So, mentioning Steph in yesterday's post prompted me to go back to old LJ entries to remind myself of what actually happened between us a little over three years ago. And then I started flipping through the calendar and remembering things I'd forgotten. When I read that stuff it sure feels as though I've grown up. But it's like me to say that. Not only that, it's like me to point out that I'd say it's like me to say that. I really liked icing those old entries with a bit of self-awareness in the form of an "Oh well, in a few years I'll have this figured out and laugh at myself" kind of comment. So at least I did have a bit of faith in myself.
I'm not sure how much I'll be updating this weekend. I might bring my laptop, but if I don't I'll try to get on the hostel computer. I need to do a bunch of research today and buy some batteries. I also should really transcribe my Hutcheon interview so that I can clear it off the recorder.
Showing posts with label journal. Show all posts
Showing posts with label journal. Show all posts
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Monday, December 3, 2007
The chief design for my Touch of Evil final project is done, with the first two video clips in place. It actually looks pretty much like I'd envisioned. Tomorrow night I'll come up with some stuff to say about it for the presentation on Tuesday. You can literally, if you time it correctly, play both versions of the opening sequence at the same time, side by side with each other.
There is snow everywhere. I found out that my brother was ALSO in a car accident the other night when a truck hit the cab he was in. He's okay but kind of banged up. My family shouldn't leave the house for the rest of the winter. I'm looking forward to getting home for Christmas. It's just about time to break out some Christmas movies. It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, Die Hard...
God, I should be more careful about visiting old journals to double check on information. I always get pulled in and end up reading for an hour. I really used to be a pretty emotionally distraught guy, it would seem. I'm glad I've kept this blog up. Even at only a little over three months and almost 100 entries, it's been the diary I've been the most consistent at keeping, and the tone is certainly worlds different.
Looking back, it seems clear that I was deeply upset that I wasn't in love. I've had a bunch of relationships over the past ten years or so, but no matter how frequently I was with someone I would always eventually fall under the impression that I was going to be alone. This coincided with my creative side kicking at me, and all I wanted to do was write out the insecurities that kept me awake at night. I wrote more than anyone else I knew, and sometimes that made the isolation even harder to deal with. I wanted my words to stab at people's hearts and minds. I wanted them to break apart formalities and structures that I felt kept me at a distance from other people. What I perceived as bare honesty was my only weapon against being ignored and forgotten by everyone. And if my words didn't provoke a response, I felt that I was unsuccessful at being alive.
Dramatic, I know, but that's the way it was. I can be hot-headed and rash. Sometimes I think back to the period when Andrea and I started dating, and I mark it as one of the early stages in which I experienced great, positive changes in my personality. It was around the time I moved to Centretown. I had a group of friends I enjoyed hanging out with, going to the bars to drink and dance. I was able to live and not really worry too much about the future, because I knew I'd get around to it eventually. Towards the end it felt as if things were starting to fall apart. I'm hoping that when I get back, I'll be able to rediscover all of those things that made me fall for the city, in whatever new contexts they might present themselves.
More to say on that point, but I'm tired. Tomorrow the long-gestating Opera presentation finally sees delivery. I'm nervous, but I'll be glad to see it go.
There is snow everywhere. I found out that my brother was ALSO in a car accident the other night when a truck hit the cab he was in. He's okay but kind of banged up. My family shouldn't leave the house for the rest of the winter. I'm looking forward to getting home for Christmas. It's just about time to break out some Christmas movies. It's a Wonderful Life, Scrooge, Die Hard...
God, I should be more careful about visiting old journals to double check on information. I always get pulled in and end up reading for an hour. I really used to be a pretty emotionally distraught guy, it would seem. I'm glad I've kept this blog up. Even at only a little over three months and almost 100 entries, it's been the diary I've been the most consistent at keeping, and the tone is certainly worlds different.
Looking back, it seems clear that I was deeply upset that I wasn't in love. I've had a bunch of relationships over the past ten years or so, but no matter how frequently I was with someone I would always eventually fall under the impression that I was going to be alone. This coincided with my creative side kicking at me, and all I wanted to do was write out the insecurities that kept me awake at night. I wrote more than anyone else I knew, and sometimes that made the isolation even harder to deal with. I wanted my words to stab at people's hearts and minds. I wanted them to break apart formalities and structures that I felt kept me at a distance from other people. What I perceived as bare honesty was my only weapon against being ignored and forgotten by everyone. And if my words didn't provoke a response, I felt that I was unsuccessful at being alive.
Dramatic, I know, but that's the way it was. I can be hot-headed and rash. Sometimes I think back to the period when Andrea and I started dating, and I mark it as one of the early stages in which I experienced great, positive changes in my personality. It was around the time I moved to Centretown. I had a group of friends I enjoyed hanging out with, going to the bars to drink and dance. I was able to live and not really worry too much about the future, because I knew I'd get around to it eventually. Towards the end it felt as if things were starting to fall apart. I'm hoping that when I get back, I'll be able to rediscover all of those things that made me fall for the city, in whatever new contexts they might present themselves.
More to say on that point, but I'm tired. Tomorrow the long-gestating Opera presentation finally sees delivery. I'm nervous, but I'll be glad to see it go.
Sunday, October 28, 2007
(WARNING: Major spoilers to The Shining ahead)
"...there is no way, within the film, to be sure with any confidence exactly what happens, or precisely how, or really why."
Roger Ebert wrote that about The Shining in one of his "Great Movies" reviews. He meant it in a positive context, taking into account that the film is about madness. I watched it for the first time in a couple of years tonight. I had it primed to go on that list of horror films I mentioned yesterday.
I haven't read the King novel, but I love the film. It gets better with every viewing. You put more and more pieces together but always wind up with a puzzle that doesn't look like a sane conception. There are parts of The Shining I just don't get, but any indication of success in trying makes the film a pure experience. That's what I appreciate about a great horror film. To me, the real horror in any situation is having my world turned sideways and made uncanny. I was online today, reading reviews for Saw IV which has just hit theatres. I saw the first Saw movie and thought it was a neat idea poorly executed on important levels. I didn't see any of the sequels, but curiosity drove me to read about them. The descriptions portray the films simply as sequences of torture in which people are mutilated in the most sadistic, barbarous ways imaginable. I understand the visceral thrill of that kind of film - who doesn't remember being a kid and talking about the gory details of the latest slasher flick to hit video, especially if you hadn't seen it? But even given the extreme violence of films like those in the Saw series, I don't find movies of that ilk scary. Disgusting, sure. Gory and brutal, yes, but not scary.
To me, that's why The Shining is so brilliant. It has moments of extreme violence, but they're buried in piercing tensions and a psychologically draining narrative. When Jack suddenly jumps out and kills Halloran with an axe blow to the heart, it's more horrifying than two hours filled with the same footage. This time I was really into how frighteningly Nicholson plays his role. He makes the transition from an eloquent, polite speaker at the beginning of the film to an animal shouting in agonizing frustration in the hedge maze at the end. When he pursues Wendy slowly up the staircase, threatening her, telling her he's going to "bash her brains in, bash 'em right the fuck in," no matter how many times you've seen the film there's a look in his eye that convinces you he might just do it this time:
The film works on so many levels, really, that you can pick one and enjoy it apart from the rest, which might be sound advice if you're trying to make sense of it on the whole.
I also watched Wild Strawberries. I can't communicate how wonderfully affected I am by Bergman's films. His dialogue is always so rich and passionate and full of existential longing. Wild Strawberries plays a lot with surrealist elements - I remembered seeing a clip of one of the more nightmarish bits played in an undergraduate film class. The film is about an elderly professor coming to terms with old age, remembering back to moments of past happiness and sadness, ultimately realizing that he hasn't yet ceased learning and instructing at 78. Bergman constantly describes his character as "growing cold," hardened to life, jaded in the midst of a life weighed down by thought. On a road trip he offers a ride to young people squabbling (even fighting physically) over the existence of God. They ask him his opinion and he comes to his own self-realization - that life isn't about proving God's existence or absence one way or the other. In times of sadness, rather than grow too despondent over present remedies, it benefits one more to think back on times of past joy.
I read a few film articles today, including a couple by Bazin. I still have a few more to go. I watched some X-Files over chicken soup - my cough is turning resolutely into a cold. I downloaded a new version of Internet Explorer because some websites like CNN.com weren't properly formatted in the version I was using. I also had a conversation with Andrea today about her troubles with a public journal that her employer found, and it intimidated me into making this journal private. On the bright side I can probably start using a lot more profanity and being completely honest about people I dislike. None of those people belong to my cherished, valuable readership of course.
"...there is no way, within the film, to be sure with any confidence exactly what happens, or precisely how, or really why."
Roger Ebert wrote that about The Shining in one of his "Great Movies" reviews. He meant it in a positive context, taking into account that the film is about madness. I watched it for the first time in a couple of years tonight. I had it primed to go on that list of horror films I mentioned yesterday.
I haven't read the King novel, but I love the film. It gets better with every viewing. You put more and more pieces together but always wind up with a puzzle that doesn't look like a sane conception. There are parts of The Shining I just don't get, but any indication of success in trying makes the film a pure experience. That's what I appreciate about a great horror film. To me, the real horror in any situation is having my world turned sideways and made uncanny. I was online today, reading reviews for Saw IV which has just hit theatres. I saw the first Saw movie and thought it was a neat idea poorly executed on important levels. I didn't see any of the sequels, but curiosity drove me to read about them. The descriptions portray the films simply as sequences of torture in which people are mutilated in the most sadistic, barbarous ways imaginable. I understand the visceral thrill of that kind of film - who doesn't remember being a kid and talking about the gory details of the latest slasher flick to hit video, especially if you hadn't seen it? But even given the extreme violence of films like those in the Saw series, I don't find movies of that ilk scary. Disgusting, sure. Gory and brutal, yes, but not scary.
To me, that's why The Shining is so brilliant. It has moments of extreme violence, but they're buried in piercing tensions and a psychologically draining narrative. When Jack suddenly jumps out and kills Halloran with an axe blow to the heart, it's more horrifying than two hours filled with the same footage. This time I was really into how frighteningly Nicholson plays his role. He makes the transition from an eloquent, polite speaker at the beginning of the film to an animal shouting in agonizing frustration in the hedge maze at the end. When he pursues Wendy slowly up the staircase, threatening her, telling her he's going to "bash her brains in, bash 'em right the fuck in," no matter how many times you've seen the film there's a look in his eye that convinces you he might just do it this time:
The film works on so many levels, really, that you can pick one and enjoy it apart from the rest, which might be sound advice if you're trying to make sense of it on the whole.
I also watched Wild Strawberries. I can't communicate how wonderfully affected I am by Bergman's films. His dialogue is always so rich and passionate and full of existential longing. Wild Strawberries plays a lot with surrealist elements - I remembered seeing a clip of one of the more nightmarish bits played in an undergraduate film class. The film is about an elderly professor coming to terms with old age, remembering back to moments of past happiness and sadness, ultimately realizing that he hasn't yet ceased learning and instructing at 78. Bergman constantly describes his character as "growing cold," hardened to life, jaded in the midst of a life weighed down by thought. On a road trip he offers a ride to young people squabbling (even fighting physically) over the existence of God. They ask him his opinion and he comes to his own self-realization - that life isn't about proving God's existence or absence one way or the other. In times of sadness, rather than grow too despondent over present remedies, it benefits one more to think back on times of past joy.
I read a few film articles today, including a couple by Bazin. I still have a few more to go. I watched some X-Files over chicken soup - my cough is turning resolutely into a cold. I downloaded a new version of Internet Explorer because some websites like CNN.com weren't properly formatted in the version I was using. I also had a conversation with Andrea today about her troubles with a public journal that her employer found, and it intimidated me into making this journal private. On the bright side I can probably start using a lot more profanity and being completely honest about people I dislike. None of those people belong to my cherished, valuable readership of course.
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