My name is Anne, as you've possibly deduced from the blog title. It might seem narcissistic to name a blog after oneself, but I'm trying to justify it in my own mind because the title is also a literary allusion. I had a bag that I carried around in high school that said Anne Surely on it (I made it myself) and the wordplay was lost on my peers.
"It's like Anne Shirley," I explained to them. "You know, the girl from Anne of Green Gables. Her last name was Shirley. And I'm Anne . . . surely. As in, definitely Anne."
They were mostly uninterested and unimpressed. (I probably sounded like a weirdo, which makes sense, because I was one.) I thought I was clever. Some part of me still does, because I'm titling myself that way once again.
Speaking of being a teenager and a weirdo -- have you seen Stranger Things? A vocal majority of the Netflix-watching world seems to have gulped down the second season of this paranormal, eighties-throwback phenomenon in the month (or so) since it was released, and my husband and I are among their ranks. We hadn't even watched the first season until the second season was available, so whether we were a year behind the curve or just clever enough to ensure that we would be able to watch both seasons back-to-back without any agony of waiting in between -- well, it's a matter of perspective, to be honest.
I'd heard enough positive feedback about the show from a diverse enough crowd of people that I thought it was going to be good. It was better than good. Perfect television isn't something we're promised in this world (Firefly is about as close as it gets) but Stranger Things gets so much right. My childhood, Goonies-fueled desire to join a bike-riding gang of adventurers was awoken, and the knowledge of Dungeons and Dragons that I've gained from my husband in six years of marriage suddenly became relevant outside of our late-night conversations.
The world of Stranger Things is one you end up wanting to live in. Sure, there are monsters lurking just around the corner in the upside-down, and okay, there are jerks and bullies as repulsive as the ones in real life . . . but there's also a group of friends willing to die for each other and kids with telekinetic powers and a bitchin' eighties soundtrack.
It wasn't until today when I was listening to one of my (numerous) Spotify playlists that I connected the Stranger Things world (and to some extent, the stripped-down eighties aesthetic) to another story that has intrigued me ever since I became aware of it a few years ago (some time after it debuted, because being slightly behind the curve is my modus operandi). That would be the music video for David Guetta's song "Titanium."
If you haven't seen it, I think it's worth the four minutes. If you've seen Stranger Things I think the connections will be pretty obvious. A boy with abilities that look pretty much like telekinesis; scenes of bike-riding and running through the woods; ominous encounters with the authorities. After spending some time in Hawkins, Indiana it feels like deja vu (except that this music video predates the Netflix series by about five years). This video has always left me with dozens of questions and a burning desire for some context to the story, but what makes me keep coming back to it might be the ambiguity and the simplicity of the narrative (even if the boy seems woefully lacking in a support system -- he seems like he could use some Mikes and Dustins to help him out, and maybe a Steve Harrington as well).
What does it mean? Probably nothing. My best guess is that the Duffer brothers and whoever created this video have some shared sources of inspiration. If we wanted to get fanfiction-y, it wouldn't be hard to imagine that this boy is one of the nine other people (children?) who spent some time at the Hawkins National Laboratory -- could he be Three? or Seven? or Ten -- and therefore one of Eleven's lost "siblings"?
If you're looking for answers, they aren't here. If you have answers, I want to hear them myself! It was a connection that I made today that got me thinking about stories.
That's what I really want to do with this blog: talk about stories. I dearly love to talk about stories. I like to pull them apart, to discuss them, to analyze them, to discover new insights. I like to crawl inside the worlds that they create and into the minds and lives of the characters. For full disclosure, I was an English major back in the day, but I don't want to get too academic about this. Stories are entertaining and they help us understand the world and other people and ourselves. There doesn't have to be anything deeper than that.
Of course, there can be, and I'm always willing to consider that possibility as well.
But mostly I just want to write about stories. Books, movies, television and even the occasional wild card, like a mysterious story told by a music video. Maybe on occasion I'll even talk about stories that are true.
If you've found me out here in the heathen wilds of the internet, I'm glad to have you along for the ride!
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