Currently Listening Crooked Rain Crooked Rain: L.A.'s Desert Origins By Pavement see related

every post i've made on my xanga for the last year has been concerning "living in the moment" and discovering/maintaining happiness and individuality through that simple philosophy. kinda redundant, i guess. any post that didn't have those common themes was a lyrical story using adjectives that i really like to feel sliding off my tongue or riding bicycles through my brain that only barely made any sense (however, i would argue that even when they didn't make sense on the surface, they established a tone or mood which can be just as affecting as an actual story). in fact, that is what i love about instrumental music. although some music claims to have a story that goes along with it, or was written with such and such in mind, there's no story without those words that claim a story, so music is just music, just emotion, because there are no words to tell you what to think or influence you. music is just sound and your emotional status and experiences. there's a piece i'm working on that i often improvise, and each time i play it, it is very different note-wise, but every time it has the same mood, the same emotions of weary sadness soothed by the fact that life goes on and who cares anyway? (yes, that is actually the exact mood that i create every time i play it).

however, films that attempt to be just a reflection of mood, a tone poem, don't interest me very much. why? i love music for its existence as just that; but from film, i want more. film is the ultimate artistic medium. if a picture is worth a thousand words, what about a film, made up of millions of pictures? film uses photography, music, art, theatre, to create a form of entertainment completely its own. this is why i love it. music truly is just the music's emotion and your emotion reacting. film, on the other hand, may have music, but it supplies images as well which are like another person in the conversation, influencing what's going on in the viewer's mind. maybe three is just too many (viewer, music, and visual) for such a personal experience as what i find with music. so film can't work as a simple reflection of an emotion. rather, it creates emotion and characters to connect to and images to remember and words to cling to or ponder. if we watch movies for entertainment, one could argue that we want to forget our lives and be sucked into the story, sucked into someone else's life. but this wouldn't allow for the interaction of your own emotions with the movie, which is important, to relate to characters and have inner conversations between you, the character, the image, the music, the words. are these just the differences between artsy movies and popcorn movies? between an intellectual's film and a hollywood commercial film? i don't think so... i don't like to break movies up like that, that's precocious and kind of ridiculous. i mean, i can equally value the high-mindedness of "the fountain" and the cute, funny, sometimes cheesy "aquamarine." the person who says they love french neo-noir from the 30s but can't bear america's romantic comedies of the time are... not people i would like. most people can appreciate both sides of the coin, and so pure entertainment and more personally-emotionally-involving movies are necessary and interesting and appealing. but then are the best movies perhaps the ones in the middle, that combine both worlds, that make you think and relate to the movie while thoroughly entertaining you? that suck you in but let you talk to the characters about your problems too? that may be full of jokes or action or fantasy, completely unlike real-life, but full of real emotion? think about it: your favorite movies, the movies that win oscars or are the best, that you remember and watch again, don't they follow that? bridge the distance between entertainment and intellectual intrigue? "lord of the rings" is entertainment, hell yeah, with epic battles and jokes and fantasy, but it is rich with emotion and sucks you into the story, lets you come along on the journey and think about the underlying themes of friendship, revenge, homesickness, courage. "casino royale" got some of the year's best reviews for being great entertainment (it's bond, after all) but creating a darker character with more background, more to think about. the best directors do this with every movie: steven spielberg is rich with commercial and critical success because all of his movies are human, with relatable and interesting characters, in an entertaining story that holds your attention throughout.

i guess the only obvious way to wrap that up is to say that i want to find that balance myself and use it in all of my movies. for the audience to connect and enjoy the connection.

to keep this boat afloat, well there are things you can't afford to know, so i save all my breath for the sails.

Currently Listening Nuclear Daydream By Joseph Arthur see related

beauty and the beast never fails to put a smile on my face. same with sleigh ride (orchestral version or the really cool acoustic guitar version i have... one or both of which will be heard in TSE: EFTULORSKC).

how to win over a damsel who has no dragon keeping her captive? although knights in shining armor walk by every day, sadly, the women wear their own armor and fight their own battles these days. hmm... this isn't supposed to be antifeminist... this isn't working as well i thought... i figured it would be a good metaphor and i could run with it, but now i fear that i have offended someone. i love women and equality! but like i said, everybody is so independent, and that's great, but not as great as recognizing how important other people are and that a great gift we have as humans is communication and learning about each other. movies and music are my life, but the one thing that interests me even more is getting to really understand people. to be able to predict their feelings and actions and know their experiences, and often share their experiences. i wish i had realized this when i was about three, and then my soulmate and i could follow each other's entire lives. i feel like if i meet my future wife in college, for example, there are twenty years of her life that i'll have to accept secondhand, that made her who she is, that i have no real idea about. of course, i'll have my own life that she wasn't part of either. and will we ever truly know each other if we haven't always known each other? to an extent, yes. i want to know it all though, because the people around me are the most interesting things out there. and often i wish i could learn about someone right now! i want to call someone and just listen to excerpts from their life stories and discover who they are and how they feel! but there are so many caveats: time, choosing who i want to get to know better at a given moment, and most people aren't very willing to open up. sometimes they're not just unwilling, but they aren't even in touch with their own lives enough to have answers. i guess you have to know yourself before you can pass out that information, and before you can start asking other people to describe their lives. so do i know my own life well enough? i certainly know my experiences, but can i know what drives me? do i want to? isn't that too specific, to try and figure out why i make certain decisions? i would rather be so spontaneous that there would be no formula to my actions, so knowing myself would generally be knowing that i am spontaneous in that i live in the moment. and sometimes i do. sometimes i speak my mind, ask those random questions to get to know the people around me, but sometimes, usually when i have the greatest urges, i can't commit to them. when you like someone, you have the urge practically every minute to tell them how you feel or ask them out... but most of us wait and repress and ponder and overanalyze such feelings so much that nothing ever happens or there is one brilliant moment when the feelings are released to the object of desire and the brilliance is either lit up with 300 watt lightbulbs or diminished with a rejection and faded out with a dimmer switch on the wall (next to peeling wallpaper of melting flowers). in this moment you want to ask him/her out, don't you?! i know you do, but you won't, and i won't, and we won't, and we'll mope and the person of desire will continue walking tall in their shining armor, shielded from any idea of the dragon within.

everyone old is already with me, on tiny decks, enjoying midsummer weather and friendly company, and in their picture frames there you and i will be, knowing what we've found.

Currently Listening The High Road By JoJo see related

i love driving late at night or very early in the morning. the darkness surrounds me and my world is limited to my car, my music, and the immediate area revealed by my headlights. the few cars also on the road only exist as three-dimensional objects for the split second that they pass you; otherwise, they are simply beams of light hurtling towards you or receding away in your mirrors. but it is even better when there are no cars around. when you can look in your rear view mirror and see only black, except for maybe a few houselights from quiet humble abodes, most likely full of slumbering people. i am at one with my car in my bubble, with my music that is my soundtrack as i float along the road. it is peaceful and relaxing. although i haven't tested this yet, i imagine if i was really upset, i would head out at night and just go driving and my dark, massive thoughts would lift up and away and fade in the darkness of the mirror. at once cut off from everything and everyone and yet still just a short drive from home or a cell phone call away from anyone.

i haven't actually bought this cd yet, but i did read a stellar review of it, and i will defend her and her "white trash" roots and her youth as long as i have to. heck, "aquamarine" defends those things without me saying a word.

my fingertips contain the ability to do anything. whenever my mind is on fire with excitement and action, beams of light are ejected from them like the transformed beast and they can pierce even the darkest corners of impossibility.