Around the WORLD with WYNONNA EARP

TV reaction videos on YouTube 

have become increasingly popular.  

Why?

Mirror Neurons and Empathy.

When a macaque monkey reaches for food, certain neurons light up in its brain. 

Those same neurons light up when the monkey sees a human reach for food, too. 

Later named mirror neurons, some believe these cells are active in human brains as well,

Mirror neurons could explain why we smile when we see someone else smile.

What would Wynonna say about all my theorizing 

why I like to watch YouTube reactions 

to her episodes?

I drop in on my fellow Earpers all around the globe and 

smile at their enjoyment of the show which has often been a light in recent dark times.

ARGENTINA

How could I not stop to visit with Denisa, Clara, and Fernanda 

who dressed like Doc Holliday complete with moustaches and Western attire 

for their 1st reaction?


On their 2nd video, 

Fernanda donned a Spiderman mask whenever a scary scene appeared to hide her squeamish expression.

They exude so much fun and friendship, I feel lighter with each visit.  You even learn a bit of Argentina's culture, foods, personalities -- with a bit of joyful cosplay thrown in!

NORWAY

Natalie gets so caught up in the lives of the those in the series it is a joy to watch.  

She connects with Waverly especially ...

and who can blame her  ... 

especially when she is forced to sing to save her life?

And when I followed her on Twitter just to express my concern for her not posting for a time, 

she sent me this reply she had posted earlier on Twitter:

PERU

 How could I not enjoy visiting Juli, a lady who likes Wonder Woman and Supergirl?  

I do not see how she finds the time to do so many reactions while raising a child.

I guess she is a Wonder Woman herself!

I know her laughter and sense of humor are wonderful.

CANADA

 Dropping in on Sofia Rojas is inspirational.

All of you know of my grueling schedule as a rare blood courier, 

but Sofia puts me to shame infusing such enthusiasm and laughter into her reactions 

after working 72 hours in three days.

I couldn't help but laugh when Sofia groaned 

at the clueless woman not seeing the ghoul right behind her:

"This is how white people die!" 

(I believe Sofia may be Basque judging from her last name.)

UNITED KINGDOM

No matter how down I am, I feel transformed by the laughter of Leanne Heynes and her brother, Bradley.

Watching them try to high-five one another only to smack each other on the forehead or 

bicker about each one over-riding the other's enjoyment of the episode is such great fun.

Hearing them chuckle at Waverly telling a stranger trying to explain Kanye West to her:

"I'm British not elderly."

They laughed at how Americans think the British are so far behind-the-times.

SWEDEN/now in VANCOUVER

Ylva V infuses such delight and innocence in her reactions that it is recharging to visit her.

Her twin Swedish/Canadian perspective spins my own perception of Wynonna and her clan.

To see her fangirl over Dominique (Waverly) saying she loved her unique name so much

 that she would name her daughter Ylva made me smile despite my weariness.

 Ylva would fit right in here in Louisiana ...
 except for this terrible heat!

EASTERN EUROPE now America

Eden Singer said in one of her reactions to the second season of Supergirl 

that as an Eastern European refugee,

she identified with Kara and with feeling Other.

She brings that unique perspective and sensitivity to her reactions on Wynonna Earp.

I see beyond myself whenever I visit her video home.  Thanks, Eden.

Marcie DeFeo

I believe I am visiting Canada when I pop by her front room,

 but I cannot seem to find concrete data to support that feeling.

But Marcie was the first Wynonna reaction video I stumbled upon, and it would be rude not to thank her.

Marcie started reacting to Wynonna on the 4th episode of the first season.

Imagine her shock when her co-workers said they loved her reactions.

She thought she was merely talking to strangers!

Marcie's manner is so natural and fun 

that you feel as if you are a welcome friend in her living room, sharing a great program.


All of these warm, loving ladies will never know me, but I am lucky and honored to have met them -- 

 if only on YouTube.


Though from different corners of the world, they are all great ambassadors for the lesbian community.

As I had my fictional hero, Samuel McCord say:

"Life is so hard, and love so seldom found, who am I to object when and where two lonely souls find it?"

What keeps the TALENTED from GREATNESS?

“Principles are good and worth the effort

 only when they develop into deeds."

  “The great doesn’t happen through impulse alone, 

but is a succession of little things

 that are brought together.”  

 -Van Gogh 

Teachers have long thought 

that there is in this present culture an ethical weaknesses and intellectual poverty 

that keep even the most gifted young people from ascending to greatness.

But I remind myself of the words of Virginia Wolfe in Orlando:

 

“It is probable that the human spirit has its place in the time assigned to it.” 

1) The QUAGMIRE of CONTEMPLATION

 Contemplators love the study of nature but only for its aesthetic qualities :

the sublime spectacles, the beautiful forms, the splendid colors, and the graceful structures.

 To linger over-long in the realm of faerie 

is to miss out as the world -- and your opportunities -- move on without you.

2.) When LABEL becomes the GOAL not the CONSEQUENCE of ACTION

One did not become a knight merely by parading about in a suit of armor.

No, knighthood was found in deeds --

as the term author is reserved for those who complete the books in their heads.

"He who knows and acts is the one who counts, 

not he who knows and falls asleep. 

We render a tribute of respect to those who add original work to a library, 

and withhold it from those who carry a library around in their head."

- Santiago Ramón y Cajal

3.) Eat a STEAK by swallowing 

the WHOLE COW

We all have heard the term "Baby Steps."

Why did so many great writers start out by writing short stories?

They grew by doing, of course.

But also each successful sale reinforced their desire 

to write more stories that blossomed into writing novels.

This principle pertains to most things in life:

Tackle small problems first, so that if success smiles and strength increases,

 one may then undertake the great feats 

4.) The MAP is NOT the JOURNEY

The journey does not take itself.

Don't plan -- WRITE

Plotting your novel in detail may feel like writing, but it is not.

Writing one sentence, one chapter after another -- THAT is writing.

Plan too much and you increase the odds of your novel being dead on arrival.

Even if it is finished, 

the spark and spontaneity will have vanished like that iridescent rainbow that shimmered so beautifully in the storm clouds.

Writing is not building a house.  It is an art.

Do you think Van Gogh or Picasso outlined their paintings?

The best stories we read, the ones we aspire to write, 

are the ones that leave us in a more mysterious world than we knew at the start, 

stories that illuminate questions rather than answers.

5.) Our MUSCLES grow 

BY USING them

The same is true of any skill:

We LEARN by DOING

"The water does not flow

 until the faucet is turned on."  

- Louis L'Amour

The best writing happens when the writer is discovering what happens as he or she is creating.

OF COURSE 

I am not the Yardstick of the Universe so these are merely my suggestions for you to reflect upon.

I hope I have at least amused you.

If not:

WORLD'S LAZIEST COUNTRIES?

"Your assumptions are your windows on the world. 

Scrub them off every once in a while,

or the light won't come in.”

- Isaac Asimov

The headlines blare:

AMERICANS LAZIER THAN 

CITIZENS 

IN CHINA OR U.K.

How did they come to that astounding conclusion?

From a new study published in the latest edition of NATURE 

by a team of scientists from Standford University.

The research team analyzed the number of daily steps 

taken by more than 700,000 people worldwide, 

collected via the smartphone Argus activity monitoring app. 

All told, they amassed 68 million days of data.

 Their findings? 

The average number of daily steps worldwide, they said, was 4,961. 

But that number varied widely from country to country. 

In top-place Hong Kong, for example, survey participants took an average of 6,880 steps a day. 

In Indonesia, the average was just 3,513, putting it at the bottom of the rankings.

REALLY?

You and I may not be scientists, but I am sure you can see the glaring flaw.

As I wrote about yesterday, 

Technology seems to delude people into thinking everyone is like them.

The sample is quite obviously heavily biased.

 

 Most people in poorer countries cannot even dream of having a device which measures their steps.
 

Think the South American jungles, African hinterlands, 

 

the desert homeland of the Australian aborigines, the impoverished third country citizens ...

You can easily add to the list ...

 

So you know that the vast majority of people in those countries

 

walk huge distances but their steps are not recorded.

 

 

SO WHY THE HEADLINES?

 

 
Nothing in the study suggests that people who walk less are lazy.

 

 But it was great click-bait!

 

 It worked on you, me, and others.

 

 

CONCLUSION? 

Beware getting your view of the world through reading headlines.  

 

UFF!

 

Ghost of Mark Twain here brushing this fool boy aside so as to make sense of his nonsense ... 

Again.

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it 

and stop there lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove lid.

 She will never sit down on a hot stove lid again 

and that is well

 but also she will never sit down

 on a cold one anymore either!"

What do you pilgrims 

think about all this?

THE NUMBING DOWN OF AMERICA

'He was so terrible that he was no longer terrible, only dehumanized.'

- F. Scott Fitzgerald

Have the woes of others merely become our own private reality show,
our modern gladiator games?

Take American Idol or

any of the amateur talent shows.

It seems the audiences revel in the humiliation

of the less talented contestants.

I waited for what seemed an eternity at the DMV.

A mother with her 10 year old boy sat down beside me.

She busied herself with FB on her phone while her son pulled out an Ipad

and promptly started playing the latest CALL OF DUTY.

For an hour, he rocked back and forth as intently shot and maimed silicon enemies.


Was he becoming numb to the realities of violence and the finality of death?

Is Technology
numbing down America?

We view the world and one another through the filter of a smartphone screen ...

distancing us from directly experiencing emotions and ugly realities.

The Internet desensitizes us to shocking images and diminishes our empathic skills.


Videos of gruesome events that we view online for the figures are so tiny that the humans do not appear real.


The shock value of the loss of human life and the cries of misery have lessened.

Desensitization has become

the new normal.

Do we give up on tragedies and the people in them...

because the lack of action by politicians,

and little or no long-term coverage

by main media sources

gives a tacit message that

we are not like those suffering the tragedies.

There has been a shift in the way we communicate; rather than face-to-face ...

 Changes in the style and type of

interpersonal communication.

Young people use smartphones rather 

than interacting with the people around them,

to the detriment of being able even to make eye contact for more than a few seconds.

The Twitter and text bytes sent back and forth have reduced our ability to focus for any length of time

and have made it easier to be insensitive with impunity.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

IT CAME FROM OUTER SPACE

One of the favorite movies of the League of Five

 http://rolandyeomans.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-league-of-five.html

think the boys of Stranger Things but with weird movies holding them together and not Dungeons and Dragons!

We watched that movie whenever it came on the classic fright TV shows on the weekends.  

Little pre-teen me fell in love with Barbara Rush and wanted to grow up to be Richard Carlson 

who later tangled with the creature from the Black Lagoon!

The evocative dialogue touched me even as young as I was.

And well it should since it was written by Ray Bradbury though  Harry Essex snatched the credit.  

Sigh.

Listen to the intro by John Putnam (Carlson):

"This is Sand Rock, Arizona, of a late evening in early spring. 

It's a nice town, knowing its past and sure of its future, as it makes ready for the night, and the predictable morning. 

The desert blankets the earth, cooling, resting for the fight with tomorrow's sun. 

And in my house near the town, we're also sure of the future. So very sure."


Or the words of Frank, the desert telephone lineman:

 “John, after you’ve been working out in the desert fifteen years like I have, you hear a lot of things. 

See a lot of things, too.  The sun in the sky, and the heat, all that sand out there with the rivers, lakes that aren’t real at all.  

And sometimes you think that the wind gets in the wires and hums and listens and talks, just like what we’re hearing now.  And then it’s gone."

{ Shot after shot of cars and trucks moving along the desert roads are aerial shots, 

composed with telephone lines continually strung along in the foreground,

 humming with the strange theremin music composed for the film by Herman Stein, Irving Gertz and Henry Mancini.  

It’s as if the aliens have tapped into the telephone lines for purposes we cannot know or understand.}

Or

take the moment from the film right before Ellen and John meet Frank:

Ellen shivers when she looks out at the desert, seeing buzzards circle around and thinking how dead it is.  

"No", murmurs Putnam, “It’s alive, and waiting for you.  

Ready to kill you if you go too far.  The sun will get you, or the cold at night.  A thousand ways the desert can kill.” 

 Evocative scenes like this provoke the sense that the primitive desert, formidable enough on its own merit, 

is portentous with alien menace and intrigue. 

Bradbury never meant for the audience to see the aliens but for them to see humans through alien eyes.

We see them as they assume the shapes of humans they capture.

In this movie, we are the monsters.

Why did they do that?

Putnum points out a scuttling spider to the sheriff while he tries to explain just that to him.

The sheriff stomps on it in disgust.

Putnum sighs, 
"You did that because it was ugly, strange, and headed your way.  

You had no way to know if it meant you harm. Yet, you killed it anyway."

Bradbury later explains his reasoning,

"I tried to point out, in one way or another, that we would never give anything a chance. 

 We would kill first and ask questions afterward.  

Beneath the veneer of civilization there is a barbarism.

These creatures from outer space, were benign and not hostile, unless provoked."

  
The reason for the aliens' visit?

Their craft simply broke down as a human car might snap a fan belt while traveling over the desert.

They are completely unimpressed with us, wanting nothing so much as to be on their way ...

and please leave them alone!

The story is literate and suspenseful, 

becoming ever more engrossing as the truth regarding the aliens is revealed.  

It is thoughtful, intelligent and surprising. 

 Steven Spielberg has said that this film was a prime influence 

on his pet project Close Encounters of the Third Kind.

 The Blue Ray of it can actually be played in a 3D Blue Ray for a 3D TV ...

which I wish I had.

If you see it at Wal-Mart or Amazon -- take a gamble -- 

You will find it still holds up, though in a innocent time capsule sort of way.

Excuse me, Midnight and I are going to re-watch it again.

What is your favorite Sci Fi or Horror film?