i was thinking the other day about how certain things have influence in my life.  particularly the influence of culture from movies and tv shows into my own speech and personality.  for example, while watching rounders last night there is a line about someone being a “judas.”  whenever i hear someone called a judas, i instantly picture harvey keitel from the last temptation of christ.

later in the movie when malkovitch is portraying teddy kgb (a part of the movie so completely full of classic one liners that it itself is probably worth an entire blog post) i started to think about the infusion of “catch phrases” or movie line quotes into everyday speech.  seinfeld is a particularly good example.  there are many lines from that show that i say daily without really realizing that i’m quoting the show.  some phrases, like  “not that there’s anything wrong with that” are probably forgotten to even be from that show by a lot of people.  someday that phrase may still be popular, and people will not remember the show it came from.

i think the phenomena of quoting lines from movies back and forth is a way that people  show a shared culture.  in this country we don’t have a uniform set of religious experiences, cultural traits, or art.  what we have is a shared culture of media.  i think most people in this country have seen at least one movie in their lives.  letting other people know you’ve seen a movie is a good way to set some common ground between you.   i think it helps to create a bond between individuals and generate a sense of shared experiences and culture.

it can still be pretty annoying to witness sometimes though…

got back from a nice trip to florida w/the gf. her family lives there (and it’s where she did most of her growing up, having been born in brooklyn, nyc). i have to say, spending christmas somewhere it is 75 or 80 degrees was a bit more disconcerting than i thought it would be. don’t think i didn’t enjoy the warmth, as i’m known to hate winter, but it was very different not exchanging presents while it was cold outside. there’s just something to be said for a christmas in winter.

i think i missed that cold, crisp smell the most. it wasn’t the same going outside and sweating and having that damp, moist, summertime type smell. there’s just something about it. every christmas show, commercial, card, or wrapping paper has some sort of snowy winter scene or snowflake on it. i don’t know why, but it always seems like christmas is associated with snow and blustery winter, even when i think more people probably celebrate christmas where it’s warm.

people like the idea of the comfort of a fire, hot chocolate (even though my gf had that almost every day we were there), and big wool sweaters with snowflakes on them. it’s just the way we envision christmas in this country. i don’t know if that comes from the fact that many of our ancestors came from cold climates or what. for whatever reason, christmas and cold just go hand in hand.

anyway, i had a blast but was happy to return home. the orlando airport was mega crowded this morning at 530am when we got there, lines out the wazoo. we only spent like 30 minutes in line total, which wasn’t too bad all told. CMH was dead as usual. i guess no one flys around here or something. i’ve only ever seen it crazy crowded like once in 10 years. but that’s kind of nice in a way, so i hope that doesn’t change.

i mean, really… does that look christmas-y to you?