I have nothing really to say today. It’s been a long day… So instead of trying to say something interesting about teaching or research or pandemics or nerd stuff, here’s a music video that continues to bring me absolute joy. I hope it brings you joy, too!
A bit of fun from my Rhetoric of Social Media Class: This board covers some of the thoughts the class had about several mobile games, including how they encourage play, social activity and interaction, etc. Also: there are some lyrics to brighten your day. You’re welcome.
It’s probably not a big secret that I have had “issues” with Star Wars in its Disney years. There are a lot of things I love about the direction things are going — a more diverse cast, the emphasis on big sprawling adventure, etc. — but there are also problems I have with the cohesion of the stories, the structure of the narratives, Disney’s treatment of character, etc. Yet, it’s still Star Wars, and even when it’s not quite on the mark, it’s still enormously fun. However, there’s something a tad “off” for me about Star Wars, especially the new Expanded Universe. Recently, I’ve been listening to several audiobooks of new Star Wars novels — Chuck Wendig’s Aftermath and Rebecca Roanhorse’s Resistance Reborn — and it got me thinking a lot about some of the things that have made the Disney era so difficult for me as a Star Wars fan. To be clear: I have zero intention of bashing Star Wars here; rather, I want to talk a bit about what I have found less enticing about this new era while still keeping my love for this franchise.
I’m working on a blog post about my experiences with the new Star Wars Expanded Universe novels, but today has been weirdly exhausting, either because I haven’t had a full night of sleep in at least 4 days or because I’ve been eating garbage food since Monday or both. So to tide you (the illusory reader who, like a certain quantum cat, may or may not exist) over, here’s a picture of Commander Sisko from Deep Space 9, a show I am once again trying to work my way through. Yes, he is beautiful. You’re welcome.
I did not get much done today aside from making a few corrections on syllabi and clearing out a bunch of emails. In truth, today has been a pretty piss poor day even for non-work productivity. No additions to the book catalogue. No blog posts (until now). No podcast editing. No editing editing. Really, not a whole lot of anything got done. I imagine we’ll see many of these over the next few weeks, especially now that Minnesota’s governor, Tim Walz (who I voted for (thankfully)), has issued a shelter-in-place order. Part of this is actually my own doing: I made a pact with myself that “home” would be a separate zone from “work” solely so I can maintain a bit of critical distance; now those two have to come together, and that’s creating…issues. Part of this is only kinda my doing: working and working and working, even when you’re doing things you actually like, can be enormously draining, and I definitely hit my burnout point several years ago when I was still in grad school.
On a whim, I began watching Netflix’s new documentary series, Tiger King: Murder, Mayhem, and Madness, which apparently set out to be the Blackfish of the private big cat zoo world but quickly became something a bit more eccentric and “true crime’-ish. Just like the characters it follows: Joe Exotic (the Tiger King himself), Doc Antle, and “big cat rescue” lady, Carole Baskin. Part of the shift in tone from animal rights documentary to a true crime dive into the dark hole of the human soul appears to be the fact that Joe Exotic, a longtime enemy of Carole Baskin, was arrested and convicted last year for attempting a murder-by-hire on Baskin. Or maybe that was just the icing on the cake the directors realized they had baked after filming. I don’t know. I’m not really here to talk about that, though. Rather, I want to talk about my own perspective on this cast of characters and the many others like them in the exotic pet world. As many of you know, I am also an exotic pet owner and come from a family of them. By comparison to the cast of characters in Tiger King, however, we’re fairly innocuous varieties. I keep small snakes and lizards (three corn snakes, a bull snake, a spotted python, a Peruvian and a Colombian rainbow boa, and (now) 3 leopard geckos) while my mom and her delightful wife Kathy run a bird rescue — which results in their house being a haven for parrots. Our perspectives are fairly close: we both think that most bird species should not be kept as pets, especially certain breeds of parrots, but we also agree that many exotics can, with proper care, be wonderful additions in a family. In my case, I just really like reptiles, but I draw a pretty firm line over what I consider acceptable as a reptile keeper.
