Loss

It’s not often that I am moved by reading a student’s paper. In fact I’d say it has never happened before. Who can get moved by dry shot analysis of films I’ve seen a million times over? But it just happened. A student wrote a paper about a film I haven’t seen, Silverlake Life, which is a documentary about a gay male couple dying of AIDS. The student is describing a scene that takes place after one of the men has died and been cremated and his lover is pouring the ashes into an urn on the bathroom floor. Ashes spill out the sides and dust the floor. After filling the urn he tries to clean up the dust and spilled ashes that still powder the air. “You’re all over the place, Tom,” he says, chuckling. And in the paper the student makes the point that this goes beyond ashes, that when a person is physically gone they still remain, in invisible but omnipresent ways, in memories, in the air, the environment.

Related cute Tegan & Sara lyric:

stick your hands inside my pockets/keep them warm while I’m still here/tell me this love hasn’t changed you/hasn’t changed you at all

Mother Nature Hath Forsaken Us

This weather is HORRIBLE. I guess Mother Nature is skipping summer this year, and withholding sunlight for some reason to punish us. I have always liked overcast weather but this is too much.

I had very vivid dream last night that I was having a conversation with my roommate about the phone bill. A vivid BORING dream. WTF? I think that Claritin has done irreparable damage to the dream-producing centers in my brain, they are out of material. Nothing weird or surreal happening in the dream, just a boring and crystal-clear conversation about figuring out the phone bill. This happened to me once long ago, I had a dream that I was working in the liquor store I where I worked in college, and in the dream I was stocking the shelves. That’s it. One bottle, two bottle, three bottle.

But I like movies that are about nothing/minutiae/small stuff so maybe my unconscious thought I would enjoy these tedious dreams. In fact either of them could fit seamlessly into a film like Mutual Appreciation. Both dreams seem to be about nothing but of course are in fact highly charged, based on things like my current feelings about my roommate and my house, much like a seemingly tedious conversation about buying guitar strings in Mutual Appreciation is actually full of drama just beneath the surface, based on unspoken things that happened in prior scenes.

Yes, in my dreams I am constructing Andrew Bujalski films.

Blogger Block

I was just noting with shame the number of blog entries here that start with “I” (including this one), and then I read Joi Ito’s post about being in a rut:

Of course, this is just a rehash of an old discussion of collapsing contexts, but I find myself struggling with this bloggers block more and more these days. I find myself hanging out on the IRC channel chatting about things that in the past I would be blogging about. I definitely feel like my blog is going edgy to broad and boring.

But then I read Dave’s response:

I’ve been down the road you’re going down, it’s actually a loop. 

Hey Andrew

I just got off the phone with Serpico II, who was playing a game of
Scrabble with himself when I called. He ran out of crossword puzzles,
he says. It’s so nice when you’re lonely to speak to someone who’s even
more pathetic than you.

He’s trying to get Andrew Bujalski to come to USC with his fantastic film that everyone should see, Mutual Appreciation,
when it opens in LA in a few weeks. But Bujalski is not responding to
his emails. So Andrew, if you’re reading this, and I’m sure you are,
please respond to Serpico’s emails. He’s a good guy and his school will
pay your way. You too good for USC or something?

They Beat Me To It

I started writing a treatment for a screenplay based on a relationship
I had a few years ago and then remembered a film that is pretty much the same story. But mine will be different. It won’t be set in France.

It’s not really the same story though, just a similar dynamic between
the two protagonists. So I put the film at the top of my Netflix queue
so I can watch it again and refresh my memory. I don’t know if that’s a
good idea though. Maybe it’s better to write mine first and then watch
this one later. But who knows when it’ll get written?

Psychedelic Antihistamines

For the past few days I have been waking up in the middle of the night
with an irregular heartbeat, like a sudden flutter that happens every 5
minutes or so. It’s a little scary. It’s happening right now. So I
looked around online and found that Claritin, which I have been taking
for allergies, causes this symptom in some people. So I’ll never take
that ever again. But I also learned that it can cause very vivid,
strange dreams, which I have also had for the past few days. Last
night, for example, I had a dream that involved Clinton from What Not
To Wear and me walking around a department store in my underwear
looking for some pants. They didn’t seem to have any. They were out of
pants! And the night before I had a scary dream where I was channelling
ghosts in my body. I apparently had the ability to do it at will, and
just shake them off if I didn’t like how it felt.

But both of these dreams were super-vivid, like movies in my head. Who
knew an antihistamine could have such psychedelic effects. So I guess
now I’m back to my steroid inhaler for allergies, which works but which
I always forget to use because I don’t like it. A pill is much easier.

eDisharmony

I heard that someone was rejected from the online dating service eHarmony, which requires you to fill out extensive personality tests to determine the most appropriate match. They told this person they couldn’t match his profile, and he assumes it was because he kept saying he was never in a good mood. So, since I am pretty grumpy myself, I went to check it out and see if I’d get booted as well.

But I made the cut. And now they’re sending me profiles of a bunch of guys they think will be perfect for me, and telling me I should not take these matches lightly because they are based on loads of research into matching people. So, according to eHarmony, the right guys for me are all scientists with an arty side. Every single one they’ve sent me. Oh and they also are all mountain climbers or kayak-ers etc. Sporty scientists with an arty side. But you have to pay to actually interact with these people so I guess I will never meet my sporty scientist soulmate.

Fathers and Sons

Only major film geeks would find “frustrating” a documentary made by the son of Haskell Wexler that is more about their relationship than filmmaking. Come on, how fucking boring would this movie be if it were about cinematography? I can’t wait to see it.

via Greencine

Cell Phones and Beer

Tonight on the subway I sat down next to a 50ish man who was engrossed
in tapping things into his cell phone. As the subway ground to a halt
and we waited in silence for it to re-start, I thought about the fact
that I don’t have a cell phone and just about two weeks ago I sent my
first text-message ever, using someone else’s cell, a someone who had
to show me how to use the buttons to get the proper letters to appear.
As I was thinking this, the 50ish man leans over to me and says “Do you
know much about cell phones?”
    “Only a little,” I said.
    “Do you know how I can get this letter M to change to an N?”

After I proudly displayed my new expertise, the man thanked me and went
back to sending his message. Then he put his cell in his pocket and I
thought I was seeing things when I saw him then take a swig out of a
brown bottle. I looked over and sure enough, he was holding a bottle of
beer. Whaaa? Isn’t that illegal or something? Whatever the case, it’s
certainly the first I’ve seen someone drinking beer on the subway.
First smoking in The Yard, now drinking on the subway. What is this
town coming to.

Revisiting Lost In Translation

Someone landed at my blog on a google search for “women portrayal lost in translation” so I checked out what other results were out there, and came across a few that I liked. First this angry Japanese opinion of the film, which I agree with, and then this Texan’s angry opinion of the film, which I also agree with. And if you want to re-read my opinion of the film, see the link in the sidebar about Scarlett’s ass.

My friend Serpico also had an angry reaction to the film, but mainly because he dismisses it as an empty a collection of hipster references. And while I agree somewhat, this movie is no Napoleon Dynamite. It is using all those hipster tropes to try to say something, though what it’s saying may be even more reason to hate the film than its hipster formalism.

When Life Gives You Day-Old Colloquium Coffee…

…make iced coffee! That’s what I’m enjoying right now. Although the seasonal building switchover from heat to air-conditioning means I’m shivering and my nose is cold, as it will remain for the rest of the summer in this climate-controlled tower with non-opening windows, so hot coffee might’ve been better.

The other day I was perusing hair products in the local drug store and bought some mousse especially for curly hair. I haven’t used hair products (other than color, of course) since high school but my hair needed a kick so I tried it this morning and I feel like a new woman. With an afro. So these things actually work as advertised, who knew? I’m also wearing a bright orange-and-red-striped sweater that I never wear so I am a big ball of orange flame today, just in time for the warmer weather.

But since I left the house without a jacket, most likely the weather will drop 40 degrees before I leave. This is New England, after all.

Did someone say something about a slowdown in blogging this week?

Hey Big Sur

I probably won’t make it to Big Sur by Friday but any of you in that area, check it out:

Coming up on Memorial Day Weekend at the Henry
Miller Library in Big Sur

VIDEO DIARY FESTIVAL &
“EGOSHOOTER” WEST COAST PREMIERE

Where: Henry Miller Library lawn – bring a blanket or lawn chair.

When: Friday, May 27 at 8.30 PM.
Continues until past midnight on Saturday, May 28th.

The Festival screens the best of
video diary and personal documentary. This year we are also hosting the west
coast premiere of EGOSHOOTER, a German fiction film about a video diarist,
co-produced by director Wim Wenders.

The festival theme is “Dating the
Camera” Call 831-667-2574.

All Video Diary info, schedule etc., and tickets here:

http://www.henrymiller.org/videodiaryfestival.html

Please click here
to find out why and how you could help the Henry Miller Library right now:

http://www.henrymiller.org/LatestNews.html

Cute

“When I subscribe to an RSS feed that means I want a long-term relationship.”
Scoble, via Dave

Kinky the Detective/Gender Psychologist

I am reading another of Kinky Friedman’s silly detective novels and
thought I’d share a bit more of his two-bit cowboy wisdom about the
sexes. In the following passage he is trying to detect (because he’s a
private detective, you know) who is the cause of the incessant honking
outside his shitty apartment in NYC:

“How
do I know it’s a woman behind the wheel? Because a man hits the horn in
a threatening, rhythmic, staccato fashion, like a native of the Congo
beating on his bongo. A similarly hightly agitato woman takes a quite
different approach. She leans on the horn with her whole neurotic,
love-scarred life.”

Yard Stories

I always thought it was snotty that Harvard doesn’t allow bikes in The
Yard and has signs saying you must walk your bike. Until today, when a
girl on a bike came busting down one of the very narrow paths and
people (including me) had to jump aside or get hit. So I take it back,
Harvard, this is a sensible rule. I only wish she was tackled by
Harvard Police before she could make it across the yard.

Also in The Yard this morning the person walking in front of me was
smoking. The fact that I noticed this and it seemed so strange made me
realize that I have probably never seen anyone smoking in The Yard
before. I don’t know if they have rules about that, or if it’s just
rare that Harvard students smoke. I wonder what the stats would be on
the smoking population of Harvard.

Potential Interruption In Service, Or Not

Last night I collected final papers which must be rapid-fire graded in
3 days, so this blog may be quiet for a bit. Then again the more work I
have the more I look for ways to procrastinate, blogging being one of
those, so blogging may actually increase in the next few days, who
knows.

Silverdocs

I’m heading to the AFI’s Silverdocs festival in my lovely hometown of Silver Spring in a few weeks. I’m most excited that Werner Herzog will be in attendance with his new documentary, Grizzly Man. Gee, have I mentioned that I wrote my thesis on Herzog’s docs?

The festival seems to have embraced bloggers–they even have ‘blogger’ listed on their application for press credentials, along with other designations such as “editor”, “photographer”, “freelance journalist”, etc.

Today’s Therapeutic Spam

From someone named Novelist K. Boozes:

To: xxx@xxx.harvard.edu Subject: Feeling Depressed?

Purge yourself from the database bnik.comp.php

We are like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, so that we can see more than
they.

Korea Update

From Serpico:

So yesterday was Buddha’s birthday. I guess he’s pretty old by now. The Mayor of our borough invited us English teachers to march in the parade, which featured a fire-breathing paper dragon float (yes, paper and fire), beautiful dancers with pink traditional clothes and wings, and a hell of a lot of grandmothers moaning chants. And pushing.

Starting at City Hall, at a windy sunset, we bowed to all these monks – the smooth kind, like you see in SUV commercials, wearing silver gowns and silver Nikes beneath them – took our lotus lanterns, and marched for a couple of hours around our “gu” taking up half of the twelve-lane streets. (On the other half, cars were whizzing by playing techno.) Some old men in the parade welcomed us kindly. And as always, people watching laughed at the non-Korean folk pretending to be Buddhist, or they pointed or waved in friendly curiosity, or they yelled whatever English they knew: “I love you!” “Nice to meet you!” “Bushy is crazy man!” “OK! Michael Jackson!”

Movie Ads

One thing I meant to mention about last night’s movies was the ads, which I am now paying more attention to since this post. We saw the movie at Somerville Theater, where before I only saw one pre-movie ad, but this time there were four. They were brief though, and lasted about 2 minutes altogether, and started after the advertised start time for the film. Are there really theaters where they show 20 minutes of ads? Twenty minutes is a loooong time. I can’t even imagine.