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Blade Runner is a film that has stuck with me since I first saw it. It’s been my go to recommendation for anybody who claimed Ridley Scott was a bad director and a constant recommendation for anyone who was looking for a great sci-fi flick. In many ways, this is true science fiction rather than say, Star Wars, which I classify to be more fantasy in space than anything close to science fiction. As snobbish as it may sound, I do believe a film must hold some intellectual weight, explored via scientific context, to be considered as science fiction. What I mean is that there needs to be an intellectually inseparable bond between the context of the film and its preoccupations. Star Wars doesn’t need to be set in space. Like really, it doesn’t. I’m glad it is. But please, it’s no Blade Runner.

Recently, I was thinking about Blade Runner, and in particular, the last speech that Roy says before he dies atop a rooftop, “All those moments will be lost, in time, like tears in the rain.” He is talking about various things he had seen, things that other people will spend their entire lives not seeing. The film as a whole is incredibly preoccupied with eyes, and seeing and revealing, but where all this imagery eventually points to is fairly indefinite to me – quite possibly because of how untrustworthy perception via vision seems to be, or at least, because of how the film suggests optical skepticism. What does it matter in the end? All these replicants look like people, or, rephrased, all these people could be replicants. Blade Runners use eye monitoring devises while questioning individuals to see whether or not they are replicants, but rather than the visual aspect, the true key in the test is the way in which the subject responds to the various questions. For example, whether or not they are given a default memory programmed into many replicants.

Which begs the question – we all see what we see, but the question is what do we make of our basic stimulations? This question extends to: how do we identify ourselves? Because amidst all these stimulations, whether they are tactile or illusory, is the formation of who we are. When one of these forms of stimulation becomes a point of skepticism or doubt, our identity is at risk of becoming unstable. We become uncertain of whom we are. But, is there a way to deal with this potential threat? For it is evident, in the modern age, the amount of stimulation is becoming more potent and more frequent. Then does the risk, perhaps, increase as well? If so, how do we deal with this?

I’m not sure if there is answer for that. But I keep coming back to that speech when I look for an answer. I think perhaps the lack of an answer is the answer. Who we are, will be lost. All those stimulations, all those moments of self-identification, upon our death, they are gone. But the way they are lost is in the endless rain, or the endless stimulations of our world, hiding those of the individual.

Recently, I had been working on an essay covering the story of my grandpa, and in relation, my relationship with him. We were both children at one point, but to consider, at one point in our lives, there was a time where his formative days were in the past while mine were still to come. How foundational are these moments of confluence between individuals separated by generations. When I ask myself, “What does my grandpa mean to me.” I can only say, although he is alive, he is first and foremost, a memory. A representation of rich 20th century Korean culture that I was never a part of, nor stuck around in Korea long enough to allow it to affect me.

I interviewed him recently, asking about the Korean War, his childhood, his time spent working in a post-war nation. He’d forgotten almost all the specifics. His moments are being lost, one by one. We talked to each other through Skype, a process he hardly understands. It’s jarring, talking to him on a screen, to realize that the man who played with me during my infancy is now half a world away and older than ever before.

I can’t help but feel, that once I answer the question – who is he to me – I will be able to find out who I am a little bit more. A form of stimulation I forgot to mention earlier, the interaction between people. Maybe the answer lies there.

Today, I had the opportunity to read my writing out loud in public for, well, kind of the first time. It seems strange that I’d never done it, aside from reading excerpts to my creative writing classes pre-workshop or reading things to my family or whatever. But I’ve never participated in a poetry slam, never given a speech, really.

I was nominated by my creative writing professor to share my writing at this yearly event where, for four nights, there are casual readings in the Shapiro Undergraduate Library. It was an honor to get nominated by him, although I have no idea how much that counts; did he nominate me over other people in the class, or did he nominate the whole class and wait to see who accepted? In any event, there’s only one other person in the class who I know was also sharing, and even if she was just the only other person who accepted, it felt nice to get the recognition.

I showed up today at 7:00, ready to share an essay I’d published last summer on College Magazine about secondhand grief. As always, I was a little anxious the whole day about the experience. I’ve always had stage fright, which reached its height in high school when I went onstage to play piano at recitals with 50 or so people. Though it wasn’t as big of a deal this time, I was still a little nervous.

It turned out the ‘Café Shapiro’ event was even more casual than I’d realized. Outside of a couple fellow readers’ friends, one reader’s parents, and a couple random people glancing over, there was basically nobody listening to the readings. I didn’t really have a problem with that because it meant less stress for me, but I did wish I’d invited a few people just because it felt so empty. I almost felt bad for the librarians who’d organized it.

So as I went up there and started reading (I was the ninth and last reader), I was only a little nervous. There was a ton of ambient library noise as people walked by constantly, which made it feel less scary. My essay was short and thematically in line with many of the other readings. And, to be honest, almost nobody was listening.

As I was sitting there waiting to go up before I actually read, though, I thought of something that calmed my remaining nerves. I thought about how, in the future, once I’m a famous published author (something I’ve always been unusually confident about), I’ll be doing readings all the time. It’ll be different from this; there’ll be dozens, maybe hundreds, hey, maybe thousands of people. And once I’m there, I realized, I’ll look back on this day, this moment standing in a library near a busy café with a couple random college students glancing over every once in a while and only a few people really listening and obligatorily clapping.

Your college years are the years when you feel like you’re being forced to grow up, like childhood is terrifyingly far in the rearview mirror even though it feels like you are still an ignorant child. It’s helpful sometimes to realize that if you’re having a rough time in college, this doesn’t have to be the stereotypical ‘best years of your life.’ This isn’t the destination. As my smart friend Caroline said, we’re “still in peak transitional years, even if it doesn’t always feel like it.” Sometimes it’s comforting to remember that. Me, standing in the café and reading to an audience of five—this isn’t the end. This is only the beginning.

Summary:

We start again in a flashback to Ned’s boarding school. It is bedtime, but Ned is awake. He is playing with homemade clay dolls of the people back home, but Ned learns that he can no longer imagine. He looks at the moon, while child Chuck looks at it too back at home. We then transition back to the present with Ned waking up and watching Chuck sleeping. Chuck also wakes up and while trying to get up, slips and falls on top of Ned. Chuck surprisingly doesn’t die again. This leads to Ned and Chuck making out and undressing. Chuck then pulls off her skin to reveal Olive underneath. Ned wakes up in fright from his nightmare.

Ned and Emerson are having a conversation in the Pie Hole and Emerson explains that dreams don’t mean anything. Ned, still concerned about the kiss with Olive at the end of the last episode, confides in Emerson. He suggests to Ned that Olive has feelings for him. This distresses Ned even further which delights Emerson.

We then move over the conversation shared between Olive and Chuck. Olive confesses the kiss to Chuck which Ned didn’t mention to her. This upsets Olive , now realizing that the kiss wasn’t worth mentioning. Chuck explains that she and Ned never touch. Chuck says that it’s allergy in order to keep Ned’s secret.

In a scene change, we find dog breeder Harold Hardin dying. Narration explains that his almond flavored coffee was poisoned and after realizing this, Harold spills it on the ground. This causes him to slip and fall on the sharp end of a brush, multiple times. The Kennel Club offers a reward for catching the murderer. Emerson, Ned, and Chuck head to the morgue and find out that Harold’s wife gave him the coffee. Nothing is so simple though, as Emerson learns that Harold actually had four wives: Hillary, Heather, Simone, and Hallie.

At the Pie Hole we see Ned avoiding a conversation with Olive about their kiss. Ned also tries to avoid letting her help with the investigation, but Emerson thinks it is a good idea. Each person (Ned, Emerson, Chuck, and Olive) will visit a different wife to ask questions about the murder of Harold.

Through narration we learn the different occupations and personalities of the three wives: Hillary owns a boutique dog clothing store and is generally happy, but might snap if surprised or ridiculed; Heather is a pet psychologist though we don’t learn much else; Simone is a dog obedience teacher with a strong hunting instinct, like the Jack Russell Terriers she trains; and Hallie breeds seeing-eye dogs and much like her labradors, she loyal but competitively obedient.

Olive goes to visit Hillary, Ned visits Heather, Emerson goes to Simone, and Chuck sees Hallie. Through the investigations of Olive, Chuck, and Emerson, we learn of Bubblegum, the perfectly bred dog that Harold crafted. We also learn a little of Olive’s backstory and how she got to the Pie Hole. Simone says that Bubblegum died after she backed up over him after hearing of Harold’s death. Meanwhile, Ned gets some relationship advice from the mourning Heather. Through further conversation we come to realize that Simone and Harold had a mostly business relationship and all four wives gave Harold coffee that morning.

At the Pie Hole, the wives appear and confront the four. Before they can talk, Emerson asks who gave Harold the almond creamer and we learn that it was Hallie. After she is arrested, Chuck and Ned still believe that she is innocent.They go to visit her in prison and find out that she believes that Snuppy (a rival dog breeder) had killed Harold for Bubblegum.

Meanwhile, at the office of Snuppy, Ned and Chuck discuss the kiss. Chuck sees the possible benefit in polygamy in situations like theirs. Both of them want physical contact, but can’t have it and she believes that sometimes it is okay to hold someone else’s hand, or kiss someone else. Just then, Snuppy enters and we learn that he is the legal owner of Bubblegum against Harold’s wives’ wishes. He plans on cloning Bubblegum from his DNA.

Emerson goes to visit Simone and she also believes that Snuppy is the perpetrator. Emerson believes it was actually Simone, angry that she wouldn’t see any of the money from Bubblegum. Emerson leaves and takes a nap. In his dream state, he realizes that Bubblegum’s collar has moved everytime that he visited Simone and that the dog is still alive. We also learn that Emerson might be falling for Simone.

Ned once again avoids the kiss conversation with Olive and she is clearly upset. Hillary comes to the Pie Hole and Olive reveals to her that Bubblegum can still be cloned from the ashes.

Meanwhile, Emerson confronts Simone yet again and she reveals that she actually has Bubblegum hidden. But she knocks out Emerson before he can ask more. Emerson wakes up bound and Simone reveals that she believes Emerson was actually hired by Snuppy to find the real Bubblegum. This is of course false and across town, we find a dead Snuppy.

In an attempt to sniff out the murderer, The trio bring Snuppy’s body to the funeral to see who will be most shocked by the recently reawakened body. Hillary sees Snuppy alive and starts to run. Ned fortunately catches her. Through narration, we learn the motive: Hillary had never liked polygamy, but adored Bubblegum. When she found out he was going to be cloned, she was angry that Bubblegum would no longer be the only one of its breed. In order to avoid this, she killed Harold and attempted to frame Hallie. She then killed Snuppy, not knowing that Bubblegum was still alive and Snuppy only had a rat’s ashes.

Ned apologizes to Olive and she admits that she wants Chuck and Ned to work out. She only wants Ned to be happy.

Pros:

-Emerson and Simone’s relationship was one of the highlights of this episode. They worked well together as opposite sides of the same coin.

-The other highlight was Olive again. Kristin Chenowith is an amazing performer and it shines through in this episode.

-The mystery was clever and an easy one to follow along.

-Finally hearing Olive’s backstory was great.

– A surprisingly positive portrayal of polygamy as both the narrator and Chuck defend it as real love.

Cons:

-I wish we could have actually seen and not heard Olive’s backstory.

-The mystery did not leave enough clues in the beginning to implicate the murder, it seems to come from left field (though this is somewhat common in the show).

-I love the clever use of dog breeds as metaphors for the personalities of the wives.

Overall:

This was good episode. Not one of the best, but it is a great showcase for the talents of Chi McBrinde and Krisitn Chenowith. This episode only leaves me wanting more from them. The issue of the kiss throughout the narrative is also great as it explores another aspect of Ned and Chuck’s rekationship, rather than leaving it stagnant. It was greatly built up in the last few episodes. This episode provides some relief to the problem, but it does not solve it. It makes the relationship seem much more realistic.

Rating:

7/10 Daisies

We are all born knowing how to breathe. It’s simple and the moment life begins our nervous system takes over and begins to tell us “inhale, exhale” so quietly that we forget we were ever listening. Even in the moments that take our breathe away we are reminded “inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale”. After a sudden grab of your shoulder or a noise in the darkness “inhale, exhale, inhale”. So how is it that something so natural and so practiced can be so hard?

A singer is only as good as their last breath and lately, the breaths that I have been taking have been shallows gasps desperate for life instead of expansive, “let it all go” breaths that feel like the obvious eventuality, sucking in fresh air without any effort at all. Like most areas of my life, I’m overthinking it. Worried I am not doing enough, I work harder and harder to get a good breath, a counterproductive effort resulting in the tighten up of each and every muscles in my body and pushing through the air rather than allowing it to flow through me.

So why is it so hard? Why can I not simply do less and allow my body to do what it has done for the past 22 years and simply breathe?

Part of it must be mental. The subconscious belief that art is pain, suffering and determination against all odds. That for true artistry to exist one must be on the brink of emotional and physical distress. The misguided belief that Alexandria, just as she is with no frills or fancy footwork, is good enough and strong enough in her technique to simply breathe, engage and sing. The rest then must be a learned habit developed over time. Ingrained in me during hours in the practice room and established as a new normal during performance.

If I am to survive as a singer, as an artist and a human being I must learn to breathe properly. To let it all go so that I can begin anew and to not push when I get to the end, but trust that my technique will support me, is terrifying in all regards but necessary if I wish to move forward. After all, how hard could it be? If I could do it when I was just a few days old why not now?