As I was babysitting the other night, I reflected on the ingenuity of Dora the Explorer. The girls were absolutely enthralled. I, on the other hand, was rather skeptical. I'm just going to lay it out here for you.
1. The Map. As far as creative theme songs go, I think someone was a little lazy in the idea room. In case you haven't heard the Map song, here's how it goes. It gets a little tricky in the bridge, so watch out for that.
"I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'm the map, I'M THE MAP!!!!"
Poets couldn't have lyricized this any better. But in all sarcasm, I felt like I had heard the second line of the song before. And the third. It was like deja vu...about deja vu. Or Inception of a song. I don't care how you want to look at it. It was just...wrong.
After the Map(in case you didn't get his name from the first verse...or was it the chorus?) goes over the places Dora will go in order to save some poor animal about a gazillion times, Dora decides to reiterate it a few more times for you. I don't know if you've heard Brian Regan do this bit, but after watching it, I realized just how true it was. Mediocrity at its best.
Here's the deal.
I want the Map. Not just a Map. THE Map. Except instead of telling me exactly how to get somewhere in the course of just a few landmarks-though doubling as a GPS system would be rather handy-it would tell me what to do in life. This is all strictly hypothetical, of course. God is your GPS.
2. Dora the Explorer doesn't rhyme. And since it's all about Spanish...wouldn't it make more sense to make her name Dora the Explora?!! Killing two pickles with one turtle, I always say.
3. Okay here's a positive. Teaching the ninos how to speak some espanol. When Dora would excitedly exclaim, "Donde esta?!" I found myself yelling "Es alli!!!!!!!" (I barely pulled through with an A in Spanish class. The only word I really understood and related with was siesta. And fiesta. And nachos).
4. Swiper. I wish that every robber and villian could be stopped by simply saying, "Robber no robbing!" And he would just snap and say, "aw man!" And walk away. Sadly, this is the culture that is being ingrained into children's minds.
5. Dora gets to go freaking everywhere. I want adventures like her.
6. Diego. I don't...really know what to say about this kid. He talks to animals. It's like this show is Maya and Miguel in the pre-adolescent stages. (And if you don't know who these wonderful twins are...you are missing some high quality television).
7. Backpack. Refer to #1.
All biting wit and sarcasm aside...it's a great show. I suppose I'm just too literal a person to take Dora the ExplorA seriously. Now...to find the Map...
Moored- past participle, past tense of moor- Verb: Make fast (a vessel) to the shore or to an anchor.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Sunday, January 2, 2011
What I've learned.
At request, I am going to write a post about what I have learned from the Facebook quarantine.
1. I am so much more productive. It was crazy how much more I was able to get done during the hour/s I would have spent surfing through hundreds of pictures and thinking of seemingly brilliant statuses. I was tempted once or twice to go to Facebook, but I would instead check my email or try to get a task done that was menial but I felt so much better once it was done.
2. I didn't know what was going on sometimes...but I was okay with it. It amazes me how much Facebook has affected the way we communicate. I would find myself in a normal conversation, and then something would pop in unexpectedly. "Did you see that so and so are in a relationship?!!! Oh...you haven't? Well it's on Facebook." I've realized that I sometimes prefer anonymity. Sometimes, I just like to keep my business to myself; to surf the wave of obscurity. I'm sure the same goes for other people.
3. I wrote some letters. And it felt GOOD. Handwritten letters are a lost art form. Enough said.
4. Facebook has affected the way we perceive others and ourselves. Facebook was created to make networks. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was recently named the TIME person of the year (2010). I skimmed this article in TIME (a gatrillion pages long. I had better things to do...like check Facebook). In the article, he states his purpose for Facebook.
"We're trying to map out what exists in the world," he says. "In the world, there's trust. I think as humans we fundamentally parse the world through the people and relationships we have around us. So at its core, what we're trying to do is map out all of those trust relationships, which you can call, colloquially, most of the time, friendships."
First of all..."colloquially"? I don't quite know what to do with myself. I don't think I'm intelligent enough to even begin to describe the cosmic adventure within that word.
I think that Mark had a beautiful idea. I really do. But sometimes I wonder if we've lost sight of that. Are we really striving to build a community based on trust and a mapping of friendships, or have we fallen into a commercial idea of creating a false image of ourselves? Am I making any semblance of sense? Probably not. But I just feel that we have lost the point in it. It's about connectivity with those we know and love, not trying to build an "empire" of photos and friends.
What have I learned? That a one-on-one conversation with a best friend in a small coffee shop beats a wall post any day. That pictures are beautiful, but the memories within the pictures are even better. And spending hours singing off-key with your best friend in a car is better than hours spent on a chat trying to spew a witty repertoire of...wit. And that maybe Mark Zuckerberg, the analytical mind that is worth millions, can write codes all day...but it will never come close to personal, joyful, sorrowful, expressible, human interaction.
1. I am so much more productive. It was crazy how much more I was able to get done during the hour/s I would have spent surfing through hundreds of pictures and thinking of seemingly brilliant statuses. I was tempted once or twice to go to Facebook, but I would instead check my email or try to get a task done that was menial but I felt so much better once it was done.
2. I didn't know what was going on sometimes...but I was okay with it. It amazes me how much Facebook has affected the way we communicate. I would find myself in a normal conversation, and then something would pop in unexpectedly. "Did you see that so and so are in a relationship?!!! Oh...you haven't? Well it's on Facebook." I've realized that I sometimes prefer anonymity. Sometimes, I just like to keep my business to myself; to surf the wave of obscurity. I'm sure the same goes for other people.
3. I wrote some letters. And it felt GOOD. Handwritten letters are a lost art form. Enough said.
4. Facebook has affected the way we perceive others and ourselves. Facebook was created to make networks. Mark Zuckerberg, the creator of Facebook, was recently named the TIME person of the year (2010). I skimmed this article in TIME (a gatrillion pages long. I had better things to do...like check Facebook). In the article, he states his purpose for Facebook.
"We're trying to map out what exists in the world," he says. "In the world, there's trust. I think as humans we fundamentally parse the world through the people and relationships we have around us. So at its core, what we're trying to do is map out all of those trust relationships, which you can call, colloquially, most of the time, friendships."
First of all..."colloquially"? I don't quite know what to do with myself. I don't think I'm intelligent enough to even begin to describe the cosmic adventure within that word.
I think that Mark had a beautiful idea. I really do. But sometimes I wonder if we've lost sight of that. Are we really striving to build a community based on trust and a mapping of friendships, or have we fallen into a commercial idea of creating a false image of ourselves? Am I making any semblance of sense? Probably not. But I just feel that we have lost the point in it. It's about connectivity with those we know and love, not trying to build an "empire" of photos and friends.
What have I learned? That a one-on-one conversation with a best friend in a small coffee shop beats a wall post any day. That pictures are beautiful, but the memories within the pictures are even better. And spending hours singing off-key with your best friend in a car is better than hours spent on a chat trying to spew a witty repertoire of...wit. And that maybe Mark Zuckerberg, the analytical mind that is worth millions, can write codes all day...but it will never come close to personal, joyful, sorrowful, expressible, human interaction.
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