day 281. can you change your whole life in a day?

Have you seen Spike Lee’s 25th Hour?  This scene exemplifies the amazing direction of the movie, along with Edward Norton’s acting (which every film he’s in does; dude can do no wrong).  Why aren’t these two working together all the time?  Probably because being that awesome is exhausting.

When the scene focuses on just Ed’s face, with the one light shining in from the left–that shot is gorgeous.

NSFW:

day 280. posts with “fuck” in the title are inappropriate.

Yeeeah, what she said (in the heading.)  Oops!

Um, let’s play with some definitions here:

Anxiety–that feeling you have when you have to pay for something and you’re trying to remember whether or not you have enough money in your checking account to pay for it.

Elation–realizing that you do have enough money in your checking account to pay for your what you need, and also have more than enough cash left over to horde like a Scrooge-inspired maniac.

I’m registering for my Spring classes soon and one class that I’m hoping to get into is a fiction writing course.  It’s set up like a workshop and you write around three 12 page stories.  I am full of stories that I’m dying to share.  I’ve been thinking about one in particular for the past couple of months.  I thought it was fictional, but, especially with the events of last weekend, I’m starting to see it more as autobiographical.  There are two many characters and once I get the gist of their story figured out I’ll write more about it.

And because I am the girl who buys the shoes, then finds the outfit, I do have a tentative title for the story: “Worst Case Scenario: A Survival Guide.”

day 279. fuck you if…

OH my goodness, am I in a great mood or what?!

I’m not even going to get into it all because it will just sound like long, “woe is me” diatribe, and fuck that.

Anyway, fuck you if you think committing random crimes and vandalizing people’s property is alright.

And fuck you if you think that somehow it is a personal fault of a victim of a RANDOM ACT.

RANDOM–as in, UNPREDICTABLE.

It is absolutely frustrating to talk to assholes that are a fan of “if-then” statements.  Bad things happen at random everywhere; they’re not going to stop happening because of good timing or awesome foresight.  If you plan for the worst, eventually the worst will find you.

And fuck you if you think you’re somehow living above it all by constantly living your life in fear of something bad happening to you, and attributing your random success to yourself and not time, because, and trust me on this one, something out of the ordinary, unpredictable and undesired will happen to you.

Life is unpredictable and totally unfair–which is great, especially when the scales tip in your favor, which happens more often than people realize.  Just because you plan and do “everything right” doesn’t mean you’re going to avoid the shit-show that gets thrown at you sometimes.  Deal with it.

And whatever you do, don’t give me unsolicited advice when something unexpected happens to me.  Because, then I’ll just write a really long “fuck you” letter on here, and come on, don’t make me do this again.

day 277. la lucha.

 

I am in a constant battle with my id.  In fact, I think I’m all id.  My Psych class has me convinced that I am a thoroughly fucked up human being, unconsciously.  And what am I supposed to do about that?!  I didn’t develop psychologically past the stage of indulging each and every one of my wants…er, generally.  Also, I think I’m a hypochondriac, which I’ve mentioned before.  So whenever I read about anything I automatically assume I have it and WOE IS ME.

Getting a prescription of Xanax or something would probably solve the problem, but pills are expensive, and I’m a little on the cheap side.  Maybe drunken bouts with tequila will solve that problem?  It’s the college version of catharsis, or something like that.

So there’s one fight.  ‘Lucha’ because I have an Spanish oral exam on Friday and brain. won’t. stop. thinking. en. espanol.  And I am not going to find the little squiggly mark to put over that “n” because it is 3:30 in the morning and I do not care (that much).

Then there’s the fight with not eating meat, which, honestly, I know I won’t hold up too much longer.  My mom makes fantastic steak burgers and nothing compares to a well-made burger–not even a well-made veggie burger.  And chicken!  My God do I love chicken.

And lunchables are cheap, and they don’t come with a veggie option, so I’m forced to eat tiny little patches of turkey, and speaking of turkey—I am thankful for it, especially on Thanksgiving with homemade mashed potatoes, stuffing and cranberry sauce.  I don’t do turkey substitutes.

I find myself making a lot more exceptions to the rule then actually following the rule lately.  But it’s not a struggle that is entirely my own; everyone who decides to eliminate anything from their diet or life goes through this.  I’m also trying to eliminate “white” products out of my diet, such as sugar, bleached flour, and so on.  Sugar is tough, but I’m getting there.  I went years without drinking pop during my track days in high school and there became a point when I could no longer understand it’s allure…but then I just started drinking it consistently to get back in the habit and my love for it returned twofold.

Tonight at work, one of the RAs mentioned how she tried being vegetarian for a year and it just never worked out for her.  Later, while I was still talking about it, because move on?  Never!  One of the residents passed by and mentioned how he was vegan for a week–a week because he succumbed to the allure of the Big Mac.

I just don’t have it figured out.  Maybe I’ll just be a semi-vegetarian.  Or, maybe I’ll read Peta.org and just completely gross myself out about ever eating meat.  Or, maybe I’ll just eat a fucking burger.

The fights we fight today are the fights we fight [for the rest of our lives].

You would be amazed at how often I can relate real-world situations back to a single quote from Rocket Science.  The above is said by Ben Wekselbaum as Hal Hefner, the protagonist, tries to convince him to leave his city-life (he works as a dry cleaner in Trenton) and return to the suburbs to win glory on the high school debate stage.  Ben declines, because he’ll never return to the “goddamn suburbs.”  And when Hal explains why he needs to do this thing, Ben responds with the above.  And it’s something that resonates with me at least once every few months.  Strange, I know.  But, true.

day 275. screen tests.

I am so obsessed with the idea of sitting down with someone and recording everything they do and say for a period of time.  The New York Times “T” magazine does this with different actors, directors and various persons of interest, and while I love them (below is the link to my favorite screen test on their site) I like Andy Warhol’s idea better.  He’d sit down and have a camera focused on his subject’s face and let them decide what they want to talk about or not talk about.

No, no, I prefer the T Magazine’s screen tests to Warhol’s.  Warhol’s sound more interesting in theory but in reality, they’re just really self-indulgent people looking cute for the camera.  Interaction is much better than quiet observation.

I recommend the T’s screen test.

 

Click here for Vivienne Westwood’s screen test.

day 274. if the shins ever perfom in NYC, i’m set.

On my 43 Things, right below “Visit the Statue of Liberty” and right above “Eat a hot dog at Nathan’s on Coney Island”* is what is probably my ultimate goal, but which I don’t have too much control over, so I don’t put too much emphasis on.  The goal?  To see The Shins perform live.

You know those bands whose every album, LP and unrealeased track you have painstakingly accumulated throughout the year?  Well, Jeff Buckley is the one performer who I have done that with.  And I do happen to own every Kanye West album, purely on principal at this point.  Completing the set, you know?

But alongside my all consuming Jeff addiction, I loved The Shins almost as completely as I did Jeff.  At the time, I didn’t have the money, or the resources to fill my iTunes library with both artists, so I stuck with my Jeffy.  He was much more dramatic, I thought, and his tracks more rare.  Looking back on my Jeff collection, which I do not regret having, I feel a little bamboozled by the owner of his estate.  When I turn my duplicates tab on the majority end up being Jeff songs, from different live venues.  While the music is different every time he sings it, even I can’t argue buying three of the same thing, damn it.

But, back to the main point of The Shins.  I first was introduced to The Shins by myself while I wandered through the CD aisles of the library.  Intuition, probably.  I was collecting CDs to check out when I saw this great album art, which ended up being The Shins’ Chutes too Narrow.  I burned the tracks to my computer and listened to it every night before I went to bed.  I was absolutely hooked.  Then, Garden State came out and Sam mentioned this “life changing” song by The Shins, which I assumed to be off of my pirated album.  When the music began to play, I realized I was wrong and there was more glorious Shins music out there that I wasn’t listening to/letting change my life.  The shame!

Because to be honest, something clicked within me the first time I heard those opening chords to “Kissing the Lipless” and the melodic close to the album, “Those To Come,” which lulled me to sleep many a night and sometimes, still does.  I was never the same and just to be really dramatic, maybe I wouldn’t be the person I am today without the understanding I gained through James Mercer’s lyrics.  Yeah, let’s take it that far.

The next CD I pirated was Oh, Inverted World which proceeded to both up my (fleeting) indie cred and change my life.  What a great two-for!

I was a bonafide Shins fan; I downloaded songs from the Know Your Onion and Fighting in a Sack EPs and I waited in anticipation for their 2007 release of Wincing the Night Away.  At the time, I was convinced I would one day be a music journalist for The Rolling Stone so I subscribed to the magazine and took their album ratings as second only to God.  When they put the Wincing the Night Away review on the cover of the music section, complete with cartoon sketchings, I knew it was going to be another life changing album by The Shins.

I bought this album, which means a lot in the world of Bea.  I listened to it on repeat from beginning to end and I felt it and it was one of those divine moments I assume Taylor Swift fan feels when they claim that she “sings about their life.”  James Mercer was singing about everyone’s lives, ranging from the outcast high school girls in “Phantom Limb” to the lovers discovering their intertwined lives as destiny in “Sea Legs” to the other lover moving on in “Turn on Me.”

I will never, ever lose any of the love I feel for The Shins and for that album.  Seriously, “Girl Sailor” reflects my life more accurately than any Hannah Montana-Cyrus or Taylor Swift song could ever do for me, and it was written by a man twenty years my senior.  Which may be a weird testament to my personality, or, more likely, is a testament to the fucking greatness of his lyrics.  Or, most likely both.

All this to say, it would be an almost spiritual experience for me to see The Shins perform live for all the important moments in my life they’ve helped me realize and go through, without even realizing.  But, a new album doesn’t seem to be in the works any time soon, so neither does touring.  But, wandering around their official site yesterday, I found this link to a video from earlier this year with James Mercer singing “Something About Your Love” with Mason Jennings.

And, yes, I hope you’re now realizing that this post was actually just a really, really, absurdly long introduction to this video:

*This might get complicated by my newfound semi-vegetarianism, I may stop sporadically eating meat before I decide to do this.  But then again, exceptions can (and will) be made.

day 273. avoiding.

For my Films class, we have this midterm paper that we were supposed to do by last Tuesday, but whose due date got pushed back to next Tuesday, thanks to a discrepancy between the syllabus and what the instructor told us all.  We have to analyze this scene from Boogie Nights, which has actually been pretty fun to do.

When I took my Introduction to Fiction class last semester I had this revelation that most people probably realize very early on, and it was the simple realization that when a great writer sits down to tell us a story they’re not exactly trying to tell a story about a porn star, for instance; they’re trying to tell a story about whether or not it’s possible to escape yourself, or whether you can change your entire life just by willing something to be.

I’ve been having a lot of fun analyzing different films and trying to understand the different stories being told.  Also, thanks to the inspiration of the Cities of Love films, I’ve been falling in love with Lawrence all over again.  Friday night, we stayed out late and went to a 24 hour cafe downtown, where I drank hot chocolate, and another guest watched the original Pink Panther in another room.  Then, last night, we hung around the Student Ghetto, a neighborhood of houses in town that is filled with students, walking around to different places, then ending the night with pizza from The Wheel, which is the greatest bar purely because they sell pizza next door.

This weekend was a winner.  Now, I just have to actually write that midterm paper.

day 271. BUT…

Alright, I’m obsessed with these shorts right now.  I once read that a short story is the hardest piece of fiction to write, which means that, with a minute a page, a five minute short must be really difficult to write/act/direct/shoot.

Take this five minute, 39 second story:

That packs a fucking punch.  And you’re invested!  In five minutes you’re totally invested in the lives of these people and you definitely want things to work out for them.

So much can be said and expressed in five minutes, it amazes me that we even need more than that to get the point.  Man, I’m obsessed with this film now but it’s just so beautiful and perfectly directed/acted/filmed that I can’t get enough of it.  I can’t wait to see New York, I Love You so that can be all I talk about for weeks.

day 270. cities of love.

Last week I watched Paris, Je T’aime for the first time and fell in love with the stories within the movie, the Cities of Love franchise and the possibilities hidden in every and any city around the world. It was quite fitting that I saw this before (and technically, during and after) my LA trip.

I can’t pick a favorite short, but Gus Van Sant’s is pretty great. Any lovely thing you could ever want anyone to say to you is said right there.

If you haven’t seen it, enjoy:

day 269. folding chair.

Let’s get a silver bullet trailer…