001.252.365

• It's Leap Day. Kinda wild. Okay, not really... but it's still kinda special, no?
• I've sent my wish and Amazon Claus has received it. Come March 9th, I will own Super Smash Bros. Brawl. :P :D I'm far too excited. ;)
• Main Hoon Na is one of my all-time favorite soundtracks (and favorite Bollywood films). It's practically a 5-star album.
• Hindi has to be one of the most romantic languages around.
• One of life's little pleasures? Forgetting and then remembering, at the most opportune moment, that you've an iced espresso chilling in the fridge. I love life. :D
• People are sick. Literally. I think I may have caught a bug while I was out yesterday. People are too diseased to associate with in person. :P I need an automaton of myself that I can control remotely. *dreamful sigh*
• I finished watching the 7-episode run of ABC's Cashmere Mafia. Oh how I wish the WGA strike never struck. I want my appointment television!
• *gasp* I forgot to record Survivor yesterday.
• The weather's been so fucking beautiful in L.A. Yesterday and today were days to die. A Californian dream. The Sun. The warmth. The breeze. It's all been so perfect.
• I need to do more sketches. I wanna bemoan that fact, but then I remember how much I love it. I need to sketch.
• *gasp* March will begin soon. My second favorite month of the year. It's a little over an hour away! :D
• Brownies in general need more walnuts. More walnuts! That's what the world wants, don't deny us!
• I go bye-bye. ;)
• Power down, all my fellow units.

DS333, standing by.


p.s. *censored* is my constant. ;)

The One That Got Away

I'm making this post from Narcissus (my iPod touch) while I'm out and about so I don't have to do it when I get back to homebase. I've always wanted to do this, unfortunately I couldn't do it straight from Blogger. :(

So I'm at The Grove about to meet a friend of mine at the Apple Store so I could get my first look at the new MacBook Air. I was a little early and he's running a little late. Since I had the time I thought that I would spend some time at Banana Republic, which HAS to be my absolute favorite clothier in the world... at least when it comes to mass consumption retailers. Anyway I stopped in to browse, just browse. Of course that's not all that happened. I fell into the trap of trying something on. That's my Kryptonite. I was totally and utterly undone. The beauty of this jacket was too much to take in. We were made for eachother! It's perfect and fits like a glove. I'm in love. *swoon*

I'm back home now and I'm so tired that I can't go on with this post... but that's not much of a loss. I only wanted to lament on the passing of friends I'll never know. I've seen and tried on so many things that I've had to give up. I've never forgotten them. I can see them, can still feel them. Today I've added another to the list. Oh how I want that jacket.


DS333, longing.


p.s. The MacBook Air was beautiful... but ultimately too flawed. Very sleek, but not very functional. A eunuch with the body of an Adonis... Sexy as all hell and just as useless. :P

Geek Love, Automaton Hate

I love Geeks. I had this thought floating around my head the other day, this question... Why do I love geeks so much? What's the attraction? And like most questions I have, I think there are many answers. There's more than one facet to this love. But there's one that I think shines brighter than all the rest. I'm most attracted to passion. Geeks have a love of life. Granted, for the most part it's a focused love. There's one aspect of life, technology, that they're most consumed with. But that's at least something. Most people have nothing. Most people are boring. Most people aren't moved by the wonders of the world. Most people are zombies, they're not alive in the way that Geeks are. I don't know why life would be worth living if you didn't have something you were passionate about. Geeks are interesting people. There's a fire there, a spark there... an electricity. They're artists, visionaries. And so really, I'm not talking just about technologists. You needn't be into tech to be considered a Geek. You just need passion. An appreciation for those things that others can't see or tap into. You'd be hard-pressed to find a Geek who says their bored. If anything, there's too much for them to take in. Not enough time and more than enough love to go around. So I always find it funny when that word gets thrown around in a derogatory fashion. Consider the alternative. Being lifeless. Being boring. Being an automaton. I hate Automatons.


DS333, judgemental.

001.249.365

• Just finished watching the premiere of Quarterlife on NBC. It's a new series from the creators Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. Looks like I could give the show another go.
• I fell in love with My So-Called Life some years back. Not when it first aired (although I did watch it some then), but when I caught it on that tween Nickelodeon spin-off network... Noggin? I don't, anyway... ah! Such a great show. Although, if you haven't seen it don't bother watching since the show got canceled and ended on the mother of all cliffhangers!!! That drove me insane, still does actually. Oh how I wish I could change the past and resurrect that show. I wanna know what happens with Angela and Brian!!! :P
• I'm having a bitch of a time with Wi-Fi today. I was using Narcissus quite a lot tonight and he kept dropping the signal. It can get a little frustrating.
• I'm not in the creative mode, I want nothing more than to consume and absorb, which is making writing this post quite the challenge. :P
• My plants are growing quite nicely and I haven't yet taken their first picture like I said I would over a week ago. I'm so bad. I'm so that parent that doesn't have any pictures of their child. They're gonna outgrow this bottle soon. I don't know where I'm gonna plant them when that time comes.
• I really need to fill out my Virb profile. Yeah, yeah, yeah I know I've said that so many times before but I'm really getting close to it this time. I almost got it done last night but I got distracted with a late-night chat session. It's funny to me that I've neglected to pay any attention to that one crucial part of my page. I don't know what it is.... I'm just dreading it for some reason.
• I wanna go, so I am... gonna go. ;)
• Ciao ciao Mr. & Mrs. Chow. :)

DS333, weak.

Film Fetish: "Rambo"

Rambo (2008)
- directed by Sylvester Stallone


After a group of Christian missionaries get captured by a group of ruthless Burmese militant radicals, Vietnam War veteran John Rambo joins a group of mercenaries sent to their rescue.

What can I say? This movie is good for what it is, which is a mindless, comically violent, popcorn action flick. It's gore porn. It's what I wanted and it's what I was given. Though, this movie suffers from what some porno flicks suffer from as well, which is a futile effort to piece together some semblance of a story with horrible actors and worse dialogue. It just doesn't work on that level. The first 20-minutes or so of the movie are excruciating to sit through for this reason. Once it moves out of that space, the movie recovers. You get what you pay for: tons of action sequences, tons of gruesome deaths, etc. Pure violence. Ultimately this movie will prove to be an empty experience if that's something you're just not looking for because it's lacking in everything else a proper film should deliver on.

6.5/10 Good ol' fashion Rambo action. ;)


DS333, satisfied.



* Spoilers *

I love it... it's not enough to convey that the leader of the Burmese militants is the epitome of evil through the wildly violent execution sequences so you have to make him a pedophile... but not just any pedophile, a gay pedophile. 'Cause we all know the root of all evil and twisted perversion is homosexuality, right?. :P I'm not offended by something like that, but it's... it's so misleading. I think for a lot of people they think those phenomena are tightly interrelated, which is so not the case. Even my use of the term gay pedophile is improper because it puts emphasis on something that shouldn't even brought into the discussion. The focus is on pedophilia... the idea of preference in that vein is so wholly superficial. I know that, but I know so many people don't. He's now the fag, the fag who loves boys. Kill the fag! Die you evil fag!!! It's so ridiculous. And in the way that these sort of things filter into our systems it's done in the most heinous fashion, subtly. It's not overt. It's not a shout, but a whisper. And I find that whispers tend to linger more than anything else. And look, like I said... I'm not offended by this, or anything really, but it's something I'm aware of. I just thought it was funny... funny-interesting.

Okay, so I was proof-reading this... giving it one last read-through before I posted it and something didn't ring true. By saying I'm not offended I might infer that I'm not bothered by it, which I obviously am. But I'm also putting it into perspective. It's not the biggest thing in the world, not the greatest slight. I haven't lost sleep thinking about it or anything. But it's there... I've thought about it. It irks me. That type of thing usually does. Not the specific message. Although there is something to that. I mean it was a choice to make. It could've easily been a girl, why a boy? They decided to tap into this well of fear and ignorance. I mean don't we have enough to put up with without having these sort of messages being slipped under the social subconscious? That's where I have a problem I guess. The nature of delivery, it was very sly. A crafty use of subtext, a Trojan Horse. Almost alludes to a war of ideologies. And that's unfortunate. I would hope I wouldn't have to wage one on that front.

But the thing is... I keep coming back to the idea that this is nothing, which I firmly believe it is. It would be stupid of me to say that Sylvester Stallone wouldn't be the guy to push that type of agenda simply because I don't know him. He might very well be a rabid homophobe, I don't know. I would like to think he's not... might feel that he's not. Regardless of that fact, that choice still speaks to something. And if someone were to push an agenda like that, to demonize me... this would be the perfect way to do it. You'd push your message while making me seem hypersensitive, reactionary, paranoid... basically Looney Tunes at the same time. But I'm not. I just notice these things. I know the score.

Film Fetish: "Cloverfield"

Cloverfield (2008)
- directed by Matt Reeves


The reckless journey of a group of young friends through a monster-ravaged New York is documented entirely by handheld video camera.

Surely, by now, most people have seen this film. That said, I'm still gonna tip-toe around the most spoilerrific points of the film. I won't be surprising anyone by revealing this is a monster movie above all things, and a great one to boot. It's fun. I think that's a point that often gets lost with this film. So much has been made about this argument over it's potential disappointment as a whole, about whether or not it lived up to the expectations created by the compelling teaser trailer released last Summer. Expectations are a dicey thing, and mainly a failing on the part of the audience to appreciate things for what they are. This is a good movie, period. A great, suspenseful, action-filled monster flick. I don't know what else audiences wanted.

The fact that J.J. Abrams had a hand in producing this film also means there's a lot of depth here, much to take away and explore if you choose to do so. There's a grand, expansive online element outside of the experience of the film that offers hints to answers never delivered during the course of that story. It's something I only got lost in after having seen the movie, and something I'm not taking into account with this review. Objectively, the sole experience of the film itself is truly solid and stands on its own as a great piece of storytelling.

Lastly, I just wanted to make a comment on the actual mechanics of the storytelling; the use of handheld video camera... that first-person perspective. Well maybe I just wanted to throw out there my interest in the way that perspective, in general, is played around with in this... not film, but experience. The totality of Cloverfield is an interesting thing to contemplate. There's too much there to dive into but... above all, I was taken by the way in which media played an active role in this story... and the thought of what role it plays in the story of our lives. These cameras, these phones, these computers, truth, lies, answers, questions, secrets, etc. There's something there. I don't know what it is exactly, but I thought it was interesting. The influx of information... it's mutability... it's importance... accessing it, sharing it... I don't know, I found myself lost in... uhhh... I know I'm not explaining myself very well, but whatever it is I'm blathering on about in this paragraph... that space was the headspace I was in after having watched this film. It's very relevant, very pertinent, very now and new. In some ways I feel there's a twinge of the revolutionary somewhere in here... if that makes sense (probably not :P ).

7.5/10 A lot of fun and well worth the price of admission. Worth watching if only for it's experiment with this type of storytelling. Though, be warned... not for those with weak stomachs, my brother can attest to that fact. Luckily I'm quite resistant to vertigo, if you are too watch this movie. ;)


DS333, still.

001.246.365

• It's 1:40 a.m. as I'm typing this and while I would normally be up for another two hours, I'm totally bombed. I'm really sleepy for some reason. Mr. Sandman must be dying to have his way with me. I gotta remember not to make posts this late 'cause my inclination is to half-ass it and rush through it. :P
• The Lord needs men / He needs good men / The Lord needs the U.S. Marines I've had those lines running through my head all day today. It's a song by Tori Amos, Walk To Dublin (Sucker Reprise), from her 2006 box set, A Piano - The Collection.
• Eric Bana on the cover of the March issue of GQ is... I don't know what it is... I've become undone. It's too much to take in. I need some air. :P He could've lost the wedding ring for the photo shoot though. ;)
• I was playing Blockles the other day and got creamed over and over again by a 15 year old Korean chick. She's a goddess. As lame as it is, I'm gonna lay most of the blame of my failure on my Mac. :P He's never been able to render Flash quite well. If I had a faster system I'd be a force to be reckoned with.
• Speaking of Blockles, Goddesses and so Tetris and master video gamers I gotta share this video a friend of mine let me in on a few weeks back. This guy is a demigod. *bows in deference*
• I can't stop listening to Walk To Dublin (Sucker Reprise). :P If I walk to Dublin / I'm gonna pass that turquoise lady in a new-a / Nike flats and something's flat / I said, I need size 10,000 / For my ass, yes! ;)
• If I were a musical instrument I'd be a harpsichord.
• Let me plague myself with the West in his head, I said / Do a jig / Make 'im laugh / Make 'im laugh / Make 'im laugh / Just make him laugh / 'Cause he won't be coming back / Won't be coming back
• I had a horrible thought today. Having it, I suppose, makes me a bad friend. But it also makes me a compassionate human. Denying having thought the thought would make me a dishonest man. I'm keeping it. In this instance I'll risk being a bad friend if it means being an okay guy and an honest man.
• I'm dying to get my hands on Super Smash Bros. Brawl for the Wii. The hard-asses at Famitsū gave the game a perfect score! How insane is that!? More than anything I'm totally amped about training myself to defeat my rabid cousins. They're masters at the previous iterations. I've never owned any of the games. Should be interesting to see how I stack up against these young whippersnappers. :P Actually the oldest of the cousins I speak of is practically a pro-gamer with the series. I love a good challenge. ;) Also, the online gameplay component means I'll be able to get into it with some of the guys and gals at the Geekscape forums. :)
• What's the point, really, of getting into a competition if your heart's not in it? That's no fun. That's... that's nihilism.
• I was ripping some more CDs into iTunes tonight. This meant that I was also scanning CD sleeves for their album art and fixing them up with GIMP. Fuck, I had two cases that were tore the fuck up. It's amazing what a little perseverance can do. The album art looks flawless, brand-new. I'm quite pleased with myself. :P
• It's amazing that not too long ago I was lugging around CDs to listen to them on my Discman. I had one of those moments tonight that I often have. I marveled at my iPods. What they meant. Technology is such a wonder. ;) I am humbled and grateful, much so.
• My friend whipped up this website tonight. It's the meme of the moment... these single-page sites. I've a fondness for HillaryIsMomJeans.
• I think I'm at the point where I wouldn't feel guilty about heading out. :P
• See you in the ring my fellow brawlers. ;)

DS333, guilt-free.

The Dead Letter Room (Reprise)

I was thinking about the post I made yesterday and whether or not it crossed the line. Meaning, whether or not I shared too much? But I'm of the opinion that if it gets out there, it was meant to get out there. Meaning, I'm very confident in the fact that I always have my governor up and running. I'm not the type to open up and share for the sake of attention. I'm not an exhibitionist. I'm not a pornographer. So when I do share, I'm pretty sure it's safe. I've still a whole lotta secrets in tow. Things I wouldn't ever share in a public forum. But I think doing something like this, this project, entails being personal. That's at the core of this thing, I think.

The Dead Letter Room is this idea of influx... being inundated with the mundane, random, trivial, etc. and amid all that chaos, being able to filter out the noise and pull together something special. A lot of what's here is about me... it's all me, but a lot of it is just mundane. That's the white noise. That's the dirt. That's maybe the canvas? There's this idea of definition by discrimination. The personal things, the special things, are made more so by the fact that there's so much here that isn't. From the white noise comes the song. From the the dirt comes the bloom. I need a canvas I can work on... I can't just do. And I want to create, and I want to share... and that means having to be personal.

That's what all this was ever about. It's my microcosm of the world at large (specifically the Net). These dead letters... notes to people and places they'll never reach. This is my collection. There's something here to be taken away. All of that is dependent on the reader... and of course, the writer as well. A Dead Letter Room wouldn't be anything if it didn't have love letters in the mix, money in envelopes, deathbed confessions, etc. There's gotta be something real amid the masks and costumes. And there's much that I've taken away from people I'll never know... people who found the strength and courage to be real, open and honest... if only for a moment. Some can do it all the time, with anyone. I can't, but this is my attempt. It's karma. My attempt at fair trade. And for a moment I hesitated... or had this thought that it might be wrong. I just needed to remind myself what The Dead Letter Room was all about.


DS333, on track.

Betrayal

I usually think spinning a yarn on this blog that was spun during a casual bit of conversation is a bit like cheating. I consider it cheating because I kinda want everything to be sprung from here, at this blog; with this blog in mind. This is ground zero, this is the kiln. Bringing in something from the outside seems a bit disingenuous, contrived and ultimately not spontaneous. Though I don't really see much of a difference between having a conversation with myself and someone else. I figure I would've happened upon this thread eventually. In fact, my brother visited earlier today and cracked open a calculus book and it got me thinking. I was thinking about the conversation I had with my friend. I was thinking about mathematics.

I'm a treacherous whore. I say so because I've abandoned mathematics. It used to be my life. The whole of that world, science, I thought was going to be my life. It just was. We got along so well. When I was in college I majored in Applied Mathematics and fantasized about playing around with Astrophysics. I thought that's where it was. But it wasn't. And I feel guilty about that. Not about shifting focus, but about letting that go. Letting go of that relationship.

I'm a numbers guy. At least I used to be. I just had a knack for that game, the game of mathematics. I got it at a very young age, like a duck to water. It made sense to me in a way that nothing else ever did. And y'know, I'm an odd duck... I haven't really ever found a way to get along with people in the way that most people do. I wouldn't want to paint the wrong picture though. I had friends growing up, but the best relationships never turned out great. Between kindergarten and sixth grade I had four friends who I felt were... whom I considered my very best friends at the time. Each of them up and left without any warning whatsoever. They moved. Which was very odd. It never affected me at the time, but in hindsight I think a lot of who I am has to do with the way those friendships "ended". Y'know, as a kid you sorta just adapt... you go with the flow.

When my best friend from kindergarten left I just developed a friendship with someone else who happened to up and leave by the beginning of second grade. Then the next left during the end of third grade and finally my last "best friend" left at the end of elementary school. It literally happened the same way. No warnings, no goodbyes, no closure. It was just boom, boom, boom, boom. But I didn't think anything of it at the time. Not till much later... how fucked up that was. This trusting and abandonment. I have to imagine that it was drilled into my psyche that building a friendship and developing trust in others only led to... nothing. The nature of it, this closeness and then sudden departure, shaped the way I took to people. Which was very warily.

Again, I don't wanna paint the wrong picture. I had friends. I had people I could trust, my family most of all. I had a primer for the way relationships should be. As a result of all this madness I trust my family more than anything in this world. I'd die for those people and know they'd do the same for me. There's a complicit trust there. The weakening on the one end strengthened what I had at the other end, at home. I've always felt like I've never needed anything else. Anyone else. So I had friends afterward, but... they never developed in the way that proper friendships should. I regressed and kept people at a distance. I imagine my introversion is all tied up with this mess. So I had friends, just not the best of friends. I wouldn't say I didn't trust them... but I never put it past them to leave me. Underlying it all is this... jaded cynicism. I see the worst in people. I expect it. And having that in my mind means it's very hard for me to trust new people. And having the sort of past I do also means having this... this profound aptitude for excision. Having no closure from something like that, again and again, only leaves you with the option to cope, adapt, deal, etc. There's no other choice. You can't fix that. You can't undo the past. You have to move on, you have to. So you deaden that part of yourself to go on. And it means a lot to feel that way about the earliest structures in your social development. Being able to die there, at zero point, means you can die elsewhere. So I've this ability to become them, to leave without a second thought. To excise people I care about. Though, that's maybe a bit disingenuous... If I truly cared, I wouldn't be able to do so... but caring means trusting and I don't do that. But even when I do, I can still do it... I can still cut people out. It's not healthy, to be sure, but it's just the nature of the beast... it's how I've been trained. I'm working on it. ;)

So, aside from my family, I've always felt alone. Well maybe not alone. I'd say, aside from my family, I've never been able to understand people. I don't know... I don't know why what happened happened. There's no end. There are no answers and only questions. There's only this profound insecurity. That it's me and my fault. That I'm not worth knowing or being around. That there's something wrong with me. It's the only place you end up at. And so we come back to the numbers. It's them that I turned to. I never felt wrong with them, in fact I was never more right, more special. I got it in ways that my classmates never did. It felt good, being able to understand something... to make sense of something... to know you could trust in something... to be able to know and see something for what it is. It was always there, constant and unchanging. I could see things. I could access this place... this center that I only wish I could with others. It was magic, it was voodoo. It was another complicit trust and understanding. And that just doesn't come. Everyone doesn't have it, but I did. I was special. And I've always felt horrible about letting that go. Because it doesn't just happen to anyone. It's a blessing and you're lucky if you can be in a place to accept something that you can fully understand and make sense of and feel safe with. It's nothing to treat carelessly.

I wouldn't say it's a full betrayal, though. I just learned to access that place in something else, in my art. Art as a whole became something else. And really, going on about that would mean having to go on about my brother and I can't really do that now (not because I can't, but because this is becoming a lengthy post :P ). It just means enough right now to say that I'm sorry about what happened. All of it. Most of all, not turning my back... but losing out on having something special. Because I don't know that I could ever access that place quite the same way with science that I can with art. And now that I think about it, I honestly don't think it matters much anyway. To me, they're one in the same. Art's as much a science as Science is an art. And needing to cling to something thats never changing doesn't sit with me quite well. Life is change. Hunting for that thing in numbers that I should in people is doing more of a disservice to me than anything else. It's too easy. Too hopeless. Too pathetic. Too sad. Too lonely. Ultimately, that would be the great betrayal. And I don't want to become that, become them. The Betrayers. Because I have before and it doesn't amount to anything. It means more to me than anything in this world to be committed to something, to someone. To be loyal. To be devoted.


Joey, The Devoted Satellite.

001.243.365

• It's fucking cold!!! Yeah, yeah, yeah 50 degrees Fahrenheit is nothing by most standards. But it's a whole hella something in L.A. Hell has officially frozen over.
• Awesome, awesome news. One of the happiest days I've spent on this planet. My wildflowers have sprouted!!! It's stupid I know, but seeing those sprouts shoot forth was the most amazing thing ever. I could've believe it. As quickly as it happened, I still spent the last couple of days worrying about what I did wrong. Looks like I was doing everything just right. ;) Although only two of the three seedlings have surfaced. I hope the other is still intact. I'm gonna believe it is. If not, at least life happened in some capacity. I had thought about it, but failed to document the whole process via photos. I need to get these puppies on Flickr some time. We've definitely got a photo shoot in our future tomorrow. Very happy. :D
• Had a chat with a cute little creature I hadn't spoken to in years. A ship that passed in the night. It was a very revealing and flattering conversation. I don't take compliments all that well (I'm quite insecure and shy), but I managed. It sorta made my day. It's amazing what a little kindness can do. It's nice to be nice... I forgot who said that, but I quite like that sentiment. Very nice.
• There was a lunar eclipse tonight. Nothing really special, but I did manage to catch it... only for a few moments though, it was too fucking cold outside to spend much time moongazing. I love those astro events. It's been a fantasy of mine to catch a meteor shower in full force... outside of this urban cage. I wanna go to the country or far out to the mountains. I can only imagine how beautiful it can be. *longing sigh*
• $50 1GB iPod Shuffles. I heard someone (an Apple hater) rant on about how expensive that still is for such a device lacking an LCD, which I don't get. Once I heard of the new price drop I fantasized about buying millions of them and running naked (save for boots) through hills and hills of Shuffles. *dreamful sigh*
• Stromboli and espresso in my immediate future.
• I think I'm done. I think that should do it.
  
• Fair thee well my fellow sailors, fair thee well. ;)
  

DS333, passing.

Memory... "The Visionary"

Mind over matter. I've always been a proponent of this idea. I think people can do extraordinary things if they're focused and willful enough. Surely, we can't do everything. But we can do a lot and endure more. While much of this is dependent on perseverance, I think the most miraculous feats owe themselves to imagination. It takes a visionary to pull off the extraordinary. A mind for visualization.

When I was a young 'un I remember watching a TV program that drilled this sort of thinking to the core of my being. It was one of these... creepy, paranormal, conspiracy-theory laced shows... I'm thinking it might have been Unsolved Mysteries, but I could be wrong. They had this story of this young kid stricken with brain cancer. He was obviously in a bad way and there wasn't much that could be done for him at the time. But just as things were at their worst, things turned around. He had remembered a dream. In the dream he had given form to his cancer; a giant black mass. And in the dream the cancer was under attack. He'd given form, of all things, to the Ghost Busters. And it was they who launched the assault against the cancer. Bolts of lightning stripping away the beast. Over time it became smaller and smaller, until it vanished completely. This, miraculously, coincided with a full remission of the cancer. He and his family credited this vision to the remission.

Now of course, it's a bit of a stretch. It's kinda ridiculous in its way. But I took the tale to heart, and I've never forgotten it. It could very well be the case that the kid died not long after the show aired. But I like to think that if he is dead, it wasn't the cancer that took him away. I like to believe that it worked. Whether or not it did, I've fully taken to the idea of visualization and its power to change the physical. I've had a mind for that sort of thinking before hearing the story, but now it's more a part of me than ever.

I use this charm most in moments of discomfort. With headaches, for instance. I know it's not my brain that's in pain, it's just the area around it like muscular tissue. So I imagine, or visualize that tissue in aggravation and try to soothe it. I visualize colors. Red pain and blue comfort. I try my best to will these things to change. If that doesn't work, I do my best to guard myself against the pain. I think of what it means to be in pain, the science of it. I visualize my biology, the biochemistry. Pain as nothing more than messages, signals, electrical, sent to my brain. Pain as sensation and automatic response. Pain no more different than pleasure. Another message, another signal. It works. I've felt it. It's about shifting perspective and clothing things in different words, concepts and colors. All of it, everything is mind... and so, mutable. It's all about making that real in the mind and becoming a mental blacksmith; working ideas into other ideas.

Though, this charm can also backfire. Sometimes you find yourself in situations that you can't break out of... that are too large to wrangle in your mind. The charm needs to be eased into. You need a peace of mind. If the pain is small enough, it's easy to get there. But if the pain is too large, it's almost impossible to find a way to work around it and get your mind in a place where you can combat it. You would need to be in that mindset beforehand. But these things strike without warning. It's happened with migraines. Thankfully I'm not a regular sufferer, but I've gone through it before and I've just never found a way to... to do anything but endure it. I can do nothing but suffer it. Knowing that, I visualize the futility of my struggle... I see my body in pain. I see the red. I see the dark. It only ever adds to the pain. Now does it not only exist in the body, but in the mind as well. But I do what I can to deaden myself, my mind. To escape... and sometimes that works.

It's all trickery. I use it for so many things. I thought I would go through them all but I haven't even scratched the surface and this has run on long enough. Besides that, the focus was meant to be the memory... not the charm of the memory. I've loved the imagery of that memory. Of what it means to imagine and not know quite what goes on in the dark, behind one another's eyes. I wonder what people conjure and destroy each day. And I love the childlike simplicity and sophistication rendered in that one vision. The idea of lightning, that symbol, is so loaded and perfect. And that amorphous dark. This struggle between the two. These battles of the mind. These worlds within worlds; silent and secret.


DS333, shifting.

Film Fetish: Grab Bag

So I wanted to rate these flicks but felt weird about giving them their own proper space since one is direct-to-DVD and the other two are as old as time itself. :P But I couldn't ignore them either, so here we go...

Bender's Big Score (2007)
- directed by Dwayne Carey-Hill

7/10 This is the return of Futurama. Worth a viewing if you're a fan of the series, which I am, though I was a little underwhelmed by the movie. And I was more than a little disappointed to learn that this film, along with its three follow-up films, will be dissected into episodes for the "fifth season" of the series on Comedy Central. I'm guessing that decision, to separate each film into four separate episodes, is what made the experience less than stellar. Something seemed off about the movie. But hey, it's Futurama and it's good for a laugh... just not the best the series has been known to deliver.



Die Hard (1988)
- directed by John McTiernan

8.5/10 An oldie but a goodie. It wasn't until recently that I watched this film in its entirety. I knew it was going to be great, I just didn't know how great. It's the boilerplate for every modern action flick. Save for a few niggling issues this film stands the test of time.



Die Hard 2 - Die Harder (1990)
- directed by Renny Harlin

7/10 Not as great as the original, but an entertaining popcorn flick through-and-through.


DS333, okay.

001.240.365

• I'm so worried that I'm barren. I keep thinking that something's going wrong with my little wildflowers. Maybe the seeds are defective. Maybe I used too much water. Maybe they're too cold. Maybe they're not getting enough light. Maybe they're not getting enough air. *sigh* This is the part I hate and love the most. :|
• There's a tiny window of time that my neighbors could catch me naked each time I got out of the shower. Though, that would require a perfect storm of extreme desperation on their part and extreme carelessness on mine. Lucky enough for everyone there's not enough desperation and carelessness in the world. :P
• I had a shitload of crazy ass dreams last night. One of which I was able to quickly mark down on the Mac before I fell back to sleep... it's something I'd use for a sketch. Very violent. And very scary... odd for me to get scared in that way.
• So it seems that I'm hooked into this season's Survivor.
• I've stopped watching American Gladiators, I dropped out a couple of weeks back... maybe three.
• Ahhh!!! I just learned that the release date for My Blueberry Nights got pushed back to April 4th!!! It was supposed to have been out already, on the 13th of February. :(
• I fear the worst. My Mac might be on it's last legs. *knock on wood* I really need to make some current back-ups and sync to .Mac as soon as possible. Again, it's probably just my paranoia getting the best of me... but it's better to be safe than sorry. I hate this worry.
• I'm deciding whether to chuck these cords I'm wearing. They fit, but I kinda like a little give in my jeans/pants/slacks/etc. The only thing that's holding me back is the color... they're a rich chocolatey brown, I'd hate to give that up. If they were a 31 or 32 I'd be in heaven.
• I'm totally gonna go crazy tonight. I snagged some cake from my nephew's first birthday party yesterday. It's pure ambrosia. Men would kill for this cake. :P I don't know how many pounds I ate yesterday. I gotta hit up that bakery some time.
• I wish I had my espresso. *daydreams*
• I'm such a glutton.
• I kinda wanna barrel through the entire 2nd season of Lost on DVD. I might start tonight. The second half of that season is one of the strongest examples of suspense and drama in TV history.
• I should probably head out.
• Goodnight, you princes of Maine. You kings of New England.
• I've never watched The Cider House Rules. :P

DS333, optimistic.

A Moment Of Silence

DS333, ...

Shadows

It's not uncommon for the mind or the eyes to play tricks on us. I'm used to it. But it's been happening a lot more lately. When I was younger, these things... these shadows were nothing much, just wisps of dark. The kinda thing you could excuse as simple short circuits of the brain or tricks of light. So I've been quite alarmed about the shape and size these things have been taking recently. I often feel as though someone were in the room with me. I actually think I see someone moving quickly out of sight. These shadows are the size of men but not at all like men. They're just masses of dark. Lumps. And they're always at the edge of my sight, which only makes them more... ambiguous. If I catch something in my peripheral vision I'm more than likely to write it off as something real, so I'm taken by surprise when I give it my full attention only to see it vanish. Their size is alarming to me because I feel it might mean they're substantive. I feel like something is happening. That something might be wrong? But I can't be sure. I'm in between thoughts. Sometimes they're nothing... and sometimes they're not. I'm not frightened by the figures themselves. I'm more likely to be put off by sound than vision. I guess I'm just fluctuating between my usual state of paranoia and my hyper-state of paranoia. :P If anything, at least they're inspiring. I like to think things like these are whispers of something louder... maybe a life or a feeling; from the past of the future. I like to pretend that when I'm at peace, when my mind is out of this world I can tap into another and see those things not readily visible. I like to pretend a lot of things. For now, it's helping to hold my fears in check. ;) In the end, I don't think it's anything... I just don't understand the frequency of these sorts of things. Why now? Why so much? And why will it all eventually fade away? Why then? Why the change of these things? Very odd.


DS333, misfiring.

001.237.365

• It's Valentine's Day. Been spending time with my lovers: food & media. :P
• Digging the tiny new features to Twitter, which included the Valentine's Day heart replies... sadly I think it's only gonna last for a couple more hours. But I'm sure the reply arrow is a permanent feature and that soothes me to no end. ;)
• Started out on my gardening project. *crosses fingers*
• Restaurants were a nightmare today, of course.
• Missed tonight's Survivor. I know what I'll be doing. ;)
• Very cold.
• Espresso buzz.
• Found an audio jack... I'd been meaning to track down the sucker for some time.
• I've, apparently, a thing for apples?
• The trailer for Indiana Jones And The Kingdom Of The Crystal Skull kicks it's fair share of ass. I'm very excited. If I were straight I'd be all over Cate Blanchett. :P
• So annoyed that J.J. Abrams' Star Trek is being pushed back till May of 2009. *disgruntled sigh*
• I love jackets.
• Stumbled across a shitload of open WiFi routers today, this makes Joey a happy marsupial. ;)
• Think I'm gonna run out now.
• Goodnight lovers. ;)

DS333, The Hopeless Romantic.

Projected Projects > "I Think I'm A Mother"

The title's a bit extreme, but I've always wanted to use it. :P It's the title of one of my favorite songs, I Think I'm A Mother by PJ Harvey off her 1995 album, To Bring You My Love. It's not really in keeping with the spirit of this particular post, but I am about to become a mother... so in some respect it is apt. ;)

I've had this project in mind for almost three years now. It was around that time that I got my hands on a special edition of Tori Amos' 2005 album, The Beekeeper. Included in the set was a package of wildflower seeds called The Beekeeper Mix. The hook being a means to further connect with the message/spirit of the album by becoming a gardener. There's this idea that our relationships and our lives are like gardens. The watchword is commitment. We tend to get into trouble whenever we neglect our gardens. The weeds, while necessary, do need tending to. Overlooking the problem(s), losing ourselves in denial can wreak havoc on a garden. It's important not to lose control and remain vigilant in keeping things healthy. It's hard and it takes work, but it can be achieved. Though, that's not to say an overgrown garden is necessarily a bad thing... some people need that chaos. But there's a hope that people can at least distinguish what is unhealthy. It's important to moderate and keep things in balance. Gardening keeps you in tune with the chemistry of balance. A garden is a reflection of the gardener. And I'm curious to see what kind of gardener I turn out to be.

One of my fondest memories of childhood was a project I had in elementary school. I believe it might have been in second or third grade. We were given the task of raising a lima bean, so to speak. I don't remember what they even become... but I remember the excitement of giving life to something. Something organic. In a lot of ways we're all mothers and fathers. Connecting with that energy has always been consigned to my art. A lot of what goes on there has a lot to do with the Mothering and Fathering principles. But there's something... different about giving life to something organic. It's in no way more profound. My spirituality holds a rock in the same regard as a human. But the organic is intrinsically more dynamic and engaging. It's so haphazard and fragile. It's the stuff of spontaneity. It also takes less work on the part of the audience to appreciate the wonder of being; you know life when you see it in that form. So it's merely a reference to things I'm already in tune with on a metaphysical level. Rearing these creatures is a physical manifestation of that thinking, like my art. But again, it's just different. And I... again... this has been in the works for some time. Longer than the aforementioned three years. I want to bring that childhood memory to life again. I want that... that everyday back and forth in the beginning; the anticipation of life. The constant attention you give and tending you do when you want to spark something. Then the payoff of seeing that frail little stalk break the earth and breathe the air and bask in the light of day. Which is followed by the upkeep and maintenance... and also the fear of death. It's the whole of process that I'm in love with, the idea of it. It's all encompassing.

The floodgates opened earlier this year when I fell into my Pom Tea obsession. As much as I fell in love with the drinks themselves, I was also taken by the bottles they came in. They're beauties of design, so elegant and minimalist. I found it very hard to throw them away, so I saved a lot of them. I kept them around thinking I'd have some use for them. This was odd, given how much shit I throw around whenever I see people cling to things they don't immediately use or need. But again, they're just so beautiful... it would've been a crime to throw them away. So it wasn't long after I had them that the idea came to use them as vases. I could see it in my mind's eye. It looked beautiful. As I held onto those bottles, waiting; I also held onto those seeds, waiting. Waiting for the right time. And that was it. All the pieces were in place and a vision was formed. It was a... a practical expression of the evolution of my thoughts to paper. It was very organic, very seamless. Kismet.

So I'm gonna give this a go, not knowing where it will go. I hope it turns out well. I come from an agrarian ancestry, so I'm sorta hoping that genetic memory kicks into high gear. :P But I don't really have any fears. And I'm not about to obsess about the project either. I'm not gonna do any crazy research. I'm not gonna buy any crazy soil. I'm not going to use any crazy liquid supplements. I want the whole of this thing to be organic and natural. I wanna get my hands dirty old school. Water, soil and light is all I'll need. I'm gonna see what I can make of it on my own... on the fly. I'm gonna become the gal who gets knocked up not knowing a lick about raising a child. I'm gonna dive into this fearlessly and foolishly. I mean... life is happening all the time without any intervention, I'd have to imagine if I threw these seeds to the wind they'd come to bear on their own... eventually. How hard can it be? Lets hope not much.

So yeah, I'm excited about this one. I've nine (the goddess number) bottles set aside for this thing, but I'm gonna start out using only one. If all goes well, I'll have them all going together... hopefully by the end of the year. I'm... I need this. I'm so disengaged from the natural order and flow of things. I need to be engaged. My hope is that... well... I just need this. So I hope this works out. Wish me luck. ;)


DS333, nurturing & fostering.

Film Fetish: "There Will Be Blood"

There Will Be Blood (2007)
- directed by Paul Thomas Anderson


Loosely based on the Upton Sinclair novel, Oil!, There Will Be Blood follows the rise of silver miner-turned-oil prospector, Daniel Plainview's (Daniel Day-Lewis) family enterprise into the oil business.

I'm struggling to make these posts shorter and less spoilerrific, so I'm gonna take a different approach on this one. I kinda wanted these posts to be as much about me as the films; if that makes sense. Bear with me, this is all experimentation. :P

There were a few reasons I wanted to see this film. For one, when I first saw the trailer (you can view the trailer of just about every film I review by clicking on it's title at the head of the post) I knew it would become one of those films that I wouldn't miss for anything in the world; it was instinctive. It's such an exemplary piece of great editing; definitely one of the all-time best trailers I've seen. It's also a Paul Thomas Anderson film. Anderson directed one of my most favorite films in this and every parallel universe; Magnolia (1999). I would've been dead-set to see whatever his follow-up film was. I'm also a huge Daniel Day-Lewis fan. I fell in love with the guy with Martin Scorsese's The Age Of Innocence (1993), both physically and artistically. I think the guy's one of the most gorgeous and talented actors in Hollywood. I would've been drawn to see whatever he attached himself to next. Lastly, I had heard some time ago that Radiohead virtuoso, Jonny Greenwood, was tapped to score the film. I've long believed that Jonny's one of the most criminally overlooked musicians out there. In my personal pantheon, the guy's a high demigod. The thought of Greenwood scoring a film had me excited to no end.

In the end, this film is a symphony of technical mastery. It's helmed by a deft filmmaker who's really done his best to branch out in a new and exciting way. It stars one of the greatest actors in Hollywood giving one of the best performances in cinematic history. And it's all set to the tune of a truly talented avant-garde musician. I couldn't not love this movie. And I didn't; I loved this film. It's technically, perfect, but it rises above all else into something wholly other; it's a treasure trove of subtext and metaphor. I can't say enough about how much I loved this film. The story's engaging. The characters, compelling. Everything is right where it should be. And it all comes together to examine an interesting strain of the darker side of human nature that's characteristically American; a blend of avarice and a dark ambition fueled by a hatred of fellow man. Daniel Plainview is a misanthrope's misanthrope and a villain's villain. 'Nough said.

10/10 Perfection. I'm a sucker for Paul Thomas Anderson, Daniel Day-Lewis and Jonny Greenwood. I'm also a sucker for brilliant storytelling, acting and scoring. I've also a thing for stories told over a great expanse of time, literally and figuratively. More than anything, I'm a sucker for dark character studies.


DS333, pleased as punch.

001.234.365

• Came up with an interesting idea for an art project that will involve this blog once the first year is complete. I think it's quite ingenious. ;)
• I've been such a bad boy lately, I haven't gotten back to a few messages. I need to be flogged. :P
• Quiet day.
• Thank the maker, the WGA strike is officially over. Now production of Lost season 4 can go on as planned. :D
• I've been such a whore for media in the past few days, more so than usual. On the plus, I'm sorta caught up with all my video podcasts. Now I feel like adding more feeds! I need help! :P I won't, or I'll try not to. There's so much more to absorb.
• I really wish my iPod touch could scrobble tracks to my Last.fm account effortlessly and easily.
• I think I might be addicted to espresso. :P I sooo want one right now. It's all I'm really thinking about. ;)
  
• I need to create some more custom playlists in iTunes.
• The weather's starting to amp up... *frustrated sigh* Why can't Los Angeles remain in a perpetual Winter Wonderland? That would be heaven.
• I need to shine my boots again.
• I want to treat my leather bag.
• I love leather.
• I need to do some laundry tomorrow.
• I should go wash the dishes.
• The 10.5.2 update for OS X Leopard came out today. I'm so envious. I really wanna run Leopard! But I haven't heard if that little X11/GIMP bug has been fixed. Once I hear that news I'm jumping off of this Tiger ship.
• Two memes recently. What were they? Oh yes, out of the blue the hacker "Captain Crunch" has been appearing on my radar. And there was something else... Oh yes, some band. Particularly this one image of this lead singer... I tracked down the band name but I forgot it. Very weird for these things to just surface out of the blue. I wonder what's the intent, the purpose?
• I think it's time to log off.
• Logging off...

DS333, quiet.

The Beginning

This is one of those thoughts I've had floating around my head for as long as I can remember remembering. Well, maybe more like as long as I can remember thinking.

I wrote that in my recent Consequence post. I made sure to make special note of it because I knew I wanted to explore that thought further. I'm not sure it makes much sense at first glance, but it obviously does to me so I thought I would explain.

I've talked about my relationship with memory before. It's not photographic, and it might not even be among the very best, but it's very good I'd say. I have very old memories, very clear memories. I have memories of being a baby; of my crib, my diapers, etc. I have a pretty good cross section of memories from the various stages of my life. What I don't have is what I want to call a mind for the memory, though it's probably more accurate to say a memory of the mind.

For much of my upbringing I don't remember having thought or awareness. I don't remember having a mind. It's almost like not being alive. But saying I was a part of the living dead wouldn't be quite right either 'cause I was very full of life as a child. I was very happy, so I'm not saying it was a bad thing. I just don't remember being alive, or maybe just not alive in the way that I am today. Which is a given considering the expanse of time and the nature of change. But it's like... the memories aren't alive... like a wire that's not live, they're not charged. It's as though my early memories could just as easily belong to someone else because they lack this connection to the intellect, so they don't feel fully integrated into my being. But they're halfway there since they're emotionally charged, they've sentimental value. But they're only operating on one level. The memories I cherish the most operate on the two; of the mind and the heart. And it's not as though I think they ever could operate on the two... when I say I don't remember having a mind, that's a bit misleading. I don't think there was a mind at all.

It's very much the Man vs. Nature thing, I think. Children are operating on the... hmmm... I almost tripped myself. Children are pure life. Pure energy. They're the Nature Principle. Unspoiled by the realm of thought. There's this golden age when the indoctrination, regimentation, etc. hasn't yet set in. It's like being in between... 'cause you're not operating on the base, animal level... but you're not fully aware either. That's what I mean by not being fully alive. It's a catch-22. I'm not exactly saying I fell victim to indoctrination and the social norm (or that you need to to feel alive), far from it, but I've just eased into my own... I've activated parts of my mind that have created a distance between who I am now and who I was then. Looking back on my childhood, on the person I was, I feel like... it's all superficial. In my mind's eye I can see who I was. But I can't remember what it was to be me. I can't recognize the face; what it meant to be in that body. I can't remember what I thought of the things I do now because I never did. They were outside of my realm of experience. And I'm so far into who I am now that I can't relate fully... to those memories. Of what it meant to be me. There's only a vague impression of what was going on behind the veil, and it's there that I go to make something happen. I've a hold on certain thoughts.

So I've always considered my puberty as my third birth. It was around that time, give or take a couple of years, that I feel I came into being. Something was sparked. I often wonder if it was biological. I'd say I came to life a few years before the true onset of puberty, but I have to imagination that process isn't quite... I've gotta imagine there's some sort of biochemical groundwork that needs to be laid before the body can come to fruition. Obviously puberty is as much about the mind as it is the body. About the interior as well as the exterior, so maybe the spark coincided with the beginning of that process... before the external was realized. So maybe it didn't hit before puberty, but at the exact same time. But then I also imagine I just sorta reached my breaking point. That talk of indoctrination and regimentation... I imagine a scaffold raised a few feet above my mind. This scaffold supporting everything being loaded and dumped on me from the outside world. There's too much of it to go through... it's everything. Ideologies, philosophies, etc. Everything society can throw at you. I imagine the scaffold breaking and it falling onto and into you. Some things you adopt and some you don't, but it's the breaking that matters. I imagine that's a part of it too. Well, that it's all a perfect storm. It's everything at once. I have a clear time in my mind that the person I am now was birthed. It began then.


DS333, filtering.

These Old Bones

I'm breaking down and I'm only 26. :( I'm being as hyperbolic as ever, of course. But I am creaking a lot more than I ever have. I've had a bad left wrist ever since... uhhh, I wanna say fourth grade? Maybe third. I fractured it in school being an ass. I was sitting atop some railing some six feet off the ground and lost my balance and fell backward onto some very inviting asphalt. It didn't feel so bad at first, so I had no idea I'd done any serious damage. An X-ray test later I learned I had to make friends with a cast for the next few months. Ever since that time I've been able to make some wicked sounds with the flick of my wrist. I guess the cast didn't take very well. It doesn't hurt, it's just noisy. It sometimes makes doing push-ups a bit... interesting.

Characteristic of an old man like myself, I also have problems with my hips. :P Well, hip. My left one. I don't know where that comes from, it's always just been. As old as time itself. ;) Well maybe not so much. I don't remember having the hip thing as a wee lad. Come to think of it, it may have surfaced as late as high school. I'm quite the contortionist, so I find I'm most comfortable resting in really odd positions. I'm very limber and like to see how far I can stretch... and one day, I just noticed I could crack my left hip. You have to imagine doing the splits. Extending my leg out gets me to that place. Pop. Again, it doesn't hurt, it's just noisy. It happens a lot. Many times a day. *sigh*

I also have the knee thing. Which only just hit me at 25. Meandering about for a quarter of a century is bound to lead to some wear and tear I guess. I like to walk. Love to take walks, long walks. And on one of these walks I noticed that my knee sorta popped, and quite painfully. Not in the ACL territory of popping, but a little crack. Ever since I've been able to get the job done with a little stretch of the leg. Doing it intentionally never hurts, but when it pops up on my walks it most certainly does. :(

In Junior High I threw my back out while playing basketball. Once in a blue moon will that old ghost visit me and boy is it not pleasant. That's the one injury I've endured that's hurt like a bitch. Luckily there's nothing wrong with my back... in that it doesn't crack or creak on a regular basis, but it's there... looming in the background. I worry about it sometimes. I could do without enduring that pain again. I call it the Back Migraine.

I imagine I'm just settling, like an old house. Luckily most of these things aren't painful. I'm gonna freak when that happens though. I can't imagine getting out of a chair and moaning. Tying moaning to anything other than pleasure, in my mind, is such a trip. But I guess it's gotta happen at some point. These are the whispers.

DS333, creaking.

001.231.365

• I've been made a whore by Red Brick Pizza's Pizza Rustica. I've been brought to my knees. I have tasted the divine. :P I had my second one yesterday.
• Watched Elizabeth - The Golden Age and Eastern Promises last night on DVD. I have 3:10 To Yuma in my midst, which I'll probably watch tonight. :)
• Been playing a lot of catch-up with my video podcasts. It's been slow-going, but I'm almost there. :D
• I've been meaning to take a picture of this one slab of sidewalk nearby. On my next walk, I gotta remember to take a camera.
• I'm not in the mind for this post. :P I don't know what to bring up.
• Gonna give the latest season of Survivor a shot. They're little Fans vs. Favorites gimmick might just be enough to rope me in. We'll see. I'm gonna watch it later tonight.
• It's been such a bitch trying to get torrents for the fourth and fifth episodes of Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew. I hate when these guys tie their torrents to shitty log-in sites. I'm gonna actually have to start watching TV again.
• I've been taking late walks lately. I need to get out there earlier. I've been having a... well maybe I'll save that for another post. :P
• I'm such a tease. ;)
• I want some espresso! :P I made an espresso concoction the other night now I want some more; a gorgeous venti white chocolate mocha espresso with raspberry syrup courtesy of Starbucks. ;) *shaking*
• Very excited about getting a little project underway. I think I'm a mother.
• Uh! I really wanna get to filling out some profiles on a few of these sites I've joined centuries ago. I don't like having things like that incomplete... but when I get to it I know I'm gonna agonize about getting it right. I hate this back and forth. :| I know I need to just jump in if I'm ever gonna get it done. Story of my life.
• Been clearing up my hard drive. I need the space for some larger media stuff, but I seem to cling to things I'm never gonna watch again or that I'm saving in the hopes that someone else will. I need to be a Nazi. So I've been making the cuts, slowly but surely.
• Okay I think that's enough. I wanna consume some more. ;) I see much video content in my immediate future. :D
• Later later...

DS333, hungry.

Film Fetish: "The Golden Compass"

The Golden Compass (2007)
- directed by Chris Weitz

To attempt to summarize this film is beyond my abilities. :P It's a children's fantasy film based on the first book in Philip Pullman's His Dark Materials trilogy, Northern Lights.

The story concerns Lyra, an orphan living in a fantastical parallel universe in which a dogmatic dictatorship called the Magisterium threatens to dominate the world. When Lyra's friend is kidnapped, she travels to the far North in an attempt to rescue him and rejoin her uncle. (Synopsis excerpted from Wikipedia.org)

Oh gee, I don't like to be negative. Let me first say that I enjoyed myself watching this film... or at least I was entertained. But as far as fantasy films go, this certainly isn't the best. It's no where near the best. But I have to imagine this sort of movie suffers in translation, or rather, adaptation. This material is probably better suited in written form. I often had the feeling that I wasn't following things well enough, or that I was missing the significance of certain events. Overall the story felt rushed and sloppy in its telling. But the material was interesting, it was just the execution that was lacking. And much of the films visuals were spectacular given the amount of which CGI was used. But really, I wasn't hooked by any one thing. It was a very mediocre experience. Taking into consideration the wealth of fantasy films out there that get things right, I feel you'd be better off passing this one up.

5/10 Worth seeing if you're a fantasy film junkie, otherwise you might find the experience slightly torturous and greatly disappointing.

DS333, meh.

Film Fetish: "No Country For Old Men"

No Country For Old Men (2007)
- directed by Joel & Ethan Coen


Based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same name, No Country For Old Men is a cat & mouse, suspense/drama set in the 1980's American Southwest. The story unfolds when a local Texan hunter (Josh Brolin) happens upon a satchel of 2 million dollars, the remains of a drug deal gone wrong, and a professional mercenary (Javier Bardem) is sent out to retrieve it while the local sheriff (Tommy Lee Jones) is hot on their trail.

There's no skirting around it, this movie is perfection. If you haven't see it, you must! As far as suspense films go, this movie is among the very best. It has an air of the western as well as the procedural crime drama. More than anything this movie is unadulterated brutality. I don't mean to say it's the most violent film ever made, or even the most grotesque. I just mean that the prevailing theme of the film is so forceful and in your face. It's so much about life & death and the triviality and significance of the world at play. It's at once, very basic and complex. And of course, given that it's directed by The Coen Brothers it's a prime example of deft filmmaking. I think you'd be hard-pressed to find any fault with this film or not enjoy it.

10/10 I'm of the thought that there are no 10/perfect films, but I couldn't give this film anything but. There's so much to love here. It's a great story. Amazing performances. One of the most memorable movie villains of all-time. An amazing screenplay. Etc.


DS333, in awe.



* Spoilers *

The final scene/dialogue of the film is one of the most... ah!... I... there are no words. Incredible! If I could write one thing like that, I could die a happy man. It's that amazing.

Also, the film's title is so perfectly and beautifully eloquent.

001.228.365

• It was Super Tuesday today! I voted, and I have the sticker to prove it. :P The democratic race looks like it's going to get a whole lot more exciting after tonight. It's one of the better scenarios; in the end I'd feel good about voting for either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama. It could be much worse.
• I've been on a ripping frenzy lately. Narcissus (my iPod touch) is getting nice and plump. Funny enough, as large as he was (16GB)... he seems a whole lot smaller today since Apple announced the release of the 32GB!!! iPod touch and 16GB iPhone. Drool-o-rama.
• I plan to rip some more albums tonight. I find it much easier to do a couple each day. Visualizing the whole of the workload is too discouraging... baby steps.
• Added some long overdue photos to my Flickr account from my Memorial Day weekend trip to Arizona last year. The photo set isn't yet complete. Again, I gotta attack that project in increments if I'm ever going to finish it.
• God I love Flickr. I hope Microsoft doesn't acquire it and cock it up.
• Wearing brown shoes with black pants... fashion faux pas, but the rebel in me thinks I'm making it work. :P ;)
• Stopped by The Coffee Bean & Tea And Leaf and picked up a delicious White Chocolate Ice Blended... I'm still polishing it off now. It's yummy to my tummy. :P
• Lately, I've been falling all over my (Wired) Apple Keyboard... I've had it for months now, but I'm still madly in love with it. :D
• Had some Panda Express fried rice today. Not the greatest fried rice on the planet, but I'm still a whore for the stuff.
• It's hella-cold tonight... by Californian standards anyway: 49 degrees F. Buurrrrr! I need my own private island. *thinking warm thoughts*
• I have too much on my mind right now. Nothing troubling, I just mean that I could really go to town on this post... but I'm really trying to moderate myself. :P I think a large part of me just wants to type and type and type. ;)
• I need to catch up on some podcasts and such. It's the video stuff that kills me, that really requires your direct attention. Audio is so great for multi-tasking.
• I'm overjoyed about the more or less confirmed rumors that the WGA strike has been settled. The news comes just in time to save this season of Lost! :D
• I really dig my hands today. I don't know why. I always wanted longer fingers... I'll let that one linger without explanation. :P
• I came across three Red Barons today, the Peanuts variety. Even still, I wonder if I should take that as an omen. An odd frequency.
• Speaking of the ominous... I've heard that you can find the trailer for The Happening online now. I gotta dive around for it.
  
• I love my iPod touch. :D
• Maybe I should head out now... I foresee much rambling from here on out. :P
• Goodnight my fellow fish.

DS333, in love.

Childish Things

When I was a wee lad I used to pronounce gas as grass. I remember my Dad trying to correct me once at a gas station. I remember, for the life of me, not being able to get it right. I wonder what that was all about...

I also had this thing about blinking when I was a kid. I don't know where it came from, but I used to think of my eyelids as shutters. Whenever I came across something truly beautiful I used to blink, thinking that I was taking a picture of that moment; that I could hold onto that memory forever. Now that I look back on it, knowing that at my core I'm not much different from everyone else, I wonder if blinking in a moment of disbelief is somehow tied to this childish idea. You see it all the time whenever some does a double take, they blink. I wonder if we're taking pictures but we're just not aware of it because we've forgotten what it used to mean to blink. I still take these pictures from time to time. Of course I know it amounts to nothing and it doesn't actually work... but I think it's a cute idea. And it's happening all the time so I can do it without anyone knowing... these people never know what I'm trying to hold onto; what I want to remember.


DS333, the shutter bug. *blink*

Consequence

This is one of those thoughts I've had floating around my head for as long as I can remember remembering. Well, maybe more like as long as I can remember thinking. It's been with me for a long time and I don't share it all too often because like most things that are personal to me... it's hard to find the right place for it. I'd imagine much of what's going on in my head is really only important to me. But that's what makes this blog perfect; it's mine. I don't answer to anyone here and so I only have myself to please. I thought this thought would feel right at home here, like most of my thoughts...

I am... what am I? Not a fan, not an admirer, not a lover, not an acolyte, not a follower, not a many things; but at the same time, all those things, of the counterculture and underground. To say I'm a fan of the underground doesn't say enough. Being an admirer seems too disconnected for my taste. Being a lover almost hits the mark. Being an acolyte is too much and not disconnected enough. Being a follower is too involved. I can't find the right word. It's a lot about being in between different feelings and ideas. But I'm there... I've always been drawn and attracted to the dark. It's a drive... it's a need somewhere deep within that makes me seek out those things that others shy away from. It's so strong and... the greatest bond I know because it's a bond with my self. I don't know where it comes from and I don't know the why of it all.

The why is very amorphous. Sometimes it's a drive to know the things that aren't readily known; a voracious curiosity. Sometimes it's a need to make connections with the alien and foreign. With respect to that last need, I think there are two ways you can go when encountered with the dark: to run from or run toward. It's the difference between fear and understanding. It's something deep within... to know if you need to run from and fear your enemy or run toward it in an attempt to understand it. The understanding is a route toward demystification; what turns Devils to Gods. The dark, for me, in this form, is man's inhumanity to man; extreme violence. Shying away from this is a disservice to the self I think, that business of monster-making. It amounts to nothing to put yourself at odds with something you're a part of or that's a part of you. Doing that, disassociating yourself from your enemy, is an externalization of an internal war. I'm not saying that there isn't a need for this type of war... this discrimination of thoughts and ideas; that can be healthy. I just feel people too often make enemies with the dark than they should. Sometimes going there is about reclamation, redemption, definition, rebirth, etc. It's so ripe of enrichment and growth... and I imagine that's the true fear of the dark: change.

I think there's also something to be said for the vicariousness of observation. In my life I'm surprisingly milquetoast; very boring and bland. I mean, I don't think I'm boring and bland, I think I'm quite fun actually... but I'm not totally lacking awareness. By most people's standards I'd be considered very vanilla, very safe, very within-the-lines, etc. It's just who I am. But being that, drives me to seek out what I'm not. It's just fascinating to me to see what drives people... what gets them going. I think people get too wrapped up in moral judgements to appreciate what's going on on the other side of the fence. I ride the fence more than anyone I know. So I just look at it as... research. It doesn't require much of me to observe. There's no harm in it. And in terms of the war I was speaking of earlier... an association with this sort of dark is an exercise in definition. Going there, I never have a more clear picture of who I am... or rather, who I am not. Delving into this form of dark, the healthy way, is about keeping who you are in your mind's eye and tempering that image with repulsion and definition all without judgement. To each their own, as they say.

I realize at this point, as usual, I'm being quite vague. :P That was intentional. So if I were to continue following this thread it would only get worse... we're talking über-abstraction. And if I were to get into specifics... well... that would be too... specific. :P There's something to be said for discretion and privacy. ;) Anyway, the point of going on along this line would only be a means to further illustrate this relationship I have with the dark, the taboo, the underground, etc. I think that's pretty well established by now and I can pick up the original thread of this conversation...

I don't know where this comes from, this relationship with the taboo. This questioning has always vexed me. I, for whatever reason, get caught up in this discussion of consequence. Whatever this is, this relationship, I feel speaks to the heart of who I am... it's origin is buried deep within my self. It's at the soul of who I am. It is a part of my very being. Having that thought in mind makes me wonder what it's informed and influenced... specifically my sexuality. I'm very much a proponent of the idea that sexuality is more a matter of nature than nurturing. More being the operative word since I believe it's a mixture of the two. So I often wonder if my sexuality is a consequence of this relationship, or if this relationship is a consequence of my sexuality.

Being gay is more than being attracted to men... it's a whole host of problems, issues, ideas and experiences. If it were just that, than I think there wouldn't be this questioning. But it's not, at least not to me. It is so connected to who I am that I feel it could just as easily be the... what would I say? My soular spark. That thing that informs my very being. It's very much about going against the grain and being a counterculturist. It's about being different and unusual. It's about feeling disconnected and alone. It's about being a minority. It's about being careful and suspect. It's about being fearful. It's about being courageous and proud. It's a lot of things. It's a little complex.

So I've wondered... well like I said, this is all very abstract... I'm imagining the creation of my soul and this being the primer for my physical manifestation in this plane. If that... whatever it is (not being gay, it's much more than just that), informed my being born into a minority let's say. That in itself is very much about being different and alienated and... well it's very much tied to the other experience. A lot of the... motifs that appear in my life fit in this way. And I wonder where it comes from... what's the foundation and what's the structure being built. What's informing these things? What came first? What's true? What's imitation? And also what's the meaning of this questioning? What would amount to? Where is it leading? The fact that it's been around for so long makes me think that there is something here I'm missing... something I've yet to stumble upon that will provide some profound self-illumination. I imagine it'll be answered... well that's too prosaic, I mean to say that I'll come to some sort of revelation... this questioning is like water on a stone. It's all being refined... I'll come to the heart of this thing... eventually.


DS333, questioning.

001.225.365

• The whole family came over today. :D Love these days.
• Had some BBQ.
• Got my grubby mitts on the new apps released for the iPod touch at Macworld last month. I've been utterly consumed with them most of the day, save for the Stocks and Weather apps (I mean c'mon :P ) of course. I'm sooo in love with the Maps app and it's interoperability with the Address Book/Contacts. The animation for the turn-by-turn directions is really slick too. I'm digging having a shell for my e-mail via the Mail app as well. Though I am disappointed that it's not as full featured as the desktop application... I'm sure they'll make improvements along the way though. Finally, I was blown away by the elegance of the implementation of lyrics support... that looks awesome. Puzzling though that they haven't managed to support show notes for podcasts... they're basically lyrics themselves, no?
• Ugh, Superbowl Sunday tomorrow/today. I'll probably end up watching it, if only for the commercials and trailers. In this respect I'm a hardcore fag, I could give a shit about watching sports. ;)
  
• OMG! My latest obsession? Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew on Vh1. It's a mixture of things... mostly comedy. :P
  
• I'm sleepy and have a slight headache.
• I really wanna play around with my iPod some more. :)

DS333, skipping out.

Film Fetish: "Beowulf"

Beowulf (2007)
- directed by Robert Zemeckis


A new twist on the epic tale of Beowulf, a great warrior who answers the call of a desperate king looking for a hero to rid his lands of the ferocious monster Grendel.

I've been getting behind on these Film Fetish posts. I had to sit down and make a list of all the films I'd recently seen and have been meaning to post about. My memory was a bit foggy but thankfully I document most of my life in one form or another. :P ;) Anyway, I expect to make a lot more of these posts in the very near future.

I'm a mythology junkie, so I'm familiar with the Beowulf poem. I'd imagine a lot of people are since it's a text that you more than likely encounter at some point during junior high and high school. I haven't read it in full since then in fact. While my memory of the story isn't perfectly crystalline, I can definitely say that this retelling is nothing like the "original". Given the form it takes, that's probably a good thing. While the story itself isn't the most deep or complex to begin with, this version doesn't require much of your higher brain functions. :P It's a great little popcorn flick. Though, I don't mean to say that derisively. It's a bare bones hero's tale clothed in this awesome CG action flick.

The strength of this film I would say is its visuals. It's entirely rendered in CG using motion capture for the actors and actresses. If you're familiar with Final Fantasy - The Spirits Within you know exactly what I'm talking about. It's stunning. Especially when viewed in 3D, which I was fortunate enough to experience while it was in theatres. The visual effects and animation for this film are top notch. I was blown away at every turn. So much about this film seemed like an assault because I was constantly inundated with intense animation, sound design, choreography, etc. There's just so much going on, so much to appreciate. It was very much a sensory experience. The strength of that impression is probably why the story seems to be lacking. It's not the focal point of the film, but a means to an end; a perfect way to display this technical mastery. That said, there is something to take away from the film in the way of a message. Overall this film is a nice little meditation on pride, greed, deceit, humility and redemption. I quite liked it. ;)

8/10 Certainly not a film for die hard fans of the source material, but well worth seeing if you're in the mood for some awesome imagery and amazing action sequences. It's surprisingly violent as well, which is always a good thing. :P


DS333, satisfied.