#jazzing

Photographer Tom Oldham

Joe Gardener 🎹🎶.

The movie Soul by Pixar spoke to me in that scene where Joe begins to play the piano and gets in the zone after finding the collection of tidbits 22 saved. 

As I watched Joe’s eyes light up, my mind got enlightened by so many thoughts. 

Thoughts that made me see how our lives are made up of a collection of small moments, that we sometimes think as insignificant (“regular old life”), but aren’t insignificant; they’re life.

And life in those moments shouldn’t be meaningful just because of a purpose, no. What makes it meaningful is enjoying -taking in- the small things, living them out, experiencing the extraordinary in the ordinary. And as I reflected on this, I couldn’t help the upward tug of my lips, I couldn’t help my smile. Because I remembered the quiet joy the small moments I’ve experienced have given me.

I remembered, I saw that in those small moments I felt alive; I was present.

Which got me to a phrase I was taught a couple of years ago, a Zulu greeting: Sawubona. It translates to: I see you. I was taught to see it as: I acknowledge you in this moment, therefore I will stay present and in this moment with all my senses.

Ever since, I tried to sawubona every moment, but in the crazy pace we self-impose to our lives I began to forget about sawubona-ing each moment. So now, I feel quietly joyful that this movie, Soul, made me pause and remember I live to sawubona each moment. That’s the spark.

We all are capable of getting that spark. We are good enough, we just need to be ready to live. Let’s take a deep breath and feel the present moment: that’s what’s living it’s all about.

I hope this movie gets seen by everyone, and gives them another chance to live their lives, like Jerry did to Joe in that last scene. 

Let’s not get lost like that little fish that was looking for the ocean and because of his stubbornness didn’t realize that he already was in the ocean, all he needed was a change of outlook.

Let’s spend our lives living out every single minute of it.

You know, 2020 was the year that helped us live every moment. The year that reminded us what truly matters. Despite the many loved ones it took away from us, it gave us the chance to be present and feel every moment. 

Might want? Anything that offers easy accolades and ego strokes. She likes the idea of being a famous poet, being president, being a world-class spy, traveling the world, dominating the world. She’s a sad kid that just wants control over her life and to be loved for having that control. In Aptitude Test, however, more realistically (as she usually is around Phoebe), she predicts owning her own ball team, writing lots of books and being a greedy land-baron, which would all satisfy her need for power, esteem and creativity, as well as her viciously competitive nature.

Objectively, I see her starting out as a poet and eventually branching out into novel-writing, and that would be her primary career. Part time, she’d help out with Big Bob’s Beepers, acting as a manager along with her mom. Those are two things I can’t really see her not doing in some capacity. She enjoys the thought of power, but she’s an artistic soul at heart. She has a talent for rallying people and getting them to do what she believes needs to be done, but once she has them rallied, there isn’t a whole lot of substance to her plans, which is why I’d personally rather she didn’t go into politics. She has no faith in people or the world, and isn’t very good with strategy. She’s manipulative, but I don’t trust her to know what’s right. Maybe in conjunction with Arnold, her talents there would shine – I have Arnold pegged as San Lorenzo’s Ambassador, and can see Helga traveling with him and helping out with the less savory aspects of the job, and it seems to me with aptitudes for “international business affairs” and “political science,” this is the outcome the show was hinting at anyway – but outside these specific circumstances, I wouldn’t vote for her. I feel bad about it, but that’s my truth. I feel like her talents are better directed at making poignant observations about the world through fiction and grabbing hold of more straight-forward business opportunities.

Coaching a team isn’t out of the question, but it would be a very aggressive team and I think if Arnold were ever to coach a team against her, she would probably lose, and I don’t think she would enjoy that very much, lol. I could be wrong, character development is like this whole thing, but that’s my current take. Maybe in conjunction with Arnold, again. A lot of parallels were made between Helga and Arnold and Coach Wittenburg and Tish throughout the series, and I would like to see those parallels realized, but honestly I can’t see Arnold being the greatest political leader without Helga or Helga being a very good ball coach without Arnold.

Land-owning would be fantastic for her, I think she’d be great at it, although that is a challenging career path to break into independently and would take up a lot of her time and money in the beginning stages. So, later in life, maybe. 

Aw, thank you for understanding! I have been sorta busy, but tbh one of the main reasons it takes me so long to answer questions is because I… really don’t remember what my opinions are sometimes, lmao. I have to routinely rewatch episodes and squint into the nether to formulate responses to these things. I’ve loved HA! for ten years and it’s still my baby, make no mistake, but I don’t think about it a whole lot anymore. So that’s my terrible truth. I’m glad you like what I have to say anyway. I really be trying, lol.

As for Olga, mmm… No, I don’t think she’s especially intuitive, specifically. She may have a functional equivalent that masquerades itself as intuition, but intuition itself is like… animal instinct, pattern recognition, almost mystical-like, an innate muscle that starts out sturdy in those lucky enough to possess it (Arnold, Helga) and grows stronger with practice. I don’t think Olga was born with strong intuition, if she has any, and I also don’t think she’s had much room to develop it (I don’t think she got out much as a kid). But then maybe she’s just too self-absorbed to recognize things, or too idealistic. Maybe if she was a little healthier, psychologically, it’d be revealed she is fairly intuitive, but as it is, I haven’t seen a lot of evidence to support that. Doug was really… something.

That said, I agree! I do think she understands how fucky her life is a bit better than most people want to acknowledge. But you have to be careful with this understanding of her. I’ve seen people watching “Olga Comes Home” and getting very angry, because it does reveal this deeper side to Olga that says things like, “You’re lucky they ignore you” and “I feel like a windup doll,” and if Olga understands what her presence does to Helga – how miserable and lonely she is – why does she continue to act like that? Why doesn’t she try to fix things? And I never know how to respond, because it’s like… they’re her parents, too. Which situation would you rather be in? The one where your parents are nice to you sometimes but mostly neglect you, or the one where your parents bathe you in praise but their affection hinges entirely upon how hard you work getting perfect grades at a prestigious university, winning awards, and doing extra extra credit even though you don’t need it, and even then, with all that, they still ignore you sometimes? 

The thing that’s always amazed me about this interaction is that Olga almost seems to envy Helga. Like she’s thought about which scenario is better before, and more than once, she’s decided she’d rather they didn’t know she existed. That’s incredible. She knows Helga resents her, but Helga has a lot of things Olga never had–room to breathe, freedom to choose, friends and hobbies outside of school and state-wide competitions. It’s easy to feel bad for Helga because we’re given her perspective all the time. We only ever get snippets of Olga’s, so it’s a little more difficult to empathize with her, but the pieces are there for those of us who care enough to put them together. 

I don’t want to defend Olga too much. My argument has always been that Olga isn’t perfect–she’s human. She’s self-centered and dense and depressed and childish and obnoxiously loving and awful and precious. That’s why I like her so much. There’s something very honest about her, in that she’s so bad at being dishonest. She sees how their parents affect Helga and makes a point of aiming extra attention at her when she comes over. She crouches down to her level and tells her she’s a beautiful young lady and kisses her cheeks. She gives her things to do on holidays so she feels included. She transferred from the illustrious Wellington College in England to Bennington in Vermont to be closer to Helga. She tries to make up for their parents where she can, and she doesn’t try to get their parents to pick up the slack because she doesn’t think their parents paying more attention to Helga would necessarily be a good thing, because look what it’s done to her. It’s a bit narrow of her, all of it, but it is well-meaning.

So I rambled a bit there, but tldr; Olga is a very interesting and intelligent character and eVERYONE SHOULD  L O V E  HER, but I wouldn’t necessarily call her intuitive. I don’t think she was socialized enough to develop those kinds of instincts. If they exist in any capacity, they’re shriveled up raisins buried deep in her subconscious. You can tell from episodes like “Little Sis” and “Student Teacher,” Olga’s fine when she’s interacting with teachers and kids, but with people outside of those two very specific categories, she’s downright… God, she’s just plain bashful? And it’s so funny? Because Lila’s there like “Oooh, adults are being super nice to me? Of course adults are being super nice to me, adults always are because I’m a cute little girl!” but Olga’s floundering. She’s not used to getting something for nothing and it’s so funny and sad to watch. She just scrunches in on herself and looks so confused and out of sorts. I hate it. I hate everything. End my life.

You might point out that Olga goes to fraternity mixers and dates multiple guys simultaneously, but I think those are things that came waaay later in life, and if “Olga Gets Engaged” is any indication, she doesn’t really have any close friends. Dumbass taste in men, no bridesmaids, gets calls from women with pretentious bitch names like “Price LaBlanc” with messages about how they found her “unforgettable” (interesting word choice). Look, I don’t wanna say Olga’s a loser and an idiot, but… Olga’s a loser and an idiot and I would die for her, goodnight.

Oooooh, religion. The topic everyone loves to pretend doesn’t exist and just copy-pastes onto their favs without comment. This’ll be fun. Sure hope nobody runs me over with their car after this. That’d be just… terrrrriiibbblleee, haha… 

Okay, I’m gonna come right out with it and say I think Arnold is a lazy Christian. This headcanon is brought to you by our sponsor, the original claymation short, “Arnold Goes to Church.” So, yes, I think Miles and Stella must be religious in some sense. Stella’s probably Catholic, since I HC her with a mom from Central America. I’ve always pegged the Shortmans for very lazy Christians (no clue what denomination, just… Christians), so I think when Miles and Stella met, Miles was not used to attending Church regularly or at all, but he started doing it because Love. So for the first year or two of his life, Arnold attended service every Sunday like clockwork and just completely zonked out, and then at some point after his parents peaced out of his life, he started reading the Bible because it was another way of keeping them close. I’ve always found it hilarious when people describe Arnold as “a good Christian boy,” because it’s such a perfect epithet for him. He really is such a good Christian boy. Everything about the way he conducts himself just screams it. Like, you know Arnold didn’t get that virtuous stick up his ass from his grandparents or, ha!, the boarders.

That said, yeah, I think he’s lazy about it, too. I don’t know that Arnold’s ever set foot in a Church more than a few times in his life since his parents pranced off to take a decade-long nap; I’m not sure that it’s something he believes with his whole heart; I’m not even sure it’s something he spends much time thinking about. I see it functioning as a kind of absent-minded security blanket more than anything, and if prodded about it, he’d just make a face at you. When he gets to be an adult, I can totally see him taking religious studies in college, though, since his parents got back and kinda roped him into attending Church again, on top of that whole uncomfortable San Lorenzo thing with the… the Green Eyes… worshipping him and all, like… Yeah, I can see it becoming a fascination of his. In my personal canon, he ultimately ends up pretty agnostic, but still practices from time to time just for the sake of it, and not just Christianity. He speaks with the Green Eyes often and the whole of their society is mounted on a firm bedrock of religious belief (they insist he’s divine and he’s not gonna be a dick about it), so he adopts a gentle, deferential kind of relationship with religion as a whole.

I think Helga’s chronically atheist by day, bitter believer by night. Like really just sobs obscenities into her pillow and demands things. Hasn’t she done that in show? It seems like that’s happened before in some sense. Sometimes when Helga’s “talking to herself,” it really feels like she’s speaking to some higher power, and not very kindly. I don’t really see that changing too much once she’s an adult. Like, a lot less anal and far more judicious about it all, but still kinda leaning somewhere in the middle. Not really agnostic, she’s too dramatic for that–just, like a light switch constantly flipping back and forth.

Harold’s Jewish. He always will be Jewish. I think he’s happy that way. I don’t see him ever changing. He’s gonna be your friendly neighborhood Jewish butcher, secure in himself and his beliefs without ever being disrespectful about any of it, and you’re gonna adore him.

I’ll briefly mention a few others I’ve thought about a little, but that’s kinda the end of the characters I’ve given real and genuine consideration towards. Except Sid. I’m gonna sob-laugh about Sid for a second and none of you can stop me. Brace yourselves.

I think Sid’s going to bounce from belief system to belief system until he dies. Like literally, one week he’s Baptist, the next he’s Buddhist, the next he’s Pagan. One week, he just shows up and announces he’s a Quaker because “that Marge Felt lady was right, my relationship with God is my business and my business alone and I shouldn’t have to justify it to anybody, not those stuffy weirdos at the Church or you, Arnold,” but then literally a couple weeks later he shows up smoking an incense stick and is like, “Institutional religion has always been oppressive. The heart and soul of the body is the only true indicator of reality. The stars are my truth.” Naturally he discards all that by next month and is a devoted Catholic and he’s never been anything but a Catholic, deep down he’s always Known he’s Catholic, he was Born a Catholic and how could you suggest there was ever a time he wasn’t Catholic?? Arnold??? Fuck you, Arnold?? The priest is standing right there, Arnold?? You Bitch???? One time he tries to break into Judaism but Harold punches him in the face so hard the next day he’s an atheist with an emo haircut and a spontaneous obsession with Asking Alexandria. Harold feels a little bad. But only a little.

Nadine’s casually spiritual and meditates from time to time with Sheena, who is a far more devout incense smoker. Probably where Sid got the idea from. 

Stinky’s a vampire. He’s Christian in theory, but he can’t go into Churches. T'shame.

Rhonda Is Not White 2k19, so whatever religion there is in her home country is probably what she practices very fashionably and with great pride and little reflection. Because she’s just… like that. Don’t ask me what her home country is, I’ve been trying to figure it out but it’s hard. Korean? Filipino? Lebanese? Idk. I’m open to suggestions.

Well, first of all, thank you for the neat new resource, whoa. That is super helpful and I will definitely be using that in the future.

As for my headcanons, I’m a little nervous to say because I know they’re unpopular, lol. So little disclaimer there, but.

At age 15 (and likely the rest of their lives since growth spurts after 14 (female) and 16 (male) are rare):

FOR COMPARISON:US MALE AVERAGE: 5'9"US FEMALE AVERAGE: 5'4"

Arnold: 5'7"Helga: 5'6"Gerald: 5'10"Phoebe: 5'4"Harold: 5'5"Patty: 5'11"Stinky: 6'3"Sid: 5'6"Rhonda: 5'4"Curly: 5'12"Eugene: 5'3"

And those are the ones I’ve thought about and stand behind. I think most of these are pretty self-explanatory, they’re just based off their parents, but I’ll explain the ones I know most other fans are likely to be confused by. You can skip anything you’re uninterested in, Anon. ❤️I just like to be thorough. 

It is controversial to propose Arnold and Helga end up about the same height–most everybody prefer one of them to be significantly taller than the other–but it’s… just not my preference, for a few reasons. The Shortmans are a tall folk, Craig has confirmed that, but I like to think the males on Stella’s side of the family run a little smaller just because the idea of Arnold tall seems strange. He’s been consistently small throughout his childhood, and even at age eleven didn’t really grow more than maybe an inch or two since the fourth grade. Specifically, I think Arnold’s namesake, Stella’s dad, was the same. That is to say, I think he was a shorter than average dude, and I like to think Arnold strongly resembles him. That’s a baseless personal headcanon, and I acknowledge that. Arnold could be a late bloomer. I just like him a little smol.

On Helga’s end of things, my reasoning is just that… Well, there isn’t really any wrong way to calculate Helga’s height because we know basically nothing about her roots apart from Bob and Miriam. And Miriam appears to be average-ish, maybe above, Bob actually isn’t too too much taller (maybe 3-4 inches, and 2-4 inches shorter than Phil who I imagine is about 5'12"-6'0"), and Olga’s either average or below since she’s noticeably shorter than Miriam, so it’s just easiest for me to headcanon Helga as a couple inches over 5'4". It’s safe, it’s comfortable, it’s funny because it subverts expectations a bit. But I will say this: Miriam’s family is from South Dakota, Bob’s probably is as well, and South Dakota boasts some of the tallest folks in the US. Bob is also some form of Scandinavian – Hungarian, German, Ukrainian, Polish, who knows – and men in those countries tend to float around the benchmark of 5'10", and women an inch or two below the US average. So, Helga could easily be tall. Helga could also be pretty short. I do enjoy it when people portray her as this hulking powerhouse of a woman who could lift Arnold with just one arm, it’s a high quality option I would like to see more of, but my thing is that I’m always trying to a) be realistic, and b) leave room for funny scenarios. And Arnold being literally just one inch taller than Helga and Helga being endlessly salty about it is hilarious to me. 

Apart from all that, I hate to mention this, but: Helga isn’t consistently fed, and when she is fed, it’s usually with crap, so. When kids aren’t fed well or often, they don’t tend to grow quite as much as they might have otherwise. So, that is something to take into account. Moving on now.

About Gerald: thing is, there’s that stereotype of black men being absolute mountains because of basketball and I think that’s probably why most people see Gerald being like six feet, but… Gerald’s dad is a frugal numbers-obsessed business man. He’s nerdy. He’s kinda short. It makes a little bit of sense to me that Gerald might be tall-ish because for a nine-year-old boy, he is fairly big? But eh. I just try to split the difference, to honor both his genes and his onscreen rate of development, and I arrive at a little above average because the thought of Gerald being the sole Tol of his immediate family (taller than Jamie-O, especially) is funny to me, and I will always pick the option that is funny to me.

Aaaand both of Harold’s parents are tiny. I don’t really know why people always draw/write him tall--I guess it’s more attractive? he always refers to himself as big? he’s a part of the hulking bully/gentle giant archetype?--but people forget he’s 13 in-show and actually pretty small for his age. At least compared to, like, fifth and sixth graders. Wolfgang is at least twice his height, and I’m pretty sure Harold is older than him. This show is ridiculously confusing and inconsistent about age and child development, but, well. These are the only points of reference we have, so. Yep. 

I love Patty… That’s it. That’s my reasoning. Let her tower over us all as she rightfully deserves.