plunking down a post...

when i saw this, i just had to say something...

a website full of West Wing fans devoted to cancelling the West Wing?

priceless.
nice to know there are others out there who feel the same way about Sorkin's work -- namely that calling anything "the West Wing" after season 4 ended is the equivalent of blasphemy of the Holy Spirit...i.e., earns you a non-refundable coach class ticket directly to hell, with extra salty peanuts and no beverage cart.

i have ideas for TV, part II

i'm realizing, just now, that the two ideas i have for TV are actually just series "sequels" to shows i've enjoyed, and i wonder if they have any creative merit to them at all. anyways, they're my ideas, and they're what i've got.

IDEA 2:


"Three Rivers"

remember the show "My So-called Life"?
it was on about ten years ago, for a whole season, and then it was cancelled. it was where Claire Danes got her break (as well as Jared Leto -- possibly the hottest man in the universe) . Until Aaron Sorkin created the West Wing, it was the best show that had ever been on TV. it was created by Winnie Holzman, who co-wrote that show thirtysomething (which aired past my bedtime when it was doing its thing), and was involved with the show "Relativity" which was also quickly cancelled, though not as painfully as "My So-called Life"

that show was my hero in highschool. it got so many things right. and the writing was just breathtaking. ten years later, it still holds up. i miss that show like nothing else. it makes me all nostalgic and melancholly for the time i spent writhing in agonizing hatred for my highschool and the highschool personalities i dealt with every day. weird, eh? anyways. the show ended after a season, and everyone was upset; there was a big internet movement to get it back on the air, but it was just not in the cards, in the stars, nor otherwise ever meant to be.

a lot of the show was Claire's character, Angela Chase, just figuring out life, and her parents trying to figure out how to deal with someone figuring out life. it was so completely the suburban middle-class experience that those of us who've lived it now try to hide.

it took place in a fictional suburb of Pittsburgh, PA, called "Three Rivers".......if you've ever been to Pittsburgh, and i have, you'll notice three things, which i did: 1) it is a hill-ridden city, which makes it more interesting right off the bat (you know what they say about cities with topography)...2) its got some suprisingly interesting architecture for a steel-town, and 3) the city is carved up by three charming rivers running directly through it, and it is beautiful in that old rust-belt city with character kind of way. and this is where the fictional suburb gets its name; and everything about it is perfect -- it catches all the quaintness, all the romantic everyday-ness that My So-called Life so expertly captured. which is why i think it would make a fine title to the follow-up series.

as a weird aside that i'm sure i'll regret having people know about, i somehow always identified more with Angela's character than any other (except for maybe some of the awkward sensitivity of Brian Krakow)...she made so much sense to me, like i had lived the boy-version of her life....which i think now is due to the fact that the show, and its writers, managed to tap into something universal about the teen experience that it transcended so many boundaries. at any rate, not because the lead teen character couldn't be a girl, but because i am an ego-maniac, it would star a young male character based largely upon yours truly. if a 15 year old girl can be universally accessable especially to someone like me as a teen, then someone like me as a teen could probably be universally accessable as well. and besides, the first rule of writing is "write what you know," and, well, what i know is me.

in my first idea for the follow up series, the adult lead originally was going to be based on my high-school guidance counsellor who was actually a very cool woman, and contrary to the stereotype, really did give some sound advice -- i was just too stubborn to listen (if i had, i probably wouldn't be the lovable loser i am today). her name was Heidi Glick-Kerr. i kind of had a crush on her too; she had great legs for a guidance counsellor. she was not, in any way, your typical marm manning the guidance office. she was young and tough and full of you-know-what and vinegar. but best of all, she was confident in me, and that was strange and helpful and comforting all at the same time. and the adult lead can still be more or less based on her, but i'm thinking less now that she should be an official guidance counsellor. my roommate had a fiery activist History/Psychology teacher in highschool that meshes well with the type of character the lead should be: perhaps an English teacher who was an English and Psychology double major in college, who, because of cutbacks, has to take on a small percentage of the guidance counselling duties. and there is where we get the two leads together; a student-teacher dynamic duo, pupil and mentor both full of potential. we follow the teen lead through the labyrinth of the universal teen experience, and the adult lead through the complex life of the Gen Y-er ascending into the role of real, live grown-up -- two journeys that are both very near and dear to my heart.

then the idea struck me: what the hell is Claire Danes doing now? she made one good movie after she left MSCL, and a pantload of crappy ones, and then fell off the face of Hollywood. Rumour has it that the real reason MSCL ended as quickly as it did was because Claire would have rathered do film than sign away the next howevermany years of her life to tv. which is fine except her movies sucked. she's a great actress, but...come on...Brokedown Palace? the Mod Squad? hardly the meaty material she was being dealt on a WEEKLY basis @ MSCL, the kind of stuff real actors would kill for. so...why not give her a second chance?

for years, i was against the whispers of MSCL revival that tickled the edges of the internet -- you can't go back. the series was its own thing, a phenomenon that, in trying to revisit, to recreate that world, would ultimately fail: you can't go back. that ship has already sailed. the writer in me recognizes that the best you can do is create something new that holds to the spirit of the series -- new characters tapping into the same universal relatability that made MSCL as spectacular as it was. i still am against the idea of "revival" of the series. but the writer in me now is looking at the neatness, the cleannes of dropping a grown up Angela Chase into the role of funky English teacher/counsellor, and it is outrageously appealing. a great way to tie it back to the old series, i think, without trying to relive it: you can't go back -- but you can move forward.

now all i need is ten days in a cabin, a computer, and the number for Claire Danes' agent.......

i have ideas for TV

please don't steal them. please do feel free to hire me and give me lots of money.

i know i wouldn't be thinking of actually working on them if i wasn't doing school right now, but right now, school is a drag because it is making me think of all the good ideas i have that would be a shame to never write. or a shame to never write first -- because if i don't get around to doing them, someone else will end up doing something similar, although less brilliant, and recieve all the accolades that should rightfully be mine.

just so that you know i had these ideas first, i'm going to write about two of them here. i can't hold them in my head, but i don't have the time to just sit down and pound out a script for the pilot episode of one idea or personally animate the first episode of the other idea. perhaps, if i'm unlucky enough to find out that someone stole these ideas from me, i will be comforted with the fact that i could sue their ass hole off and live comfortably in ireland working on the book that will make me a major literary figure from now until the english language dies. you all will be my witnesses to the fact that i had these ideas first. my expert legal team will be sending you notification of your court dates shortly. we already have your addresses.

IDEA 1

ok, i realize its a little dorky -- but i love He-Man. i grew up with He-Man. the moral code by which i live i learned from watching He-Man. ok, that's not really true...at least, i don't think...having recently seen some of those moral bits that ended every episode, it makes you wonder.....anyhow. from the time of my earliest memories to when i was about nine years old and ashamed to admit it, i passionately loved He-Man. i know, i know...its a crappy cartoon, laughable really...so badly done. but when your four, you don't care about that. you just want He-Man to punch things, and chop up robots with his sword. the one thing that sticks out in my mind, and that i still manage to find not so crappy is some of the character design. Skeletor especially. i loved Skeletor almost as much as i loved He-Man. that green, glow in the dark colored skull...the face only a mother, or me at four years old, could love. such a cool looking bad guy. you don't get meaner than having a skull for a face. his voice sucked, but he had such a badass look going for him. and then, what always mystified and yet made strange sense to me, was his association with Castle Greyskull. a guy with a skull for a head would naturally want to be running a place that basically had his face carved into the front of it. what i never understood was why it was the 'home base' of the good guys, and why they wanted to keep it if it looked like Skeletor.

anyways my idea is this: a second generation He-Man cartoon that takes place in a politically distraught Eternia, 20 years after the original series. ok, right now i'm regretting making the original series sound so corny, and it will be hard to talk up the reasons why my idea would be cool. maybe its just because he has been ingrained in my brain since childhood, but i feel as though He-Man got the short end of the super-hero stick -- he occupies the same upper echelon of herodom in my mind as Superman and Batman do. He-Man could have been a major player if he were handled as more than a device to sell toys. some of the design and thought that went into He-Man was pretty ambitious for a cartoon, and some of the guys that worked on it went on to do the work they're famous or semi-famous for now(see here and here for Paul Dini, and here for Bruce Timm).

So my idea, again, is this: you take it to the next level. Eternia is basically in the midst of their World War II -- the bad guys have taken control of Castle Greyskull, in which Evil Lynn lives, with her son Ozrik, who is the heir of Skeletor (yes, she and Skeletor made a little baby). Skeletor is dead, but that hasn't saved Eternia from any danger, because Evil Lynn and Ozrik are each twice as ruthless as he ever was. what's more, He-Man has not been seen in twenty years. Prince Adam, the former He-Man, has never revealed his secret identity to the public, but has ascended the throne of Eternia. despite his coming to power, he has never been able to show the same fortitude he did as Greyskull's protector, and it is all he can do to keep Eternia locked in the stalement it has been since Greyskull was overtaken. Teela, who Eternia generally assumes to be dead is actually on the lam -- she is the rightful sorceress of Castle Greyskull, and is being hunted by Evil Lynn's minions. Teela does, however, have Duncan to protect her, though he is no longer Man-At-Arms, and is technically no longer alive -- he is a cyborg, the brain of Duncan in a robotic body. Before she faked her death and took off, she had a child with King Adam, who was hidden (a la Star Wars) because it was feared that this heir to Eternia's throne would be attacked by Skeletor's forces, and that the only chance in overcoming Skeletor's reich lay in the possibility that this little prince grow up to assume the mantle of He-Man. His name is Seth. initially he does not know who his parents are -- and he is shepherded by Orko, no longer the bumbling magician, but the greatest sorcerer in all Eternia. only Orko knows the significance of Seth's existence, and knows how important it is to introduce him to the role of He-Man before all hell breaks loose. Orko plays a Gandalf-type, a wizard of Dumbldorian proportions; extremely wise, and unimaginably powerful. but he realizes the need for a new He-Man, and the first episode begins with him leading Seth to where he's hidden the power sword, and revealing the truth about who he is and where he comes from. the rest of the series would be mainly about Seth's internal struggle with trying to assume the role of He-Man, and the external struggle of He-Man verses the forces of Evil Lynn and Ozrik.
fwhew. that was a mouthful. can you believed i typed that all with one breath? well, not really, but then, you'd never know, would you?

i heard a while back that John Woo, who i could give two shits about, was thinking of doing a He-Man movie, which i could give many, many shits about. chances are i'd be pretty disappointed with his attempt, and normally i'd dream about directing the movie myself except for the fact that if this movie ever gets out of development it would open the market for this cartoon idea. all i would want really are a few seasons of seven to ten minute episodes, something like Tartakovsky's Star Wars: Clone Wars, or the Maxx, from MTV's Oddities. short. sweet. to the point. leaves you begging for more. i would totally love to see it as an internet cartoon, but i don't know any animators, and i don't know Flash, and i don't know anyone willing to do it or learn and then work for me for free. if i had money, time, and more money i'd buy a high end computer and Flash and other various animation software, and do a whole ten minute episode myself. but unless it starts raining rare civil war collectables, thats never going to happen.

(stay tuned for IDEA 2 -- right now its my bedtime)

writing the legend of Frank Fanara

-- for the past few months on random sundays, me and my roommate have been doing some songwriting. for those of you who might be curious, i quasi-count this activity as a writing exercise (i semi- or fully count it according to how well i keep up with my independent writing). writing lyrics is a whole different animal. i'm not great at it, and i'm not sure i ever will be -- but that's ok, i'm not a musician and i won't have to do it if i don't want to i guess. still, its pretty interesting. its obviously not like writing prose, but it isn't like writing poetry either.

emily and i have started a new song, "the legend of Frank Fanara," and so far, i have one, single, solitary line:
"its three in the morning, i'm walking; i walk when i don't know what else to do."

.............and that's it. that's all i got. but the guitar part is fantastic, and it deserves to be finished, to be made into a real live song.

now i've written my share of poetry. granted, i've done it with mixed results, but i'm familiar with the form -- i've written sonnets, haiku, cinquain, sestinas, etc., and some of them were even good. and you'd think that writing song lyrics is really only just a variation of that process. and then you'd try it, and you'd realize that you were wrong. "but lyrics are just poetry set to music" you say. well, allow me to retort: no.

poetry has only words, phonetic music, the knotwork of meaning, the challenge of subtlety...it is only words, and you can use as many or as few as you feel are necessary. you are decidedly less burdened with poetry as opposed to lyrics -- poetry, of course, has to be beautiful, or profound, some quality of it has to escape definition, has to transcend, has to make sense and do better than make sense. this isn't to say that lyrics don't do that or that lyric-writing is a debased form of poetry, a failure of words that relies on a melody. not at all. but you are more limited in how you achieve those poetic goals. the fact that words are all you have to work with when writing poetry actually relieves the load of considerations you encounter when attempting to write lyrics. in composing lyrics, you are bound by the other half of the song -- the musical half -- and that is a limiting factor. another limiting factor is that you don't have the same vocabulary of words available to you as you do with poetry -- its important to remember that a singer has to be able to sing these words, that they have to not have so many syllables, and that they have sounds in them that sound 'right' when they are sung. for instance, the word 'Starnbergersee' works fine in a poem. but unless you're german, and even then, you probably wouldn't ever want to have to sing it or hear it sung.

so once they are finished, lyrics are often considered as poetry, or as having some poetic quality -- but when you peel the curtain back, you'll find a completely different wizard at work.

the best lyricists, in my opinion, are Gordon Sumner, aka Sting and Ani DiFranco -- whose songs exemplify what lyrics can be at their best. i love music, but i don't herald other musicians' lyric-writing abilities the way i do theirs. i am told Bob Dylan has written a good lyric or two, but tend to avoid him for reasons i won't go into now, and thus can't say one way or another if i think he is any good. sometimes Leonard Cohen is a good lyricist -- sometimes he's an amazing lyricist, but sometimes he is terrible.

there is something about lyrics that requires that you fit something profound into them -- a profound thought or use of language -- and you have to do it in a nutshell. the rythm of the lines has to be cooperative with the music, the theme has to be tightly gathered, easy to follow -- there is no room for meandering. and you have to wrap it up in about fives stanzas. it doesn't have to be complex, but it should be compelling, it should capture something. its a tough gig. its a bit like a puzzle, piecing words into phrases, and phrases into turns of phrases; making sure they match the measures of the music. a song is its own little universe, its parts need to add up to its perfect whole; my favorite lyrics are kind of self-referential, they maintain and refer back to their established patterns, or stories or themes. its hard, to tie something up that neatly.

and despite all of this great advice i'm giving, i still haven't been able to do it yet -- i still haven't finished a song, and failing thus far to write Frank Fanara's legend isn't inspiring any confidence. i mean i've tried everything i could think of to come after that first line, and nothing works, i've got a million dead ends.



one day i will be singing it in a bar, and people will come up to us and ask who Frank Fanara was, and we'll tell them all we know about him, and his tragic death, and Frank Fanara will be remembered in Buffalo, though not as the real Frank Fanara...

but between now and then, i've got a lot of work.
maybe i'll go for a walk. at this point, i don't know
what else to do.

wish me luck

cutlery

often, i come by my parent's house to write these posts. i live downtown, and i work in the suburbs and here, right in between the two, is this little haven: my old house. this is where i grew up, my family has lived in this house for twenty years. when i moved out for the second time over a year ago, i never would have thought this house would become what it has. it is a stopover, a place to shower before work sometimes, a fridge to raid, and i'd never thought it could even be that much to me; but my family is still here, my mom, my dad, my sister, and they guard a certain quiet in this house i forgot had existed. not literal quiet, of course -- they are a little too verbose for me, but that's just how they show their affection. i'm not exactly sure what kind of quiet it is that i find here -- for so long there was nothing but turmoil between me and my family, and i'm sure that if moved back here it would be the same -- but there is something reassuring in being able to come home from time to time, to find that the doors and walls that hold the memories of my childhood are still here, even if they've got a knew doorknob or an extra coat of paint on them.

it is nice to come back and after rifling the pantry for food, to open the silverware drawer to find the same cutlery i grew up with -- shiny, long butterknives, deep welled spoons, solid, sturdy forks with extra long tines and handles that end in simple florettes. they're heavy in my hand; i have complete confidence in them. they aren't beautiful, and they're a ragtag assembly of several different sets, but they are what i think of when i think of knives and spoons and forks. you could say in a weird way i'm sentimentally attached to them. they compose the set of cutlery i've used since i was a child, they are the memory of all the meals i've had with my family, they are tokens of my home; i compare all other cutlery to them , and all other cutlery could never match the value of their familiarity, no matter how fine.

and, of course, they are much better than all of the the silverware i have in my apartment.

a peanut of a post.

i just ate a peanut, and it completely hit the spot.
one peanut, that's it. amazing.

-- yesterday was the anniversary of sept. 11th, but i don't need to tell you that. i should have gone to bed, but i was watching the discovery channel (?) which had a documentary about flight 93, the aircraft that did not hit a target, but went down in pennsylvania. i should have went to bed, but i was riveted. seeing footage from that day again was a reminder of just how unreal that was. we are accumulating videographs of history through the omnipresence of technology and media, and i'm sure if we could see even some of the minor milestones of history winding and rewinding before us we'd be shocked, but honestly...it all starts here, doesn't it? there isn't much else to point to, few single moments in videographed history that are this appaling, this surreal. it all starts with airplanes into buildings, and buildings cascading to the earth. i shudder to think what atrocities the videographs of our future might hold...

at any rate, flight 93 is something of a comfort. i wish all of the passengers on all of the aircraft could have rebelled, could have taken the chance that those on flight 93 did; but they can hardly be faulted. for all they knew, they would be negotiated out of the plane. they had no idea. how could they? thank God 93 was in the air as long as it was, thank God they had the chance to call home, to say goodbye, to get information. thank God they decided to do what they did. not just because they averted another attack on yet another populated building. but for their sake. even though they went down, they got to go down fighting. there must have been some comfort for them that even if they hit the ground, there was some purpose to it. and somewhere within in me i am so glad they got a chance to beat the shit out of their hijackers before it all ended. it is pretty clear that they killed at least one of them before they all got to the cockpit. and i'm glad. its ludicrous that all it took to hijack an entire planeful of people were boxcutters. its comical. when i can forget about the tragedy of it, it makes me laugh. a boxcutter, are you serious? i'm a whimp, but you'd have to do better than that to hijack my plane...i'm glad to know they got the chance to put up a fight.

anyhow. kudos to AA flight 93. you're all heroes, and thank you.

--so, i'm really missing morning pages these days. much easier to do free association than to organize your thoughts into a poem. three to four poems a week is quite the challenge. but then, that's why i decided to take this creative writing class, to challenge myself. maybe it will equip me with some of what i need to start producing more finished products. i have written a few poems, and though i am satisfied with them upon completion, i always hate them a day or so later, and for always after that. but i'm posting my latest, because i think that at the very least, it is funny.

its called

a lesson from the greeks

i wonder where i
would go
if i tried to
demonstrate
zeno's arrow
while i
walked the line
of a
sobriety test

when they would try to
arrest me
i would get in my
car
and drive slowly
or quickly
away
and closing the distance
by consecutive halves
the cops
would never catch up

and when i got away
and the APB went out
for a green '94
nissan sentra
heading west on the 290
i would dismantle the
car as i drove, and
replace it with
replacement parts
until all across
the miles behind
me
my car is scattered on the road

they will reassemble
the parts
"not a piece missing"
they'll say
and they'll
declare me dead
and my father will grieve
as i drive off
the edge of the world
and get away
scott-free

i live at the end of a 5 and 1/2 minute hallway

finally.
finished reading House of Leaves today.
it took ages. it took me about four or five false starts to actually dive in.
its not an easy read, and if you ever pick the book up you'll see why.
it is like a heretic after a literary Spanish Inquisition: hacked, twisted and tortured to within an inch of its narrative life.

that said, it is one of the most remarkable books i've read in quite some time, if for nothing but the ambition of it. and there is more to it than just ambition.

i am a bit of a Borges fan; i've only recently, within the last three years or so been introduced to him, and he is probably the best bang for your buck as a writer. what the guy can do with five pages is mind boggling. he could lobotomize you in ten words or less. anyway, one of the things i've noticed about Borges is in his essays and short stories he loves to assert with authority -- the names of characters, or articles, or events under his pen become assertions of their historicity, whether they ever existed or no. he simply states something as a fact with the assumption this statement is one of common knowledge. reading this causes a few reactions:

1) you realize you have know idea what he is talking about.
2) you become inclined to perhaps verify the historicity of his topic. but you don't, because
3) just like when someone is talking to you about something you are ignorant of, if you hang in there and pretend like you know what he or she is talking about, you can usually figure it out before you have to say something.

and then, when you realize the point of Borges' story or essay comes
4) the realization that whether his assertion is factual or not is completely unimportant -- you've discovered meaning beyond literal, factual or historical.

a few weeks ago i thought it would have been interesting to play with that idea in a story -- to write something that assumed common knowledge of a thing that was in actuality completely fictional. little did i realize i had already tried to read exactly this experiment four times before, this experiment which was now sitting in a giant tupperware storage box in my room, called House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski.

i've only just finished the book today, so my ruminations are still precipitating and settling, but the magnitude of effort and expanse of subjects covered in this documentary novel? are something to be recognized. and again, i am experiencing writer's envy -- not just a "boy i wish i would have written that," but a "damn it, i was just going to write that" kind of deal.

its the footnotes -- the footnotes i tell you. they are footnotes that defy the definition of the word, swallow the story, become the story and give birth to it. in retrospect it would have been easier to read 'the Navidson Record' section first, sans footnotes, and then gone back and read Johnny Truant's contribution.....but i would have felt like i was missing too much, reading only parts of pages, being forced to ignore the fascinating snippets i couldn't help but read on the rest of the page. i would not have been able to read it in sections. and besides, reading it the way i read it was almost mind altering. in some ways House of Leaves is equally an acheivement of reading as it is of writing. almost.

that said, the prose comes out a little forced sometimes, but i assume that it has less to do with Danielewski's writing and more to do with the fact that the prose is bound to the characters whom he has created to channel the story through. it is at times a little overly dramatic, especially when it comes to the Johnny Truant character -- but everything about him screams excess, and because of that i'm willing to let it go. but there are certainly flashes of beautiful phrasing and diction and composition, threads of it that lace themselves through the book that let you know that a writer is writing this, and not Johnny Truant, and that becomes a comfort.

there are lots of interesting facts about HoL too: like that the author's sister is the recording artist known as Poe, and that HoL was first published on the internet, all facts you can read up on at Exploration Z.

but i just find it fascinating that a book like this exists, that its references are so transparent, and that it is so much its own thing, and so creatively its own thing. such an interesting experiment in literature and art, and as you'll find if you catch up with Exploration Z, in multimedia and internet publishing.

it is definately worth the time and effort. any book that is willing to take on literary theory, film, mythology, horror, Borges, madness and Generation X all at one crack deserves props.

nicely done, MZD.

not blogging about New Orleans

...its not that i don't care...
its just that i don't need to add to the number of depressing observations accumulating on the web right now.

i hope that's ok?

anyhow, here's a writing update:

'morning pages' recieves 'walking papers'
-- that's right i'm giving morning pages the boot. what's that, morning pages? no, its not that i don't love you -- that's not it at all. i cherish our time together. we have so many memories that i'll treasure for the rest of my life. you see, i've discovered that i love you, but i'm not "in" love with you. no, you didn't do anything wrong -- its not you, its me. i'm just at a transitory time in my life right now. and...i've met someone else...

...her name is "three to four poems a week." no, i wasn't doing three to four poems a week while i was with you. i would never do that to you. i didn't even meet her until after that week and a half -- we didn't start until i decided to let you go. where did i meet three to four poems a week? why do you have to know? it was at ENG 253, Creative Writing: Poetry. its not like i picked her up at a bar or anything, i'm not like that. why do you say that, of course you know me -- you know me better than anyone else. no, i'm not replacing you. i could never replace you. i could never do it every day the way i could with you. it wouldn't be fair to try to do you and three to four poems a week at the same time, and i realize i have to decide. but you're such a wonderful writing exercise, and i still want you to be a part of my life -- maybe we can get together over coffee sometime? i'm sorry, i never meant to hurt you...you were only supposed to be a writing exercise for me while i was having writers block, but now i have another, in some ways more challenging structured exercise to keep me writing and i have to follow it. no, you're right, i shouldn't have said that, i didn't realize it would make you feel bad. i thought we had talked about this before. all right, i should...three to four poems a week is waiting...i should uh...i should go. i'm sorry.


today's poetry offering:

with apologies to buddhists

with apologies to buddhists
its easy for me
to get to zen

zen
burns when you sit on your knees;
creaks when it crawls with hunger
buzzes when you want to break
your own nose,
but its still
zen:

the world is a womb
which you must bear
to be born
your own fingers working
your own feet kicking
your own eyes seeing the cracks in reality
until they open
to disgorge
you

and finally you can turn around
and see the mother
who's heartbeat is a buzzing sun
blowing through the back of your head
burning through your eyes
like a magnifying glass
flagrantly translating the world

i am still sitting on my knees
i am still hungry
but this is zen
and with zen
you find that it doesn't matter so much

with a little focus
and a broken nose
with a world of tinder, and a little fire;
with apologies to buddhists
its is easy for me
to get to
zen

When I find I can't remember what comes after "A" and before "C," my mother always whispers...

ok. enough blogging about stupid crap this week.

just so that the last thing anybody reads on Written Off isn't me going on for two posts about how hung up i am on myself and girls i can't get, i'm posting this to clean the slate, a bit -- get the digestive process started, so that those posts can work their way down and out of the bowels of this blog.

consider this as peristalsis-posting.

i just read this book called Bee Season, by Myla Goldberg.
this is what its about: a not very smart eleven year old jewish girl suddenly learns she has a knack for spelling, and goes on to compete in the national spelling bee. oh yeah, and she deciphers the true name of G_d.

i was hesitant at first to pick this book up. my roommate read it and we have slightly different tastes. and then i started reading the first page, as i do with some of my roommates books from time to time to see if they actually are as good as she says they are. and this one was. really, it was mind-blowing. thirty five quickly turned pages later i was hooked, but i had to go to work.

i'm a bit familiar with Kabbalah -- i know its the hip thing to be into now, taylor made to sit right between the south beach diet and plastic surgery, but before famous people made it cool you never heard about it unless you were into things hermetic and esoteric. i knew it from Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, and of course the movie "Pi." and i read up on it on my own a little before and a little after i experienced both of those. its really fascinating, especially if you are from a Judeo-Christian background.

anyways, Kabbalah is an element in Bee Season. and while it was what probably turned me on to the idea of reading it, it isn't the reason why i did. it is just simply amazing. amazing in the most tender, nostalgic, captivating, linguistic, realisic way. its just beautiful and heartbreaking. i never thought an eleven year old jewish girl could be so moving a character for me.

here are a few thoughts:

-i love the way Myla Goldberg writes. she has a great command of the english language and uses it to great effect. vine-like sentances with little barbs of wordplay. she somehow just nails the heart of every scene she writes, leaving out tiresome and generically written descriptions.

-the books is an accumulation of scenes -- there are no chapters -- just vignettes, encapsulated and self contained, usually no longer than ten or fifteen pages. the pacing doesn't feel hurried though; something about the language makes reading it a slow roll.

-she wrote the thing entirely in the present tense. you would think it would get annoying or awkward after a while, but it doesn't -- it somehow feels so natural. i didn't actually notice until about 20 pages in.

-it is a lot like how i have been trying to write -- subject matter, language, diction, vignette style. it gives me hope that maybe one day i'll squeeze out a book. i was almost angry to realize this, as it was kind of a voice i had just discovered independantly of reading the book, but it encourages me to know that it works.

-it reminds me, in theme, not execution, of Borges' "The God's Script" In fact its exactly the same except Bee Season is longer and about a jewish girl and her crazy family rather than a Mayan shaman imprisoned by the Spaniards. and it has a few more pages than "The God's Script" too.

anyhow, i highly recommend it. it clocks in at about 275 pages, and its a pleasure to read. i found myself wanting no more and no less than exactly what the book had offered me, a sign to me of some kind of perfection. it made me blow off morning pages for like three days in a row.

read it. its good.

"nobody loves me..." part II

i really, really don't want this to be a place where i bitch and moan about the things in my life that i am unhappy with -- i don't want it to be a place where i write about what i did today and where i went and who i saw, who said what to who -- this isn't a diary. why would you even care to read it if it was? i don't want to read your diary. sorry, i'm just not that interested.

i want this to be a place where i come and, if not write about important and more universal themes than the boring particulars of my life, then at least write well about something. i want this blog to be a more literary endeavor.

i don't want this to simply be a place where i come to complain about stuff, because i hate the sound of whining.

but sometimes...you just gotta be a whiny bitch.

this is where i make this all cool and literary, by doing non-linear blogging. ready?

saturday night i helped close the resturaunt i work at, like i always do, and stayed afterwards with some of the other employees for discount (and sometimes free) drinks, like i frequently do. i have a manager at this restuaraunt who is the sister of the owner. she's kind of a firecracker. outrageously cute. six years older than me. mostly single. italian (....what can i say? i love italian broads). she is like five feet tall, and blonde, and looks like she's 23. needless to say she is crush worthy, and thus, i have a crush on her. just a little one. mostly though, she's a good hang, and i don't have a lot of friends and while she's got it together and i don't, we're both out of long term relationships, and swearing bachelorhood. so how fun would it be to have a gal pal again, i think to myself. i haven't had one since highschool, really, and the ones i'd had were mostly all platonic; it totally worked out for me. i love hanging out with girls, and i get along better with them far better than i do guys sometimes. part of it is i'm comfortable with the sexual tension. i'm super flirty, and manager girl responds well to it, and i like that interplay.

this is, more or less, what i want from manager-girl. she had talked about us hanging out before, and would mention it in passing, but it never came to pass.

this is where saturday night comes in.
basically the two drinks i had grew me a couple balls and just as everyone is leaving the parking lot at work i call manager-girl's cell:

me -- hey
her -- hey, what's up?
me -- so, when are you going to ask me to hang out with you...
her --
me -- cuz i know you want to, so you should just ask me to. i mean, i know you're shy and all that (she isn't really)
her -- well, what are you doing right now?
me -- (not believing that worked) um, i don't know, just driving home i guess
her -- well, where are you?
me -- right near main and transit
her -- okay, well i'll give you directions and you can come over...

(me getting directions, end of conversation.)

and so i hung out with her at her way cool house. its actually the lower apartment of a house; the upstairs she rents to a tennant. not that that's important really, but she showed me a bunch of pictures of her remodeling, and we drank some wine. and we looked at other pictures of her family and drank more wine. then we had wine with cheese. then she turned on portishead. then we sat on the couch and listened to more portishead and lenny kravitz and stevie wonder and fiona apple. and talked and talked and drank and drank and two bottles of wine later i'm pretty goddamn drunk (i come to find out i drank the two bottles mostly by myself) but still kind of holding it together. i couldn't tell you what we talked about. she made me an open faced peanut butter and honey sandwich, and i ate a cookie and drank a coke with lime somewhere in there too.

and i know it sounds like i'm building to some kind of climax, but that's the thing -- there's no climax to be had. nothing happened. she offered to let me sleep on her couch rather than drive home but i insisted on driving. but i never made a move, we never got to that place -- we were on good behavior -- me, because i didn't want to fuck up a good hang and her for god knows what reason other than that maybe she is kind of dating some guy she went to highschool with all those years ago.

she says she isn't dating him, and that he's not her boyfriend. but if he's not now, he will be, and it kind of pisses me off. he's an all right guy and everything, that's not it. and i keep telling myself i don't like her like that even though i kind of really do, but that's not it either. really, its that if she starts dating this guy, there will be no reason for her to hang out with me. its just one of those things where lonely people can find some kind of meaningful, and on a lot of levels, fulfilling relationship within the guidelines of platonic friendship and i love that. i don't want to date her -- but i don't want her to date anyone. because then i lose a potential friend, and a good hang. and then even the sexual chemistry gets swallowed; women don't let themselves admit that anyone other than who they are dating is attractive.

thing is now i'm afraid i look weird to her; i am totally and completely jealous of her boy friend, but not really for the reason that she thinks. and how do i explain that? it doesn't make sense. but i guess its just a problem with my expectations.

and now, you know what? it feels like i have those feelings for her now. its almost a reflex, really. i am acting a certain way and doing certain things and going through certain motions and they are producing weird hormones in my brain and they are making me think i like this manager girl. i like her fine. i'm not in love with her, and i just can't be with anybody right now. and she is growing less and less interested in me by the day, by the hour. even since saturday, its been noticeable. and i hate it. i can see it all happening and i hate it but there's nothing i can do.

maybe its time to get a new job.
dammit.

"nobody loves me, it's true" part I

how many nights have i felt like this?

this is how i've felt for at least half my life...

ok. yes, i broke up with my girlfriend on purpose. and no, i don't want to date anyone either. so why do i want girls to be interested in me and why do i get angry when they aren't? i want every woman to be in love with me -- its all about ego. its all about ego and i know it, and a world of women chasing after me would never be enough.

in a way, it gives me a peek inside the head of the typical slutty girl -- you want so badly for people to want you and when they do and you give them what they want it makes you feel good to be wanted, makes you proud that you are good enough to be used. you want someone to want you so bad it feels good when they turn you into a piece of meat, which is, for you a pedestal -- for you it is the highest regard you can hold someone in -- the instant "i want to fuck that person" reaction when you see someone who is so beautiful they can't hold it in -- you want to be that for other people.

i completely understand that.

and i'm the furthest thing away from a slut that there is. don't get me wrong, i have inclinations, but i've never acted on them . and even now, when i have those inclinations and am a little more willing to act on them it doesn't work. it is because i am unlucky. it is because the girls i could get want to date me and the girls i want to "do things" with are out of my league -- or they think that they are -- or they are teases, and really don't want anything from me except to know that i want them and then that's good enough and see you later, goodbye.

i just saw the texting girl. the girl i almost (though i use that word loosely -- in retrospect, let me rather say "would have") cheated on my ex girlfriend with. i was driving on the scajacuada expressway and ended up getting off at the elmwood exit right behind her. she recognized me, and waved, and i took a second and had to figure out who she was and then waved back, and pulled off into the buff state parking lot for a class it turns out i missed. she called me:

"you have no idea who that was, do you?"
"i-- no, i-- yeah i knew who that was, of course. what's up?"
"nuuuh-than. what are you doin?"
"ah, i'm just going to class right now."
"what time does your class start?"
(its six fourty three)
"at seven."
"all right, well, when you get out, give a call."

(seven thirty)
ring ring ring ring ring ring...(an ungodly amount of rings)
click.

(seven fifty five)
text message to texting girl:
"tease"

(nine fifty)
ring ring ring ring (voicemail message that i didn't catch)
message:
"ah, all right, you're gonna be a punkass, that's fine. whatever. maybe i'll see you around."



girl games get me down

not a good title

my girlfriend and i are broken up.

it is my fault. i am a man and men, i am learning, are bastards. the real men aren't, but then i'm not really a real man -- i'm a 25 year old boy, and i haven't figured out how to grow up yet or take care of myself, much less someone else who is relying on me to be the man i presented myself as. but i am not him.

i didn't cheat; technically, i've never cheated. i've broken trust with girlfriends before, and those situations involved other girls, but it has either never gotten to a physical point, or it has gotten physical only after a girlfriend had decided we should "take a break." but when its all said and done, its just a technicality, isn't it?

somewhere in my heart i cheated. i'm a bastard for doing it, and i think i am aware now that it was all about ego. i had been texting another girl, a girl from work, who was not my girlfriend; but she was young and attractive and flirtatious and devilish, and i don't know if she directed all those things at me or if i am just especially weak, but i fell in love with the sexual tension and the idea that i was good enough for it. and we had texted some things we shouldn't have, each of us being in relationships. it was nothing too outrageous -- we kept it PG-13, and i kept all of her texts, and my girlfriend found them and i have never felt so bad to see such a look on someone's face: she never deserved that. and as much i wish i could take it all back, my ego still hides those texts close in its heart, and i can't be someone like that in a relationship, and i can't figure out how to make it go away while i'm in a relationship.

it is probably the most dangerous thing i've ever done, letting my amazing girlfriend go, even after she was willing to forgive me. but she would not forget, and i wouldn't blame her, and as long as i am the guy that i am, it would only happen again -- and i need to not be that guy, and i have to figure out how to do that.

this other girl was in greece for a month; she just got back this week; she just texted me ten minutes ago.

the same curious buzz of my phone-on-vibrate, the familiar message icon, blinking with urgency; the thrilling ripple in my ego:

"how was buffalo while i was gone?"

changed in all the wrong ways;
just the same, in all the wrong ways.

sun, aug 14, 7:00 pm

George

deciding to blog today as my writing exercise...

i have a friend whose father is a writer. he's not a professional, and he's not published; he left a reasonably well paying banking job to, as i understand it, go to the barnes and noble cafe and write for eight hours a day, six days a week. now that i write about him i can't help thinking: isn't there something just a little bit heroic about that?

his name is George, and he is a fascinating guy. he emmigrated from India to the U.S. with his wife and his young son, and after that, had my friend Kiran and Kiran's little sister, Pushba. the whole family is remarkable, really. of course they have their family problems that they deal with in family like ways, but they are really spectacular people.

i am going to school right now for english, because, as someone who wants to write, i felt like it would be good to get some kind of training, especially because i lack the will to impose the necessary structure upon myself to get things done. but George has no formal education in things literary -- and this, of course, is only a formality -- he could probably teach half the classes i've taken so far. he is a brilliant guy who has read everything, and understood it all to boot. so while talking to him about books, he learns from me the stuffy phrases and terminologies passed around college English departments like "Romantic Movement" and "British Modernism," while i in turn learn things infinitely more valuable from him:

1) do what you have to do: George had to write. he writes. he was compelled to do something, and he had the courage to do it; he's still finishing his manuscript, still waiting for a break, still grinding it out. but he's doing what he means to do, what he's meant to do -- and that is living the life.

2) it takes sacrifice to be an artist.

3) Julia Cameron's morning pages. morning pages are excellent; morning pages is the simplest idea that you've never thought of. it is so outrageously natural, it is the inclination that we generally ignore. it is nothing more than keeping a journal. an art journal or a writing journal or a journal about anything at all -- it has no rules, the constraint of intelligability does not apply. its unstructured artistic anarchy is bound by only one rule: the act of doing it. it is not the journal or diary or book itself that becomes a focus -- it is all about the act of writing in it, which, for me is an important distinction. it is about process, it is about taking notes on your own thoughts, in whatever way they come out. and it is the first thing you are supposed to do every day.

right now it is summer and its easy for me to do morning pages; i have few obligations and a lot of time to myself. the general rule is three handwritten pages, no more, no less, every morning after you wake up. i have yet to get to three full pages, and getting two and a half usually takes me just as many hours; i do about a page an hour, handwritten -- i think slowly and write slower. it'll be much harder to do them once school starts.

but they are primarily a tool to overcome writer's block. i feel like i have perpetual writer's block -- i never have anything good to write about, or i write about things very badly -- so it is easy to see why i've been working on the morning pages exercise. the best effect they have had is anchoring my day around the goal of the act of writing, which i hope will translate into the schoolyear. i want to be a writer, a creator. i need to be writing. it makes writing my priority. it drives me to write. i've been doing it almost every day for about two months now. i've been writing. i'm being productive; and in writing, they say that counts for everything.

thank you George; you are my real-life writing hero.

the no-hitter

When I was young, every summer my parents would enroll me in little league. I was excited about it, if only for the fun of hoping that I would get teamed with my best friends. After a couple years we began to play something more like ‘real baseball,’ but early on in our little league careers we were confined to playing T-ball, an awkward, aberrous version of the sport we thought we were playing. My guess was they didn’t trust a six year old to pitch, so we all hit off of the T. we all wanted to hit pitches; we thought it was stupid that we couldn’t play the game the way it was meant to be played; but most of all we were confused as to why there was a pitcher’s position, manned by someone we called the pitcher, who never got to pitch?
I liked T-ball. I was good enough at it, I could hit well. I didn’t realize at the time that it didn’t count for much – anyone is a good hitter when he hits off of a T. Much, much later I would figure that out – that hitting from a T would make anyone look good, that was a discovery. It was not what I learned when, finally, I was allowed into the real game of baseball. A discovery takes reflection, it pieces together what you’ve learned. What I learned was how terrible I was at baseball. How well the game was played to me back then and even today I still equate with how well one hits. Sure, there were other elements – how fast you could run, how well you could catch a ball – but all of that was secondary: what everyone waited for was the hit of the pitch, and if that never happened, it didn’t matter how good a first, second, or third baseman you were, you had no game. Nothing to run for, nothing to catch. Nothing for our parents to watch. Nothing for your coach to pat you on the back for. I don’t watch baseball, I don’t play it, but I’ll stand by my elementary understanding of it: it is all about hitting. It is all about hitting and when the T fell away and the pitcher finally pitched what I learned was I was a terrible baseball player: no one ever struck out in T-ball. And this was not T-ball.
At first I thought perhaps I could beat the system. I could get walked. I could try to get walked, I could let the pitcher make the mistake, I could wait him out. I feared nothing if it was not getting struck out. It was a shame that T-ball had never taught us. I feared it as some dark purgatory, a wasted swing of my bat that would land no blow – my boyhood, in its closeness to primitivity, connected it with the swing of the sword; and if it did not land, if it was not a killing stroke, then was that not life threatening? I did not understand that I could not hit defensively. They used to tell me not to be afraid of the ball, but I was not afraid the ball. They used to tell me, all of them – all the coaches and all the parents – they used to tell me that Babe Ruth, the greatest baseball player of all time, struck out more than anyone else. It didn’t matter to me. I dreamed of the hit heroic, the one that would win the game and me my glory. Everytime I stepped to the plate I dreamt of it. Every pitch I thought I would hit. But I could not even flinch. Not even when the pitcher beaned me, I couldn’t flinch. I was frozen, stoic – all potential, all dreaming of the home run, but unable to coordinate my muscles to the dream, gripping tightly a batfull of terror that nearly outmatched my vanity. I could not move, I wanted to, and I’d pray to God to help me, and the two sides of me, the fear and the lust for glory pulled against eachother, opposing, straining, furious, equally, oppositely until nothing. Nothing happened. Nothing ever happened. I was only conscious of my own shame, and only mildly soothed of it when I was walked to first. But I can’t imagine the shame I should have felt and didn’t, the downpress of all the other parents in the crowd – “HIT IT! SWING!” – the descending avalanche of disappointment from the coaches, until finally, worst of all, they learned to expect nothing of me.
I don’t remember what position I played when I was in T-ball. But when I finally decided to quit little league I was an outfielder. My parents tried to encourage me not to give up – it wasn’t the right attitude to have – but all my friends played the infield, and baseball was boring and besides, couldn’t they see how bad I was? Couldn’t they see the look on my face when I walked up to the plate? Did they not know what that meant? Eventually they stopped putting in the batting line-up. When I did play I had little to do, so far away from the action, so far away from home and the hitters, outside the collusion of the inner diamond. I was too far away, I couldn’t see what was going on. I didn’t care. The sun was hot, the grass was steaming and sun baked. I kicked the heads off of dandelions. If someone hit to the outfield, I only knew because of the clock-ring of the bat and the cheer from the stands. I would turn around, but I could never see the ball against the brightness of the sky. I didn’t care to. I would find it when it fell; I would throw it blindly anyway.

Aaron Sorkin is a first class bastard.

my friend girish burned me a copy of the first disc of Sports Night, season 1.

i've seen almost all of these episodes before, and i own seasons 1-3 of the West Wing. they are two of the best shows that have ever been on television. they are simply stunning. the wonderful irony of them is that Sports Night is not about sports, and the West Wing is not about politics -- which is helpful for me, because i hate them both. not being the most athletic kid coming from an unathletic family helped take care of sports for me, and as for politics -- don't get me started on all of you assholes who think you know something about it.

so how did i get into either of these shows? literally with many many recommendations and five minute increments of watching them in reruns.

and i can't get enough of them. the beautiful thing about dvd's is i can have just about as much of them as i want, commercial (and hassle) free. (i can't abide commercials). for two hours i watched eight consecutive episodes of Sports Night last night. the episodes are painfully short, which is their one and only drawback for someone like me who really can't get enough of a good thing; they clock in at about 22 minutes (...as most half hour shows do when you include...commercials...). i love the West Wing, and i won't try to compare it in quality to Sports Night because its just too hard, but Sorkin gets 42 minutes to play around with in the West Wing, and he is given the opportunity to be wonderfully orchestral and non-linear in his writing. But what is sick is how little Sports Night suffers from its 22 minute limitation: it is concentrated Sorkin, and a little goes a long long way.

somehow he manages to pound so much funny and dramatic and tearjerking into one episode, an episode that always delivers, and always leaves you wanting more, always leaves you glad that even though you know you've watched a few episodes on the dvd, after the credits role, the gods have favored you with the intro to another episode and you hope the dvd is a spinning spiral of eternal episodes...

...alas...discs, epidisodes and series do come to an end...
and i still want more. Sorkin is the Shakespeare of our time. if there aren't college classes on him in a hundred years, i'll be upset.

i don't know how you can be that good. its mind boggling to me that someone is that talented a writer, and i hate that its not me. he's amazing.....

what is funny to me is that i was in a car accident yesterday -- i totalled my mom's car because my sister's car, which i was driving, is in the shop -- and my car is basically on blocks because i couldn't afford the cost of keeping a '94 saturn sl2 on the road. my eyes burn like hell because i had to sleep at my parent's house last night and i couldn't take my contacts out, and i have no idea what time i have to work today or how i'm going to get there.....

and i'm writing off about Aaron Sorkin and a show that got cancelled after two seasons...

ugh.........Aaron Sorkin.....what a bastard.

a good title is good to find

one of the only reasons this blog still exists right now, without frequent posting, is because i like the title so much.

i like the idea of this blog, meant to encourage me to write, being called "Written Off"

its an excellent title really. just witty enough for a blogful of wit (that, i admit, does not exist yet.)

Written Off: a blog about writing.
i identify it somewhat with the phrase "pissed off," which i find kind of funny, and will use as a title if i ever decide to catalogue my peeing experiences online (so don't steal it.)

i am also a literary outsider -- that is, i have never been published, much less completed a manuscript of anything...and therefore, as a writer, it is easy to be....well, you get the idea.

originally i was going to title this blog "Writing Off"...but the comparison to the phrase "Jerking Off" was too ready...and i didn't want this to be a place of the writing equivalent of public masturbation.....or at least for people to realize that it was such a place initially.

anyways, i am fascinated by a good title, a good name. they say not to judge a book by its cover, but if it has a good title on it i'm half inclined to read it. the catch phrase potentiality of it is mystical to me -- that and the fact that it can stand for the summation of a book, it can be the significance of it. i want to write a book where every line is good enough to be its title. i love titled chapters as well, and i especially love books and chapters of books that begin with a quote from another work -- the network of meaning produced is like summoning a ghost of meaning that haunts the read of a work -- you can't touch it or define it, but its there, and you know it, and the author knows it, and it unlocks portals to secret underworlds of meaning.

one of the other genres of naming is that of the band name. sometimes i'll be in the shower, or driving through a crappy section of town, and a phrase will punch me in the brain as being extremely catchy and fluid-in-the-mouth-of-an-MTV-newanchor-like -Tabitha-Soren-or-Serena-Altshcul. i want to be in a band. i have no musical inclination other than i love music, and i can sing a little. but i want to be in a band that is as good as U2 and Radiohead, and will go down in history as one of the greatest bands ever, and when i think of forming it, it of course will need a good name. the name would have to reflect the members, naturally. i was thinking of forming my theoretical band with my lesbian-roommate and her intended, and calling it Mother Mayhem.

is that not a catchy name? not bad at least.

a mostly lesbian band named Mother Mayhem. its cool. and kind of funny. like "mother may i?" gone wrong. and it has the ring of some kind of 80's chick rocker metal band, but we would play music that is mostly acoustic and like Over the Rhine or 10,000 maniacs, with a boy singer.

its such a cool name to me, that it would be a shame to waste.

drummers, cellists, and bassists wanted. prodigies welcome. no egoes please.

using War of the Worlds to reconsider Spielberg

time for a new post, which i anticipate is going to be just as much about how i review movies as it is about the movie i'm reviewing.

so, i went to the drive-thru with my girlfriend sunday night to catch both War of the Worlds and The Longest Yard; and i liked them. on to business:

War of the Worlds
Summer? check. Big budget sci-fi? check. "Cute" kid? check. --sniff-- Ah, that's a Spielberg all right.

first of all, let me come clean about my feelings regarding Spielberg. I haven't seen all of his movies, but growing up in the Spielberg era i've seen most of them (and know the rest through osmosis), and i'm convinced that in some way that must qualify me to talk about his work on some level. I understand that he's a guy a lot of people love to hate, particularly film purists and those bemoaning the advent and arrival of hollywood blockbuster filmmaking. But a lot of that is backlash and bullshit. Spielberg has made some great films, and even the ones that haven't been so great are at the very least entertaining -- which is something i feel like a lot of critics forget the merit of, but we'll get to that later. i understand both sides of the argument though; he is like that girl in your philosophy of literature class who is sometimes really datably intelligent, but you mostly think about the fact that she has all the right elements for a good romp.

Which War of the Worlds is, more or less. Well, its actually stuck somewhere between that really classic Spielberg movie, and the simply entertaining one. you know how he makes three kinds of movies, right? there's the "Classic"Spielberg movies: Close Encounters of the Third Kind, E.T.; "Entertaining" Spielberg movies: Catch Me If You Can, Jaws; "Profound" Spielberg movies: Saving Private Ryan, Schindler's List. (for the record A.I. can't be classed in one of these categories, unless we make a fourth one called "Anomalous"). While there might be some dispute over what movies belong in or coinhabit which categories, no one is pretending that War of the Worlds is Schindler's List, and we're all fine with that. so...where does it fit?

ok, let me come even more clean about Spielberg: i hate the fact that people hate him, just because he symbolizes something -- you consider the man's work, for God's sake. but......there's also this nagging thing in the back of my head that wants to wave him off with a flick of my wrist and sneer, and i'm not sure what it is. i have never not enjoyed watching a Spielberg movie. that one and a half to three hours i spend watching his work always finds me happy. but when the house lights come up or the tv goes off, somehow the memory of his work is less effective. This, interestingly enough, is also what happens whenever i watch Tom Cruise. they always deliver, no question about that. but eventually the ubiquitousness of the both of them tends to get to me, tempts me to to say "yeah, its good, but..."....and then i can't fill in the elipses.

the Spielberg movies that generally don't slip away into the oblivion of my disregard (and i'm assuming the same for most people) are those of the "classic" category -- a category which is unique to this particular director. his "classic" movies capture some numinous emotional quality on film that somehow amounts to more than its whole, or the physical artefact of the movie -- it really is an experience. the interesting thing about movies in Spielberg's "classic" category is they rarely need dialogue. they might contain it, but it all (intentionally?) shoots around the emotional mark that the visuals seem to nail.

Also, they often deal with children and use family "situations" as a backdrop. i've heard Spielberg talk about the "emotional core" of a story which makes special effects spectaculars relatable to an audience, and the things everyone can relate to is being a kid and family turmoil.

War of the Worlds contains both of these elements in some measure: it is obviously a visual movie, but its emotional peaks need no dialogue to punctuate them. the most terrifying parts of the movie for me are the human moments: a mob that rips Tom Cruise's character and his children out of a mini-van and nearly tears them apart; the off-screen deed that he commits to protect his daughter. And i was impressed with Spielberg's choices about what to leave undepicted, despite the tendancy of sci-fi films to exploit the visual medium. the spectacle might overshadow the subtlety, but its there, if you keep an eye out for it (consider the fact we only get to see what the aliens look like in two brief scenes that take place well into the movie's running time). the cinematography is interesting; there are some strangely choreographed sequences which seem to go against getting to the "reality" of what such an invasion might be like, but it also brings a creepy surreality to the screen, making for an eery juxtaposition of familiar and not-familiar.

Lastly, Tom Cruise is top notch in this movie -- i like to see him cast against type as this character. he really is a deadbeat dad; he'd be an all right guy if it wasn't for the fact that he had kids he didn't take care of, and he does a great job with the character -- not too sympathetic, not too distasteful. Dakota Fanning on the other hand....she is talented, but would have been better cast in this movie three or four years ago. i assume she was cast because she is considered to be hollywood's cute-kid-with-acting-chops of the moment, but in this movie she is just old enough to not be "cute" anymore, and her dialogue could have desperately used some cuteness. Also, the character of "little precocious blonde girl" is a direct reference to Drew Barrymore in E.T. (keep an eye on hair and wardrobe), and i think meant to highlight the fact that War of the Worlds is a counterpoint to that movie.

War of the Worlds skirts the line between classic Spielberg and entertaining-but-insignificant-Spielberg. it has those traditional classic elements, but in the end i don't know if the "emotional core" transfigures the movie or is contained by it: the answer to that question might be up to time, or box office receipts -- or up to me if i get a chance to see it again. it doesn't seem like it should be that easy for a movie to toe that kind of a line -- and maybe because it does, that is a testament to its inferiority to certain other of Spielberg's films. but its worth checking out.

An (un)Open(ed) Letter...

the idea that other people have interesting things to say and can get people to read them has finally gotten to me, so i decided to start this.

a few things to start off with, so we can both get our bearings here:

-- as much as i am fascinated by the idea of a potential readership, this blog is also exercise for me. i want to write, and that naturally means i want to be read. but i've found it difficult to be read if i haven't written anything...long form writing for me ends up in what movie people like to refer to as "development hell;" that is to say, it never gets past the idea stage. this is a good way to practice short form writing, articles and essays and such. i have an abundance of thoughts and opinions, which i am hoping the pressure of updates and the constriction of brevity will help me squeeze out into written form. practice might not make me perfect, but it will get me read. eventually.

-- i take the e.e. cummings approach to capitalization.

-- i haven't really decided what the theme of this blog should be, aside from its primary purpose of encouraging me to write, and i'm ok with that. i don't want it to simply be an online diary though, either. that would be boring to the point of depressing. for the both of us. at any rate, expect various words organized into various sentances and paragraphs about various topics.

-- and lastly...


yes, i'm fully aware that no one is reading this.

...all the height beneath me...

One summer I went on a vacation to New York City with my family. I have photos that I took at the top of one of the World Trade towers. On the very top story there was a ledge between where the floor ended and the window began. You could look directly down the side of the building. I had an old camera and took a few shots of the rooftops, the peaks of church spires, and the canyons of city streets between them. It felt strange and beautiful, to look down on something from such an odd perspective. It made the city look like a work of nature, and incomprehensible. My camera jammed after two or three shots, and then, a few months later, came 9/11.
I remembered there was a Sbarros up on that top floor, and all I could think about were the people who died for doing nothing but making meatball subs, and all the tourists on the roof who just wanted a good look at the city, and how the photos that were still in my camera had captured something no one would ever see again.
I go up to the roof of my apartment building now, and I wonder: what’s here now that I can see that no one will ever see again? I can see the dorms at buff state, the green copper towers of the psych center. I can see all the treetops and all the sky; the sun in the day and the moon at night. The sight sticks in my mind, all the strange beauty one can only see with height and I wonder will all of this fall too? and will the view that has jammed in the camera of my mind never be attained by anyone again? I keep revisiting the roof, thinking: How can I preserve this? How can I save these things that I love?