The Tangential

The worst Harry Potter book covers from around the world

Wed, 22 May 2013 15:38:29 -0500

The worst Harry Potter book covers from around the world

Ten Easy Ways to Make Your Life More Like a Movie Trailer

Tue, 21 May 2013 18:18:00 -0500

Every once in a while, fall over in a way that looks really funny—but without actually hurting yourself. Like, fall on your ass while on an ice-skating date, or wipe out while jogging in a way that shows how out-of-shape and in need of a life epiphany you are.

Get instrumental accompaniment. Start with light piano, then work your way up to acoustic guitar strums, and finish up with a soaring track from an album Pitchfork gave an 8.3 when it was released three years ago.

Fireworks. Do whatever you need to do, but stand in front of fireworks every time it gets dark. Every time. Sparklers are fine in a pinch.

Hang out with easily pegged archetypes. If you have a roommate, make sure he’s a classic stoner. Your BFF should be slightly better-dressed, but also slightly less attractive than you. Make sure your dad wears flannel shirts and your mom noses into your life at humorously inappropriate moments.

Have some kids run around crazily. They don’t need to be yours, but find some little kids to go apeshit all over a living room or backyard while you stand in the middle and yell at them ineffectually.

Never have sex—just kiss and get your partner to take off his/her shirt. The kiss should ideally be against a wall in the rain, and the shirt should come off while he or she is standing next to your bed; when this happens, you should be lying on your back in the bed, looking surprised and awed by his/her hot bod. Everyone’s pants stay on.

Live in a picturesque setting. Cities are great, but only if they have recognizable skylines and famous landmarks. Otherwise, move to a small town with dusty roads and golden sunsets.

Dance. Dance well if—and only if—dancing is your LIFE. Otherwise, dance poorly. For efficiency, this can be combined with the amusing fall.

Call someone out for being slightly offensive. Since all your friends should be classic archetypes (see above), you can and should engineer a situation where—for example—your redneck dad in his flannel shirt says something slightly offensive about your flamboyant gay friend. Call your dad out for this to show you’re personally enlightened, despite the entertainingly unenlightened supporting characters in your life.

Always be coming to a moment of truth. You were confused about your life, until…now.

- Jay Gabler

Ten Kinds of Book People It’s Impossible to Have a Conversation With

Mon, 20 May 2013 21:02:48 -0500

The Book Clubber. This person can’t stop talking about The Kite Runner, The Devil in the White City, The Help, and Gone Girl. Airport bookstores meet all her needs. You suspect that books not containing discussion guides terrify her.

The Fast Reader. He likes books that you can read quickly, and he reads them quickly. He goes through a dozen different mystery series a year, and dips into science fiction when he has to. He has lots of positive things to say about books, but only in the most general terms.

The Hyper-Relevant Reader. If it’s on the cover of the New York Times Book Review, it’s on her nightstand. Whenever you mention an author, she asks what you think about the author’s newest book. She never thinks it’s as good as the author’s previous book.

The Used Bookstore Guy. This guy is notable for his questionable personal hygiene and his outrageously esoteric, strangely random tastes. He’ll be in line in front of you at Half-Price Used Books, carrying a Bruce Chatwin first edition, a Joyce Carol Oates paperback you’ve never heard of, a field guide to South American insects, and an analysis of the 1988 Presidential election. You wonder whether he’s read every other book in existence and these are all he has left.

The Book Hoarder. She only reads books in hard copy, and she keeps every one of them in her one-bedroom apartment. She can speak intelligently and passionately about her books, but it’s impossible to concentrate on the conversation because you’re constantly afraid that you’ll step on a long-forgotten cat, a bookshelf will fall and crush you, or a spark from the oven will hit the cookbook shelf and send the whole place up in flames.

The PBS Person. Every episode of Scientific American Frontiers, Ken Burns American Stories, Masterpiece, or Mystery! sends him running to Barnes & Noble for a stack of books he’ll never read. If you ask him about any book he owns, he can talk with vast enthusiasm for exactly 30 seconds.

The YA Freak. She thinks books for young adults are the best, and she raves about all the books your 12-year-old cousin complains about having to read for school. She loves to talk about how complex teenagers are and how fascinating their lives really are, according to 43-year-olds who write books about them.

The Incongruous Philosopher. You only discover this bro is a book person when, in the middle of a conversation about college football, he mentions his alma mater and then starts going on about the history teacher who introduced him to Spinoza. Have you read A Short Treatise on God, Man and His Well-Being? No? Well, you should. It’s fucking awesome.

The Lit Scenester. She’s typically found smoking American Spirits outside all the hottest readings by local authors and by national authors whose pants she thinks she can get into. Ask her about any of their books and she’ll blow smoke out of the side of her mouth, then say, “It’s all right.”

The Writer. When you compliment his newest book he nods and politely thanks you, then takes a cigarette from the lit scenester and asks her what she’s doing later.

- Jay Gabler

Things that Yahoo! Buying Tumblr Feels Like

Sun, 19 May 2013 16:27:26 -0500

-Your hot graphic designer friend who sometimes misappropriates Native American headdresses for fashion reasons saying she’s getting married to a 60-year-old intellectual property lawyer who still uses Proactiv.

-Liz Lemon marrying the beeper king

-Avril Lavigne marrying the dude from Nickelback

-Your mom suddenly deciding to become a Zumba instructor and somehow in the process ruining Zumba for everyone

-Comcast buying Apple 10 years after Netflix has marginalized Comcast

-Your most inspiring high school English teacher who smoked pot with you once in college going back to school to study SEO

-The bar where you planned your going away party featuring Simpsons-themed shots becoming a Seattle’s Best

-Dr. Evil saying “1 Billion Dollars!” on an infinite loop that somehow destroys every startup

-An odd couple comedy about an adopted iPad DJ teaching his lonely new father about graphic design

-An odd couple comedy about someone who looks like Kristen Bell very sassily teaching someone who looks like Andrew Garfield’s nerdy brother how to balance a checkbook

-A weird dream that you talk about in a marketing meeting about how to get more dogs to wear shoes

-Becky Lang really likes Tumblr and feels weird

My attempt to live-blog my overnight security shift at a local...

Fri, 17 May 2013 14:03:30 -0500

My attempt to live-blog my overnight security shift at a local parish festival hit a snag last night when the Catholic grade school wi-fi I was using recognized—belatedly, but accurately—that Tumblr includes adult/mature content. Sorry, y’all! Here’s the whole saga on our site.

- Jay

12:01 AM: Only two hours in, and I’ve already had my first incident requiring confrontation. Don’t...

Fri, 17 May 2013 00:36:33 -0500

12:01 AM: Only two hours in, and I’ve already had my first incident requiring confrontation. Don’t worry, I’m okay.

Shortly after eleven hundred hours, I became aware of a sports utility vehicle—within the blocked-off section of Dayton Avenue—with its lights on. I approached the vehicle, and the driver rolled his window down. “My parents live here,” he said, “and when I came to check the mail, I saw the note about having to move the car.” I nodded and waved him through, moving a traffic cone out of the way to accommodate his egress. “Have a good night!” he said cheerily.

Having been roused from my station at the Country Store, I decided to take a look-see around the grounds. The deep fryers are still in position, and none of the rides seem to have been tampered with. I’m realizing, however, that I haven’t been properly trained to distinguish between the wind-blown clanking of a giant party tent and the—perhaps very similar—sound of copper wire being violently thieved from an Octopus ride. Hopefully that won’t be an issue.

I also nervously peed behind the CHURCH OF SAINT MARK PARKING & PLAYGROUND sign. Nervously, because I just participated in a storytelling event where one of my fellow presenters told a story about the emotional pain and suffering—not to mention the inconvenient stigma—of being convicted as a sex offender due to some seemingly minor offense that was vaguely enough described that it could well have been public urination.

Fortunately, I had everything tucked away when a St. Paul Public Works truck rolled up to deliver the six barricades that have apparently been ordered for traffic control purposes. Who knew the City of St. Paul has a guy who drives around at midnight delivering traffic barricades? I mean, couldn’t that be done during the day? The mysteries of public works.

I’m now ensconced back in the base camp. Connectivity is stable, though I’ve discovered that St. Mark’s School does not permit visitors to read posts about Star Trek—at least, when those posts feature space biologists in bikinis.

Supplies are down a few sips of water and one can of Monster Energy Zero Ultra. With 7.5 hours remaining in my shift, I think I can afford to crack a Red Bull. In fact, maybe I’d better—it’s starting to rain.

Live-blogging the overnight security shift at the St. Mark’s Parish Festival

Live-Blogging the Overnight Security Shift at the St. Mark’s Parish Festival II: The Year the Rains Came

Thu, 16 May 2013 22:53:45 -0500

10:39 PM: Once again this year I’m working the overnight security shift at the St. Mark’s Catholic Church community festival in St. Paul, Minnesota. My task: to remain awake and alert for the next 8.5 hours, and to make sure no one fiddles with anything they’re not supposed to be fiddling with. I’ve been instructed to take particular care to ensure that no copper wiring is stripped from the ferris wheel and that the deep fryers aren’t rolled away.

I’ve set up a base camp in the Country Store, where I’m sheltered by a tarpaulin and illuminated by a string of festive lights. Though the tarp blocks my view to the west, I have a clear view to the south where I can keep the Fabulous Raffle, the Cow Pie stand, the big tent, the ticket stand, and the ferris wheel under constant visual surveillance. I’ll have to step out of the Country Store occasionally to establish a perimeter around the grounds. Those walks will also be opportunities for me to discreetly relieve myself.

My provisions are 12 Roundy’s brand crunchy peanut butter granola bars, 16 ounces of Monster Energy Zero Ultra, 16 ounces of sugar free Rock Star, 16 ounces of sugar free Red Bull, 24 ounces of Diet Mountain Dew, and 24 ounces of water. My survival equipment: a jacket (with hood) and my dad’s golf umbrella. I’ve been instructed to use the umbrella to push on the tarps covering Father’s Fries, the Hungry Lions’ Den, and Marker’s Sweets to ensure that water doesn’t pool atop them when it rains.

Yes, it is supposed to rain. After midnight. Heavily.

- Jay Gabler

to be continued

“Star Trek: Into Darkness” Is Fine, But It’s Still No “Galaxy Quest”

Thu, 16 May 2013 09:36:00 -0500

Recently Kumail Nanjiani tweeted that the best Star Trek film was Galaxy Quest. I laughed at that because it’s a funny joke, but after having seen Star Trek: Into Darkness I enthusiastically agree with Kumail.

I don’t want to give you nightmares, but I feel like there’s something really important you need to know: there was a time, before the Internet, when if you liked science fiction because you liked to read and think outside of school, kids would probably just turn and walk wordlessly away from you on the playground. You didn’t know fanfic was a thing. You spent a lot of time trying to convince your sixth grade basketball team to watch Star Wars at sleepovers and only got your way once, while everyone was going to sleep, and it was clear you were meant to stop talking about it after that.

Nerd Chic in mainstream pop culture hasn’t been a thing for very long. It’s actually very strange for me that I write these movie reviews for this website. I didn’t get flat-out bullied much in school because I was an awkward nerd who was obsessed with The X-Files in high school, although I did learn through trial and error that it was about as popular a topic of conversation as family members with alcohol problems. But suddenly Geek has become a lucrative marketing tool and strangers in bars will listen to my elaborate arguments about spaceships.

So of course my immediate reaction to this flood of superhero and sci-fi in movies is to go full fangirl. But as much as I love to love this stuff, it’s not quite the stuff I fell in love with as a pubescent mess literally praying at night for a wormhole to open in my bedroom so I could finally get onto the Millennium Falcon. Part of what makes the classic mine of nerd-fuel so powerful is the fact that there is so much of it. Galaxy Quest is the best Star Trek movie because it’s about the way people love sci-fi as much as it is about the episodic adventures, silly and dramatic.

There are plenty of terrible movies that show that action sells; but it’s the slow burn of personal relationships, the intelligent humor, the self referencing and the variety that makeStar Trek in particular so much fun. It’s aspirational stuff: the crew leaves Earth to explore, to seek out new life and new civilizations—not in a military capacity but an educational one. And along the way there were tribbles. And Whoopi Goldberg as a bartender explaining the complexities of human feelings to an android. The obscenely complicated, logically flawed way the ship’s engine works is almost always more fun than the inevitable fist-fight on the floating utility platform.

But that’s not really what this new feast of sci-fi film franchises are about. They’re about taking a pared-down, amusing version of the complex universe I love and selling it to as many casual movie goers as possible.

That said, Star Trek: Into Darkness is all that and a bag of Tribbles. Every shot you want to see, every “Damnit, Jim,” you want to hear, the fun crew chemistry, the hooking up with alien girls, the ridiculous music, Benedict Cumberbatch just being SO Cumberbatchey, the phasers set to stun, it’s all there. I accept that movies like this are made for the masses and are different from the science fiction I used to love in a way that made people uncomfortable. I’m content with a movie that just has fun.

Am I angry with J.J. Abrams for saying earlier this week that he doesn’t like the philosophy in Star Trek? Yup. Did I get action-fatigue two-thirds of the way through the movie and wish people would stop punching each other so they could talk about the reactor core and reminisce about obscure back story? Yup. But Galaxy Quest is there to reassure me about my feverish love of fictional bulk minutia. Into Darkness may paint with a broad brush, but there’s a scene where two characters shoot out of an airlock into a wide shot of space, the theater goes silent and everyone gasps together. In that moment of—scientifically accurate—silence, one guy in the back of the theater whispered “Oh shit!” and the whole room cracked up together.

Into Darkness is not the perfect nerd movie I’ve been waiting for but there was in fact a tribble in it, and maybe that makes it good enough for now.

- Lisa Olson

What It Means To Be a Teenager Who Loves Classical Music

Wed, 15 May 2013 09:11:00 -0500

As young musicians, most of us have already aged. One violinist I know, who is 16, wears a top hat and breeches to each orchestra rehearsal. Another girl is never seen without her small heels. Nails are short and clean, and all the young women tie their hair back before picking up their instruments.

As children, we practiced every day, whether it was beautiful outside or not. In middle school, we went to school dances and played on sports teams, but we also learned how to use vibrato and memorized our scales. By high school we were enmeshed in youth orchestras and master classes, and we began to do competitions each spring—not to win, but because we craved every performance. By the time junior year arrived, we had created double lives, balancing our school life, the domain of prom and homework and sports—and our music life, the domain of Rite of Spring and sight-singing and unparalleled bliss.

Every spy has a hard time keeping up a double life, especially when both sides are so polarizing. As a teenager—and, in fact, in American culture generally—one must either eschew classical music entirely, or eschew everything but. Sometimes, I want to listen to classical radio in the car with my school friends, but they’re unable to sit through a single sonata. “Oh God, Fiona, I know you like it, but spare us.” Meanwhile, with my classical-playing friends, it’s the opposite; any mention of a group outside the genre is a no-no. It’s all-or-nothing. Bring up James Blake in conversation, blank stares arise. The Black Keys? Nothing. Justin Bieber? Laughs, after a pause to remember who I’m talking about.

As a fierce advocate of both sides of the spectrum, I am disturbed. I’m 17 years old, and I have hundreds of friends from orchestra, quintets, summer festivals, competitions, et cetera, who are thoroughly and completely invested in classical music. I also have hundreds of friends who could care less. Whether these friends will go on to Juilliard or Morris, music or sales, is irrelevant. What matters is the joy that our respective musical upbringings—whether raised on Joni Mitchell or Wagner—have given us, the way music has shaped us and allowed us to speak.

What disturbs me is to hear people asking, as Jay Gabler recently did, who gives a shit about classical music. I give a shit. My quintet gives a shit. My teacher gives a shit. We give as much of a shit as you give about the music that changed your life. But because of the deep divide between the communities, classical and everything else, so to speak, I cannot blame Mr. Gabler for asking the question.

Remember when you started to love the Beatles? Was it when you heard “Blackbird,” or perhaps “Here Comes the Sun?” You didn’t try to, you didn’t need to, per se, but this love just happened, it just appeared. Passion is not snobbish—this passion arises. That is the essential truth, and that is what we forget, when we spend all our time denouncing each other’s tastes as simpleminded (as classical listeners might say about pop) or pretentious and boring, mere “sawing away” at old compositions (as Jay Gabler said about classical).

This passion arises, as it did when you heard that Beatles song. It arose in a young plastics factory worker 38 years ago, when he heard a violin concerto for the first time (my father). It arose in a poor first-grader six months ago, when she learned “I’ll Tell Me Ma,” at school (my student). It arose in a shy and anxious girl almost 11 years ago, when she heard a silvery flute played like water (me). We are not born loving classical music, but anyone can love classical music. That is the essential truth.

I have no idea how to save the Minnesota Orchestra—like I said, I’m 17. But it scares me that kids after me, kids like me, won’t get to experience what I’ve experienced. They won’t have Manny Laureano, principal trumpeter, conducting them in a youth symphony. They won’t have Wendy Williams, second flutist, teaching them every week. They won’t have Friday nights with Debussy and Mozart.

These people, this music, will be in other cities, but not this one. The community of classical-lovers, people like me and my friends, will get smaller and further removed from the rest of the population, who, as a result, will never get the chance for passion to arise. They’ll never hear the concerto that could change their life, or see the silvery flute, or learn the choir song. They’ll see an ever-diminishing group of aficionados, far away from them, and never know if classical could give them joy. That, to me, is a tragedy, and that’s why some of us give a shit about classical music, and that’s why everyone should give a shit. Because passion arises, and it could be yours.

- Fiona Kelliher

Does It Matter That No One Gives a Shit About Classical Music Any More?

Tue, 14 May 2013 14:51:00 -0500

Minneapolis likes to compare itself defensively to New York, which makes it all the more poignant that James Oestreich of the New York Times has just published a pained essay calling Minneapolis a “great cultural mecca” and lamenting the fact that one of our indisputably world-class cultural resources—the Minnesota Orchestra—has just lost its entire 2012-13 season to an “agonizing and seemingly inexplicable” labor dispute.

“Inexplicable” might be a little strong—the basic explanation seems to be the possibly insurmountable challenge of funding a world-class orchestra in a city that can’t match the audience size and philanthropic resources of a global metropolis, which is a challenge being faced by cities of comparable size around the world. If the Minnesota Orchestra goes completely out of business, it won’t be the first and it certainly won’t be the last.

But why, after decades of happily sawing away at Beethoven and Sibelius, are orchestras in crisis now? That question gets to the “agonizing” part of Oestreich’s comment.

The floundering of the Minnesota Orchestra is agonizing for Oestreich and other classical music lovers like The New Yorker‘s Alex Ross, who wrote that in on one night in 2010, that “the Minnesota Orchestra sounded, to my ears, like the greatest orchestra in the world.” It’s even more agonizing for the orchestra’s musicians and management, and it’s surely agonizing for some other people in Minnesota. But who? Truth be told, I don’t know any of them.

That may peg me as a rube, but if I’m a rube, the world’s orchestras are going to have tough luck paying their expenses with the contributions of non-rubes. I’m a 37-year-old arts journalist with a Ph.D., living less than two miles from Orchestra Hall. I attend multiple ticketed arts events every week, and I do not know a single Minnesota Orchestra season ticket holder. In fact, I couldn’t even name one single person in my acquaintance whom I know to have purchased a ticket—even a rush ticket, much less a full-price ticket—to a Minnesota Orchestra performance in recent memory. That fact is evidence of what a wide swath of the population—especially the younger end of the population—has largely become indifferent to traditional, professional performances of classical music.

To be fair, classical music has never in recent history paid for itself; American ensembles have always been heavily subsidized by corporations, foundations, wealthy donors, and occasional government support. Even so, the evidence is clear: each succeeding generation over the past century has been less likely than the previous generation to attend classical music performances. That not only means a declining number of ticket-buyers, it means a declining proportion of the wealthy who feel deeply invested in classical music and a declining incentive on the part of corporations and foundations to fund classical music.

In 2010 I wrote a post called “Why we shouldn’t do a damn thing about the decline of classical music,” provoking various outraged responses. I wouldn’t be surprised to get some testy comments on this post, but from who? Who would miss the Minnesota Orchestra, and where are they on the Internet? They’ve been keeping pretty quiet over the past year. I’ve seen indignant posts defending the musicians on labor-rights and artistic grounds, but the New York Times post is a more impassioned cry for the defense of Minneapolis’s artistic excellence than anything I’ve seen coming from Minneapolis itself. There seems to be very little popular perception that the artistic excellence of Minneapolis specifically or Minnesota generally is closely tied to the rise and fall of the Minnesota Orchestra.

It’s not that classical music doesn’t matter any more—it’s not even that it doesn’t matter to young people. School orchestras (where they haven’t been ravaged by budget cuts and No Child Left Behind) continue to engage students of all ages. Community choirs are booming. Put a piano out at a party, and just wait to see how long it takes someone to sit down and start plinking out an étude. (Answer: not long.) We—and by we I mean Americans generally, but especially pre-AARP Americans—simply no longer believe it’s necessary for a respectable city to have a respectable professional orchestra.

In my 2010 post, I wrote that it’s not necessary to take extraordinary efforts to preserve classical music, because “great art takes care of itself.” That provoked a few grumbling responses along the lines of “tell that to the Buddhas of Bamiyan,” but music isn’t a delicate sculpture, it’s a living art, and all life must evolve in response to a changing environment.

If “classical music” must be defined as “dozens of highly-trained and highly-paid professionals sitting in tuxedos in a silent concert hall playing music composed 200 years ago,” then sayonara, Schubert. A few Minnesotans will miss you on the stage of Orchestra Hall, but I’ll look forward to seeing how your music continues to inspire and inform through recordings (the horror!), performances by visiting ensembles (what, imported?!), performances by amateur musicians (how gauche!), and in other ways that—unlike, say, a night at the symphony—are wonderfully impossible to predict.

- Jay Gabler

Love and Marriage: One Size Doesn’t Fit All, and It Shouldn’t Have To

Mon, 13 May 2013 15:43:00 -0500

Today Minnesota, The Tangential’s home base, is poised to legalize gay marriage. That’s a dramatic, very welcome, and long overdue change—but it’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the ways in which the public and private faces of romantic relationships are changing, in a good way.

As Katie’s pointed out, many defenders of “traditional” marriage conveniently ignore the fact that marriage wasn’t invented so that Ozzie and Harriet could save on their taxes. The legal, social, and emotional implications of marriage have changed dramatically over the course of recorded history. Right now in America, marriage means a great deal emotionally and socially to a lot of people, and has very significant legal ramifications. So let’s celebrate the fact that our elected representatives are finally doing the right thing and making marriage legally available to all—but it’s also worth remembering that there’s a larger historical story here. Whether or not you’re married, your socially acceptable relationship options are much wider than they once were.

Such as? Well, let’s start with “dating.” As readers of Jane Austen know, prior to the 20th century, there wasn’t such wide social latitude for premarital relationships. Marriages were often arranged more or less like business deals—which, of course, they were—and if your heart didn’t follow your pocketbook, good luck.

It’s often said that adolescence was “invented” in the early 20th century. What does that mean? Obviously there were teenagers before—including the Virgin Mary, the most famous teen mom in history—but by the 1920s and 30s, factors including the expansion of education, restrictions on child labor, and the spread of automobiles created a social space for an independent peer group of people who were sexually mature but not fully adult. The result? A newly acceptable dating culture, where young people were actually encouraged to develop exclusive relationships that might come with a letter jacket but didn’t yet come with an engagement ring. While it wasn’t publicly kosher to actually have sex, at least a little private canoodling was increasingly part of the deal.

Around that time, the divorce rate started to rise. That’s right, the rising divorce rate wasn’t a 60s thing—it was a 20th century thing, with only a brief pause in the postwar Ozzie-and-Harriet years. Even as it became increasingly acceptable to end a marriage on emotional grounds, it was becoming increasingly acceptable for people (teens and adults both) to develop strong relationships outside of marriage. People started to spend more and more time in non-marital relationships, with the premise that before you marry someone you need to know whether you’re really and truly in love. In recent decades the divorce rate has dipped, perhaps because people are increasingly waiting to marry until they know they’re in relationships worth marrying into.

How long does that take? That’s for each couple to decide for themselves, but try this: ask your friends how many months a typical couple of young adults should date before getting engaged, and average their answers. Now ask your parents, if they married, how many months they dated before getting engaged. Odds are, the second number is significantly lower than the first.

As the dating window has widened, the rate of nonmarital cohabitation has skyrocketed. Living together as a couple, without being married, would have been scandalous for the Greatest Generation; the Baby Boomers started to loosen up about it; it became commonplace for Gen X; and for Gen Y it’s basically the norm. You date for a while, you live together, and somewhere down the line you think about marriage and kids.

That’s assuming a single, one-directional trajectory. Increasingly, that path has become winding and many-forked, with reversals and meanders. Dating, moving in, having kids, getting married, breaking up—people go through the cycle multiple times, and not always in the same order. There are still social sanctions—in some communities, very strong sanctions—enforcing a one-directional progression, in order and maybe omitting some of the less “traditional” steps, but those sanctions are steadily weakening. Your parents might not love the idea of you having kids, or even just living together, before marriage—but they also want you to be happy. The more years pass, the more the ideal of individual happiness is trumping any overarching definition of what kind of relationship is socially acceptable.

Note that I say socially, not morally. Some observers might look at these changing ideas about relationships and say that we’re becoming less moral—insofar as “commitment,” traditionally defined, is becoming less universally idealized—but another way to see it is to say that our ideas about relationships are becoming more moral, or, to be precise, more ethical. Whereas society formerly frowned on relationships that weren’t institutionalized in the form of marriage—and weren’t between people of opposite heterosexual orientations—it increasingly saves its opprobrium for relationships that are exploitative, abusive, or simply loveless. Aren’t those the ones we really want to weed out?

So here’s to the freedom to marry—and to the freedom to not marry, or to unmarry, or to remarry. Here’s to the recognition that marriage, and all relationships, can be defined the way we want them to be defined. As Katie puts it, “The original concept of marriage is a social construct, just like currency, citizenship, and being a total dickbag.” While much of the concept of marriage is staying the same, its legal definition is changing, to allow more people to marry. That’s a reason to celebrate, and so are the other changes in the way society views relationships. Those changes are good for love, and bad for dickbags.

- Jay Gabler