Themindtaker's Mind

I leave town in one week...

2008-07-17T23:38:00.000-05:00

So here's a song! Please listen to the whole thing (the bass part is pretty important, so use a subwoofer if you have one). The first part is pretty close to the original, then I added a breakdown with some atmospheric textures. It's very embarrasing to post a song with vocals up here.

Weird Fishes/Arpeggi

All the instruments (minus the drum loops) are me. Words and music written by: definitely not me.

Do you ever stop to reflect on the magnitude of your responsibility to yourself?

2008-07-06T23:38:00.001-05:00

As you may have heard, I will indeed be leaving for Japan to teach English for the JET Program. I will be there for at least a year, but my contract is renewable for up to five years. Just to keep in contact with the world I know here in the States, I will start a new blog chronicling whatever misadventures I get into in the land of the rising sun.

In lieu of that url (yet), here's something funny:

How to Dissuade Yourself from Becoming a Blogger
1. Find five completely random blogs, and read them daily for a month. After thirty days, you will absolutely dread your self-imposed requirement to read all that dreck. Any blog you create will most likely be on par with what you've been reading.

2. Consider that your voice, even if it is truly a good one, is a tiny peep against the massive wave of tripe out there. The odds of anyone you don't already know finding your blog are low.

3. Write on a regular basis in a text editor instead. If that doesn't satisfy your urge then you might just be craving attention and validation--which you'll never truly find in a blog. If you give up on your Wordpad journal after about three days, you'll do the same with a blog that just takes up server space.

4. Ask yourself if you really have the time to commit to a blog. Instead of whining about all the things you wish you were doing instead, start doing something that'd actually be worth writing about. And if it's really worth writing about, you'll be having too much fun doing it to tear yourself away from it.

Remind me again, why am I going to this strange country?

Today's Most Publishable Thought

2008-04-21T23:38:00.000-05:00

Ever since I found full episodes of Carl Sagan's Cosmos on the interweb I've been thinking a lot more about the universe as a whole from the perspective of our modern knowledge of outer space (as imparted to me by the Discovery Channel).

Anywhere outside of our mother earth is bound to be hostile to our human bodies because we evolved specifically for life on a planet in a window of time so small on the grand scheme (before us there were 4 billion years of prokaryotic simple celled life, 6 billion more years until the simplest of animals even appeared, and then the dinosaurs ruled the planet for 160 million years... and that was 230 million years ago in the very place where you're sitting, reading this (well... really, here in Kansas there'd be an ocean filled with creatures we may never know a thing about).

In contrast: our species has only even looked the way it does for 200,000 years. Christopher Columbus-- nevermind Leif Eriksson, Henry I Sinclair, or Earl of Orkney-- only informed the "civilized world" of the existence of the American continents a mere 500 years ago. Our perspective of the cosmic waltz is so limited with our lifespans (only 50 percent of children born in 1900 would even make it to age 50).

With our whole dear planet clearly visible to any idiot with Google Earth these days, outer space is truly the final frontier. The fact that humans have the space travel capabilities (meager as they may seem compared to science fiction, though we've certainly come a long way since the Apollo missions) that are as advanced as they are in our lifetimes is really exciting.

Now everyone knows me: I think Bush is a disgraceful president and feel it would be a tremendous victory for many things I believe in if Barrack Obama was elected President next year (sorry, this isn't a political ad; bear with me). But one of the last things Bush has mentioned in his last years as president is that we should push forward with the space program. I know we're in horrific debt that my children will still be paying for... but I TOTALLY AGREE with Bush on this one.

Recently NASA has been hard at work (i.e. spending millions of dollars) planning an as-of-yet-unscheduled mission back to the moon, possibly to set up a base camp, possibly to facilitate later manned (or womanned) missions to Mars. With the evidence of fossilized life on Mars we've found in the past, I think Mars is a place where we may even broaden our perspective on how life forms.

Here's a video NASA put out last year to sort of rally support for the project:
Badass, huh?

Maybe other people won't agree with me because of the spending required to fund these projects in search of what Carl Sagan says "just might end up being the most profoundly impactful moment for humanity, for the history... of history." I heartily disagree with plunging into some strange insurmountable debt over a war that only breeds more hatred and death, but maybe some things are more important than a "national deficit."

theory vs. practice

2008-03-30T22:29:00.003-05:00

Well, It's been super hectic so I haven't photoshopped anything in a while. But I'm posting this unfinished fragment of a song to prove to myself that my creative life isn't lying dormant under all my school work.

Click here to hear my song.

Please listen to the whole song if you're actually planning on listening at all, I'm secretly rather proud of it. The only thing not recorded by me is the drum loop (and samples from a '70s news show sprinkled in there for good measure). Enjoy.

the way you move is a mystery

2008-03-14T16:53:00.002-05:00

direct clicks here

Just a small diversion for today. This was actually a screen grab from the Let It Be movie (somebody brought their little girl-- I'm not sure who she is). It's kinda pretty.

your friend's basement is always cooler than yours

2008-03-13T15:10:00.003-05:00

here's a new desktop background for you, Liney

this one has to be seen full size

This one actually came from the sunset picture (like the last one). You can definitely see the clouds in the middle of this one, as well as the sun on the right, and the lens flair on the left.

kaerb adeen I

2008-03-05T02:11:00.004-06:00

you know the drill

Well, I can't sleep. So here's a new picture. I think I made the message in the title a little too obvious...

"nineteen sixty-nine, in the sunshine"

2008-02-23T13:56:00.004-06:00

please be clicking here

as promised: the triumphant return of color :)
this image was entirely generated in photoshop

"one baby to another says 'i'm lucky to've met you'"

2008-02-20T12:36:00.004-06:00

clicky clicky

a. color will come back when i've successfully completed my job interview
b. tilt'cher lcd

four jewels

2008-02-17T16:03:00.001-06:00

(please click to enlarge)

"the farther one travels / the less one really knows"

2007-12-24T18:48:00.001-06:00

This started off as snowflakes. Oops.

(I practically insist you click to enlarge.)

Merry Christmas everybody.

"It's so fine, it's sunshine..."

2007-12-16T15:50:00.000-06:00

I was just bitten by the traveling bug, or premature spring fever, or senioritis-- I don't know what to call it but all of a sudden I want to hit the road. I don't need preparations or accommodations, finding your way is half the fun.

Maybe I should start planning Spring Break? Or maybe I should just hit the road now and see what happens. I'll probably wait for the snow to melt a little...

:)

2007-12-11T12:32:00.000-06:00

Julia's Cartoon thought about you.

It's real good. :)

"You'll make it through / with another point of view again"

2007-11-30T12:25:00.000-06:00

My application to JET will be completed today.
Then, it's out of my hands.
That'll be a relief.

Nothing is ever just as it seems. The more I try to look at the world from new perspectives, the more the chaos seems to make sense... in whatever way chaos can make sense that is.

But on a better note, Julia showed me the first minute of her animation final project last night, and it's spectacular! If she posts it on her blog I'll be sure to link to it. :)

"Down is the new up"

2007-11-27T13:33:00.000-06:00

There's nothing like looking at yourself on paper to realize that you're not all that impressive on paper. My JET application is due on Dec. 4th, so I'm getting it all ready this week to ship off to D.C. Wish me luck everybody.

I still don't have my computer, but I'm hoping to get it back soon. I guess I'm going to be at the library doing research for my oral report from actual books(!) tonight. I was about to say that I'm enjoying not having a computer for the time being, but the irony of using this forum to do is just staggering.

I think I'm going to try and make time to watch the Abbey Road documentary again this week, though. Seems like that would be a fun thing to do.

"Forget about your house of cards..."

2007-11-25T15:39:00.000-06:00

My embrace of Dadaism

2007-11-16T13:05:00.000-06:00

This is not a pipe.

Some of you may know this, but it's been an odd half year for me. I have undergone what I can only call an existential journey that has very powerfully effected my day-to-day life in both positive and negative ways. At times it has been enjoyable, but other times it has been terrifying; descending into the depths of relativism ("everything = everything else" WTF?!) and trying to smash my brain around the dualistic nature of the universe got so tiring that I had all but accepted nihilism, not out of agreement with the movement, but out of surrender.

But today I awoke with a strange new perception on my bedroom, my duplex, my street, and the rest of the world around me. It is absurd. Why do bad things happen to good people? There is no 'why,' it's just absurd. And since no matter what I do there's nothing I can do to stop that fact, I may as well just accept the world for what it is and enjoy the consumate beauty that exists within it.

That's right: Dadaism is, at very least, the point my existential crisis has taken me to for the time being. For those unfamiliar with Dadaism, Wikipedia tells us, "Many Dadaists believed that the 'reason' and 'logic' of bourgeois society had led people into the horrors of war. They expressed their rejection of that ideology in artistic expression that appeared to reject logic and embrace chaos and irrationality. For example, George Grosz later recalled that his Dadaist art was intended as a protest 'against this world of mutual destruction'."

So from this movement we start to see art that represents that idea of enjoying the world as it is, despite it's obvious foibles. A great example of this is René Clair's short film Paris Qui Dort, "Paris is Asleep" where several young people awake to find that everyone and everything other than themselves in the world has frozen in time, so they go out and do all the things they couldn't do before, such as having a picnic lunch on the Eiffel Tower and much other silliness. (It's a 30 minute silent film in case any of you brave souls want to watch it)

Silliness. That's what I want. I've never had any problem being serious when I knew the time was right, I usually push people to talk about their problems more than they probably want me to, so without letting go of my understanding that there will always be pain in the world I embrace the silliness that goes right along with it. I embrace Dadaism.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to go have lunch on the Effel Tower.

(Since I don't expect anyone to make it all the way through "Paris is Asleep," here's a shorter Dadaist film by Hans Richter called "Ghosts Before Breakfast." I highly reccomend watching some of it at least.)
The flying hats are priceless :) though message may be a little lost today.

"You do it to yourself, and that's what really hurts"

2007-11-01T13:37:00.000-05:00

When I was a young kid (age 6 or so) I loved summer. The hotter the better. My friends and I would go swimming, climb trees, ride bikes, and occasionally stay out late enough to howl at the moon-- just to tell the neighborhood that we were alive. Summer was where it was at.
Later in life, (circa age 14) I loved winter. Hot chocolate, the Christmas season, the ever alluring possibility of a snow day... I loved bundling and going outside. Winter was pretty awesome.

Nowadays my favorite season is autumn. It was never glamorous to me as a kid; it's not as hot as the summer, it's not as cold as the winter, I stopped trick-or-treating before high school. But now the consistency and quietness of this time of year serves as a much needed repose from summer, and a welcome breather before the hectic holidays.
Perhaps as I'm getting older I'm coming to appreciate the understated beauty of moderate weather and the gentle slow changing colors of the leaves. It can't all be 90-degree days and snow storms. And hell, the view outside my window as I write this is far more beautiful than any indian summer I've ever seen. The grounding concept of moderation consistently permeates my life.

"For a minute there, I lost myself"

2007-10-23T17:57:00.001-05:00

At the Union we have a hand-punch system to clock in and out of work for the day, so when you place your hand on the scanner it verifies that it is indeed you clocking in. When you do this, it gives you a "score" which gauges the margin of error that it's actually you placing your hand on the machine-- anything lower than 50% and they trust that it's really you.

Last Friday I clocked in for the day to get some work on a few DVD menus Mark asked me to design, and when I placed my palm on the hand-punch machine I got the highest margin of error I've ever seen on there; it was 49% likely that I was actually myself on Friday.

Stupid machines. What do they know anyway?

"spitting feathers, splitting hairs"

2007-10-15T21:53:00.000-05:00

I sat in meditation for about an hour this evening. Lately I've been really into meditating, doing all the little techniques I've learned over the past years, doing it the way I'm "supposed to," ambulation, transfer of merits, etc... but tonight I didn't light any incense, I didn't listen to Ravi Shankar, I just sat down and started erasing all the extraneous bullshit from my brain.

It was fantastic.
To let go.
"To let that which does not matter truly slide."

Leave it to me to start trying too hard at meditation of all things. But hey, the important thing is that I noticed it, and gently reminded myself that nobody knows my mind better than myself. I am the master of my own destiny-- it's time to start acting like it again.

Though it's great to take advice along the way, for instance Hakuin Ekaku said,

"What is this true meditation? It is to make everything: coughing, swallowing, waving the arms, motion, stillness, words, action, the evil and the good, prosperity and shame, gain and loss, right and wrong, into one single koan."

... and there's a Jane's Addiction song that goes,

"When was the last time you did anything / Not for me, or anyone else / Just because?"

But today Gabriel Rebeck said,

"I'm going to start making decisions for myself."

And he did.

"Pleased to meet you take my hand, there's no way back from here."

2007-09-24T02:48:00.000-05:00

Morning sunlight penetrated the room between the slats in the blinds, forming a ladder of light beams starting on the floor climbing partway up the wall. The Heart had been awake for a while, at least an hour he estimated by the distance the light had shifted across the room since first creeping in at dawn. “Two, three, four rungs on the light ladder.” He stayed very still and quiet, waiting for nothing in particular.

The Heart was nearly certain he was actually awake. He considered getting out of bed to see if anybody else was up, to see if anybody else wanted to get some breakfast or maybe just a strong cup of coffee down the street. “Seventeen, eighteen, nineteen rungs…” The rest were probably hung over from the revelries of the night before.

“Twenty-eight, twenty-nine.” It had gotten too warm to have the blanket completely covering him, but it was too comfortable not to. Another weekend was passing by, another chance for the Heart to sacrifice his own comforts so that others wouldn’t be hurt. “Thirty-four, thirty-five.” Another chance to accumulate stories that he couldn’t tell in their entirety to anyone.

The light ladder was crawling slowly up the wall now. “Forty-one, forty-two.” Why couldn’t he get up and take himself out for coffee, tell his stories to a medium green tea chai latte, listen to the stories the wind has to tell, laugh at the jokes life is cracking all the time?

The Heart got up out of bed and placed his hand next to the shadow ladder on the wall opposite the window. “Sixty-eight rungs total.” A ladder that went nowhere. An exercise in futility. But then the Heart turned back around to the window and said to no one in particular, “Plato was right about the cave.” He walked over to the window and pulled the blinds all the way up, revealing an entire world teeming with beauty— effectively killing the shadow ladder. He took a deep breath and drank it all in, and he hoped to God he could remember this the next time.

"It's easy to be, easy and free, when it doesn't mean anything..."

2007-09-12T23:03:00.000-05:00

So last weekend I was hired by the Travel Channel to work as a production assistant on a taping of the TV show Taste of America at the Lenexa Spinach Festival. I may not be a big fan of television, but considering this was a well-paying PA role (rather than the unpaid positions I've taken on the last two feature films I worked), there was no way I was going to turn this opportunity down.

The crew were a delight to work with, and since they all had to be fairly young they were all willing to impart some advice for a young film student looking to start a real career in film/video production (not to mention some very fascinating advice on the subject of "cougar hunting" from Ben, and the current state of the German film industry from Tonja).

Everyone at the festival knew that "the Travel Channel" was coming to cover the gala, and therefore we were treated like celebrities. Everyone wanted us to eat their food, so on top of my wage I got delicious free food all day. We shot the various booths serving up their own recipes, Popeye and Olive Oil serving the World's Largest Spinach Salad, and even the judging of the Spinach recipe contest.

At one point Kacie and I even got some time on camera, seeing as how our age group didn't seem to have a very good representation at the festival. I basically eat a plate full of different spinach recipes and talk about the flavors-- hopefully I don't end up completely on the cutting room floor.

All in all it was a fantastic time and a great new addition to my resume of film experience. I can't wait for the next one to come along. Considering the great time I had, I don't know why everyone doesn't pursue a job in the film industry. :)

Life is truly beautiful.

"nothing is static, everything is evolving, everything is falling apart"

2007-09-09T20:07:00.000-05:00

The only patterns that exist out there in the chaos are the ones our human brains look for and assign arbitrary meanings to… but maybe that’s enough.
Maybe something is more beautiful on the authority that we want it to be beautiful; that we need it to be. If we perceive beauty, then it really is—the only thing I can trust is my own perception anyway (if even that).

We westerners look at the historical Christ to solidify our Christian faith, yet in Eastern traditions, they could care less about the historical Gautama Buddha. It doesn’t matter if he was truly all they say of him, the message in his sutras is the same regardless.

Would “love your neighbor as yourself,” mean anything different if Christ wasn’t actually the son of God?

Life is way too beautiful to ignore—which is exactly what we are doing when we sweat the small stuff, like “intended meaning.” There is no intended meaning behind the leaves outside my window, and that makes them no less important in my book. Perception is meaning.
The substance of style.
One thing after the other.
Beauty and darkness in the eye of the beholder; our post-modern world.
It can be so beautiful.

It is what it is, now get over it.
(And I used to love the movie Signs…)

"Here i am expecting just a little bit too much from the wounded"

2007-09-04T21:33:00.000-05:00

There are two men.

Man #1 does fine in school, goes to college and makes connections with people in the marketing school and ends up with a fairly high powered position in a big business. He partied pretty hard in college, never really made any extraordinary connection with anybody when he didn't think it would get him ahead in any way. Man #1 enjoys the way his job allows him to live: he has a nice home and a highly respectable home theater system. He eventually marries a girl he's been seeing; the sex is really good and they get along well enough (though he doesn't realize that she compromises 90% of the time so as not to make waves). They live a perfectly normal life with 3 children.

Man #2 does equally well in school, but goes to college to find it's hard to be motivated by money alone, and that he desires to live his life pursuing a dream job regardless of what it pays him, or how long it takes him to find it. He also realizes how important the people in his life are, so he spends more time working at his relationships than he does at his schoolwork, and therefore gets, maybe Cs and Bs. He above all understands the ultimate value of love and beauty. I won't tell you whether or not he succeeds in his career, but I will say he's very passionate about it, and he at least makes enough of a living to provide a comfortable life for his 2 children and his wife. His wife also works, but the two of them find time to make passionate love more often than any of their friends because they are more in love today than they ever have been in their lives. Man #2 also loves his children very much.

Which of these people is the "successful" man?

This one hurts a lot worse than the last one.

"One thing I can tell you is you got to be free."

2007-09-02T03:55:00.000-05:00

Well, I finally did something with the footage I shot at the 10,000 Lakes Festival. Nothing fancy by any means, but a good flavor of what the festival was like.
I had a fantastic night tonight, and what better way to remind myself of how beautiful life is than by reflecting on tonight's festivities and posting a video I shot when I was the happiest I can remember since... well, since before the summer.

Goodnight moon. Life is beautiful.

What did we know about ourselves before we had the internet to tell us...?

2007-08-27T20:10:00.000-05:00

"Though your motives arise from genuine compassion, some people might think of you as "a little too good to be true." They could suspect that your kindness is something you use to ingratiate yourself with others or to get them to like you. Others may suspect that your altruism is a mask for your own problems; you take care of others but never let others get to know you well enough to offer you their care. Some of this suspicion may be genuine; they just can't believe you're this kind. But it may also be triggered by envy; people see in you a tenderheartedness they don't find in themselves, and it makes them uncomfortable so they take it out on you with their suspicions.

Another critical response others may have may be something you want to take a serious look at. If you spend your time taking care of others, you may not have enough left to take very good care of yourself. If you're always asking, "What can I do for you?", you may not focus enough on your own needs. You're so busy taking care of others that you neglect yourself and empty your reserves of energy and good health. Like we said, give it consideration and if it doesn't fit move on."

"People... People who need people..."

2007-08-23T18:00:00.000-05:00

Listen to me while you listen :)

Whenever it all seems insane, I turn back to Thich Nhat Hanh.

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong.
Why not try and see positive things,
to just touch those things and make them bloom?

Buddhism for me is all about realization. I tend to agree with the Zen Buddhists who say that enlightenment comes in a sudden flash when you're not even concentrating on it. You'll be sweeping the leaves on the front walk and all of a sudden it all makes sense.
The trick isn't achieving enlightenment, the trick is surviving until you can have that sudden realization... and not getting too wrapped up in your own bullshit in the meantime.

We humans are funny little creatures. Everyone in the world needs someone (especially the people who act like they don't need anyone), but the real challenge is finding an equilibrium with someone you need who also needs you-- you have a perfect balance of give and take, or at least you can eventually keep that balance before one of you falls off of the relationship.

Please keep Crystal in your thoughts. It's never easy to lose a loved one, especially so suddenly.

I miss Carl Sagan.

Also, check it out: Lindsey and I play Beatles music (again).

"Say the word and you'll be free, Say the word and be like me."

2007-08-23T00:06:00.000-05:00

I love my job. For those of you who don't know it, I work for KU Media Productions-- a little production company based in the Union that does commercials for the University as well as free lance video production for any paying customers. Basically that means on any given day I could be shooting/editing/etc. literally anything you could think of.

So today I went back into work for the first time in a few days. I was kinda scared my boss Mark would be mad that I hadn't been free to work for a while, but he was just genuinely happy to see me again and chatted me up about my first week of school and his new house his family just moved into. Mark is just a great boss (and a good friend).

But the interview was the real reason for this entry: we spoke to Professor Mohammad El-Hodiri, economist, mathematician, and poet extraordinaire. He was born and educated in Cairo, studied for several years in Russia, and has generally been a globetrotter most of his life. He now resides in Lawrence and teaches with such enthusiasm for academia at KU (enough so to be recognized enough that we were asked to film this piece on him ;) ). He really expanded my mind when he spoke. I love fascinating people.

In the meantime, it was actually a very long and hard day for me, so I really just want to coast through the rest of this week, listen to some great music (I've been super hooked on Rubber Soul lately), and really hit the semester hard starting next week. So I suckle the last sweet drops from freedom's teet before putting in an effort I can be proud of my senior year.

"You know I'd give you everything I've got for a little peace of mind"

2007-08-20T12:54:00.000-05:00

Listen to me while you read :)

I guess you could say I had a bit of an accident. I was in the back of a pile up on 19th street. Could have happened to anybody. I suppose I wanted to start off the semester with a bang...

So I think back to my Buddhism.

Why do I feel the way I do right now?
--Because I probably need a new car.
Oh, so you lost your car? Why were you clinging to an inanimate object anyway?
--Yeah, it's just a thing, but it certainly made getting around easier.
Didn't you just get that cool new bike? It's not like Lawrence is that big.
--That's true, I just get tired of showing up places all sweaty.
Sounds to me like you're still clinging. You and I both know that's source of duhka.
--Wanting things to go the way I want them to is clinging?
Absolutely! Clinging to the way you think things should be? Why do you think you know how the universe should conduct it's business?
--I don't claim to know, I just want a break, that's all.
So give yourself a break. Use meditation, stop ruminating, be mindful of every beautiful moment. Only you can bring yourself joy, nobody's going to come and offer you your happiness for free.
--Sometimes I wish they would.
I know man, me too. What music are you listening to right now?
--A song called "Drive" by Blind Melon.
"Drive?" Are you kidding me? Cut it out, I'm serious. What would make you happy right now?
--[whisper whisper whisper]
...You need to get yourself a puppy or something. What else can you think of?
--...Let's see. I love doing things for other people. Does that count?
Hmm, I'm a little skeptical. Will it really make you happy to bring someone else joy, or are you trying to sound more noble than you actually are?
--I really want to do this. It will bring a smile to my face.
Well then go in peace. And one more thing...
--Yeah?
Just chill out man. I'm serious.
--....thanks.

Well, that was an interesting stream of consciousness experiment.

PS I had a dream last night where I told someone I was a Buddhist Catholic Nihilist. I'm starting to wish any one of those was actually true.

"And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun, but it's sinking."

2007-08-16T13:37:00.000-05:00

Listen to me while you read.

In thoughtful attempts to help me keep my sanity lately, everyone has been telling me not to worry about the questions I have been asking (the standard "big questions" about why we're here and the nature of our existence)... but complacency has been on my mind a lot lately since meditating at the Zen Center recently. Then two days ago Lindsey told me to check out a post on the Buddha Diaries about taking action and why the kids these days just aren't getting out there and showing how disgusted we are with the current administration and it's endless war.

Well, I'm a veteran of 4 or 5 war protests, I've been out at the peace demonstrations in downtown Kansas City, I'm not complacent am I?...am I? The answer is a very resounding "maybe." Yeah I've done enough, I've questioned enough, but I can do more. I shouldn't let my friends talk me into ignoring the problems that have plagued humanity since the dawn of time just because they don't think I'll come up with an answer... because at least I will have tried.

When the hell else can I simultaneously reject permanence and impermanence, muse about going off to Tibet to "find myself," or even accuse the very universe of not existing? My questions may be stupid, but at least they're universal, and by virtue of that I have every right to ask them-- even if it brings me distress. If Jesus, Allah, or Buddha is up there watching me I don't think they'll care that much if I put myself headlong into something that isn't technically "correct." I'd rather be foolhardy than complacent.

This is my senior year of college. I've got two relatively light semesters ahead of me, so I think I would be doing myself a disservice if I didn't get out there and support the causes I agree with, question the consumerist principals this country was founded on, and make a life for myself. I can see one of two outcomes from this decision: a) I could make some hilarious stories about my misguided adventures to tell 10 or 15 years down the line, or 2) I could really succeed and touch some people's lives or find some answers to the questions I've been asking.

My advice to the world is step 1: turn off the television, it's the only way to keep yourself out from under the spell of cathode ray mind control. :) There's really nothing good on anyway... unless you're tired from being active all day and you need some time to turn your brain off, I do that too.

Anyway, I thought the light at the end of my tunnel was acceptance, but for the time being I can't accept acceptance as the answer for anything. I'll have time for acceptance when I'm in the rest home (...at the age of 45 apparently...).

Ah, the balance of life. I don't know if some omnipotent being is keeping it in check or not, but life certainly has a way of keeping itself in balance.

Restitution

2007-08-13T14:43:00.000-05:00

This is an open apology to the student of the University of Kansas for calling you all "mouth breathers" today in the union. I was feeling a little enochlophobic amid the lines for the bookstore and I let that get the better of me.
I aknowledge the buddha-nature/christ-nature/allah-nature/whatever-nature you all have within you and that's a beautiful thing. So, sorry for calling you mouth breathers. :)

"Life ain't so shitty"

2007-08-10T11:10:00.000-05:00

Be sure to watch the whole thing, it gets pretty far out by the end.
I'm pretty sure I'm in love with this girl.

"And tell me no lies, make me a happy man"

2007-08-05T15:04:00.000-05:00

We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.
--The Buddha

This weekend my cousin came back from his year of teaching English in Japan. It was a blast getting to catch up with him. I had a weekend of family, friends, and lots of fun.

Then why am I so lost?

"Come on along, or go alone, he's here to take his children home."

2007-08-04T01:27:00.000-05:00

I've gotta learn to respect my perception. I've always grappled with the idea that something holds more weight if you can share it with someone else or make someone else see what you're seeing-- but to think that something I perceive is any less beautiful just because no one else saw it is simply ridiculous. Perhaps in some cases that makes it even more beautiful. This is a very important concept for me right now.

To that girl that kissed me on the cheek at tonight at the Jazz House: that may not have meant much to you, but it was quite lovely from my point of view... and that's perfectly okay. My perception is just as important as anyone else's.

Henry David Thoreau said, "It's not what you look at that matters, it's what you see." My eyes are opening wider every day. But then again, Thoreau's counterpart in transcendentalism Ralph Waldo Emerson said, "People only see what they are prepared to see." Maybe I'm just now becoming ready to see everything that I am. My only fear is that the world is far too beautiful for me to take.

side note

2007-07-29T02:28:00.000-05:00

Cheers to that drunk girl at the bar tonight who thought who thought I was her boyfriend for a second, then realized her mistake and promptly informed me that I had better hair than her actual boyfriend.

I could've sworn I needed a haircut. :)

"Kill me again with love, It's gonna be a glorious day."

2007-07-27T00:57:00.000-05:00

Yesterday morning I came really close to walking out of the house completely naked. I had a serious compulsion to go out for a stroll naked as a jay bird. Not an exhibitionism thing, I just thought it would be so natural to go for a brief constitutional in the warm morning air without the hindrance of clothing.
I guess I'm trading Buddhism for nudism.

So follow up to the previous post: the answer is so much simpler than I was making it out to be. Vanilla Sky says the answer to 9 out of 10 questions is "money" (and in my opinion the answer to the 10th question was "sex")... but my spin on this idea is that the answer to 9 out of 10 questions about life is "moderation."

Moderation. That little word that keeps popping up in my mind; it was Ben Franklin's favorite concept for a damn good reason. In reference to my previous entry, of course I should help others. I wouldn't be me if I didn't practice compassion and empathy, they're two traits i see in myself that I'm most proud of. But if I'm not moderate in putting others before myself, I will never get around to taking care of myself at all.

Life is a balancing act. As you progress you have to lean from side to side and back again to maintain a steady balance. If you lean to heavily in any one direction you're just going to come tumbling down. Sometimes you may have to lean in one direction as a necessity to maintain balance. I made reference to a Shantideva quote two entries ago "All happiness comes from the desire for others to be happy. All misery comes from the desire for oneself to be happy." Was Shantideva wrong? Should Shantideva have been practicing moderation?

Well, not exactly. Now that I'm looking at that quote again, he's only talking about desire here. Perhaps some discrepancy in practice from desire is a good thing. Desire happiness for others but practice compassion for myself. I guess that Shantideva really knew what he was talking about, maybe I should pick up his Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way Of Life again.

I'm trying here. How does the old axiom go? Some people are born great, some people have greatness thrust upon them. If I could figure out half of the shit floating through my brain I would be truly great, but only out of necessity.
I didn't ask these questions... they were asked of me. I'm just trying to find the answers

Tired of This Dance

2007-07-26T12:21:00.000-05:00

You do a consistently good job for as long as you can remember, and all that happens is once you let up for a moment everyone asks you, “Jeez, what happened? What’s up with you?”

If I was doing such a good job before now, why didn’t you take a minute to let me know? Positive reinforcement is much more powerful than negative reinforcement.

Tuesday was my 21st birthday and I had a great time out at the bars. Everyone was buying me drinks; even a few attractive young ladies that I had never met bought me drinks. It was a fantastic time (thank you all for coming out—every last one of you, I appreciated it so much).

But I’m an introvert. I need to follow up a night of intense socialization with a day of quiet and solitude. How come whenever I want peace and quiet someone comes knocking on my door and when I want a friend to talk to everyone’s mysteriously absent?

Bad timing on my part. I ought to work on that.

The only person you can ever truly please is yourself. I used to think that if everyone just helped his or her neighbor out, everyone would be happy… but maybe it’s that if we all look out for ourselves we’ll truly be happy. Only when you’re stupid enough to go around looking for fulfillment should you help your neighbor.

And the Buddha? What would he say? He’d tell me I’m wrong. What he doesn’t know is if I kill myself over trying to make other people happy, I won’t be around anymore to attain enlightenment. You just can’t teach a Buddha anything.

I can’t tell if this is a forever chance in my attitude or just one of those short-term things. Whichever it is, it’s leaving my brow furrowed in the mean time. I’m just tired of learning the answers to questions I never asked.
I don’t actually want anybody to think I’m Superman or anything. I just want other people to see me with the same respect I have for myself. I’m pretty damn great… but maybe I don’t let anybody close enough to figure that out.

I'm going to regret posting this in an hour or so when I remember exactly how painfully beautiful, perfectly pulchritudinous this world really is.

"Did I make me up? Or make the face 'till it stuck? I do the best immitation of myself."

2007-07-17T08:30:00.000-05:00

Take a vacation from myself? That's ridiculous! Nigh impossible! ...just crazy enough to work!

Bob McClane: What is it that is exactly the same about every single vacation you have ever taken?
Douglas Quaid: I give up.
Bob McClane: You! You're the same. No matter where you go, there you are. It's always the same old you. Let me suggest that you take a vacation from yourself. I-I know it sounds wild.

I'm heading out for the 10,000 Lakes Music and Camping Festival this week (at the Detroit Lakes in Minnesota to see Bob Weir and Ratdog, Zappa Plays Zappa, Unphrey's McGee, String Cheese Incident, moe., Galactic, and many others including perhaps most the important for me: the beautiful talented Kaki King.

But this trip will be as much about the music and camping (at beautiful Lake Sallie) as it will be decompression time for me. No, it has not been an arduous summer-- hard maybe, but not arduous. But I need some time to think about everything: that's what the first half of the week is for. Then the second half of the week, I will forget about everything and just have fun. I've always taken serious consideration into a Shantideva quote I once read, "All happiness comes from the desire for others to be happy. All misery comes from the desire for oneself to be happy." Well if that's true then maybe this week I could use a little misery. A little vacation from my usual standards of making other people happy.

Atisha said, "The greatest meditation is a mind that lets go." This week my mind will let go, and camping out in nature, hopefully I will bring out my inner Buddha-nature. I want to meditate on the cliffs above Lake Sallie, I want to become one with the trees around our camp ground, I want to let my mind off of it's leash and see where it goes when it's completely free.

I want to renew a love affair with an old friend. My life.

BAARRFF!

2007-07-08T14:11:00.000-05:00

I quit. :)

"And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light that shines on me. Shine until tomorrow, let it be."

2007-07-06T00:38:00.000-05:00

Nothing like an impromptu barefoot bike ride at 11pm to really clear your head. I just want to say, I might be wrong about a lot of stuff-- I know I'm wrong about a lot of stuff, but I just can't see how that could matter.

I'm nowhere near as great as I want people to think I am... but I'm still pretty fucking awesome.

The Buddha once said:

"Let us rise up and be thankful, for if we didn't learn a lot today, at least we learned a little, and if we didn't learn a little, at least we didn't get sick, and if we got sick, at least we didn't die; so, let us all be thankful."

I'm thankful.
_____For everything.
__________Even the shit that hurts.
_______________Especially the shit that hurts.

I am alive, and I have a greater capacity for love than anyone else I know.

We humans have an incredible knack for trapping ourselves in little mazes without even realizing it. We curse the person who created these traps for us, but lack the foresight to realize we've put ourselves in them.

Whenever I start questioning myself I just think of something the Dalai Lama said,
"Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive."
I'm just trying to do my part.

I dance with the star shine. Do you know anyone else who dances with the star shine?
.I miss you.

"There's something in the air tonight that feels right."

2007-06-20T23:52:00.000-05:00

Sorry I haven't written in a while. It's been busy and hey, the Buddha said, "Do not speak unless it improves upon silence."

Well tonight, "Things are not what they appear to be; nor are they otherwise." (Surangama Sutra)... okay okay, I'll stop hiding behind obtuse quotes. I find myself in the exact same position tonight that I found myself last night: it's midnight and I am not ready to turn in my paper that is due in the morning.

How did I let myself get here once again? Well, I had a beautiful shoot outdoors this afternoon for work (the weather was simply gorgeous), I spent time on 'pause' with Lindsey after that and drank tea and had delicious strawberries and kick-ass vegan pizza, then I got home and was unable to turn down a few games of bowling with the roommates (plus a few other people). Rather than freak out over the paper I wasn't finishing I gave myself fully to the game of bowling; I inexplicably named myself "the Killer Bee," I paid the jukebox to play "Shine on You Crazy Diamond," and commenced with the merriment. I broke 100 in both games (which id totally decent for me) and had a wonderful time.

I also had a chat with my friend Paul, for whom I am assuming the role of best man at his upcoming wedding, and decided that since I hadn't even seen him in person since he asked me to be his best man, we needed to get together this weekend... and have beers. That will have been long overdue.

After wrapping up some other loose ends as well, I find myself here with an amazing day under my belt and a broad smile on my face. I accept that I have put myself into this position with my paper: I'll have to stay up later tonight to get it finished, but sometimes you've got to do what you've got to do for these unforgettable summer days.

The 14th Dalai Lama said, "Anything that contradicts experience and logic should be abandoned." Tonight, writing my paper earlier would have contradicted experience. I had a positively wonderful day, and there's nothing in the world I'm left wanting.
...except maybe one thing.

"All of us are heaven sent, there was never meant to be only one."

2007-06-12T16:15:00.000-05:00

The problem with me? Take your pick.

I'm a strange megalomaniac with an inferiority complex.
I think I'm the worst, but it kills me not to be the best. I'm the world's least successful perfectionist.

So what I do is I try to plan ahead and control my present by preparing for the future. In high school it seemed viable: service the future and you’ll have a good life. But one day it dawns on you, isn’t this life yet? Why make the present lousy for yourself just because it may help you be more comfortable in the future? A popular Zen gong I saw a few times when I was in Japan said something that struck me:

“Birth and Death is a grave event;
How transient is life!
Every minute is to be grasped.
Time waits for nobody.”

I don’t think there’s any divine report card coming to us at the end of this life, when you’re done all that’s left is your memories and the lives of the people you’ve touched. If St. Peter is waiting for me at the “pearly gates” after I die, I think he’ll ask me something along the lines of “how much did you love people when you were on Earth?” If there were any eternal judgment at all, the single criterion not too trivial for such a thing would be the amount of love you gave during your tenure as a human being.

St. Peter wouldn’t dare remind me of the time I got hopelessly lost on Valentines Day in the rain trying to find the restaurant while Andrea got carsick in the passenger seat and almost had me pull over so she could throw up. And if that sort of thing holds any clout up next to the years of devoted love I’ve given to countless people over the short period I’ve been alive thus far, then I don’t want to be in heaven’s stupid little club anyway.

My favorite living person, Thich Nhat Hanh once said, “Sometimes your joy is the source of your smile, but sometimes your smile can be the source of your joy.”

Life is so
short
precious
beautiful
fuckin’ amazing
beautiful
devastating
so devastatingly beautiful that I can not go another minute letting fear of failure keep me from doing the things I truly desire to do. Fear of pain-- hell, fear of death: these things seem so minute.

Hindsight is 20/20.
Ajhan Chah said, “If you haven't wept deeply, you haven't begun to meditate.”

Perfectionism may be good and well for some people, but I believe now that it’s keeping me from my full potential. I kiss perfectionism a not so fond goodbye, and now on romantic evenings of self, I’ll go salsa dancing with my own confusion.

"buy the sun... I'm selling the night"

2007-06-10T11:37:00.000-05:00

I've been grieving multiple losses lately-- both on my behalf and on the behalf of others-- and this seems to have come to a head in the form of a humorous short story loosely based on the idea (see last post) and now this short film I put together in all of about five minutes (it made me five minutes late to something).

It's abstract and self-indulgent, so I don't expect anybody to really understand exactly what I meant in this piece, but if anyone sees meaning of their own then great. I'll probably take this post down in a day or two, because that's how you deal with grief: you allow it in for a little while, then you let it go. I'll be letting this video go from my blog soon. This goes out to Lindsey Smith and the rest of Kelsey Smith's family.

"The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still"

2007-06-07T14:50:00.000-05:00

--And now for a short Themindtaker story--

Once upon a time there was a small village of woodland creatures living on a vast green plane under a crystalline blue sky. Mickster McAlister the muskrat lived in a beautiful split-level suburban hollowed-out log with his stunning muskrat wife Melinda (a real looker, as far as muskrats go) and his two and a half muskrat kids. All of the McAlister’s friends agreed, Melinda and Mick were a great couple… even if their split-level log wasn’t exactly the cleanest. You see, from a young age Mick had collected toilet paper rolls, and his collection of mint condition rare and precious rolls had gotten rather out of hand. But Melinda had great fun arranging it, finding new and different ways of displaying the humongous hoard of lavatory paper. She had helped Mick with his collection since their courtship.

The muskrat community gave Mick and Melinda a lot of flack over the strange cache of toilet paper that had amassed in their house over the years. I should point out that muskrats almost never use toilet paper at all—they’ve been quite fond of the bidet ever since a door-to-door salesman came and introduced them to their town. The muskrats even held a town meeting over the ridiculous amount of toilet paper bulging out of the McAlister residence. They decided that it was a bit of an eyesore (“why couldn’t it be something other than toilet paper?” they asked), and it couldn’t be a very suitable environment for the two and a half McAlister children to grow up. Something had to be done.

Unfortunately, Mick wasn’t in attendance at this meeting to defend himself, because he had camped out that night in front of the local Musk-o-Mart to be the first in line to buy the new Softin’ Fluffy three ply, Extra Absorbent 7-Series Toilet Tissue which had just been released (Mick was not only the first in line, but the only muskrat in town to buy ANY toilet paper that day whatsoever, save for the kindly Miss Marjorie who accidentally bought some thinking they were paper towels).

When Mick got home, his loving muskrat wife informed him of the town’s decision to burn their pile of toilet paper. Melinda snuggled up with the distraught Mick in a very soft (very absorbent) pile of TP outside under the stars, which Melinda had laid out for the two of them upon hearing the terrible news. Melinda and Mick held each other and spoke of the great times they had buying and arranging the great reserve of loo paper. Like the time uncle Meyers had used an entire roll by himself, or when they had forgotten to buy baby clothes for their first child, so they wrapped her in toilet paper for the first day, or that funny roll of tissues they had received as a gift with little pictures of muskrat politicians of it, like George W. Muskrush.

They spoke until dawn of the fond times they’d shared over the years, but decided that even to lose the great TP collection wouldn’t take any of those memories away from them, and their love was stronger than it ever had been. “Bring on the townspeople!” said Mick. “Let ’em take my collection of ‘shit tickets,’ they can never take away my happiness!” Just at that moment, it started to rain. First innocent little drops that Mick and Melinda danced around in, and then big dense rain drops that almost hurt your head when they landed on you.

Before too long, it became the biggest downpour that the little muskrat village had ever seen. The water level rose and muskrats came bursting out of their houses to look at the phenomenon. It was unbelievable. Everyone started to get nervous as the floodwater grew deeper and deeper. Mick and Melinda looked out the window and held their children tightly, when they saw a boat come floating up to their house. Martin Mitchum, the head of the town council shouted at the McAlisters to start throwing their rolls of toilet paper out the window. “Let the tissue issue go, Mitchum!” shouted Mick. “At least until this rain clears up!”

“No, you don’t understand!” responded Mitchum. “It’ll help absorb the flood!” Melinda and Mick looked at each other as a slow smile grew upon both of their faces. “No one else has any paper, they’ve all got bidets!” Soon the whole town was over at the McAlister log throwing little muskrat handfuls of toilet tissue out of the house. Slowly but surely the floodwaters receded. The great current was impeded by a great dam of toilet paper, which as quickly as the rain appeared absorbed and disintegrated into nothingness, leaving no traces of the great flood, or of Mick’s fantastic TP collection.

Mick and Melinda were heralded as town heroes from that point on. And the town council apologized for plotting to force them to get rid of the life-saving pile of toilet paper they had collected. Mick and Melinda (especially Melinda) took it all in stride and said that everything must have worked out the way it did for a reason. “Easy come easy go, I suppose,” said Melinda in front of the town council. Mick never regretted losing the collection because that rainy night, he realized that the TP never made him happy, it was sharing the collection process with Melinda that had brought him joy all these years, and no floor or town council or anyone else could ever take that away from them.

That night the McAlister kids had a sleepover at a friend’s house, and Mick and Melinda made sweet sweet muskrat love, all night long.

THE END

Good old fashioned visceral experience...

2007-06-05T01:30:00.001-05:00

So... after a little while tonight we decided to head out for a walk around campus (I know, woo hoo for us). We got to the campanile and I decided it would be awesome to head out to the 50-yard line on the football field (a la Dazed and Confused). No one else was game, so I alone jumped the first fence and headed over there. I hit another fence, at least 15 feet tall, and climbed it as well. The top was seemingly lined with razor-wire (I guess they really don't want trespassers), but I climbed over anyway. I cut myself up pretty badly (the pictures above are pretty tame compared to the rest of the cuts I got), but I made it out there and walked around by myself for a little while and laid out on the field at looked up at the stars.

Maybe it was a shitty idea, I am bleeding now and all, but I have no regrets. It was a lovely evening of visceral experience (see my last blog). I've earned a good nights right tonight, and I intend to cash in on it now. Good night world, I hope you sleep sweet.

"This is your time, this is your day. You've got it all, don't throw it... away"

2007-06-04T22:04:00.000-05:00

"Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom."
--Kierkegaard

If you haven't seen Vanilla Sky, I highly recommend that you check it out. It is perhaps Cameron Crowe's finest work, yet it continually falls behind Almost Famous and even Jerry McGuire on critics lists. Yes, it's simply an adaptation of Abre Los Ojos, but Crowe made Vanilla Sky his own movie in all regards.

I initially intended to give you a serious analysis on whether or not I would stay in the lucid dream presented in Vanilla Sky, stay in a the blissful ignorance of a consistently perfect life; stay plugged into the Matrix and taste steak and Tastee Wheat.
HOWEVER, I am currently sipping a Red Stripe in a recliner wearing my aviators and hanging out with a small group of people while listening to some badass jazz. Sometimes waxing philosophical over sophomoric hypothetical questions must take backseat to some good old fashioned visceral experience.

So if you are currently sitting down at your computer reading this, I implore you: go outside and dig your toes into the dirt. Go watch the sky move sideways. Go get your hear broken, just to let yourself know your heart still works. Life is an amazing thing even when we don't realize it. I choose to participate. For better or for worse. Now I've got some Red Stripe to finish.

"Could I be read if I was see-through, or would you just see my spine?"

2007-05-29T11:45:00.000-05:00

With each day that passes it becomes even more painfully obvious to me that I see the world around me very differently than almost everyone else I know. I’m practically in a different dimension. I like to think this is a good thing, but more and more it becomes my burden to deal with— and I wouldn’t wish it upon anybody else.

My world deals almost solely in feelings. Emotion. Sentiments and sensation. The universe is only existent to the extent that people perceive it, so our world is dependent on human beings. Humans are only existent to the extent of our own perception as well. If I ask you how you’re doing, you’ll respond with how you perceive yourself at that moment. Good, bad. Logic helps us out, but the only way we know anything about ourselves is through the feelings that make us who we are.

So the Earth is full of people, but more than that it’s full of emotions—the emotions of the people living here. How can anything be more important than how people feel? If the Earth is comprised of a bunch of people bouncing off of each other acting on their thoughts and feelings, then why aren’t people doing everything in their power to make themselves and everyone around them as happy as possible? Everyone is more responsible for their own happiness than anyone else’s, but if you had the power to make someone else’s life just a little bit happier, wouldn’t you?

In the world I see, strangers that you might never think twice about have entire intricate lives, and the second I see the suffering of innocent people, I emote heavily and empathize with extreme intensity. In most cases these episodes of intense empathy are for people I don’t know and never will know, but the existence of their suffering hangs heavy on my soul, like thick sheets of ice in an early autumn ice storm. Sometimes the brittle branches of my psyche can barely take it.

The only cardinal sin in my world is hurting someone, causing them to feel bad mentally or physically. This sounds just fine, but eventually you run into problems when people have overlapping feelings and it’s literally impossible for the two to be happy at the same time. But these things happen, it’s downright idiotic to think it’s possible for anyone to never have to feel pain in their life. These circumstances are unfortunate but sometimes unavoidable.

However the truly catastrophic times to me are when people hurt others intentionally. I am literally unable to comprehend the kind of personality that must hurt other people to be happy, but I see it almost every day… and it scares the shit out of me. How am I supposed to live, how am I supposed to compete in this world where you can plausibly get ahead by backstabbing other people? I have no intentions of ever hurting anyone I meet… and the irony here (there’ve been a lot of ironies lately) is that I’ll likely end up hurting myself in the process.

So the next time you see me doubled over in pain, look around me. I’m probably not reacting to something that happened to me, but rather I probably overheard some stranger on their phone just learn that they’ve lost a loved one, their parents will divorce, or their boyfriend/girlfriend doesn’t love them anymore. Go attend to them instead. I’m in the process of learning where these feelings come from, and why I was wired this way. All I ask is that you be patient with me, I’m carrying a little extra here. I know I can’t be the only one who’s like this (though I typically try to hide these feelings from the world—I can’t believe I’m coming clean right now), if you know anyone else who seems to be carrying a little extra load with them I implore you: give them a hug, a hand shake, a kind word. Chances are they really need it right now.

"One way or another, one way or another..."

2007-05-22T11:19:00.000-05:00

Sounds of chimes lightly suggesting their tones onto the soft wind, cool grass in the diffused morning sun, sweet smells of spring flowers offering their buds to their Earth: these were not the things the Heart experienced as he sat and contemplated early in one morning. He was in a small hot room with a handful of middle-aged people running a video conference call. The call went through, the conference was under way, and with one eye on the monitor, the Heart sat in meditation.

Almost as a cruel joke, the Venetian blinds were pulled all but closed over the broad window in the room. The Heart looked at the tangle of branches and leaves blowing in-between the slats of the blinds, and let his brain fill in the data absent from his perception. He could practically see the whole picture of the branches heaving to and fro and its leaves flowing in tune with each other. Then he attempted to stop completing the pattern and see the window for what it was-- tan slats of plastic on top of thin strips of luscious green motion. Who's to say whether or not the leaves hidden by the blinds truly existed? The Heart couldn't prove it; out of sight, out of mind. Maybe we're more adept visualizers before we learn the concept of object permanence. Perhaps the leaves were only real when they were visible through the slats.

The Heart then decided that it’s totally unimportant if someone sings the wrong lyrics to popular songs, as long as they're singing from the heart. "Jo-jo was a man who thought we was a woman, but he was another man!" Who cares what other people think? Fuck 'em all. Fuck 'em.

The conference eventually came to a close and the Heart dutifully put away his equipment and wrapped his cables, all the while assuring the Board of Regents that it was actually very interesting for him to listen to them blather on about god-knows-what for two hours. The people filed out of the room, continuing their discussion, and left the Heart alone for a few minutes. He slowly walked toward the window and pulled the blinds wide open. The leaves were there, all of them. If somehow they had disappeared when the Heart stopped perceiving them, they were certainly back now, and greener than ever. Beautiful.

The Heart carried his equipment out to the van and prayed so hard that the beautiful tree and all of its leaves would still exist even after he had left the building entirely. He couldn’t take the thought that the true simple beauty he had experienced would just cease to be. That had to be the ultimate tragedy. Later, the Heart listened to U2 and sang along as loud as he could, “It's all right, it's all right, it's all right / Shamu, the mysterious whale!”

"When You've Seen Beyond Yourself"

2007-05-11T22:21:00.000-05:00

On a beautiful cloudless day, The Heart, hands in pockets, walks apace to the music ringing in his ears. His head bobbed up and down to the beat, though he was sure this spectacle must have been an odd sight for any passerby. He almost always walked in time to his music, but rarely ever permitted himself to get a good head-bang going in public.

He feels the hot sun on his dark hair, and it doesn’t seem to bother him. The Heart is fully aware of the beauty all around him without even taking his eyes off his feet. The music spills out of his head and soars sparkling on the breeze, within and without the trees lining the sidewalk, pulsing through the leaves. It pours like thick waves upon ground before him, cushioning every step of his walk.

“Turn off all thoughts, surrender to the void.” The Heart gains momentum as the song does the same, picking up speed towards his unknown destination. He enjoys every step of the way; the path is laid out just for him with the trees and the grass moving in time with his music. He sheepishly reaches a finger or two out to touch the colorful swell of liquid music on the air before him—it feels as good as it sounds. It’s tactile, cool to the touch, silk.

He now has both hands boldly out in front of him, participating fully in the moment. One song ends and flows right into the next; the colors change, the wind continues to dance. The Heart closes his eyes to achieve total mindfulness. The music gallops forward and his pace quickens, his whole body is moving, his eyes are closed.

SMACK! Everything stops. The music continues, but The Heart is no longer at one with it. He slowly opens his eyes to see what happened. A tree stands defiantly in front of him and in his own carelessness, he had walked straight into it. In his attempt to be fully present in the moment, he had accidentally taken himself out of it.

He brushes himself off and continues on his way, letting go of any aggravation over the unplanned pit stop. The irony was not lost on The Heart that he had lost his way within his very attempt at being present in the moment. He was always pretty good at missing the point of things—but The Heart knew that after this minor discomfort he could just keep going. It wouldn’t be too hard to get back into his groove, as long as he kept going. It is still a beautiful cloudless day. The Heart keeps going, hands in pockets, walking apace to his music. Smiling.

No more FIlm journals 5/9/07

2007-05-09T18:24:00.000-05:00

Well, for the past couple of months I've been writing my film journals on scraps of paper, notebooks, cocktail napkins, et al. I couldn't tell you exactly why I was unable to go ahead an just type the damn things in here for you, my dear readers, but today Prof. Jacobson let us off the hook with these things anyway.

So I am left to continue this thing, no longer for a grade, at my leisure-- now that I'm not being forced to do one every day, human nature being what it is, I'll have more motivation to actually write (go figure). I don't intend to actually type in the past ones that I scrawled down, unless maybe I go through them and find a particularly interesting one. It's mostly describing my process of working on my project The National Anthem.

So instead of boring you with all of that, I'll just show you the first cut of the piece. I have a few changes planned, I'll change this out with the final cut once I get it on YouTube. In the mean time, here's The National Anthem:

Basically, I wanted to make a statement about how the media had an incredible opportunity to unify us as a nation and keep us genuinely informed about a horrendously tragic event as it was unfolding-- but they totally dropped the ball. Then every day since 9/11/2001, we Americans have been hot in the face with 9/11 by talking heads and politicians humping the catastrophe for their own personal gains. I mean no disrespect to anyone who lost family in the event and hope viewers will agree that despite my lampooning of the media in this piece, I treated the event with respect so as to show sensitivity the the loss suffered by the whole country on that most cataclysmic day.

SO thank you all who have actually come back to check for updates after all these days. Now that I'm not required to keep this thing up, I actually have the desire to try. :)

Film Journal 3/16

2007-03-16T08:31:00.000-05:00

Well, today marks the beginning of Spring Break, which means all sorts of crazy relaxation on the horizon for our young hero. I’m going to make serious attempts at continuing my 9/11/Kid A project over the next week (although I can’t say how successful I’ll be). I would love to have the whole song paired with footage by next week, although I may not have that accomplished with a lot of news footage digitizing yet to do.

I think if I can get events in the footage paired with events in the song, then I can start doing the “experimental” stuff with it (i.e. effecting the image and distorting stuff, plus the couple of effects shots I had planned). I don’t think we were required to keep these things up over the break, so I’ll give you a big update on how the project is going when I return, oh faithful readers (if there are any of you), and hopefully I’ll have good news to report.

Film Journal 3/15

2007-03-15T21:20:00.000-05:00

I'm currently working on my 9/11 project for class, and it's almost surreal cutting those events to music... especially in the way that I'm doing so. I recieved 12 hours of footage from the Fox News Channel from 9/11/01 in the mail today (c/o eBay), and I've started going through it to see what I've got... and I almost feel like I'm exploiting the event for creativity, but I assure you (and me) that I'm not!

I really want to try and provide my perspective on that particular day's events, without getting too political or anything. I hate Mr. Bush and his war, but this project is not the place to make those statements. What I do want to say in this project is that the TV media did a great job in freaking us out that day, when they should have been trying to calm us down (considering the terrorists wanted us to be, well, "terrified").

So I'll start keeping you updated on how that's going, but so far so good. I like what I've got, even if it is sort of odd.

Film Journal 3/14

2007-03-14T21:17:00.000-05:00

Well, I've lost at film festivals before, and been constructive criticism, but recently someone (who I don't know) put this on my Zombie Movie YouTube post:

"Umm what did you plan to make when you first thought of this video"

I'm not entirely certain what to make of this. I mean, I can take the idea that someone might not like my work, of course there will be people who don't, but It's kinda weird to get random anonymous criticism from the internet. It's a first for me. Almost feels good-- hey, at least he watched it. :)

Film Journal 3/13

2007-03-13T21:14:00.000-05:00

I made a bloopers reel for the modern adaptation of Job that I shot a year or two back. I realized that I never really made an "official" DVD to give to my cast and crew as thanks, so I made this for the DVD I'm making. Maybe it's less funny if you haven't seen the film (which I'm not sure I really want to put on YouTube... I'll think about it), but nonetheless, you can check this out if you like:

Film Journal 3/12

2007-03-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

I'm thoroughly enjoying the Chocolate Alphabet assignment so far. I think people are really
changing the way they approach the words these days as they watch themselves do them in the early cuts of the ones we've already done. People seem to know how to be entertaining more now that they've seen what works and what doesn't.

I for one have stopped trying to seriously explain the words, in favor of using the word as a means to have fun and make silly connections. I think it's just as valid, and more fun to do, plus more fun to watch. Everybody wins. :)

Film Journal 3/11

2007-03-11T18:56:00.000-05:00

Baby squirrels are adorable. I’m so happy with the availability of baby squirrel/kitten/puppy/anything cute videos on youTube these days. Anyone can just get on YouTube and search for devastatingly cute animal footage and find it.

I’m curious if short readily available videos such as the ones on YouTube will ever replace the fictive feature film. It’s been such a classic tradition for over 100 years now that I don’t think anything (especially not YouTube) would possibly topple the likes of Hollywood, but it certainly may change how things are done. I’m curious to see what’ll happen.

Film Journal 3/10

2007-03-10T21:01:00.000-06:00

I mentioned Zodiac last time, so I thought I’d follow up by mentioning that Zodiac is indeed the first film to be shot on digital and send directly to a hard drive. No tapes involved. Films shot in HD are not a new phenomenon obviously, but most feature films shot that way are shot on tape, but this was the first one to go directly to a hard drive.

I find this interesting because at work (KU Media Productions) we shoot most of our footage, especially the High Def stuff, onto an external hard drive called the FireStore, and it works really well. I suppose this is the future of cinema here.

Film Journal 3/9

2007-03-09T20:39:00.000-06:00

DAMMIT! I never saw The Fountain in theaters. I don't know how I managed to miss it. I'm a huge fan of Darren Aronofsky (though apparently not enough to actually look up the official spelling...) but I didn't manage to make it to the theater to see his latest film.

I also haven't seen Zodiac yet, and again, I'm a huge fan of David Fincher (I do know how to spell him name). I might just be a lazy movie fan, which saddens me. I have the excuse for a lot of the independent films that never made it to Liberty Hall, but after those come out on video, I'll have to catch up on those too.

I've really got some catching up to do.

Film Journal 3/8

2007-03-08T13:27:00.000-06:00

I always like popping movies into the ol' DVD player when I know I have nothing else to do but watch sit back and relax for a while. This is not the case with watching television most of the time. When you have commercials to deal with, and you are only getting 21 1/2 minutes of entertainment for ever half hour, and you're aware that the producers only produce TV shows to make you watch the next show, and not allow you to just enjoy one show-- it's just nowhere near as good.

I love movies so much more than television (and don't get me started on movies on television... ulgh, "full screen" [shudder]...).

(yes... it's the Goonies)

Film Journal 3/7

2007-03-07T20:25:00.000-06:00

Someone actually posted a comment on my YouTube post of the scene we reproduced from Citizen Cane for my video production class. I'll be the first to admit: it's not really that good...... and THERE'S NO REASON TO REPRODUCE CITIZEN CANE. Sorry.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting that someone I don't know saw it and said, "excellent man, really good."

Boggles my mind.

Film Journal 3/6

2007-03-06T20:19:00.000-06:00

I wish there were a better way to light night shots to make them look like what it actually looks like to the human eye at night. Perhaps this is too dark to be aesthetically pleasing, I'm not sure, but I do know that it almost never actually look like "night" when you see ext. night shots in movies.

I recall one scene in Red Shadow: Akakage (I believe) where they shot day for night by putting a dark blue filter over everything. It looked cool, but it didn't quite look like real night. I should look into being able to do that...

Film Journal 3/5

2007-03-05T19:53:00.000-06:00

Let me just say it: I love The Matrix 2. Yes, the third one is pretty bad, and neither of them are as good as the first one, but I was not disappointed at all with the second installment in the Wachowski brothers' trilogy.There are tons of reasons why I could defend the film, and many reasons why I could knock it. But mostly I just absolutely love the whole car chase. After the special effects of the first film, they had big expectations to fill. With the Agent Smith(s) battle they were sort of able to do this, but the highway sequence took their brand of action to a new territory. It was a wholly original take on the olllld tradition of the car chase. When those who semi trucks slam into each other and explode in slow motion at the end, I almost shed a tear from the sheer beauty of it.

I know I end up saying this a lot on here, but this movie is not "classic cinema" by any means, but It's a damn fun ride, and that was good enough for me.

Film Journal 3/4

2007-03-04T19:17:00.000-06:00

So Sam Neill, or "Dr. Grant" as we Jurassic Park fan prefer to refer to him, has his own vineyard, "Two Paddocks" wine. Is that ridiculous? For an actor to have a vineyard based mainly on a character he played in a Steven Spielberg film?

Don't get me wrong, I'm probably one of the biggest Jurassic Park fans you'll ever meet... but Jurassic Park wine? I dunno. One way or another, I'm trying to track some down to buy it. :)

Film Journal 3/3

2007-03-03T19:11:00.000-06:00

On ESPN they have a desk with video showing on the front with the team logos and such, but the desk had a 90 degree angle bend in it where the video was continuous throughout. I was in a bit of a debate as to whether this was the effect of a green screen or flat panel televisions.

I don't think we have the television technology to make a television like that, so I bet it was some chroma key technique, but man was it advanced. There was a reflection on the floor, and the camera moved around in real time. Well done ESPN.

Film Journal 3/2

2007-03-02T14:05:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite songs ever ("Change" by Blind Melon) has a lovely music video.

And here it is:

Film Journal 3/1

2007-03-01T17:58:00.000-06:00

Luke a young man with long blonde hair, is left alone in the apartment with Peter's (his roommate) Cap'n Crunch. Luke eats it, and enjoys every last bite. Peter gets back to see this and begins to question him. Angry that Luke has eaten his cap’n crunch, Peter begins screaming and flailing the box everywhere, sending the cereal flying all over the room as he cries out, “Try and eat it now Luke! Try and eat it now!” Luke looks horrified.

The end.

Film Journal 2/28

2007-02-28T18:52:00.000-06:00

I'm sorry. I'm still stuck on the Forrest Gump II debacle. I found this about the second novel (thanks to Wikipedia):

"Gump and Co. is the 1995 sequel to Winston Groom's novel Forrest Gump.

Several years after the events of Forrest Gump, Forrest's shrimping business has gone bust. Jenny has died, leaving Forrest to provide for Forrest, Jr., his intelligent, though emotionally distant, son. Forrest's mother has also died. Jenny occasionally makes an appearance as a sort of guardian angel for Forrest and their son.

As in the first book, Gump stumbles through important U.S. events in the 1980s and early 1990s. He plays football for the New Orleans Saints, sells encyclopedias, works on a pig farm, and helps develop the infamous New Coke. He accidentally crashes the Exxon Valdez, helps destroy the Berlin Wall, and fights in Operation Desert Storm. He meets many celebrities, including Oliver North, the Ayatollah Khomeine, Jim Bakker, Ivan Boesky, Ronald Reagan, Saddam Hussein, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and of course, Tom Hanks."

This sounds truly awful....

Film Journal 2/27

2007-02-27T18:34:00.000-06:00

It's official. Hollywood is insane.

Possible Forrest Gump Sequel

There's just nothing to write about this. You know how I feel about Forrest Gump from a few entries back (I believe I used the phrase "made me cry," which is no laughing matter (har har)). A sequel, despite the existence of a second book, it just sounds entirely contrived.

Film Journal 2/26

2007-02-26T18:21:00.000-06:00

Led Zeppelin's The Song Remains the Same is a masterpiece.
Unless anyone needed any more proof (beyond "The Battle of Evermore" and various other Lord of the Rings themed songs), these guys were serious nerds... but still they were serious rock stars.
The show itself here is brilliant, as if there were any question about that, but the vignettes are simply amazing. Wizards and magic and sword fights... I thought it was so much fun, waaaaay nerdy, but lots of fun. The 30-minute version of "Whole Lotta Lovin'" didn't hurt either ;)

Film Journal 2/25

2007-02-25T17:12:00.000-06:00

I want to make a short film of the children's book The Man Who Was Five Minutes Late. It's basically about a guy who is 5 minutes late his entire life, and people are always waiting on him. One day he sees that the princess is getting married to a bachelor of her choosing at the castle that day. But since he is 5-minutes late, he figures he won't get the princess... but it turns out she's five minutes late too, so they get married, etc etc etc.

And in the end it turns out that they weren't actually five minutes late... everyone else was just five minutes early.

Maybe I've mentioned this before. I didn't check.

Film Journal 2/24

2007-02-24T14:03:00.000-06:00

I wonder what it would be like if high tech video equipment weren't so expensive, and the only thing that stood between a film student and a career in film making was talent?

I guess in this idealized world you'd have to have cheap lighting solutions, as well as cheap editing software... and from there it just gets fairly ridiculous. Which is a shame... because I think given the proper equipment, many people could make beautiful, poignant, and entertaining films-- if only they were given the proper equipment.

Film Journal 2/23

2007-02-23T02:04:00.000-06:00

I currently am drawn to the train wreck that is "Dax Flame." He's a new YouTube star, presumably only 15 years old. People watch his show because he's really kinda stupid and angsty and all those things that we all were in early high school. He tends to get angry at the people ask if he's actually retarded at all or anything of that nature, and the whole thing could be a hoax (a damn convincing hoax at that), not unlike LonelyGirl15.

But in the mean time, as the #2 most subscribed channel this month, people are obviously drawn to this train-wreck. Maybe people relate, maybe people just want to laugh, maybe people are just completely board with a water-skiing squirrel, but Dax's Flame is really hot right now. (har har)

Film Journal 2/22

2007-02-22T01:56:00.000-06:00

HBO funded a made-for-TV movie a few years back called Cheaters which looks and sounds like a teen movie (in fact I think a teen movie called Cheaters came out a few years ago from MTV... it looked crappy), but it's really a great study in the morality of cheating.

It's the true story of the Steinmetz Academic Decathlon team who cheated-- but no one had proof of it other than that they shouldn't have done as well as they did. They have to decide whether to keep lying or tell the truth and face what's coming to them.

Jeff Daniels and Jena Malone do excellent jobs in their leading rolls (especially Daniels, but especially Malone). The cinematography is sufficient and the editing is stylish. I really think this could have done very well as a feature film rather than just a TV movie from HBO. It makes me kinda sad that a TV release was all they got on this great film but then again, maybe a TV audience isn't all that bad these days.

Film Journal 2/21

2007-02-21T02:33:00.000-06:00

One of my favorite bands, Unified Theory is going to be releasing a new album next month and it's going to be called "Cinematic."

"Hmm," says I to myself. "Hmm, cinematic music? Like John Williams?" I know exactly what they mean by calling the music "cinematic," but I don't think there are any words to describe it.

Mostly I think it's because film is the most popular art form in our modern day, so when something speaks to true emotion we think of the other thing that's good at doing that: cinema.

So maybe they should call the story "Emotion and Humanly Relevant Story Telling." I think that's more like what they really mean.

Film Journal 2/20

2007-02-20T02:29:00.000-06:00

All right straight-shooters, it's game time! That's right, game time! Today We're going to learn how to play hop scotch... and we're going to use real scotch!

Place the bottle on the ground, now jump over the scotch. Did you spill any? Excelent!

If you want to jump even higher, take a sip of the scotch! Isn't that fun!

Next time we're going to learn how to play "doctor"...

Film Journal 2/19

2007-02-19T00:44:00.000-06:00

It has recently occurred to me that Nickelodeon showed a lot of experimental animation between shows back in the day. I couldn't name any for you, but I would certainly recognize them if they were being screened at any festivals. I'd stand up and say "HEY! I saw that right after an episode of Pete and Pete back in the day!" Then I'd be asked to leave by large men with flashlights.

I dunno. I may have originally seen The Big Snit on there 15 or so years ago. Or maybe I'm just crazy.

Film Journal 2/18

2007-02-18T09:39:00.000-06:00

Perhaps any serious compositing work should be done in other programs, but I just don't think the garbage matte (4-point or 8-point) in Final Cut Pro is as effective as it could be.
Why limit the number of points? Maybe there should be a "lasso" type function a la Photoshop. Perhaps people wouldn't rotoscope and lasso every single frame over and over, but you could set points on the selected area to make motion keyframes.
That's what I'd do if I ran the world.

Film Journal 2/17

2007-02-17T08:37:00.000-06:00

Wow. The TV show Scrubs actually has very good lighting.

I saw an episode last night, and at the end of the day soft blue light was shining through the windows with a beautiful narrow side key. I didn't think people put any effort to television shows since the X-Files ended...

Film Journal 2/16

2007-02-16T04:31:00.000-06:00

I'm still stuck on Robert Zemeckis, so I'll let my guard down a little and reveal the softer side of TheMindtaker:

Forrest Gump is a beautiful film-- perhaps the best film of the '90s, or at least one of the most relevant-- but amid all the social consciousness and brilliant acting there's one moment that always makes me cry. When Forrest finds out that Jenny has had his child, after saying he's the most beautiful thing he has ever seen he asks, "Is he smart or is he...--" and he sort of points to himself. Throughout the who movie Forrest never truly admits to being stupid (replying only "stupid is as stupid does" much of the time), however this moment reveals to the audience that Forrest not only cares for his child, but he realizes he is not as smart as most other people, which makes his extraordinary life ever more extraordinary. He did not back down in the face of his adversity.

Now when I explain it like this it seems far less emotional or beautiful, so I suggest not over-analyzing it, but just letting Tom Hank's masterful performance (perhaps the best of his career) carry you into Gump's world.

Film Journal 2/15

2007-02-15T11:23:00.000-06:00

But I do love the movie Contact (this is continued from yesterday)! Robert Zemeckis is my hero. The long beautifully composed master shots, a story that everyone loves and a complex philosophical/theological discussion taking place in very relatable and easy to understand conversations...

It constantly amazes me that Robert Zemeckis has Contact, Forrest Gump, the entire Back to the Future trilogy, and many episodes of Tales from the Crypt under his belt...

Truly a genius...

Film Journal 2/14

2007-02-14T03:20:00.000-06:00

One time I had to do an oral proficiency exam in Japanese (for my Advanced Modern Japanese class), and although I do speak Japanese fairly well, things got a little rough when I mentioned the movie Contact and the professor asked me to talk about Contact in Japanese.

Long story short, I didn't know the words "interplanetary portal," or "SETI satellite dish array," or "complex discussion between theists and atheists" in Japanese.

Film Journal 2/13

2007-02-13T21:27:00.000-06:00

The popularity of ytmnd leads me to believe that the average viewer these days really likes repetition. We see it everywhere. Perhaps this speaks to a shorter attention span of people today (or longer for that matter, able to take repetition over and over), but that's definitely something to keep in mind in the practice of filmmaking.

Film Journal 2/12

2007-02-12T14:19:00.000-06:00

Recently, the Discovery Channel aired a documentary about finding the tomb of Jesus Christ (presumably). It seemed like a fairly well made documentary, it was certainly interesting, though I'm no religion major (I do know someone who is though... ;) ).

But one thing bothered me: when they first open the tomb, they start to climb in and the
camera cuts to inside of the tomb watching them enter it. The previous shot showed no cameraman inside of the tomb and even the scientists themselves were just in the process of entering for the first time themselves.

It's reasonable to believe they went back and reshot that to make it more cinematic, so I'm not suggesting foul play here. I'm just confused if reality TV is the culprit here, demanding we mix regular fictive films where this sort of thing could happen with on-the-fly shooting/single takes on single-camera reality shoots... or has it just always been this way, ever since the exact same thing was done in the making of Nanook of the North over 80 years ago.

Film Journal 2/11

2007-02-11T13:13:00.000-06:00

There was a ridiculously (and hilariously) long titled game advertised on TV today ("Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell Ghost Recon Advanced War Fighter 2" or something of that nature... I'm not making this up!), and watching the commercial I realized video games need to stop pretending to be movies. The commercials show cinematic sequences from video games, but the special thing about them is that they're interactive.

Films are stories with set endings being told to you as you watch (and of course there's lots of gray area here), but video games are something you participate in. Video games won't come into their own until they stop trying to be films, just as the film medium came into it's own after it stopped trying to be live theatre (the previously established and respected art of the day).

Film Journal 2/10

2007-02-10T19:43:00.000-06:00

Well, I'm fairly embarrassed about how much I enjoy horror movies, so to make up for it I'm going to run the opposite direction here and mention how much I love Cameron Crowe's early film Singles, a romantic comedy about dating in the early 90s Seattle grunge scene. It's not really just a run of the mill romantic comedy: the story is told in vignettes, and the characters seem more believable than characters in most films of this genre. Also, the soundtrack sold extremely well featuring music from Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, Smashing Pumpkins, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, and many other popular bands from the Seattle area.
The visual style is pretty run of the mill, as is the editing, but the characters and story take front seat in the movie making it a lot of fun to watch... especially on a date (I think there's plenty to keep men and women interested here). I've always loved Cameron Crowe, and this is certainly an important film from his early years for any Cameron Crowe fan to see.

Film Journal 2/9

2007-02-09T20:29:00.000-06:00

I have no idea whether or not I should want to see Dead Silence when it comes out. It's the new one by James Wan and Leigh Whannel, the two kids from Australia who made a short film, and sold Lion's Gate on making it into a feature called Saw. Yes yes yes, I genuinely enjoyed Saw. It's not classic cinema by any means but it's a very interesting horror film, especially in conjunction with the second movie, written and directed by Darren Lynn Bousman (who's from my hometown).Anyway, so now you know I'm a total sucker for bad horror movies... but even I'm not sure that Dead Silence looks all that good... or all that scary for that matter. Maybe I'm just not afraid of dolls or something, but it just doesn't look like it has that same raw feel that the first movie had... but then again, the third Saw movie didn't have it either...

Film Journal 2/8

2007-02-08T22:20:00.000-06:00

FADE IN
City streets, morning.

A Clown is sitting on a curb, smoking a cigarette, looking as if shit has just hit the fan.

Next to him: a man, lying on the hard cement, face down. As he wakes up and lifts his head from the ground, we see that he has a clown's makeup smeared on his face.

The Clown looks over at him and murmurs:

Clown: Shit.

FADE OUT.

Film Journal 2/7

2007-02-07T20:17:00.000-06:00

All hail to George Clooney!

Movies are way too fast these days. But last year's Good Night and Good Luck had beautiful pacing. More films should stop and smell the flowers these days. That's all I have to say. "Slow down!"

Film Journal 2/6

2007-02-06T14:13:00.000-06:00

**This post may contain spoilers for Pan's Labyrinth. It's a great film, go see it before you read this.**
If anybody is an avid reader of my blog (which I highly doubt), you'll know that I do enjoy the occasional gory movie (see several posts back). But I do have to say that the gory elements of Pan's Labyrinth were excessive and almost unnecessary. First off: this is not an official review of the film. If it were I'd be talking about many other things, but for this entry, I just want to address my issue with the violent images in this "adult fairytale."
Perhaps the filmmakers didn't think adults would go see a "fairytale" if they weren't really secure in the knowledge that it wasn't just a kids movie, so they poured it on a little thick. Any person who gets shot throughout the film gets shot a minimum of two extra times after they're dead. A man gets stabbed with a knife into his open mouth. An innocent man hunting rabbits gets his face pulverized by glass bottle. I just don't feel these were anything more than gratuitous elements in an otherwise non-gratuitous film.
I will say I was positively floored by the effects wizards behind the stitches scene. I have absolutely no idea how they were able to show a man giving himself stitches in the mouth all in one unflinching take. Slightly hard to watch (the audience at Liberty Hall was squirming), but simply amazing film making.
Whether or not the events involving the Faun really took place or not will be addressed in a later post on here (when I have nothing better to talk about), but as for now I just don't see why Pan's Labyrinth needed the level of gore it contained-- not because I was offended or because I "couldn't take it," but because it just seemed unjustified and out of place with the rest of the film. Anyone who disagrees, feel free to post a response... :)

Film Journal 2/5

2007-02-05T19:03:00.000-06:00

Walking home from class today and listening to Ben Folds Five I realized that the last 55 seconds of the song "Regrets" (off of the Reinhold Messner album) would be amazing at the end of a film. Maybe as a group of people finds something-- way too vague I know, but trust me, it looked cool in my head.
Which brings me to my next topic: if anybody could lend me a machine that took ideas from my head and displayed them to my friends to help them assist me in creating the art I long to create, that would be just great.
Or if anyone wants to give me enough money to actually go out there and make films rather than lending me the machine. Story boards and tempt tracks will do fine in the mean time...

Film Journal 2/4

2007-02-04T00:32:00.000-06:00

Another idea for an effect:
Shoot a person against a green screen walking or something. Composite them into a scene on the street or other comparable location, and then effect just the person so they are almost liquid in form, stretching and wiggling like gelatin and they walk.

Fairly postmodern and I have no meaning implied to the effect, but maybe it could suit a music video of some sort fairly well.

Film Journal 2/3

2007-02-03T17:30:00.000-06:00

Idea for an effect:
If you could separate colors as well as areas of a frame into their own elements, you could slowly layer them in, object by object, and create something akin to painting real life into the shot.

It could be used as perhaps a POV of an imaginative character, having fun with their surroundings. It doesn't seem too difficult of an effect. Maybe I'll give it a try...

Film Journal 2/2

2007-02-02T15:54:00.000-06:00

It's no secret that I've been bitten by the horror bug (it's probably one crazy-looking badass bug- Edgar Allen Poe's short story The Gold Bug pops to mind), over the past several years I have been watching plenty of horror movies, to the point that it kinda scares me sometimes.

But I see some truly amazing film making in horror movies. Perhaps because inherently, horror movies have rather lack-luster plots they must make up for it with truly stunning cinematography. One writer/director currently working in the horror genre is French filmmaker Alexandre Aja, whose visual sensibilities blow Eli Roth out of the water any day of the week.Last year Aja's Haute Tension was a visual triumph. Every frame drips with style and atmosphere. And while some of the violence will certainly turn some viewers away (the R-rated version released in American theaters was cut down by several minutes from the original), the real merit of this film is not the gore, but the guts of Aja's unflinching cinematography: no crappy hand-held shots, as is the convention, but solidly composed
filmic portraits.

As I said this film is not necessarily for everyone, but those with the stomach for this kind of thing will be treated to a horror film with more (though fewer spilled brians) than your run-of-the-mill Texas Chainsaw Massacre.

Film Journal 2/1

2007-02-01T12:03:00.000-06:00

Are music videos hack work? It seems that most feature film directors these days started with a few silly music videos for alternative rock bands-- and quite frankly, that sounds like a ball to me. I feel one of my strong suits as an editor is editing to music. Here's is a sample of my work with music: it's basically a preview for my zombie Dead Reckoning, but more so it's a music video I made using the footage I shot for Dead Reckoning.

I can't see not being proud of music video work, although I can see growing tired of it as a professional film maker if I get stuck in that role. Sorry, no great film review of movie ideas today, just pondering career choices. In the mean time, I don't think I'll quit music videos...

Film Journal 1/31

2007-01-31T14:54:00.000-06:00

Having scribbled these various thoughts down on cocktail napkins and other scraps of paper yet forgotten to post them as of yet, I am now going to attempt to catch up with this ol' film journal.

An idea for today: I should try a project in pixilation. I've always loved the style whenever I've seen it employed (of course Norm LcLaren's Neighbors is an absolute classic), so I should try my hand and see if I can do anything substantial with the technique. However I don't feel I have anything to add to the playful practice of pixilation as of yet, so I'll let you know if I come up with any ideas worth execution.

Film Journal 1/30

2007-01-30T12:09:00.000-06:00

Last night I watched Infernal Affairs, the Hong Kong film that Scorsese's The Departed was based off of. It wasn't the best film I've ever seen, but the story was brilliant. Basically there is a drug lord who sends his younger minions off to become police officers so they can work for him on the inside. One gets "kicked out" and works undercover for the police and the other becomes a high ranking police chief. Many years later, the under cover one is a mole for the police and the other is a police chief mole for the drug lord.
The two moles eventually learn of each other and in the end you find out whether they will team up for one side or whether they have to kill each other. It's not the most original sounding premise (the double more thing), but I really can't think of any other film that plays this dynamic so well. I haven't seen The Departed yet (though I plan to as soon as it comes out on DVD), but now I'm very excited to see Mr. Scorsese's spin on the whole thing.

Film Journal 1/29

2007-01-29T17:03:00.000-06:00

I watched Pink Floyd's The Wall the other day for the first time in a couple of years. I was really hoping that I would understand more of it this time through. I understand that "the wall" represents alienation and the barriers we put up for ourselves and that are put up for us by others, but I still don't think a lot of the symbolism is all that meaningful. It could have used some more thought maybe.

But don't get me wrong, the animated sequences still blow my mind. I love them so much I usually end up watching those over again after finishing the whole movie.

Film Journal 1/28

2007-01-28T19:32:00.000-06:00

Today I watched one of my favorite TV shows across the years: The Simpsons, although almost everybody agrees the show just isn't funny anymore. Just a quick thought right now about why it's just not up to the same quality it used to be-- the characters have become unbelievable. So the thing I hope to take from this is that if I write anything with characters, they need to be similar enough to actual people that viewers can relate (or something along those lines), otherwise people don't have a reason to watch.

Film Journal 1/25

2007-01-25T12:01:00.000-06:00

Yesterday while walking to class I was listening to a Blind Melon song called "The Duke," which goes "Out here in the nothin' engulfed by the sea/ And there's no one here 'cept these fishes and me." So I started picturing myself walking underwater and I decided that would be a beautiful image for an experimental film: someone walking underwater, only they're actually on the street, there's no one else walking like that, and there's no water around.

The person would be walking much slower and doing that thing with their arms to kind of swim/walk as they go, but they'd be removed from their surroundings in this cool visual juxtaposition.

I'm nearly certain that this can't be a totally original idea; it must be in some music video or avant-garde film somewhere. But I'm also wondering what the best way to do it would be? It would be nearly impossibly to chroma key a person who's actually under water, and a roto-scopejob would take nearly forever if the shot was at all sizable in length.

Nonetheless, I'd love to see if this little "problem" would be a fun one to tackle. Maybe I'll try to photoshop something more like what I'm actually picturing and post it at a later date.

Film Journal 1/23

2007-01-23T12:10:00.000-06:00

Well, I'd be surprised if anybody except for Professor Jacobson is reading this, so, hello Professor Jacobson.

Last night I watched Die Hard 2, and it wasn't exactly "fine cinema" by any means, but it was a fun ride nonetheless I suppose. The main thing I took away from it was that the plot didn't have the break-neck pace of most of the action films that come out these days. It seems to me that almost all movies released in the past 5 years or so race towards their ending almost as if they don't feel they can keep the audience's attention span through clear to the end.

The action itself in Die Hard 2 wasn't slow, nor was it an especially long movie, but there were parts near the middle of the film where they were pretty much just waiting on the terrorists to do something (and for Bruce Willis to witty quips). It was almost as if the filmmakers were giving the audience the benefit of the doubt that we weren't going to change the channel between explosions just because they couldn't cut the plot down to a "stomachable" 90 minutes.

It's very refreshing to see a film (especially an action film!) that stops to smell the roses along the way. Just off the top of my head, another movie released lately that did this was Good Night and Good Luck. A relaxed pace is certainly something I would like to incorporate into my work.