Romance Novels and Pornography

It occurs to me that romance novels are pornography for women. I don't mean they contain sex (although some certainly do). I mean they are a cheap trick designed to stimulate the pleasure center of our lizard-brains. Men, in their basest state, generally enjoy the idea of consequence-free sex with fertile women. Media which exploit this fact are considered pornographic. Women also have base instincts, but they generally revolve around monogamy and stability (and, of course, consequencial sex). Those themes (or should I say fantasies?) are fundamental to romance novels.

Does it sound crass to say that monogamy and stability are base instincts? We like to think of them as sophisticated concepts, but why? Hell, penguins are monogamous.

Romance novels are the most popular genre in modern literature, worth over a billion dollars in 2007. That might be bigger than regular porn, and that's not counting romance-themed movies or television.

What to do when you don't have change for the parking meter...

Awesome. I took this in Mill Valley, California this weekend.

Exegesis of The Matrix

There were a couple of things that really bugged me about The Matrix trilogy. They were never fully explained, but I thought it through and I think I know what the Wachowski's were going for. It all has to do with the blurred line between the human world and the machine world.

The Questions

How can Neo enter The Matrix without a hard line?
How can Neo sense and disable the Sentinels?
How can he see the robots after he's been blinded?

Let's connect some dots.

Food and Software

In The Matrix, software can be installed via food. We see this when Neo swallows the red pill and later when The Merovingian uses a piece of cake to seduce a woman. Remember those cookies The Oracle was baking when we first met her? They had code in 'em, and Neo eats one.

Wireless Matrix

The Matrix is a high speed wireless network (those hovercrafts don't have a DSL line). Neo is able to log into the network because The Oracle's cookie rewired his brain. In fact, it rewired his entire nervous system (more on this below).

Sentinel Communication

Neo can disable Sentinels because they communicate through a wireless network (let's assume it's actually part of The Matrix). The Oracle gave him a backdoor self-destruct command which he could broadcast, using his nervous sytem like an antenna. Obviously his nervous system wasn't made to do this -- that's why it almost kills him.

Sentinel Ghosts

Remember when one of the Sentinels is destroyed, but we see it's "ghost" move through Neo and Trinity's ship? Part of The Matrix is an overlay into the real world. The squids use that overlay to communicate and coordinate (we're starting to do this today with VR goggles). Each squid exists in the real world and also the network. When one of them explodes, it's "ghost" (i.e., it's avatar in The Matrix) might linger on for a while. Neo can see into the overlay (thanks to his Oracle cookie upgrade), so he sees the avatar. Same goes for the robot city (and all it's inhabitants). They live in an enhanced world with a virtual overlay. Neo was blind, so the overlay was all he could see. Of course in the overlay, the robots are beautiful, perfect creatures of light.

That's It!

It all makes sense. It might be wrong, but it's consistent with the movies and it explains a lot. Please leave comments and feedback.

Mark