True Blood: RIP Lorena Krasiki

"I do miss the 1930s. Such style, elegance. People knew how to behave, knew what was expected of them. Knew how to avoid creating tragedies for the people they loved." -Lorena

All the True Blood fans out there know that Season 3 is pulling out the big guns. Secrets and sexy characters keep coming and dying. Vampires commit spinal carnage out on the national news. Sookie Stackhouse is a FIARY [jealous]. I think I speak for us all when I say, True Blood, thank you for not losing your moxie.

But I'd like to take a Little Kia, Big Planet moment of silence for one particular act in the True Blood Season 3 parade of plot  upheavals---the death of Lorena Krasiki, the fiercest, most stylish bitch on television.


I should've known that Lorena was next up for the slaughter the moment I started to like her. It's been the pattern of all female, villain characters on True Blood. Take the beautiful, stylish, and pure evil Maryann Forrester for example. As the main antagonist in Season 2, I don't think any of us had seen such an evil bitch on TV at the time. She manipulated pure hearts with drugs and pleasures of the flesh. She used her bewitching powers to make innocents rage, kill, and turn against each other--all in the name of getting exactly what she wanted. 


I was right there with everyone not waiting until the moment when she would inevitably be killed dead in the worst way. But when that episode came, and she ran around Sookie's mangled house in a wedding dress crying over the arrival of her bull-god, I saw a little bit of myself in Maryann's crazy-ass. I admired her cosmic delusions and eerie willingness to give herself up to her believed deity. But alas, it all ended with a hoax as Sam, in shape-shifting form, skewered her with his bull horn and ripped out her black heart. A pretty epic death for such an epic female.


Lorena was portrayed in a similar way to Maryann. You could do nothing but hate her. She was shown as a heartless, vindictive force driven mad by her selfish, undying love for Bill Compton. Maybe she was all that, but I always saw her as much more.


Lorena is one of the greatest examples of the tragic femme fatale, lost in her doomed love for Bill. She lost all her shame and all her pride all in the pursuit of his love, and received nothing but humiliation and heartbreak in return. But despite it all, she kept her head held high in the finest fashions, never giving up on winning her love's hand.


All the True Blood audience really saw of Bill and Lorena's relationship was his disgust and hate for her and her foolish, wicked attempts to ensnare him once again. But in the episode "I've Got a Right to Sing the Blues", Bill sheds light onto Lorena by revealing feelings he still has for her.


Lorena plays music from the 30s as she prepares to slice Bill up, the decade where they once experienced joy as a couple together in vampirial, carnal bliss. She reels on about her suffering as she places her blood into his open wound so that she  may be inside him in true death, not Sookie. Bill admits that enjoyed the times they had together of world travel, decadent parties, and luring humans into their bed to feed upon and make love in their remains. He looks up to her with sincerity as he tells her

"I wish I had known you before you were made. Before you turned hard. I would like to have seen you smile with light in your eyes, instead of darkness. That would've been something." -Bill

Maryann and Lorena may never be known for anything more than their seductive, evil ways, but it was just that that made them such stand-out characters alongside the good-girls and righteous men. I know I'm not alone when I say I miss their impeccable style, their murderess class, and their alluring composure despite being disturbed, crazy bitches.

Besides, who remembers the well-behaved girls anyway? ;)

Toy Story 3: The End

::Sigh:: Toy Story 3--the ending of probably the most treasured animated story of our generation. And with this last installment, I think it's safe to say that Pixar blew our minds in ways we weren't expecting. Whether it's the phenomenal short, Day and Night (see it in 3D!), the character depth, or the darker tone, Toy Story ended the trilogy in the most impactful way. But of course, what everyone is really talking about is the last 30 minutes of the movie--the ending of it all. 

If you didn't cry during the last half hour of this movie, you must be a robot, because everyone I've talked to says they did. I won't go into what exactly happened in case some of you haven't seen it, but as you probably know, Andy does end up giving his toys away. Let's just say that the whole a affair is a LOT more emotional than you could ever imagine.
 

With my personal experience in seeing the ending, I cried among many other things because I felt an overwhelming sadness that this wonderful story, these beloved characters were all coming to an end. I thought about how when Toy Story started, I was Andy's age, and that I had grown up with this story too. I felt this strange loss within myself. Just like Andy, I was losing these toys too. 

Given the experience I had in the movie theater with Toy Story 3, here is my interpretation of the epic ending to this tale: 

 Andy represents the audience--the entire generation that grew up with this story. As I said before, our generation was about Andy's age when this story started, so his growing up experience mirrors ours. I believe the message that Toy Story 3 leaves with us is all about growing up--how it makes us change, the things we have to lose, but also the childhood innocence that will always be in our hearts.

Like Andy, we too had to let go of our childhood relics. The playground days had to end. But what we took from that precious time is still part of who we are. The toys we loved, the games we played helped us grow. And even if those toys and those games are long gone, we are still children at heart because the memories and connections we had to that time are still alive. 

No matter how old we grow, we will always have times when we feel like our childhood selves who cried over broken toys and scraped knees. And whose imaginations were so wild and carefree, and hearts so full of love, that all we wanted to do was just cuddle up with our toys and play.

Suffer for Fashion

I don't feel I belong to any particular subculture, so it's very easy for

me to observe/make fun of everyone else.

I can name qualities from any subculture here in Savannah.

Hipsters

• Can be seen wearing any combination of flannel, raggedy-ass pants, fashion sunglasses, a beard/stache, slutty shorts/skirts, and looking painfully self-important

• Drink PBR and ride fixed gears
• Hang out in packs with other hipsters while denying they're hipsters
• Sentient Bean is their mecca

Crust Punks

• Go out of their way to dress dirty/unkempt/unfashionable but ended up creating a whole new fashion of their own (note the link).
  

• Hop trains, dumpster dive for food/goods, then talk about how they hop trains/dumpster dive with all their crust friends

• Drink cheap liquor and Four Loko, the shittiest alcoholic energy drink ever. Just drink Sparks people!
  
• Hang out at the Pony Pen and listen to terrible music

New Age SCAD Hippies ::shudder::

• Claim to be these worldly, humanitarian, live-by-the-earth people but then post pictures on Facebook of themselves at their parents' million dollar vacation house in the Virgin Islands.

• Wear stereotypical hippie clothing/accessories ironically considering their parents gave them the money for it.

• Don't kill cockroaches, but still eat meat.
• Loaf around in Forsyth Park playing shitty, cliche hippie guitar and hula hooping while consuming goods from Brighter Day.
  

• Once again, claim to be these down-to-earth, natural people, but are really just ASS HOLES!

Gag, gag, gag. Well, the point of all of that was that all these different subcultures have their own codes and inner-workings, but they all have one thing in common--they claim no reason for acting/dressing the way they do. They buy the clothes and adopt the lingo, but refuse to admit that they're doing it because they want to emulate what they see. They choose to go down that path because that's the person they want to be.

Basically, they just like the fashion of it. They like the dress. They like the talk. They want to project themselves in that way. They want to put on the fashion of it and make it their own.

But fashion is a sinful word to most of these people. They'll refuse to admit they're following any kind of trend. Like they've always been the way the are. Whatever.

All I'm suggesting to everyone is how about we just admit we're doing what we do for the fashion. Why don't we just drop the front that we all have of being impervious to trends and style? We all do it. It doesn't matter who you are. We all want to embody a certain ideal. We're all just picking our costumes and striking a pose.

Maybe we'd all get along better, we'd all stop being so snooty, so exclusive, and high and mighty and intolerant of others if we admit that 15% of everything we do is for the fashion of it. Maybe we'd all finally see eye to eye when we admit we have the same, human common ground. You materialist piece of shit. ;-)

Musings

Sometimes (or most of the time) it's easier to focus on the things you don't like about someone, and forget about the things you do. But we should all have learned the lesson by now, that the easy path never gives us the outcome we want.

And furthermore, if you have a problem that's causing trauma on the inside and spills over into your day to day life--those things can't be dealt with nicely. To make a drastic problem really go away, you must do something drastic to counteract it. You must do something you wouldn't normally do.

It's a lot harder than it sounds.

Suicide Theory

I feel like I've killed myself socially over and over again. If not my whole self then certainly parts of it. I've killed parts of myself with things I've said to people, ways I've reacted to situations, and disturbing phases I've gone through.

I've been thinking lately that maybe we're all killing parts of ourselves our whole lives. We all do things we can't take back. We do things that will cause a change.

Maybe we have to kill parts of ourselves in order to shed our old exterior and become something new. We die and are reborn over and over again.

To Believe or Not to Believe

Yesterday in Literary Journalism Lough asked us all to respond to different aphorisms he gave us. I chose to respond to the aphorism "If God didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent Him". I was proud of what I wrote. It was one of those moments where you realize you still have the ability to surprise yourself. I ended up having this conversation more than once yesterday so I wanted to share my thoughts...

It's far better to walk through life with belief in a divine power than it is to walk through believing nothing. We stand to gain much more by looking at the world from a mystical standpoint, pondering the cosmic mystery that is existence, as opposed to Nihilistic views that life holds no purpose and the world happened for no reason. Belief in a higher, cosmic power promotes a creative and open view of this world. Without God we would be slaves to reason, seeing the world as fact and not abstract.

I'm not Christian. I left the church when I was still in high school. I don't believe in heaven or hell, and I'm not sure if I believe the Jesus story. Honestly I don't like talking about it at this point in my life. It makes me uncomfortable. I agree with what Lough said that I am definitely in the position of "I don't know" with my religious views. I don't know, and that's all right. I spent twelve years being told what I should believe, and after it all I just want to come to my own conclusion about everything. It could take years, but I don't care. Why do I have to decide where I stand now? I've got the rest of my life.

I do still strongly believe in one thing, and that is believing. Despite how far I've fallen from my faith, I still believe in a higher power. I really do think that your life will be better off if you view the world as a beautiful, mysterious place, and ponder the signs and connections in everyday life. It's better to wrap your mind around what cosmic being created the world and all it's wonder than to believe this is all just a random accident. People can try to tell me that the world has no creator, but it won't matter. This is what I want to believe. I don't care if it isn't real.

"Everything is amazing right now, and nobody is happy."

Everybody take out your brain spoons and scoop a dollop of knowledge from this m-effer right here, Louis CK! Not only is this rant really hilarious, but it's also really true. Take a listen to what he has to say why don't you?