Social Soup

I wonder how apt this title is, or if this is more about life, or adventure and spontaneity, or what? Also see: EmbarassYourself

I just read a really good article about Tom Green, in Rolling stone magazine. I've seen his show a few times in the past and laughed in that way where you think it's kinda aweful and wish you werent laughing, and I'd concluded that he was weird as hell and a bastard. But get this: after reading the article, I thought I actually like something about him (and I can see why drew barrymore is with him). I wouldn't have thought it possible. After that I was in such a weird mood I actually enjoyed South Park...

Here's the bit of the article that really caught my attention:

 "It was also within this skating friendship that 
 Green and Giroux identified and developed 
 two guiding principals, which help explain 
 Green's peculiar contribution to modern culture. 
 The first is chewing. In a literal sense, it is simply 
 the pursing of lips and mastication that occur 
 while considering a course of action, but by 
 extension it is the process that gives you the 
 resolve to do something, particularly something 
 with potentially dangerous or humiliating 
 consequences. The second is flipping. Flipping 
 is when you consider something that seems an 
 entirely undesirable course of action and then decide, 
 simply by resolving to flip it, to treat it as though it 
 were the most desirable outcome of all. "Basically," 
 says Giroux, "if something's a nightmare, it becomes 
 a paradise. If there's something that would normally 
 be negative to other people, we convert that instantly 
 to the other extreme, to the positive. Something 
 that's totally not funny becomes really really funny."

  "It is easy to see how this offers the way not only 
 to a different sense of humor but to a refusal of 
 certain kinds of shame and embarrassment. In 
 some quarters it is customary to explain and 
 dismiss the greater excesses of /The Tom Green/ 
  /Show/ as an attempt to shock and gross people 
 out, but if you watch closely, that rarely seems to 
 be what Green is trying to do. Whereas if you look 
 at much of his comedy as an exercise in chewing 
 and flipping on a monumental scale, it makes 
 perfect sense."

It made me think of Nick and Rick, who were here a couple days ago on their way back from ACK. I think the creative products of their friendship are comparable to the above. Like their non-decision game (actually pioneered by Gennie and Nick, but carried on admirably by the Icks) and their pointed experimentation with planning absolutely nothing.

• Little interjection here: could you tell me what this non-decision game is? It sounds a lot like something I'd want to do this fall, since I'm completely burned out on all the things I've been doing. marina

• I'll field this one... hmm, I think it deserves a new section... how about documenting all the GamesUnschoolersPlay

It all fascinates me. Another ingredient added to the simmering soup in the back of my brain. It's all about social interaction, rules, games, real life... I think about this stuff alot, so I expect I'll be adding to this page. How 'bout you? Do you think about this stuff?

I think I need to find myself a partner in crime. (How come all these great duos I can think of are guys? Is this going to be a problem?)

Reanna

• bonny and clyde, or thelma and louise, come to mind.