Update and scripts

Hi, everyone! The soft reboot of the show is still on schedule for early March. It should debut with the much-anticipated James Bond Examined episode. I haven't told people exactly what to expect, but since you're my patrons, here is a short list of some of the upgrades:

- New intro

- New outro

- 1080p instead of 720p

- New transitions

- New filters/effects

- Upgraded to AVS Video Editor 9

- Upgraded to Sony Vegas Pro

- New music

- Sound effects

- Higher bitrate and video quality

- Longer episodes on average

- New thumbnail aesthetic

Next, the first behind-the-scenes video, accessible to the highest tier, will debut in the spring. That bit of house cleaning out of the way, here are the scripts to the most recent videos. Some are a bit different from what ended up in the finished product.

UPSTREAM COLOR

 AUDIO 1
 In the 2013 film Upstream Color, two people, Kris and Jeff, are affected by a parasite. Said parasite has three stages of existence in which it passes from humans to pigs to orchids. A thief infects people with the parasite to steal their money, then an individual the credits call The Sampler transfers the parasite to a pig. This gives the Sampler the ability to see the lives the humans through the pigs. He uses these insights to inspire his music, much in the way that music “samples” from earlier works. When the pigs die, the Sampler dumps the carcasses, and the parasite changes the color of orchids. The orchid farmers are able to sell these rare orchids. The director has said that the film is meant to invoke ideas about identity and whether or not we have control over our identities. [sighs] Is that what everyone expected? A basic synopsis of the confusing film and an explanation of the theme of the film? I mean, the theme is rather opaque if you didn't understand the narrative, and nobody would blame you for that, but the authorial intention is plain to see once the narrative itself is clear. The text of the film informs the subtext in a way that is not mysterious. The so-called meaning of the film is not hidden. Meaning, meaning, meaning. [sighs]

Shane Curruth's other film, Primer, never spends any time trying to tell the audience in layman's terms what is going on. It's a time travel movie using really technical talk and never tries to bring the audience into the conversation by explaining it in terms that they might actually understand, like a Star Trek episode that uses a simple metaphor or simile. You might say Primer doesn't “speak down” to its audience because of it, but you might also say the opposite: that Primer purposefully doesn't even want you to engage in the technical stuff and to just let your mind wander in the infinite possibilities of the narrative. And I don't mean that in an anti-intellectual way, like, when people say “Turn off your brain” when watching a movie. That is such bullshit, and it usually isn't confined to that one thing. People who say that usually don't have that one bad take in isolation. It's usually reflective of worse opinions about more important stuff. Anti-intellectualism is the opposite of how I want the world to be and the opposite of how the world needs to be in 2019.   
 AUDIO 2
 No, when I say that it speaks to the heart more than the mind, I mean that maybe writer-director Shane Curruth DOES NOT make his movies lacking any explanations because he wants you to piece them together like jigsaw puzzles on your own. NO. Maybe he wants you to experience them like amusement park rides and absorb whatever “meaning” you can glean from it on your own. You aren't meant to be convinced of his fiction, of his lie, you are meant to BELIEVE the fiction, believe the lie. That's not how all movies are, obviously, I'm not dismissing analysis, don't get it twisted, but maybe some movies that go out of their way to disengage the audience from meaning and even coherent narrative are meant to force a different kind of experience on you. I started transitioning out of making “explanation” videos years ago to move on to more big picture stuff. There is nothing inherently wrong with videos with the word “EXPLAINED” in the thumbnail. But that is not what I want to put out into the world, even for movies like Upstream Color that might require explanation. Even now, years after that stopped being my thing, people think that when they click on my videos that I'm supposed to talk about one to one allegory and really basic stuff and get disappointed when I don't.   
 God, I hate that. The rote quantification of a movie. Pouring the film through a sieve and finding the meaning in what is caught up in it. I'm not a movie reviewer, and I never have been. If you wish to dismiss the director's intentions and form your own personal interpretation of events, that is fine too, but is my interpretation going to be so unique as to get you to stay with me through the entire video? If you Google “upstream color analysis” over 18 million results pop up, and it makes me feel...so...small. There is this scene in which two characters say goodbye to each other in the morning, and the scene repeats within small variations over and over again. The main thread of the film, the narrative about Kris and Jeff, is done within a cycle. A life cycle. The parasite finds its way into their bodies, then the parasite finds it way into pigs, then orchids. It goes on and on, it never ends. That's what the grind of life can feel like. It certainly feels like that for me sometimes, just doing this show. I love this show, but I'm worried that I have begun to repeat myself, and if that is true, there is no more...meaning in what I say.   
 AUDIO 3
 For example, when I recognized the basic theme of the film, the lack of control over our lives, I considered writing a video essay on free will, but I've done that before. It would be so easy to do it again, but it would also be lazy. I considered explaining the basics of sociology and how we are actually part of systems in which we have minimal control and how that actually fits within the framework of this movie, but I know I've touched on that already. And I hate the direction this video essay is going, by the way. I mean, who do I think I am, Charlie Kaufman? Is it somehow OK for me to write a video essay about how challenging it is to say anything original in a video essay anymore? Like, the writing process is now the story? That, itself, so already played out, even on YouTube and done better by others than I'm doing right now. Can't I just say that watching Upstream Color is...satisfying? That is the lie I want to believe. It is satisfying, in the way that those videos that describe themselves AS SATISFYING are satisfying. If you want to know what Upstream Color means to me in a very personal and IMHO kind of way, well, it makes me think about my own life.   
 Are Kris and Jeff behaving this way because of their individual personalities or because they are manipulated by something else? Everyone wants to feel in control of their lives. It's not only a comfort in terms of your day to day. Like, I want to feel in control of my finances and whether or not I can make rent this month. We want to feel in control of the basics, but in a more substantial way, we all want to feel like “control” and “individuality” and “choice” are tangible products of the universe. That words like “fairness” and “justice” aren't just abstract concepts, made up to make our lives more bearable in the face of all the evidence that suggests the opposite concepts are true or that the chaos of the universe does not allow for any such concepts. Kris and Jeff don't have a meet-cute, they meet because they are pushed together by circumstances and forces beyond their control. That means their love is not organic and that “love” does not exist in any meaningful way in their lives either or perhaps all lives. If everything is systems too complex for us to navigate them, then it makes us feel...small. We don't like it when our lives have no meaning, meaning, [sighs] meaning. So, we push back on this and deify humanity as something bold and deify the singular human as god and master of their own soul because we need to believe that to get through the fucking day. There is...another perspective, though... 

PRINCESS MONONOKE

 AUDIO 1
 At the time I am writing this video essay, it's very cold in some parts of my country. Climate change deniers point to their regional snow storm as proof of their worldview while ignoring the fact that the world in general is getting incrementally hotter. Factors that come into play for regional weather are Earth’s seasons, ocean patterns, upper winds, Arctic sea ice, and the shifting shape of the jet stream. These factors can lead to extreme weather in various portions of northern mid-latitudes. A local cold day does not disprove the calculable long-term increasing of global temperatures. The fact that the Earth is getting warmer is a demonstrable fact that cannot be ignored simply because snow still exists in 2019. Nobody ever claimed it wouldn't. In fact, even record snowfall would not disprove climate change. To claim that snowfall is inconsistent with a warming world only displays a lack of understanding of the link between global warming and extreme precipitation. Warming causes more moisture in the air which leads to more extreme precipitation events. This includes more heavy snowstorms in regions where snowfall conditions are favorable.    
 Record snowfall was actually predicted by climate models and is consistent with the  expectation of more extreme precipitation events. “Climate” and “weather” are different things. But here's the problem. No matter how much science you show, the deniers and those who are simply apathetic to climate change and other environmental disasters will choose to ignore it because “science is a liar sometimes.” or some other slice of anti-intellectual nonsense. Sometimes you have to explain it to people as if they were children, and fortunately for us, the films of Hayao Miyazaki do just that. His films touch upon environmental issues. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind not only features a protagonist with a love of nature but a dire warning about how nature is not always benevolent and that  it could very well be our downfall if we choose to ignore environmental concerns. Miyazaki himself has said “The idea that nature is always gentle and will give birth to something like the Sea of Decay in order to restore an environment polluted by humans is a total lie. And I believe that the idea that we should cling to such a saccharine worldview is a big problem.”  
 
 AUDIO 2
 Miyazaki's even more famous work, Princess Mononoke, broaches this subject as well. In the film, Ashitaki becomes involved in a conflict between the gods of the forest and the humans who consume its resources. By displaying the conflict in mythological terms and through allegory, Miyazaki teaches us these lessons not through complex environmental science but in language that even a child can understand. If you take too much from the forest, the gods begin to die, and a curse is upon you. If you are not conscientious of our real world environment, there are real world consequences. Ashitaka encounters a tatarigami – but what is it? In the book Liquid Life, William R. LaFluer explains, “It involves a revenge-seeking spirit who, bearing a grudge against those who had wronged him, takes retaliatory action from his position among the dead…. A good deal of Japanese ritual life apparently has its origin in the fear that, unless rituals are performed, a maligned god will exercise baneful influence on the living.” If humanity is destroying nature and making it inhospitable for both animals and themselves, then the tatarigami – a vengeful spirit – represents consequences.   
 More specifically, the curse is the consequence of human ignorance, of human greed – both things that destroy the forest. If Ashitaka were to kill Eboshi, this would empower the curse, and kill him even sooner. Even if he survived, he would become a human tatarigami – an embodiment of the vengeance on humanity. According to Eric Reinders, author of The Moral Narratives of Hayao Miyazaki, “His only way out is to pursue absolute equanimity—the Buddhist virtue of even-mindedness, an emotional calm which refuses to be repelled by or attached to either pain or joy.” Buddhism, like many Eastern traditions, does not make a distinction between nature and humanity. We are not set apart from nature, much in the way that the spirits and gods of the film are not so much “supernatural” as they are interconnected with the natural. The Buddhist doctrines of karma and of rebirth put all of human life in the context of an endless series of cycles, which resemble those which operate in the natural world, such as the food chain or the calvin cycle in photosynthesis. Buddhism focuses on impermanence – everything is fleeting.    
  AUDIO 3  
 Buddhism has been stressing what environmental science has begun to tell us, that nature is not a boundless well of resources, and our actions have an effect on the world. The doctrine of karma tells us that our actions are in proportion to the greed and apathy that motivates them. Put simply, this means that stripping the planet of its resources and causing other adverse effects on our environment causes dire consequences. Outside of the realm of religion, we know through practical science that we have had a deleterious effect on the Earth, but Miyazaki shows us this through spirituality, through folklore and through fantasy. Two gods have dominion over their representative animals, Moro and Okkoto, the giant wolf and the giant boar. The apes also speak, but there is no giant ape among them. Eboshi claims, “Without the ancient gods, the wild ones are mere beasts.” The apes can still speak, but their voices are slow, their grammar is weak and the exist mostly in the distance, as if they are fading away. Okkoto sadly laments that his boars no longer speak, and when he is near death, Moro says, “Can you not even speak now?”   
 We can hypothesize that a giant ape god had been killed, and since the apes bear such animus for humanity, it's possible that it was humans who were responsible, either deliberately or indirectly by ruining the forest. The apes speak of humans destroying the forest, and the consequences are that these speaking apes are losing their magic. The boars appear to be next. Okkoto says, “Look on my tribe, Moro. We grow small, and we grow stupid. To go on in this manner, is to end as game the humans hunt for meat.” This is, of course, exactly what will happen. If Princess Mononoke is a precursor to our real world, then animals will not only be hunted by in some cases hunted to extinction, and in other cases, cultivated through factory farming for mass production and mass slaughter. And what of the deer? According to Japanese folklore, deer in Nara, at the foot of Mount Wakakusa, are considered sacred due to a visit from Takemikazuchi-no-mikoto, a god. There is also an old Japanese folk dance in which the dancers wear antlers. The humans in the film, with no reverence whatsoever, fire at the deer.   
 AUDIO 4
 The fact that this deer god, this spirit of the forest, does not speak while other gods can speak may be related to the fact that the forest is dying. The forest has been damaged by and encroached upon by humans. If the apes can barely speak due to having no more god, and when a god is near death they do not speak, the fact that the deer does not or cannot speak may be telling. San is so disenchanted with humanity that she refuses to see the truth, the she herself is a human and not a wolf. And why should she identify with humanity? She lives a life devoid of the trappings of humanity. More important in this distinction, she respects the spirit of the forest whereas other humans like Eboshi clearly do not. … It's perhaps easier to show the consequences of the damage we are doing to our environment through film because the full breadth of what we have caused is not apparent. It only becomes more in focus after it's too late. Visualizing what is in store for us could be helpful. For some, the science will not be enough. Only stories will do. 

THE LITTLE PRINCE

 AUDIO 1
 Sit up straight. Get a job. Get married. Get a career. And always remember to die. There is a gulf between what one generation considers being a “grown-up” and what another generation considers being a grown-up. The older generation will always try to instill – forcibly if necessary – the values of what it perceives as responsibility to the younger generation in spite of the fact that the younger generation will face different challenges and will consider new values. [clip] What we must be when we grow up may not be so narrow as to include a specific career and a specific spouse, but the expectations of the older generation will still have limitations on what the career should be, the kind of spouse that is allowed, as well as the behavior and even politics of the new grown-ups. Generations Y and Z, due in part to recent technological and economic shifts, have needs and desires so alien to the generations that came before that they are, at times, shocking to those in the older generations. The influx of “millennials are killing” articles being the most prevalent example of this horror and alarm from the old guard.   
 Generation Y was fairly recently re-christened the millennial generation. The exact dating of Generation Y and of Generation Z vary from researcher to researcher, but a good rule of thumb is that Generation Y was born in the 1980's through most of the 1990's whereas Generation Z was born immediately thereafter. I was born in 1982. I'm Generation Y, a “millennial,” a term I simply have to adopt. Generation Y and the now the coming-of-age Generation Z are living in apartments with roommates rather than buying houses. They are also not having children of their own at the rate that previous generations did. They are also riding bikes more often. All these things make the older generations think of...kids. Dorm rooms, a child-free lack of responsibility and bicycles. The older generations wonder, are the two most recent generations just a bunch of overgrown kids? Well, no. We live in apartments because we can't afford houses. We don't have children because we can't afford to. We ride bicycles because we can't afford cars. We went to college, and college tuition is many times greater than in previous generations, and that debt has crippled us.   
 AUDIO 2
 We are also living in a world still suffering from the worst recession in about 80 years, the result of the actions of politicians and businessmen who were Baby Boomers and Generation X. Some millennials had not yet reached puberty in 2008. It wasn't us. Another reason the birth rate is down is because teen pregnancy is down. Generation Y had access to better sex education and contraception, and this is even more true of Generation Z. Sex education in schools, sure, but also sex education through the Internet. Contraception obtained in the traditional way, sure, but also easier access to buying it through the Internet as well as education on how to use it successfully from the same source. Information changed who we are. Generation Y were the first generation to have the Internet before they graduated high school, and Generation Z was born into a world in which the Internet was already the standard. It allowed us to form communities online and popularized geek culture. It also allowed us to adopt more radical political positions due to dissatisfaction with the system that made us this way.
 Because of all these reasons, Generation Y and some of the now voting-age Generation Z are infantilized by the media – generally media run by older, richer generations who are themselves responsible for the market that has created us.  This has changed the perception of what it means to “grow up.” To become adults. To be strapped in and forced into adulthood. I am admittedly painting with a broad brush that the media uses here, so don't get indignant if this does not apply to you, but to previous generations, growing up meant becoming...colder. Not only serious but stern. Shunning fun and games. Mocking imagination, hopefulness. [I'm not hopeless, I'm hopeful, laugh] Meeting societal expectations of owning a home, raising two to three children. The features of life that the older generations have decreed are...essential. Having a job you hate because suffering builds character. The problem with that line of thinking is that the suffering never ends, at least not until retirement, long enough the light in your eyes has gone out. Millennials and those even younger don't even have that to look forward to based on our debt and our declining funds for retirement.
 AUDIO 3
 Under the rules of the older generations, our suffering, our character building, must never end. We have been instructed to follow the rules of the previous generations rather than to create our own, and when we attempt to do so, we are mocked for not being realistic, which actually only means not behaving like previous generations. The younger generations have a very “realistic” view of their lives because we are living under more economically challenging conditions that make it impossible not to notice the struggle. The older generations created the rules by which we are governed, and if the younger generations opt out of these rules, what is deemed essential, then it is seen as forfeit instead of what it really is: the desire to create new rules. New ideas about what it is to be a “grown-up.” Generations Y and Z have rebelled against this paradigm. [I quit, clip] The term “grown-up” for us does not mean what it once did. For Generation X and the Boomers, being a grown-up meant putting away “childish” things, but these childish things were not only our toys but whatever they considered antithetical to the status quo:   
 Radical politics, revolutionary ideas, anti-capitalism and skepticism of present authority, particularly the police. [Zuckerberg] If a millennial achieves power within the older generation's power structure in such a way that it furthers the interests of the older generation, such as a young capitalist, then that millennial is seen as useful. But when a millennial achieves even a small amount of power within the older generation's power structure and does not approve of said structure, they are attacked, mocked, made to be seen as unrealistic and childish, even though, as I said, their view of the world is more grounded in harsh reality than it is given credit. Due to the accessibility of information, we now know the figures who keep us down. The Business Man. [clip]. The Conceited Man. [clip]. The Snake. [clip]. They decide what is...essential. They count the stars so they can own them.