Here is my take on...
...superfoods: So, I have been told that there are these foods that are labelled "super" as they are really good for you. I don't have a problem with that per se, except that it seems like a very exclusive group, or club that is really hard to join and I just happen to have a thing against those kind of clubs. You know the ones I'm talking about - those ones where if you don't have the right clothes, or car or annoying accent, you can't get in. And now some genius thought up one for foods?!?!? Sounds unnecessarily elitist to me - who did those foods (or the more human members of its fan club) have to pay off to get in? And if it was the foods themselves doing the paying off, then "how" is my next question. By now, we all know the members of this clique: the "unblemished" blueberries, the "incandescent" kale, "accented" acai berries, the "bedazzling" broccoli, the "king kong"quinoa. If I was one of those previously-thought-highly-of foods that didn't receive an invite, I'd be fairly annoyed. "Like what is so wrong with me?" I'd think "Just yesterday we were all pals in the garden or the grocery store and now today you are walking around like you own the place. And another thing, how and when did you start walking?!?!" I just don't know if creating a manufactured divide amongst foods is the way to go - anyone remember the caste system? Another thought is once you are a member of this club, can you leave? Are you always super? Do they get time off to just be a regular veggie and visit the relatives? If not, it is more of a prison and less of a club. I want to come out right now and say that I am staunchly against imprisoning food! There is no way that is a good use of my tax dollars. The "super" part also seems to be wildly misleading. It makes it sound, to someone like me who goes out of his way to be as literal and easily misled as possible, that the foods are not only good for me but that they also have powers. I would love for my food to have powers, although it may make me contemplate eating them for their nutritional value or only using them for their powers. And when I say "using", I don't want it to sound like I would be a malevolent master and the food my lowly slave - do I look like I could be that evil and have a slave? Don't answer that! That day, last week, when you saw me I didn't have any beauty time in the morning - doesn't mean I am pro-food-slavery. Also, I may be "way out there" and considered a little "off" and "one to keep an eye on" (only when you aren't in the middle of a two-eye activity - I don't mind you watching, just don't get hurt. Safety first!) but I am way above being an evil master or even a good master to some food. I'm not that weird. Or I guess I should say not that weird anymore. Thank you Doctor Evans and the wonderful Nurse Peters!
...gravel: In one sense gravel is just a field of small rocks and if that is how you see them that is all well and good. Honestly, I don't know how you can sleep at night. Uh huh? Oh really? You put your pillow over there and your alarm clock too? Well, now I know - thanks for sharing! With those images in my head, I don't think I'll be sleeping much for a few nights now. Back to the gravel. Don't you see that if seen very close up gravel is essentially the same as a bunch of big, scary rocks seen from quite a distance? And, if that doesn't freak you out, the next time you walk by a field of gravel, I challenge you to get down on your knees or, better yet, get off your high horse (word to the wise: that ridiculously large horse you prance around on looks out of place and makes you appear aristocratic and hard to approach. If those were your goals all along, kudos to you) lay down and get yourself a bit dirty and what will you observe? Those tiny, completely-innocent looking pieces of gravel look like big old, grown-up rocks and boulders from your new perspective. Either way you look at it, don't underestimate these pebbles we are "using" to cheaply cover our elementary school playgrounds with- they are not just small, less powerful and intimidating rocks (I mean they are that, just not only that). I believe they hold within them the ability to be so much more and if we sit back and relax and incessantly sip our iced tea as our elected officials insist (all-the-while denying us enough requisite sugar to make the drink at all palatable - I don't know about you, but I voted for those officials as I believed they would be a whole lot more liberal in the dispensing of sweeteners) then those pieces of gravel may have the last laugh (or one of the last laughs if I happen to be in a particularly laughing mood that day). It also bothers me that no one holds gravel in high regard or has even attempted to hold it in high regard or any level of regard. It is the least we can do and sometimes it is important to do our least except when there is a potential for free kittens or when there is a potential gas leak and then we should always do our most or at least appear to do our most before fleeing the scene. During elementary school, many a day was spent running up and down the school gravel field kicking balls (or having a series of balls kicked at me repeatedly of which I only partially deserved) both real and imaginary. So much of my youth was spent on or in the vicinity of gravel and though I stood there on many occasions breathing through my mouth (I had yet to learn to nose breath), inhaling in copious amounts of dust and then sneezing and wheezing for hours afterwards, I never blamed the gravel or the men and women from the gravel manufacturing plant or those who made the decision that a grass field was either too aesthetically pleasing or too expensive, no, I blamed my cousin from Philadelphia. What a piece of work that guy is - let me tell you! I'm pretty sure he hates gravel as well.
...glossy photographs: I need to set the record straight, I'm not against glossy photographs at all. I am just not a big fan because, as an already glossily-foreheaded person, glossy photographs just accentuate my already way-too-shiny features making me look more surreal than I can handle. And I have quite the surreal threshold in the first place. I can see how a matte finish is helpful for some of you with a "cloudy" complexion who are looking to appear more exciting in photo albums your descendants may be forced to look at when visiting their grandparents, but for those of us who have no problem with sheen, gloss just seems redundant and quite wasteful and I, for one, am thinking of the little children at home all alone while their parents are slaving away working overtime at the glossy photo paper finishing plant just so little Bobby and Susie can have sturgeon caviar on their blinis or the newest video game where a team of Navy Seals slaughter surprisingly sentient killer whales who are determined to enslave all of our sturgeon and put a moratorium on all blini and other pancake production thus driving up worldwide production of waffles and french toast just after they purchased all breakfast diners. I am sorry if I think it is more important for those kids to have parental supervision so they can't eat all of the frosting or at least spread out the consumption of the frosting over a week or just spread it out on some cake to at least reduce the sheer amount of frosting in any one sitting. I just think allowing too much frosting isn't sending the right message to the youth of today, just like too much gloss is sending the wrong message to whom or whatever beings find remnants of our photographs sometime in the far future. The great-grandchildren of our great-grandchildren will hope that the alien oppressors, who are pretty nice considering they are in the world-taking-over-enslaving-great-grandchildren racket, are impressed with the pictures they find and don't just toss them into the proverbial fire or any actual fire as I often do if I happen to have extra photos stuffed in my pocket when I happen to walk past a dwindling fire that needs something, anything, to keep going. True story: I often stuff my pockets with paper and photographs in an ill-advised, poorly-thought-through attempt at cheap insulation - instead of making me warmer, it makes me just wish I had purchased both the discounted high-powered shredder and the matching leg-warmer/sweater combo that I turned down as I really wanted to impress my friend who is quite against sweaters for reasons that are either beyond me or ones I haven't quite got to yet on this long highway called life.
...reigns of terror: Now don't get me wrong, I hate terror. Actually, that's not strong enough, I abhor terror in all of its forms. Even the word terror makes it sound scary -good job whomever named it, but bad job whomever came up with the concept and then sold it to the highest bidder. Reigns, on the other hand, aren't all that bad. There can be good reigns, but for some reason they are usually associated with things we don't like: terror, fear, overt politeness. As far as established reigns go, reigns of terror are definitely in my bottom 5 and have next to no chance of moving up unless some of the other slightly more popular reigns take a turn for the worse and drop in popularity (I'm looking at you reigns of maniacal iron workers, bacterial growth, and sweet pickles and their bastardized cousin, relish). One reign that is good are reigns of rain as that is good for the crops. I try to always consider the crops and the farmers who reap them. Although, reign implies that it goes on for a long time and that it is both unwanted and forced on us. I don't love rain, but it is okay. However, if all of a sudden rain took a turn to the darkside and went on for a very long time, stayed when it was no longer wanted and forced itself on us even when we were screaming and crying for enough then I would have to contemplate changing my opinion of it. I'm directly implying that rain would have to be aware of its own reign and I have no evidence that that is at all possible, but I'm not ruling it out either. I have learned the hard way not to rule things out (I actually threw away all of my rulers and straight edges in hopes to avoid this). Anyways, reigns of terror really suck - they make life much less enjoyable (unless you are in charge, but then you have no real friends) and they make it very hard to keep dentist appointments and trips to the florist.Taking a historical perspective, reigns of terror started out on a relatively good note. They were initially very useful in keeping otherwise peaceful, well-behaved agrarian societies from causing too many problems, which they were prone to do - must have been the way they looked at everyone sideways. The reigns of terror came in and they helped create great monuments and other important civic structures by tearing the ridiculously lazy townsfolk away from their kilns, hearths and doll shops and putting them to work with the only known con being lots and lots of sweat and the occasional owie. Now, this was all well and good until reigns of terror were taken over by some really not so great people who took all of the amazingly great things about them and added in all of the killing and the blood. They claimed they were putting the capital T in terror and that before the terror should have really had quotation marks around it, which was quite a novel suggestion as it was at least two centuries before that really caught on as a way of speaking sarcastically. Once lives were lost, reigns of terror lost any chance at being remembered fondly or remembered at all, what with the death and all -aside from the really amazing clothes and sense of style the rulers had. I'm not sure why there is often a direct correlation between megalomania and power and a knack for choosing the correct scarf/sweater combination. Imagine if they had had better childhoods and were hugged more often - they could have been the leaders of the fashion world and been loved and adored by men and women and been the life of the biggest parties in Paris, Milan, Tokyo and New York. But no, they got just a little too carried away with power and trying to crush everyone. "We didn't want to crush you when we were kids, we only wanted to win the soccer game and take the pretty girl to the dance" we'd say to them if we had a chance -talk about being misunderstood and having them get a tad bit too angry at a fairly easy to solve communication issue. Luckily, they are fewer and far between these days since we are all so civil and mature compared to our ancestors. They were so uncivil and so grayish brown in the photos that have survived. I'm not saying being grayish brown would make you less refined, but it wouldn't help. But, they aren't all gone - there still are some really really bad dudes in power today subjecting their people to horrors and I wouldn't wish reigns of terror upon anyone except for my second cousin, twice removed. He knows what he's done.
...contemporary dance: I guess it was just a matter of time before we had to either phase out or close the door on the era of ancient dance which gave me the energy to get through some tough days growing up. I may understand this natural progression but I just can't say that I am huge fan of this wave of popularity about all things contemporary, especially dance. I may be alone in remembering the glory days of dance gone by, ones that those ultra-modernist culturally snooty elite that we all see around town these days with a scarily, rapidly increasing frequency would like us to conveniently forget. I made a promise to my great aunts-in-law (or to one of my great aunts-in-law as there is a good chance one had a previous engagement as I left the invites to the very last minute. It just slipped my mind as many activities with my great aunts-in-law do- that is the way it is with planning events involving relatively obscure relations) to curtail the amount of information I conveniently forget as it was growing to proportions that could have been troublesome if my troublesome category wasn't full at the moment with a three month wait list. All items/people/objects/metaphysical constructs that appeared to my receptionist (an alphabetical rotation of stuffed animals with size occasional trumping name based completely on the stuffed animals proximity to me which is, in turn, based completely on my dexterity of the moment which is, in turn, based on a random number generator I accidently stumbled upon when I accidently stumbled on my way to the dry pantry for some late-night crackers. My family has quite a intricate history with random numbers that is equal parts incredulous, annoying and demanding-an-amazing-soundtrack-opening-up-multiple-options-for-off-off-broadway-production-if/when-my-obviously-empty-threats-of-an-endless-stream-of-emails-containing-cryptic-codes-of-numbers-that-are-in-fact-generated-randomly-from-a-great-website-I-stumble-upon-from-time-to-time-usually-when-hungry-with-a-hunger-that-only-crackers-stored-dryly-can-come-close-to-satisfying (they do)). But some of you may wonder "what is your issue with contemporary dancing really, or are you just enjoying a few moments in the spotlight?" To which I answer (after hours practicing in said spotlight which drove up my electricity bill to previously unforeseen heights that make me briefly question if a limelight would have been more cost-effective) it is highly possible that my "issue" (to use your word, and I am trying as often as I can to use other people's words when talking instead of my previous practice of using their numbers which almost always caused them to raise a red flag which was a problem at first because no one had one, but that was quickly solved as it had given me a great idea for birthday presents and allowed me to clear the spare bedroom of all of those extra red flags I was keeping on hand "just in case") with contemporary dates back to my youth when my father, a contemporary dancer's contemporary dancer, was shunned and isolated by a clique of popular, mean contemporary dancers - they wouldn't even give him the time of day! And while it is true that neither them nor he really understood what that meant, it hurt him as did many other abstract expressions when used verbally by dancers and other artists towards him. I was too young at the time to do anything about it, but I remember him coming home, dejected and spending hours gracefully and beautifully moving about the house to somber, yet uplifting music usually featuring the piano, and feeling his pain and anguish and I remember vowing to bring down contemporary dance from the outside as I have always avoided being inside on sunny days.
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