Saturday, March 04, 2006
Romance in Unlikely Places
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WARNING
THIS BLOG POST CONSISTS ALMOST ENTIRELY
OF SPOILERS FOR THE BBC VERSION OF "THE
OFFICE" DO NOT READ ON IF YOU INTEND TO
WATCH IT UNSPOILT.
OH, AND IT'S ANOTHER VERBOSE POST.
A VERY, VERY VERBOSE POST.
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Ahem.
I consider "The Office" to be one of the most romantic stories of all time.
"The Office" is a 1/2 hour long an episode, six-episodes a season, British mockumentary about office life. The main goal of the series is to make the viewer as uncomfortable as possible, and maybe laugh a little. Human insecurities and fallacies are laid bare and humiliated. All romance, warmth, sincerity, and sentimental emotions are ruthlessly dragged from their homes and beaten to death. And it's funny.
How could that be romantic?
Well, in the midst of all the barren cold wasteland of mid-sized company in Slough, England, is Tim and Dawn. Sometimes in the forefront, sometimes in the background, they are the two likable characters floating in a sea of awful drones. Their relationship is a spot of warmth and humanity.
The agony is that Dawn has a fiance, Lee. A big bruiser who works in the shipping department of the office, downstairs and away from the main happenings. Anyone can see he's all wrong for Dawn. He's not supportive or sensitive, or even terribly nice. But he is considered rather good looking (not my type really).
Normally that sort of romantic entanglements drive me nuts. Why would a sane girl like Dawn go for such a jerk? But of course we've all had friends date people who were asses for far to long so I accepted it. Dawn's not perfect, and why dump Lee only to risk the unknown with Tim?
And lets face it, Tim is not the best catch. A rather downtrodden young man with no friends who hates his job but will probably never leave it. He has a sense of humor and a strong wit that make him adorable, but perhaps his push-over nature does look bad in comparison to Lee's strong (overbearing) nature. He certainly doesn't look very tough in comparison. The episode where it's Tim's birthday and he ends up forlornly wandering the parking lot of a bar without shoes (someone tossed them on the roof for a bet despite Tim's protests) comes to mind.
For two seasons and twelve painfully embarrassing, and funny, episodes Dawn and Tim flirt and keep each other sane. Their unrequited love playing against an absurd backdrop of office shenanigans. In the second season, when Tim finally branches out and dates another co-worker and you can see just how devastated Dawn is, it hurts. When Tim dumps the girl because he's latched once more onto the impossible hope that he might be able to date Dawn, you cringe. But you smile again with them when they trick the oblivious, ridiculous uptight Gareth into saying he jerks men off.
Still, at the end of the season everything ends horribly for just about everyone. Tim makes a final (second) bid for Dawn, and she rejects him in favor of moving to the US to marry Lee and become an illustrator.
I was heartbroken. So was Tim.
The Christmas Special that came afterwards is an unabashed fan service, and perhaps even an apology for ending everything so bleakly.
Dawn it seems has been stuck in Florida taking care of Lee's sister's baby (which for one heart-stopping, well planned, moment we think is hers) and has given up all dreams of being an illustrator. She very obviously isn't interested in talking about Tim and glosses over her abandoned dreams, trying to look strong and happy. Her reluctance to return to England shows just how vulnerable she really is.
Tim is still at his job. Gareth is now his boss and he has a new awful desk mate. He's not miserable, but not happy either. His attempts to appear casual upon learning that Dawn will be back in town are as delicious as Dawn's own attempts to get out of returning.
Through the two episodes Lee again and again puts Dawn down in small ways, and she seems resigned and unhappy in his company. But when she is back with Tim it's like the two never parted. At the Christmas party they make fun of Gareth like always and laugh together like old times. Tim tries to encourage Dawn back towards illustrating despite Lee's declaration that to make money "you gotta be good."
And then the Christmas party is over. Lee convinces Dawn to leave early because they have a long flight the next day. She and Tim have an awkward goodbye and she's back on her way to the other side of the globe. Of course, we are angry with her for being so stupid as to stick with Lee. Then, when she opens her secret Santa gift in the cab, and it's an art kit very obviously from Tim, and she cries, we forgive her.
(It's such a wonderful juxtaposition to Lee, who earlier comments that Christmas is a gimmick and that he has her just take the money she spent on him out of his wallet. "I'm thinking of wrapping it this year," she remarks.)
Meanwhile Tim interviews back at the party optimistically that while Dawn was a ray of sunshine in his life, life does go on. He believes that things could turn out great for him in the next few years, there is no way of knowing. We are glad to see him so optimistic and cheerful despite the pain, but we know it won't do.
Then it happens.
Tim chats with his old boss and Gareth affably. Life is going on. And there she is at the edge of the screen. Walking unsteadily across the office. Tim doesn't see her as we zoom in on her tearful face. She pushes between him and the other guys, and kisses him.
"Careful, she's got a fiance," Gareth breaks the moment up.
"Not anymore." She pulls away from Tim long enough to say.
Their kiss is awkward, and tender, and wonderful. Tims hand comes up to touch her cheek as though he is only now realizing his dream is coming true. They break apart. She is the one who grips his hand, and leads him from the office. Away from the dark beige carpet, metal desks, and depressing, collating copy machine.
At last.
Like a sap, my heart soars every time I see it. Whenever "Only You" by Yaz, which plays during their climactic kiss, comes on my heart clenches a little.
It's because the rest of the series is so bleak, cold, and unromantic, that this moment shines out. The one moment of happiness magnified by the misery that surrounded it.
For this geek, it's perfect. Forget "Gone With The Wind", "Romeo and Juliet" or any of that overwrought drama. "The Office", two imperfect office workers falling sweetly in love, triumphing over the banal, does it for me.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Life Imitating Erotic Romance
UNdisclaimer: There is no sex in this blog post.
Today Tech Support set the toaster oven on fire. Don't worry, I, the cats, and even the man himself are all fine. In fact, oddly enough my reaction was pleasure.
Let me explain.
I have this scene in my story where my heroine, who is a bit klutzy and not very domestic, sets the toaster oven on fire. I've been looking at that scene ever since I wrote it several months ago and thinking, "Would this really happen? Would anyone really be that clumsy?" Erotic romances often feel a bit contrived to me (ala "thank you for the pizza, attractive mystic vampire, would you like to come in to my bedroom?") and I was trying to avoid it as much as possible.
This morning I placed some frozen muffins in the toaster oven and set it to 300 degrees. When he came in he decided it wasn't good enough for him and so he switched it over to toast. I'm guessing it was the high heat that first set the melted cheese which already covered the inside on fire, and then the muffins themselves. I was the one who had the luck too look over in time to see the impressive blaze going inside. He was the one who got to put it out.
So my answer was yes.
And, undeterred, he slathered jam and butter on the crispy muffins and reported them still quite good.
Today Tech Support set the toaster oven on fire. Don't worry, I, the cats, and even the man himself are all fine. In fact, oddly enough my reaction was pleasure.
Let me explain.
I have this scene in my story where my heroine, who is a bit klutzy and not very domestic, sets the toaster oven on fire. I've been looking at that scene ever since I wrote it several months ago and thinking, "Would this really happen? Would anyone really be that clumsy?" Erotic romances often feel a bit contrived to me (ala "thank you for the pizza, attractive mystic vampire, would you like to come in to my bedroom?") and I was trying to avoid it as much as possible.
This morning I placed some frozen muffins in the toaster oven and set it to 300 degrees. When he came in he decided it wasn't good enough for him and so he switched it over to toast. I'm guessing it was the high heat that first set the melted cheese which already covered the inside on fire, and then the muffins themselves. I was the one who had the luck too look over in time to see the impressive blaze going inside. He was the one who got to put it out.
So my answer was yes.
And, undeterred, he slathered jam and butter on the crispy muffins and reported them still quite good.
Sunday, January 22, 2006
A Shattered Childhood Illusion
Yesterday I went to Tombstone.
No doubt to the surprise of most of my friends and relations it is not thanks to Val Kilmer's performance in the 1993 film Tombstone. I am a true geek. I owe my fascination to an original Star Trek episode called Spectre of the Gun. An episode famous because they didn't have enough money for a real set so Kirk and Spock wander around a town made of western building facades. The plot revolves around Kirk and his gang being forced to play the parts of the bad guys against the Earps on that fateful day.
From those beginnings was born a fascination with the legendary characters and events that made up that famous fight in Tombstone. Really, all of the American west is fascinating for the alternate morality and colorful people that made it up. The prostitutes. The gunfighters. The lawman who weren't always so lawful. The feuds. The friendship. One of the most fascinating things to me about the legend of the OK Coral was the loyalty that existed between the suicidal gunfighter Doc Holliday and the borderline lawful Earps. The romantic in me loved it.
There is not much romantic to be found in the town of Tombstone anymore.
Yesterday Some Girl, her fiance, Tech Support and I piled into their car and drove the hour it took to get from Tucson to Tombstone. It was to be the fulfillment of a childhood dream. I'd heard that it was a tourist trap, but I had to go anyway.
The old courthouse of Tombstone which is now a museum was the first place we went. It proved to ultimately be the most interesting. It is filled with artifacts and historical information on the city, from the discovery of the first silver strike to when the mines finally closed down. Though at times it felt a little hodge-podge and quaint, it was still very interesting.
We left the courthouse and began to stroll around the town. I first began to suspect the true nature of the town when Tech Support laughingly informed me that it would be $3 to see the world's largest rose bush. Shortly thereafter it cost $4 to see three men shoot each other with blanks and stand up repeatedly while making off-color jokes in a "gunfight" show.
We paid $4 again later for a package deal at the OK Corral which lead to the ultimate destruction of Tombstone in my mind. The first part of the deal was a little history piece on Tombstone, narrated by Vincent Price. As the lights came down in the small theater we sat in with a few polite looking older couples one of the ladies that worked there said, "Please don't take pictures of the diorama during the show. If you want to we can open it up again for you afterwards."
We sat in stunned silence for a moment as the door shut ominously behind us and Tech Support said softly, "A diorama? This could be fantastic."
It was.
Tears poured out of my eyes and I desperately tried not to disturb the other patrons by laughing out loud as the curtain pulled away and the giant diorama was revealed. Vincent Price's dramatic voice describing the earliest years of Tombstone as lights highlighted various parts of the huge model was lost on me as the absurdity of the situation sent me into hysterics. I was finally able to calm down a bit when a small screen came down and started playing some shaky vintage 60's footage complete with reenactments. The giggles started again. The little screen rose and I discovered that the diorama actually rotated, displaying different scenes each time the screen went up and down. This did not help matters.
Further highlights included a fire in Tombstone that involved the model buildings windows all turning red, and the deaths of Morgan Earp and Frank Stilwell, in which small diorama people clunked dramatically to floor in their death throws. Not much information was gained as even Vincent Price lost interest in his overly dramatic monologue and started slurring words together.
We left the diorama and went out into the courtyard of the OK Corral itself. In one corner of the yard large metal manikins moved arms and necks jerkily in a bizarre reproduction of the gunfight where no one falls over. Once again the austerity of history was not present and I tended towards giggling rather than awe.
It was here also that one of my main problems with Tombstone is highlighted. It's hard to tell what is truly historic. The fight of course didn't actually happen in the Corral itself (although two other murders had occurred there) it happened in an empty lot next door. However, the location we were in was called the "OK Corral". Now, it is stated that the person who owns it now also purchased the empty lots, but I'm still confused. Were the creepy sun-bleached reproductions standing where Wyatt and the gang actually stood? I'm left uncertain. As I was also left uncertain about many of the historical buildings that lined the street. Which ones are actually historical and which ones are rebuilt? Do they look like they used to? Most of them seemed concerned more with bringing in money than with history, which was a bit off-putting.
A quick run to wikipedia reveals that I am not the only one who had these problems.
There were gems amongst the tourism intense locations. Fascinating information about prostitutes cribs, lynchings, and all the things that make the American West so fascinating, but most of it is buried beneath the artificial attempts to turn Tombstone into an amusement park.
After Wyatt and Doc fled town for Colorado one step ahead of a large posse most of the locations they had made so famous burnt down. Not too long afterwards flooding in the mines crippled and then destroyed the town's source of income. One can't help but wonder if it was meant to stay dead.
Tombstone, the self proclaimed "Town Too Tough to Die", is about as tough as a kitten.
Still, despite my doom and gloom I think Tombstone could get better. I know that people need to earn a living in a town where the main industry is tourism, but I want to believe that if they focused more on history and less on fleecing tourists, the money would come. I want to see clearly what buildings are reproductions (which are most I suspect) and to see pictures of what the originals looked like. I want to stand where Wyatt and Doc stood and feel the history, not giggle at the absurdity.
And please, get rid of that diorama.
No doubt to the surprise of most of my friends and relations it is not thanks to Val Kilmer's performance in the 1993 film Tombstone. I am a true geek. I owe my fascination to an original Star Trek episode called Spectre of the Gun. An episode famous because they didn't have enough money for a real set so Kirk and Spock wander around a town made of western building facades. The plot revolves around Kirk and his gang being forced to play the parts of the bad guys against the Earps on that fateful day.
From those beginnings was born a fascination with the legendary characters and events that made up that famous fight in Tombstone. Really, all of the American west is fascinating for the alternate morality and colorful people that made it up. The prostitutes. The gunfighters. The lawman who weren't always so lawful. The feuds. The friendship. One of the most fascinating things to me about the legend of the OK Coral was the loyalty that existed between the suicidal gunfighter Doc Holliday and the borderline lawful Earps. The romantic in me loved it.
There is not much romantic to be found in the town of Tombstone anymore.
Yesterday Some Girl, her fiance, Tech Support and I piled into their car and drove the hour it took to get from Tucson to Tombstone. It was to be the fulfillment of a childhood dream. I'd heard that it was a tourist trap, but I had to go anyway.
The old courthouse of Tombstone which is now a museum was the first place we went. It proved to ultimately be the most interesting. It is filled with artifacts and historical information on the city, from the discovery of the first silver strike to when the mines finally closed down. Though at times it felt a little hodge-podge and quaint, it was still very interesting.
We left the courthouse and began to stroll around the town. I first began to suspect the true nature of the town when Tech Support laughingly informed me that it would be $3 to see the world's largest rose bush. Shortly thereafter it cost $4 to see three men shoot each other with blanks and stand up repeatedly while making off-color jokes in a "gunfight" show.
We paid $4 again later for a package deal at the OK Corral which lead to the ultimate destruction of Tombstone in my mind. The first part of the deal was a little history piece on Tombstone, narrated by Vincent Price. As the lights came down in the small theater we sat in with a few polite looking older couples one of the ladies that worked there said, "Please don't take pictures of the diorama during the show. If you want to we can open it up again for you afterwards."
We sat in stunned silence for a moment as the door shut ominously behind us and Tech Support said softly, "A diorama? This could be fantastic."
It was.
Tears poured out of my eyes and I desperately tried not to disturb the other patrons by laughing out loud as the curtain pulled away and the giant diorama was revealed. Vincent Price's dramatic voice describing the earliest years of Tombstone as lights highlighted various parts of the huge model was lost on me as the absurdity of the situation sent me into hysterics. I was finally able to calm down a bit when a small screen came down and started playing some shaky vintage 60's footage complete with reenactments. The giggles started again. The little screen rose and I discovered that the diorama actually rotated, displaying different scenes each time the screen went up and down. This did not help matters.
Further highlights included a fire in Tombstone that involved the model buildings windows all turning red, and the deaths of Morgan Earp and Frank Stilwell, in which small diorama people clunked dramatically to floor in their death throws. Not much information was gained as even Vincent Price lost interest in his overly dramatic monologue and started slurring words together.
We left the diorama and went out into the courtyard of the OK Corral itself. In one corner of the yard large metal manikins moved arms and necks jerkily in a bizarre reproduction of the gunfight where no one falls over. Once again the austerity of history was not present and I tended towards giggling rather than awe.
It was here also that one of my main problems with Tombstone is highlighted. It's hard to tell what is truly historic. The fight of course didn't actually happen in the Corral itself (although two other murders had occurred there) it happened in an empty lot next door. However, the location we were in was called the "OK Corral". Now, it is stated that the person who owns it now also purchased the empty lots, but I'm still confused. Were the creepy sun-bleached reproductions standing where Wyatt and the gang actually stood? I'm left uncertain. As I was also left uncertain about many of the historical buildings that lined the street. Which ones are actually historical and which ones are rebuilt? Do they look like they used to? Most of them seemed concerned more with bringing in money than with history, which was a bit off-putting.
A quick run to wikipedia reveals that I am not the only one who had these problems.
There were gems amongst the tourism intense locations. Fascinating information about prostitutes cribs, lynchings, and all the things that make the American West so fascinating, but most of it is buried beneath the artificial attempts to turn Tombstone into an amusement park.
After Wyatt and Doc fled town for Colorado one step ahead of a large posse most of the locations they had made so famous burnt down. Not too long afterwards flooding in the mines crippled and then destroyed the town's source of income. One can't help but wonder if it was meant to stay dead.
Tombstone, the self proclaimed "Town Too Tough to Die", is about as tough as a kitten.
Still, despite my doom and gloom I think Tombstone could get better. I know that people need to earn a living in a town where the main industry is tourism, but I want to believe that if they focused more on history and less on fleecing tourists, the money would come. I want to see clearly what buildings are reproductions (which are most I suspect) and to see pictures of what the originals looked like. I want to stand where Wyatt and Doc stood and feel the history, not giggle at the absurdity.
And please, get rid of that diorama.
Thursday, January 05, 2006
On Strange Foreign Lands
Last week, without ever leaving the state of my birth, I traveled to a strange and foreign land. The customs, the culture, even the conversation was alien to me and it took me a few days to get used to it. It was a strange land of white walls, mirrors, christmas decorations and giant fake ferns. I'll admit I may have stumbled a bit with the native population at first.
For example, I dare anyone to come up with, on the spot, the correct way to respond to a reference to the cat-eating Husky in residence as "my angel baby from heaven". I certainly didn't and settled for a stunned silence instead.
Yes, I was at my boyfriend's mother's house.
Over the past two decades I have become accustomed to a certain set of faults and idiosyncrasies belonging to my own family. Thus it is always a bit off putting when meeting other people's family who invariably have a different set of faults and idiosyncrasies that I am unused to. Suddenly, I am at a loss. And being at a loss around the mother of the man you love is not a great vantage point. I personally prefer having the upper hand.
Tech Support's mother is a fascinating woman to me. Here I am, neurotically worried about the environment, driving a fuel efficient car as little as I can, buying local, trying not to waste money, trying urban composting and gardening, and recycling as much as I can. In comparison Tech Support's mother drives a massive SUV so she can feel safe, spends obscene amounts of money on buying all sorts of materialistic items, and probably doesn't know much about sustainable living. On the other hand, she is working on getting leaky old pipes that pollute the water in her area replaced, destroying old businesses and turning them back into marshland, and personally helping several disabled people in her area live better lives.
Despite our different approaches to environmentalism we got along just fine and passed a pleasant several days together.
Though now I am glad to be home with my little angel babies from heaven.
For example, I dare anyone to come up with, on the spot, the correct way to respond to a reference to the cat-eating Husky in residence as "my angel baby from heaven". I certainly didn't and settled for a stunned silence instead.
Yes, I was at my boyfriend's mother's house.
Over the past two decades I have become accustomed to a certain set of faults and idiosyncrasies belonging to my own family. Thus it is always a bit off putting when meeting other people's family who invariably have a different set of faults and idiosyncrasies that I am unused to. Suddenly, I am at a loss. And being at a loss around the mother of the man you love is not a great vantage point. I personally prefer having the upper hand.
Tech Support's mother is a fascinating woman to me. Here I am, neurotically worried about the environment, driving a fuel efficient car as little as I can, buying local, trying not to waste money, trying urban composting and gardening, and recycling as much as I can. In comparison Tech Support's mother drives a massive SUV so she can feel safe, spends obscene amounts of money on buying all sorts of materialistic items, and probably doesn't know much about sustainable living. On the other hand, she is working on getting leaky old pipes that pollute the water in her area replaced, destroying old businesses and turning them back into marshland, and personally helping several disabled people in her area live better lives.
Despite our different approaches to environmentalism we got along just fine and passed a pleasant several days together.
Though now I am glad to be home with my little angel babies from heaven.
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