Richard Marx and Matt Scannell cover Tom Jones

i dig that these guys are friends ;')

Before

(LOOKALIKES MUCH!)

A hopefully spoiler free (but i make no promises, there is only try) pondering on the before sunrise/sunset/midnight movies. (Just finished watching Before Midnight, it's raining outside, the perfect time to ponder...)

1: Clothes
With the first one, my father was a big fan of pointing out/making sure i noticed that Celine (after they have sex) is no longer wearing the tee shirt under the dress, the next morning - a lovely little detail - attention to detail in the storytelling. And in the second one she wears a top and jeans and he wears that weird print shirt, his hair is different. Shorter. Her hair is up. But this one they're older, so much older, but really dress more like in the first one. She's in a dress again. maybe it even ties up the same way? maybe not, same thin straps anyway. Anyway... moving on. His hair is longer, just like in the beginning. Like a hint that they're the people they're supposed to be when they're together. I don't know... just a thought. Speaking of attention to detail - I loved the musical call backs to the past. Familiar tunes all over the place. mmmMmm. And of course there's the compulsory - my father is dead - batman-esque thought: What would he think of it? There can be no answer, only imagination. And dreaming. I think my dreams are more like Jesse's dreams and not so much/never like Celine's superhero ones.

2: Shakespeare
I definitely think Sunset is the most romantic one. Lovers once parted, finding each other again - against all odds. If this was shakespeare, Sunset would be A Midsummer Night's Dream. Sunrise would be Romeo and Juliet - young love, ending in parting if not death. The most hopeful for sure yet sad. And this one's Macbeth. Take that as you will... SPOILERS!

3: Conversation
I love how pretty much every conversation (as in life) is about sometime other than the present, oftentimes things not in any of the movies, but the time inbetween. Where the characters went on living, even without the actors. What came in between the pencils and the windmills par exemple? That's another great thing – english, french, greek? no subtitles. You get it or you don't. Plus it's a great way to raise the kids.

Previous Posts that are vaguely connected to this one:
• A pondering on coffee and memories
• Auden and recycling

jeff x dicey - 4eva!

spent at least an hour (if not more) today thinking about deeply about fictional characters and just what it is about their personalities that attracts them to each other, the ways in which they are similar and opposite...and what their fictional future together will be like. i am talking about jeff greene and dicey tillerman from the tillerman cycle by cynthia voigt. i'm a sucker for well written YA lit. and cynthia voigt is the best. jeff greene lives within me although i havent read a solitary blue for some years now (ordered it off flipkart today finally! so i can have my very own copy! to have and to hold...but i've absorbed it into my skin and carry it around with me... i remember the way it feels)

...then read day fourteen of the 40 days of dating project and it upsets me. jeff and dicey don't upset me because they're fictional (and i know they're together in their fictional universe fighting for each other because they're both blue herons in the wild *sigh* and sure they'll fight, and have problems but he's a one woman man and that's that) and canon and there's commitment and clarity there. but this project is so real and emotional and disturbing because it's real (like a really real version of the mindy project and that is too much drama!)... HEADDESK this is actually making me glad i dont have cctv/god vision into the lives of friends/people i'm curious about on facebook. with knowledge comes tension. it's only day 14 and i'm a mess! everyone's life is a mess!

you know... i should be more of a mess about being single and alone. but i'm okay this year :) 27 in 2013. it's all good. at least i don't have cluster headaches or commitment issues. i'd like to think that when i'm next obsessing over someone, there will be great clarity and purpose and i'll know just what i want to do about it, even if it involves doing stupid things. because i'm a lot like jeff greene (and that boy's got his life figured out by the end of the book). you'll just have to read a solitary blue to figure out what i mean.

from cynthia voigt's website faq (are your stories about real people? did this really happen?):

...The boy I glimpsed one night at King's Dominion, the only passenger in a Tilt-a-Whirl carriage, multi-colored lights flowing over him, his arms stretched out wide along the back of the seat, his dark glasses hiding his eyes: that boy became Jeff Greene in A Solitary Blue...

Someone to turn his thoughts to

listening to
everyman needs a companion - father john misty (aka. joshua tillman/j tillman)

just got done reading fortydaysofdating.com. really interesting project (currently on day thirteen). perfect for me to follow because i love spying on people. always want more info about how someone sees/feels about a situation.

Interpretive Fallacy: To read/view is to interpret, in every case. Each reader/viewer interprets differently, experiences a different text.
— William Gibson (@GreatDismal) July 20, 2013

it's basically two friends working through their relationship issues by seeing each other everyday for 40 days because thats how long it takes to make a new habit. that's my extremely simplified gist of the matter. it's worth it to sit down and read the whole thing complete with illustrations, photographs, screenshots, videos and ponderings. lol just realised how appropriate a song this is for this project. i just picked it because i'm on a father john kick right now. joshua tillman fascinates me.

my favourite line from the song
I never liked the name Joshua/I got tired of J




video from day six (of 40).
i love this movie so much.
so much. timothy hasn't seen it and can't stand jeff bridges. how? why? timothy, why?

anyway back to my feels about this project. they have this daily questionnaire they have to respond to about how they're feeling about the project. what they've learnt about themselves and the other person. it's easier to be honest when you have questions to respond to i think... vs free form blogging. i can feel myself censoring myself heavily these days. not so much censoring as omitting. keeping it light. don't want to share what it is that i'm really feeling. but when asked a direct question i could get around it i think... because then there's the need to articulate.. an answer!

my thoughts on the mirror has two faces
pretty much a perfect film. one that i can watch whenever it's on. want the dvd. that's how awesome it is. streisand and bridges - otp. or rather ruth and whatever his name is in the film. the characters. they are perfection. it's one of those films i've watched with my father where we both loved it super lots. this is where i begin questioning myself... thinking am i remembering that right? was i the sap who loved it more than him? he did like it right? i do that with memories. rethink. wonder what my brain's made up...

but what i do know is, i love this film. there's no doubt about that.

but sometimes i doubt everything else. who am i? what do i want out of life? out of a relationship? out of the other person? and sometimes things are perfectly clear. i know what i want, i just don't have it yet. some things are right. life's alright.

but some things are missing. and that's the truth. but that's okay. *shrug* :)

six degrees of playlist making

we begin with:
1. 22 - taylor swift - a song about feeling 22.
2. who says - john mayer - once dated taylor swift, also "It's been a long time since 22"
3. giving up the gun - vampire weekend - whose video stars jake gyllenhaal who also dated...
4. time to dance - the shoes - jake ditches tennis for fencing.
5. dancing shoes - cliff richard 
6. footloose - kenny loggins 
...aaaaand kevin bacon! w000!

yet another aimless update

sitting in my room, staring into the light of this candle (a lovely birthday gift!) like william miller (with his candle and the who on vinyl (except there's no music on): 

just thinking about the podcast i just listened to (about writers' rooms, writing for tv, showrunning blah blah writers! marriage! the golden age of television is now! etcetera). pondering the comic book page i will be working on drawing later tonight. thinking about how i used to write essay length posts on episodes of LOST - intense analysis of plot. it meant so much to me. there's a bit in the podcast where michael schur talks about how when he tells people he works in tv, he sometimes gets the reaction where the other person says "tv sucks! he doesn't even own one!" what is that? why is reading a book so much better? is it just the using your mind to create vs sitting in front of pictures? is it like people not considering comic books actual reading?

next show i might check out i think will be parks and rec. i could use more adam scott in my life (even though i have been warned he shows up only round about season 02). 

this is a great excerpt from the podcast:

We did an one episode recently, where Adam Scott’s character had a kidney stone and had to be on morphine. And we had a lot of funny jokes for things things that a drugged up Adam Scott would say. And Harris Wittels, one of our writers, is a, a..um…drug enthusiast…he’s a really laid-back guy, he’s usually asleep in the room. And we were going over the script and he was REALLY agitated. I was like, “What is wrong with you, man?” And he was like, “It’s just…It’s just not the way people talk when they’re on morphine! And I really think we need to get this right.” And I was like, “GO CRAZY MAN.” And then he disappeared into a room, he worked harder than I’ve ever seen him work. He was focused, and his phone would ring and he would be like “NO!” and turn it off, and he came back and like, every joke he wrote for Ben was better than the one that we had had. We were like, generic drugged dude, and he was super-specific about what people were like on morphine. And it was like, “This Harris. This is the reason I hired you. Five years later it finally paid off, for this morphine section. — Michael Schur

i have listened to quite a bit of harris wittels in my analyze phish phase. 

"drug enthusiast" is one way to put it :D

moving fingers

my dad hated blogs, just the idea of all the people with all the vociferous opinions pissed him off a bit i think. starting to feel this way. like what is so important that i have to type it up all importantly and declare "hey look at me! i had this thought!" ...i'm also not giving up on this blog. i am after all still typing here :D so anyway, some thoughts:

1
i cleaned my room today, a complete cleanse. even took some stuff off the walls. things that felt "old". new order before my birthday. feels good.

2
listened to modern vampires of the city yet again today. the joy of it wanes not. i'm so glad they took their time with it, was worth the wait. also there's none of that laura marling feeling of "a new album? already?" i cant make myself get the new one. back to the dubs: because i know that diane young is meant to sound like "dying young", it's making me think of sound alikes in other songs as well...

workship you:
actual lyric: we worshipped you • what i think it sounds like: we workshopped you... (which makes sense in a way right? making god up.)

hannah hunt:
actual: Hannah tore the New York Times up into pieces • what i think it sounds like: Hannah told the New York Times i'd been to pieces. (which is way worse, but both ways are disturbing. my version makes the follow up lines less unexpected "if I can't trust you then damn it, Hannah/there's no future, there's no answer)

3
other music that i've been digging of late: i get wet - andrew wk • the information - beck • anthem - hanson • the band - the band • the glad fact - dirty projectors • dark touches - har mar superstar...

but my favourite is CT's pre dubs solo thing - digby sellars. it's basic. simple. effortless. like the beatles meets crosby, stills, nash and young... just listen.

the next album defo needs some ct singing, not just drumming.

June - a reading challenge

...so i'm about 1/3 of the way through shikasta at the moment. i'm woefully nowhere near the halfway mark of my goal of 50 books this year (entirely new books these have to be, i get sadly distracted by re-reading - went on a bit of a re-georgette heyer detour). i'm at 16 books including the 3 yet to be finished. so my challenge for the rest of june is to get through these 10 books. in any order.

1. doris lessing - shikasta
2. george w m reynolds - wagner the werewolf
3. pierre boulle - the bridge on the river kwai
4. orhan pamuk - my name is red
5. william maxwell - so long, see you tomorrow
6. amelie northcomb - sulphuric acid
7. carrie fisher - surrender the pink
8. anaïs nin - a spy in the house of love
9. stephen fry - the stars' tennis balls
10. chuck palahniuk - tell-all

KEY half read • done 

which means no time for randomly watching lame movies/old episodes of the oc/gilmore girls/top chef/reading sappy fanfics... basically no watching, only reading. and creating. working on a comic book :)

A Meditation on Bands and Intention

[I WRITE A LOT OF RUBBISH SO IF YOU WANT TO SKIP ALL MY JUNK AND JUST WATCH THE VIDEO, IT WILL BE TIME WELL SPENT. BETTER THE DUBS THAN MY BULLSHIT.]

I used to know how to embed a video and make it start where i want it to but it seems not to work today – so if you want skip to the relevant bit (2:44) or just watch the whole thing, start's with live mansard roof  (my all time fave vdubs track). Anyway it's ezra talking about andrew wk. and hugs. and CT (loses it!) and rostam laugh at his story – the "hug fest" story :D. Anyhoo it's a general ramble on bands and people and how some are more touchy feely than others.

I was reading this post earlier today where someone was all (paraphrasing) "the new vampire weekend would be good if only they learnt to do less... it doesn't need all the voice modification, ugh chipmunk voices! his voice works without it" ...but that's missing the point I think. Agree, no autotune needed. Yes he can sing, he's in a band. Hence the chipmunk voices are in there (ya hey) because they like the chipmunk voices on there. the distortion kicks in at the end of bright eyes' beginner's mind because conor wanted to sound distorted. like his "inner child" is actually deep inside of his body :D

Also this is the man you're dealing with:

"What a beautiful morning! I should quite like to compose a tweet.""Very good, sir. Shall I bring the Droid?"
— Ezra Koenig (@arzE) May 31, 2013

into starshipness

space movies usually spend some time extolling the virtues of the crafts they feature (my personal fave: the millennium falcon). but this star trek movie (into darkness) took it to the next level i must say. abrams was all "i'm so done with lens flare, what shall it be this time?" and chose enterprise porn. the star ship enterprise was gorgeous in this. you see her from above, below, falling, rising (from the clouds! from the depths of the deepest ocean!), sideways, crashing, cracked...her beautiful innards (the sweeping corridor shots!). i dug it. you want to stroke and hug her. you also want to stroke and hug kirk and spock (what a cutie!) :D that bromance. the sweetest! (best casting ever)

also i really love that roldy is sulu (he will always be roldy to me). and yes i know these people are in the movie, no surprise, i have seen the first one. but still. it's still completely amazing. respect. rebooted magnificently. keep em coming. 

and of course...

[SPOILERS]

<3

trois

yes, her.

started on this "write down three things that went well the previous day" thing on 24th march because a friend of mine told me to when i was pms-ing out of my mind – teary about just about everything in my life. been listening to modern vampires of the city for most of this week, this line describes my pms feelings really well: I don’t wanna live like this, but I don’t wanna die (finger back). pms makes me feel like just EVERYTHING is wrong. and i know it's the pms and still i cry. but this is not about describing pms (aside: mae whitman describes it really well in this episode of nocturnal emotions with har mar superstar - my girlcrush increases!), this is about the 3 things thing – it really works. like some strange crazy magic. seems simple enough to do. you just have to remember to keep at it. every. day. and then magic. 2 months have gone by. minus pms meltdowns. my mind's operating on a nice even keel. sure i get a tiny bit sad once in a way, but i can pick myself right up. it's not disastrous.

look how beeyootiful

a question for anyone reading this:
alia shawkat, mae whitman or ellen page?
i'm going mae. although ms. shawkat's got mad art skillz.

joey richter - king of vine :)

Good 'ol @brian_rosenthal!! vine.co/v/bIutzdI6OAx
— Joey Richter (@JoeyRichter) March 30, 2013

new podcast reviews

i was in a bit of a podcast rut there for a while. that's not to say i was bored with what i was listening to just that i was listening to the same things: a bunch of kevin smith, nerdist, history of rome and radiolab.    i have recently added to this:

#1
WTF with Marc Maron
Nerdist style interviews, but one on one with marc maron. maron's a bit more serious than hardwick, and also it ends up being more about the person he's interviewing and less about chris hardwick. there's about 10 minutes of maron rambling at the beginning but this can be easily forwarded through. straight to interview is the route to go.
✭✭✭


#2
Still Untitled: the Adam Savage Project
this one's an absolute dream. it's everything i didnt know that i wanted. want to know what adam savage thinks about star wars? check. about tarantino? check. shop safety? check. although (spoiler alert) the shop safety one is not for the squeamish. i flinched a lot. so much talk about injury by various kinds of saws. stitches. adam likes getting them in sevens. seven stitches is better than five. always keep your blades sharp. constant vigilance! he's like yoda. you need to know what he thinks about everything.
✭✭✭✭

he's better than this yoda for sure:

#3
How did this get made?
people watch and pick apart bad movies. makes me want to rewatch the most awful rubbish. just to laugh at it. total fun. a lot of laughs. works best if it's a movie you've watched already.
✭✭✭✭✭

listen to me! or dont. :p

hate (i really don't like you)

reading state of wonder by ann patchett. my 2nd patchett. this whole book is a reminder of the all the reasons why i loved bel canto (the first) so. i have been introduced to a character much mentioned, but only now finally on the page – a living, breathing person. and i hate her. i hate dr annick swenson for being so cold. so uncaring about other people. a pet peeve of mine, it would seem. how many millions of blog posts have i devoted to this very thing? it's the thing i am hardest on myself about. when i see something one way, my way. selfish! selfish i tell myself, what a shit i am. unable to see it like the other person. cold. unsympathetic. lacking in empathy. bad.

i can tell myself - dr swenson's just a pure scientist who only wants to be left alone to focus on her work, she has no time to spare on mundane things like people, and feelings and death. she cannot be held to the same standards as a mere driver, shopkeeper or pharmacolgist. but then i think fuck that. she's unfeeling. i hate her so much that everytime she speaks i want to hit her/stab her/cause her pain/dump a ton of feelings on her that she cant process with her unfeeling, robot non-heart. and i love ann patchett for making me feel this way. what a book. halfway through. what is sleep? just something i wont be doing tonight :)

edit: by the end of the book, there was less hate. she's not my favourite person. but she's not the worst.

i'm ba-ack

started writing again. feels good to let go of that feeling of my writing not being good enough. or too depressing. or that i couldn't come up with plots anymore. wrote 2 stories in the last 2 weeks and i don't hate them yet. they're alright. i'm willing to keep going until i really like one. the first one i wrote by hand and then typed out and made little edits, the 2nd directly on google drive because i'm lazy. getting my cousin to send me prompts. i literally cannot wait for the next one.

ps. the pauly shore episode of the marc maron wtf podcast - classic. 

3 things

a thing that i am excited about: 
a good day to die hard - because it's die hard! there will never come a day when i'm not excited for one of those. sure i'm not entirely sure about how i feel about bruce willis these days, but boy do i know how i feel about john mcclane. he is the man. the man with no plan, who is just one of those guys. the one who has to jump in. because that's just who he is. he doesn't want to be that guy. no sir. but he is. justin long knows.

...th' fuck is this poster?

a thing i used to be excited about, which suddenly excites me again:
a history of rome. episode 113 pulled me back in with it's dramatic tale of the roman empire effectively becoming (temporarily - for a solid decade at least i think) 3 separate empires. and somehow eventually is united again. when does that ever happen? in rome it does! history is fun as long as no one expects me to remember exact dates :)

a thing that always excites me:
fun new work projects to look forward to! so much work. i love it.

till it hurts

heard these lyrics at a restaurant:
...make babies together till it hurts... (might have been "make babies till it hurts")

and now google says there's no such song. o0

but anyway, have been thinking on "till it hurts" - what is that point?

1. you've been trying for so long the sex is bad
2. accidental pregnancy
3. you get chucked before the baby's born
4. infertility
5. spending all your money on IVF and the like
6. ending up with a gazillion babies in litter fashion
7. your adopted kid doesn't think of you as a real parent
8. morning sickness
9. miscarriage
10. bedrest
11. labour
12. incisions + stitches
13. extreme sleep deprivation
14. your arms hurt from carrying the baby
15. opposing parenting styles
16. you're not the favourite parent
17. you can't relate to the kid
18. being an absentee parent
19. suddenly they're all grown up and don't need you anymore
20. worrying that they're messing up their lives
21. locking them in their rooms
22. being lied to constantly
23. you trip on a toy and fall down the stairs
24. regretting that you had all the kids and didn't live your own life
25. divorce
26. realising you've turned into your mother/father
27. ...

endless possibilities, the mystery of a song lyric.