Shot through with anger and desire, a mouth to feed a room for hire

Today i didn't go to work. I couldn't rise.

Last year some friends and i were building a way out. It was no way out, it was just an aesthetic anaesthetic. A beautiful dream.

Well, i had a beautiful dream last night, and i still awoke in the same bed.

My crew dissipated, no captain to join, and no first mate to assist, my future seems to consist of a liferaft. I used to dream of a houseboat, but things are dry here, except for the unpredictable ocean. Small measures and gentle movements disappear into the sand. Go big or go home, if you have one.

Every successful project starts with a checklist, and i've started mine.

Next town over from Drymouth, there's a good port, the biggest in the land. I have friends there who would be glad to help and to have me near. It should entice me, but i feel next to nothing for the place, and i don't know why; then again, i felt nothing for Drymouth when i left the place i came from.

The place i came from still has a pull, but the port region is degraded. Every port is run by corrupt men, but these thrive on decay and death. As a border dweller by nature, i am drawn to ports and other crossover points, but i'm not sure i can go backward in time to that place.

The shining new port of this era is in the town where i was born. It's the longest trip (excluding if i were to cross the ocean). There, the troubles are different. Expensive tastes. Fighting for lead dog status. A beautiful, complicated place that i feel like i should know, but don't.

A small port off the coast from there... pretty on the outside, ugly on the inside, but still a place to land, with support and a potential way forward.

With a strict plan, i could go south, across the border, to the Grand Port. Or i could cross the ocean for the magic of the Old Ports. But those are utterly unknown quantities (and qualities, really), and the experiment would be resource-heavy and filled with bureaucracy -- the world is filled with guards like never before, and it's not always clear if they're better or worse than (or even different from) the pirates.

But today i have no plan. I have the echoes of strange and comforting dreams, four walls to hold in the warmth, and an umbrella in case i want to climb the stairs and go outside.

Today has been a fucked up day

Today i didn't go to work. I couldn't rise.

Today i lost some music, and the limits of my security caused me trouble. I worked all evening just to get back to within distant sight of where i started the day.

Today is pretty hopeless, all in all, but thinking of dour electronic music and reading about naive architects (and Gaudi, their spiritual peer and technical opposite) helped me stay slightly sane.


I need a script and a video camera, and maybe i can start doing something worthwhile with my life again.

(I also need an accountant, but that's another story. Or maybe it isn't.)

Am I damned? No, I'm...

Are You Damned?

Lightning strikes / Maybe once, maybe twice

Surest signal from the subconscious that it's time to say goodbye to the child -- an inability to stop listening to Gypsy by Fleetwood Mac.

It's Christmas.

I just liked the idea of having a post on Christmas.

Winnipeg is fucking over

I was wandering across the internet, looking for something meaningful or engaging.

I had been thinking about where i came from.

I stumbled upon the phrase "If you want to know where your heart is, look where your mind wanders." A few people had posted it in different places.

I followed to those places.

I found this picture in one of those places:



I thought "If i go back to where i came from, i'll never see beautiful places like this." The place where i came from does have beauty, but not like this.

I followed the picture link, to see where it was.

It was shot in the place where i came from. In a neighborhood i lived in. I may have walked down that alley at some point in my life.

I am the problem.

I'm just an animal looking for a home

Between my last two entries, i turned 40.

Such is my nature that i was not limited to one type of reaction to this event. There are three essential flavors possible, and i had a little of each. That's my blessing and my curse.

Negativity:

• The feeling of being too old to catch up on what's been missed.
• The sense that not enough time remains to get where one is going.
• The fear that there is no hope to gain a relationship that will be fulfilling, due to being out of the sweet-spot thirties, as well as the disillusion that accompanies having had so many previous relationships end.
• The awareness that my options for change and adventure in life are decreasing.
• The knowledge that none of the physical aspects of life are likely to get any better from here on out.

Positivity:

• The exultation of having survived the longest, stupidest part of life.
• The increased freedom from worrying about the fashionability of my life choices.
• The accumulation of intelligence/wisdom/knowledge/information/memory.
• The refinement of my joys and interests.
• The relative coolness i am able to maintain as my age-peers slide ever further into drab conformity.
  

Neutrality:

• The larger, more encompassing view of the world.
• The relief of recognizing my limitations as a human being in that world.
• The humor and self-interest to let certain things pass in life.
• The transition from cloud-city dreams into more feasibly achievable dreams.
• The vision of the inevitably cyclical nature of all existence.

How does this type of stock-taking affect the escape plan? I'm not entirely sure it does, other than to increase the self-knowledge of He Who Is Doing The Escaping. The reasons i need to get out are the same as before, and the same as they ever were.

If i could stop dreaming about the right places to be -- places that aren't real -- i'd be better off when it comes to making real decisions.

Now it seems to be so strange here

When i try to explain to people what i do musically, i sometimes say "like Brian Eno if he played guitar".

I just listened to "Julie with..." for the first time, and the guitar sounded so freakishly like my playing that i checked the notes immediately to see who played it. Eno, of course.

This is the waiting room. Some of your friends are here.

Mixed-up weather lately. Storms arrive at random (though one can smell them in the air the day before). The rain is welcome, but the ground sucks it up as fast as the sky can lay it down; the day after is parched again.

Another tattoo might wake me up -- something to help me symbolically take control.

To where you are

Steps have been taken.

Some friends and I are constructing an escape route out of spare parts. Our scavenging technique contains certain dangers, yet continues. In addition, other parties are now involved; cautious optimism.

We can go by land, we can go by water. I can go by air, if I go myself, and I plan it right.

- - - - -

Meanwhile, a cat has moved in. She's figuring out how much space she needs.

"Let's just say I was testing the bounds of reality."

Just to establish: I'm not confident saying Oliver Stone's The Doors is a good film.

Which is not to necessarily say it's a bad film. Really, if pressed, i don't believe in the idea of good or bad film anyway.

There's a lot in it that strikes me as smart, effective, engaging filmmaking, sometimes juxtaposed against embarrassingly lazy moviecraft shortcuts. But really i watch it because i like spending time in the world the film creates. It is a film i enjoy and rewatch. I like it enough that i recently upgraded it (along with From Hell, another maybe-"bad" movie i like) from DVD to Blu-ray.

The quality of my previous DVD version was atrocious. But as David Lynch well knows, lack of clarity can do wonders for your art. I think i have an advanced ability to allow myself into narrative immersion, but i also have a sharp eye for detail whether i actively engage it or not.

So my way of loving this movie is combining with the wonders of modern technology to cause a problem. Basically, the picture quality is so good now, that certain weaknesses of the production design become unignorably apparent. That is a major blow to the impact of The Doors.

Val Kilmer's performance is Heath-Ledger-as-Joker compelling here, but it shares the same potential weak spot -- if at any point the film narrative and context starts to waver for you, then your consciousness shifts from awareness of the story environment to awareness of the production environment, the acting is unveiled by the awareness that you're watching an actor, and all you can see is the caricature. The story is where the character lives, and it doesn't matter how possessed the actor was if the story is not there to provide a home for the character.

Witness, then, as spikes beneath the bubble:
- the mark on Kilmer's face (no, not that one, the one beside his nose) that is so obviously painted on
- the feet of the cameraman in the glossy face of a memorial stone
- the concert crowd extras arranged in clearly visible lines in an attempt to portray a full audience
- the alcohol bottles half-full of obviously fake alcohol
- Kilmer's beard (and Stone's in his cameo)

I know this doesn't matter to very many people. And I know that The Doors is an emotional portrait and a love letter to a flawed hero, and that i do it no service by picking on such things. I think it's a very successful movie on its own terms; if i wanted to attempt an evisceration i'd be cutting at the writing first, and the casting of Meg Ryan second, and there would be more before i got down to the level of surface minutiae.

I was distracted by Kilmer's performance the whole way through, and it's because 75% of the time i was aware that i was watching a movie. I wasn't in the story, because the set was no longer able to convince me. That's never occurred before with this film; maybe i should have used the "this happens to other guys too" line for a title instead...


Next projected installment: "OMGLOL look at those lame fake computers, Blade Runner totally sux"

David Foster Wallace is one fucking stupid bastard.

UPDATE: Apparently things were so bad he'd actually tried electro-convulsive therapy, so I forgive him, I guess.

It's better to travel

Lately a lot of my dreams have involved exploring areas -- rural, urban -- by car. They have often included the side issue of the difficulty of mobility without a car.

I think I need to get my license back, and buy a car.

My work here is done.

Watched The Dark Knight again today (a friend hadn't seen it yet), and something stood out to me.

Joker drops Rachel out the window. Batman leaps out the window and grabs her. They land on the taxi and have their moment.

Then, Harvey Dent storms into the police station jail.

Ummmmm... last i saw, there were a half-dozen armed men, one of whom is a sociopath, and they're in a room with a couple hundred of the richest people in the world, looking for a man who happens to be unconscious behind a conspicuously-barred door. Looking for Harvey Dent. And the only person who can stop them has just flung himself out of the building.

It's a bit of a loose thread.

Now, admittedly, the pacing carried me along enough the first two times that i didn't even notice this. But especially when you know in advance that people are going to be watching your movie a half-dozen times or more, don't you want to avoid that sort of structural dropout?

Action determines opposition.

Dryness, stiffness, aging. Yet each step away from that self-image renews my interior freedom and youth. And, that shell is being overgrown by a new type of power i'm beginning to recognize.

I have everything in me. I can be a protector, a violator, a conqueror, a peacemaker, a liar, a truth-teller, a child, a god -- dependent on context and desire, and often simultaneously. My limits are other than my mind grasps.

Maybe i'm here randomly. Maybe i'm here with a purpose. Maybe i'm here because i chose to be. I'm pretty certain i shouldn't count on ever knowing.

Tobacco is not my friend.

David Bowie looks great smoking a cigarette.
James Dean looks great smoking a cigarette.
Audrey Hepburn looks great smoking a cigarette.
Marla Singer looks great smoking a cigarette.
Ian Curtis looks great smoking a cigarette.

Even Lara Flynn Boyle looks great
smoking a cigarette.

Jim Morrison looked stupid when he
smoked cigarettes, but that's still six against one.


Smoking cigarettes looks cool.

Smoking cigarettes also makes me nauseous
and depressed, and bothers my lungs.
I'm giving them up now.


Exception: on the road, cigarettes are
currency for information.

Heaven Knows I'm Miserable Now...

I've managed to largely avoid most of the conventional choices life offers in favor of less-travelled alternatives. It's not been due to special strength of character (though i'd argue this helps survive the inherent discomforts of such a path). Life has been consistent in handing me strange alleys to slip away from many dead ends.

So, feeling as lost as at present, i examine myself, my history, the art that resonates with me, and any manner of esoteric source, in search of enough general orientation on the map that i can at least hazard a guess for north.

The one consistent, screaming fact: for me, comfort may be necessary for happiness, but it's definitely not sufficient. Because it's all i have right now, and i'm miserable.

I have to get out of Drymouth.

Weblog conversion complete. Return to your homes.

Embedded fonts are the new neckties.

From now on, when somebody asks me what really separates humans from animals anyway, i’m going to answer "typography". It’s a trick question, after all, and i do like typography.

This is relevant to my interests.

Sexy!

Pirates!

The original pirate clans included the first people without the traditional mindset with simply two eyes and a smile; they had a variety of different views about epistemology, economics and politics. Alongside the pirates established in 1689 were the bluecoated Imperial Soldiers (based either on the French, or the British navy) who were to fight the pirates. A campaign known as "The Gold Medallion" was also completed in that year, as well as a semi-permanent island colony. In 1692, the Imperial Soldiers were replaced by the redcoat Imperial Guards. In 1696 the entire "feel" of the Pirate world changed and made it much more Spanish influenced. This meant the Imperial Guards were replaced by the Imperial Armada, heavily based on the Spanish Armada. The pirates were also re-introduced with new faces. The Islanders, founded originally in 1694, were a sub-tribe loosely based on a Polynesian concept.

In 1697, the last few independent pirate clans were disbanded. The tribe’s end came as a shock to gypsydom, because the pirates’ world had always been a major consituent element. A few pirate clans were revived in the postmodern era. Pirate themes have been seen in fashion and the Anarchism theme.

[text taken from Wikipedia's Lego Pirates entry]

"You must have known the way the virus works."

Code 46

Tim Robbins
Samantha Morton
Directed by Michael Winterbottom
Written by Frank Cottrell Boyce

There are times when I see a film, read about it afterward, and wonder if everyone else is writing about the same thing. This is one of these times. I’m not a member of the Trash Roger Ebert school, but when he – the one name everyone knows, the Pulitzer winner – states the alarmingly common view that the story here is unclear or ill-formed, then I worry for the future of mature storytelling in film.

Not a science-fiction movie, despite the production design, and the DNA conceit that the plot banks off as it travels, Code 46 is a relatively straightforward, moving love story. William Geld (Robbins) travels to Shanghai to investigate travel-document fraud, and falls in love with the perpetrator, Maria Gonzales (Morton). He protects her, and eventually they leave the city together.

The romance is potentially imbalanced and one-sided; to my mind, the real unsolved mystery of the story is William’s inconsistent behavior, appearing to be sincerely ensnared by Maria yet failing to act at a crucial moment that would aid them. (Although, fate is a major character here, and an apparently avoidable accident may have been speeding the arrival of the inevitable, if hindsight and the rear-view mirror have any truth to offer.)

Yet the connection between the Maria and William is easy to accept, unless the viewer is looking for reasons not to. To ask why they come together in the film is no more meaningful than to ask why any two people in our world do. There may be clearly definably reasons, but just as likely not, and this film takes place in a paradigm in which fictional characters have the same rights to be inexplicable. The lack of a filmic convention forcing the romance into being, some Rube Goldberg contraption conspiring to lock them in a broken elevator together, is to me one of the many refreshing things about Code 46, but I believe this also reflects so many reviewers’ frustrations with it. The characters meet and consciously choose to let the hovering potential become real, and this seems to not be narrative enough for some.

The substance of the development between the pair is as honest and believable as any I’ve seen in a movie. They go out together, talk and joust and flirt, exchange confidences and tension. By the time the return to Maria’s flat together, the feeling of connection they display is well-earned. As William leaves to return to Seattle the next morning, something essential is told to us about both characters.

He comes back, of course, and while there’s enough detail hanging off the sides of the main story to flesh out the world a bit – more about the travel document smuggling, more about the limitations of personal freedom in the story world – the main antagonist is revealed as the genetic connection between William and Maria. Meanwhile, Maria emerges as the real protagonist, as she changes from the target of William’s affections into the heart of the story.

A mild spoiler follows in this paragraph: Maria is genetically identical to William’s mother. In this world of in vitro births, natural childbirth is discussed as an oddity. Such instances of DNA meeting itself, though bewildering to William when he discovers the truth, are common enough to have laws pertaining to them, and an intrusive industrial apparatus in place to prevent any “liaison” from occurring. And there’s our title, and one of the pegs for the Oedipal theme that weaves through the film.

Here is another point at which public opinion demands more backstory. Many reviewers complained of not understanding why these laws are in place, how precisely they came about – though in our world we are surrounded by such laws. They want to have the reasons for people living in first-world enclaves with strict entry-and-exit policies instead of the freeports of the world, as though there are no parallels in our world that go similarly unexplained.

As a viewer of a film, if the texture of the world is believable and takes me into the story, I don’t need to know why the characters have to protect themselves from the sun during the day. I don’t need to have the driver explain to Robbins’ character what the spray that coats their vehicle as they drive through the tunnel to Shanghai does, or what it’s made of. I don’t need an establishing closeup of the panels in the walls that hold the surveillance cameras. To me, unless the point of the film is to describe a future world, and not to set a human story within it, all that detail is filler. (Blade Runner doesn’t wallpaper itself with explanatory exposition on the history of the eyeball trade; that said, it suffered mixed reviews for a long time as well.)

I know that ability to spontaneously believe in a fictional world is highly subjective, but I can’t help wondering if some viewers, seduced by the glamor of the film debunking cult, insist on asking superfluous questions of the narratives they encounter.

The twist of the story – and it’s telegraphed, I suppose, for those who like guessing – is far less on paper, where it would sound predictable if I made the mistake of describing it in detail. But the arc of the story earns it by the time it occurs, and it manages to be genuinely heartbreaking.

(Which leads to the one misstep I can pick on: the Coldplay song. Not that I hate either the band or the song, but to hear something so identifiably contemporary pulled me out of the experience somewhat. Since it's in the closing scenes, though, I can see it being justified in intent, even if it didn't work entirely for me.)

As a dystopic love story, rich with atmosphere and (mostly) excellent music, beautiful camera work, thoughtful writing that doesn’t go by-the numbers, Code 46 succeeds. Robbins is reliably good, Morton is fearless, and the story may affect you enough that you’ll be thinking about it long afterward, as I did and still do.