11.30.07
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 1:42 pm by Gregory
It’s raining gently. Occasionally a crow caws. That’s it.
Bit of work today, some good news, bit more work, and as soon as I post this I’m on a hunt for penne.
Then to complete that Golden Compass review: I realise what slowed me down a bit — it’s a beautiful and thought-provoking story (in general), and my affection for it makes me want to filter out any undue cynicism prior to going on record about it.
Most people base their opinions on opinions. The difficult task is looking at any work within a larger context (on those fortunate occasions when one can perceive a larger context!)
Anyway, and then the other projects and the site-tinkering (got some linkin’ to do), and then perhaps something like a nice evening.
May you also have a nice evening.
Don’t drive too much.
Chanson du soir: “Good Tradition” by Tanita Tikaram
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Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 1:42 am by Gregory
Here are three hints about what kind of man I am:
1. I will do the “inconvenient” things other people often dodge, just to catch a glimpse of something Beautiful and/or Unusual. (Case in point: The night in the Pac NW when the Northern Lights were exceptionally bright — and it was early but not one of my friends [save one; bless her] thought it a good idea to switch off the motherfucking television [for once] in order to step outside and put forth the incredible effort of looking up.)
2. I will be extraordinarily patient unless somebody is lying to me.
3. I will heed the advice offered in the title line above (even if there’s nobody else there saying it!)
Thus, tonight, only brevity and sleep.
It’s making the national news that staying up all night is bad for people.
(Actually, apart from reasonable balance in all things, I generally disagree: I think it’s just too difficult to get decent sleep in the daytime because it’s too bright and people are too loud.)
On a personal level, I’m noting tonight that old feeling of striving to complete a review in the middle of the night. I have been here literally thousands of times. There’s never any support. There’s never anybody being nice about it. There is generally pressure and loneliness.
Of course, it was far, far worse when I jumped through all the media and traffic hoops and then had to contend with shit-for-brains preditors first thing in the motherfucking morning — often on three-or-less hours of sleep.
People vanished; people died; people turned into total jerks; everybody around me seemed to be an alcoholic; my cars kept exploding; I was making a living; it was a very weird chapter indeed.
At this exact moment, I’m kinda tuned in to those feelings again — except that they’re not really in the present anymore. It’s like intellectual shell-shock. Except that it’s not really acutely uncomfortable anymore — it’s more like: Why did those years have to be so consistently unhappy?
Oh, well.
As far as movie-reviewing goes, it’s interesting to consider: A few got out there this year — and the Harry Potter review even has fully functional sonnets in it. A few other good ones. It was kind of like sneaking them through — when the shadows of past preditorial miseries were dozing.
Unfortunately, I learnt that my plan to do “Double Features” isn’t practical. Certainly, it’s fun — mixing up absurdly mismatched movies and reviewing them in tandem, seeking common thematic (or whatever) threads. Fun, indeed! Except then, all the “straight” sites won’t re-run them, most likely because they’re simply not sure how to define them. Thus, although more jerking around is pretty much guaranteed, that format may have to die.
Several “almosts” were produced this past year as well. I’d get half or three quarters of the way through a review like Control (Sad Egotist Kills Young Self In Pretty B&W) or Darjeeling Limited (Tennenbaum Hipsterism Takes Hindu Field Trip) and then I’d think: “Okay, and what else is there to say about this, really? That Wes Anderson probably blew somebody to start his career? That suicide boy has only one note but makes millions for it?” The authenticity and enthusiasm would become bigger struggles than they were worth, and then I’d go: “Like anybody fucking talks about Saved! or The Hours anymore. I need a decent paycheck to keep doing this unless I’m totally into a specific movie for whatever reason.”
Of course, that was flat-out stolen from me in the nastiest way possible — thus the philosophy has become My Whim or the Highway.
Now, as for The Golden Compass — I really do like it a lot, and there’s still about a week until its release, thus we’re technically early. I just decided that I want to give it a bit more consideration (and even serendipitously spoke this evening with someone who worked on it, which was illuminating). In terms of being “up,” there’s no need to change the order, because the review is indeed “up” — in the air — and has been filtering through my head like so much Dust. In absolute truth, it’s already mostly written (the opening block would never have gotten past the preditors), and the photos (from many) are selected, and the layout is planned.
However, I just don’t tend to be the rush-job kind of guy.
I am a lover with a slow hand.
(And an easy touch.)
Besides, it was such a busy day, and there were nearly infinite other things to consider, and most of the things involving technology didn’t work properly.
This is often the case in my life. Unlike many, I don’t tend to get angry about it. But I don’t trust machines, either. When the revolution comes, I’ll be the one with my boot in the Terminator’s ass.
Reminds me of one of my many, many, many automotive fiascos. I was a slave in the entertainment industry for a few years — they exhaust you, they really do; it’s vicious — and one night I was returning from delivering some shitty script to some shitty actor (notably, on my very unpaid time — this goes on constantly; think about it when you’re buying movie tickets and DVDs) and my then-Volvo decided to take it upon itself…
…to die…
…cold…
…without so much as a whimper…
…in the very middle…
…of the intersection…
…of Wilshire and Westwood…
…at rush hour.
Machines.
A couple of weeks and several hundred dollars later, the mechanics still had no clue why it did that. It just did.
I shall never forget the faces of the people staring at me as I pushed that Volvo out of traffic by myself.
Anyway, machines tried a few tricks like that with me today — but I wasn’t having it. It did slow things down a bit, though.
So you’ll see the review sometime Friday — if that is even to your interest.
Happy to be a part of the process when people do good work, actually.
And now off to bed with me.
Sweet Dreams.
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11.29.07
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 12:59 am by Gregory
Viewed it. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it.
Review up p.m. Thursday.
G’night.
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11.28.07
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 1:39 pm by Gregory
When I was an adolescent (rather than just having an occasionally adolescent sense of humour), one of my crushes was on a nerdy musical girl who seemed to pride herself on expressing no discernible emotions.
(”WTF?”)
(I know.)
Anyway, the only time I saw her become significantly emotional was when she would reminisce over witnessing people slipping on the ice and falling down. She loved that!
(”WTF?”)
(I know.)
Anyway, today I was searching for something, and found the video linked below, and I think I finally understand!
Check it out.
(If this doesn’t satisfy you in an acute but deep way, prolly nothing ever will.)
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Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 12:42 am by Gregory
Immediately upon entering (A - -)Whole Foods this afternoon, I found myself gazing upon an old woman lying on her back on the floor as though dead. Lots of other people were also gazing at her, and even more people than that were pushing rudely to get past the people gazing at her. It was a fascinating study in humanity. The woman herself was glazed-eyed and already had her hands folded on her chest in a coffin-ready, corpse-like pose. (Later, whilst checking out, I was told that paramedics eventually arrived, and that she was “fine.” Whatever that means.)
The cause of the woman’s collapse proved mysterious — for she hadn’t yet approched the bludgeoningly-overpriced hot-food buffet. Or perhaps she had, and was dashing away from it in horror when fate struck.
In any case, going in there reminded me how petty and unpleasant humans can be. Actually, this happens pretty much any time one enters a(n) (A - -)Whole Foods. The pushing! The shoving! The me-first-me-first-ME-FIRST clusterfuck! I like a bit of energy, but it is nonetheless mildly disturbing how customers “saving the planet” or whatever by buying organic suddenly forget all standards of common courtesy and become madpeople (frankly, it’s mostly women, too — go look anytime).
I think literally fifty people physically ran into me. And I’m a good dancer. Weird.
A few hours later, I found myself viewing large chunks of The 11th Hour — a new environmental activism movie narrated and produced (go figure) by Leonardo DiCaprio. It would be far too easy to take potshots at DiCaprio for his jet-fuel bill to Brasil or whatever, so instead I’ll say that I’m impressed that he took the time and thought to put his own energy behind a very worthy cause.
(Which is not to say that I didn’t have to stifle a giggle when the outrageously earnest DiCaprio, literally standing on a mountaintop, declares, “So here we are, at the brink!”)
(Me, I believe that “the brink” — much like “doom” and “joy” — is a highly subjective and personal issue, and not one to be projected onto others — regardless of the circumstances.)
The movie itself? It’s your standard feel-bad documentary for the most part: We humans are addicted to the devastating patterns of the Industrial Revolution; we are not only causing our own imminent extinction but that of fifty to fifty-five thousand other species per year (!); we need to redesign absolutely everything in the next two minutes or we’re all dead; oh, and factory farming is bad.
If I sound a bit sarcastic, it’s because — apart from the magnitude of our onslaught upon other species — nothing I saw or heard in the documentary was new to me. I am most certainly an environmentalist and I take pride and pleasure in doing all I can to prevent waste and extend and revere Life — however maybe it’s just because Southern Californians (including Leo) are a bit slow on the uptake or something — when I lived in the Pac NW, several of my personal friends were making it their hobby to go get arrested in front of bulldozers (never mind that as soon as they were arrested, the bulldozers pushed forth and the forests were permanently destroyed anyway). Being Vegan was/is fairly common. Recycling was/is practically a religion.
Factory farming is bad? Fossil fuels are bad? Pollution is bad? War is bad? Duh, duh, duh, double-duh?
I’m sorry — I really don’t mean to be snotty, but watching a bunch of talking heads telling me extremely obvious things — with Leo intermittently appearing as “cute saviour” — proved slightly tedious. It also didn’t help that almost all of the talking heads were white. And old. And bald. And appeared to be chronic masturbators.
I did like the woman who chimed in about how silly humans are to go to absolutely outrageous technological ends to produce a fabric like Kevlar (something involving literally supernatural temperatures and pressures — and almost as indicative of humans’ stupidity as any modern weapon), whereas a simple spider can turn a bug in the belly into webstuff — “ounce for ounce five times stronger than steel — and at room temperature, from natural ingredients.”
This led to the part of the doc I found most fulfilling — the Design Rethink bits. Why pollute? Why overconsume? Why burn up all the world’s resources en route to sticking nine billion crazy-ass humans on this rock?
Instead, why not employ clean, Green resources — and, crucially at this point, science — to create … recreate … a Life on Earth which is not only sustainable for ourselves and all other species — but actually Beautiful and Poetic!
(If only the damned preachy Boomers could even begin to approach the concept that their own fucking greed is largely responsible for the devastation. “Peace”? “Love”? How about Sharing first?)
I also liked the concept that everybody “votes” constantly — every single time we spend our money on absolutely anything. That’s a good thing to consider.
Anyway…screw the disaster-footage and the hand-wringers — that Design Rethink stuff was, for my money (which it wasn’t), the real reason to see the film. Which I certainly recommend — a lot more than any stupid movie about stupid people shooting each other, anyway.
Here.
And what else?
Lotsa French people at the screening. I like that. Crossed paths with a woman I met near the beginning of this year, who texted the living hell out of me during the Costa-Gavras tribute because she thought I might be able to help her get her conspiracy-screenplay off the ground. We looked each other right in the eye, and she evinced no personal recognition whatsoever.
L.A.
(Even French people can become “L.A.”!)
Anyway, I was going to save this posting until morning, because I’m kinda turned on by the novel (for me) concept of going to bed “early” and actually partaking of eight consecutive hours of sweepytime. However, there is a great deal of work to be done immediately thereafter, thus best to yammer here now then take the day semi-seriously.
The reward, after that, shall be viewing The Golden Compass — forward to which I look. (With any luck, that’ll be the catalyst to get the site refitted for December.)
(And tonight I’m just gonna flip languidly through the copy of Northern Lights my dear friend sent me a couple of years ago, en route to — hey, as long as we’re redesigning concepts — Sweepytime.)
Oh: Funny. I did end up spending too much to hit the hot (and cold) food buffet — and it was with surprise and delight that I found myself gazing into a pan of…
…oh, baby…
…vegan potato salad!
(Dear Lord*, before I go to Sweepytime this night, I pray to thee: Help me complete this dear wish. Ta.)
[*Not intended to connote any adherence to, or approval of, any patriarchal system.]
As for you, I hope you had your cookie. In any case, might I suggest putting these into your mouth?
P.S. No particular reason for the Paul Simon lyric as title — apart from still thinking that it’s sensational.
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11.27.07
Posted in Glögg Is Life. at 1:42 am by Gregory
…can’t trust that day!
(Actually, in double-checking that lyric — originally wanted to go with “can’t stand that day!” — I discovered that the much younger musical combo Tegan & Sara have a song called “Monday Monday Monday” — that’s three Mondays! (everything is so extreme nowamondays) — however the plangent tone continues: One of their lines is, “I don’t really care for your city anymore.” !!!)
Heh.
Hi.
Well, here’s the brief report, anyway:
Kevin DuBrow, lead singer of Quiet Riot, dropped dead in Las Vegas.
I never liked Quiet Riot, but I always did appreciate DuBrow’s very fake English accent on that line: “You sehve no bettah!” And that he was willing to be loud and obnoxious when the scenario called for it. Beyond that, they were never my band — but I’ll betcha that a dewy Morrissey was sitting around in Manchester savouring them as his guilty pleasure:
“Let’s see here: Diamond Dogs, The Picture of Dorian Gray, Poofterism for Boffins, and — son? Stevie-sweets? — what’s this then? Metal Health?”
“That’s nothing, Mum! Erm…wee John Maher left it here! Blimey, what’s for suppah?”
Etc. Anyway, I know nothing about DuBrow but hope that his people can remember him with love and warmth.
Basically, the trend seems to be that it is potentially lethal to be the lead singer of a rock band — unless you’re boring.
Meanwhile, on Monday, 26 November, 2007, a bunch of super-geniuses decided that what the entire Westside of greater L.A. needs is extra fluoride in the tap water.
God damn it.
That is extremely annoying.
How many decades is this behind all the communities who once thought fluoride a good idea but then discovered that it’s not healthy for humans to drink it? (Plus, apparently, the source of this particular fluoride is nastily industrial and really not good at all.)
They say it’s to prevent cavities in the teeth. Okay, then let us carry that logic through to its natural conclusion:
Whenever you drink tap water, exactly how long do you leave it in your mouth and swish it around?
‘zackly!
(One more reason to move, anyway.)
It’s really very simple: If you want fluoride for yourself or your children, just about every store in the U.S. sells varieties of toothpaste with added fluoride. Even the more natural toothpastes (the less common but far better ones without the known carcinogen saccharin in them; read the labels!) usually offer a fluoride option.
So why THEE HELL does everybody have to drink that crap and bathe in it?
Legitimate and reasonable answers welcome.
As for the topic of health, I must have run hard enough the other night to jostle my innards — for I awoke (barely) on Monday morning to the not-at-all delightful sensation that my right eyeball was about to explode from its socket. No, not glaucoma. Severe acute headache.
It took all day to shake that bastard, but I feel fine now.
Nonetheless, it is very strange — when even the simplest task feels like a miserable burden. Another reason I don’t drink.
Women: Oh, whatever. I simply no longer hope to find a kind, creative, intelligent, reasonable one around here. This does not preclude finding one elsewhere. They certainly exist. I’ve seen them! And if you think that the disappointed observations seem sexist, I invite you (on your next toothpaste run) to go explore the greeting card section of your local drugstore/pharmacy/chemist/whatever-you-call-it. Check out the ones designed for middle-aged women. About half of them are dedicated to the topic of how stupid men are.
(Not that I’m arguing with that, either. Today I was walking and thinking, and although many businesses have fallen and been replaced, and cosmetically there’s a tweak here or there, the world is still pretty much exactly as it was when I was a child. Obviously we have the internet and all the zany gadgets –
Incidentally: Gregory officially dubs this chapter of human history The Age of Gadgets
– but basically not much has changed. I’m just a bit taller and manlier. Meanwhile, all the stupid things men have invented — armies, corporations, endless arrays of weapons, enough nuclear missiles to kill all life on the planet many times over — all that shit is still there.
What are we gonna do about it?)
Well, I’ll tell you what I’m gonna do about it.
Despite many fast’n'weird encounters with friends throughout the year, this has been yet another solar orbital of loneliness and nagging futility for me. And everybody’s always got bullshit advice, too:
“You just have to try a little harder.”
“As soon as you do [whatever random, largely unrelated thing], then everything else will just work itself out.”
“You Just Haven’t Earned It Yet, Baby” (Thanks, Moz. Bang your head.)
“She’s out there for you, somewhere.”
Etc. etc. etc.
Well, that’s fine — people have to talk, even if it’s largely in cliches — but (as is likely apparent by now) I just loathe fake happiness. Real happiness, great — even if it’s over something silly or trite. But otherwise, I tend to feel that emotional honesty leads to the best overall path. Even (sometimes especially) if that means being despondent or mopey or whatever you want to call it.
Which I’m not, always (far from it; it took me years to learn what “emo” means).
It’s just about calling it as it is. Today, for instance (despite the wicked headache) was better than yesterday.
So…
What I’m Gonna Do About It is:
I’m gonna keep learning how to see and reveal Beauty in the midst of apparent Nothingness.
(This appears to be what I’m supposed to be doing now.)
Oh, and:
The official handwritten edition of my first proper novel has launched!
(Since I really can’t wait to fill up all those pages, I’m going to shoot for a Winter Soltice delivery.)
(Life, of course, will do everything in i