I've decided I need to move forward on many fronts. I've stagnated too long, and have spent too much time thinking and waiting, rather than learning, doing, and getting all the crap in my head out into the light where I can do something creative with it. I keep having the urge to develop my creative abilities, without really knowing what purpose it will serve. I enjoy writing, just like I enjoy music, but I don't know if I like those things for their own merits, or if I'm trying to use them as tools to figure out another problem. I worry that if it's the latter case, I won't be able to stick with it long enough to really create anything of value, but I think I still have to try. I'm paying more attention to my writing - amount, frequency, and quality. Yesterday afternoon I started writing what may be a long term project. I'm not quite sure what it is yet, but it's grounded in my own experience and will likely be largely autobiographical. While I want to tell some kind of story, calling it fiction would be a stretch. I've never approached a major project like this before, and I think I need to spend some time in developing my ideas for characters and story - really decide what I'm writing, and maybe more importantly, why.
On the music front I'm considering taking some classes when I get back to school, probably some kind of composition class along with regular musical theory. I'll also probably find some way to take piano lessons, and hopefully bring the keyboard from home to New York.
I'm going to use my time to create things.
I'm tempted to post what I've written so far, but I'm going to refrain and actually take this thing to a conclusion and polish it first. If it ends up being multiple chapters, maybe I'll post as I go. I'm still working through basically everything about this story - I really have no idea what I'm doing. At the moment I want to just see where my ideas take me and pass judgment later, but it's extremely slow going without really knowing what or why I'm writing. I think I will work on character development first. I wrote two things about the main character at the end of the page, and I think I'll see if I can find more things about him that will flesh out his character. Though honestly, I may just write it as if he is me, or hell, just write it from first person. Dunno yet, but here's what I wrote:
- He has conversations with himself. Whether there are people around or no, it's a rare thing when he isn't talking with himself.
- He creates symbols, and he knows it.
Anyways, time to call it a night. Got silly Chinese class to go to. Funny how I always end up trivializing where I am, even in freakin' China.
One more thing. I'm thinking the time has come for me to speak to a counselor of some sort, maybe seek some sort of medical help for what I've finally admitted is likely clinical depression. I don't know exactly how I feel about all of this yet, but I've acknowledged the fact that I refuse to have another semester or year like the last one, and something needs to be done, even if that something requires more than just my personal effort.
I'd welcome all of your thoughts.
- Bryan
Showing posts with label projects. Show all posts
Showing posts with label projects. Show all posts
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Monday, May 18, 2009
Sine qua non
First, some thoughts on the movie X-Men Origins: Wolverine. No, I'm not going to actually talk about the movie, but there was a scene in particular that got me thinking. This isn't going to be much of a spoiler, but if you absolutely want to know nothing about the movie before going into it...tough.
After making his escape from the evil, manipulative government organization, Logan stays the night with an elderly couple at their rural home. During his entire time there, the couple call Logan "son", an innocuous acknowledgment of his status as their junior. The first few times they do this, the audience doesn't blink - obviously they're the elderly couple and he's the strapping, misguided youth out for revenge. And yet we are then given a scene at the dinner table where Logan mentions that his favorite make of motorcycle is a 1948 something or another, and the old man exclaims that Logan was extremely young to know or appreciate such an old motorcycle. Obviously, Logan seems to be a relatively young man, but as he blushes from across the table at the man's comment, suddenly we remember that Logan was more than a century old in 1948. In all likelihood, Logan is several times the old man's age. How strange that the other man still played the role of the old, fatherly sage to Logan's brooding youth when in actuality it would seem more likely for Logan to be sharing his more than a century's worth of life lessons to the old man. But no, the traditional roles are maintained, and never again in the movie are we reminded of his age. Instead he simply falls into the role of the hero with a troubled past, without the length or significance of that past playing any apparent role in his life as we are given to see on screen. Shouldn't he be wiser than we see him? After more than a hundred years of life, shouldn't he be acting less like a testosterone junkie and more like the kind old man who took him in and chided his lack of perspective on the tragedy that had befallen him?
I suppose action heroes can't be too worldly and wise or it wouldn't be a good action flick, but it raised a question.
This is my question: What would growing old be like if you never aged? What effect does physical aging have on the psyche, on one's conception of themselves? Is our confrontation of our mortality necessary for growth, or is simply garnering life experience enough to make us wise?
I suppose this is another indication of my concern for my own mortality. I want to do more with my limited time in this life, but I feel woefully ignorant of what I want out of life. I feel like I've elevated the importance of every moment to such a level that perhaps I only stand to be disappointed. Or maybe I really do need to completely change the life I've been living. Perhaps, like everything else, it's neither one nor the other but both, and likely many other things as well.
I had an idea a couple nights ago: within three years of leaving school, I want to pack up and move with whoever will go with me to another city somewhere else in the world. While there, we would support ourselves by whatever means we could find, learn the language, and really attempt to make that place home for however long we stayed. Like coming to New York for school, living in these different places would hopefully provide different perspectives on life, and at least remind us of the vastness of possible experiences. I hope very much that my friends come with me, but as long as I am able, I think I will do this by myself if I have to. And maybe I do have to.
I wonder how I will feel after going to those places, and when I will want to settle down. I wonder what, and who, I would miss and perhaps be unable to do without, even if I were to live forever.
I think the Jedi were wise to caution against emotional attachments. Pain leads to anger, etc, and nothing stings quite like emotional attachments...
After making his escape from the evil, manipulative government organization, Logan stays the night with an elderly couple at their rural home. During his entire time there, the couple call Logan "son", an innocuous acknowledgment of his status as their junior. The first few times they do this, the audience doesn't blink - obviously they're the elderly couple and he's the strapping, misguided youth out for revenge. And yet we are then given a scene at the dinner table where Logan mentions that his favorite make of motorcycle is a 1948 something or another, and the old man exclaims that Logan was extremely young to know or appreciate such an old motorcycle. Obviously, Logan seems to be a relatively young man, but as he blushes from across the table at the man's comment, suddenly we remember that Logan was more than a century old in 1948. In all likelihood, Logan is several times the old man's age. How strange that the other man still played the role of the old, fatherly sage to Logan's brooding youth when in actuality it would seem more likely for Logan to be sharing his more than a century's worth of life lessons to the old man. But no, the traditional roles are maintained, and never again in the movie are we reminded of his age. Instead he simply falls into the role of the hero with a troubled past, without the length or significance of that past playing any apparent role in his life as we are given to see on screen. Shouldn't he be wiser than we see him? After more than a hundred years of life, shouldn't he be acting less like a testosterone junkie and more like the kind old man who took him in and chided his lack of perspective on the tragedy that had befallen him?
I suppose action heroes can't be too worldly and wise or it wouldn't be a good action flick, but it raised a question.
This is my question: What would growing old be like if you never aged? What effect does physical aging have on the psyche, on one's conception of themselves? Is our confrontation of our mortality necessary for growth, or is simply garnering life experience enough to make us wise?
I suppose this is another indication of my concern for my own mortality. I want to do more with my limited time in this life, but I feel woefully ignorant of what I want out of life. I feel like I've elevated the importance of every moment to such a level that perhaps I only stand to be disappointed. Or maybe I really do need to completely change the life I've been living. Perhaps, like everything else, it's neither one nor the other but both, and likely many other things as well.
I had an idea a couple nights ago: within three years of leaving school, I want to pack up and move with whoever will go with me to another city somewhere else in the world. While there, we would support ourselves by whatever means we could find, learn the language, and really attempt to make that place home for however long we stayed. Like coming to New York for school, living in these different places would hopefully provide different perspectives on life, and at least remind us of the vastness of possible experiences. I hope very much that my friends come with me, but as long as I am able, I think I will do this by myself if I have to. And maybe I do have to.
I wonder how I will feel after going to those places, and when I will want to settle down. I wonder what, and who, I would miss and perhaps be unable to do without, even if I were to live forever.
I think the Jedi were wise to caution against emotional attachments. Pain leads to anger, etc, and nothing stings quite like emotional attachments...
Sunday, April 12, 2009
What I'm trying to say is...
I've learned two new things about myself recently:
1. I like weird people, exceptionally free spirited people, people who have learned that life is an end unto itself. I feel like I can learn from them.
2. I'm not comfortable playing second fiddle in my own life, which is tough when I want to learn new things. I'm uncomfortable with hero worship for this reason as well, but godammit all I wanted to ask him was how to be more like him and less like the person I am now, stuck in a rut.
I just came up with that last one, so it's gonna be three things
3. I want to do more things with my hands. I want to create and tinker. Pick locks and play piano. I'm not quite sure why. Yes I do. It seems more sincere, less abstracted from life. I seem like just the person to dissect experiences to such a scientific level that the life is gone from them, and yet for some reason the social sciences aren't fulfilling at all, go figure. Another instance of wanting to be more like some ideal other than what I am? Perhaps. Perhaps I've just got too many of my own questions to give a fig about Chinese nationalism or the miserable lives of Japanese office ladies. I feel like I'm more alive than all of them, but have somehow forgotten how to speak, and how to walk. I need something real to teach me how to do those things again, differently and better this time.
Interactions with people are strange these days. I have trouble listening to what they say, which is no way to have a conversation. I think I'm afflicted by a strange sense of superiority where I think I'm different from everyone, which has come to equal better in my mind, but at the same time all I want is for someone to get through to me. My friends do that. Increasingly, people I've never met who's work I admire have done that, and then suddenly I meet them and feel inadequate. I need more to show for my life.
Angst over weekend activities continues, but I think I'm narrowing the field. I want things to do rather than places to go, and I want these things to involve a few people who could be friends. I don't want to simply attend different places. I guess this fits with my new desire to develop awesome skills and talents in order to affirm my worth.
I think I would like to write something. A story maybe, some kind of fiction. First I need to learn how to write, and to do that I need to read more. This is another new project.
Maybe the story would start like:
He was leaving today, and each step was considered as he made his way down the street to the subway station. He was reckoning with the city, trying to find the feeling this place inspired in him, the exact notion he would take with him as he made his way back home. To be charitable, he would remember it as it was now, gray and smelling of rain. Even the wind was gray as it shook the bare trees. It was palpable in the air and the whole world seemed very small and muffled, trapped in a snow globe of rain and clouds.
And maybe it would end like:
He opened his eyes as he leaned against the glass, and the sun was still there.
So now I just need to write the middle part, go back and fix the first and last parts, and we'll have our story. No sweat.
So what else? In trying to write the above it became apparent to me that I can only write autobiographically and that I want desperately to go on a journey somewhere, or at least to just leave this place. I think maybe I need to not be so intent on writing something in order for it to be good. My inner voice is pompous and wordy and has no idea what I want to say.
I need to feel exceptional, but it seems like chances of that being anything other than a delusion are getting slimmer by the minute.
Damn.
1. I like weird people, exceptionally free spirited people, people who have learned that life is an end unto itself. I feel like I can learn from them.
2. I'm not comfortable playing second fiddle in my own life, which is tough when I want to learn new things. I'm uncomfortable with hero worship for this reason as well, but godammit all I wanted to ask him was how to be more like him and less like the person I am now, stuck in a rut.
I just came up with that last one, so it's gonna be three things
3. I want to do more things with my hands. I want to create and tinker. Pick locks and play piano. I'm not quite sure why. Yes I do. It seems more sincere, less abstracted from life. I seem like just the person to dissect experiences to such a scientific level that the life is gone from them, and yet for some reason the social sciences aren't fulfilling at all, go figure. Another instance of wanting to be more like some ideal other than what I am? Perhaps. Perhaps I've just got too many of my own questions to give a fig about Chinese nationalism or the miserable lives of Japanese office ladies. I feel like I'm more alive than all of them, but have somehow forgotten how to speak, and how to walk. I need something real to teach me how to do those things again, differently and better this time.
Interactions with people are strange these days. I have trouble listening to what they say, which is no way to have a conversation. I think I'm afflicted by a strange sense of superiority where I think I'm different from everyone, which has come to equal better in my mind, but at the same time all I want is for someone to get through to me. My friends do that. Increasingly, people I've never met who's work I admire have done that, and then suddenly I meet them and feel inadequate. I need more to show for my life.
Angst over weekend activities continues, but I think I'm narrowing the field. I want things to do rather than places to go, and I want these things to involve a few people who could be friends. I don't want to simply attend different places. I guess this fits with my new desire to develop awesome skills and talents in order to affirm my worth.
I think I would like to write something. A story maybe, some kind of fiction. First I need to learn how to write, and to do that I need to read more. This is another new project.
Maybe the story would start like:
He was leaving today, and each step was considered as he made his way down the street to the subway station. He was reckoning with the city, trying to find the feeling this place inspired in him, the exact notion he would take with him as he made his way back home. To be charitable, he would remember it as it was now, gray and smelling of rain. Even the wind was gray as it shook the bare trees. It was palpable in the air and the whole world seemed very small and muffled, trapped in a snow globe of rain and clouds.
And maybe it would end like:
He opened his eyes as he leaned against the glass, and the sun was still there.
So now I just need to write the middle part, go back and fix the first and last parts, and we'll have our story. No sweat.
So what else? In trying to write the above it became apparent to me that I can only write autobiographically and that I want desperately to go on a journey somewhere, or at least to just leave this place. I think maybe I need to not be so intent on writing something in order for it to be good. My inner voice is pompous and wordy and has no idea what I want to say.
I need to feel exceptional, but it seems like chances of that being anything other than a delusion are getting slimmer by the minute.
Damn.
Sunday, November 23, 2008
This is the way the world ends
The sun shone cold on his face, warmth sapped by the frozen ocean of sky over his head
and all his limbs shook with that clinging frigid death. It pooled around him as he stood, radiating despair, casting it against the frozen ground like the gray light of a winter moon. He stood, breath freezing in front of his face, catching in his lungs, and he coughed blissfully in unison with the harrowed slaves, dragging their chains as they passed by him into the distance. He didn't know how long he had been standing there.
Perhaps he had always been there.
But inexplicably, he began to take a step. Frost crunched and fell from his clothing, his legs barely able to move, for he was tired from his long vigil. He lifted his leg, heavy with ambivalence, but the wind kicked up, driving him back with heart-piercing daggers. His tears froze on his face as he bowed his head against the gale, whimpers of pain ripped from his throat and swept away. But he stepped again, and again, his heart pumping vital suffering to every limb, until he was running. He ran until he reached the wooden pillar, jutting out from the middle of a frozen street, and he climbed up, heedless of the wind.
He pulled himself up to the top and stood as the wind ripped into his body and the gray clouds pressed close against his face, smothering him. All the sky crushed down on him.
He would set it free.
(He pulls off his jacket, peels off his shirt. He grits his teeth against the wind.)
He would set it free.
(...or does he smile?)
He would set it free.
(He stands, every muscle clenched in the most triumphant, soul wrenching fire.)
He would set it free, he thought.
And from the blackness behind his closed eyes, from the pit of his stomach and the grips of his shaking fists he rent the sky with his agony.
The clouds shattered like glass and fell to the ground, and the air caught fire, the cities fell and the earth crumbled.
He screamed because he had no words.
He screamed until reality shook around him.
He screamed until he forgot himself.
He screamed until there was nothing.
and all his limbs shook with that clinging frigid death. It pooled around him as he stood, radiating despair, casting it against the frozen ground like the gray light of a winter moon. He stood, breath freezing in front of his face, catching in his lungs, and he coughed blissfully in unison with the harrowed slaves, dragging their chains as they passed by him into the distance. He didn't know how long he had been standing there.
Perhaps he had always been there.
But inexplicably, he began to take a step. Frost crunched and fell from his clothing, his legs barely able to move, for he was tired from his long vigil. He lifted his leg, heavy with ambivalence, but the wind kicked up, driving him back with heart-piercing daggers. His tears froze on his face as he bowed his head against the gale, whimpers of pain ripped from his throat and swept away. But he stepped again, and again, his heart pumping vital suffering to every limb, until he was running. He ran until he reached the wooden pillar, jutting out from the middle of a frozen street, and he climbed up, heedless of the wind.
He pulled himself up to the top and stood as the wind ripped into his body and the gray clouds pressed close against his face, smothering him. All the sky crushed down on him.
He would set it free.
(He pulls off his jacket, peels off his shirt. He grits his teeth against the wind.)
He would set it free.
(...or does he smile?)
He would set it free.
(He stands, every muscle clenched in the most triumphant, soul wrenching fire.)
He would set it free, he thought.
And from the blackness behind his closed eyes, from the pit of his stomach and the grips of his shaking fists he rent the sky with his agony.
The clouds shattered like glass and fell to the ground, and the air caught fire, the cities fell and the earth crumbled.
He screamed because he had no words.
He screamed until reality shook around him.
He screamed until he forgot himself.
He screamed until there was nothing.
Monday, October 27, 2008
Survivors
Sometimes I have too much to say, so I say nothing. Sometimes I feel too many things too deeply, so I take refuge in the normal. And it's thus that I build my prison of silence and dissatisfaction.
Looking back on the past few days, I don't even know where to start writing. Let's try this:
Saturday, daytime: Eric, Alison's friend visiting from DC, and I undertook the first attempt at geohashing, and the exact coordinates of our destination were out to sea, so we planned on going on to the spit of land furthest out into the Atlantic, Rockaway point. The original plan was to take the subway out to Coney Island, rent bikes, and ride the rest of the way, but by the time we'd finished the hour-long subway trip out to Coney Island it was getting toward sunset and the weather was stormy. It was a tremendous amount of fun just to wander around Coney Island in the midst of a storm, heads bent against the wind, listening to the chilling sound of the wind through the supports of the deserted theme park, and I got some great pictures and video. We contemplated taking a bus for part of the way past Coney Island, but it was already dark by the time we were done exploring the beach and we weren't equipped for traversing the pitch black of Rockaway. Next time.
The little trip out to the end of a subway line and the subsequent wanderings on the stormy beach inspired in me an even greater desire to pursue whatever adventures happened to be close at hand. I decided I wanted to purchase a bike in order to facilitate my travels, which led to the formation of tentative Thanksgiving plans, in which Alison and I obtain bikes in DC and ride them back to NYC. In preparation for this feat I've started using the cycle machines at the gym on days when I'm not lifting, constituting my most ambitious workout regimen ever.
And while I'm extremely excited about the progress of my side projects, I feel like, to an extent, they have distracted me from the bigger, uglier questions facing me. I still don't know what I'm going to do after school...but I hopefully I can get by on boldfaced optimism.
Saturday night, Bigger Questions, and the dangers of Cactus Cooler: With Saturday night came an abortive party packed with idiots, and after helping to clean up in their wake, we ended up back at my place, where I began to furiously prepare Cactus Coolers for us all. It began with just Alison, Eric, and myself, but later Kenny showed up and filled in for Eric who had fallen asleep on the couch sometime later. I learned an important lesson that night: alcohol does not mix well with downbeat music, no matter how soothing or beautiful. I have no idea how it happened, or what set it off, but after several drinks I began to dwell on Ryan Martin's suicide and the conversation I'd had about him with a friend the night before. I had largely put it out of my mind since I first heard the news on Monday, only stopping occasionally to consider what he must have gone through before he took his own life, and why he had finally surrendered to what he must have seen as the pointlessness of his continued existence. Clearly, he was not in any kind of trouble that might have made death seem attractive by comparison, so it must have been the sheer terror of meaninglessness that drove him to his death. And I began to see that meaninglessness as if it were a villain who had killed my friend, or even more troubling, as a disaster or accident that the rest of us had somehow survived...this time. Now I see in that meaninglessness a terrible malignancy, ubiquitous and patient, waiting for us to doubt our purpose and falter in our belief in the value of life. And then it will sweep us away.
Even now, as I sit here sober and relatively hopeful about the future, I can feel it behind the walls and around corners, peeking out at me from the end of long hallways and whispering over my shoulder.
So imagine how I was then, somewhat inebriated, listening to decidedly melancholy music, with my friend's suicide at the forefront of my thoughts. That meaninglessness, that despair stood staring me in the face, mocking me, assuring me that Ryan was only the first. I felt like my companions and I were alive by chance, like survivors of a car wreck who had somehow climbed to safety only to look back in horror at the broken bodies of those who hadn't made it.
And I cried. I cried because in that moment I had no retort, no plan of my own to hold up as evidence of purpose, and I cried because I feared for my friends and I, feared the things we might yet have to face.
Watch this.
Read the second comment under "Temple Bell" on this blog. It's by Brian Borger.
Looking back on the past few days, I don't even know where to start writing. Let's try this:
Saturday, daytime: Eric, Alison's friend visiting from DC, and I undertook the first attempt at geohashing, and the exact coordinates of our destination were out to sea, so we planned on going on to the spit of land furthest out into the Atlantic, Rockaway point. The original plan was to take the subway out to Coney Island, rent bikes, and ride the rest of the way, but by the time we'd finished the hour-long subway trip out to Coney Island it was getting toward sunset and the weather was stormy. It was a tremendous amount of fun just to wander around Coney Island in the midst of a storm, heads bent against the wind, listening to the chilling sound of the wind through the supports of the deserted theme park, and I got some great pictures and video. We contemplated taking a bus for part of the way past Coney Island, but it was already dark by the time we were done exploring the beach and we weren't equipped for traversing the pitch black of Rockaway. Next time.
The little trip out to the end of a subway line and the subsequent wanderings on the stormy beach inspired in me an even greater desire to pursue whatever adventures happened to be close at hand. I decided I wanted to purchase a bike in order to facilitate my travels, which led to the formation of tentative Thanksgiving plans, in which Alison and I obtain bikes in DC and ride them back to NYC. In preparation for this feat I've started using the cycle machines at the gym on days when I'm not lifting, constituting my most ambitious workout regimen ever.
And while I'm extremely excited about the progress of my side projects, I feel like, to an extent, they have distracted me from the bigger, uglier questions facing me. I still don't know what I'm going to do after school...but I hopefully I can get by on boldfaced optimism.
Saturday night, Bigger Questions, and the dangers of Cactus Cooler: With Saturday night came an abortive party packed with idiots, and after helping to clean up in their wake, we ended up back at my place, where I began to furiously prepare Cactus Coolers for us all. It began with just Alison, Eric, and myself, but later Kenny showed up and filled in for Eric who had fallen asleep on the couch sometime later. I learned an important lesson that night: alcohol does not mix well with downbeat music, no matter how soothing or beautiful. I have no idea how it happened, or what set it off, but after several drinks I began to dwell on Ryan Martin's suicide and the conversation I'd had about him with a friend the night before. I had largely put it out of my mind since I first heard the news on Monday, only stopping occasionally to consider what he must have gone through before he took his own life, and why he had finally surrendered to what he must have seen as the pointlessness of his continued existence. Clearly, he was not in any kind of trouble that might have made death seem attractive by comparison, so it must have been the sheer terror of meaninglessness that drove him to his death. And I began to see that meaninglessness as if it were a villain who had killed my friend, or even more troubling, as a disaster or accident that the rest of us had somehow survived...this time. Now I see in that meaninglessness a terrible malignancy, ubiquitous and patient, waiting for us to doubt our purpose and falter in our belief in the value of life. And then it will sweep us away.
Even now, as I sit here sober and relatively hopeful about the future, I can feel it behind the walls and around corners, peeking out at me from the end of long hallways and whispering over my shoulder.
So imagine how I was then, somewhat inebriated, listening to decidedly melancholy music, with my friend's suicide at the forefront of my thoughts. That meaninglessness, that despair stood staring me in the face, mocking me, assuring me that Ryan was only the first. I felt like my companions and I were alive by chance, like survivors of a car wreck who had somehow climbed to safety only to look back in horror at the broken bodies of those who hadn't made it.
And I cried. I cried because in that moment I had no retort, no plan of my own to hold up as evidence of purpose, and I cried because I feared for my friends and I, feared the things we might yet have to face.
Watch this.
Read the second comment under "Temple Bell" on this blog. It's by Brian Borger.
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Temple Bell
Tok Tok Tok
The hammer strike, I hear the echo,
amidst concrete, the sounding tempo
seeping, softening, deepening
Tok Tok Tok
Reverb from the Temple Bell,
Called to quiet, incense smell
Around the people on their mats
Tok Tok Tok
But few will hear amid the hustle
Their faces turned toward shoes and shuffle
All our eyes are closed
The hammer strike, I hear the echo,
amidst concrete, the sounding tempo
seeping, softening, deepening
Tok Tok Tok
Reverb from the Temple Bell,
Called to quiet, incense smell
Around the people on their mats
Tok Tok Tok
But few will hear amid the hustle
Their faces turned toward shoes and shuffle
All our eyes are closed
Sunday, October 19, 2008
Adventures
Finally put up the pictures from the gang's visit last weekend, and I'll probably post more of the photos I've taken since then. Sorry most of them are blurry, but I hate using the flash, and in most of the places we were it would have been unwelcome. Ergo, concordantly, I need to buy myself a tripod. It's taking a while to regain my sense of composition, and I'm unhappy that some of my favorite pictures are as interesting as they are because of the color accenting feature of the camera. I think I'm making progress though, and there are some I'm pretty proud of.
I saw Equus on Thursday, adding to the short list of Broadway shows I've seen. I had no idea what to expect when I sat down in the theater, only knowing that it was highly acclaimed and that Daniel Radcliffe would be naked onstage at some point. Turns out that this was a very good, and very dark, troubling play that I enjoyed thoroughly. Also Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager, was in the play, and that definitely made my night.
On a darker note, while most of my classes have remained as interesting as they were, or have become even more so since the start of the semester, the persistence of constant schoolwork and the addition of midterms have forced me to ask myself, once again, why I'm doing what I'm doing and what else I could be doing. Recently I've become very attached to the idea of pursuing side projects with my free time, but even that seems like the small picture. I want to see the big picture, figure out why I enjoy what I enjoy and decide if that's something worth spending my time on. Even more than that, I have to choose the criteria by which I judge the worth of my actions.
I'm attracted to the idea that I can somehow avoid boredom by finding a profession or project that involves constant variety, like journalism or maybe intelligence, or by constantly being involved in a number of small projects. I guess I want to have adventures, to go out and be immersed in uncertainty, which is ironic because here I am trying to figure out what to do in the future.
A divergence to help me explain my point: I've recently become even more interested in the webcomic xkcd, especially with regard to its creator, Randall Munroe. It turns out that he's only 24 (he just had a birthday last Friday), graduated from college in '06 and worked briefly with NASA until he left and started working on xkcd full time. Now he supports himself primarily on merchandise from the comic. Aside from being amazingly funny, the comic has this profoundly hopeful outlook on life and stresses the importance of unorthodox approaches to thinking and living.
Check these out:
This is the start of a five part series that presents some ideas I've really come to empathize with - http://xkcd.com/264/
And this one is a pleasant reminder to myself sometimes - http://xkcd.com/167/
His newest project is called "Geohashing"(http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Main_Page), and I think Kenny and I might take part in it on the weekends. I'm definitely looking forward to getting off campus and having some adventures.
Coming soon: Dread
I saw Equus on Thursday, adding to the short list of Broadway shows I've seen. I had no idea what to expect when I sat down in the theater, only knowing that it was highly acclaimed and that Daniel Radcliffe would be naked onstage at some point. Turns out that this was a very good, and very dark, troubling play that I enjoyed thoroughly. Also Kate Mulgrew, who played Captain Janeway in Star Trek: Voyager, was in the play, and that definitely made my night.
On a darker note, while most of my classes have remained as interesting as they were, or have become even more so since the start of the semester, the persistence of constant schoolwork and the addition of midterms have forced me to ask myself, once again, why I'm doing what I'm doing and what else I could be doing. Recently I've become very attached to the idea of pursuing side projects with my free time, but even that seems like the small picture. I want to see the big picture, figure out why I enjoy what I enjoy and decide if that's something worth spending my time on. Even more than that, I have to choose the criteria by which I judge the worth of my actions.
I'm attracted to the idea that I can somehow avoid boredom by finding a profession or project that involves constant variety, like journalism or maybe intelligence, or by constantly being involved in a number of small projects. I guess I want to have adventures, to go out and be immersed in uncertainty, which is ironic because here I am trying to figure out what to do in the future.
A divergence to help me explain my point: I've recently become even more interested in the webcomic xkcd, especially with regard to its creator, Randall Munroe. It turns out that he's only 24 (he just had a birthday last Friday), graduated from college in '06 and worked briefly with NASA until he left and started working on xkcd full time. Now he supports himself primarily on merchandise from the comic. Aside from being amazingly funny, the comic has this profoundly hopeful outlook on life and stresses the importance of unorthodox approaches to thinking and living.
Check these out:
This is the start of a five part series that presents some ideas I've really come to empathize with - http://xkcd.com/264/
And this one is a pleasant reminder to myself sometimes - http://xkcd.com/167/
His newest project is called "Geohashing"(http://wiki.xkcd.com/geohashing/Main_Page), and I think Kenny and I might take part in it on the weekends. I'm definitely looking forward to getting off campus and having some adventures.
Coming soon: Dread
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Viewfinder Eyes
It was wonderful to have a camera this weekend, along with cooperative subjects and interesting settings for pictures. Managed to crank out more than a hundred photos in relatively short order (though admittedly only a few could be considered above average). I feel like my photography was better at one time, and I'd be willing to entertain the notion that I'm simply out of practice. I hope that's the case, because it seems that the most solid thing I've distilled from my musings this year so far is that I have a growing desire to express myself. I want some way to draw those formless, hyphenated emotions out of myself and put them in a photo or a movie, or maybe in writing somehow. I'm fascinated by those little feelings, so quiet and ethereal, that wash over you like a cool and gentle breeze from out of nowhere, caressing your heart, making you pay attention to where you are. It's afternoon sun, deep orange, on the sidewalk, or the sound of dried leaves blown by the wind on a gray day. Rain drops on a windowsill and distant drums. Dark nights driving alone for a long time. The swamp cooler. I wish my camera could capture some of this, though I'm not really sure what I'd do with it if it ever does.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
Ejection
I've been caught up writing this ridiculous paper for my "China in the Modern World" class since this weekend. One would hope I wouldn't need five days to write 5-7 pages, but here I am, and after much hand wringing over how to approach such a hopelessly vague topic (tip: if the prompt contains the world "bio-political", drop the class), sometime in the last couple days I finally built a framework for writing something that could be considered half decent. And sometime last night, I realized that what I was writing had nothing to do with that framework, and I had to change it. I'm finally in the home stretch now after making my topic more comfortable, and I wanted to share a vignette with you all. In my essay, I say that a character was essentially ejected from her past, traveling further and further away from the life she had known previously and actually shedding her identity bit by bit until an entirely dissociated personality rises up and "kills" her previous one. This person was shot out of a cannon from her previous life and her previous self, and when she landed she was in a foreign country and had completely lost her mind.
Well, I feel like, in a sense, sometime yesterday I ejected from this wreck of a week... grabbed the bare essentials of kendo and mandatory classes, pulled the handle under my seat and shot skyward toward the weekend. And yet I feel like sometime in the future I'll have to pay for the crashed jet of my neglected classes and work.
Don't care though. Too stoked for the weekend.
Also, yesterday at kendo practice our sensei introduced perhaps the coolest exercise I could possibly imagine on so little sleep. He had half of the people in armor stand on either side of the room, with one lone soul standing between the two groups. One person from either side would alternate running toward the person in the middle, trying to strike the person's head, while the person in the middle would try to dodge and counterattack by striking them in the torso as they ran through. For minutes on end, the person in the middle would have to fend off constant attack from both sides, having barely enough (and sometimes not enough) time to turn around, face the next opponent, and counterattack. Too fucking cool.
Finally, a gentleman walked in to the coffee lounge this morning and stood next to where I was sitting, typing away, with a distant look on his face as if he were looking for something. I made the mistake of looking up and making eye contact, at which point he points vaguely in the direction of my computer and asks, "What's that?". I stare for a couple seconds and reply, "What's...what?". Rather than answering my question, he asks me what I think about the economy, and if I thought we were in a recession. I told him I probably wasn't the one to ask, but if I had to give an answer I'd say we were heading that way, yeah. On hearing that I wasn't, in fact, an economist, he points to my screen and asks, "That isn't economics". Long pause. "No, this is literary analysis". "Do you think there'll be a job waiting for you?". "Maybe not a conventional one, and maybe not in this country, but yeah, there will be". He walks off.
Maybe he ejected too.
Well, I feel like, in a sense, sometime yesterday I ejected from this wreck of a week... grabbed the bare essentials of kendo and mandatory classes, pulled the handle under my seat and shot skyward toward the weekend. And yet I feel like sometime in the future I'll have to pay for the crashed jet of my neglected classes and work.
Don't care though. Too stoked for the weekend.
Also, yesterday at kendo practice our sensei introduced perhaps the coolest exercise I could possibly imagine on so little sleep. He had half of the people in armor stand on either side of the room, with one lone soul standing between the two groups. One person from either side would alternate running toward the person in the middle, trying to strike the person's head, while the person in the middle would try to dodge and counterattack by striking them in the torso as they ran through. For minutes on end, the person in the middle would have to fend off constant attack from both sides, having barely enough (and sometimes not enough) time to turn around, face the next opponent, and counterattack. Too fucking cool.
Finally, a gentleman walked in to the coffee lounge this morning and stood next to where I was sitting, typing away, with a distant look on his face as if he were looking for something. I made the mistake of looking up and making eye contact, at which point he points vaguely in the direction of my computer and asks, "What's that?". I stare for a couple seconds and reply, "What's...what?". Rather than answering my question, he asks me what I think about the economy, and if I thought we were in a recession. I told him I probably wasn't the one to ask, but if I had to give an answer I'd say we were heading that way, yeah. On hearing that I wasn't, in fact, an economist, he points to my screen and asks, "That isn't economics". Long pause. "No, this is literary analysis". "Do you think there'll be a job waiting for you?". "Maybe not a conventional one, and maybe not in this country, but yeah, there will be". He walks off.
Maybe he ejected too.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Beating the bushes
The group, which I suppose is the new incarnation of Sorekara Eiga (それから 映画 - Sorekara Movies), has produced several ideas for the new project. The most prominent suggestions so far are a quasi-western, somewhat in the style of Cowboy Bebop with regard to slightly larger than life (read unbelievable) characters and action, and a kind of twisted version of Orpheus and Euridice, with Death personified as a samurai the main character sees in both his dreams and his waking hours. The second suggestion comes from Alison, who has already begun work on a possible script.
I've learned how many of my ideas revolve around explosions and gunfighting, and as a result all of my ideas are largely useless because we lack the equipment for anything more than the most basic gunplay. Alison's idea has a psychological aspect that I appreciate (and which is lacking in all of my ideas so far).
Paul gets here tomorrow, and then the madness begins, but first...essay writing time.
Anyone and everyone feel free to suggest story ideas.
I've learned how many of my ideas revolve around explosions and gunfighting, and as a result all of my ideas are largely useless because we lack the equipment for anything more than the most basic gunplay. Alison's idea has a psychological aspect that I appreciate (and which is lacking in all of my ideas so far).
Paul gets here tomorrow, and then the madness begins, but first...essay writing time.
Anyone and everyone feel free to suggest story ideas.
Sunday, October 5, 2008
Excitement, fear
I hinted yesterday about the prospect of a grand, new project coming from Kenny and I, but while the details are still coming together, it seems our grandest vision will probably have to be put on hold.
There were discussions last night between Kenny, Alison, Nate, and I about the possiblity of building a multi-media website that would be the platform for new artistic endeavors of all sorts, whether in the form of new movies, video shorts, writing, t-shirts, etc. Unfortunately, despite the exciting prospects this idea held, it was decided that not enough time and effort could be spared to really do such a huge project justice, but maybe this will be something to come back to in the future.
However this did spark off serious consideration about other new projects we could undertake, specifically in the realm of movie-making, and after some discussion we reviewed both our Epic Japanese movie and its accompanying trailer. Reinvigorated by this reminder of past accomplishments, Kenny and I agreed at least to produce another movie, most likely involving new characters and a new story, and probably slated for completion by reading week before finals. We've already begun discussing character design.
(I just returned a patron's ID card. Her name is Kara Freewind. What a name.)
Later in the evening, Kenny was watching a documentary called Zeitgeist, which concerns various conspiracy theories about Christianity, 9/11, and others, with the basic premise apparently being that a small group of individuals at the highest echelons of civilization are conspiring to unite the entire world under a single totalitarian government. While I'm highly skeptical about that premise and conspiracy theories in general, the accompanying discussion between Kenny and I about the historical incidences of politicians colluding to bring about their own political ends at the cost of human lives (namely the two incidents that drew the US into both World Wars), was rather scary. To what degree do governments operate the way we think they do? What actually happens in secret at the top? All scary thoughts, but perhaps the most serious accusation made by Zeitgeist was that the US government is intentionally inhibiting the education of the nation's children in order to make them more susceptible to distraction by entertainment and more compliant with the government's decisions on their behalf. Whether by actually impeding the procurement of quality education or simply espousing a message of constant threat and fear in order to cow its own citizens, I fear I believe the government does act to stupify the public. And what can be done against such an evil?
Maybe our movie has found its villain.
There were discussions last night between Kenny, Alison, Nate, and I about the possiblity of building a multi-media website that would be the platform for new artistic endeavors of all sorts, whether in the form of new movies, video shorts, writing, t-shirts, etc. Unfortunately, despite the exciting prospects this idea held, it was decided that not enough time and effort could be spared to really do such a huge project justice, but maybe this will be something to come back to in the future.
However this did spark off serious consideration about other new projects we could undertake, specifically in the realm of movie-making, and after some discussion we reviewed both our Epic Japanese movie and its accompanying trailer. Reinvigorated by this reminder of past accomplishments, Kenny and I agreed at least to produce another movie, most likely involving new characters and a new story, and probably slated for completion by reading week before finals. We've already begun discussing character design.
(I just returned a patron's ID card. Her name is Kara Freewind. What a name.)
Later in the evening, Kenny was watching a documentary called Zeitgeist, which concerns various conspiracy theories about Christianity, 9/11, and others, with the basic premise apparently being that a small group of individuals at the highest echelons of civilization are conspiring to unite the entire world under a single totalitarian government. While I'm highly skeptical about that premise and conspiracy theories in general, the accompanying discussion between Kenny and I about the historical incidences of politicians colluding to bring about their own political ends at the cost of human lives (namely the two incidents that drew the US into both World Wars), was rather scary. To what degree do governments operate the way we think they do? What actually happens in secret at the top? All scary thoughts, but perhaps the most serious accusation made by Zeitgeist was that the US government is intentionally inhibiting the education of the nation's children in order to make them more susceptible to distraction by entertainment and more compliant with the government's decisions on their behalf. Whether by actually impeding the procurement of quality education or simply espousing a message of constant threat and fear in order to cow its own citizens, I fear I believe the government does act to stupify the public. And what can be done against such an evil?
Maybe our movie has found its villain.
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