Whats in a name?

Working in downtown Salt Lake is an interesting thing and I meet lots of interesting people (interesting here can mean a good or a bad thing).
I have customers that like to keep to themselves, some who don't know what the heck their doing they just know they need new clothes and some that will talk your ear off, not only until your ears have fallen off but also until you are blue in the face. Then there are those who can hold a conversation without being annoying and seem pretty bright.
One such customer, a Todd and his brother, came in and posed an interesting question during one of our discussions. What kinds of things define you and where you will go in life? 


I will walk you through our discussion.

This is Wendell Castle

This is a chair that Mr. Castle designed

Now the comment was made by Todd that "Wendell Castle looks like he would design something like that. Even his name fits the niche". 

That comment gave me an epiphany. My brain said, "What if this is a nature vs. nature type of thing. Where Wendell Castle, for example, was given that name by his parents. He was raised by his parents who influenced him, in part, to become the person that he is today, in turn making his appearance and name match perfectly with his design style and career choice." 

For example, if Wendell Castle had been born to parents that named him Joe Smith (a very common name) (no offense if your name is Joe Smith) he may have grown to wear contact lenses rather than bright blue thick rimmed glasses. He may also have chosen to be a doctor or an accountant or some other more ordinary job rather than a unique furniture designer.    

Make sense? So other questions and previously viewed studies came into conversation. For example how Western culture has influence on people that they don't even realize. One thing mentioned is that people who have very westernized names like William, Owen, or even Todd etc for a man and Nancy, Liz (Elizabeth), Ashley etc for a women, have a better chance at a more successful life and career than someone who has a more eastern, or foreign sounding name- like Lemanjelo or LaFawnduh.

Another thing discussed was that people with larger vocabularies, who are raised by parents who are well spoken, put emphasis on education and literature as being important are more widely accepted and again, have a better chance at a more successful life (as in upper middle class where in the words of Bruce Dain, "you'll have a Beamer and a nice house with a boat parked out on the side"). Now this is not to say that without all of this you cannot become, Orangello the CEO of the next major fortune 500 company, but its easier to become Bruce Wayne when your name is Bruce Wayne.

 

Sure Signs of a Crazy Cat Lady

There are always those subtle hints and clues as to whether the middle-aged, single lady down the street is a crazy cat lady like the overly obvious hopelessness of a lint brush or the millions of cats spotted roaming the streets but how do we identify the closet cat lady.



1. Monochromatic outfit

The hat doubles as a cat condo.

2- Reference to "friends" who have strange names like Mr. Biggles and Oreo

Nuff Said..

3- The tote that's meowing and making scratching noises

Its her ring tone, a song by prince she says. Prince is her pet cat.

4- "Fashion Sandals"

with socks!

and a fanny pack!

5- Overly obnoxious, long lasting laugh

her cats say her laugh makes them laugh

also, with snaggle tooth bonus

6- Your pet cat is missing

she has kleptomaniac-ish tendencies

7- Her day planner, cell phone, purse/tote, jewelry and other paraphernalia has pictures of a kittens playing with yarn on them

8- Has a nanny cam at work on a separate computer screen so she never has to take her eyes of her "babies"

...or if you look like this

9- No napkins, just licks all the food/goop off of her fingers, hands, arms- whatever.

Harry Potter vs. Twilight

  

 "Harry Potter is all about confronting fears, finding inner strength, and doing what is right in the face of adversity. Twilight is about how important it is to have a boyfriend.”

— Stephen King

   Well said Stephen King. I've deemed it appropriate to address this issue for the sake of every persons sanity who has allowed them self to start to believe that twilight isn't so bad- and because of the recent release of the final Harry Potter movie.

   I would venture to say that most people haven't actually put their brain to comparing Harry Potter to Twilight because lets be honest it's like comparing creme brule to fish or a salad to horse feed. So lets go over this whole thing from a literary view as well as the cinematic.

Literary: I first read Harry Potter when I was about seven or eight (yeah, it came out in the UK in 1997) and it was an instant favorite. I can honestly credit any love of books I have to Harry Potter. I've read the entire series multiple times and it's still entertaining. I'm amazed that the trend, if you can call it that, has lasted an entire 13 years with time to go.

On the flip side- Twilight was recommended to me when I was in high school by a girl who had blue hair, only wore black and had enough hardware on her body to set of a metal detector just by standing by it. It raised an eyebrow. I did read it though and throughout the series there were so many contradicting themes (small as they were) that it seemed really unprofessional from a writers standpoint as well as being poorly edited. You could also take into account the weird ideas that Ms. Meyer plants in her (teen) readers heads such as the idea that you can marry a vampire...So many weird ideas about how life is that are totally skewed. 

In the Cinema: Harry Potter is without a doubt the stronger franchise making $6,369,345,142 (the highest grossing film series ever) with another movie and DVD to be released in addition to having leading roles played by stars such as Richard Harris (Dumbledore #1), Maggie Smith (Professor McGonagall), Robbie Coltrane (Hagrid), Kenneth Branagh (Professor Lockheart), Gary Oldman (Sirius Black), Ralph Fiennes (VOLDEMORT), Emma Thompson (Professor Trelawney), Helena Bonham Carter (Belatrix LeStrange)-- the list goes on.

    I guess we could mention that Robert Pattinson played a minor role in the fifth movie as Cedric Digory but he was a no namer like the rest of the kids in the movie at that point in his career.

Twilight: Ebert and Roeper gave the first two of these films two thumbs down (neither of them liked it) and the third got one thumb up and one down. I think the thumbs down can be credited to the poor acting and weird special effects.
     Grossing $367,160,734 (films alone) is almost unfathomable but due to the moms and teenage girls who saw the movie multiple times in theaters when they had a couple hours to kill.

I have to give one actor from these movies some credit. Taylor Lautner. In the beginning he had above par talent (compared with others cast in the movie) and his character has grown to be more prominent and likable and I credit it to his acting ability not the written personality of Jacob Black. 

 So in conclusion I have to say that Edward should have stayed dead after Voldemort killed him and we'd all live in a much happier world free of crazy teenage girls who wouldn't know quality if it stupified them in the face.

Why Apples Fall From Trees

Sir Issac Newton, considered one of the most influential people in history for the "discovery" (as your third grade teacher put it) of GRAVITY, is the inspiration for the name of my blog.

The Story: Mr. Newton was sitting in an orchard when, according to one account an apple fell on his head, and thats when it hit him (haha) the gravity of the situation (haha) ... anyway. This apple inspired newton to go on to do very great things. He published a work called a monograph named Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica which contained the laws of motion and his theory on universal gravitation, which dominated scientific theory for three centuries and is something that anyone who makes it to seventh grade has probably heard of.

I would say as far as influence and legacy goes, Newton did a great job of creating such things. So I can only hope that in some point in time I can get your brain moving like the apple did for our dear Sir Isaac. There is also the symbolism and asthetic aspect of apples that makes my blog look nice but...meh.. no one really wants to hear all about that ;)