Postule

That's actually really clever. If you think about it.

What to say what to say what to say. Christmastime has came and went, and I enjoyed it thoroughly, regardless of the toil that so many others seem to go through in the process of "buying gifts for others."

It'd been a while since the band had gotten together to jam, and just before the whole Christmas madness got into full swing, we got together and had a little jingle before the Kringle. Let me tell you, we rock. I was surprised at how good we sounded, considering what ridiculous humans we all are and how long it had been since we'd gotten together. Gives me hope for the future, hearing actual music being played for the sake of playing it. No plans of how to market the band, no plans on making a specific kind of music, just seeing what we like and playing it because we like to. People who start bands to be in the music scene, people who make movies to get into Hollywood... they're the worst kind of villain.

My brother took a trip with his friends, who are somewhat known for their ballistic approach to trip planning, preferring the school of "let's see what the hell happens" as opposed to the "let's not starve in the damn Oregon forests" doctrine. Both are respectable, but one has a lot more followers than the other. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried about him, but I guess I was younger when I made my first trip to Seattle with my bonehead companions, so he mustn't be that bad off. Still.

Remember Nightmare Before Christmas? And remember Labyrinth? Remember these fantastical worlds these movies created, and created believably, that allowed people to br truly transported, and not just in the conventional "out to the movies" way. Really lost out of themselves and then out of their normal sense of understanding. Wait for Mirror Mask to come out, then we'll see if we can extend this list further.

Rather, we can extend it now. Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events did not dissapoint either in the "fantastical world" genre, or in the "fucking hilarious" Jim Carey role genre. Sorry, people. You can sit there on your high horses and hate till the day is through. You can denounce Ace Ventura and Dumb and Dumber and every other crappy movie the man has ever made but, in the end, I love him. I love him like a man loves a slim-version Playstation 2, and there's nothing, NOTHING you can do to stop me.

Anyhoo, the real triumph of Snickers, as I've come to call it, is the creation of this only-slightly realistic world, which is really where mature audiences derive their fantasy-based pleasure from. A world that is different, but a world of rules is necessary. The land of Tinky-Winky et. al. simply doesn't appeal to us, because none of the questions being posed are answered, and anything is possible. We want most things to be possible, but possible by a set of rules. Nothing turns us off more than utter chaos or total control. We like a happy medium.

In this world that could be London at times, could be Dust Bowl Ohio at others, could be Myst in still others, it's nice to watch as the director attempts to succeed at creating this world. He succeeds through his actors.

Now, normally, I try to avoid doing research on any of these films that I might judge them solely on their own validity, and not on their faithfulness to any other work or whether or not I hate the people involved, but sometimes this is unavoidable, and the director of Lemony Snicket seems, in his cinematic career, to have taken a liking to this "world we hardly know of" approach to film appeal. City of Angels, another of his works, I think, was a fine film, though I may be biased due to my predaliction for anything creatively theistic, and his other notable work, Casper, was... a movie.

So the man enjoys these films where an unknown world is unfolded to the audience. And, when done correctly, so do I, and this director has unlocked the secret to proving to the viewers that, yes, this is in fact a real place, though unlike any you've seen. As I said, this is in his talent. his actors are believable and delightful, and they lend the movie it's veracity. No amount of special effects or make-up or specifically dressed sets is ever going to convince anyone the place is real unless the actors in the scenes know it to be real.

The same goes for the slightly-less-legitimate but none-less-enjoyable Elf, starring Will Ferrel, once of my favorites as far as comedy's concerned. Funny, funny film, taking place a good deal in the North Pole, and it is only through the actors there that the North Pole really comes to life. And you can watch the famn featurettes on the DVD about how long it took to make the place and the sets involved and the forced perspective they used but, I tell you now, none of it means anything save for Will Ferrel and his childlike wonder in every moment on that set. Quite perfect as far as setting the mood goes.

I went and ate at Original Mike's yesterday. I'm not much one for touting restaurants, but this place was great. It takes a lot for me to sit up and notice if a restaurant's anything great, but it has a fantastic atmosphere (saying a lot, coming from me, and being here in the Southern Californian suburbs), a live band (not that great doing motley-vocaled covers of great songs... I'll take what I can get... it wasn't distracting or loud enough to break my conversation, which has a Mohs hardness scale of 10-LIKE-DIAMOND!!!), and the best food I've had in quite some time. I had center-cut swordfish with this delicious rice mixed with coconut, raisins and maybe even peanuts. I'm not one for that kind of cuisine normally ("that kind," here, being anything other than pizza) but it was absolutely astounding. I cleaned my plate. Afterward, in the kitchen.

Because I was grateful.

Anyway, I'm thinking that's going to be the venue for Fancy Dinner, which is an event we've recently cooked up consisting of little more than putting on nice clothes and going out for a formal meal, which we as the younger generation have the chance to do O-too-seldom. We're doing it Superbowl Sunday, my circle of friends and I having the generous faculty of not giving a shit about professional sports (mostly), and it may be crowded as it's slightly sports-bar-sy... but I think later on in the day it ought to clear out, and leave room for the civilized population to revel.

Fancy Dinner. Along with Sundown and Bacchanal (which we're bringing back this year)... we're getting to be some real Event-Goers.

Lucky us.

Post Yule. Get it?

Labor

I've been participating in the center's Facilities Training program for the second day now, as an additional bit of training for my soon-to-be-new position, and I have to say there's something liberating about it. I remember working at this movie theater and I'd mop the floors between each show, wipe everything down, sweep the theaters, take care of everything by myself, really. There's real freedom in this kind of work. There's real pride you can take from elevating something to its best possible level of presentation. I think there's some parallel to be made there between good, honest labor and art, attempting to reach some state of perfection. Perhaps a connection between this kind of work, this "janitorial" labor, and an art form, and a following connection between an art form and "art" itself... as long as there's a demarcation between the two.

As there most certainly is a rift between the idea of something being "an art," and something being "art." A friend of mine would argue with me to the death that Martial Arts (for purposes of self-fulfilling nomenclature, we'll say KUNG-FU!) was art, or at least a form of art. Simply put, Martial Arts could be an art, just as anything could be an art, but it could never be simply art. You can strive for perfection in anything, and by deriving from that a cultivated system of knowledge (the perfect way to punch the hell out of someone) you can make it "an art," but that's not "art," it's just not what art is. People rarely make the distinction.

Nor do people make distinctions between the floor of a movie theater and the floor of a slaughterhouse/sewage-treatment-facility. That's the other thing I've been reminded of lately from my days as a cinema employee .

Anyway, I'm at work right now. I just wanted to update from here. The wonders of modern technology.

More on this later.

I still owe you porn bingo, I know. I'm working on it. It's tough to fill up twenty-five squares.

Imbibe, All Ye Faithful

Before I begin talking about the things I'll be... talking... about, I feel it's important to include a slight disclaimer:

I don't mean to complain. For the most part, people who look for fault in everything rather than seeing the good in that which is around them bother the holy hell out of me. I personally try to refrain from complaining too much, lest I allow myself to be drawn into that sort of mindless dissatisfaction with life. However, I also hold firm the belief that things are not perfect, a lot of things aren't even good, and it is only through the questioning of norms and the scrutiny and subsequent defeat of accepted if imperfect practices that any improvement can be made. It is therefore that I must first make note of a bunch of crap before I can start talking about all the non-crap in the world. At least as far as this particular entry is concerned.

That being said:

How bad is life people? More accurately, how boring is life? How boring are we when, every holiday, we have to cringe and creep along the streets because, invariably, there's a good number of people who get blasted as quickly and completely as possible lest they be forced to use their conscious, unaltered minds to have a good time?

Is life that horrible for these people that they're incapable of enjoying themselves unless they're blitzed? Are people that bereft of personality that the only way they can be an enjoyable human being is to inebriate themselves?

Enough of the questions, I guess. It's not accomplishing anything. But it should be said and noticed. People use the holidays as an excuse to get shitfaced. And that's not all. Such a huge part of the holiday culture is drinking, as well. It's like you can't have a party without booze there. Not that this only holds true for the holidays, but being the holidays, there are plenty of parties to be had. Personally, I'm polytheistic. That doesn't mean I worship many gods like the ancient Greeks, that means I adhere to many religions, that I might capitalize on days off, holiday gatherings, and gift cullings, accordingly.

I've heard no less than three separate commercials being played ad nauseum over the radio advertising the many places and deals you can get buying booze. BOOZE BOOZE BOOZE! Picture how great your party will be! Mixing someone a drink! Your mom will have a drink! Everyone will have a drink! They'll be drinking! We'll all be DRINKING!

I thought we eventually grew out of the early-college-years fascination with alcohol. Like it maybe loses its novelty after a few years, but no. You need booze. We all need booze.

I also enjoy how my Christian friends have been saying "Happy Holidays." Come on, you wafflers. What's the point of being a zealot if you don't get to be zealous? Merry Christmas! SAY IT! Like it matters anyway! Who's actually celebrating the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ? Who isn't just having a day to get together with their families and have a good time. Put the gifts aside, put the materialism aside, put the commercialization aside, it's still a good time to spend with your family, and not one to think about how one time there was this kid that got born and he happened to be the son of God. Personally, I think Christmas in its current incarnation is more important as a sentiment than it was intended to be at its creation. Celebrating the creation of a deity seems too worshipful to be productive. Spending time with those you love and geniunely giving and caring about others seems infinitely more important.

I recently finished Chuck Palahniuk's Diary. I can't say enough about Palahniuk's work. Of all the media we have today, from canvas to film, there are people diong neat things. Everyone's doing interesting things in their respective discplines, but I swear that there is no one breaking any new ground the way that Palahniuk is. The guy is re-defining the novel. What he writes is different from anything else that has ever been, and it's amazing to be here and see it. To do something new in art is a truly remarkable thing, and the man is simply achieving it. I can say no more than that to his praise.

Diary is a fantastic book. Palahniuk really hasn't played much off the twist ending since Fight Club, his other novels having been straightforward in revelation while still revolutionary in content and style (I haven't read Invisible Monsters yet, so I can't attest to any pattern it may or may not reveal in Chuck's writing), but he goes back to it with a vengeance in Diary. Still avoiding being built upon the lattice of Fight Club, however, Diary Leaves you in the dark the entire time no matter what you attempt to deduce.

While reading Fight Club, if you are informed it contains a twist ending, you might be able to peice it together, to attempt to deduce the outcome (though not the movie... regardless of whether your friends say they did. Think of this, you didn't figure it out, and you're smarter than your friends, aren't you?). Diary has a twist ending. I don't feel bad telling you this. Because no matter what you do, no matter how many lines of logic you try to follow, no matter how hard you think or how smart you are, you can not figure out what the hell is going on in this book.

I have to admit, it was a singularly frustrating experience. The entire time I was reading it, as enthralled as I was by the story, I could not figure out what the hell was going on. He draws you along, does Palahniuk, he keeps you involved and gives you enough of his trademark painstakingly-researched inner-dark of the everyday world, but at the same time you are surrounded by this surreality, this nonsense that simply does not tie together until the end. Fight Club's ending at least came as a surprise. With this novel, you're waiting for the twist. You're aching for the twist, for anything to come along and explain what the hell is going on.

And now, on to the question of publishing. Bit of a pet peeve for me, I'm going to describe for you the actual process of starting this novel.

1) The Cover: Diary, a novel by Chuck Palahniuk. The front cover is filigree serrated on one side, revealing a rose pattern on the following page.
2)Inside cover: The words: Where do you get your inspiration. Large, chalked-in.
3)The Rose-Page: Again, Diary by Chuck Palahniuk, along with some critical praise.
4)Inside the Rose-Page: Nothing.
5)Acclaim for Chuck Palaniuk's Diary: More critical praise.
6)Other side: Other books by Chuck Palahniuk.
7)Title Page: Diary
8-9) Splash page over the next two pages, pictures of significance once you've begun the book, along with the words "Where do you get your inspiration?"
10)Next page: More pictures.
11) Another Title Page: Diary by Chuck Palahniuk
12) Copywright information, a legitimately used page.
13)Yet another Title Page: Diary
14)Nothing
15)Page One: June 21st - The Three-Quarter Moon

Just struck me as a lot of excess crap in the front, that's all.

Anyway, great book.

Where do you get your inspiration?

Miscellany

I hate spiders. Too many legs. Unneccessary.

I went on the preliminary nature walk the other day, so as to have a basic idea of what the kids will be doing on their photo hikes (grade-specific challenge at the museum in which I work), and part of the plant-identifying portion was feeling the leaves of the plants to test for insect-repellability and water retention. I reached out at one point to touch the leaves of the lovely lantana flowering bush when I noticed, not an inch away from my finger and no less thick, was a green spider perfectly camouflaged among the greenery. I flipped out, as did the head of education who witnessed the encounter.

I don't know why I dislike spiders so. Being as into zoology as I am, I find them interesting, even beautiful, but put next to one I freak the hell out. I was gunshy for the rest of the trip, meticulously checking each leaf I was about to touch and every leaf in a foot-wide radius from it. Just now, a spider came running out from under this desk and scurried for the steps into the dining room. It's now history. Hell, it's geography.

There's a coloring book in the store at work. It's filled with pictures of drangonflies, butterflies, beetles, and particularly hideous visions of arachnids. There's a ton of merchandise in the store that's arthropod-related, ranging from coloring books to transformers to snacks. Yes, snacks. Made of bugs.

Nobody said they were selling.

It's funny, but these blanket marketing angles toward children, while seeming patronizing and underestimating, are sadly pretty indicative of pre-teen desires. You get some bugs, some dinosaurs, random things that look like some underwater echidnoderm that will slosh around in your hand and some tub or another of a viscous material that makes a fart noise and you've just made an executive gift basket for the juvenile Academy Awards.

Having played Santa Claus at our Christmas event this year, I was privvy to a lot of the requests proferred to my person (the best being one little boy who asked for a real live horse, whose brother then asked for a puppy, had felt the need to one-up his brother and asked for a puppy that would grow into a real-live horse), and you'd be amazed at the narrowness of the requests made. It was really nice grouping in a statistician's sense.

Bionicle, Bratz merchandise, Yu-gi-oh.... maybe three or four others outside of public-domain-gifts (pets, "cars/trucks," good will towards men...). As much as we'd all like to float around our world with the idea that we're all beautiful snowflakes, each different and special, we need only to look to our youth here in America to see how pigeon-holed we've become. There are eight, literally about eight things out there that EVERY kid wants at least one of, and out of so many kids with such a variety of personality and upbringing and means, you'd think there'd be more variation. But there isn't. Weird.

I don't know if this speaks to marketing executives pushing their products on the kids. I don't know if this speaks to humans as a whole not being as individual and complicated as we'd like to believe, and only is this acutely visible during our sipler, larval state. I don't know if this speaks to the marketing executives affecting our lives to such an extent that they have created these mindless Children of the Consumer that are so swayed by whatever trend happens to come along. Whatever it is, we are, from a young age, consolidating our independence as far as mass psycology is concerned. This merely helps to translate into religion as we get older, as hussied-up jailbait and warrior robots are traded in for Jesus.

And yeah, who wouldn't want to get rid of the Aguileralites... but warrior robots? Is there no place for the battle-droid in our adult lives? In the aged heart, is there no room for the Transformers?!

Which brings me back to the coloring book. The first page of the coloring book is a beetle, then a butterfly, then a dragonfly, and so on. Then you get three beetles, then five dragonflies, than eight spiders, etc. Soon, to those flipping through it and not actually painstakingly filling in all the little shapes and crannies, the pictures begin to look familiar, as stencil after stencil is revealed to be differently-oriented reproductions of the same few images. Sometimes mirrored next to each other. Each one more complex from the mixing and overlapping, but nothing new or even indicative of fair amount of effort.

The coloring book seemed designed solely for the purpose of keeping the kid that gets it busy. Give him the coloring book for a while, a box of crayons (both reasonably cheap, much cheaper than a babysitter or daycare for damn sure) and let him occupy himself by trying to fill in all the little outlined sections with corresponding colors. Nothing stimulating, nothing even to challenge his motor skills or reaction time, like a video game. Just let him color within the lines and shut the hell up for a few hours. A few hours a day, if we can swing it.

The more I look at products aimed toward the youth of America, the more it seems like our goal as parents is to get these little shits out of our hair. And we wonder why they're underdeveloped. We wonder why they're slow learning to read. Why their incapable of independent thought. Why they've atrophied before they could even develop.

It's better to burn the core of a mind out by running it too hard than to let the battery die from disuse. You can always repair, but after a while, a dormant mind won't be able to start.

Also, what's with "Mystic River"? It's like they decided they'd add a thesis statement right there at the end and didn't want to add any subtextual backing of the postulate in the actual preceding film.

Elevation

My roads are slightly brighter now, as they stretch off into whatever life I'm going to eventually end up in. I never take things for granted, and for the past year or so, due to certain circumstances, I've been assuming things would be pretty bleak even in the best chances. There was a while I would have been happy had I managed to avoid ever having to live in Riverside (if there is a hell on earth, surely, this is it). Today I recieved word I will be attending Chapman University. Things are looking up.

And so it falls to me to decide exactly what I plan to do with my higher education. For the longest time (since exiting high school), I've been laboring under the assumption that I'm a film major. I love film. I love movies. Sure, you can't swing a dead cat in Southern California without hitting an aspiring filmmaker, but it's what I love and it's what I want. In addition, I've always felt that education could serve to learn more about film, but not necessarily aid in my skills at making films. I've focused on Film Studies, which I think I learn a lot more from than I would by studying how to work a camera. I make enough movies on my own (current slump notwithstanding) and don't need any further instruction on my method, lest my vision be affected by outside influence. That doesn't sound elitist. AT ALL.

Recently, though, I've begun realizing that perhaps majoring in film isn't in my best interest. After all, the job market out there isn't much for a film major, regardless of my plans for MFA-status and subsequent-teaching-job. I'd love to be a professor of film, but it worries me, the idea of getting into and through a master's program... and even beyond to a doctorate (O dream of dreams). Maybe a degree in zoology would suit me better. Physical anthropology. Biological science has always interested me, perhaps it's time I put childish things behind me and get serious about the future.

Thing is, I don't really feel that studying film, especially now, is a childish thing. I've said this plenty of times before, but I feel that the pursuit of art is the highest form of human achievement, and that film is the highest form of art, and I can't think of anything more important, in the existential sense, than following in my passion for film. Especially in an age like this, with so much importance being impressed upon insubstantial values and priorities, there have to be those of us that choose to walk a path of personal value, of greater importance.

Yeah, there's not much security in what I want to do, but the pursuit of it is so much more important than assurance. It's better to fail at this than to succeed at something else. I won't be giving up on my goals anytime soon. It may be the road less traveled, but it's the best road I could imagine.

FUCK UCLA!

Justification

History never appealed to me as subject matter. Sure, there's much to be learned there, and I've never been one to call any discipline of education a waste of time (save sociology, which is beating off with a catcher's mitt), but history just never accepted my claws when I tried to dig in. There are a few major occurences I enjoy, a few time periods that I'm truly interested in, and a basic understanding of the events leading up to my existence is possessed on some level... still, it just doesn't jive. Who knows why.

Thing is, I watched a movie last night with a scene that took place, specifically, in December of 1982. This was six months before I was born, roughly three after my parents had done the fun and conceived me (inconceivable as I am). I was not alive. At least, in the pro-choice sense.

This got me thinking. When I watch movies, I experience them, as anyone watching with any concentration does, and thus we become part of the story, part of the period. Stopping and thinking, dangerous as it may sound, showed me that, indeed, I wasn't alive during this scene, fictional as it may be.

I recently saw "Alexander." This took place thousands of years before I even existed. I was nowhere near being made, yet this movie took place in a world that would follow a path, like a bowling ball down a lane, and eventually get to a point where I was. A line could be drawn between the two points, and at one end of the line, I simply wasn't.

This is surreal. Also, slightly disquieting.

Thinking more on this, I started to wonder how much history actually has to teach us. Yes, to show us where we came from, or at least where the world we inhabit came from. Perhaps outside of geological history the point is moot, but historical studies maintain their validity through the retoric of the tried old phrase, "Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it."

Is this really so? Have the mistakes of the past not made for us now a world where such mistakes are much less plausible? The mistakes of Hitler and Napolean taught me never to invade Russia in the winter. Would anyone need to invade Russia in the winter anymore? If they did, hasn't technology gotten to a point where it no longer matters when you want to invade, but more what brand of night-vision, infrared scope you'd like on your voice-commanded automatic personalized Rooskie-wrecker?

And yes, some lessons are important, but they're not so much questions to be answered by history as they are to be answered by ethics or critical thinking. Logic. Is it wrong to kill others? Should we wipe out entire races or religions? What would happen if I added hydrogen to chlorine? Why does that hurt so much?

History, I feel, has little left to teach us. History serves the purpose to orient ourselves in the span of time, and to bring the immense vastness of our heritage, our existential heritage, to some point of perspective.

We live short lives, compared to the span of time. To the universe, we're hardly itches on the pinky toe of the cosmos. To our children, we are gods. To our governments we are sheep. To cats, we are merely space heaters, and the legs that come before the food.

To add upon our many views that of "insignificant speck in the eye of all time" is perhaps too much to ask of the everyday consciousness. Knowing our history, knowing the history of the world in our minds, perhaps brings us closer to it than we could ever actually be, bringing us a calm we might otherwise not know. Without history, without the knowledge of what came before, what a precarious existence we might lead. To not know what came before, to not know what lead to what we are, who we are, is a frightening prospect, even upon the heap of knowledge our predecessors have built and left for us.

We stand on the shoulders of giants, giants we'll never know or be able to truly understand, but at least they're giants we can see.

Facilitation

The rise of commercially available digital media in the country above old-fashioned film stock is largely, I believe, the result of the public's insatiabe-if-not-exposed enfatuation with amateur pornography.

There is nothing in the above sentence that I am against, incidentally.

Buying photographic paper to print your digitally-taken pictures on, buying the camera to begin with (though inarguably the one-time large investment pays off over time... should the machine continue to function), the occasional expensive replacement of memory chips and the upkeep of the various machines needed to garner these images roughly equals the same amount as it would to buy film and have the film developed at, say, Sav-On. So why the switch to digital?

It begins, as does so many things, with porn.

The idea of being able to print your own pictures without having to take them to be developed by someone else is essential for your average amateur pornographer. By nature the at-home-porn-producers are timid, perhaps a little embarrassed, and would rather not recieve the look of quiet comprehension conveying nothing but "ah yes, here's the porn guy." Worse, attempting to have them developed at a morally-righteous vendor, which would actively destroy the prints or refuse to have them made. I myself personally know someone who used to work at a one-hour photo developing kiosk who would make doubles of every risque' photo that came through his workplace.

Upon seeing these pictures (and, oh yes, I did see them) was not the amount of people in the stack that I'd gone to high school with (sweet lord) but how many pictures there were. There must have been hundreds, thousands of people patronizing that kiosk alone that were practicing amateur porn! Imagine how many there were citywide! Statewide! Imagine how many weren't just because of a fear of loss of privacy! Imagine how JUSTIFIED they were!

But now, with the advent of digital photography, these people need no longer hide in the dark. Need no longer fear the faceless photo-developer. Need no longer deny their desires. Digital photography ensures pictures of equal quality to film processing (should you even decide to print them onto paper, when information CDs full of your smut of choice is so much easier and secure) while allowing nothing but total privacy.

For the most part, it's cheaper. Or it's easier than having to use the one-hour-photo. Occasionally, it might even be because of an avid interest in the visual arts. A chunk of the population can actually truthfully say that everyone else was getting one, or they became so popular, that they just HAD to get a digital camera. And there are people out there who use digital photography without the porn angle, solely because it was the new media and they decided to jump on the bandwagon.

But digital photography for the masses was started, and is continued, in the name of all those little pictures you don't want anyone else to see.

Or, with the help of the internet, you want everyone to see. For $5.99 a month.

And, for the latter choice, in the long run, it's better than buying a scanner.

Porn Bingo, coming soon.