Fourteen years ago, when my mother walked into our hotel room and handed me a book with an off-putting-ly long title, I never suspected that I could (let alone would) have the kind of love for the world within that I do.

And, being the ten year-old boy that I was, I did everything I could to immerse myself in the world that I could never truly visit. (Even then, it was apparent to me that eventually a theme park would come into being as long as the book and its successors were successful, and even then, I was able to recognize that whatever experience a theme park might provide me it was not the world I wanted to be a part of so badly.) So what did I do? I started writing fan fiction that involved myself and my friends (but not the characters from the books), I created a world beyond Hogwarts and the UK, I started imagining spells and potions and a school in Los Angeles that my fictional self could attend and have adventures at (for the record, the hardest part of that was coming up with a good enough villain or antagonistic force), and — most importantly for this particular post — I sorted myself into Ravenclaw.

Now, there’s a lot of reasons why I might’ve done that (I was obsessed with birds and flight, blue was my favorite color, it wasn’t the “good” house of Gryffindor, it wasn’t the “bad” house of Slytherin, we had yet to actually meet any Ravenclaws so I could be somewhat special in the HP world), but the reality of it is that I sorted myself into Ravenclaw because it was the house full of “smart people,” and I fancied myself one of them. I suppose I still do, but the interesting part of this whole situation is that as I’ve grown older I’ve found my views on the houses evolving at the same rate as my views on people in general.

When we are children (and trust me, some adults seem to have never lost this particular trait), the world seems so simple that we are able to categorize everything into single labels. For a Red Sox fan, the Yankees are just evil. For a young child, the teacher is just authority. And for the younger readers of the Harry Potter series it’s just as simple: Gryffindor is good, Slytherin is bad, Ravenclaw is smart, and Hufflepuff is everyone else.

And yet, as we grow older, it becomes painfully obvious that such a simple categorization of people is less simple, especially as we begin to have the ability to understand the nuances of human emotion and intellect and ambition. No single Hogwarts house is full of individuals who can so easily be categorized. For example, Gryffidor boasts the less than good Peter Pettigrew (better known by some as Wormtail), and Slytherin was home to perhaps the bravest individual in the entire series, Severus Snape. Even Ravenclaw was home to the quite incapable Gilderoy Lockhart, and Hufflepuff can call the Hogwarts champion Cedric Diggory its own.

Thus, as I grow older and as the “end of an era” nears this evening, it only seems fitting that I have found myself rather strongly second-guessing my 10 year-old self’s ability to sort myself accurately into Ravenclaw. Interestingly enough, it’s mostly because of Severus Snape and just a little bit because of Hermione Granger. Allow me to explain, beginning with the latter.

Hermione has always been somewhat of an anomaly for those of us in Ravenclaw. It just doesn’t seem to make much sense for the smartest witch in her year to be in anything but Ravenclaw. Except that Ravenclaw is based on more than simple intelligence (both Hermione and Severus Snape are examples of that), but upon placing value on that wit and intelligence above all other things. (After all, it was Rowena Ravenclaw who said, “Wit beyond measure is a man’s greatest treasure.”) But after seven books, can we truly say that her intelligence was Hermione’s defining trait? Can we even say that it was her most cherished trait. I think not. Rather, it was her bravery and her daring (and perhaps her loyalty, a Hufflepuff trait) that not only defined Ms. Granger, but also that she would most likely say were her most valued traits.

For Severus Snape, the definition is murky as well, specifically because of all he was willing to brave for his love. But it is that love which so firmly places Professor Snape into Slytherin (along with his interest in the Dark Arts, I suppose). It seems to be a rather common misconception that Slytherins are defined by (apart from supposedly being evil) their ambition and cunning. However, I would argue that those traits have been mislabeled and misdefined, and should be better understood to exist under a much stronger and bolder trait: passion. If we look around the Slytherin house tree, we see that its members are not necessarily examples of evil, so much as they are examples of passionate individuals who are not only quite devout in that passion, but willing to do what is necessary to fulfill that passion. For Voldemort, that was the eradication of “mudbloods” and enslavement of muggles. For the Malfoys, it was self-preservation. And for Severus Snape, it was love for Lily Potter.

Thus, as I have been looking at myself and the houses lately, I can’t help but wonder if, after all these years, I should’ve sorted myself into Slytherin.

Really, my doubt comes from reading and thinking more and more about Snape. But lets look at each of the houses in turn. On the one hand we have Ravenclaw, valuing wit, creativity, wisdom, intelligence, resourcefulness, cleverness, and knowledge above all else. On the other hand we have Slytherin, valuing ambition, cleverness, cunning, resourcefulness, strong leadership, and passion. As you can see, there is some crossover. But as I look at the other traits, I can’t help but feel that (despite my love for birds and flight), Slytherin is perhaps the better fit for someone with my personality and traits.

I like to think of myself as witty and intelligent (and I think it’s fair to make the assumption that I am), but they are far from my defining traits. Ravenclaws tend to be academically motivated and talented students, and while I may be able to perform well when I need to, it should be clear to anyone who has ever known me in school that I am anything but academically motivated and my grades tend to show that (whether my actual knowledge and understanding do is another story entirely). On the other hand, Slytherins tend to hesitate before acting, so as to weigh all possible outcomes of a decision before taking action. It would seem, then that logic, which would probably initially be considered a Ravenclaw trait, is much better suited to the Slytherins — a thought which was illustrated by the fact that the logic challenge from Sorcerer’s Stone was created not by Professor Flitwick, but rather by Professor Snape.

So, I suppose I don’t really know for sure. Sadly, after nearly 14 years and many an online quiz (which, I would like to point out, seem to all suffer from the idea that it is what kind of activities and traits you possess, not those which you prefer, are the most important in making the decision — a definition that would have seen Neville Longbottom and Luna Lovegood in Hufflepuff instead of Gryffindor and Ravenclaw, respectively), I’m leaning toward re-sorting myself as a Slytherin. I suppose I will have to think on it more.

Any input from you?

My mind went wild with thoughts of how the Pac-16 would be THE premier athletic conference in the country, with a legitimate chance to sweep well over a majority of all intercollegiate sports. And then that fell through, the Texas and Oklahoma schools remained in the Big XII, and the Pac-16 fell to the Pac-12 with the inclusion of Utah and Colorado. The disappointment was strong, but a thought had come to me while I fantasized about a USC v. Texas conference championship game: super conferences.

As the idea of even larger conferences grew in my brain, so did the very real possibility of a professional sports style setting for the regular season and postseason. And that eventually grew into what I’ve proposed below.

Now, I should include a few caveats before I begin. First, I’m not an expert on the workings of the NCAA, nor of the Bowl Championship Series. But I am a fan, and I have an idea that I think is worth considering. Second, in most ways (and with most sports) I’m a traditionalist. That is to say that I think there shouldn’t be extensive use of instant replay in baseball, and that historical rivalries and tradition should be preserved in college football. But at the same time, I’m also a realist, so I do think that in certain instances (such as foul balls and home runs) that instant replay is acceptable. So I understand the want to continue to have the bowl games and their prestige, but I also realize that much of the bowl games are driven by revenues and marketing. Finally, I in no way believe this is a perfect plan. And I’m completely willing to edit and consider alternatives from everyone who has an idea about it.

So, without further ado..

The NCAA does not recognize a national champion in Division I-A football (the Football Bowl Subdivision). At current count (and forgive me if my math is off, I’m only a law student), the FBS is made up of 121 institutes of higher learning which compete every year for rankings in the USA Today Coach’s Poll and the Associate Press Poll in the hopes of driving up their scores in the Bowl Championship Series so as to be selected for the BCS Championship Game or one of the other BCS bowl games. The BCS was created in the hopes of creating a singular national champion in the sport while maintaining the numerous bowl games and their postseason revenues for the various conferences and schools.

But the BCS has never truly lived up to its call, never created what could be seen as a truly fair national champion because of its exclusion of many smaller conferences, and even still gave rise to a split national championship in 2003-2004 (USC and LSU). Calls for an FBS playoff have grown, but fallen mostly on deaf ears. The argument, as best as I can tell, seems to be a mixture of academic need, traditionalism and greed. The schools argue that a playoff system would take up too much of the school year, and the NCAA and BCS argue they want to keep the bowl system alive as much as possible, while failing to state just how much money they’re bringing in and how hard it would be to create a tenable playoff system to encompass all 121 FBS teams and their 11 conferences.

And that’s where their mistakes are.

What if there were no conferences as they exist right now? What then? What if you could create a playoff system which was not a month (or more) long, but instead only three weeks? Well, then you would get what I’ve come up with. (Assuming you went through my exact same thought process, of course.)

I have to begin by stating that the NCAA and BCS are correct in stating that the 121 team FBS is simply too big to have a realistic playoff system for a singular (and recognized) national champion. And the schools themselves are also correct that a traditional style playoff system (not unlike the one used by the FCS), would take too long and too drastically affect the revenues of the many schools and conferences.

So what do we do?

Well, first we have to reorganize all of NCAA Division I football. Well, not all of it, but some of it. The number of teams in the FBS has to be reduced from 121 to 80. A number of factors went into which schools I choose for relegation to the FCS and which schools stayed where they are, such as their traditional strength, their attendance and pulling power, their traditional rivalries, and their current conference affiliation. My apologies to those schools who didn’t get to stay up top – perhaps the discussion of relegation and promotion protocols (not unlike domestic European soccer leagues) can be discussed in the future. Those 41 teams which didn’t make my cut get included in the now expanded FCS, probably organized into new conferences just for football.

Now, those remaining 80 teams are a mosaic of the current organization of the FBS, taking either part or all of all but a single conference (the Mid-American Conference). In fact, only the Big Ten, Big XII, Pac-10 and SEC had their entire conference included in what I am now calling the Bowl/Champion Subdivision. (Notice I kept the “BCS” in the hopes of being able to parlay what has been a rather well executed marketing and branding campaign into the new organization of the premier level of college football.)

So how is this reconciled so that the conferences used throughout other intercollegiate sports are able to continue in the BCS? They’re not. This may be among the most radical things you’ll read in this proposal (which is saying a bit, I think, considering how radical the proposal is), but for this to work all of the BCS schools essentially need to be made independent of their current collegiate conference. Now, that’s not to say that the conference is going to lose all the revenue of their BCS teams. In fact, I would propose that the money made by those schools continue to be split and shared among the conferences as if this change hadn’t been made. That is to say that this “independence” is purely so that the reorganization of the sport and the playoff structure below is possible.

What’s the reorganization? Four 20-school super conferences: the Pacific Coast Conference, the Mid-West Conference, the Southeastern Conference, and the Atlantic Coast Conference. Each of these is meant to, to a degree, be an analog to the more traditionally prestigious or notable conferences in college football: the Pac-10, the Big Ten, the SEC, and ACC/Big East, respectively.

Each of these super conferences consists of two 10-team divisions, which I have provisionally named Division X and Division O (mostly because I don’t have the time or drive to figure out how name them well). Each of these divisions would operate in much the same way that conferences do right now, and would be useful for the playoff system I will explain below. Here’s what I’ve come up with for the organization of the BCS:

Pacific Coast Conference (PCC)

• Division X
  • Arizona
  • Arizona State
  • California
  • Oregon
  • Oregon State
  • Stanford
  • UCLA
  • USC
  • Washington
  • Washington State
• Division O
  • Baylor
  • Boise State
  • Fresno State
  • Hawaii
  • Oklahoma
  • Oklahoma State
  • TCU
  • Texas
  • Texas A&M
  • Texas Tech

Mid-West Conference (MWC)

• Division X
  • Air Force
  • Illinois
  • Indiana
  • Michigan
  • Michigan State
  • Minnesota
  • Northwestern
  • Ohio State
  • Tulsa
  • Wisconsin
• Division O
  • BYU
  • Cincinnati
  • Colorado
  • Colorado State
  • Iowa
  • Iowa State
  • Notre Dame
  • Penn State
  • Purdue
  • Utah

Southeastern Conference (SEC)

• Division X
  • Alabama
  • Auburn
  • Georgia
  • Georgia Tech
  • Houston
  • Kentucky
  • Mississippi State
  • Ole Miss
  • Tennessee
  • Vanderbilt
• Division O
  • Arkansas
  • Central Florida
  • Florida
  • Florida International
  • Florida State
  • Kansas
  • Kansas State
  • LSU
  • Missouri
  • Nebraska

Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC)

• Division X
  • Boston College
  • Marshall
  • Maryland
  • Miami
  • North Carolina
  • North Carolina State
  • South Carolina
  • Virginia
  • Virginia Tech
  • Wake Forest
• Division O
  • Army
  • Clemson
  • Connecticut
  • East Carolina
  • Louisville
  • Navy
  • Pittsburg
  • Rutgers
  • South Florida
  • West Virginia

So now we move to the season itself. As you can see, many of the traditional rivalries still exist within conferences or divisions, but also a number of them have either become or remain intersectional. As such, the scheduling of a season would have to meet the following requirements: three games against non-conference teams, three games against conference, non-division teams, and five games against division teams. This is a total of at least eleven games every season for each BCS team.

The three non-conference matchups allow for travel, exciting intersectional matchups, and traditional intersection rivalries such as USC v. Notre Dame. The three conference, non-divisional games allow for the inclusion of traditional (or new) rivalries which were not accommodated by the divisional realignment, while maintaining competition within the conferences. Finally, the remaining divisional games will require strong competition against which each school is vying for a conference championship game spot.

Ah, did I not mention that yet? Yes, each of these super conferences would have a conference championship game which would be able to travel within the general regional area of the conference, such as an ACC Championship Game at the Meadowlands or a MWC Championship Game at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Okay, so after an 11 game season which includes fierce national and conference matchups, and four hard fought conference championships in primetime as the 12th game of the season for eight schools, we now have four conference champions or, as I like to refer to them, semifinalists. Yes, I’m talking about using these conference championships as the first of three rounds which would produce a singular, NCAA recognized national champion.

Before we get to those semifinal games, though, we need to consider the bowls and the rest of the BCS. The remaining schools who placed, say, fifth and up in their divisions would be ranked by conference record (so 10 from each conference), and then placed into bowl games which have contractual matchups, such as third place PCC v. fifth place ACC, or something of the sort. This allows the bowl system to remain, for the most part, intact, and allows all these schools which would be considered “bowl eligible” to continue to reap the benefits (and revenues) of these postseason games.

Now, with those four remaining semifinalists, we maintain two of the most storied and famous bowls for New Year’s Day: the Rose Bowl and the Sugar Bowl. And, in the interest of maintaining the tradition of these games, their participants would be predetermined: the Sugar Bowl would be an annual matchup between the champions of the SEC and ACC, and the Rose Bowl would be an annual matchup between the champions of the PCC and the MWC (not unlike the traditional Pac-10/Big Ten matchup).

The winner of the Rose Bowl would then face off with the winner of the Sugar Bowl one week later in a single (and, finally, NCAA recognized) national championship game. This championship game, not unlike the conference championship games or the Super Bowl, would be able to travel around the country from year to year, moving constantly from region to region and perhaps even from professional stadium to college stadium.

And that’s it. A reorganized Division I and BCS, four conference championships, two semifinals, and a national championship game. Is it perfect? Of course not. But at least it’s a step in what I would consider the right position: keep the bowls, add a playoff, and have a singular national champion recognized by the NCAA.

I started reading Star Wars novels way back in elementary school. I got obsessed with the films rather quickly (on a day I stayed home from school with a cold, no less) and I went looking for some way to find more of the wonderful universe that had been created. That lead to me to the Expanded Universe, which has greatly grown since I started my first foray into it.

I started with Michael Stackpole’s X-Wing series way back when it first hit the New York Times’ Bestseller list back in 1996. I know that I’d get a lot of flack if I got into a real debate, but I personally believe that this nine book series is among the best books in all the EU. In any case, I got obsessed rather quickly, especially as the fighter pilot story expanded to full scale civil war and Jedi involvement. As such, I got pretty religious reading the EU books — to the point where I was reading two to three books a week. (Yes, a week.) I even started adapting the X-Wing series into a television series (don’t worry, I didn’t get too far).

The point is that I had it bad. But eventually I lacked both the funds and the time to continue, and so I sort of put the EU books aside and went on living my life with a little less Star Wars in it. Until yesterday.

Yesterday I had about six hours to kill between Professional Responsibility and watching the USC-Hawai’i game with some classmates. I attempted to sit in the library and read for my Con Law course (which I’m currently sitting in) — I failed. Not because I didn’t enjoy it, but mostly because I had a racing mind and I’ve read Martin v. Hunter’s Lessee far too many times to be able to read it once again, in the library no less. So I took off and ended up at a nearby mall, walking around for about an hour before I found myself at Borders, browsing the shelves just to kill time.

And then I found the Star Wars section.

Boy, the nostalgia hit me like a freight train when I got there. I started looking at all the books I had read over the years, and I found myself glancing at the back covers of those that I haven’t. I noted that the Legacy of the Force series had finally concluded, and the new Fate of the Jedi series had started. Now, I knew what happened for the most part in the Legacy of the Force books (yes, I read Wookiepedia to get plot summaries — I stopped reading the novels, not caring about what happened with the story), but I didn’t know with the detail I would have had from reading the books. And I found the back covers of the Fate of the Jedi series to be rather compelling. So I did what any self-respecting nerd would do — I sat down in Borders’ little cafe, fired up my iPhone, and read through the fully detailed plot summaries of every book I had missed leading up to Fate of the Jedi. Yeah — I’m bad. And then I bought the first two books of the series to get started. Yes, I realize I’m in law school, but I need to find some pleasure reading for myself too, right? And I figured I’d buy two because, if I’m anything like I used to be, I’ll be done with the books rather quickly.

I’ve read for about two hours — and I’m halfway done with the first novel.

1. I’m going to do my best to sit in the center of the back row of every class. I fully believe in the “T theory.”
2. I’m going to go to the gym every week at least twice (if not three times).
3. I’m going to post on this blog at least once a week.
4. I’m going to stay away from Facebook games as much as possible.
5. I’m going to try and actually like coffee this year.
6. I’m going to eat as little fast food as possible.
7. I’m going to try and force myself to have a Texas accent. Don’t ask me why — I know I’m insane.
8. I’m going to bring my own lunch as often as possible. (This would be more awesome if someone gets me a super cool plastic or aluminum lunch pail.)
9. I’m NOT going to “google brief.”
10. I’m going to go to as many law school events as possible (but only the ones that actually interest me).
11. I’m going to try and wear as few t-shirts (and as many collared shirts) as possible to school.
12. #imgoingtomakeupasmanyrandomandrunonhashtagsaspossible

It’s going to be a good year.

So, as I sit here preparing to take in my third class of the semester (Evidence — I had Federal Income Tax and Remedies yesterday), I have some musings on the first day of classes:

• The 1Ls truly do look a bit terrified. Did I look like that last year? Also, it may just be me, but they don’t seem as up to par as last year — but that might just be a product of being spoiled by my awesome super smart track from last year.
• Fed Tax is the first class I’ve had here that isn’t stadium/Greek bowl seating. It’s actually kind of weird having to look around people’s heads to see the professor and the white boards.
• I’d hoped that my attention span in class would last longer than it did. I was wrong. I found myself falling back into a bunch of old habits, but I’m going to do my best to keep the worst of them out of the classroom.
• My Remedies prof seems to be a cross between my Property and Torts professors from last year, with a slightly less fun sense of humor. But it’s dry, so I’m sure that I’ll deal. And a good amount of that class seems to be 3Ls, which I would hope bodes good for me as they start to get a bit of the law school equivalent of “senioritis.” Then again, there’s a large contingent of 2Ls from my track from last year, so I might still be screwed.

Beyond that, I don’t really have much to say. I had an idea over the weekend for a really good fake brief/law review article, but I can’t for the life of me remember what it was. If I remember, I’m sure it’ll end up here.

And there’s a hand my trusty friend !
And give us a hand o’ thine !
And we’ll take a right good-will draught,
for auld lang syne.

Okay, so I went to the doctor’s office today and I was reading twitter in the waiting room. (Big surprise, I know.) And USC QB Matt Barkley had posted a link to a blog post by Adam White entitled “Inception Explained.” Now, I’ve seen a lot of explanation posts in the past (for films and tv shows — Lost, for example) and I tend to be rather skeptical of them because “fanboys” tend to give a lot of extra meaning to things that weren’t meant to have that meaning.

Now, I can hear some of you out there saying, “Well, art should be considered in the eye of the beholder” and blah blah blah. Yes, I agree, most of our intellectual and emotional connection to art are based especially off of our own connections and meanings that we give to art, whether it be film or sculpture or music or anything else. BUT (and this is a big but) there is a limit to which you can over-analyze that art.

So I read Adam White’s explanation, and for moments I was okay with what he was saying. Then he went a step to far when I finally got to the thesis of his explanation. So I’m writing this — I don’t actually know what to call it, perhaps a rebuttal — for anyone who doesn’t like to read too far into things that aren’t meant to be. And for Matt Barkley, because I promised him my reasoning for stating that White’s explanation, while elegant, is wrong.

White’s main thesis, as I stated before, is the problem with his entire explanation: he believes the entire film is a dream, and that the only reality we as the audience are able to truly see is the final minutes of the film, when Cobb wakes up and exits the plane. I’ll break down why his reasoning doesn’t make sense, but first I want to address the two reviews that White seems to have problems with.

White refers to two New York reviews of the film: one by A.O. Scott in the New York Times (link) and one by David Edelstein in New York Magazine (link). He quotes them both, and refers to them consistently throughout the entire explanation, and it is the shared negative review of both critics that, I believe, strongly shapes White’s thesis: that Inception was too structured to have been a good dream film. Scott argues that the dreams are too structured to truly mirror our sleep world and Edelstein states, “Nolan is too literal-minded, too caught up in ticktock logistics, to make a great, untethered dream movie.” White’s rebuttal is simple, and elegant, but almost a counter-intuitive, self-defeating, and unnecessary: we’re in Cobb’s dream the entire time.

Now, the simple rebuttal to the critics is that they are thinking of the strangeness of dreams that we see in retrospect, instead of the reality that they are in real-time. There is a telling statement in the film, when Cobb notes that dreams seem real when you’re in them and that only afterwards do we realize the strangeness and that we were dreaming. The critics dismiss it, instead expecting to see a world I expect that would remind us more of Alice in Wonderland or What Dreams May Come. I’d argue that Inception‘s strongest aspect is that it is NOT extraordinary or so untethered, but the perfect balance of the waking world and the simple dream. Also, we can’t forget that during extraction or inception (which is what the film is truly about) the point is to make the subject they are still awake. (I know, you’re going “Oh yeah!”)

Now, back to White’s thesis.

The biggest fault with White’s explanation is the circular logic he employs in order to make it make sense. He starts by talking about the totem, the top, that Mol carried and that Cobb now carries. He notes that those who see the film will undoubtedly be divided into camps — either Camp Topple or Camp Spinning — and rightly states that it doesn’t matter. However, his reasoning for its insignificance is that all of it was a dream so it’s unreliable. Except at this point then White has used his conclusion to prove his own conclusion. Do you see it? The totem doesn’t matter because it was all a dream, and it was all a dream because the totem is unreliable, because it was all a dream in the first place.

Let’s turn to the arguments, then, and break them down piece by piece.

First, White states he believes that when Cobb is waking up at the end of the film we are seeing a new layer of dream, not reality (yes, this is conflicting with what seems to be his main thesis, but let’s look past that). His strongest evidence, he says, is that Cobb and Saito (who were in limbo) wake up without wires. “At no other point in the movie,” he says, “is a character allowed to wake up without wires after they’ve been occupying a dream space with another character.” He’s wrong. In fact, if we return to nearly the beginning of the film we will recall that Saito wakes up on the bullet train after the opening “dream within a dream” sequence without the wires, and with all his fellow dreamers having vanished from the compartment.

Then White says that the reactions of the other main characters in the first class compartment are too reserved if they truly believed that Saito and Cobb could possibly lose their minds in limbo “they’d be overjoyed to see their friends awake, even if they had to contain their emotions” to keep the con on. He says perhaps the knowing looks are because they are simply friends or business associates — that if you dreamed a ten-hour dream, that intense, including everyone around you, then you’d look for meaning in their glances toward you, and that you would wonder if they shared that dream with you. Yes, that’s true. However, to use that as reasoning is quite a stretch. But let us continue.

Next, he turns to Cobb’s father. Here, I assume he’s talking about Miles (Michael Caine), but I should correct him: he’s Cobb’s father-in-law, that is he’s Mol’s father. While this might only slightly change the expected reaction, White is looking for an over the top reaction from Miles. He says it seems that he would be much happier to see his son-in-law home, cleared of charges of killing his daughter. But to be realistic, a reaction like that would be dangerous for a man who does not truly understand whether he just got through immigration or whether he’s cleared completely. And to be pragmatic, that just doesn’t make sense for the mood of the final moments of the film. He also speaks about the kids being rather reserved as well, but kids are kids — and their interpretations of time can be much like that of dogs, either they don’t understand it’s been that long or it’s been far too long. In either case, to expect over the top reactions is, again, just not good film.

Then Adam White decides to attack the logic of the film itself (a dangerous thing to do in any film, especially one which so obviously does not take place in the exact same world we live in). He looks at the sleep technology, questioning its creation by the army and the accessibility that seems to be far beyond the super rich (as seen by the elderly Mombasans). He looks at the corporations that “will kill to keep their secrets,” at whether the charges would exist against Cobb given what we know about the death, about Miles’ teaching at an “English-speaking School of Architecture located in Paris”, and about Saito’s ability to clear the charges. He looks at the “constantly shifting rules” that he says Cobb makes up as he goes along, the narrow alley in Mombasa, and the rules of limbo itself. He looks at all of this and says “Everything in Inception feels a little too dreamy to be reality. But he’s wrong. First, and simply, you must remember you do not live in the same world as Cobb and Miles and Saito, but are instead AN AUDIENCE MEMBER IN A THEATER. Once you get past that, then the technology makes sense, as does its accessibility. Any misunderstanding of circumstances (and an ambitious District Attorney) explains the charges. And yes, there are English-speaking schools in Paris; whether there is an architecture school, I don’t know but at no point are we told it’s an architecture school (as opposed to a university with an architectural program) and it’s not that hard to imagine anyways. Plus, if he is married to Mol’s mother, it only makes sense that he lived in France. The rules themselves only seem to shift because we don’t already know them coming in (that is, they aren’t constantly changing, but are constantly being explained). And the alley in Mombasa? Yes, alleys that thin actually exist.

White’s strongest argument in this section is his questioning of how to escape limbo: “Do we kill ourselves again? Or just remember to try and escape? It’s never quite clear.” Again, White is partially correct in that it isn’t clear, but the truth can be inferred. Assuming we believe the film, then sedation is what takes us to limbo. In the film, it’s because they need deep sedation to go three levels deep, and in Mol and Cobb’s case it was to go as deep as possible and explore the “dreams within dreams.” But eventually that sedation wears off, allowing for the dreamer to return to reality. My guess is that it’s been years and years for Saito, and perhaps Cobb has died trying to get to his friend, which explains his youth after such a long amount of time in limbo. But we can see that both of their minds are close to mush, but they are both able to find their way back.

White’s final explanation is far from elegant, though, and much more like the mush of Lost. Assuming it was all just a dream, he states we don’t actually know Cobb, and attempts to explain that he’s perhaps a successful architect who worked in Sydney and was returning home to his kids and family. He says that the plane trip accounts for the changes in gravity and equilibrium (notice here that he uses the rules of the “dream” to explain the overall dream which he said should not have had those rules).

Then the kicker, the worst part of it all: he says the plane had, during flight, gone into free fall. Yes, you read that right. White believes the plane must have almost crashed, that this would explain the free fall in the dream and the camaraderie (his theory, not mine) that Cobb seems to have with the strangers in First Class. He says that Cobb must have slept through it by having taken a very heavy sedative for the flight. Well, this was just too much for me. No plane that goes into free fall makes it all the way to Los Angeles from Australia. If it’s soon enough, it goes back Down Under. If it’s too far it goes to a Pacific Island, such as Hawaii. But no way does it make it all the way to its intended location. And in any case, no sedative would be able to keep him from being woken up by the flight attendant pounding his chest to return his seat to its upright position.

In the end, White tries to tell us that he doesn’t think it would’ve stood up to a second viewing, that the “vagaries and inconsistencies” would have left you feeling “a little… wrong”. Well, I’ve seen it twice. And ask anyone you know, I’m a notoriously harsh critic when it comes to film. And it lived up to my first thoughts on the film.

The key is not over-analyzing or trying to make it reality. And the key to why the film flows so well? The characters don’t over analyze or question either — they simply go along with it as though (and rightly so) it’s all just part of the world that they happen to live in, and that we are viewing through the magic and brilliance of the silver screen.

So you understand what you’re seeing, this is all the competing nations of the 2010 FIFA World Cup arranged into the form of a vuvuzela. You think it accurately depicts this particular international tournament?

makes me think of this

Just thought you’d like to know.

So I’ve been watching, and they’ve been making me think. I’m going to take this chance to share some of the more profound examples of TED with you, and perhaps some of my own thoughts on those matters as well.

The first that I’m going to share with you is a talk by Sir Ken Robinson. In it, his thesis is essentially that creativity is not something that we as individuals grow into as we age, but rather something that we get educated out of as we grow. The following anecdote is a perfect example:

I’m doing a new book at the moment called, Epiphany, which is based on a series of interviews with people about how they discovered their talent. I’m fascinated about how people got to be there. It’s really prompted by a conversation I had with a wonderful woman who most people have never heard of, she’s called, Julian Lynn.

Have you heard of her? Some have. She’s a choreographer and everybody knows her work. She did Cats and Phantom of the Opera. She’s wonderful. I used to be on the board of the Royal Ballet in England, as you can see. And eh, anyway Julian and I had lunch together one day and I said, ‘Julian how did you get to be a dancer?’ And she said it was interesting; when she was at school she was really hopeless.

And the school in the thirties wrote to her parents and said, ‘we think Julian has a learning disorder.’ She couldn’t concentrate, she was fidgeting. I think now they’d say she had ADHD, wouldn’t you? But this was the 1930’s and ADHD hadn’t been invented, you know, at this point, so it wasn’t an available condition, you know. People weren’t aware they could have that.

Anyway, she went to see this specialist in this oak panelled room and she was there with her mother and she was led and sat on this chair at the end. And she sat on her hands for twenty minutes while this man talked to her mother about all the problems she was having at school. And at the end of it (because she was disturbing people and her homework was always late and so on, a little kid of eight) In the end, the doctor went and sat next to Julian and said I’ve listened to all these things your mother has told me I need to speak to her privately so he said, ‘wait here we’ll be back. we won’t be very long’ And they went and left her. But as they went out of the room, he turned on the radio that was sitting on his desk, and when they got out of the room, he said to her mother, ‘just stand and watch her.’

The minute they left the room she said she was on her feet moving to the music and they watched for a few minutes and he turned to her mother and said, ‘You know, Mrs Lynn, Julian isn’t sick she’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.’ I said, ‘what happened? She said, ‘She did. I can’t tell you how wonderful it was. We walked into this room and it was full of people like me; people who couldn’t sit still. People who had to move to think.’

They did ballet, they did tap, they did jazz, they did modern, they did contemporary. She was eventually auditioned for the Royal Ballet School. She became a soloist. She had a wonderful career at the Royal Ballet. She eventually graduated from the Royal Ballet School and founded her own company; the Julian Lynn Dance Company, met Andrew Lloyd Weber.

She has been responsible for some of the most successful musical theatre productions in history. She has given pleasure to millions and she’s a multi- millionaire. Somebody else might have put her on medication and told her to calm down.

So, I was never really a fan of Lost. I watched the first few episodes and got hooked, but school and a lack of a good television in the dorms got in the way. Follow that by a lackluster second season and I basically gave up on the show. But the finale came up last week, and I decided (with the urging of two of my favorite brothers) to join in and get caught up before the finale. I suppose I’d always known that the show had the potential, but I wasn’t sure that it was able to execute.

So I did what every self-respecting person who had just finished the hell that was law school finals would do: I watched all six seasons in ten days. That’s right, I started with the pilot on May 13 (the night before my last final, for those of you who were keeping score) and finished with the second to last episode four hours before the finale. (Just a side note, this may sound like an awful lot, but this is seriously part of my summer ritual; last summer I watched all seven seasons of The West Wing in a week, and all five seasons of Entourage plus the first season of True Blood in about the same amount of time.)

Now, I may not be a “Lostie” like many of my friends, but watching obsessively for a little over a week does get you a bit connected to the show. And, to be honest, I really felt like it was cop out of a finale. Then I found this explanation, which apparently came from a writer on the show who is unnamed. It made me feel a little better, but still made me feel like it was a cop out. The Island is never really explained, nor is the source of all the mysterious powers, so we’re supposed to basically take it all at face value. And then the flash-sideways turns out to be Purgatory, which was the big explanation everyone wanted of the Island in the early seasons. It just seems to me that the writers were unable to really come up with something good to explain the Island, and because of that they decided to basically not explain at all — and then explain the flash-sideways with the favored early explanation of the Island. Bleh. Oh well, I suppose it just left me with a bad taste in my mouth.