2005-12-10 - 11:32 a.m.
"It's so big."
"It's the world, my lord. Did you think it would be small?"
"Small-er."
What's not small is this entry, but hopefully you'll find something in it that's worth reading. I put a lot of thought into some of this, going as far as to write down on a notepad the thoughts i had in the shower last night so I wouldn't forget to do this one.
So I got the job as the tour guide, not without some difficulty. The interview went well, then someone tried to screw me over on pay, and I had to be a jerk. Call me crazy, but when you interview someone who you know is wanting to make about $11 an hour and you tell him all about how the job is an assistant supervisor position and how he'll be 3rd in command and actually find himself in charge a lot of the time, I think you'd have to be pretty stupid to think that this same person would then just blithely accept an offer of $7.50 an hour. Come on, that's just insulting.
TO be fair, though, I'm not entirely sure if it was the tour guide office trying to con me into taking far less money than the job was worth, or if it was the hiring agency trying to cheat me by telling harley they needed X an hour for my services then telling me i would only make $7.50 and keeping the difference. They seem like the type who might prey on the young and unemployed who are too desperate to say no to anything.
Unfortunately for them, I know what I'm worth, especially in this case since this is one of the few real world jobs i could apply for where my particular training and education and experience actually leaves me more qualified than most. If it was another paper pushing job like AIM, I could maybe understand trying to pay me less because i'm not "experienced" or "Educated" properly (even then, I wouldn't stand for being offered that much less than I was told i could reasonably ask for). It's also not a 40 hour a week position, but is a 5 day week, leaving me without too many reasonably free hours in the day to try to supplement that meager income, so a line had to be drawn.
So, I made a counteroffer of $10, had a heated conversation with the agency in which i told them I was making a generous concession doing even that, and exactly where everyone concerned could shove it if they expected me to go any lower because they "obviously need someone qualified to take this job more than I need to waste my time with it"
Jobs, just like women, seem to flock to you when you abuse them a little and make sure they know you don't really need or want them around. They blinked first, and I start after new years. IF, that is, I don't find something better, because after this crap, i'm not going to stop looking for other things and won't hesitate to leave (even on less than 2 weeks notice) as soon as something else comes along. Meanwhile, if you're in 'Tosa anytime next year, feel free to stop on in and take a tour of the harley planted hosted by myself. Maybe I can even get you a discount on harley swag, if you're into that kind of thing.
Meanwhile, back in England...
I celebrated my new job by going to see Narnia last night. Now, I have a confession to make before I rant and rave about how much some people suck, just for the sake of openness. I loved Lord of the Rings, but as a kid, I was never that much of a fan of the books. I read them, yes, but not until i was in my early teens, and even then, I always liked the Chronicles of Narnia better. I first read those when i was just a wee lad (think i was six or so when i read my first narnia book all by myself). Narnia will always be that fantasy epic that holds the special place in my heart as my first favorite (and still is my overall favorite).
And no, I am not a Christian, though yes, I am keenly aware of the allegorical aspect. It doesn't change my opinion any, which is really the crust of what I'm irked about.
(Sidenote- someone asked me what I thought about the movie this morning, and about the criticisms he'd read that the movie didn't look as cool visually as LOTR. I loved the film, I thougt it was a very faithful and well done adaptation, but yes, the CGI doesn't look that great at times. Guess what? CGI always has a tendency to look a bit like ass once in awhile- it happens in any movie where CGI is overrelied on- eventually you come to a point where there's just too much of it juxtaposed against something that is real and it never quite measures up because the technology just isn't perfect, and you do the best you can. They did a good job with most of it, especially the animals talking, and anyway I'm sick of people constantly measuring films by the special effects. Pop a ritalin and try looking at the story once in awhile. Of course the settings in Narnia a pretty damn picture perfect- it's a fantasy land visited by children (since it is, after all, a kid's story)- i would hope it would look very pretty. you want it to look like a blasted nuclear landscape? Narnia is not Lord of the Rings, it goes for a different tone, one that doesn't utilize a lot of grand, stunning, sweeping visuals to help tell the story or convey a sense of epicness. Nothing wrong with Lord of the Rings doing so, but they're going for two different kinds of things, so it's not really fair to compare them. Good special effects are NOT the biggest factor in movie quality (not even in the top five), and if you still think they are, I've got a six word argument that'll shut you up: Star Wars, Episodes I through III. 'Nuff said. Idiots.)
Unfortunately, I made the mistake of following a link sent to me by a friend to some discussion on the IMDB message boards about Narnia. You are all morons (not you specifically, but everyone who offers their half-witted opinions on IMDB) who have no sense whatsoever. Last night I followed not one, not two, but three different discussion threads under the Narnia heading, none of which EVER MENTIONED THE FILM AT ALL. Everyone got so caught up in freaking out over the religious symbolism that the whole thing degenerated into a christians vs. atheists shouting match. Like I said, morons. What bothered me the most was the people who seemed surprised to learn this around the time the movie was released. Come on, guys, as I've said many a time before, freakin' read something. It was published in 1950, and just about every damn thing CS Lewis ever wrote had heavy christian themes or was flat out about christianity. He converted in 1929 (atheism to christianity) and with the exception of a couple volumes of poetry, everything he ever wrote was after his conversion, which came after a lot of conversations with his good friend, Tolkein.
Now, like I said, I'm not a christian, and I doubt I ever will be. I'm not sure what I believe, but I know I don't care for organized religion. However, I don't see why people freaked out about the fact that the story is a christian allegory.
I first read The Chronicles of Narnia, as I said earlier, when I was a little kid. (as a quick aside, I am aware that there are seven books in the series, and this was just one of them, I can recite all of them not just in their numbered order in but their actual true chronological order if you like, BUT, both "Chronicles of Narnia" and "The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe" are obscenely long titles to type, so I'm going to feel free to just use "Narnia" as my catch-all word for purposes of this ruckus because I don't feel like typing the full title all the time and i hate when people use those damn acronymical abbreviations. I'm generally talking about the movie and the book it's based on when i say narnia, just don't try to pull a "Moron, it's not called narnia" on me, cause i will destroy you.)
At the time, no, I wasn't aware of the allegory aspect of the book. But I did read them several times throughout my childhood (life, really) and reading them after I knew about that part still didn't change my appreciation of the story. I never once felt like somene was trying to convert me. I felt like I was reading a story with a lot of cool fantasy characters, and regular folks like myself doing the right thing and fighting evil. NOt exactly bashing me over the head with a Bible, is it? Lots of stories champion the same morals Narnia does, even Lord of the Rings, and especially just about every childrens story out there. I'm willing to bet that 9 out of 10 seven year olds who see narnia aren't immediately going to go "Aslan is just like Jesus!" Some might, but most will likely be sad that the lion died and happy that he was ok in the end. Call me crazy, but it seems like the kind of nitpicking analysis that tends to ruin stories comes from adults 99.999999% of the time, because once they learn about the christian allegory, they're not capable of thinking about anything else with the story. Just a hunch. So why the big deal? One of two things-
One, you don't like the way the symbolism affects the tone of the story. I'll give you a little ground there, it does limit some of the potential for surprise in the story and add an amount of predictability, but guess what? it's a children's story! There are very few (though some) children's stories out there that aren't essentially predictable. it doesn't make them bad, just as special effects or all kinds of twists in a story make them inherently good. Does the predictability really detract that much from your enjoyment of the story in this case? Are you incapable of caring about the characters or the journey they take just because you know in the end that the good guys will win? does the wondrous setting seem that dull and flat to you because you know the world isn't gonna end in fire and death when it's all said and done? Do you absolutely HAVE to be surprised at every turn in order to care about a story?
Also remember that the allegory aspect is just one part of a greater whole. There are seven books in the series, each with some christian elements,but also elements of greek mythology and even Irish fairy tales. The christian element can be a bit of a hindrance in some parts, but on the whole the story is still well worth the time invested, and anyway, no story is perfect (see star wars). Even Lord of the Rings has some abysmal parts to it, arguably more damaging to the story- the first couple chapters of Fellowship suck ass, and they're the very first couple chapters of the first book- you have to fight your way through that to get anywhere with the story, and I know it took me a couple attempts, with me putting the book down for months at a time, to get through that. The only part of narnia where the christian symbolism really jumps out and bites you in a way that can't be ignored is aslan's death and resurrection, which comes very near the end of the book, by which point you've been drawn in enough to get that far and are less likely to just give up in disgust.
What really bothered me was teh amount of attacking that was going on by people who seemed to turn against the story just because it had christianity in it at all, and to that i wonder "why are you making such a big deal of this?" As I said, I'm into organized religion, though i think that all the ones i've ever studied at all have both their good points and their bad points. Christianity has had it's low moments, sure, but this surely isn't one of them. This is an exciting , family friendly fantasy epic accessible to people of all ages and all/no faiths. How can that be a bad thing? Ironically enough, the Howard county, Maryland school district tried to ban the books in 1990 because they depicted "graphic violence, mysticism, and gore" and some hardline uber-uptight christian groups think the books, with their magic and talking animals, "blasphemous" Understandable. We'll ditch CS Lewis in favor of something with good christian values. Pardon me while i try to stifle a gut laugh.
Anyway, if you're going to attack christianity as a whole, far be it from me to stop you, but might I suggest you start with something that truly represents all that's wrong with christianity, like Pat Robertson, or Catholicism? Those places will provide you with a lot more ammunition anyway.
In closing, I'd just like to remind everyone who let discussion of a childrens movie degenerate into the same anger-filled Bible Bashing vs. Bible Thumping shouting matches with no one really listening to anyone else and no one really saying anything of note and thus no work towards any kind of understanding or settlement or acceptance of your differences that rage all across the world far too often these days- You should all be ashamed of yourselves. Shut up and watch the damn movie.
Ken
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