As always, another week brings another story. Please read, rate and comment. Or leave a comment here on my blog if you don't want to register for WordPress. This story is actually based on a story my dad tells when there's a full moon. It's completely, 100% true, or so he's assured me, and the Bloody-eyed Fox will kill you, if you're of the wrong lineage.
I've watched two more movies since we last spoke: Le Doulos and Casque D'Or.
Le Doulos, or Doulos: The Fingerman, is a Melville film, which always makes me happy. I won't even spend time reviewing it, because I would just gush about it and annoy Brent.
Casque D'Or was a period piece set in what I think was the 1890s in Paris. It had Simone Signoret, and the two movies shared a male lead, Serge Reggiani. It was a love story, and quite an interesting one at that. It seems the primary method of communication between the sexes at this time was the slap. All in all, very enjoyable, but probably not something I'd screen at movie night.
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Thursday, October 23, 2008
A Fool Is Someone Who Pays Twice For The Same Thing
Another short story can be found here. Based on this image.
I recently watched The Complete Mr. Arkadin, which had to have been one of the more frustrating experiences of my life. The main character was portrayed by one of the most non-nuanced performances ever. Truly, a horrific acting job, which makes it hard to give a damn about the rest of the movie. But therein lies the rub! The rest of the movie, barring some minor points, is a gem!
There are characters seen onscreen for scant minutes that you could devote entire films to! There's sumptuous, well-thought-out cinematography (there's also some atrocious cinematography lumped in there), and a jigsaw puzzle of a plot that is, in the end, truly fantastic. Let's not forget the dialogue! There's some truly badass dialogue in this movie: "I knew what I wanted. That's the difference between us. In this world there are those who give and those who ask. Those who do not care to give... those who do not dare to ask. You dared. But you were never quite sure what your were asking for. "
Granted, there's some hallmarks of older cinema that I still will never understand: a number of "playful" (for lack of a better term) scenes, involving fun chases and strange games of tug of war. But perhaps the world was simply more playful back then, since people didn't have premarital sex with which to sublimate their drives. Definitely worth checking out, and I've decided, once I'm slightly richer, I'm going to remake the shit out of it, fixing the minor problems and casting John Hamm from Madmen. It'll totally stay in the early fifties, because that's one of the best places to set a movie, as not all problems could be solved with a cellphone call then.
I recently watched The Complete Mr. Arkadin, which had to have been one of the more frustrating experiences of my life. The main character was portrayed by one of the most non-nuanced performances ever. Truly, a horrific acting job, which makes it hard to give a damn about the rest of the movie. But therein lies the rub! The rest of the movie, barring some minor points, is a gem!
There are characters seen onscreen for scant minutes that you could devote entire films to! There's sumptuous, well-thought-out cinematography (there's also some atrocious cinematography lumped in there), and a jigsaw puzzle of a plot that is, in the end, truly fantastic. Let's not forget the dialogue! There's some truly badass dialogue in this movie: "I knew what I wanted. That's the difference between us. In this world there are those who give and those who ask. Those who do not care to give... those who do not dare to ask. You dared. But you were never quite sure what your were asking for. "
Granted, there's some hallmarks of older cinema that I still will never understand: a number of "playful" (for lack of a better term) scenes, involving fun chases and strange games of tug of war. But perhaps the world was simply more playful back then, since people didn't have premarital sex with which to sublimate their drives. Definitely worth checking out, and I've decided, once I'm slightly richer, I'm going to remake the shit out of it, fixing the minor problems and casting John Hamm from Madmen. It'll totally stay in the early fifties, because that's one of the best places to set a movie, as not all problems could be solved with a cellphone call then.
Friday, October 17, 2008
Desperate Kids Do Dangerous Things
Here's this week's Elephant Words contribution.
Just tipped over the halfway point on Rome Season 2, for the second time. This is where I left off last time, when I moved from Florida leaving the series unfinished. Also watching Madmen so I can give it back to Elliott before I move to Los Angeles. I'm four episodes in, and it's breath-taking.
Ripped the complete Twilight Zone to my iPod, and The Wire season 3. So I've got entertainment galore, and no need to buy or rent any movies for quite some time.
Putting Netflix on hold next week. I dropped down to the 1-at-a-time plan, and $8.99 seems slightly overpriced, since they start to slow down your delivery if you send things back the day after you get them. No sense paying for it while I make the move and find a new address.
The movie I just sent back today was The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, and it was one of the most gorgeous movies I've ever seen. I really feel like this movie slipped under a lot of peoples' radars, coupled with the fact you can't force America to pay attention to Westerns anymore, though it used to be the most popular genre in the country.
Just tipped over the halfway point on Rome Season 2, for the second time. This is where I left off last time, when I moved from Florida leaving the series unfinished. Also watching Madmen so I can give it back to Elliott before I move to Los Angeles. I'm four episodes in, and it's breath-taking.
Ripped the complete Twilight Zone to my iPod, and The Wire season 3. So I've got entertainment galore, and no need to buy or rent any movies for quite some time.
Putting Netflix on hold next week. I dropped down to the 1-at-a-time plan, and $8.99 seems slightly overpriced, since they start to slow down your delivery if you send things back the day after you get them. No sense paying for it while I make the move and find a new address.
The movie I just sent back today was The Assassination of Jesse James By The Coward Robert Ford, and it was one of the most gorgeous movies I've ever seen. I really feel like this movie slipped under a lot of peoples' radars, coupled with the fact you can't force America to pay attention to Westerns anymore, though it used to be the most popular genre in the country.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
DeKlutter: Vol. 2 Trimming The Fat
I am in the process of decluttering my life, starting with an inventory of my possessions. Over the past four years, I have accumulated a mass of things that lies chained around my neck, albatross-style, keeping me from an easier lifestyle. The main goal in life is a collection of experiences, and what we truly crave when we purchase media is not the product itself, but the act of consuming it. Except in the case of Criterion Collection DVDs, the packaging on those is amazing.
In preparation for a move to Los Angeles, I am attempting to rid myself of at least half of my possessions, to both facilitate ease of movement and free up a certain spiritual junkroom that has arisen as a result of too many possessions. I’m not against owning things. I’m not some sort of strict ascetic who believes objects keep one from achieving some measure of spirituality and actual happiness, but I do notice a correlation between the sheer amount of things one hoards and a decline in ability and willingness to opt for experiences over increasing the size of one’s collection. I could have done a lot more cool things and roadtrips in college, but I spent most of my money on comic books, video games, and DVDs. I could have eaten some truly amazing dinners, gone seen some really cool shows and taken a rafting trip down a lazy river, but instead chose to increase the size of my collections, regardless of the actual desire for what I was purchasing.
My first problem in that regard was Criterion DVDs. I decided I wanted the Criterion Collection, without regards to my enjoyment of the films I was purchasing. I went on a spending spree, ebay, Amazon, and the used DVD guy in the student union saw frequent purchases from me of movies I had never seen. Of some movies I still haven’t seen!
Following that was comic books. Though I got better at this near the end of college, I initially didn’t read the books others had while limiting my purchases to that which people I knew weren’t buying. I would buy six issues of something I didn’t enjoy the first issue of, out of a sense of “completing the run”. I have three full boxes of comics I will never read again, another box I probably won’t read again because of time constraints, and only one box I continually delve into to reread. If you figure each box holds 100 comics, that’s $1,200 in wasted cash flow, right there. Each box holds more than 100 comics, sadly.
The timesink in reading 300 comics I didn’t love was considerable, with each issue taking anywhere from ten to thirty minutes to consume. At the lower end of that rate, that’s fifty hours of potential productive time wasted. That’s a whole screenplay, revised once over. That’s 100 pages of comics script. And that’s the low estimate!
I purchased a large number of trades and hardcovers just to finish the collection, such as all the Ultimate Hardcovers of Spiderman, Xmen, The Ultimates, UFF – at $30 a pop! Granted, I got rid of most of these when I traded them in to complete some Vertigo series I truly loved, but most of those Ultimate books I stopped enjoying halfway through, but kept buying because they looked so good on the shelf.
No more! Ten Criterions went up on Amazon today, as well as some hardcovers, and a few trades. I have a stack of books that will lose me money on shipping that I’ll probably sell in bulk to the used bookstore. The less to take with me, the better. There’s a certain crippling problem involved with having too many unread books on the bookshelf. If I only own a handful of books, I’m more likely to read them. With a hundred or two, I’m unlikely to be able to decide which one I want to read next. In New York, I had ten books with me, and read one a week, buying a new one only when I had run out of material. The system worked beautifully.
So really, that’s the focus of today, clearing out the physical clutter. Getting rid of junk. Looking at something and deciding if I’m keeping it because I’m sentimental or because I truly intend to get more use out of it.
Chances are, I won’t.
In preparation for a move to Los Angeles, I am attempting to rid myself of at least half of my possessions, to both facilitate ease of movement and free up a certain spiritual junkroom that has arisen as a result of too many possessions. I’m not against owning things. I’m not some sort of strict ascetic who believes objects keep one from achieving some measure of spirituality and actual happiness, but I do notice a correlation between the sheer amount of things one hoards and a decline in ability and willingness to opt for experiences over increasing the size of one’s collection. I could have done a lot more cool things and roadtrips in college, but I spent most of my money on comic books, video games, and DVDs. I could have eaten some truly amazing dinners, gone seen some really cool shows and taken a rafting trip down a lazy river, but instead chose to increase the size of my collections, regardless of the actual desire for what I was purchasing.
My first problem in that regard was Criterion DVDs. I decided I wanted the Criterion Collection, without regards to my enjoyment of the films I was purchasing. I went on a spending spree, ebay, Amazon, and the used DVD guy in the student union saw frequent purchases from me of movies I had never seen. Of some movies I still haven’t seen!
Following that was comic books. Though I got better at this near the end of college, I initially didn’t read the books others had while limiting my purchases to that which people I knew weren’t buying. I would buy six issues of something I didn’t enjoy the first issue of, out of a sense of “completing the run”. I have three full boxes of comics I will never read again, another box I probably won’t read again because of time constraints, and only one box I continually delve into to reread. If you figure each box holds 100 comics, that’s $1,200 in wasted cash flow, right there. Each box holds more than 100 comics, sadly.
The timesink in reading 300 comics I didn’t love was considerable, with each issue taking anywhere from ten to thirty minutes to consume. At the lower end of that rate, that’s fifty hours of potential productive time wasted. That’s a whole screenplay, revised once over. That’s 100 pages of comics script. And that’s the low estimate!
I purchased a large number of trades and hardcovers just to finish the collection, such as all the Ultimate Hardcovers of Spiderman, Xmen, The Ultimates, UFF – at $30 a pop! Granted, I got rid of most of these when I traded them in to complete some Vertigo series I truly loved, but most of those Ultimate books I stopped enjoying halfway through, but kept buying because they looked so good on the shelf.
No more! Ten Criterions went up on Amazon today, as well as some hardcovers, and a few trades. I have a stack of books that will lose me money on shipping that I’ll probably sell in bulk to the used bookstore. The less to take with me, the better. There’s a certain crippling problem involved with having too many unread books on the bookshelf. If I only own a handful of books, I’m more likely to read them. With a hundred or two, I’m unlikely to be able to decide which one I want to read next. In New York, I had ten books with me, and read one a week, buying a new one only when I had run out of material. The system worked beautifully.
So really, that’s the focus of today, clearing out the physical clutter. Getting rid of junk. Looking at something and deciding if I’m keeping it because I’m sentimental or because I truly intend to get more use out of it.
Chances are, I won’t.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
DeKlutter: Vol. 1 Breaking The Habit
At this point, it's safe to say I am addicted to the internet.
The whole end-goal of anyone hoping to be an artist in any medium is to have a positive ratio of creation to consumption. Really, that's a lesson you can apply to most aspects of life, but right now, the focus is on writing.
I browse all my RSS feeds, and wiki-jump through them into more and more articles until I've wasted five hours accomplishing nothing, instead gorging on irrelevant information. I have had this habit since I was in eighth grade, and often would not go outside, in favor of surfing the internet. My brain retains trivia. It makes me useful in esoteric discussions and bar competitions, but non-functional in the real world.
I managed to birth an outline of an issue and six pages of script the other day, because I forcibly removed myself from the internet by going to Border's, where you need T-Mobile to access their wi-fi. I should not need to do this. As such, it's been recommended to me to go on a media fast. For the next five days, I will not be checking my RSS feeds or Facebook. I will not be reading the news. I will not be listening to any non-music radio or podcasts. I will read an hour of fiction for pleasure each night before bed. I will touch no magazines. You will not see me on iChat. Any Twitter updates will be text messages from my phone, and they will be at a greatly reduced number, calculated to only provide useful information so as not to contribute noise to anyone else's influx of information. I will watch no television, but will try to watch at least three fiction movies during the week that I have not yet seen, but are sitting in a pile on my shelf. I will thrive on a low-information diet, and reduce the amount of noise to a more distinct signal. I will still be checking e-mail, but only twice a day; once in the morning and once in the evening. I will still be checking my private groupblog, during the time I use to check my mail in the evening.
We will see if the world collapses while I'm gone. Any blogfeeds that, upon my return, have not yielded something particularly valuable for me will be deleted from my GoogleReader.
There will likely be another post or two here, during the week, about my progress as I begin to hack my life in different areas, and of course, this week's Elephant Words, which is going to be based on this picture.
Wish me luck. I'm hoping to emerge from this week with the remainder of The Smoky City Vol. 1 outlined and all of issue one scripted. If you like gangsters and ghosts, you're going to love this comic.
The whole end-goal of anyone hoping to be an artist in any medium is to have a positive ratio of creation to consumption. Really, that's a lesson you can apply to most aspects of life, but right now, the focus is on writing.
I browse all my RSS feeds, and wiki-jump through them into more and more articles until I've wasted five hours accomplishing nothing, instead gorging on irrelevant information. I have had this habit since I was in eighth grade, and often would not go outside, in favor of surfing the internet. My brain retains trivia. It makes me useful in esoteric discussions and bar competitions, but non-functional in the real world.
I managed to birth an outline of an issue and six pages of script the other day, because I forcibly removed myself from the internet by going to Border's, where you need T-Mobile to access their wi-fi. I should not need to do this. As such, it's been recommended to me to go on a media fast. For the next five days, I will not be checking my RSS feeds or Facebook. I will not be reading the news. I will not be listening to any non-music radio or podcasts. I will read an hour of fiction for pleasure each night before bed. I will touch no magazines. You will not see me on iChat. Any Twitter updates will be text messages from my phone, and they will be at a greatly reduced number, calculated to only provide useful information so as not to contribute noise to anyone else's influx of information. I will watch no television, but will try to watch at least three fiction movies during the week that I have not yet seen, but are sitting in a pile on my shelf. I will thrive on a low-information diet, and reduce the amount of noise to a more distinct signal. I will still be checking e-mail, but only twice a day; once in the morning and once in the evening. I will still be checking my private groupblog, during the time I use to check my mail in the evening.
We will see if the world collapses while I'm gone. Any blogfeeds that, upon my return, have not yielded something particularly valuable for me will be deleted from my GoogleReader.
There will likely be another post or two here, during the week, about my progress as I begin to hack my life in different areas, and of course, this week's Elephant Words, which is going to be based on this picture.
Wish me luck. I'm hoping to emerge from this week with the remainder of The Smoky City Vol. 1 outlined and all of issue one scripted. If you like gangsters and ghosts, you're going to love this comic.
Saturday, October 11, 2008
Facts of Life
I've got another Elephant Words story up today! As always, I would be grateful if you would:
1. Rate it on Elephant Words
2. Leave a comment on Elephant Words
3. Forward it to as many people as you can. We're really trying to drive up readership at the site, and it's free fiction from quality writers, so we'd love the encouragement.
I was invited to stick around for another 6 weeks, and jumped at the opportunity. Having deadlines is what keeps me honest. So, you know, Karolena, I need a new deadline.
I've knocked out a few books lately that I'll be reviewing as soon as I get the time.
1. Rate it on Elephant Words
2. Leave a comment on Elephant Words
3. Forward it to as many people as you can. We're really trying to drive up readership at the site, and it's free fiction from quality writers, so we'd love the encouragement.
I was invited to stick around for another 6 weeks, and jumped at the opportunity. Having deadlines is what keeps me honest. So, you know, Karolena, I need a new deadline.
I've knocked out a few books lately that I'll be reviewing as soon as I get the time.
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
I Bring Pictures!
This week is my week on Elephant Words to pick the picture.
I chose this picture I took with my phone.
My story will be up Saturday.
I chose this picture I took with my phone.
My story will be up Saturday.
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