#scribe shit

[armandoaguirre]

BFF4L (AEAE)

To some extent, I believe the notion of "best" friendships to be aligned with a certain degree of insecurity. At 22, I've accumulated many acquaintances and formed numerous friendships, some more brief than others. The only time I've really felt the need to verbally establish somebody as a best friend was when I felt there was potential for some kind of rift in the relationship – be it because of physical distance or actual events. 

In this respect, the labeling of somebody could be viewed as a security measure. Husbands, wives, girlfriends, boyfriends, best friends...all of these concepts are based on relationships that could still technically exist (and thrive) without the aforementioned nomenclature.

Two people should be able to have a close bond that both understand and acknowledge without feeling the pressure to label that bond as one elevated compared to those surrounding it. Given this, I still think I'd be hard-pressed to find anybody in modern America who wouldn't confess to having a "best friend".

Is it a necessity? Is it a natural tendency to want to "lock that shit down"? Why do we rate and organize our relationships in order or importance? We internally know who is important, so why must it be advertised? 

I'm not above this. I would certainly label my closest friends as my "best" ones, but only because I've done it for so long. To start referring to them as just my friends would make me feel weird, and possibly even psyche me into thinking they were suddenly less my friends than before. 

So it appears I've fallen into my own trap.

[armandoaguirre]

Comedy

To boil it down to a few words, comedy makes the unbearable bearable. If I'm mopy or bored or depressed, something truly funny can make me laugh, and for a few seconds, I've forgotten all of it. 

There's a quote by a man named Horace Walpole, who I've never heard of, but found as a result of Googling the phrase "quotes on comedy", that says, “The world is a tragedy to those who feel, but a comedy to those who think." Sir Walpole summed it up more eloquently than I ever could, and I find his thoughts on the subject perfect.

Comedy allows us to acknowledge extremely vulnerable and difficult aspects of our lives and suddenly be okay with them. By taking away some of the gravitas that heavier parts of our psyches and experiences hold, and turning them into amusing anecdotes or merely calling them on their shit, their power over us is diminished, and suddenly they are manageable. Finding something to laugh at is how one turns tragedy into hilarity, and mundaneness into satire. 

Through comedy, even the most stoic characters can be gotten to. Even though none of us have ever seen it happen, chances are that Queen Elizabeth has, at some point in her thousand-year reign, had a laughing fit that caused her to drop to the floor and cackle like a rabid hyena. In much the same way that "everybody has their price", everybody has something that will make them laugh; it's that simple.

In this way, comedy is something that belongs to every person in a different way–it is as much a natural part of life as sadness, euphoria, or sweating. But sweating happens whether we want it to or not.

[armandoaguirre]

Titles

Over the past several years, I've developed the opinion that there's a very big difference between taking yourself seriously and taking your work seriously. If given the opportunity to name something, my first inclination would be to avoid something overly thought-provoking and deep; it's not what I'm interested in. Even though these type of elements may appear inside the work itself, but probably don't, I see no need to beat the objective to death by naming it "Life, Sadness, and a Lonely Autumn Dawn's Introspection". I'd rather just call it "#2" or "Grumpasnuffagus".

The title of a piece of work (whether musical, visual, written, or otherwise) shouldn't attempt to inform an audience or influence their perception in any way. Too many times I've seen program notes that detail the author's every feeling throughout the ideation process, and they will often ask audience members to "listen for" or "watch carefully for" something that will justify the title they've given their work. I am more inclined to let an audience find their own meaning in whatever it is they're experiencing. By avoiding the forced consumption of an idea, artists can let the discovery and meaning-taking process be something that belongs entirely to the audience.

I don't know her, but would venture to guess that J.K. Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series, doesn't take herself seriously. I would also venture to guess that J.K. Rowling takes her work, the aforementioned Harry Potter series, extremely seriously. The names of the books that make up her most famous body of work are very clear and straight-forward – they aren't metaphorical or persuasive. Even though she had every opportunity to let the titles of her books include themes found within the books themselves (death, friendship, good and evil), Rowling didn't -- I like that. Boiled down to its most basic components, "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" is about Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.

Too often, the title of a work stands to say more about the author than it does about the work itself. By naming a piece of work something dark and mysterious, the author attempts to let the audience know that even though they may not see it, he is dark and mysterious. In this light, I see overly dramatic titles as self-indulgent, and believe the work should stand on its own.