social media thoughts, part 1: the insane stuff.

Hi, Internet! How are you since I last talked at You? 

So, today I discovered Periscope. It was Jason Isaacs' fault. He tweeted about watching Andy Dick eat cheese puffs on it, and I saw it in my general Twitter feed when I logged on in the morning. I had no idea what the heck he was talking about, so I Googled it. 

I ran away! Because no. NO! Stop this insanity, Social Media! Jesus God stop it!! Stop giving human beings one more excuse to be narcissists! I can barely keep track of all the social media I do use as it is. Are not Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, About.me, Flickr, Google+, Snapchat, Vine, LinkedIn, Meetup.com, wordpress, blogspot, vox, typepad, and Pinterest quite enough for the world?????? 

At some point, this has got to go like the housing bubble did and just blow up and ooze pus everywhere. Right? How much more can our limited brains handle? And so now there is Periscope, which connects to your Twitter account, which lets you live stream (as long as you like, I think) video of yourself talking and/or putzing about, or be an amateur Reality TV show producer/director/camera person and video stream live events as they happen around you. Meanwhile, people who are watching--random, total, COMPLETE strangers--can just pop in and sit and watch. And if they're so inclined, they can comment, live, on your life as it happens. 

Bizarre. Freaky! What the hell is going ON with us, Humanity?!?! We are so desperate for validation.

But then, being infinitely curious and always full of WHAT? and WHY??, I downloaded the app. I missed Andy Dick eating cheese puffs, but was able to sit (for 35 minutes!) on this app and watch a really lovely trio of musicians play live music outside a cafe in Birmingham, Alabama; a friendly, outgoing girl who looked slightly like Mila Kunis just sit and talk at various strangers saying hello to her and leaving her comments while she ate donuts; I watched someone in Africa at work--rather, I watched their desk computer; I watched someone else just sit. Thirty-five minutes later, I shut it off. Because I have a life to live: I needed to shower and get dressed, the kitchen was a disaster, and my child had put eye shadow on her to make it look as if someone had punched her. And she had done this on purpose, and was in the process of adding in a bloody lip. And demanding I take her out in public like this.

Speaking of my child and social media: Miss M, 6 years old, has discovered texting. And leaving comments on YouTube. I think the YouTube comments are scariest. First, because, well...my name is attached. The comments are not being posted as a 6 year old crazy girl from Georgia, they're coming in as a 43 year old crazy woman from Georgia. I'm sure Matty B., the teen YouTube rap sensation, and all his little pre-teen friends don't find that freakishly alarming at all. Second, I caught her trying to leave Matty B. and his friends OUR HOME ADDRESS.

So we had to have The Internet Talk. Which is far more frustrating to have with a 6 year old than the Birds & Bees Talk, please know. Listen to me: if you need to speak to a child about delicate Life matters, I promise you want to talk about sex. Not the Internet; this is a labyrinth you'll never figure your way out of, trust me.

Because it's very hard to explain to an egocentric, concrete thinker about all the baddies out there. And also about how Matty B. doesn't know her, and she doesn't know him. (Because, in her brain, Matty B. is her very best friend--he's cute, he's talented, he's seems so! friendly! Clearly, he wants to be her boyfriend and come have a sleepover at her house. This Friday! Right? Right!) 

Totally very frustrating.

So I told her my story, the one about how this one time a bad guy stalked me on the Internet because of a blog I wrote, and how scary that was. Didn't move her. Because Matty B. IS HER FRIEND. 

And we talked about stranger danger. Didn't move her. Because Matty B. IS NOT A STRANGER. 

And we talked about how you can't leave Matty B. comment after comment after comment until he answers you. Because I'm sure Matty B. has seen your comments (which he thinks are from your 43 year old Mommy) and now his parents are warily watching you (i.e., me). 

I said that part of our talk to her, studiously ignoring how many famous people I regularly leave tweets for who probably have me on some Internet Watch List as well. (But it's different! It's different! Because those famous people and I are all adults. And THEY know I'm just gently joking with them online because I admire them and want them to know they're loved, even if we don't actually know each other. And also..........okay, fine. Fine! It's not very different. I'm sure I'm on a Twitter Watch List or something.)

At any rate, I've had to institute a No Comments Without Parental Permission and Approval policy on my YouTube account. And now I have to regularly monitor what she's watching (which isn't hard on YouTube, because you watch one thing, and suddenly they make 10,000 similar suggestions...for awhile, I was getting a lot of anime videos of voluptuous cartoon ladies giving birth. And so then we had the Where Do Babies Come From? talk. Lands. Child rearing in the 21st century is exhausting, y'all. EXHAUSTING. And also: Damn it, YouTube! Get a parental password protect option!)

We also have had to implement a No Texting Without Parental Permission and Approval policy. That started when C was off on his fishing trip last week--texting is a quick, excellent way to keep in touch with someone who refuses to do social media and also likes to take fishing trips to places near Canada that are practically off the grid. However, she left him bizarre text messages like: 

Daddy, Mommy is being mean to me. (insert 10,000 angry emojis here)

Daddy, I really think I'm going to cry!!!!!!!! (insert 10,000 sad emojis here)

Daddy, Mommy bought me a lot of make up and I'm on YouTube doing videos! (insert 10,000 random emojis here)

Daddy, I hate Mommy!!! (insert 10,000 devil emojis here)

And so on and so forth. Sometimes, they would just be whatever popped up randomly in autocorrect. I don't know if you've ever visited damnyouautocorrect.com, but if you have, I'm sure you can imagine what those read like.

Then she moved on from Daddy to Grammy. And then random people in my contacts list. Two people were worried about me. So now I've had to pre-emptively apologize for weird texts or facebook posts from me, because these are NOT from me. They are from a nutty little person posing as me. 

In addition, now I'm terrified M is going to say something bizarre to some famous person I follow on Twitter or Instagram and then I really WILL get put on a Twitter Watch List of some sort, or banned. So I'm mulling over making that my next pinned tweet on my Twitter page: bizarre tweets with emojis are not from me; they're from my zany, wayward 6 year old. Because the clue will be that her bizarre tweets will include 10,000 emojis because she knows where to find those on my phone and I don't since technologically I'm obviously about 190 years old.

This is the end of Part 1. 

Tomorrow, come back, because I'm going to talk about social media, part 2: the good stuff. There is good stuff to social media. For example, once I downloaded Periscope, I could see its value--imagine if something horrible is occuring...oh, say, some crazed racist cop going to town on a 12 year old unarmed black boy or something. Periscope = excellent to get the word out about that, in conjunction with Twitter's rapid fire information dissemination. 

Really, true Villains of the world should be terrified at the moment; there will be nowhere to hide their evil doings, eventually. 

(The frustrating, sad part is I know they aren't...they're in a dank, dark cave somewhere trying to figure out how to work this to their advantage. Thus, Sons/Daughters of Light continue to the fight the good fight.)

social media + storytelling connections.

Exactly, John Steinbeck. Exactly.

Let's talk about storytelling, social media, and connections. (And at the end, I have a Big and Important Announcement.) 

First, storytelling (as it relates to social media). I think I've been pretty vocal here about the effect I think social media is having on us as a society, both culturally and linguistically. But also artistically. We aren't relating to each other as well, and worse we're beginning 2 write words as numbers or syllables of words, which I really h8. In 1976, as a Kindergartner, this would have confused the holy crap out of me; I submit my final evaluations, later on, in Algebras I and II, along with scary ass Trigonometry as hard evidence. 

I worry about how much time I spend on it. I'll be honest: I think I'm on Twitter and Facebook way too much. I'm also on Pinterest and Instagram, but not as much because I don't get to interface with other users there like I do on Twitter and Facebook. (Narcissism, Ego. I'm saying this out loud to you: Twitter and Facebook are all about narcissism and ego...so is Instagram, but you have to know how to use it properly and I still don't have a clue how to do that.) I'm also on LinkedIn, but nobody wants to hire me, so I'm bored there already. And I'm on Google+ but...have you been there? I feel like I'm standing in an abandoned warehouse.

I'm worried about how much I'm on my phone or my laptop as opposed to, say, riding bikes with Miss M or gazing up into the night sky, pondering stars. I look around me and see other people doing this as well. I find it worrying, and yet, this is how the 21st century just seems to be turning out. And if you aren't doing 21st century things, you get left behind.

However! I see that social media really does has great intrinsic value in getting the word out, whatever your word may be. One of the reasons I started actively tweeting about a year ago was to build an audience for my writing (and to win friends and influence others, but none of that has happened at all...oh, wait, no! Except for the friends part. I am WAY up in my friends data....cause I'm a sweetheart). It's been slow going--mostly because I'm crap at Twitter and muck it up a lot. And also I'm worried about bugging people too much--famous and not famous. 

But live tweeting (or, actually, just hitting the star button a lot since I had no clue and everybody was going too too fast for me) DIG (on USA!) was an eye opener for me. I saw what a community Social Media can build. I met some new friends. I made some important connections. Jason Isaacs sat back and admired my geeky researcher issues. It taught me a lot. 

One thing it taught me was that this is how making Art will most likely work for now. If you are an actor, a writer, a director, a producer, a poet, a painter, a journalist, a musician, a storyteller of any kind? You HAVE to be on Twitter. You HAVE to tweet and interact with people consuming and potentially consuming your product, your Art. And also on Facebook to some extent, but what I see is most people heading toward Twitter. I think because it's short and it's quick, and also because a lot of famous and influential people are on it and people (cough ME cough) like to be able to announce to their friends: "Brad Pitt favorited my weird tweet yesterday!" (Brad Pitt isn't on Twitter.) (But he SHOULD be.) 

Millions and billions of people from all over the planet are on it. If you want people to see you, to be exposed to your story, you HAVE to do it. Well, wait. No. You don't HAVE to do anything...I'm not trying to be the boss of you. But if you don't do it, your story won't reach the mass number of people it could potentially. (But then, on the flip side, can I also just say that sometimes just regular word of mouth works, too? In my neighborhood, people leave books in Miniature Libraries people have placed in their yards; I still ask friends for good movie/tv show/book recommendations. To their faces. In person. Offline. It's a thing humans can still do.)

For television storytelling, because of the way it's gone--which is that nobody really has time to sit back and watch shows AS they're airing (the exception being you're a fan and a geek and so you make the time)--it's absolutely essential you have as many people involved with the show tweeting. And the more interactive, the better. Right now I'm watching a show on NBC called American Odyssey fight for renewal, and the reason it's in a fight and has a chance is because dedicated fans are fighting for it. And the reason they're dedicated is because they feel seen and heard by the storytellers making the show. Therein lies the power of social media. The artist in me wants to cry out, "But cannot Art just be ART?!" (Because I'm dramatic.) But the social media addict is going, "Yeah, man. This is how it WORKS." (Because I'm a complete dichotomy.)

In addition, it's a nice way to connect with your favorite storytellers in general. The other day, I watched STOCKHOLM, PENNSYLVANIA, which was written and directed by Nikole Beckwith (you MUST see this if you can--it is amazing; unexpectedly unsettling but also beautifully sad and thoughtful). I sent Nikole a tweet and told her how wonderful her story is. And she responded to me--so sweet and kind. I will love her forever now. 

Therein lies the power of social media: I'll watch anything and everything Nikole Beckwith is involved with now. (Actually, I would have anyway, because I think she's gifted and talented...but she's also lovely and nice, and so now I'm in her corner forever.)

Ditto that for novelists, poets, musicians, actors, etc etc and so forth. If you can connect to people who admire one bit of any work you've done, and if you can make them feel heard and appreciated? They will wrap you in gobs of love and light, and when some dickhead comes to you and says: YOUR ART SUCKS (as dickheads on social media are wont to do), these same people will gather up their pitch forks and their angry torches and they will go beat up those dickheads for you. I swear it, I swear it by all that is holy and good. They will. And then they will bring you those dickheads' dead dickhead bodies and lay them on the porch for you to find in the morning, just like cats do to show they love you.

Okay, that's done. Do you want to hear my Very Important and Big Announcement?

I got a writing job!! And I'm suuuuper excited about it. Here's how the power of social media works: I started tweeting (or, you know, trying to keep up) with DIG live tweets by Jason Isaacs back in March. Because of that, I met a new friend who is way, way better at live tweeting than me. We got to know each other pretty well. G thought my DIG research was amazing and brilliant and is delusional that I am talented. 

Then, G connected with a nice lady named Erin from a big Sci-Fi website called Three If By Space (which, if you are a big Sci-Fi fan and don't know about this website--WHAT?! Wake up! Go HERE and be amazed), and let me know they needed writers. And it just so happens I'm interested in a new show coming to the SyFy channel in December called THE EXPANSE, which looks like more good storytelling and amazing acting and also there's a conspiracy theory and you kind people know how much I loved that aspect of DIG...and! AND! there's zero gravity sex in this show. (Do you guys even know about zero gravity sex? Oh, wait until December...you will. Apparently, Isaac Newton may have thought about it some. I know for sure I would have, especially had I been one of the first people in Outer Space. How can you NOT ponder this? Not thinking about this aspect of Outer Space existence is like...like...eating pancakes without syrup. How can people DO that?! No. NO. Pancakes need syrup. Humans need sex. We are NOT arguing about this, it's just how it is, the end.) 

So that's my big announcement: I have a writing job (no pay, but I get to be legit published AND! more important, I get an editor, and god knows I so need one of those). My main writing job will be to write up stuff about SyFy's THE EXPANSE, sort of like I did for DIG (on USA!), but less archaeology and no red cows or Essenes (although I don't know. Maybe...maybe there are Essene-like aliens in Outer Space!). I can do more writing for them once I get the hang of it.

Just. Everybody pray I don't muck up Three if By Space's super nice website. If you go there and you see, like, misplaced vowels and off kilter stuff, that's me. I can't even figure out how to do Twitter cards on this frickin' blog, let alone get a web address without the "blogspot" in it. (I actually do know how to do get rid of the "blogspot" part of this site's address--I just haven't yet. Because procrastination.)

DIG (on USA!) thoughts: ep 10 (ten, rhymes with end...sorta)

Imagine me and you, I do;
I think about you day and night, it's only right...
So happy together!

Oh, Internet. It's 11 PM on Saturday night as I start typing this, and I don't know how to really express the depth of sadness I feel about what I am doing. What am I doing, you ask? I am writing The last DIG (on USA!) review. My last thoughts and reactions. There are no more episodes to watch now. Thursday evening, May 14, will be cold and lifeless. No Jason Isaacs tweets. Ori Pfeffer will not retweet me or give me too much information I expressly said not to. Nothing to scream at my TV about. No WTF is going ON?! moments. 

It has concluded. The mystery solved, the last twitching body laid to rest. 

It's okay. I'll be okay! Don't cry for me, Argentina! Or Israel. Or Croatia or Norway! I will be okay. (Because USA Network, until they say Yay or Nay definitively, will be receiving occasional, overly familiar, harassing tweets from me about green lighting a 2nd Season for DIG...and they can just go ahead and ask Jason Isaacs all about what it's like to get my occasional, overly familiar, harassing tweets. He knows all about these, because he gets them from me about every 3rd-4th time he tweets.)

Alright, diggers/digglers/diggees, let's just rip the band aid off. Let's talk about the last episode. 

Here's the mystery, solved (and if you haven't watched it yet, or even seen the series at all: (A) Why are you here? We are NOT friends...and (B) look away!! Look away now!!! I'm about to tell you THE WHOLE THING.):

In real life, Emma/Rebecca is a beautiful songwriter/singer/actress
named Alison, whose songs my daughter & I both love

*Emma was The Villain. The primary Antagonist. It was her, or rather, Rebbeca Donaldson aka Emma Wilson. THE WHOLE TIME. Someone mysteriously put the lost Donaldson murder/suicide investigation file Golan was trying to get from the grizzly old detective in the Negev Desert on Peter's desk and THAT'S how he figured out who Rebecca was (and thank you! whoever put that file there, because I spent about 3 hours last Thursday wondering: WHO THE HELL IS REBECCA???)

And she fell in love with Peter in the process of orchestrating the biggest antiquities/revenge heist of all time. She was in cahoots with greedy Margrove but not really--she just wanted to use him to avenge her father's death which Margrove caused by betraying his colleague, who just so happened to be Emma/Rebecca's dad. She lost her whole family because of Margrove's greed. And so, like a spider, she wove a web and trapped him, mated with him, and then ate him. And Margrove, who I was certain was a goner after, like, episode 3, ended up being the last of the dead guys, making it (almost) to the end. 

*The Order of Moriah? That was Ruth Riddell and Tad Billingham, and they got theirs. (Tad choked to death on some nuts...as he WENT nuts at the same time. No, seriously--he was eating nuts while talking nutty. Dearest, amazing DIG writers: I. LOVED. THIS. SO. MUCH.)

*Josh was a twin, and Fay was their mother. That means Fay killed one of her own children back in episode 1. 'Cause that's what crazy people do, y'all! Kill their kids. Google it--it's in the news all the time. 

*Josh turned out to be the very psycho Tad B. (who I THINK maybe was his dad?!?) was. (Parenting rule #1: model the behavior you want to see in your children.) And Josh turned on Tad, because Josh was taught that he's God's right hand boy/high priest, and so you know: he thinks he really is. Turns out, raising kids to believe they are God's gift to the world gives them an Entitlement Complex. (This is also called Extreme Spoiling, and I actually watched it happen, live, at my local supermarket about 2 weeks ago.)

So basically, evil Rabbi Lev and the Order of Moriah wanted to blow up Dome of the Rock. Rabbi Lev so he could rebuild the Temple and welcome the Messiah; Tad so he could start the Rapture and bring four horsemen down to scourge the Earth and bring the Messiah (and then Tad and Lev would get into a big fist fight about whether that was the First or Second Messiah). 

To do that, they brought in thousands of pounds of explosives disguised as books written by Tad Billingham. Then they rigged them all up to a dam that, when exploded, would flood the underground tunnels beneath Jerusalem and when the water made its way to the Temple Mount, BAM! Good-bye, Dome of the Rock; hello a lot of angry religious guys starting World War 3.

*Ruth's goin' to federal prison! Where she'll teach women to scare the shit out of people just by looking pointedly at them. (I think she should have gotten blown up in the damn dam, or had her throat slit by Lynn with the sharp letter opener, but that's just me. Because Armageddon Protocol.)

But now for the happy endings:

Blood. Red blood. Blood moons. Sacrificial blood.
Blood. 

*Lynn's still in Israel! She's running the FBI's Jerusalem bureau. Hopefully the rest of her time there doesn't involve any more blood. I think Anne Heche spent about half the show covered in blood, someone else's or her own. And no more climbing chain link fences, Lynn! You'll break your 5th metatarsal. And only sleep with employees who aren't being used as pawns in a chess game of revenge! But I do bow to your toughness, Lynn. You are a strong woman, and the next time I fight crime, I want YOU to be my partner.

*Peter made it! And he SAVED THE WORLD! And he's letting go of his past--he finally took off his wedding ring, and (I didn't see this but I BET) he deleted his ex-wife's phone number finally and he's going to see a plastic surgeon about that scar. He took Vicky's picture out of the drawer, and Lynn's going to send him far, far away (can it be to Atlanta, Georgia, Lynn? We have lots and lots of religious crazies for Peter to fight here, too). 

*Shem made it out alive! He's still out there somewhere, loving on Nature and saying prayers at strange moments while wearing white. He's counseling lost, fucked up people with gentle words of ancient wisdom. He's eating vegetables for dinner and dancing naked under the moon, and he's taking long, candlelit mikvehs. (I love the thought of a Shem out there in the world doing this, being a guardian of the Light for our spot in the Milky Way.)

*And Avram. Dear, sweet Avram. Thank God he made it off the DIG writers' pages alive; he's out there still. And so is Red (I'm going to talk about them in a few more paragraphs, because if I do it now, this will make me cry like I did when I rewatched it this afternoon and I need to get through the rest of what I want to say in my write up).

Basically, what I'm saying is: this show was, in the end, about water and a cow. 

....Did you know? Water has a very mystical meaning: it's used in purification rituals, to cleanse us. We are 50-65% water; without it we will die. And our planet will as well. Every bit of water we have on Earth today has been here since our planet was born; the water you bathe and shower in? Here since the dinosaurs. The water you wash your car with? Here before life began. All life began on Earth in water. Take care of it; it is precious. (Don't use it for nefarious purposes, either.)

I think it's really interesting that the DIG writers used water as a catalyst to either destroy or save in the end. (The dam's water was all diverted into an old archaeological bit of Jerusalem history: Warren's Shaft. Archaeologists who've studied it think it was first developed by the Canaanites; it is an ancient tunnel most likely used by ancient Jerusalemites as a water supply system. And it saved (in DIG) the world by diverting the exploded dam water away from the Temple Mount. Good job, ancient Canaanites!) In the beginning, I wrote about how I thought numbers mattered, that God was in the numbers. At the end, it turns out God was actually in the water.

And also I felt DIG was about darkness and light. Sons of Darkness, Sons of Light. An eternal, internal War of Soul. Maybe that's what Armageddon/Gog and Magog/the End of Days will boil down to: we'll all be fighting ourselves, inwardly...and only one of us will win. Let's all hope our Sons of Light come out on top. (Peter's did...he was tempted, at the end, by the Whore of Babylon, to come away with her and enjoy her spoils. Except Rebecca/Emma didn't realize she was dealing with a Son of Light. And so, in that way, Peter really was a Messiah. Of sorts.)

But mostly? DIG was about a cow. Not the cow herself so much, but Avram's devotion to her well-being--because DIG was about honor and loyalty and faith and loss and most important? Taking care of one another--Red saved Avram and Avram saved Red. Take care of each other, good people of Earth. Treat each other with kindness and care. Our animal friends, too.

And I think DIG was a good example of how to tell a good Hero's Journey story. Do you know about this? Joseph Campbell, an American mythologist, developed the concept--every story in every culture in every language in every corner of the planet even the farthest removed tells mythologies, and they all center around a Hero who must embark upon a Journey. One day, he wakes up and realizes: I have to go on a journey. Sometimes the journey is to rescue a maiden, or slay a dragon, or defeat a giant; it varies depending on the story and the culture. And so the Hero sets out--he leaves everything he knows behind and takes a journey. Along the way, he meets friends who are enemies, enemies who are friends, he has to overcome obstacles, pass tests, he fights battles and is wounded...until finally he reaches a Dark Night of the Soul, in which he must make the decision to either give up and die, or go on. But choosing to go on means the Hero must change, and change will involve doing the hardest thing(s) he can ever possibly imagine doing. But if the Hero does it, in the end he wins and goes back to his village to accolades and adoration. But if the Hero does it, he is changed forever, and Life as he knows it will never be the same again. (Not necessarily a bad thing.)

I think Campbell's The Hero's Journey could be applied to Lynn, Peter, and Avram. They all were woken up one day, realized they had to go on a journey to fight something terrible, and met enemies who were friends and friends who were enemies and suffered through Dark Nights of the Soul along the way. 

Particularly Avram: in the end, he is forever changed; I'm not sure if he lost his faith or just his faith in the people of his faith. But he has left the Orthodox community for the world because of Rabbi Lev's evil, and he will be forever changed now. 

Red is free. Home on the range. The last moments we see of her are a sweet, happy calf surrounded by her "people," running off to enjoy the world...no sacrificial knives or weird kids in breastplates anywhere. And the real Red is also free, along with all the other baby cows who worked the show with her. They are all free, running around in the world right now, and will never ever be a source of food for anyone reading this. They are safe, safe at last.

Since Golan got killed (sob!!) Shem and Peter could save
the world in DIG 2. (Shem will use prayer to catch bad guys, and
Peter will make sarcastic asides.)

Three Stars and a Wish

A wish:

That the final episode had been longer. I realize Jason, Ori, Anne, Alison, etc. would have had to stay in Croatia like 1-2 more weeks eating pizza while missing their loved ones and USA would've had to cough up more cash, but I felt like there needed to be about 30 more minutes, maybe 40; this show felt slightly rushed to wrap it up. A big show to start the story; one big one to finish it. And I wish the Armageddon Protocol stuff had been a bit bigger in scope and nature. More water, more explosions. I mean, Tad and friends were trying to start The End.

3 Stars:

1. Clearly, I am in love with the writers (still! we are STILL on our perpetual honeymoon, DIG writers! Til death do us part). So I thought the writing was superb and stunning, stunningly superb. Throughout. There were a lot of moments I watched and re-watched and went: holy crap, those are amazing storytellers. How does one learn to do that? I would like to just sit and pretend to darn their socks while they work on their stories. So I can learn from them.

2. The final episode had some amazingly awesome writing in it, and words that sat with me most from this episode were from Peter:

"Maybe it should all end. Let everybody wipe each other out in the name of God." (JUST last Friday, I thought the SAME thing, Peter Connelly!)

and what an awesome exit line: when Emma/Rebecca tells Peter she'll see him in Hell, he says, "Not if I see you first." (Oh my god. I am SO using this in the next argument I'm in that person tells me to go to Hell.)

3.There were some loose ends. But this is actually a positive for me, and here's why: I have read things on the Internet from people complaining about these loose ends. There are questions about why certain things happened or didn't happen, or what was the point of that character. Just some things I've seen around town: what was Ridell's motivation? What was Billingham's? How'd the file get put on Peter's desk/who put it there? How'd the Essene know where to go? How'd the bombs get there? How'd Emma/Rebecca even know about Peter? How'd she find out so much about his daughter? 

These questions are why I think the finale needed to be longer...and yet, I'm okay with not having ALL the loose questions answered. You out there reading this may not be, and the questions have been really chapping your buns (my suggestion: stop reading imdb.com's message boards; lunacy lies within). But I am okay with loose ends. And I'm okay with the unanswered questions because I think that's just how Life works--sometimes there's an ending and you can't figure out why somebody did that thing, or didn't do that other thing they were supposed to do. Sometimes you don't get to say good-bye; sometimes there isn't any closure; sometimes you just aren't supposed to know.

I'm also okay with lingering questions about some of the characters because I know about building characters--when I write stories, every single character I put in it has a background and a motivation; I know what these are. Every detail, every motivation doesn't always make it into the story; but I don't build them into my characters for that reason. I build them into my characters to give a story movement and life. Sometimes it's to make a character more real, or to make another character more real. I am totally fine if that's what the DIG writers were doing with this. 

But this freaks some people out--I once took a writing class with a lady who got really annoyed with me because I wouldn't write a complete ending to any of my stories. And I hated reading her stories because they were always ended on such pretty, wrapped up, here-you-go presentations. C'est la vie; to each his own. 

All in all, I hearted DIG tremendously. Its creators, Gideon Raff and Tim Kring, wrote it on spec and I'm not sure necessarily wrote it with the intention it would go on and on. From what I understand, they simply wanted to tell a whole story, for us to watch on our TVs (or iPads or wherever you watch your TV shows now). But the writing was so tremendous, and the acting was so stellar, and it is just human nature to want stellar, tremendous things we are enjoying to continue. Orgasms SHOULD last days and weeks, it is not fair they only last a few seconds. So I think there should be a Season 2, so we can all meet back online and orgasm together, with a new adventure. But if there is NOT a Season 2, then I am happy this story is out there in the ethos now. When my child is old enough, I will share it with her. And she can share it with her child(ren) and so on and so forth, as is the connective nature of storytelling.

It was a wild, roller coaster ride every Thursday night, thank you, DIG writers and cast and crew! But man. I will confess: I have an extremely addictive personality, and so I'm going to have to go to DIG rehab now. But first, you know what I'm going to do this Thursday night? Start over with Episode 1. I have them all in my DVR, and I'm going to start over with Episode 1 this Thursday, and recreate the whole thing!

Also, I'm going to harass Jason Isaacs on Twitter to see if he'll wake up at 3 AM on Thursday (aka Friday for him) in London for the next 10 weeks to re-live tweet them again, for me, personally. 

What is Peter looking at???

(scroll down to solve the mystery)

It's Debbie! Come to avenge Golan!!

And it's Golan! It's his ghost! (Shem brought them both back via prayer)

(Yes, yes. I KNOW THEY'RE DEAD FOREVER.
But I'm a magical thinker. Stop judging me.)

DIG thoughts: ep 7 (outlandish feminine energy)

source: SpoilerTV
also: i think there should be a show spin off called DON'T EFF
WITH DEBBIE. (if she doesn't die, of course.)

I am sorry DIG creators and writers and actors! I fell asleep putting my little girl to sleep on Thursday, and I missed the first 20 minutes! (horrified gasp) 

Internet, do NOT miss 20 minutes of this show or you will be completely lost. When I tuned in, not only was my brain discombobulated and confused from sleep, I was completely lost. I just sat and read tweets about it on Thursday, because I had no idea who was where what or why. And God forbid I say something stupidly flippant on Twitter to anyone. (Me? Stupidly flippant? Nooooo!) (that was sarcasm for those of you lacking that gene.)

But I've had a chance to re-watch, knowing what I now know. Now that I know what I know now, now here's what I now know is not (say that 10 times real fast):

*Emma is NOT Peter's daughter.
*Peter is NOT hallucinating stuff into reality.
*Peter's wife is NOT a ghost (but DOES know about his extramarital activities--PETER!!! Discretion, my friend.)
*Peter does NOT know Hebrew
*Peter is NOT weird about gay people

I'm telling you that because, at some point in my previous thought postings, I've made those outlandish claims or wondered those outlandishly misguided things aloud.

Never fear! I have some outlandish claims to replace them with as a result of watching #7:

*The Essene is a GOOD guy! I am 98% sure of it. The other 2% is to cover my ass in case I'm wrong so, at the end, I can go: Oh, I had suspicions all along.

[edit/update: I forgot to note that the entire REASON I think The Essene is a good guy (now) is because he saves Peter from the bad guy goons driving the cars trying to plow him down. Thank you to the person on Facebook who pointed that out to me. My brain loves the help.]

*I don't trust Emma. I am sad about this. Because I DO trust Alison Sudol. Why don't I get to also trust the character she plays? Alas, I do not. I feel she's either not telling Peter everything, or she's being suspiciously canny in some way. A good actress, if you will. (Played by a really good actress! Reality is Art is Reality.)

*But you know what? Ironically, I DO trust Lynn. Who didn't show up for her 9 PM meeting with Peter and may have possibly sent some goons in cars to run him over, but still! I trust Lynn. I know Emma told Peter someone at the agency is spilling the beans on him...which I think someone obviously is, but it's not Lynn. But I bet Peter's going to start thinking it maybe is.

So I just do trust Lynn. I'm 98% sure she's a good guy. Plus, she keeps getting beat up, and I'm sure when she took the Israel bureau assignment, that was NOT something she signed up for.

*Josh, the future High Priest. Man! THAT stinkin' little twerp. Don't trust him. He totally threw Debbie under the bus and was wholly responsible for Charlie's death. Because I think he knew, when he told Debbie he had to use the bathroom, what was going to happen. He's creepy, that kid. (My suspicion: most genetically engineered children raised to be Armageddon High Priests of Temple Mount #3 are.)

*Margrove: he's a flunky, a stooge, a greedy little pawn for the nefarious Rabbi Lev & friends. He he wants the archeological glories and treasures. I wonder if he knows they're actually trying to start a Holy War? 

Off-topic side note: my favorite scene from THIS episode was when Margrove and the Rabbi are about to put the breastplate on the pillars. Rabbi Lev tells Margrove it's just down to them now, the Rabbi and the...teeger? I couldn't make out what he called Margrove, but Margrove responded with "I've been called worse." And that was good comic timing, Richard E. Grant, and it made me smile right out loud. (Did you know? Richard [Margrove] is a wonderfully gifted comic actor. I deeply heart his POSH NOSH series; they make me LAUGH.) 

[edit/update: someone on Facebook told me Rabbi Lev calls Margrove a "digger" but his accent makes it come out "dee-gher." Collaboration! I heart it.] 

*I was surprised the breastplate was used as sort of an effigy. I really thought Josh was going to get all dressed up in priestly robes at some point and say a bunch of ancient stuff and God was going to come bursting out of the sky and all hell (and heaven) would break loose. This was more like...the breastplate was a key (did you note? the key symbol was in the ground, and part of the process). And when the fire started, it lit up the stones which showed some sort of message on the cave ceiling.

*I want to know more about Golan's boyfriend Udi. I'm not going to make an outlandish claim at this point and say he's suspect; I just think, when it comes to DIG, it should raise immediate suspicion when anyone has maps to any underground Jerusalem areas in their houses, water geologists or not. Particularly if they're sleeping with police detectives who are helping FBI detectives who nefarious Armageddon-conjuring groups want to do away with.

Other important things about DIG 7, Trust No One:

1. John Donaldson. This (I think) is Gregory Donaldson's dad. Someone on Twitter wondered if it was Gregory himself, but after watching, no--I think it's Gregory's dad, and this is why Gregory had the key to the safe deposit box with the VHS tape, which everyone on Twitter was slightly agog about Thursday night, VHS jokes all around. (The other thing I love about DIG is their sense of nostalgia--Debbie makes a call on a pay phone...with COINS. Are pay phones that take coins still around? If they are, seems like the Sonoran Desert would be a classic place to have them.)

(Off-topic nostalgic personal side story: when I was 11, my dad decided he no longer wanted his very large and expensive 1979 Kawasaki motorcycle because he never rode it. So he traded it. For one of them new fandangled pieces of magic technology wizardry, called a VCR. Years later, I look back on this and think: well, early model VCRS were pretty revolutionary and space age-y in 1985. Even though you can buy one now at a local flea market for like a dollar and that 1979 Kawasaki motorcycle, a classic at this point, is probably worth half a million dollars. C'est la vie...at least my dad felt really felt cutting edge for a bit.)

2. At any rate, John Donaldson is connected to Margrove. They were professors together with another professor named Isaac Zohar. Donaldson's big issue was that he'd found THE most important archeological thing, ever. And he went crazy toward the end of the tape, ranting about Order of Moriah and how they're everywhere--politicians, business, etc and so forth (BECAUSE THEY ARE). (No mention of half-human/half-lizard aliens, though. Sad. I'm certain you could've stuck that bit in somewhere, DIG writers.) 

My suspicion: Donaldson found the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark will explain all to Mankind. Or melt your face and eyeballs off. (I'll research that and get back to you.) (No, seriously.)

3. Here's why I don't trust Emma now--the whole dead body thing has me woefully confused. Sooo...they took pictures of her posed as dead and gave it to the police? And the police were all, Oh, ok cool! about it? And there was never an actual crime scene investigation with a real body to go with the pictures? I mean, I know police can be very corrupt and all, but there ARE standards and procedures. And then she had some crazy story about Margrove harassing her when she tried to break up with him, so being hired to trick Peter was her ticket out of Israel and that entanglement?

Emma. Please, girlfriend. Lord knows, I've had those entanglements too and they ARE tricky to get out of...that's why you (a) change your phone number, (b) get a restraining order, and (c) find a muscle-y boyfriend to be your bodyguard. You don't HAVE to take a job playing someone's dead daughter for unknown, suspect reasons. Soooo....I don't know. Emma hasn't earned back all my trust just yet. Maybe just 25%. MAYBE. Oh, she looks sweet and everything, but listen to me: still waters can run deep. (Emma's my tribe--remember?)

4. Let's talk about Peter's dead daughter. I asked Jason Isaacs, on Twitter, if he could tell us if Peter's daughter committed suicide because she'd been sexually violated in some way? (Which, can I just say--this show has made me ask some of the most bizarre questions ever to complete strangers. Jason Isaacs and I do not know each other at all and there I am, asking him questions about rape and crap. I ask you: where else, besides social media, would that happen?? Social media: destroying English and making us ask each other really weird questions.)

Anyway. Jason either didn't see my tweet and/or he ignored it. You see! This is why I don't ask Jason questions on Twitter; I just tweet him overly familiar, flippant comments. So frustrating to this girl television show researcher. (But Jason DID make my 2nd graders deliriously happy recently because he answered a friendly letter we wrote him--we posted a picture of it on Twitter, and not only did he answer both their questions and make their WHOLE day, he also earned himself 25 very impressed young fans by his thorough promptness. AND impressed/endeared himself to their teacher forever and ever for doing that for them--some of those kids still ask if we can write to Captain Hook/Mr. Darling again. I know they'll remember, forever, that when they were in 2nd grade, Captain Hook/Mr. Darling actually took time to take them serious and respond to them. Which is why I'm just going to let this one go.)

At any rate, the reason I asked him that weird question is, at the very end...did you catch it? Rabbi Lev breathes (kind of in awe): Dinah. Or Dena. Or maybe Dina. Pick your spelling, but pronounce it: DEEN-ah.

Brief background info on Dinah--she was the daughter of Leah and Jacob, sister of Joseph (he of the amazing technicolor dreamcoat). Jacob was the patriarch of the patriarchs of the 12 tribes of Israel--Jacob WAS Israel. He was the son of Isaac and Rebecca, and the grandson of Abraham and a descendant of Noah. Later, Jacob's name was changed to Israel. Remember that, because that seems important to this story: Noah begat Abraham begat Isaac begat Jacob/Israel.

Speaking of daughters of Israel: Did you catch the series of events that played out on Peter behind his back? Lynn calls Peter's wife, who lets Lynn know she knows Lynn is sleeping with her husband and then hangs up on Lynn; then in marches Ambassador Ruth Ridell, all huffy that Lynn didn't do what she told her to with Peter. Then there's Emma, who has a thing for Peter (I think) or is using her feminine wiles on him. And there's Peter's dead daughter. And Debbie out in New Mexico. Tough, awesome Debbie out in the Sonoran Desert. What I most like about the women of DIG is that they are tough. They may not look like it at first, but they are. Even the bad ones. Tough girls. Braveheart women. We need more of those, planet Earth. (Maybe not the ones planning Armageddon.)

Dinah, if you don't know, was supposedly raped by Shechem, a Canaanite prince, and in vengeance, Dinah's brothers Simeon and Levi, killed him. That's why I asked Jason if maybe Vicky had been raped/violated in some way and thus took her own life. (Another possibility was that it was an act of repentance and/or human sacrifice--a la Khalid and Emma's bartender friend.)

Because there's a reason the bad guys want Peter gone. He's been to Seminary school, and he knows semiotics (study of symbols). And something really weird is going on with his past--it's being kept a mystery why, exactly, Vicky committed suicide. There is something about Peter that is dangerous to their plans. The biggest DIG question right now, I think, is WHY ARE THEY SO EAGER FOR PETER TO BE GONE? (or maybe: What does Peter know...that he doesn't know that he knows yet?)

At any rate, I think you should know about Dinah. Maybe, oh...I don't know, because Episode #8 is called "Sisters of Dinah?" And so I'm going to go research that and tell you more about her. When I do, I'm probably also going to tell you about the city of Shechem, and the division of the ancient Kingdom of Israel, the one which King Solomon ruled over, that was divided into the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah. Because Dinah is connected to Shechem, and Shechem is actually a pretty important area and figures into the story of Israel quite deeply. So I think that division may become important to the story. Because I think the Essene (whose name is actually Shem--Shem, in Genesis, eldest son of Noah, from whom Abraham--and Jesus, incidentally--was descended, from whom we are given the Semitic (aka Hebrew) language spoken by the people who are Shem's descendants, aka the Jewish people...by the way) may be part of that somehow. In addition, Jehoshaphat was part of the division of the Kingdom of Israel, and that may be a clue (from episode 6). And all connected to Dinah, daughter of (Jacob) Israel.

THEN I'll tell you about the Temple Mount. And the Ark of the Covenant. I should probably also start researching the 12 Tribes of Israel, since they're written on the stones. 

You guys! This research is taking forever. If I could JUST quit my day job and research this and write about it every day, I totally would. But then in 3 weeks I'd be out of a job, and I have a mortgage and credit card bills. And should probably put my kid through college at some point. I'm already worried about what in the heck I'm going to find to occupy my time and mind with when DIG ends. Will USA Network provide therapy groups for people in withdrawal?

In conclusion: Mysteries are hard to unravel. Sometimes it's hard to know who to trust and who not to trust. Talk therapy does help. Tough girls are always awesome. I wish there weren't so many bills to pay.

Oh, AND! Here's my favorite POSH NOSH episode (it has nothing to do with DIG, but I have a feeling Professor Margrove's not much longer for this world since Rabbi Lev may no longer have a use for him, so here--watch him be an amazing, annoying git in these fun, faux cooking shows. But hurry--I really feel he's about to die!):

DIG (on USA!) thoughts: episode 3.

You know what's super nice about DIG (on USA!)? Besides Jason Isaacs' prolific live tweets? Ori Pfeffer. Ori Pfeffer has retweeted me two times, and I didn't even ask or expect him to; I just am happy I know of his existence in the world now, because I think he's a talent. The first time I got all excited and jumped up and down in the bathroom at work. The second time, I just quietly blessed Ori and thought: That Ori Pfeffer! He's SO nice.

Also, Jason Isaacs came up with a new term for watchers of DIG: digglers. Which, at first, I thought: oh, that's kind of cute, and plus it rhymes with "gigglers." Fun! But then I kept feeling like something was kind of off, and so I googled "diggler." And sure enough: Marky Mark's version of 80's porn star Dirk Diggler popped up. And we can't have THAT! This is a serious, edge of your seat, thrillermysterymurderadventureconspiracy story. No fluffers in sight (as of yet). 

So Jason has to go back to "diggers." I hope he's not too annoyed with me. I mean, there ARE other options: DIGologists, D-peeps, DIG-atics, The Notorious DIG-ers. But those use up too many of Twitter's 140 characters. So we can go back to "diggers." I'm just not going to use it often in reference to myself. But you guys have fun!

Things you missed, if you aren't watching DIG and didn't see last week's episode: 

1. Our friendship. (CANCELED! I think you know why.)

2. A really hot wrestling scene between Jason Isaacs and Ori Pfeffer.

3. A really, really sad and beautiful scene in which Jason Isaacs reveals he can access deep psychic pain like nobody's business. (You know what this scene reminded me of? A scene from AWAKE, this amazingly brilliant show Jason was in a couple of years ago and you can watch the whole thing on Netflix as soon as you're done reading this--the scene when his character thinks his son is the one who died. It was possibly the best bit of psychic pain acting I've ever witnessed. OMG, he was sobbing on the floor, I was sobbing on my couch. My husband walked in the room and went: "What's wrong with you??" And I pointed at the screen and could barely get out: "His son! His son DIED!" Then my husband laughed, and I didn't speak to him for the rest of the night--His. Son. DIED. How dare you.) 

This scene was dark and beautiful and sad, and I almost want to say it MAY do that thing that really well written novels and short stories sometimes do--kind of wraps up the whole point of the story in one sentence or paragraph. I will keep watching to find out. 

Fine writing, fine acting. You, too, Anne Heche--you didn't say a word, but I saw so much on your face as Peter walked out the door.

4. EVERYBODY'S involved with that crazy New Mexico cult. Except for Peter. And his Israeli detective frenemy (so far). And his boss he's sleeping with (so far). 

Richard E. Grant's archaeologist? He's involved. The amabassador? She's involved. The creepy Rabbi (who was in the first episode, when the red cow was born)? He's involved. The United States senator, some really rich guys, probably Snoop Dog and your mama too--everybody's involved. 

And this group of lunatic religious mafia is all ticked off because they thought they had the last stone for that breast plate/direct line to God, and even made Khalid go and kill someone (except God forgave him on account it was for a holy cause...only you can tell: Khalid HATES this part of his job), and then the stone he stole wasn't even real. 

So NOW they have to start all over.

Oh, and! Regina Taylor--superb actress. She has got that "don't fuck with me!" evil look down to a science. You also don't want her looking at you, calculating and assessing you. So creepy. Well done, Regina. 

This show has powerhouse talented people in it.

5. Josh 2.0 was allowed to leave the compound for a milkshake. Josh 1.0 tried to do that on his own, but he got gunned down for it. And it was revealed that Debbie, the Josh minder, is an ex-addict, who somehow ended up in this cult taking care of the kid/s who (I think) is being groomed to be the Messiah, but is clearly going to be the anti-Christ. (I wish Josh  #1 hadn't gotten smoked. He seemed like a nicer anti-Christ. This Josh seems like a programmed droid. If planet Earth is going to have an anti-Christ, I guess I'd prefer an actual human anti-Christ.)

At any rate, Debbie is a cautionary tale, drug addicts: cocaine is a hell of a drug. You'll end up babysitting the anti-Christ. Just say no.

6. Peter's a fucking mess. An emotional mess of a human being. (Let's hang out, Peter! We can compare notes over margaritas.)

Other thoughts on Episode 3, "The Rosenbergs." (And thank goodness--it was not a reference to the Rosenbergs who got executed in the 1940s for being communist spies....but maybe that's coming later. You guys! EVERYBODY'S involved!):

*I still keep thinking something paranormal is coming. God's going to have to smite somebody in a cosmic fit of rage, or it's going to be revealed that these phone calls Peter keeps making to his estranged wife is to his dead estranged wife's ghost (have you seen THE OTHERS? It could totally be possible). 


*Jason said, on Twitter, the color red could be a red herring. But I do not believe you, Jason. I do not believe you, nor do I trust you. First off, you refuse to tell us what the big secrets are. Second, I think the color red is significant, and not just the production designer's favorite color. It keeps popping up.

*The number 19 matters. (This is the part of the Bible about the red heifer being sacrificed--it's all about the heifer. And the stones.) I think also the number 7, because Peter's hotel room is #7, and the tunnel Emma took him into was also #7.

*I bet the peace sign and the DIG key symbol are connected, somehow. But I have no proof yet.

And that's all I got for this one.

I'm going to do some research on the Temple Mount. I've already started--it's fairly fascinating. I'm going to be slightly miffed if the Essenes aren't brought back in. I'm not kidding, Tim Kring and Gideon Raff--I spent 3 hours one weekend combing through the Internet for all that information and 2 hours putting it all together in writing.

Now I'm going to do it for the breast plate, the ark of the covenant and the Temple Mount. IT'S A PROJECT!!! (My inner geek is in orgasmic spasms of joy right now, I don't know if you can tell or not.)

social media art publicity.

Art by Ian Bailey
Source:  The 7 Ways.

First, I have to mention DIG (on USA!). They've revealed more of the story and some of it got "Noooo!" out of me as I watched on Thursday. And also: "I KNEW that guy was going to end up dead! He knew too much." And: "Holy cow, that is SO effed up!" 

Second, never ever get into a cult. And I'm researching the Essenes. And somebody told me to also think about the Masons, for later. My grandfather and my dad were both Masons, in fact all the men on that side of my family for generations I think, so now I feel totally connected to the show. And also I wish my dad were still here, so I could ask him about the Masons...even though they're very secretive and he probably wouldn't tell me anything (we had a volume of Masonic encyclopedia-type books on our bookshelves when I grew up, and I would spend countless hours poring over many of these, trying to figure out (1) what the big deal was and (2) all their secrets) (the Masons are SO secretive, you can't even decode their secrets from their secret writings...I am certain they have underground lairs at both the North and South Poles, and they are completely responsible for this completely effed up weather we've been having in Georgia lately).

Third, I want to talk about artists having to do their own PR work. 

Jase (we're on nickname basis now--he can call me "Luv") and Anne, Alison, and Ori (we're all on first name basis now, but moving quickly to nickname basis...once I discover what their nicknames are) have to live tweet their show EVERY Thursday. For the next eight Thursdays. God bless them. The first time was exciting, the second time, too...but every Thursday?? Til MAY?? Lands. Well, I can't harass Jason and friends THAT much, so...I'm clearly going to have to pick my Thursdays. Or maybe just do an overall wrap up harassment tweet on Fridays. 

Maybe just Jason has been commanded to do this--he's actually very good at Twitter, and I'm sure Those In Charge are in love with that. So the other day, Jason asked, on Twitter, if his followers/DIG fans would like him to live tweet episode number two. I, being a total enabler and that one friend you can always count on to do all the stupid things with you, of course told him YES, YOU SILLY GOOSE. 

And then the next morning I woke up and saw that he was going to do it. And then I felt so guilty because I was one of the enablers. But also not guilty because he called us all bastards and I am NOT a bastard, simply kinda/sorta a floozy. Then later I saw where he told someone he has to do this, every Thursday, for the next 8 weeks. And then I didn't feel so bad or guilty, because obviously someone ELSE is the enabler and I can be happy in my slight harlotry, and feel fine with it.

...Quite frankly, I don't think this is about enabling at all; I think this is all about marketing. And if I could get Jason Isaacs and the DIG cast into a room, but particularly Jason because I sense on a certain level he--like I--doesn't necessarily agree with what social media is doing to us as a species and yet also sees, on another level, its alluringly intrinsic value in creating connections both locally and globally--if I could get Jason into a room alone, I would NOT ask him to take his shirt off as I notice about 28,000 of his female followers would ask him to do were they in a room alone with him--no. He and I would have a thoughtful conversation about how making Art has always been a tricky, hard thing to do, and now with the way world economics have gone and social media marketing, society is just totally fucking its artists all to hell in ways Mozart, Picasso, and Virginia Woolf never could have anticipated. (And THEN I would ask him to take his shirt off.) (KID! I kid Jason. I am far too composed offline to do something of that nature.) (Unless I've had 4 chocolate martinis and I think you like me.) (and if THAT was the case, I'd take my shirt off with you.)

Because one day, if/when I am published for real, I too will need to get on Twitter and market me and the Art I'm peddling. And I hate that. Most writers I've talked to or have read talking about this in interviews--we all hate this part. I think it's because...well, for example: I work with a lady who once got told she was going to be our school's reading specialist the next year and she was all kinds of in despair about it: "Amy, I'm a general practitioner," she told me, "I am NOT a specialist." 

But I am. I am a specialist. Which may be why I'm sorta kinda miserable in classroom teaching--I don't enjoy generalities.  If I could JUST teach writing, that'd be good for me. Or if I could JUST teach reading. Or if I could JUST teach math...ha! No, just messing with you. You don't want me teaching  your kid math--at least not beyond the basics. 

And so this making artists be their own PR people: it feels fucked up to me. Does it to you? I mean, people can do it. And, right now, both a traditionally pubbed and a self-pubbed writer are on Twitter mass tweeting their XXXXX number of followers for the 100th time this week to read their book. Later, they'll tweet their followers with an interesting piece of writing advice so it doesn't look like they're tweeting about their book, or a really smarmy thought or quote so it doesn't look like they just want you to read their book, or they'll respond to one of their fans so it doesn't look like they just want you to read their book. (I'm being very jaded and cynical there--I actually would thoroughly enjoy the interacting with fans bit because my inner narcissist would be in orgasmic spasms of joy.) 

Aren't there schools in which people are specifically taught the Public Relations arts? Once upon a time, if/when you were published, the publisher gave you a specialist to market your Art. You were the specialist in your Art--you'd written your Art, so you knew all about it. You could give the interviews and do the book talks. That was your job. Your marketer's job was to go find you the interviews and the book talk locations. Now, they want you to go do that, too. And I think that's lazy. And the reason I think that's lazy is because I AM lazy. So I know it when I see it--never try to bullshit a bullshitter.

And yet. Because of the phenomenon of social media, in which we are all quickly connected to our most favorite of everythings--songs, singers, tv shows, movies, actors, politicians (do people have favorites of those? i don't. and also i'm questioning if i should have even included them on a list of artists...but then again, politicking is an art form to a certain extent--the art of creating something out of manure and getting people to vote for it), novels, writers, painters, poets--the artists involved in whatever art they produce kind of HAVE to touch base with their audiences now. There's no excuse to not do it, given all the social media platforms that are being widely used now. And they definitely are under pressure to pull in more audience. Because for artists, it's about the story. But for people holding the money bags, it's all about ROI. Oh, they like the art produced. But mostly, they like the ROI.

Therein lies the conflict of our age. Humans have revealed themselves for what they are: desperate to be loved and heard. 

Furthermore and also, I find this is happening not just in Artistic circles, but everywhere else, too: how many jobs do you do at work? I do about 15 but only get paid for one. And I have to spread myself out over a variety of jobs I've never officially been trained how to do. When I talk to friends who work in corporations, they echo that this is happening to them, too.

It's that top 1% tier's fault. And the growing class chasm's fault. And social media. And smart phones and video games and e-readers and Dick Cheney. And Vladmir Putin. Who else can I point my angry, puritanical, Scarlet Letter, red finger at? 

We are a weird species. Have a happy Saturday.

DIG (on USA!) debrief or: god is in the numbers.

Okay, Reader(s). You had Friday, Saturday, and I've given you all of Sunday morning to watch the first episode of DIG (on USA!). If you haven't followed directions, then you're about to have the whole thing spoiled for you. I mean it: the WHOLE thing. Maybe you like that, though, maybe that's your kink. If so, then this blog entry's for you.

First, I will just tell you my overall reaction to the show: gorgeous. (You knew I would say that, right?) The cinematography really was beautiful though; even critics who weren't impressed with the show itself said so. I don't know what episodes 2-10 will convey, but if you haven't seen the first show (and if you haven't, our coffee dates are all canceled til you do see it), then please watch it for that. You can "feel" Jerusalem. I must go there now. I must. (It's always been towards the top of my travel bucket list, but now it's number 2, right under the UK. I will feed my anglophilia with a UK trip, and follow that up with my need to be surrounded by something ancient...in Israel.)

Second, I felt the cast was wonderful. Anne Heche was so good at being no nonsense and in charge; Jason Isaacs does a good Lucius Malfoy, but he also knows how to portray inner wounded lambs magnificently; Ori Pfeffer was such a dick (not really, Ori Pfeffer! just Ori's character); and Alison Sudol was ethereal. ETHEREAL. And then there was Richard E. Grant. I mean, hello: Richard. E. Grant. (We'll talk Richard another day.)

Next, some business items:

I've been reading some of the critical responses, and I have a problem with them. Mainly I have a problem with them because they feel so early. This is not a typical American television series; typical American TV series go on and on and on (they hope). This does not. This tale is finite: there is a beginning, a middle, and an end. And it's not like the people connected to the show haven't been all over the Internet, talk shows, and podcasts saying this over and over til they're blue in the face. Americans! Connect the dots!

So the first episode reviewers who've announced the show is a big ol' mess--phhht. That's like reading E.M. Forster's Room with a View and after 1 chapter going, "Eh, I don't get it." That's like a book critic reading 10 pages of a book and going, "This book sucks." If you do that, then you're kind of missing the point behind storytelling. BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO READ THE WHOLE THING. Stories are about making connections--in 2nd grade Reading, I talk to kids about making text-to-text (this reminds me of the book...), text-to-self (this reminds me of when I...), and text-to-world (this reminds me of the time my neighborhood...) connections. I'm telling you this because I want you to understand why I hard rolled my eyes to the back of my head when I read reviews that went: This was confusing, or this was boring, or this was a mess (or whatever, there were at least 10 that made me hard roll my eyes waaay back). Because my teacher brain hears 2nd graders not paying attention to the story, people who were NOT listening to the directions, because they're playing with their little friends instead or whispering about what happened at recess...I think that when I read stuff like that. And by the way those kids always get UNsatisfactory on all their quizzes.

In addition, this is a relatively new concept for a TV series to America. Americans are used to the mini-series concept--2, 3, or 4 episodes that usually re-tell a really popular romance novel and usually shows on Lifetime Movie Network 100,000 times and is always on at my mother's house. But this is not really a mini-series. You can call it that, if you're an inside-the-box thinker, but it's not really a mini-series. It's a TV series that lasts one season. They've hinted there could be more, if this is wildly successful, and they've hinted that because TV networks are all about the money. But from every piece of information I've gleaned, the creators Gideon Raff and Tim Kring wrote it on spec (without being asked to) and weren't really thinking about creating a multi-billion dollar TV show franchise. They just wanted to tell a good story.

Which I think is nice. And I've long said that NBC (which owns USA Network) seems to be trying to do different things with television. It's a tricky medium. I'm not in the film/tv industry, but I have friends with family who are, and I'm telling you: this is a tricky medium to tell stories in, particularly in this country. I mean, you show your first chapter and people are suddenly declaring it shitty. And then the network gets skittish and yanks it off the air and re-runs episodes of Sarah Palin's Alaska instead.

This was never created to go on and on and on; the whole story is airing, whether you watch it or not, whether you like it or not. If you hate it, it's not being yanked off the air; it's showing, every Thursday at 10/9 Central and if you're not interested go watch The Voice or The Kardashians or something. That's a new concept for Americans, and a big reason I think some people aren't really getting what's going on. That, and we as a species have developed terrible attention spans along with the ability to creatively problem solve and process large pieces of information...thanks smart phones and testing obsessives!

Okay! I'm done, I am done. My rant is done. Now for the de-brief.

First of all, I'm not going to recap the show. There are people out there who've already done this, and are far better at being concise than I. Here's--> a good recap if you need one (and full disclosure: I'm absolutely using it because they pulled my tweet about the show and used it in their article, and my narcissistic tendencies are on full display now and I really don't care what you think about that.)

Second, there was so much going on in this episode. SO MUCH. Which is one reason why I think many of the anti-DIG reviewers said it was messy and confusing. That may be the point; it's supposed to be confusing, because there's a lot going on. There are symbols, hidden meanings, weird happenings, and no you don't get to know the characters right away, just like meeting a new person for the first time...relationships take time to develop; be patient. This happens in novels all the time, by the way. There are character arcs. Focus. Pay attention.

Because this is a television show that seems like a novel: episode 1 was the exposition: Once upon a time, there was a man named Peter who had a terrible thing happen to him and so he went to Israel...we're going to tell you a story about what happens next. Now there will be rising and falling actions, a climax, and eventually a denouement. This isn't for dumb people, is what I'm saying. 

Which is why I'm a little annoyed they piggy backed the premiere with a FAST AND FURIOUS 7 preview. I think it sent the wrong message. (I'm being a tad flippant here and totally alienating all the Vin Diesel fans...but I'm also sorta kinda serious and don't care what the Vin Diesel fans think, actually.) 

Third, I think if/when I de-brief the next 9 episodes (and can I be honest and let you know I'm not sure I will? I have a shitload of shitty shit on my Life Plate at the moment, and I'm ignoring about 90% of it so I can write this), if/when I do that, I will just deal with what I think is happening/my theories. Since I only have time to cull what is in my brain. If I try to pull from all the stuff that's out there, there will be explosive brain matter all over my kitchen--or wherever I write, because I like to be mobile.

I asked Jason Isaacs during his premiere live tweet (in which he did not stick to his stated program, which was that he was supposed to only tweet DURING THE COMMERCIALS. I have it on good authority that he takes direction well, but Thursday night was one time he did not.) And he actually answered me (!!) (I think he just felt bad about not answering any of my other fabulous questions I tweeted to him in February when they premiered DIG in New York and that was his apology) (I really don't ask Jason questions on Twitter; typically, I like to vary between just flippantly harassing him and expressing maternal sympathy for any man problems he tweets about. But when I do ask questions, I try to make them thoughtful...unless I'm in a flippant mood.) 

Where was I? Right! My question was if Alison Sudol's character was real, if there are paranormal aspects to the show. Jason said that was an interesting question and I was a good thinker. And so, in a nutshell, Jason Isaacs totally knows me now: an interesting thinker type. And if he's read any of my other tweets, he could add the words ridiculous and neurotic and hyperbolic. And also, he answered me but he didn't answer me. Tres misterioso. Jason Isaacs for UK Prime Minister! (I'm joking with Jason Isaacs, who has a marvelous sense of humor...if he'd actually answered anyone's questions that night, he'd have been in hot water with the USA Network people.)

So I'm running with it. Because I don't think Peter had a real interaction with Emma; I think it was in his mind. But then how would he have known what she looked like when she turned up murdered? And she slipped a stone into his pocket; how would that have gotten in there? So! Many! Questions!

Other things that make me think Peter Connelly isn't having real experiences in Israel: he called his wife. He didn't speak, and she basically told him to get a life and stop doing that and hung up on him. Later in the story, she calls him and complains about what he said to her the other night when he called her. I think she accused him of being drunk, but I'd have to go back and re-watch and Miss M and I need fresh air and sunshine today and so I don't have time. But isn't that interesting. (One reviewer complained about that--that person said it was sloppy writing. And that's why I say to those reviewers: YOU NEED TO WATCH THE WHOLE STORY. And pay attention. Stop expecting your information spoon fed to you. And quit talking to your neighbor during the lesson; there may be a quiz.) 

Also, Peter first sees Emma in the market and she disappears on him, like an apparation...when he finally does get to interact with her, it's preceded by a weird band of religious-y people walking around with torches and some creepy guy in a red cap looking strangely at Peter. At the end of the episode, he's in a bad car accident but still manages to chase down, on foot, a fleeing car. The chase leads him back to Emma's apartment, with the bad guy (Khalid) there in the apartment waiting for him. How did he get there? Why is Khalid there? How did both of them get in without the old man landlord and his key, the one who let Peter and Golen in the first time? And why did Khalid not kill Peter? He just took the stone and silently disappeared. Sooo...was Khalid actually even there? I have questions. And I'm totally okay not having them answered in episode number one. In fact, you know what, lazy thinkers? I'm ALSO okay not having all my questions answered by episode number 10. BECAUSE SOMETIMES LIFE DOESN'T GIVE YOU ALL THE ANSWERS. Entitlement = a real problem.

SO many other things going on this story I could write about, but that was a big one for me, that I don't think all of this is real or that maybe there's something paranormal/otherworldly going on or maybe Peter Connelly is just straight up fucking crazy. Personally, I hope it's all about the Universe. I'm a spiritual mystical, Divine Infinite type, and so I'm all about ley lines and spiritual crossovers/connections. This is where I made the text-to-self/text-to-world connections in the story exposition, and if you haven't made any connections yet, I think you should watch 2-3 more episodes because I bet you will.

More things I think viewers ought to pay attention to:

*Numbers and letters and symbols matter. I think there's something important about Emma's initials (EW) being carved on the wall. I think the number 7 in Tunnel 7 will have significance later on. I think the numbers 12 and 13 matter. I think the breast plate and the stones that are missing from it matter (the stone Emma slipped into Peter's pocket is from the breast plate, I've deduced). 

*The boy, Joshua. Clearly being groomed to the next Messiah. But there are more than 1 Josh, which is why Fay the evil lady (or is she evil? maybe she's not) was so okay smoking him in the desert (shot him...Fay killed a little boy, is what I'm saying). I bet they have about 12-13 clones, and each Josh is about to turn 13 years old. 

(Can we talk about how mystical the number 13 is? In Christianity, 13 is an evil number, bad luck. In Judaism, it's basically the number for God. In Christianity, God the sole entity is split into 3 pieces (the Trinity); in Judaism, all the pieces lead back to God...there's a thing about a cube, I think--a cube has 12 lines on it and all the lines connect in the center, which is 1...12+1=13. All numbers lead to God. And Hebrew letters all have a significant meaning; in addition, they are each assigned a number. There's a thing called gematria that you do with Hebrew letters. The Hebrew word echad which means "one" equals the number 13. The Hebrew word for love (ahava) equals 13.  In Hebrew, if two words together equal the same value, then the essential meaning of the two words is the same. And so, ahava is 13, echad is 13, another word Hashem (meaning, essentially I think: God is all) equals 13. Therefore, echad ahava Hashem...God is love, God is one, God is all. Equals 13.) 

In fact, 13 is all over Judaism. There are 13 examples of God's divine mercy; Jewish boys and girls have bar/bat mitzvahs at 13. There are 13 Hebrew letters in the name Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The names of their wives, Sarah, Rachel, Leah, and Rivka also all have 13 Hebrew letters. The Hebrew Bible has 39 books (3 x 13). Adonai, the Hebrew holy word for "God" has a numerical value of 26, which is 13+13, and there's a thought that's because it's a balance of masculine and feminine.  ....and 13 is also in Christianity as well: Jesus had 12 disciples (plus Jesus = 13). Also think about: 12 months of the year, 12 signs of the zodiac...

Holy shit! You guys!  I totally HEART stuff like this!

Also pay attention to the number 7. God created the world in 7 days. And the dig is about the lost ark, the covenant. The first covenant God made with man was with Noah. Noah's father lived to be 777, and had Noah when he was 182 (14x13, which is a multiple of 7 times the number 13). 

I mean, I could go on, but I bet you have things to do. The breast plate is an important piece to the puzzle, as are the missing 12 (see? numbers) stones. The breast plate is a real thing--it's called the Hoshen, and it's basically a direct line to God. Priests wore it to atone for the sins and misjudgements of the Children of God. There are 12 stones that fit in the breast plate, and each represents the 12 tribes of Israel. Some researchers believe the initials of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and their wives were engraved on the stones. 

The stones colors I think will matter, at least the color red. The red heifer is a thing, and the stone Emma put in Peter's pocket was red(dish). Some scholars think the other stones in the breast plate are the colors yellow, green, and blue. In addition to black and white, those are the first 6 colors all languages recognize. That might become a focus later on, but now I'm just reaching at everything. 

So I'm going to stop here. Because it's a beautiful, sunny day here and I would like to take my little girl for a walk. And also I have a cold virus that's set up shop in my sinuses. And tomorrow is Monday and I have to go help wayward children become model citizens. And if I keep thinking about all the secret code stuff that was in this first episode alone (and I know I've missed TONS--for example, I didn't even get to Richard E. Grant's suspicious character, the key symbol, the peace sign symbol in Emma's window, her journal and Peter's stealing of it, that whole weirdness about Peter and Emma skinny dipping in the holy water at the dig site, and Emma kissing Peter and his freaking out about it. I didn't get into bad guy Khalid and the car crash, or into the whole Temple Mount/Dome of the Rock stuff either), then my brain will explode. And, y'all, listen: I really, really need my brain this week.

To summarize: this show is smart, and if you don't think so I'm not saying YOU aren't smart, but I am suggesting maybe you're not focusing. Also, I'm going to Israel. I don't know when, but I'm going. And God is in the numbers, and so now I wish I was better at Math (ha! just kidding-no I don't; I'm fine sucking at Math). Last, we are slowly devolving into a species that (a) doesn't listen, (b) doesn't pay attention, and (c) has no focus. There people out there who will take advantage of this, mark my words.

If Gideon Raff or Tim Kring need someone to file papers for them or make them coffee or whatever, they can contact me. I can be free all summer.