked up that movie for an entire summer. Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Jack Sparrow was the coolest thing I had ever seen to that point: funny, charming, always had a plan, talked in an interesting way, his look was unique, and above else:

            He was cool—everything I wasn’t.

            (To illustrate how warped my tastes were as a teenager: I LOVED Dragonball Z, but I felt “Meh,” when I first saw Star Wars—so, just an objective critic in the making.) 

            And at some point near the beginning of the school year, I assumed the Jack Sparrow identity. I don’t know when, but I imagine there was a penultimate scene right before I made the decision. At 13-years-old, I was scrawny, pasty, with a hairstyle that said, “Gel, what’s that?” as it fell frumpily over my expressive forehead. I must have looked myself in the bathroom mirror with a belated sigh and said, “Ok, this isn’t working.”

            And I started talking, acting, and otherwise BEING Jack Sparrow everywhere I went.

            No, I didn’t dress like a pirate. I’d like to state that. But this likely made it all the stranger my mannerisms and gesticulations, my complete change of diction and talking style, and just what the hell that thing I wore on my ring and pinky finger was. I had found an old necklace that was torn and weathered, so I wrapped it in loops and tied knots to wear around my fingers because I thought it looked “pirate-y”. No one asked what it was or where it came from, and I think that speaks to the capacity human beings have for accepting others (yes, that’s the interpretation I’m sticking to).

            The other remarkable coincidence from this era, and because I had an absence of close friendships at the time (“I wonder why,” he said, rolling his eyes), was that I sat at a table of what can only be described as “popular girls”. I had unofficially joined a group of seventh grade boys in somehow attaining a girlfriend, which, at the time, was a little like ordering a meal from a restaurant (“Yes, I’ll take one girlfriend and I’d like it on the side with fries, thank you.”). And with a girlfriend came an unofficial credential to sit at this so-called “popular table”.

            But then the fad of “having girlfriends” faded early in the year and there were mass breakups from all of us puppy-love boys (including me, which ended in a similar restaurant-fashion: “Yes, could you send this back to the chef? No, I didn’t like it and would like to try being a single teenager again. No, I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. What do you mean you have to ‘call’ her?”)

            Unbeknownst to me, all the boys left the “popular table” and I stayed.

            Because I didn’t understand what was happening, I just kept sitting with the girls, not knowing any better, having nothing much to say to them, and they never said anything about it in all that time I sat awkwardly (which, in hindsight, was very kind of them).

            And then I became Jack Sparrow.

            “Hi, Robert,” said one of the popular girls (I’ll call her Jen) at the table upon my arrival in the cafeteria.

            “I’d say hello, but you already knew I was going to say that.” I said, twisting my face like Johnny Depp might in the movie.

            Jen said nothing back, quickly turning to a lifeline next to her, and I sat down in a very pirate-y way.

            “What’s on your hand?” asked another popular girl (Maggie).

            “This?” I said, twirling my hand like it had a mystical power. “Some say it’s good luck.”

            “So, what is it?” she asked again, after a beat.

            “Save-ee, just a trinket I found.”

            “What does SAVE-EE mean?”

            “I think he means SAVVY,” said Jen, keeping a straight face while the table laughed.

            “Drink up Me-hearties,” I said—I should note I seldom ate, so there was no tray or drink in front of me, which confused everyone.

            Three girls lifted their Dasani waters. “Yo-ho.”

            And from that I thought I was massive success. After all, I was barely speaking to anyone before becoming a pirate. This character brought on confidence, and I was speaking to pretty girls—I mean, it worked for Johnny Depp in the movies, why couldn’t I have that in my life?

            So I kept it up, purposely becoming a pirate every time someone spoke to me.

            “Could you be a dear lass and pass the ketchup?” I’d say to my sister at the dinner table. Several weeks into this character and no one asked questions. I was readily ignored, which seemed normal for my sister at the time anyway. No alarms there.

            One day I had to get a physical with my family physician. My dad went along, silently watching as I fingered the bracelet that I twirled through my fingertips in the waiting room. This was before smartphones, so no distracting himself from the character being portrayed by his burgeoning son. He watched on, ignoring the magazine periodicals he might have sifted through on another occasion.

            “Mr. Hyma?” called the nurse.

            The nurse took my preliminary assessment, asking me questions about drugs, pains, how much soda I was drinking. I answered, “Aye,” every time when I might have said, “Yes.”

            “The doctor will be right in,” said the nurse, happy to scamper out of the room and away from this odd teenager.

            Our family physician had a beard that made his smile friendlier, somehow. He was always calculating and reassuring, chalking up most medical problems like he was helping a recently married couple pick the right coat of paint at a hardware store. “A sore shoulder, huh? Ok, let’s rotate it this way. How does it feel? Does it hurt when you bend it like this? Hmm, sounds like a sore rotator cuff. Try not sleeping on that side at night for a week, that should help. I’ll prescribe some pain relievers, too. Give me a call in two weeks and we’ll do something else about it if it still bothers you. Have you considered dressing your bedroom in Cerulean instead of Lapis blue?”

            Quick and easy and our family was always out the family med-center without problems.

            The doctor came in with that familiar bearded smile. “Hello, Robert! How are things? How do you feel?”

            “A mighty fine day, even better to sail the seas, if it weren’t December, I’d say.”

            The doctor looked to my father, who shrugged.

            The doctor smiled again. “Ok, and how are you feeling health-wise? Anything bothering you?”

            “A clicking in my ankle, nothing serious. Perhaps scurvy.”

            “Scurvy?” repeated the doctor.

            “He doesn’t know what that is,” said my dad.

            “Ah,” said the doctor. “Steve,” that’s my dad, “can we chat for a minute while Robert gets out his clothes in the other room? I’ll be in with you in a moment for your physical. I just have to ask your dad a few things.”

            Behind closed doors, changing into that napkin-like skirt that ties in the back, I overheard them. “Why is he talking like that?”

            My dad sighed, the kind of sigh that was pent up for three straight months of enduring his son talk like Johnny Depp—which was longer than Pirates of the Caribbean was relevant at the Box Office. In fact, this resulted in a second sigh just to emphasize the first. “He thinks he’s a pirate.”

            It all made sense to the doctor. “I see, now. Well, it was a good movie, but he’ll grow out of it.”

            “That’s what we thought would happen by now.”

            “I can give him scurvy,” suggested the doctor. “Maybe then being a pirate won’t be as fun.”

            The doctor laughed. My dad laughed. The popular girls at the lunch table laughed (maybe not about this, but I’m sure they were—that’s what they did most of the time).

            And as the doctor came into the adjacent room and placed an ice-cold stethoscope on my back, I reevaluated my life decision to be a pirate.

            “Cough please,” said the doctor.

            Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to become Jack Sparrow.

            “Cough again,” said the doctor.

            Maybe being Jack Sparrow is only cool if you’re an actor cast in a movie about pirates and someone writes you all the best lines.

            “One more time,” said the doctor.

            “Ok, I get it already,” I told him.

            “What was that?” asked the doctor.

            “Sorry, I’m in the middle of this essay and it’s getting a little testy.”

            The doctor shrugged. “Right. Speaking of, drop your underpants for me, would you?”

            After my physical, I dropped being a pirate forever. I put away the old bracelet I used as pirate-y rings around my fingers in a desk drawer. I still have it and took it out the other day, prompting a memory that led to this Weekly Post-Ed. It actually looks movie-authentic; I had a talent for wardrobe, anyway.

            “Hey Robert,” said Jen, one of the popular girls at lunchtime the following Monday. I still didn’t have the sense to sit elsewhere, even after sobering to a world in which I was acting like a pirate for the past three months.

            “Hi,” I said normally, deflated.

            The girls looked to one another. Maggie asked, “Are you ok?”

            “Oh, just Save-ee,” I said, with a meager smile, making fun of myself.

            They laughed, I tried to. And they hit my arm, playfully, because they liked me this way better, the kind of person who could make fun of himself.

            Except, I didn’t know that.

            I just wanted to be cool.

            That next week I had watched A Beautiful Mind about a dozen times. I thought, “John Nash – you know, besides the schizophrenia and government paranoia –  seems to be charming and funny to all the girls in that movie. I bet I could act like that…”

***

PPF MUSIC

            I’ll share this because his videos mystify me with how complex and brilliant they are. YouTuber PPF makes wonderful scores of old video game soundtracks with his own collection of instruments and assembles them into excellent videos that are released twice a year. This most recent cover was “Fear Factory” from Donkey Kong Country, one of my favorite games of all time. All of his videos are phenomenal – including all the renditions of songs from Chrono Trigger – and I hope you check him out!

***

  1. “If We Get Caught” by Bloc Party
  2. “picture” by dee holt & Chris James
  3. “All I Need” by Sir Woman

***

Wishing everyone as well as you can be. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #24

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

PUT ME IN, COACH

            The conversation of coaching came up last night in the locker room at Sunday Night Hockey, always the philosophers’ circle. The premise was this: 

            “I don’t know how someone can coach a kid who isn’t his own. When it’s your kid and he wants to play hockey, you coach him because he’s yours: he’s coming home with you and you have to look after him. But I don’t know who has the patience to coach other kids, especially the ones that don’t have a clue. Who has patience for that?”

            I know the answer because I am, in fact, one of those people. I’m patient and tolerant of childhood development (it’s also my job as a preschool teacher), even though I don’t have kids of my own. 

            Why is that? 

            I’ve thought about it and here’s my answer: because I’m very much a kid myself and remember what it’s like to have someone look after you.

            It’s easy to dismiss a child’s behavior as chaotic and intolerable because they haven’t developed the tools that adults have. What I’ve found after years of working in early childhood education is that kids are not so different than adults. We all have needs that we want met, to voice our concerns when we may not know how to, and we act out in ways we have observed and habituated over the years. There isn’t so much different about children and adults except experience and having gone through the ringer of expectations of childhood and into adulthood.

            That’s about it: we’re still the same human beings with a hierarchy needs we must account for before going to bed each night.

            I think the chasm develops between adults and children when we can’t imagine that we were once like them. I have friends that are outright disgusted at the sight of children, often running away from them because they don’t want to put up with a toddler’s cries or seepages or smells. I find this ironic because these adults were very much the same toddlers with the same cries, seepages, and smells, but somewhere along the way came a partition, a line in the sand that said they are now “developed”. To that, I disagree. I would argue that these adults are very much the same (seepages and smells and all), but they are better at hiding that they made the mess.

            Really, that’s all adulthood is: becoming better at hiding the mess.

            What kind of person coaches kids and has patience for that? It isn’t the guys in the locker room after hockey who asked the question. This is a very distant problem because, for them, they are very much children in their own right. They haven’t shed the need to look after themselves first and foremost. I think these are men who won’t shed the spotlight for anyone else, who respond to loud stimuli, who need someone else to join in with the loudness of a joke. To them, life is a battle cry, a constant declaration of, “Hey! I’m here and I’m important!”

            Which is very much the battle cry of children. 

            Every child wants to be seen, heard, to be noticed and loved. That’s why every achievement isn’t hidden or shied away from (usually). Kids will put a drawing in your lap, tug on your sleeve to show the tower they built. Are these grand human accomplishments? No, maybe not to the adult world, but to them it is a sign that they’ve made their mark, that they are growing up and growing out. 

            To matter.

            The coaches, teachers, and caretakers of the world who undertake this upbringing understand this. They are not the entire picture, the kid is also part of it.

            There’s a sobering affect that comes with becoming a parent (so said the writer without children of his own). All the sudden, you recognize that it isn’t only your life in your hands any longer, but that of this fragile human-shaped pile of organs and soft tissue; this crying, seeping, smelly specimen that needs someone else to care for it or else it might die. When that moment of clarity arrives, it’s amazing the change that occurs in many parents. It’s an important step in the evolution of personhood, to put oneself aside for the greater good, for something bigger.

            To put it another way: to have faith.

            I’ve often envied those who believe in religion of some kind. Personally, I’m not religious, but that doesn’t mean I’m not spiritual—I do believe in something bigger than myself, which is more akin to humanism (or a faith that we’ll eventually get it together after enough atrocities and setbacks). However, I do respect those who are religious because of what religion is at its core: faith in something bigger than yourself. It means an acceptance of the unknown, of things you cannot control, to trust that there is something larger at work.

            In other words, a hope for what comes after.

            I would be remiss if I said that all coaches, teachers, etc were selfless individuals who put the needs of others before their own (which is simply untrue: many are in it for a job like any other humdrum profession), but I think there’s an extra ingredient when working with kids that recognizes the importance of passing on the torch, knowing that your experiences can perhaps help in the life of someone yet to live their own.

            To my mind, and much like faith, there doesn’t have to be reason why this is. I think some people are just imbued with the capacity to look after others and see to their development. Largely, that’s an evolution in one’s character. 

            Or maybe it’s someone who happens to tolerate cries, seepages, and smells.

            And in a locker room after hockey on a Sunday night, when no one had an answer for who would ever have patience for a such a thing, the conversation eventually moved on, no verdict reached. 

            Except, I knew.

            Because I am one of those people.

***

MONSTER HUNTER ERECT RISE

            I’ve put in over 30 hours into the PC edition of Monster Hunter Rise that launched on January 12, which is an egregious amount, something I might have felt guilty about had it not been some of the most fun I’ve had this entire winter season. My God is Monster Hunter Rise pure video game fun! Go on a hunt, hang out with a few friends online, build cool looking gear, and enjoy a robust battle system that is so satisfying to master.

            That’s all—I just wanted to plug the game again. It looks better in 4K, but it was certainly made for the Nintendo Switch, nothing beautiful; it was meant to be functional at best. I’m holding out for another addition to the franchise, something built for a more powerful console. 

            Still, Monster Hunter Rise hits the spot and I can’t say enough about it.

            30 hours well spent, in this writer’s opinion.

***

PEOPLE WHO LOOK GOOD IN HATS

            In response to the heading above, I simply recorded in my notes:

            “Fuck those people.”

            Isn’t it fulfilling to end on something completely vague and incomplete? Oh, and to mention that the art of this Weekly Post-Ed was based on this section. Isn’t this like hearing an anti-climactic ending to a great symphony?

            (Supposing this Weekly Post-Ed were like a great symphony. I’ll take the compliment anyway since you mentioned it *smile*.)

***

  1. “Alone” by Fickle Friends
  2. “Altitude” by Flight Facilities
  3. “Frankie” by Barrie

***

Wishing everyone as well as they can. You’re not alone out there,

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| Weekly Post-Eds |

Weekly Post-Ed #21

by Robert Hyma
written by Robert Hyma

MY PERSONAL RESOLUTION FOR THIS WEBSITE

            When I started this website, I wasn’t sure what it would end up becoming. A year into this endeavor and I’m still not sure, to be honest. I think this is a good sign—it means this website is something fluid and capable of evolving. That being said, I think this little corner of the internet could use some sprucing up.

            For this upcoming year, my personal resolution is simple: to be a published author. Technically, I’ve done that by publishing on this website, but I mean something more substantial: a physical, hardcopy of a book, something you can hold in your hands and say, “Hey, I have a book by that guy.”

            This was the goal for this past year, to publish the 11 or so short stories I wrote, and print them onto a small volume. What I did not anticipate was that my short stories are rather short in length, and so the compiled length of all the collected short stories was little more than 50 pages. Instead of a volume of short stories, it felt more a thick pamphlet, which, if I’m reading the look on your face correctly, is kind of a letdown.

            That’s why for this upcoming year I’m sticking to a strict publishing schedule on this website to better fill out a first collected volume of short stories. By the end of 2022, something meatier and meaningful will be printed off that’s worth holding onto. And if it means nothing more than a token of vanity, at least a hardcopy of a book appears to look like the real work of a serious writer.

            So, the schedule for this year will look like this:

– Starting January 16, a short story will be posted every 2 weeks. That makes for a total of 26 short stories throughout the year with the goal of compiling what I’ve written into a printed/eBook edition.

– Starting today, January 4 (or every Tuesday), there will be a Weekly Post-Ed each week for a total of 52 entries.

– There are some other projects in the works, but those are all TBD at this time. More details when things are closer to being finalized.

            So, that’s it. This website is going to continue to grow and I’m curious to see where it goes. I started all of this to see if anything interesting might happen from posting short stories, and what I found over the past year is how much I enjoyed writing something and posting it online as a finished product. I’m determined to do even better this year and I hope you’ll continue to come back and see where all of this is heading!

***

NEW YEAR, NEW LOOK

            For the new year, I thought more thematically. Ever since the launch of the James Webb Telescope (a SUCCESSFUL launch, if you didn’t know), I’ve thought about space and of the vastness beyond the problems of home. That’s what I do when I feel the world encroaching in—I look up to the night sky and find constellations and I think about how many light years away those stars are—each one with its own solar system, array of planets and celestial bodies, and the problems outside my front door seem small in comparison.

            With the launch of the James Webb Telescope, we’re bound to see and discover things we never knew possible in the universe. It’s with that energy and inspiration that I thought of the Mario Galaxy series, games that embody the joy of the cosmos within the candy coating only a Nintendo Mario title can. The logo is inspired by Mario Galaxy 2, while the background images were inspired by the deluxe soundtrack that came with copies of the original Wii games launched back in 2007.

            It’s a time for discovery, don’t you think?

            You can check out the artwork created for the website below:

***

  1. “Panic Attack” by Mating Ritual
  2. “Young & Wild” by the Strumbellas
  3. “Stay (feat Your Smith)” by Flight Facilities

Hoping everyone is as well as they can be. You’re not alone out there,

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