For Old Times' Sake

After recently attending my latest high school reunion - like many events last few years, delayed and rescheduled due to the pandemic - two important lessons were realized. One, there is plenty yet to learn about your dearest, closest friends you may have known for decades. Two, we can haunt and torment ourselves for years with lamentable experiences and corrosive sentiments from our past that no one cares to recall or even remembers. Leaving behind the chaos and uncertainty that has consumed the world felt nice as we reminisced and reconnected. Seemed like cherished olden days that night without having missed a beat, if only for a moment.

What is particular, yet certainly not solely unique, to my graduating class is the diversity and camaraderie among us that has existed since at least junior high school if not beyond. That youthful period is when the majority of our extended friendships, and loves, ignited that still persist and thrive today. This is not to say that we exist in a vacuum without internal stratification. While each of us might have our specific groups, there always has been a consistent and harmonious intermingling, as personally experienced and observed, beyond those confines without prejudice of demographic or status.

Considering the multiverse idea, there are infinite possibilities for the unfolding of events and our lives. Theoretically, it also means you might not exist in at least one of them - a curiously fascinating idea, no matter how fortunate or unfortunate. We may take our ‘presence’ for granted with social media that has given us an unprecedented opportunity to engage with others without being physically present - as the world discovered and adapted to during the pandemic. Yet, like anything in life, there are limits to this modern social interaction that give a higher valuation to personal, face-to-face engagement.

A lesson for humanity in general, but I leave that to you to learn accordingly.

In 1922, the world was experiencing the early throes of the Jazz Age/Roaring Twenties that developed out of the devastating ashes of “the war to end all wars.” Given the decade’s cultural and social dynamism, the French called the period Années folles (“Crazy Years”) - a fitting, if not apropos, moniker that so far could be applied to the 2020s as well for its comparable shifts and upheavals of the status quo. Perhaps 100 years from now, another generation will reflect on not only their own time but also look back on this one. Wondering what it was all about, possibly seeking inspiration and guidance from its context in relation to their own circumstance.

What legacy is left to them, and the future that it will usher, is already decided even if it is yet to be written. As the calendar again turns from another year to the next, let us give them one to commemorate rather than one to deplore.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Hollaback Twirl

For a recent movie/television writer position with a leading entertainment website, I was asked to briefly write about my favorite movie franchise. The following was my response, as well as submitting several previous blog posts as additional relevant writing samples.

To quote Brodie Bruce in Mallrats, "wow, that is a good question. Difficult, though; what does one gauge his response on?" A comic book showdown of Avengers vs Justice League? A scifi battle of Star Trek vs Star Wars? A well-tailored and lethally equipped James Bond vs all of them? Swinging in to take the top spot is Batman, specifically Christopher Nolan's The Dark Knight trilogy. While Tim Burton's 1989 film starring Michael Keaton succeeds in bringing to life the altruistic yet cavalier playboy Bruce Wayne and his gritty world's greatest detective alter ego for the first time, it cannot escape the campiness that defined the character for decades. Especially in the ensuing sequels, and, unfortunately, in hindsight. Nolan's version starring Christian Bale embraces the former while avoiding the latter - particularly in the definitive second film The Dark Knight, which quite possibly is one of the all-time finest movies ever produced - that elevates the cinematic superhero to new heights. Where it begins in the first movie, the Nolanverse rises to the occasion in the third and final act to create an enduring legacy.

Believe that to be a decent and efficient answer; yet, I never heard from them about the writer job. While applicants and new hires might be ghosting in today's job market, it is an all-too-common, widespread issue with potential employers as well.

©2022 Steve Sagarra

Random Thoughts: The Sequel, Perspectives Too

Belief in such things as hope and fate are for the young. To stay young is to still believe in them, despite inclinations to the contrary.

Fun celebrity names to say: Benedict Cumberbatch; Imogen Poots; Engelbert Humperdinck; Zooey Deschanel; Randolph Mantooth.

The year is 2022. Everyone knows by now, or at least they should, that websites use cookies (unfortunately, not the freshly warm, delicious kind). Please quit asking us to accept them, and default either to none or only necessary ones, if you must, for conditions of proper website operation.

We are living in an era of unprecedented access to knowledge and information at the literal blink of an eye - the downside being an equal amount of distracting inaccuracies and outright falsities. Perhaps future generations actually will comprehend, and not be misled by, all that is seen in that blink.

Dogfight football might be Hollywood make believe in Top Gun: Maverick, but it actually makes sense for real-world application. Illustrating the simultaneous offensive and defensive aspects of aerial combat, one always must be aware of both when engaging enemy forces - otherwise, your body will quite probably bounce a check.

When does transubstantiation occur between “chips and salsa” and nachos? Is it the initial act of spreading chips about all at once, or does change only happen upon pouring ingredients over them rather than dipping? (Could this also possibly explain the phenomena of seeing Jesus on chips?)

Ventriloquists are simply talking out loud to themselves by other means. Audiences must suspend that understanding.

One never has any indication of the accumulation of “junk” and other miscellany over the years until packing it up for a move. Yet, it is difficult to part with any due to its significance no matter how minor - each item a reminder, time capsule, etc.

Veterans - especially disabled and homeless - always should take precedence over illegal immigrants; the former defended the country, while the latter invade it. Throughout history, an imbalance in this equation has never ended well for any sovereign nation-state leading to its collapse.

Know what you believe, and believe what you know. Yet, true awareness is not knowing what you do not believe, and not believing what you do not know.

©2022 Steve Sagarra