Caught in the Blog

Hello, and goodbye

2011-01-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I experienced a brief moment of internet fame thanks to a ranting, passionate post I wrote about the fact that hot mustard sauce was no longer available for Chicken McNuggets at McDonald's.

It was just one of those weird, random quirks of fate which the Internet seems to love so much. For reasons unknown to me, someone decided to post a link to the blog entry at Fark.com, which prompted a sudden surge in traffic to the tune of about 20,000 people over the course of two days.

This was sort of exciting, even though I couldn't begin to explain exactly why that particular entry was so weirdly appealing.

I bring this up because I discovered yesterday that Hot Mustard sauce has made its triumphant return to McDonald's restaurants, and I couldn't possibly be happier to have learned that. It's been a little bit more than four years since I learned of the loss, and now the world is as it should be again.

And so that's why I'm ending this blog.

Well, no, I suppose that's not really all there is too it. To be perfectly honest, this blog has been pretty untouched for a very long time (barring the occasional pre-Academy Award post), and was only missing having someone come in and officially close the doors. But as I thought back on that original Hot Mustard post, and then further back on the blog in general, I discovered two things -- first, I felt a sudden surge of desire to start blogging again. And second, I realized that this blog had run its course.

This blog is an artifact from a particular time in my life. It's not a time in my life I'm ashamed of or embarrassed of, it's not something I feel a need to hide from anyone, so I certainly have no intention of taking this blog down. Just the same, it's a particular time in my life that has passed.

I always find it troubling when when an online presence just sort of stops without any word. It makes you wonder what happened. Did the blogger have a heart attack and keel over next to his computer? Did he decide he had better things to do with his time? Did he just forget his password? It felt, after writing here for so many years, that it would be a disservice to just let the site become a ghost town without any mention of what had happened.

And so that's why this is goodbye.

Goodbye, Caught In The Blog. You were good to me for quite a long time, but it's time to move on to the next thing. My life is no longer the life I led when I called this site home. It's time to find someplace new.

I'll be sure to let you know when I get there.

Cheers,

Todd

Time to dust off the ol' blog for the annual Oscar predictions

2009-02-21T19:23:00.000-08:00

So here we are, the night before the Oscars, and I realized I hadn't done my predictions yet. Which, come to think of it, has pretty much been the norm for the last few years.

I briefly considered doing this as a "note" on Facebook (because Facebook has pretty much been where I've stored all my digital life these days), but it just seemed the wrong way to do it. And I know this blog doesn't get too much use any more, and god knows it probably won't see a sudden spike in use after that, but it still seemed like the right place to do it.

So, as is tradition, here is my list of predictions for the 2009 Academy Awards.

ACTOR IN A LEADING ROLE:
Richard Jenkins (The Visitor)
Frank Langella (Frost / Nixon)
Sean Penn (Milk)
Brad Pitt (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Mickey Rourke (The Wrestler)

And the Winner Is...
MICKEY ROURKE! This is a performance that has been raved about ever since the film premiered at festivals last year. If it doesn't go to Rourke, it'll probably go to Penn for Milk, but the story of Rourke's comeback to the film industry is just as compelling as the story of the film he's in, so it's a pretty safe bet.

ACTOR IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Josh Brolin (Milk)
Robert Downey Jr. (Tropic Thunder)
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Doubt)
Heath Ledger (The Dark Knight)
Michael Shannon (Revolutionary Road)

And the Winner Is...
HEATH LEDGER! This has been a pretty hotly debated category, with a lot of critics looking back to other posthumous winners -- and there haven't been many. In the end, I don't see Ledger getting it so much for his work on The Dark Knight (as much as his performance was great), but as a "Lifetime Achievement Award" kind of thing, given that, you know, he won't be offering any more performances, at all, ever.

ACTRESS IN A LEADING ROLE:
Anne Hathaway (Rachel Getting Married)
Angelina Jolie (Changeling)
Melissa Leo (Frozen River)
Meryl Streep (Doubt)
Kate Winslet (The Reader)

And the Winner Is...
KATE WINSLET! She's cleaned up in a bunch of the pre-Oscar awards (including snagging both Leading Female *and* Supporting Female, for two different films, at one awards ceremony) so she seems like a pretty safe bet. Also, this year's crop of Winslet films may be the last time we get to see her boobies on the screen, as she's recently admitted that she may retire the nude clause in her contract. A sad day...

ACTRESS IN A SUPPORTING ROLE:
Amy Adams (Doubt)
Penelope Cruz (Vicky Cristina Barcelona)
Viola Davis (Doubt)
Taraki P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button)
Marisa Tomei (The Wrestler)

And the Winner Is...
AMY ADAMS! Actually, okay, I don't really have any idea who's going to take this category. If it were me, I'd probably give it Marisa Tomei and her boobies in The Wrestler, but I'm not sure the Academy thinks the same way I do.

ANIMATED FEATURE FILM:
Bolt
Kung Fu Panda
Wall-E

And the Winner Is...
WALL-E! Come on, this is a film that many critics had pegged for a best-picture nominee. There's no way it doesn't take the Animated Feature award.

ART DIRECTION:
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Duchess
Revolutionary Road

And the Winner Is...
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON! It's a film that span's the entire life of it's title character (from the day's he's born an old man, to the day he dies as an infant) -- if spanning a character's entire life doesn't give your art direction team enough stuff to work with, you probably hired the wrong team.

CINEMATOGRAPHY:
Changeling
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

And the Winner Is...
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON! Fincher's films are always gorgeous. I haven't seen this one yet, but I'm willing to be it lives up to the rest of his work.

COSTUME DESIGN:
Australia
The Curiosu Case of Benjamin Button
The Duchess
Milk
Revolutionary Road

And the Winner Is...
AUSTRALIA! Too many period pieces to choose from on here, but I'm going to lean towards Baz Luhrmann, as his films tend to be pretty lavish. Though, again, I haven't seen this one, so maybe he decided to go a bit more reserved this time out.

DIRECTING:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost / Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

And the Winner Is...
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE! Is there any pre-Oscar award that this film hasn't won in this category? I made the same call on Brokeback Mountain a few years ago, for the same reason, and was disappointed. Here's hoping I get it right this time.

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE
The Betrayal (Nerakhoon)
Encounters at the End of the World
The Garden
Man on Wire
Trouble the Water

And the Winner Is...
MAN ON WIRE! Because...well, because I've heard about it. And it looks pretty cool, actually. I'd watch it.

DOCUMENTARY SHORT:
The Conscience of Nhem En
The Final Inch
Smilke Pinki
The Witness - From the Balcony of Room 306

And the Winner Is...
THE WITNESS - FROM THE BALCONY OF ROOM 306! I have no idea why. But it sounds gripping. Like someone saw something from the balcony of Room 306. Something terrible and dangerous.

FOREIGN LANGUAGE FILM:
The Baader Meinhof Complex
The Class
Departures
Revanche
Waltz with Bashir

And the Winner Is...
REVANCHE! Because its title sounds like it's in a foreign language.

MAKEUP:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Hellboy II: The Golden Army

And the Winner Is...
HELLBOY II: THE GOLDEN ARMY! Could go to Mr. Button, for making Mr. Pitt look so goddamn old, but I'm siding with the vast array of creatures in Hellboy to take the trophy.

MUSIC (SCORE):
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Defiance
Milk
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E

And the Winner Is...
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON! I kind of wanted to say The Dark Knight, but that's not an option I guess. C'est la vie.

MUSIC (SONG):
"Down to Earth" (Wall-E)
"Jai Ho" (Slumdog Millionaire)
"O Saya" (Slumdog Millionaire)

And the Winner Is...
"DOWN TO EARTH"! Because it's Peter Gabrial. He rocks.

BEST PICTURE:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Frost / Nixon
Milk
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

And the Winner Is...
SLUMDOG MILLIONAIRE! Because it's won every other best picture category its come across.

SHORT FILM (ANIMATED):
La Maison En Petits Cubes
Lavatory - Lovestory
Oktapodi
Presto
This Way Up

And the Winner Is...
LAVATORY - LOVESTORY! Because, how can you not love that title?

SHORT FILM (LIVE ACTION)
Auf Der Strecke (On The Line)
Manon On The Asphalt
New Boy
The Pig
Spielzeugland (Toyland)

And the Winnter Is...
THE PIG! Because, how can you not love that title?

SOUND EDITING:
The Dark Knight
Iron Man
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Wanted

And the Winner Is...
WALL-E! I still have no idea what the difference is between sound editing and sound mixing, but I think editing is more about the creation of sounds, which is probably way more important in an animated feature.

SOUND MIXING:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Knight
Slumdog Millionaire
Wall-E
Wanted

And the Winner Is...
THE DARK KNIGHT! Because it had lots of sounds mixed together, like whooshes and punches and explosions, and then the Joker laughs at something.

VISUAL EFFECTS:
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
The Dark Night
Iron Man

And the Winner Is...
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON! Because here's a case where subtle actually pays off. It might not be a great big iron suit flying through the air, or Batman on his kickass Batpod, but making Brad Pitt into an 80 year old baby is probably pretty impressive, from a visual effects perspective.

WRITING (ADAPTED SCREENPLAY)
The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
Doubt
Frost / Nixon
The Reader
Slumdog Millionaire

And the Winner Is...
THE CURIOUS CASE OF BENJAMIN BUTTON! Some serious adapting had to go into turning what is essentially a short story into a full length, 3-ish-hour movie, so I figure there will be some tipping of the hat to that sort of work. Plus it's apparently all heartwarming and stuff. Plus, Slumdog is already getting to major awards, no reason to be a dick to Ben Button.

WRITING (ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY):
Frozen River
Happy-Go-Lucky
In Bruges
Milk
Wall-E

And the Winer Is...
MILK! Because it's not easy turning one guy's whole life into a feature length film.

That's it for this year. Tune in on Sunday to see just how far off base I was!

Time for the semi-seasonal blog update

2008-11-10T22:33:00.000-08:00

No point in even talking about how long it's been since I wrote here, so we'll just slide right past that and get right to why I'm writing. And it's because I haven't got anywhere else to write.

I've spent the better part of the night sitting in front of this computer. Because, for once, for a change, I didn't want to sit in front of the television and play video games. Admittedly, I didn't know exactly what it is that I wanted to do, but I knew it wasn't that. I knew I didn't want to be around people. I knew wanted to have a beer in my hand. All of these things, under ordinary circumstances, should have told me, "What you want to do is write." So I sat down here, in front of the computer, and I waited to start writing.

The fact that I avoided the actual writing for so long should have been a sign.

I read Digg. I read my gaming sites. I got distracted by a bunch of not-terribly-funny videos at College Humor. I read a couple of articles at the Onion AV Club. Eventually, I ran out of shit to read and thought, "Well, you think you want to write. So just fucking write, you retard."

So I opened up the new play I've been working on, and spent, I dunno, maybe an hour on it. Got some stuff out, but it wasn't...good. It was just...just there. Just words on a page. Just slogging forward. Getting shit done. But it wasn't...good.

When I bored of that, I still had the need to write, so I opened this thing I've been working on about my cat. My dead cat. My dead cat who was about 12 years old who I had to put down last month, and who -- in the putting down -- led me to realize for the first time in my life that there was no God. This is something that's been haunting me for awhile now. I mean, I haven't been a practicing Christian in more years than I can count, but there was always something in the back of my mind that clung to the idea of a creator, of someone out there who, even if he didn't love us unconditionally, would at least give us some place to hang out after we were dead, even if that place wasn't completely awesome.

But then when I put the cat down, it just went. That whole idea just vanished. Suddenly, God was the most ridiculous idea on the planet.

And the truth is, I'm not really sure how one thing even really led to the other, and that's part of why I've been trying to write this thing -- to make some sense of it. To figure out how a dead cat would lead me to conclude that there is no God. But I can't make sense of it. Tonight was no different. I spent some time with that, and it went nowhere good, so I closed that one down too. And then realized...that was it. I had nothing else to work on. And still, this burning desire to write something.

So I came here.

There's another play I could be working on right now, I guess. I want to have two one-acts done for next March, for submission as ACToberfest shows for next season. I want to have two done so there are options. So it's not just trying to push one through because it's the only one available. I want to have two so I can actually go with the best one, or the one that feels right, or whatever.

But this other play is about suicide and loneliness and isolation, and to be completely frank, I'm really not feeling depressed enough right now to properly work on it.

So again, I came here.

Writing about the act of not writing is one of the weirdest, most counter-productive things I can imagine. I'm also pretty sure, in this blog's long, storied history, it's something I've done once or twice in the past. Because when you have that burning need to write something, even writing about not writing is writing. In some horrible, twisted way. Even if it just leaves you wishing that you were doing something actually productive, instead of just wasting a few more bytes in cyberspace.

I'm not completely sure, but I think that the last time I time did any serious, substantial writing -- on the play, most likely -- was before we put the cat down. And I really think that's because, since then, since I've realized that God is a joke and a fantasy, that I'm profoundly changed.

As it should be, I guess. One doesn't go from being a semi-Christian to being an atheist without a few bumps along the way.

It feels like I need to re-evaluate my whole life. Like the things I do, and why I do them, will have to be different now. When I write, it will no longer be because i feel a need to share a gift I was lucky enough to receive from some creator. It will be because...well, I'm not entirely sure why, actually. Which is probably why I'm having so much trouble actually writing anything write now.

I feel like this revelation should have freed me. Like I should be able to do anything I want now, that I'm no longer forced to live up to a set of standards created by an imaginary father figure. I should be able to do anything. I should be able to be anything.

Instead, I only feel like I'm nothing at all.

It's depressing

2008-07-18T10:44:00.000-07:00

It seems to me that when even taking a nap is depressing, things are getting pretty close to the bottom.

Okay, it wasn't so much the nap itself that was depressing. Being in bed, hiding from the world, okay, yeah, that was good. That's always good. But somewhere in the middle of the nap I had a dream. I don't really remember much from it, except that I felt terribly alone, and then I noticed that across the street was my family's house, and my dad was there, and my brother. And I waved at them and I tried to call them over to come hang out with me and hopefully send some of my loneliness away, but they just waved a hello to me and went back into their house, leaving me alone.

And then I woke up, and I was even more depressed.

According to my commonly consulted dream dictionary, this is what it means to dream of your family: to see your own family in your dream, represents security, warmth and love. Consider also the significance of a particular family member or the relationship you have with them.

It's a nice thought, but I don't think that's a broad analysis. Having your family turn your back on you and walk into their own house could not, in any way, represent "security, warmth and love." So fuck you, dream dictionary. Guess I'm on my own for this one.

Not that it's terribly hard to figure out. Watching your family turn your back on your represents isolation and loneliness, pretty obviously. After all, if there's one group you should be able to turn to when things are at their worst, it's your family, right?

So why so depressed? Plenty of reasons, I guess, but none of them terribly good. Certain parts of life are being spun around in the turmoil of change, and I'm having a tough time with some of it.

The feeling of stagnation in other parts of life, and the feeling like it's my own unwillingness to move forward in anything, unwilling to change or improve or even just try something new, is what keeps me back, keeps me stagnant, keeps me miserable. I keep seeing opportunities -- opportunities that might be good or interesting or fun -- slide by in front of me, and instead of reaching out for them, I let them pass by and I crawl into bed and pretend the world doesn't exist.

I know it's not the best approach. It's just the only one I have.

Which isn't true, of course. There are plenty of options. I could force a smile onto my face, and fake it for everyone around me until I actually started to feel happy. I could get medicated. I could go to therapy. I could admit myself to a hospital for treatment. I could quit my job and move to some faraway place and start all over again. There are plenty of options.

But, as always, actually *doing* something when you feel this way is just about impossible.

Far easier to just lay around in bed, miserable, suffering, waiting for death to descend upon you.

Way easier.

I really don't believe in medicating depression, for the most part -- I think, as a society, we're far too overmedicated already, I don't really feel like doing my part to add to the problem. But sometimes I can't help but feel like, at least with medication in play, I might be able to start taking steps towards some kind of improvement. Because right now, I really don't have the energy to do much except lie in bed, pretend the world doesn't exist, and slip into the arm arms of a sleep that is peppered with dreams of being isolated, alone, and ignored.

Quickie

2008-04-18T12:41:00.000-07:00

Been dabbling with lyrics to a song I'm thinking I might end this current play with (I'm not 100% sold on it, because it really is a way-the-fuck-out-there, over-the-top sort of ending, and I'm not sure I'm cool with that), and I have to admit, I'm kind of fond of this bit here:

He murdered his wife and his baby
Which is odd, cuz he's usually lazy
What is he, batshit crazy?
Uh uh, he's just a drunk

That is all.

Is it spring yet?

2008-04-17T12:09:00.000-07:00

The weather was actually warm enough last night that I was able to bring the laptop out onto the deck to spend a bit time of working on the new play. It was nice.

For the last couple of days, I've had the laptop set up on my desk, next to the desktop PC, mostly so I could juggle two different jobs at once (ripping CDs on the desktop, while I worked on a poster on the laptop). This was incredibly handy at the time, but it got me thinking that the reason I had picked up the laptop in the first place was so that I could actually do some work in locations that *weren't* my desk. Last night, I believe, marked the first time I'd taken it to the out of doors, which was pretty cool. Will likely try it again tonight.

I also stuffed a couple of the solar-charged lights in the planters out on the deck, to hopefully provide some evening illumination for my outdoor writing projects. They hadn't had time to charge, but still gave off a faint glow. I'm hoping their substantially brighter after a day charging -- they really didn't do much last night.

I bought a ten-pack of the lights a few weeks ago, mostly just because I liked them. I had no idea where I planned to use them, and I still don't really, though there are a couple of options. The first is to use them to light the path down to the central area of the backyard where I'd like to get a Gazebo put, hopefully this spring / summer (though heaven knows if that's even likely). Although with only eight lights left, I may need another pack to light the entire path (I've got a fairly long, windy back yard).

The second option is to light the various garden landings that are scattered periodically down the backyard. After, of course, putting some work into fixing them up.

The yard has seen some neglect. Actually, the last few years, the yard has pretty much *only* seen neglect. I'm hoping to change that this year. Fixing up the backyard is weekend project #1 for the spring and summer. Which is all well and good as an idea, but knowing me, once it gets to be time to do the actual work...well, the yard may very well be able to add yet another year of neglect to its list.

You're older than you've ever been.

2008-04-14T15:31:00.000-07:00

April 14th, 2008. Almost halfway through the fourth month of the year, nearly a quarter of the way through this year. Wasn't it just Christmas? What the fuck.

In another four months I'll be 35. Where does the time go? When did it start flying by so quickly. I'm getting old. This is insane. When do I have to start worrying about bowel and prostate cancer? When do I have to start getting scared that I'm still a smoker? When do heart attacks and strokes suddenly become a tangible possibility? Am I already there?

Good Lord, how did this happen?

I'm a wreck today. Only slept a handful of hours. Spent most of the night convinced that I was going to die in my sleep. No idea why. Arms hurt, and I had the shakes. Thought it was maybe a hangover from some intense drinking the night before, but I didn't feel *that* bad throughout the day. Seemed odd that it would hit me so hard at the end of it.

Death is everywhere today. It clings to my mind from last night's paranoia, then reading a story on the 'Net about 47 year old university professor dying of pancreatic cancer, then news of a man I had known briefly a few years ago killing himself. Death is everywhere.

I should be working on that play, the new play. Not much time to get it done -- the end of April is my deadline if I want to have a hope of putting it on for Actoberfest. Time slipping through my hands again. Time flying by faster than I can keep up. Two weeks to finish a 60 page play. Should be conceivable, but I won't get any work done today. Head is too thick, too tired, can't think straight.

Four months to 35. Fucking madness. 35 and then 40, and then 50, and then 60. Blink and it's over. Blink and you're on your deathbed.

More death.

Haunting me today.

I wish I knew why.

What waits for us after this life is over? Is this it? Close your eyes, rattle out your last breath, and then nothing. Just like you never were. Just like none of it ever was. That terrifies me. Incredibly.

Can't keep thinking like this. It's depressing.

If I don't get a decent night's sleep tonight, I will go insane.

Dusty around these parts again

2008-04-10T15:14:00.000-07:00

It's always weird coming back to this place after it's been ignored for a lengthy period. Partly because it feels like I need to make excuses about why I wasn't here, and the fact is, I've got nothing to offer, except, "Sorry, wasn't into it."

It also generally leaves me feeling like I've got to come back with some sort of big, splashy, exciting post, to make up for the last 30 or 40 days that I've left this place to stagnate. But again, I've got nothing big or splashy to offer here just a, "Hey, here I am again, apparently I'm not dead."

So, yeah, that's about it.

The novel still isn't finished, though it has been half-heartedly picked at a couple of times. A new idea for a play (an idea that, even by my own standards, is pretty fucked up) is rattling in the back of my head, with a few pages dropped down the other day. The commentary-track marathon has been a bit of a slack-off lately as well, though the dangerous-and-disturbing film fest is still going strong and on it's fifth week (though I did skip the last event, as it came in the midst of a nasty sickness). And perhaps the dangerous and disturbing films are better blog-fodder anyway.

I'm hopefully buying some bowls after work today. Large bowls. Standard cereal bowls are simply not always big enough, and yet that's pretty much all I have in the cupboard.

Yeah, it's exciting, I know.

On fires and asses, and one being under the other.

2008-02-28T12:37:00.000-08:00

So the Serious Moonlighting theatre group in Prince George is staging a reading of "Dinner and Drinks" tomorrow night.

As I understand, a "reading" involves a bunch of theatre types gathering together in room, sitting around with a copy of the script, and, you know, reading it. Except reading it out loud. And sort of acting while they're reading it.

Given the structure of the play itself (a bunch of people sitting around in a restaurant talking to each other) , a reading of the play is pretty the show, easily 95% of the show. There will probably be less food involved. And the waitress character probably won't move around so much. So that'll be different, but other than that, people sitting around talking, yeah, that's the play, in a nutshell.

I would have loved to have day-tripped up to PG to watch the reading, just to have the opportunity to see a bunch of other actors reading these lines. I know how they sounded when read by the group of 7 actors that *I* had on stage for the show last year, but different actors have different instincts, and the initial reading instincts are often different from the way a performance is gradually shaped over the months of rehearsal. So watching a dry a reading of a bunch of different actors would have been cool. Unfortunately, my car isn't really in road-tripping shape. So I'll have to sit this one out.

Having this reading, though (and seeing myself referred to in an email as "Williams Lake Playwright, Todd Sullivan") has sort of reminded me that I should get off my ass and do some sort of something as a follow-up. I mean, I do have a variety of writing projects on the go at the moment, and I have sort of bounced from one to the other lately, depending on what particular project appealed to me, but this moment does make me think I should maybe focusing on a new play. If only because it's really only been a play that has allowed me to feel any sort of success as a writer, and because it would be kind of cool to follow up with another sort of success as a writer.

And it's a lot easier for me to actually get a play from having-been-written stage to actually-doing-something-with-it stage, thanks to my involvement in the local theatre here. In can bring a script to the executive, say, "Hey, I want to do do this script," and very likely get a thumbs-up approval on it, unless they really hate the script. Or really hate me. Which has happened before.

Novels, on the other hand, mean shopping the product around from publisher to publisher, editor to editor, until someone says, "Yeah, okay, we'll do that." And then they sit on the book for two years before it goes out, and when it finally gets into bookstores, maybe 10 copies get sold, and those are just from friends and family. Which is sort of a sad prospect.

The novel writing still calls, though, even if the odds of success are slim-to-none. And I *have* been picking, little bit by little bit, at "Epiphanies". Which makes me feel pretty good. Even if it's only been little bits of work done on it.

But still, there's plays to write. And even though my intention after "Epiphanies" was to go back to editing work on "Waiting for a Miracle" I should probably distract myself with a little work on a play. Something. I mean, I've got three or four to choose from at this point. I could even work on them all, bit by bit. That wouldn't be a bad idea at all.

In retrospect, I've got very little to say here. All this "I should be writing more" crap has found its way out quite a lot in the last few months. I guess the reading was just yet another reminder, and it seemed like a fine excuse to blog, when I'd sort of neglected this space this past week.

Best laid plans

2008-02-19T13:25:00.000-08:00

So, like I intended, I sat down to spend time some on some technical work with the novel last night. However, unlike I intended, I decided that chopping the current chapter into two, in order to facilitate the chunks that were missed, wasn't the best approach. Because, as I sat down to it, I realized that what was missed didn't seem to be enough to justify a chapter.

So, instead, I decided to weave into the current chapter. This approach would actually allow me to accomplish a couple of different things.

First, it would allow me to get at what was missing -- essentially, at least one confrontation with a character that A) we needed to be reminded about; and B) needed to become at least slightly more threatening, as well as a scene where the main character and narrator gets fired (which is somewhat necessary to do what I plan to in the epilogue).

Second, by weaving this material into the current chapter, it will make the chapter even longer, and even more rambling, which was the intention for this chapter from the get go. I want to try to stretch out over twenty pages, jumping all over the place, without any sort of direction, and adding even more to it would help accomplish that, as the way it was originally sitting, I had given up on it before it crossed the 20 page mark.

Thirdly, it keeps me from breaking up the one-chapter-on, one-chapter-off pattern of the flashback scenes, which would have happened if I had only added a single chapter before the current one.

The only thing I'm not sure of is whether or not adding the material to the current chapter helps to fix what I was starting to fear was a pacing problem at the end of the book. Assuming there was a pacing problem. It was just sort of a gut feeling, and nothing I knew for sure -- and likely not something I'll know for sure until I finish it, leave it for awhile, and then go back to read it over again at some point in the future.

Of course, if that pacing problem *is* there, then it'll mean a pretty serious hack-and-slash edit job on the last third of the novel to fix it. But I'm going to go ahead with it this way anyway, for now. Because it's what seems right.

Novel work is on the agenda again for tonight, then I'll probably drift to something new tomorrow, just to keep things in my head fresh. It occurred to me last night that I should have a comedy of some kind on the go at the moment, for the days when I'm feeling, you know, funny, and not dark and gloomy. Which, lately, has seemed pretty unlikely, but I think I may be dusting off "Guts" just to be on the safe side.

On Writing

2008-02-18T13:45:00.000-08:00

So, in the interest of trying to get more content in this space on the progress of my other writing projects, here's a little update.

After finally hacking out the annual Academy Awards predictions (late, though not quite as late as last year, if memory serves me correctly) it was early enough for me to jump from that onto a completely different project -- a one act play tentatively titled "One Act Play."

Basically, it's a play about a character in a play who, upon discovering that he's going to die at some point in the play that he's in, refuses to accept his fate, drags the playwright on stage, and the two of them end up in a heated discussion that ends up being about life, death, misery, happiness, and the relationship between a writer and his characters. It's sort of a crazy, brain-hurting, experiment in meta-writing that I may not ever see through to completion, but the idea first started jangling around in my head last week, and I figured I might as well try to put some of it down on paper, just to ensure I didn't completely forget it. I don't know specifics about where it's going to go at this point, just vague notions of their conversation, and the idea of the character stepping into and out of a variety fictional situations, conceived of by the playwright.

The only problem I see with this particularly project is that it's pretty much unstageable, as the playwright actually appears on stage, and I don't want it to just be an actor *playing* the part of the playwright. That's not really meta enough for me. It'd have to be me. Which means that we could conceivably put the play on stage here, but not anywhere else. Which is fine, because I wouldn't imagine anywhere else would have any interest in a pompous meta-theatre experiment like this. I'm not sure the local theatre would be interested in a pompous meta-theatre experiment like this either, come to think of it.

On the writing agenda for tonight: I'll hopefully be returning to "Epiphanies" at long last, for some mostly mechanical work -- specifically, splitting up the most recent chapter to facilitate the addition of the chapter I think I missed while I was speeding ahead towards the resolution. I don't foresee a lot of creative work tonight, but this mechanical work will have to be done at some point before I can press on with the novel. And I do want to press on with it.

2008 Oscar Predictions

2008-02-17T19:37:00.000-08:00

Looks like it's Oscar season again. And it looks like the writer's strike has come to a close in time to make sure that comedy writers in Hollywood would still be able to write some likely painful and awkwardly funny jokes for the ceremony. Because even hacks need to feed their family.

As has become a tradition for me, I'll be predicting the Oscars. And, as is generally the case, I'll be making these predictions without any effort to see any of the films in the list. Because it's a whole lot more fun to be judgmental when you don't have any idea what you're talking about. Obviously, I won't be able to forget the films that I've already seen, and I won't be able to completely ignore the buzz I've heard about other films, but all in all, I think I'm going into this just as unprepared as usual.

The two big nominees this year are Paul Thomas Anderson's "There Will Be Blood" and the Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men," which makes this sort of an interesting year for me, as I'm enormous fan of both filmmakers. I'll be in a tough position, though, as I'm a bigger fan of Anderson, but have not yet seen "Blood" yet, so there's a very good chance I'll be tipping my hat in his direction perhaps more often than I should.

Still, we'll find out come Feb. 24, when the winners are announced.

And now, without further fucking around, my Academy Award predictions, fresh from being yanked out of my ass.

Best Foreign Language Film

Beaufort (Israel), in Hebrew
The Counterfeiters (Austria), German
Katyń (Poland), Polish
Mongol (Kazakhstan), Mongolian
12 (Russia), Russian

My Pick: 12 (Russia), Russian

Justification: We don't get too many foreign films around these parts, so obviously I haven't seen any of these. Also, unless you're a seriously major film geek (or a foreign film got a surprising amount of buzz) you don't hear too much about the foreign nominees, which means very little buzz to go. So I'm picking "12" just because I think the title is cool.

Best Visual Effects

The Golden Compass
Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End
Transformers

My Pick: Transformers

Justification: I can't believe I actually sat through this entire movie. It made my head hurt from about twenty minutes in, and it never let up. The characters where two dimensional, I didn't give a rat's ass about any one of them, and the dialogue was cringe-worthy. But the one thing you can't take away from the film is that it's visual effects were astounding. And pretty much the only thing that made the movie worth watching. Here's hoping the sequel does us all a favour and gives us more giant-robot fist-fights and less "story" -- or whatever the fuck they want to call the crap going on between the giant-robot fist-fights.

Best Sound Editing

Karen Baker Landers and Per Hallberg - The Bourne Ultimatum
Skip Lievsay - No Country for Old Men
Randy Thom and Michael Silvers - Ratatouille
Matthew Wood - There Will Be Blood
Ethan van Der Ryn and Mike Hopkins - Transformers

My Pick: Transformers

Justification: I'm still not entirely sure of the difference between the sound editing and sound mixing categories. Maybe if one of them was sound *design* I'd be able to figure out, but it's not. So I just...I don't know. All I know is that a bunch of giant robots beating the crap out of each other makes for a lot of sounds going on, so I'm picking "Transformers."

Best Sound Mixing

Scott Millan, David Parker, and Kirk Francis - The Bourne Ultimatum
Skip Lievsay, Craig Berkey, Greg Orloff, and Peter Kurland - No Country for Old Men
Randy Thom, Michael Semanick, and Doc Kane - Ratatouille
Paul Massey, David Giammarco, and Jim Steube - 3:10 to Yuma
Kevin O'Connell, Greg P. Russell, and Peter J. Devlin - Transformers

My Pick: 3:10 to Yuma

Justification: Pretty much just because I've heard good things about it, so I thought I'd throw them a bone, you know.

Best Live Action Short

At Night
The Substitute
The Mozart of Pickpockets
Tanghi Argentini
The Tonto Woman

My Pick: The Mozart of Pickpockets

Justification: Pretty much just the title again. But, I mean, could you imagine what the Mozart of Pickpockets would actually be like? I mean, imagine how nimble his fingers would be, as deft and dextrous as a piano-player's I'm sure. Also, he'd probably be really good. At pickpocketing.

Best Animated Short

I Met the Walrus
Madame Tutli-Putli
Even Pigeons Go To Heaven
My Love
Peter and the Wolf

My Pick: Madame Tutli Putli

Justification: Are any of these Pixar shorts? Because if any of these are from Pixar, that's my pick. Unfortunately, I have no idea if any of these are from Pixar, and I'm not allowed to look shit up on this, so I'm picking "Madame Tutli-Putli" because the name makes me giggle.

Best Original Song

Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova - "Falling Slowly" from Once
Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - "Happy Working Song" from Enchanted
Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - "So Close" from Enchanted
Alan Menken and Stephen Schwartz - "That's How You Know" from Enchanted
Jamal Joseph, Charles Mack and Tevin Thomas - "Raise It Up" from August Rush

My Pick: "Falling Slowly" from Once

Justification: Apparently "Enchanted" has a 3/5 chance of taking this category, so they'd be the smart bet. The only problem is, I'm not currently placing the name, and I heard that "Once" was sort of pretty good, so I'm throwing them a bone too.

Best Original Score

Dario Marianelli - Atonement
Alberto Iglesias - The Kite Runner
James Newton Howard - Michael Clayton
Michael Giacchino - Ratatouille
Marco Beltrami - 3:10 to Yuma

My Pick: The Kite Runner

Justification: This movie (and the book it was adapted from) came up in conversation a few weeks ago, even though I'd never heard about it. Apparently it has something to do with the history of strife in Afghanistan, which means it'll probably have a powerful, poignant score. Or that's what I'm hoping, at any rate.

Best Makeup

Didier Lavergne and Jan Archibald - La Vie en Rose
Rick Baker and Kazuhiro Tsuji - Norbit
Ve Neill and Martin Samuel - Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

My Pick: Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End

Justification: Rick Baker has a long and respected makeup portfolio...but, come on, "Norbit"? Fucking "Norbit"? You can't be serious. I refuse to even acknowledge that it was nominated. So PotC it is, then. Even if I can't even begin to tell what was makeup and what was CGI in that flick.

Best Film Editing

Christopher Rouse - The Bourne Ultimatum
Juliette Welfling - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Jay Cassidy - Into the Wild
Roderick Jaynes - No Country for Old Men
Dylan Tichenor - There Will Be Blood

My Pick: No Country for Old Men

Justification: Alright, we're finally starting to get to some of the interesting ones now, even if editing might be tough to call. Are they looking for the flashy, 10-cuts-a-second kind of editing? Are they looking for the subtle sort of editing you can barely tell is there? Are they looking for complicated, dramatic cuts? Who the fuck knows. But I'm going to go with "No Country for Old Men," mostly because I've seen it, and it was pretty well edited.

Best Documentary Short

Freeheld
La Corona
Salim Baba
Sari's Mother

My Pick: Sari's Mother

Justification: No idea what it's about, but if it involves a mother, and it's a documentary, it probably is supposed to make you cry about something. Which is as good a reason as any for it to win.

Best Documentary Feature

No End in Sight
Operation Homecoming: Writing the Wartime Experience
Sicko
Taxi to the Dark Side
War/Dance

My Pick: No End in Sight

Justification: Yeah, I know, Michael Moore is, like, the patron saint of this category these last few years, but I'm going to go against his health-system documentary and pick what I think (and hope) is a film about the war in Iraq, which is an issue for more on peoples minds at the moment. Especially amongst liberal Hollywood types.

Best Costume Design

Albert Wolsky - Across the Universe
Jacqueline Durran - Atonement
Alexandra Byrne - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Marit Allen - La Vie en Rose
Colleen Atwood - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

My Pick: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Justification: Haven't seen it, haven't even checked out a single trailer, but from the poster design (which is about all I can judge it from) it looks like it's sort of dark, stylized, period costuming, which is hopefully enough adjectives to get it the statue. And by hope, I don't mean that I'm hoping the film wins for the film's sake -- I couldn't give a shit about the film. I'd just prefer to be right about my prediction.

Best Art Direction

Arthur Max and Beth Rubino - American Gangster
Sarah Greenwood and Katie Spencer - Atonement
Dennis Gassner and Anna Pinnock - The Golden Compass
Dante Ferretti and Francesca Lo Schiavo - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Jack Fisk and Jim Erickson - There Will Be Blood

My Pick: Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street

Justification: Pretty much the same as last time -- dark, stylized, and period.

Best Cinematography

Roger Deakins - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Seamus McGarvey - Atonement
Janusz Kaminski - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
Roger Deakins - No Country for Old Men
Robert Elswit - There Will Be Blood

My Pick: There Will Be Blood

Justification: Okay, I'm just gonna come right out and say this. I love Paul Thomas Anderson. I mean, sure, I love his films too. But I seriously love that *man* as well. At least in interviews and documentaries and stuff. I don't know what he's really like, I've never met him, but when he's being interviewed, he's just so manic and animated. And he's really super cute and smart too. So I'm going to dropping a whole lot of predictions on "Blood" from here on out, I think. Even though I haven't seen the film yet. I hope it deserves them.

Best Animated Feature

Persepolis
Ratatouille
Surf's Up

My Pick: Ratatouille

Justifcation: It's Pixar, right? Isn't it? I don't know, honestly, but a bunch of people talked about it, so yeah, it'll win. Because people talked about it.

Best Adapted Screenplay

Atonement
Away from Her
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

My Pick: No Country for Old Men

Justification: It's tough call, actually, as my gut says it could go to "Diving Bell." But so much has been said -- and almost all of it good -- about how effectively the Coens adapted "No Country" that I can't help but put my prediction there.

Best Original Screenplay

Juno - Diablo Cody
Lars and the Real Girl - Nancy Oliver
Michael Clayton - Tony Gilroy
Ratatouille - Brad Bird
The Savages - Tamara Jenkins

My Pick: Juno

Justification: Juno has recently gotten labelled as this year's "Little Miss Sunshine" -- which is basically another way of calling it "The Little Indie That Could" (even though its indie status is somewhat debatable). I don't see it pulling in any major awards, so it'll likely take this one. Also, it's about a complicated and controversial topic that totally hasn't ever shown up as part of some crappy ABC after-school special: Teen pregnancy.

Best Supporting Actress

Cate Blanchett - I'm Not There
Ruby Dee - American Gangster
Saoirse Ronan - Atonement
Amy Ryan - Gone Baby Gone
Tilda Swinton - Michael Clayton

My Pick: Cate Blanchett

Justification: Cate Blanchett *IS* Bob Dylan.

Best Supporting Actor

Casey Affleck - The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
Javier Bardem - No Country for Old Men
Philip Seymour Hoffman - Charlie Wilson's War
Hal Holbrook - Into the Wild
Tom Wilkinson - Michael Clayton

My Pick: Javier Bardem

Justification: Dude was creepy as fuck. Also, that hair.

Best Actress

Cate Blanchett - Elizabeth: The Golden Age
Julie Christie - Away from Her
Marion Cotillard - La Vie en Rose (La môme)
Laura Linney - The Savages
Ellen Page - Juno

My Pick: Ellen Page

Justification: Well, they're sure not going to give Cate Blanchette TWO awards. And didn't she already win an Oscar for playing Elizabeth, like, ten years ago or something? So that would be weird, to have two awards to the same actor for the same character. So I'm thinking, maybe Juno gets a little extra lovin' over here. You never know.

Best Actor

George Clooney - Michael Clayton
Daniel Day-Lewis - There Will Be Blood
Johnny Depp - Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
Tommy Lee Jones - In the Valley of Elah
Viggo Mortensen - Eastern Promises

My Pick: Daniel Day-Lewis

Justification: I haven't seen it, but apparently if you have seen it, and you don't think that Day-Lewis is an absolute shoe-in for this, then you're a crackhead. And a stupid whore. A stupid crackwhore. And Hitler. Also, I love Paul Thomas Anderson.

Best Director*

Paul Thomas Anderson - There Will Be Blood
Joel Coen and Ethan Coen - No Country for Old Men
Tony Gilroy - Michael Clayton
Jason Reitman - Juno
Julian Schnabel - The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

My Pick: There Will Be Blood

Justification: I love Paul Thomas Anderson.

Best Picture*

Atonement
Juno
Michael Clayton
No Country for Old Men
There Will Be Blood

My Pick: There Will Be Blood

Justification: I love...okay, seriously, do I need to keep saying this?

Alright, that's all of 'em, at least according to Wikipedia (and we all know how trustworthy Wikipedia is, don't we?). I'll be back sometime after Feb. 24 to analyze the winners and beat the crap out of myself for all the picks I got wrong, plus a fair share of gloating for the picks I got right. See you all then!

*In my heart, I'm actually pretty sure that the Best Picture and Best Director wins have a better chance of going to "No Country For Old Men" as that picture is getting significantly more buzz from the critics than "Blood" is -- I'm just going out on a limb because I'm hoping to see some love for Mr. Anderson. I LOVE YOU PAUL!

Those who forget the past are condemned to probably be a lot happier

2008-02-17T19:23:00.000-08:00

I've been reading through old blog posts lately. Not sure why. But I want all the way back to day one and started reading (and occasionally skimming) through the whole archive. And it's...well, it's interesting, to say the very least.

A lot of is a like sitting down and flipping through a photo album, except I can't do that sort of thing, because I don't usually take pictures, and when I do, they don't end up in a photo album. But that sort stroll down memory lane is a bit like what reading blog posts from 2004 and 2005 and 2006 are like.

Sometimes all it takes is one post to drop into a mindset that I had three or four years ago. And I go, "Wow, I had almost completely forgotten about that." Sometimes I'll read something that had made me angry or depressed me, and it's written in a secretive, veiled way, so as to not potentially hurt the feelings of others involved, and I'll find myself thinking, "Wow, I don't remember what I was talking about at all."

Sometimes memory escapes us, and it's gone forever. And I'm inclined to think that sometimes that's a good thing.

I read through some very painful blog posts from around 2005 and 2006, and it just about broke my heart to have to live those moments again, if not in my own shoes, than at least in the shoes of someone nearby who had seen it all, and had known it all, and had known how it was all going to turn out.

Sometimes forgetting really is better. And sometimes loving and losing isn't all it's cracked up to be, despite what some shit-for-brains philosophers might try to tell you.

The one thing that I did find interesting were the occasional references to things that I was writing at those various points in my past. Some of them like "Dinner and Drinks" that was first mentioned in 2005, eventually went on to completion. Others were just quick references to things I can't even recall anymore. Stories that had disintegrated before they'd even made much of an impact on the paper I was putting them on.

But it got me thinking...wouldn't it be cool to be able to dig out more of those moments? To have a better record of the ideas as they come to me, as they expand, as they shift and change and either vanish or struggle their way to completion? Yes, that would be cool.

Which is why I'm going to put this here.

There's a story...or maybe it's a play, I'm still not sure yet...called "The Stain." It's about a stain that someone discovers on his carpet, except he doesn't know where it came from. Or, at least, he says he doesn't know where it came from. And as he talks to his therapist about his concerns about this stain, he gradually starts to drift towards the truth. And this stain, I think, may have something to do with rape. And not just any rape, but one of the most agonizingly awful rapes imaginable.

I'm not completely sure, but it could go that way.

Because what's the point of putting it down if it's not going to be something agonizing and awful. Whether it's a rape or a heartbreak. Whether it's fiction or it's real. Agonizingly awful is where I live. Or where I should be living. I'd probably be there a whole lot more if the decor didn't suck so goddamn much.

Obligitory, bitter, post-Valentine's Day rambings

2008-02-15T11:45:00.000-08:00

You love her
But she loves him
And he loves somebody else
You just can't win
And so it goes
Till the day you die
This thing they call love
It's gonna make you cry
I've had the blues
The reds and the pinks
One thing for sure

Love stinks

— Love Stinks
J. Geils Band

When I got married, our Master of Ceremonies made a bit of a flub during one of his speeches. Now, consider, that this man was not only a journalist, but a theatre-junky as well, which means A) He should know the importance of proper word use; and B) He should be comfortable in front of a room full of people, and not mangle his words because he's nervous.

He was talking about marital advice, and how he had once heard that, to live happily ever after, don't marry someone you can live with. Instead, and this is what he said, "Marry someone you can live without."

Which, when you think about it, is pretty poor marriage advice.

I think he meant to say, "Marry someone you can't live without," because that seems to make a bit more sense, and a better punchline for that statement. But in the last couple of days I've been thinking about this line, and this flub, and about the people you can't live without, and the people you can't live with, and how sometimes, because life is cruel and God hates us all, they're the same person.

I'm sure we all have some first-hand experience with the idea that love will turn up whenever it wants to. You don't get to call on it. You don't get to say, "Hey, love, that hot chick on the other side of the bar with the killer cleavage, you totally need to make me fall in love with her." You can maybe fall in lust with her, you can maybe even approach her and pick her up and have a few weeks of psychotic, sweaty, drunken sex. But when all that's said and done, you might have fallen in love, or you might have discovered that she chews her celery sticks way too loud and you can't stand sitting a the dinner table with her. And given the way things usually go, it'll probably be the latter.

I've done my share of falling in love, and done my share of getting my heart busted up because of it. I'm mostly okay with that, because that's that's just sort of what happens in life. You have some good times, you have some bad times, and at the end of the day or the end of the year or the end of your life, there's a balance.

But even though I can say that I'm okay with the whole love-and-then-heartbreak thing, I also need to say that I think I've pretty much given up on it anyway. Again, not because I'm tired of the heartbreak -- I mean, shit happens. It's because I'm pretty sure I've met the woman I can't live without. And now I'm living without her.

This might seem like a contradiction. I guess it is. I have an easier time with it because, while she might be the person I can't live without, she's also someone I most certainly can't live with it. And it's one of those situations where love, because life is cruel and God hates you, points you in the direction of someone who is just totally, completely wrong for you.

And it doesn't matter how much you admit that to yourself. It doesn't matter how much you say, "If we ever lived together, we'd probably kill each other within in three months." It doesn't matter how much you say, "We just don't have those many things in common." It doesn't matter how much you say, "She has horrible taste in movies and she's too driven by wealth and success and she doesn't even seem capable of understanding the attempt towards art." It doesn't matter how many times you say any of those things, because you're madly in love with her, and you can't do anything about that.

Because life is cruel and God hates you.

This idea -- being in love with someone who is just totally, completely bad for you -- beat the shit out of me emotionally for a very long time. And it still shows up now and then to give me a good solid punch in the kidney. Because it's such a contradictory idea. It tears your brain up. It drives you mad. It makes you wish that you were dead...or at least cold, heartless, cruel, and incapable of love. Or drunk.

But that's the way it goes sometimes. Life is cruel. And yeah, God probably hates you.

And you can't do anything about life's cruelty or God's hatred, so you soldier on. You say, "Meh, fuck it," and you try to forget about it, and even while you forget about it, you have to concede that you might as well give up on that whole stupid love thing at the same time. Because you've already done it -- you've already found the person you can't live without. But goddamn if you can live with her either.

The idea of not falling in love sounds bad, I guess, to some of the idealized romantic types, but it really isn't. It's surprisingly comfortable. Surprisingly safe. And it isn't even so much that you're running from the pain. The pain, broken hearts, crap like that, it isn't so bad. It's all part of the balance of life. All you're really saying is, "Been there, done that, found about the best I'm ever going to, and that didn't work out so well. Might as well call it a day."

Commentary Commentary: Trainspotting

2008-02-14T16:58:00.000-08:00

So it turns out that this week's commentary isn't from a film as old as I'd like (it's a 90s flick, but let's not pretend that's old) but I blame that partly on the recent realization that, in spite of my fondness for many films of the1970s, there aren't too many of them on my DVD shelf at the moment. Perhaps that something I should be adding to my list of things to do in 2008 -- expand the eras covered in my film collection.

The Trainspotting 2-disc "Collector's Series" set features two commentaries, one with director Danny Boyle, and one featuring Boyle, screenwriter John Hodge, producer Andrew Macdonald, and actor Ewan McGregor. In the interest of attempting to ensure there was never a dull moment, we opted to go with the track involving more people.

Which, it turns out, is actually not a commentary track per se.

Most commentary tracks involve people sitting in front of a television, watching the film, and talking about the film as they watch it, so that they are commenting directly about what is currently on the screen. This almost gives the experience that you are sharing the room with these people, as they reminisce about the process of making the film. Trainspotting's commentary (which, apparently, was borrowed from the Criterion Collection Laserdisc of the film) is actually taken from a series of interviews conducted in 1996, and edited together in a way that gives the impression that they are, sort of, talking about what you're seeing on the screen. Even if they aren't.

Because of this format, while the track does provide insight and information on just about any and every phase of the production -- from finding the novel, to adapting the novel, to making the movie, to reactions to the movie -- it sounds, for the most part, like four people who aren't in the same room together. When one person is talking, one person talks until his train of thought is done, and then someone else talks for awhile about something different and not entirely related to what the previous person had been talking about.

Which is fine, I guess, as far as its ability to convey information to listener. The problem is that it's terribly fun.

One of the best parts of group commentaries is listening to the interaction *between* the participants in the commentary. Hearing them laugh together as they reminisce, hearing them occasionally talk over one another as one person starts a story and another finishes it, hearing them ask each other question. The Trainspotting commentary, for all the information it provides, is painfully dry. It could have, and probably should have, been a lot more interesting. I don't place the blame on Criterion, who originally put the commentary together for the laserdisc at a time when commentary tracks were a new thing, a time when they were likely still figuring out exactly what a commentary track should be. And I can't entirely blame those who put together this new DVD collection either, as they simply might have been unable to pull the original participants together for a brand new commentary. In fact, it may very well be that there is no one to blame here at all, but in the spirit of the film, I'll blame heroin.

Because, you know, drugs are bad.

Commentary Commentary: Fight Club

2008-02-07T12:33:00.001-08:00

So there was no new commentary track this week (I was distracted by a sudden addiction to "Heroes" after my roommate plugged his portable hard-drive containing the first and second seasons into my Xbox), which is sort of good, as I'm a little bit behind in writing about the commentary tracks in general, so I've got a (brief) opportunity to get myself caught back up again.

So, *last* week's commentary track was on the film Fight Club, one of my favourite movies, and, I think, the best movie about the feelings of meaninglessness that were such a part of the 90s, as well as the frustration those feelings bred. It's not the best film of the 90s (for my money, that's Paul Thomas Anderson's "Magnolia"), but, I think, definitely the best film *about* the 90s.

In my ever-not-so-humble-opinion.

This viewing of Fight Club's commentary followed the previous week's theme of listening to writers talk about their work. We skipped the director and cast commentaries and spent two hours with the novelist and screenwriter for the film.

And it was...well, less than compelling, to say the least.

Chuck Palahniuk, the author of Fight Club (and a hell of a novelist) is clearly excited by the opportunity to talk about his book, about the adaption, and about the film. And would wouldn't be? It has to be overwhelmingly exciting for any novelist to have a book made into a film for the first time. And to have it turn out as brilliantly as "Fight Club" would be an even better experience.

Unfortunately, all of Palahniuk's efforts to spark up conversations with screenwriter Jim Uhls are just words bouncing off the man like a tennis ball bouncing off a brick wall. Uhls simply doesn't want to talk. And when he does break the silence, it's generally to praise a particular moment from his own screenplay. He has almost nothing positive to say about other facets of the film, or about the novel the film was adapted from, and you almost get the sense that the man is frustrated novelist only working in Hollywood to pay the bills, and frustratingly jealous of the success that Palahniuk has had as a novelist.

Or maybe he's just not the talkative type. Though dropping someone like that into a commentary track is, perhaps, not the best idea.

It's unfortunate, as I think a commentary track with Pahlaniuk and someone more conversational would be interesting. The man's a great writer, and giving him the opportunity to talk about the changes from the book to the film, the things he didn't like, the things he did, would be an interesting few hours. It's just that these few hours spent with "Fight Club" weren't those interesting few hours.

Maybe next time.

Writing when it's not-writing

2008-02-04T23:57:00.000-08:00

God, it's tough sometimes to make yourself write something, when what you're going to write isn't what you want to write, and what you want to write isn't going to get written because you put it off for too long and now it's too late to get started on it. But you feel like you need to write something anyway, because you're trying to do more of that, that writing, even if all you're going to end up writing about how much a pain in the ass it is to write when you're writing something that you don't much want to write.

Which is what this is.

So, seriously, if you want to skip this, I won't blame you. Hard to convince you to read something I don't really much want to be writing in the first place.

But here it is anyway.

I should be working on a short film script I've promised some teenagers to cobble together for them, but it's too late to really get the ball rolling on it, because I know it'll take awhile for the ball to reach a decent speed, and by then I'll be all energized from the act of creation and I won't be able to sleep. And I have enough trouble with that already.

I should also be putting some working into an old story idea that got some new material today, or a brand spanking new idea that started rattling around in my head on the drive home.

Of course, I should also be putting some work into the almost-but-not-quite finished novel, because, seriously, I need to get that fucking monster out of the way before I can really make any progress with anything else.

Oh, and there was an editorial I really wanted to try to write for this week's newspaper. That didn't pan out so well either.

Where does the time go?

How can I have the best of intentions for all this writing, and then watch as whole days just whoosh by me without anything getting done? How does that happen?

I didn't even lose the evening to video games today. Sure, I played for a bit, maybe 90 minutes, but that's hardly anything.

90 minutes.

That's shorter than some movies.

That's less than half the running time The Godfather.

It's nothing.

But still, nothing done today. No progress made on any number of projects. What the hell?

Yes, it is a contest. And yes, you've lost.

2008-01-31T16:04:00.000-08:00

I can't remember any more why I ever bothered signing up for a MySpace account, but I did. I do feel a degree of shame admitting it, but it's the truth. I had a MySpace account.

I probably only ever visited the site a dozen times, and more than half of those times were to receive friend-invites from strippers and people who existed only to be advertisements for online sex sites. Which was fine, I guess. I had no problems calling strippers my virtual friends. Come to think of it, I wouldn't have any problem calling strippers my virtual friends. I just don't get to meet a lot of them in my day to day life.

But outside of those few times I needed to drop by to accept friend requests from people I didn't know, there wasn't really much point in ever going to MySpace. At its most basic, the core users seemed to basically use the site as an online popularity contest. To prove just how awesome they were by having hundreds or thousands of "friends" -- with many of them, quite often, people they've never actually met.

So my response was, pretty much, "This is fucking lame."

Then along comes Facebook. And it's pretty much the same thing, except it doesn't look quite as disturbingly horrible as most MySpace pages, and unlike MySpace, it seems to actually be designed so that you can keep up on the lives of your friends. So, quite unlike MySpace, it actually seems to be, you know, useful.

Then, of course, Face book released their API, allowing third parties to design applications for use within its pages. And suddenly everyone's excited, because the possibilities of what you could do with the site are now limited only by the imaginations of the people who were working with the API.

But then something sort of sad happened.

Suddenly, a whole bunch of the people who were designing these apps started building apps that were, essentially, popularity contests.

Here's an example.

I recently noticed a "Buy and Sell You Friends" application on the facebook page of one of my friends, and I thought, "Hey, that seems sort of cool." So I installed it, and one of my friends ended up buying me, and then I bought a few friends, and thought, "Yeah, this is spiffy."

And then the friends I bought were promptly bought away by me. And then no one else bought me. And then I realized that the whole point of the application was to inflate your ego by watching as your other friends fought to possess you. But if no one gave enough of a shit about you to try to make that purchase, you just felt like a fucking loser.

Which is what I felt like.

And it's not just that one. There are "Do you want to kiss me?" applications and "Would you do me?" applications and "Am I not the most awesomest person you've ever known?" applications, and they're all there for same reason. Ego self-inflation.

And I just don't see how you can win with those.

If the application says that you're a fucking loser, then you're going to feel like a fucking loser. And if you ever realize that you're relying on a retarded online facebook application to make yourself feel like a more vital part of society, you're also probably going to feel like a loser. Because you probably are.

So instead of keeping the application installed to remind myself of how big a loser I was, I removed it, and made the decision to boycott anything that even remotely resembled a "Popularity Contest" app. Because they're just fucking depressing.

But the bigger problem for me still persists. I'm fairly sure that there are people around who like me (I can't be 100% sure, but I have it on fairly good authority that there are at least a few) and yet, somehow, I just don't inspire a passionate degree of interest. People like me, but at the same time, they don't really seem to notice a whole heck of a lot if I'm alive.

Which is also depressing.

I'm just not sure *why* this is. Is it that I'm likeable, but mostly in the background? Is it because I'm not constantly pushing myself into the front of people's consciousness? I feel like an average cheddar -- appealing enough to snack on from time to time, but nothing you'd ever go out of your way to track down.

And the worst part of it is that, until I had this Facebook experience, I didn't even really give a shit about whether or not people gave a shit about me. It wasn't worth even a moment's thought. And technically, it's *still* not worth a moment's thought. But now that I've thought it, I can't stop.

I can't stop wondering, "What the fuck is wrong with me? Why don't people give that much of a shit?"

But I also wonder, "Would I even want them to? Would I feel better if they did? Or would I just feel like they were invading my life?"

I probably *wouldn't* want them to. But that doesn't stop me from wanting them too anyway.

Thanks Facebook. You fucking bastard.

Self improvement doesn't necessarily trigger an orgasm, but it really should.

2008-01-31T00:21:00.000-08:00

In the film "Fight Club," the character of Tyler Durden (played by Brad Pitt) says, at one point, that self-improvement is masturbation. He then implies that self-destruction is better path to choose.

It's an appealing notion, particular for someone like me who, for far too many years, has drank too much, eaten badly, and smoked like a chimney. Fuck self-improvement.

Except for the fact that this sort-of brush off of the idea manages to brings something appealing to it as well. Which is this: Masturbation is actually kind of fun.

I mean, it's not the most fun you can have, for sure. It's probably wouldn't even break the top five of sexual pass-times. But sometimes when there's nothing on TV and you haven't picked up a good book lately, masturbation can kill some time in a pretty entertaining way.

What I'm trying to say is, I've been masturbating a bit more than usual lately.

Which is to say, I've been on a sort-of self-improvement kick.

Nothing seriously over-the-top or anything like that. I haven't quit smoking, I haven't quite drinking, I haven't become a vegetarian, I'm not at the gym for two hours every single day. I tend to think that the people who do go over the top with stuff like this are the sort of people who tire of their attempts at self improvement very quickly, and return to those old habits they were trying so hard to break.

So, instead, what I'm trying to do is drink a little bit less, eat a little bit healther, get outside and take a walk every couple of days. Just little things. But little things that can be done without wearing yourself, without making you hate this stupid self-improvement kick and why the fuck did you ever think it was a good idea, little things that can eventually become a routine. And once they do, maybe push them a little further.

Masturbate a little bit more often, you could say.

All of this was ratting around in my head tonight, essentially, when I was making my third cup of herbal tea, thinking to myself, "I really do prefer these London Fruit and Herb teas the other brand I was drinking. They're much better." And then I realized that two months ago, I wouldn't have been drinking herbal tea, I'd have been drinking beer, at least a six pack tonight, because, let's face it, beer is awesome. But, instead of drinking beer, I was standing in the kitchen, noting to myself with brand of herbal fucking tea I preferred.

And I though, "Holy crap, I'm not sure I recognize myself at this moment."

And it was weird, because it was like I caught myself masturbating. And I felt a little guilty about it.

But at the same time, it felt pretty good too.

Commentary Commentary: Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

2008-01-28T21:59:00.000-08:00

Most commentary tracks have a pretty common formula. They'll usually have the director talking about the movie, maybe by himself, maybe with a few other people. They'll usually throw in one or two of the primary cast members to join him, if he's not by himself, and maybe one of the tech people. A cinematographer, if the film had a particularly compelling visual style, or perhaps one of the effects people, if the film had a lot of CG work done. And that, generally speaking, is your commentary track.

And for people who want to learn about how movies get made, or find out some of the dirty secrets behind the production, or just listen to a handful of people shoot the shit and reminisce, this formula usually provides a pretty entertaining commentary track.

But sometimes you don't want to listen to that. Sometimes you want something a little bit different. Sometimes you want to spend two hours listening to just a little bit of madness. And for that, you'd be hard pressed to find a better commentary track than the Hunter S. Thompson commentary on "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."

Hunter Thompson, of course, is the man who wrote the novel the film was based on, and a man who has lived his life pretty much the same way as his counterpart on the screen spent his time in Vegas -- pumping horrible amounts of every drug and every drink he could get his hands on into his body. And you can hear that sort of living in his voice. And in the occasional whooping hollers he bursts into, on occasion, while watching the film.

This isn't really the sort of commentary that you learn much of anything about by watching. Thompson refers to the film's director Terry Gilliam as gay on several occasions, explains which scenes he likes and which were shit, whoops, eats a radish, tries to phone Johnny Depp and then leaves a brutally violent message on his answering machine, and talks, at length, about what a disgusting human being Timothy Leary was.

In other words, it's pretty much like reading anything Hunter Thompson wrote in his life. Which means it's pretty goddamn awesome and pretty goddamn psychotic all at the same time.

If you're not a fan of the man's work, you're not likely to be a fan of the film (even if you *are* a fan of Gilliam's, because even while it's Gilliam behind the camera, and the film is full of Gilliam's visual style, this is really Hunter's movie), but if you are a fan of Thompson, there might be nothing more entertaining than sitting back and spending two hours with the king of Gonzo himself.

Grindhouse: Half Awesome, Half Teh Suckz.

2008-01-27T12:36:00.000-08:00

I finally got the chance to check out the Grindhouse double feature from filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez last night -- Tarantino's "Death Proof" and Rodriguez's "Planet Terror."

Unfortunately, I was checking out their individual DVD releases and not the official, theatrically released double feature. On the bright side, each film was released uncut, with about 20 minutes of footage replaced in "Death Proof" and about 10 minutes of footage returned to "Planet Terror."

I can't say either film was necessarily improved by the additional footage (having never seen the versions of these films without that footage) but I can say that "Planet Terror" was undeniably awesome, while "Death Proof" was...well, boring as shit.

Okay, the first half of it wasn't all bad, there were some psychotically gory death scenes. And the final car chase scene was definitely fun. But there's a point about halfway through the film where things just bog the fuck down, just when things were starting to pickup. And the problem is obvious. The film decides to spend just way too much time with a bunch of pointless Tarantino-esque dialogue. Worst of all, it isn't even terribly *good* Tarantino-esque dialogue. It sounds like some wannabe hack trying to sound like Tarantino and failing. Except it *is* Tarantino. So the failure is that much more painful.

In fact, while sitting through those scenes, I began to realize that out of a nearly two hour movie, there was maybe thirty minutes or so that was actually interesting. The rest of it was just...a bunch of people sitting around shooting the shit about crap we didn't care about.

Which is sort of old news, in the Tarantino department.

Then I realized something else: That there were eight hot, young chicks in this film, all dressed as exploitationally as possible (after all, these Grindhouse movies were an attempt to recreate the look and feel of bad exploitational cinema). And that, in all likelihood, Tarantino's entire creative impulse for this film was based on surrounding himself with women that he could try to hook up with.

Okay, so it sounds extreme, but I'm having a tough time thinking of any other reason for a movie with eight near-naked women and a script that was obviously slapped together during a single drunken afternoon. When Tarantino can't even effectively make a Tarantino-esque movie, you know he's just not trying. And probably into it for the poontang.

Also, I can't help but feel, watching him blather on about his film in the mini-documentaries on the second disc, that Tarantino is...well, a bit of a douche, actually.

A pompous, self-important, head-firmly-up-his-ass, douche.

It's sort of unfortunate that, for the most part, he's a pretty effective director. Outside of "Death Proof," of course.

On the flip side, "Planet Terror," is maybe the best movie ever made.

Srsly. See it. It is 17 different shades of awesome.

That is all.

That vague, sort-of radio-friendly melody makes me sad...

2008-01-21T11:56:00.000-08:00

I'm sure we're all fairly well aware of the connections between our senses and our memory. You smell a certain smell, and it transports you back in time. Or a certain taste reminds you, vividly, of a particular moment in your own past.

For example, the taste of Eat More chocolate bars always remind me of the smell of chlorine (and, in fact, vice-versa, with the smell of chlorine always reminding me of the taste of Eat-More chocolate bars) because, as a kid, when my dad would take my brother and I swimming, we were always allowed to buy one snack from the vending machine afterwards. And I'd always pick up an Eat-More.

Certain spring smells -- sweet, fresh, and somehow *green* -- always remind of me of that fantastic period as you approached the end of the school year, summer vacation just around the corner, and even though it was still maybe 4-6 weeks away, it was close enough to taste.

Generally, these are specific senses leading to specific memories. But I just discovered -- just today, in fact -- that there's a vague, general sort of music that reminds me of someone I used to know, someone I used to be quite close to, in fact. It's that sort of dull but kind of catchy, radio friendly rock and / or pop music. Something like Nickelback, for example. Or those thousands of other bands that sound almost exactly like them.

I heard a song earlier today, I have no idea who it was from, but it had that safe, radio-friendly sound to it. And, just like that, I was thinking of her. Out of the blue. Much to my surprise.

It took me a few minutes to figure out was going, to figure out what the connection was. It wasn't really a song that I had any specific memory of her listening to or being particularly fond of, so the connection, at first, seemed almost completely random. But then I realized that, even without that specific memory, it certainly seemed like the sort of song she'd listen to, and groove to, and say, "ooooh, I like this song," even thought it was really more or less a terrible song.

She had horrible taste in music, for the most part. Well, at least compared to my own taste in music, which is probably equally horrible, but at least more...diverse, let's say. For lack of a better word.

I'm getting a little bit off topic, which wasn't a terribly clear topic to begin with, so let me just try to steer it back to the point. Which was this: I was equally surprised and fascinated to discover that this simple little song, which had no specific memory attached to it, could still very rapidly fill me with an almost overwhelming feeling of loss and sadness.

Just like that. Bang. It happened that quickly.

I didn't feel particualarly bad today. In fact, I was sitting here at work, feeling fairly good, fairly well rested, maybe could use a glass of water or something, but for the most part I was fine. And then bang, 60 seconds into a song, and I sort of want to hide in the bathroom and have a bit of a cry.

It was weird.

I'm going to be 35 years old in August. Middle-age-ish, based on current aging numbers (and based on current lifestyle choices, *cough), but you know, science, feel free to keep working on that whole extending the lifespan thing. I'm cool with that.

But at 35, I can't even imagine to think of how many different things are stored, somewhere, in my brain. Things I've forgotten about. Things that I may never remember again. Or things that might suddenly burst into the front of my brain with the help of something as simple as a sound or a smell. And I can't help but wonder, how many other times am I going to find myself suddenly filled with a surge of emotion -- happiness or sadness or anger or whatever -- because of some external stimulus, and yet have no idea what that stimulus is or what it relates to?

I'd like to be prepared for that sort of thing, if I could. Better to be able to say to myself, "Whoa, there it goes again, my volatile emotions being triggered by a faint memory that stirred by an outside source," as opposed to, "Holy fuck, I suddenly want to cry again for no apparent reason. Clearly I'm going insane."

Though I suppose in a worst-case scenario, I could just track down an Eat-More and distract myself with the vague sense-memory of chlorine.

Mmm, chlorine.

Commentary commentary: Halloween (2007)

2008-01-17T12:54:00.001-08:00

So I had a bit of a panic when I realized that, after only one movie, I had already forgotten to maintain my intended regular-viewing of movie commentary tracks. Last weekend *should* have seen film number two of 2008 viewed, but, well, I forgot.

And, okay, it wasn't so much of a panic. I didn't break out in a cold sweat, my heart didn't start hammering in my chest. It was more of, "Oh, hey, I forgot to do that, crap," sort of realization. More disappointment than, panic, I guess.

But, not one to take disappointment well, I decided it was best to fix this problem as soon as possible. So last night I plugged in 2007's remake of the classic horror film Halloween and spent two hours listening to Rob Zombie yack about the production.

While I was a fan of Zombie's first two directing efforts -- House of 1,000 Corpses and The Devil's Rejects, I wasn't quite as impressed with his reinvention of the Halloween franchise. The extended opening, focusing on the young Michael Myers, was interesting but added little to the story, and may have actually undermined the character by attempting to overly humanize him. The middle -- and the core of the film -- is so reminiscent of the original that there seemed little point making it again. And the ending, which diverges quite drastically from the original, seems to diverge simply for the sake of saying, "Ha, see? It's different! Surprise! Boo!"

But, I am a fan of Zombie's work, and I am a fan of the Halloween franchise, so the opportunity to listen to the man dig on the process of creation while giving the movie a second crack (albeit in the background of the director's monologue) was appealing enough.

Zombie is probably one of the more entertaining commentarians among those I've listened to. His comments on Halloween include anecdotes from the film set, explanations of the mistakes that frustrated him the most, and information on which actor's were most prone to dickheadery. While none of this adds any particular depth to one's understanding of the film, it's an entertaining two hours. And let's not forget, this is Halloween. There isn't much depth required.

Most entertaining part of the commentary? Probably Zombie recounting how Daeg Faerch, the boy who played the young Michael Meyers, enjoyed the heck out of pretending to cut people up, beating the crap out of things with an aluminum baseball bat, and getting to say things like, "Fuck off." And seriously, what ten year old wouldn't?

Growing old is not growing up.

2008-01-14T11:43:00.001-08:00

Sometimes I look around my life, and I see it cluttered with things like books and movies on DVD and video games and comic books, and I think to myself, did I ever actually grow up?

And then sometimes I think, Do any of us?

I remember as a kid watching my dad go off to work. He worked for the school district, so he was a formally dressed, suit-and-tie kinda guy, and for whatever reason that made the impression on my youthful brain that this was how one dressed as a professional. This is what a grown up did. This is how a grown up dressed.

And I remember family dinners with mom and dad and my brother, always at around 5:00, always with the four of us at the table. We'd say grace and then we'd eat, and we'd talk about our day, and none of us would be allowed to have dessert until everyone had finished their dinner, and none of us would be allowed to leave the table until everyone was finished desert. And I remember going on family vacations, the four of us. Sometimes to visit relatives, sometimes to just get it away, but it was a family event, a pilgrimage that the four of us would take as a unit. And I can remember thinking, these are the things that grown-ups do.

And now I look at my own life, with no wife and no kids and no family of my own. I don't feel like I'm lacking anything because of it. I don't feel a terrible absence in my heart. But I do feel like maybe the absence of that absence is yet another sign that I haven't grown up. That I don't feel the burning urge to get married and start a family and buy RRSPs and read the Financial Post and plan for my future and my children's future and my children's children's future is some sort of a failing on my part.

But then I wonder too if the people that *do* do these sorts of things aren't doing it because of any sort of burning desire, but simply because it's what they've been taught they're supposed to do. Get a job, get a career, get a wife, have some kids, grow up, grow old, die. This is the cycle of life, or so we've been taught by generation after generation.

How many of the people who did this actually *wanted* to do this.

Are the people who live their life like that just as jealous of my rejection of that lifestyle as I am of their ability to conform to that supposed ideal? Are they more jealous?

A strange part of my brain still feels like I should be wearing a tie to work, if only because that's what you do. If only because that's what it means to be a professional. I don't, and I won't, because a bigger part of me thinks it's silly. It's the same part of me that buys video games because they're fun and reads comic books from time to time because some of them have some pretty goddamn good stories in them. It's the same part of me that doesn't want to grow up.

It's a part, I suspect, that we all have. It just speaks at different volumes, depending on who you are.

Deadlines suck

2008-01-10T22:49:00.000-08:00

I don't like deadlines, at least not in my personal life.

Professionally, they're a necessary evil. It's a part of life in the printing industry. You need to get your product to press by a certain time to get it out on the streets by a certain time. And to get it to press on time, you need to make sure that every other phase in its production is done in time. So week after week, day after day, there's deadlines.

In fact, I've been working in newspaper for so long I don't think I could get anything done at work without a deadline looming over my shoulder. And maybe that's why I hate deadlines so much when I finally get home.

I was laying on the sofa tonight, trying to read, and I just couldn't keep my eyes open. I was tired, wanting to nap a little, but I was trying to push my way through the book anyway. Because I was thinking, "You've got to get this done. This is reading time. Which is followed by surfing the 'Net time. Which is followed with some writing time. And then you have to go to bed."

And I suddenly realized that my whole evening was being governed by some set of self-imposed deadlines. So I promptly set the book aside, closed my eyes, and napped for an hour. Because, fuck deadlines.

I guess what struck me to was the stark contrast between today and yesterday -- which was my day off, and a day without any deadlines at all. Today, by 7:00 p.m., it seemed like that end of the day was rapidly closing in on me and I had to make sure I accomplished everything that needed accomplishing before it arrived. Yestarday, by 7:00 p.m., the day was still young, there was still so much that could be done, and there was no pressure -- self-imposed or otherwise -- about when it should be done.

Which got me to thinking. Is there a middle ground here?

How am I going to actually accomplish the sort of self-improvement projects that I'd like to do if I don't impose some sort of routine or schedule or...well, or deadline. How can I make sure I get some writing done each day if I don't say, "You have to sit down no later than 11:00 p.m. and start writing some shit down, whatever it is."

Is that even possible?

When I'm deadline free, stuff *can* get done. I had a fantastic day a few weeks back where I house-cleaned, took a walk with the dog, got some writing in, and *still* had time for video games and movies.

Unfortunately, most of my deadline free days don't go like that, as much as I wish they would. And if I try to force them into being that way, then I'm pretty much just imposing the same deadlines on myself that drive me so nuts when I impose them on myself.

It's nothing I can't live with, nothing I'm going to lose any sleep over, but at the same time it's at least a little annoying to think that, as much as I want to, I really can't have it both ways -- it's either deadlines, or non-productivity. I guess that's the way of the world.

Crappy digital cameras are so much awesome...

2008-01-07T19:29:00.000-08:00

I got a digital camera for Christmas from my parents. It is, to put it bluntly, pretty crappy. Which is awesome. For reasons far too complex for me to explain, I absolutely adore crappy digital cameras.

This is what it looks like:

Yes, it's about 2" wide by about 1.5" tall (or at least those are my awfully rough estimates -- I'm digging out a stupid ruler just to double check how big this camera is). Apparently it's supposed to be kept in the glove compartment of my car in order to photograph damage to the car during horrible, fender-bending accidents, so I'll have evidence to provide to the insurance company, should such a horrible, fender-bending accident occur.

But that's boring. I'd rather use it to take self portraits.

Or to take pictures of my dog.

I'm assuming you can tell by these photos that I wasn't kidding when I said it was a crappy camera. These pictures are exactly as them came off the thing -- not cropped, not downsampled, and not cleaned up in any way shape or form. That's just how this thing takes pictures. And they're really not that good.

I also hope you believe me when I saw that's so much awesome. I'm really not trying to pick on my folks. Assuming this little camera doesn't eat battery life (as I've seen some cheap little digital cameras do in the past) I think I could get quite a bit of fun out of this little thing. I'm weird that way.

Also: It appears this is my 500th post. Nothing significant to report on this particular day. Perhaps something more significant for post number 501.

People talking about movies

2008-01-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

One of things I've decided I want to try to do this year -- which, I should point out, is completely different from resolving to do something -- is listen to more DVD commentary tracks.

I like movies. Particularly good movies. Which is to say, I like movies that I like. And liking movies, I tend to buy a fair number of DVDs. I don't have a ridiculous number of them, but I do have a collection that's growing just about every week. Because I like movies, and I like to add movies I like to my collection.

One of the things I like about DVDs are the special features. And the consistent special feature on DVDs that I think has the potential to be the most interesting is the commentary track. Listening to the director or the actor or the cinematographer or whoeverthefuck talk about the process of making the movie can help you learn about the process of making movies, as well as give you interesting (if useless) trivia about the movie in question.

The problem is, as a general rule, I never get around to listening to those commentary tracks. I buy the movie, I watch the movie, I check out the *rest* of the special features, then the movie goes on my shelf and sits there, usually until I bump into someone who hasn't seen it, then I can force them to watch it, because it's obviously an awesome movie if it's on my shelf.

But this year I want to try to change that. I want to try to listen to more commentary tracks. Specifically, I want to try to listen to one commentary track a week during the course of 2008.

I got this particular ball rolling tonight with the commentary track on David Fincher's "Zodiac" -- the 2-disc special edition of which I picked up on Friday. I'm a huge fan of David Fincher ("Fight Club" is probably the best film around about the 1990s) and I've had a perverse fascination with the Zodiac killer since I first stumbled upon the book in my adolescence, so the combination for this film was almost perfect.

I dragged my ass out to the theatre to see the movie in the summer, and wasn't disappointed in the slightest.

While the movie is a lot less visually flashy than some of Fincher's past pictures, it tells a fascinating story -- not as much a story about a killer as it is a story about the obsession of the people trying to solve the mystery -- with generally strong performances working with a generally solid script, shot beautifully by an always interesting director.

Loving the film, as well as the subject matter, I was quite eager to get a listen to the commentary track for the film. There were two to choose from -- one featuring just Fincher, and one featuring a collection of cast and crew members.

I'll admit, I have a bias for directors. They're the ones who put the movie together. They're the ones who really pour their blood, sweat and tears into a production to bring it to life. Not to discount the efforts of everyone else on the production, but let's face it, however good a job anyone else did, a movie still belongs to its director.

Unfortunately, I'm always wary of single-person commentaries. It's a lot easier to get a dialogue flowing about the movie with the help of one or two other people, than it is to provide a monologue.

To Fincher's credit, there are very few silent moments in the film, though the discussion isn't always as fascinating as you might hope. For my money, the most interesting parts where where he conceded the changes that were made to the true story in order to better serve the film they were trying to make -- the moments of artistic license. Knowing that the film took some flack from serious Zodiac experts / junkies, I was glad to see Fincher acknowledge these changes, accepting that a film is a film and sometimes you have to do what best suits the film, even if it perhaps dishonours the facts.

Which I think is an important consideration to make with this film -- and any other film that claims to be "based on true events."

The true events of any story will likely take place over the course of weeks or months or years. If you're planning to adapt those true events into a film, there is going to have to be some condensing going on, because you're going to have to cram those weeks or months or years into 120 minutes. That's not going to happen easily. And it's not going to happen without taking some liberties with those facts.

Occupational hazard.

Watching the film, and being at least loosely aware (having read the book a couple of times in the past) of the material it was based on, I can say that Fincher and co. did a fine job bringing the material to the screen. While they might have played loose with some of the details, when it was time to get the important stuff on the screen, they did a great job.

As for the commentary track, as much as it had the occasional moments of interest, it was generally a bit too dry for my taste. Anytime I feel like getting up in the middle of something to look for something to eat, or to check my email, you've lost me at least a little bit. And the Zodiac commentary lost me, at least a little bit.

A consistent, regular output

2008-01-02T17:22:00.000-08:00

If there's one thing I should have learned from the three years I did National Novel Writing month, it's that writing -- and by that I mean having a consistent, regular output of words on a page -- is easy. You just do it. You sit down, and you write.

Now, it's not always going to be brilliant, of course. That's something you expect going in. And, I mean, isn't that what the editing process is for, at least in part? I think it is.

So as long as you're not going to lose sleep over the quality of the work, just sit down and do it. Sit down and write. Dump a bunch of words out.

Even if you're not feeling terribly inspired by one project, you pick a different project. Or you just ignore all your projects and write a stupid blog post. Like this one.

It's not hard. You just do it.

I remember another piece of advice I heard from an author -- who it was I can't recall for the life of me at the moment -- which said, force yourself to write for 30 minutes every day. That's the only commitment you need to make. It's juts 30 minutes, how much of a loss out of your day is that?

And if the writing goes bad -- if it's uninspired or weak or whatever -- you just pick up and walk away when the 30 minutes is done. You've at least done something. But if things go really, really well, you may find yourself writing for longer than the 30 minutes. Maybe an hour, maybe two. Maybe you'll put a whole bunch of really good stuff on the page. Who knows.

And that's stuff that never would have ended up there if you hadn't sat down for those 30 minutes.

I know these things. I've experienced them first hand. Now I just need to do them regularly. And not just by wasting time with a blog post on January 2 in an attempt to prove that, yes, in the new year, I really *am* going to write more often.

Still not prone to resolutions...

2007-12-31T21:56:00.001-08:00

There's something else I'd probably resolve, if I was the type of person inclined to make New Years resolutions, which I'm not.

I'd probably resolve to try to be happier.

I'd probably resolve to try to notice the things about the world that are beautiful more than the things that are ugly. As hard as that sometimes is to do -- as hard as that often is to do -- I think it's probably something *worth* doing.

And I'd probably resolve to try, if I was inclined to make New Years resolutions.

Which, for the record, I'm not.

I'm not dead yet...but I will be one day.

2007-12-30T19:16:00.000-08:00

I'm not sure entirely why, but I had a moment this morning, lying in bed, sometime around noon, where I thought, "Fuck, I'm almost 35, which is way to close to 40, which is way to close to the middle ground of a life that's gone almost nowhere and with which I've done almost nothing."

That made me a little bit sad. And, for just a few minutes, a little bit paranoid as well. I have real difficulty with the thought of retiring this life for the great beyond without having accomplished anything of any particular significance. I mean, I know, logically, that I probably won't -- most people don't -- but that doesn't make the thought of it any easier.

Nor does it make the thought that the only reason I haven't gotten closer to that accomplishment is because I tend to sit around on my ass not making progress towards accomplishments. Essentially, I have no one to blame but myself.

And that pisses me off. But then the only person I can really get pissed off at is me, so that just gets me stuck in a stupid little cycle that never goes anywhere either.

I don't make new year's resolutions anymore. I used to, but just like most people, I have a hard time following through with this resolutions, regardless of how good an idea they might be. And then I feel like a failure and I hate myself.

But if I did make new year's resolutions, right at the moment I would probably resolve something that was connected to this desire I have to do something significant. I would probably resolve to write more often. That one's a pretty good bet. It was something I intended to do for the last few months, now that I'm taking some time off theatre, and something that just didn't quite work out. Of course there's no reason not to try again come January 1.

Not that I'm resolving that, or anything.

I'd also probably resolve to get more exercise. Which is to say, get some exercise at all. More exercise would make me feel better, give me more energy, and probably help me with the whole "get your ass off the sofa and get some writing done, you lazy fucker," thing that I've been having trouble with. There's so many good reasons to get more exercise, in fact, that I really can't think of a single reason why I haven't already, or why I shouldn't in the new year.

Not that I'm resolving that. That would be a mistake.

If I was prone to making new year's resolutions, I'd probably also resolve to quit smoking, but I think we all know what a ridiculous notion that is, so that one's not even worth mentioning, even in a fantasy world.

Plodding...

2007-11-18T11:17:00.000-08:00

I'm more than halfway through the month, and I've only sat down with the novel three times, which is sort of sad. On the bright side, last night's writing binge was not only longer than I was expecting, but *better* than I was expecting. I don't think the prose quite hit some of the heights of style that I've managed in earlier chunks, but it was a good sight better than some of what I've done lately.

I finally took a break from it when I realized I had another 4-5 pages to go in that chapter, but wasn't quite sure yet where to take it.

I do fear this thing is going to need some serious editing when it's done. I have a suspicion that there's a bunch of stuff that contradicts other stuff in the novel, thanks in part to taking lengthy breaks from it, and suddenly deciding a new direction to go with a certain idea (and forgetting a direction I already went with it).

It's also easy to forget that the whole thing is taking place over a terribly short period of time (though, towards the end of the novel, the amount of time that actually passes gets a little fuzzy, as the narrator is too tired to even keep track of that information).

It's way more than possible I could still have this thing done by month's end if I focus and keep at the daily updates to it. I don't know how likely that is, but it would be nice to finally have this beast done. It's going to a bit more than a year since I started it, so I guess that's turning into the norm (that's about what it took for me to finish "Waiting for a Miracle" between when I started it in Nano, and when I finished it the following August). And I guess in the grand scheme of things, a year isn't too bad to write a novel, though we're also talking about a year just for one draft.

Though, on top of finishing this, two to three plays, and an edit job on the previous novel, I now have the idea for a Christmas present project I need to spend some time on before too much time passes, or run the risk of never getting it done.

Sigh.

In other positive news, there's only five more posts until I hit the big 500th post here on the blog, so that seems a likely accomplishment for 2007.

Commitment to booze

2007-11-13T14:01:00.000-08:00

I caught an advance performance of the Williams Lake Studio Theatre's production of "Educating Rita" last night (technically their dress rehearsal, but it was a solid show), and wrote a positive review of the show for the paper this week. The performances were good, the stage was spectacularly designed, and the lighting did its job of subtly moving us through the transitions from scene to scene.

But one thing I noticed -- and this was just a personal observation -- that didn't make its way into my review was just how jealous I was of Frank's character in the play. Specifically, how jealous I was of his commitment to booze.

Here was a man who was downing glasses of scotch even while working with his student. A man who planned to head off to the pub after the teaching session for a few pints of Guinness, hopefully to elevate his scotch-buzz to something greater. A man who stumbled his way through a lesson while completely shitfaced.

I'm totally jealous of that commitment.

Because if you're going to do something, seriously, do it all the way.

I sometimes feel like I'm not committed enough to my attempts at self-destructive drinking. I've never down even an ounce in the morning in order to clear out the shakes. I've never turned to booze to get me through my workday, and I've sure never gone to work shitfaced.

All of these should seem like positive things, and they would be, if I was just firmly on the other side of the fence -- the side where people drink socially, with a comfortable frequency, and without bordering on a problem zone. But I'm not comfortable on that side of the fence. I'm sitting right on top of the fence, more than happy to drink enough to be well outside of the social category, but unwilling to take the dive to the *other* side of the fence.

Unwilling to do it all the way.

Unwilling to commit.

A funny thing to complain about, to be sure, and I can't even say it's really a complaint. If anything, it's merely an observation of my own lifestyle, and my own limitations. And my unwillingness to really dive headlong into my own attempts at self-destruction.

Unwell

2007-11-08T14:12:00.000-08:00

I'm not well. This, I'm sure, wouldn't come as a surprise to anyone who has known me for any length of time.

Sure, I have periods -- sometimes long periods, sometimes short -- when I *am* well. When my mood is just fine, when I seem able to at least function in the world, when life seems to be more than just a chore.

But, inevitably, those periods are temporary. Eventually I find myself falling down into a deep, dark, bleak pit, where the surface seems so far away that escape seems to be a hopeless dream.

And, inevitably, the more times you fall down into a pit like that, the harder it becomes to climb back out again.

It's a bit like making the bed, something I've always had trouble with. What's the point, I tend to ask myself, when I'm just going to climb back into it again and mess it all up?

And so it goes with the hole. What the point in climbing back out if I'm just going to fall back down into it again eventually anyway? And this leads to questions like, why bother with anything at all if our existence here on this earth is so temporary and so ultimately meaningless? And this, of course, is never a good frame of mind to be in.

More often than not I place the blame on the world around me. I feel sometimes like I'm not built to properly function in this world. Any and everything that I love or care about eventually becomes tainted with something, whether its people or employment or hobbies. Eventually everything loses whatever it was that made it special to me in the first place, and I'm left surrounded with dusty fragments of things that used be significant.

And for this, I blame the world, because it's easier to do that than to blame myself. Easier to blame billions of people than it is to look in the mirror and think that maybe there's something wrong with *me*.

But today I had that moment. A moment when I had to realize that maybe the problem *was* mine and not, after all, the world's. Maybe it's not the world that's broken -- maybe the world is just fine -- maybe it's something in my head, in my wiring, in my chemistry, that's wrong.

Hooboy, that would be a problem.

I was on antidepressants a few years ago. For anxiety, not for depression, but the effect the drugs had was the same. I felt better. I felt less anxious. I felt less depressed. For the six months I was on them, I was OKAY.

But I talked to some friends afterwards, after I had been off them for a few months, and I heard something odd from them. How I wasn't me.

Is this something more than just the realization that unless I'm a periodically miserable person, then I don't really seem like myself? Did these drugs make more significant changes to my psychology than just improving my mood?

And even if they didn't, maybe that one change is significant enough?

Who am I? What defines me as a person? If it's not my mindset, my hopes and dreams, my fears, then what is that defines me?

And if it is those things, then what happens to me when I start popping a pill to try to fix those things that seem to be broken? If those things define me, then who do I become when those things are replaced with something else?

This is why I've been wary of medication since my brief experience with anti-depressants. This is why I've avoided them like the plague, even during times when they probably would have done me some good. Times like now.

It's not a question with an easy answer. It's probably not a question with any answer at all. Just two different choices, neither of them right, neither of them wrong. Just two different choices, each with their own set of consequences, and no way to know which to choose.

The path of least resistance will likely prove to be the path I take. It always is. If I'm going to run the risk of feeling like this anyway, I might as well make sure the path I'm on makes for an easy stroll.

Disgusting, but mostly true.

2007-11-06T01:06:00.001-08:00

If you throw a handful of peanuts in your mouth, and chew on them for a long time without swallowing, you can almost make peanut butter. Right there in your mouth.

News: November, no nano.

2007-11-04T23:48:00.000-08:00

So here it is November again, and for the second year in a row, I have no official National Novel Writing Month novel in progress.

Last year it was because I already had a novel on the go -- one that I had started in the summer, the first novel in years that I had fired up *not* as part of national novel writing month. And this year...well, the novel I was working on this time last year is, in fact, still being worked on. Plus there's another novel (2004's NaNo novel) which I'm in the midst of editing, and there's a one act play about suicide, loneliness, and isolation that I just started working on a few weeks back.

So, while I have no officially NaNo novel, I do have work to do. I just need to start, you know, doing the work.

My plan was to use National Novel Writing Month as the excuse I needed to get off my ass and get back to work on at least one of these projects, maybe even more than one. I know it's still the beginning of the month, but I've already been slack on that. November 1 through 3 slid by without an ounce of work being done, and while I did dust off the novel to do somewhere around 1000 to 1200 words tonight, they were sadly uninspired. I knew where I was trying to go with it, but it just never quite got there. There were words on the page, but they were missing the fire underneath them that has been such a signature for this novel.

Okay, I guess you can't be "On" all the time. And I suppose, to some degree, I was probably playing catchup with a storyline I haven't spent much time thinking about in these last few months.

So maybe all isn't lost.

Although it'd be a lot easier to get motivated to write if Guitar Hero 3 didn't just come out a few days ago.

For those who are curious...

2007-10-28T12:21:00.001-07:00

In case you were wondering, now that I've stopped with the "Month o' Horror" updates, who far along I am, as of last night's screening (I love that term) of "Saw IV" I am at 24 films. While it seems a touch unlikely that I'll manage seven more films before November first, it's not impossible. And even if I don't quite make it, I'll have gotten close enough for me.

Saw: A dissection

2007-10-27T22:39:00.001-07:00

First off, I might as well confess right now that I'm giving up on this whole "blogging the month o' horror" thing. While I did entertain the idea of removing my previous "Month o' Horror" posts, I've decided to leave them as is, as a testament to my failure, and, perhaps, a reminder that I need to be more on the ball if I'm going to try doing this same sort of thing again.

Having abandond the strict "let's review each of the movies I've watched this month" structure of the "Month o' Horror" however has given me the freedom to do something a bit more vague, like write about a film franchise in general. Which is what I'm going to do right now.

The "Saw" franchise, specifically.

I think it's fair to say that there has not been a more successful horror film franchise to emerge in the 21st century. Sure, the "Hostel" films have their fans (and I'm among them). Rob Zombie built a mostly-successful mini-franchise with "House of 1,000 Corpses" and "The Devil's Rejects" before switching focus and helming the "Halloween" remake. And, sure, some of the old classics are still breathing (barely) thanks to films like "Freddy vs. Jason."

But if there is one horror franchise that has grabbed the attention of audiences, and won their hearts, it's "Saw."

But the question is, why?

I'll admit it, I'm not a huge fan of the first film. For the most part it works as an interesting and engaging mystery and thriller. Why are these two people chained up in a grungy bathroom? Who put them there? For what purpose? The film captures your attention right out of the gate, and manages to find the right balance between handing out information and keeping shit secret to make you happily go along for the ride, waiting to find out what's around the next sudden curve.

Unfortunately, the twist ending comes across as a twist for the sake of a twist, and that's something I just can't support. The sudden, shocker, twist ending is the lazy device of a bad a writer. Just ask M. Night.

If all we had to judge "Saw" on was it's original incarnation, it wouldn't have likely made a significant dent in the history or horror. It would be looked back on as a mildly interesting thriller that happened to exist smack in the middle of what some call the "torture porn" phase of horror. And that would be that.

Of course the money-men at Lion's Gate Films weren't content to leave it at that after the original film's opening weekend drew in significantly more money than was spent in its creation. And thus, horror history was made.

What's interesting about the "Saw" franchise is that, unlike traditional horror franchises like "Friday the 13th" or "Nightmare on Elm Street" or even more current examples like "Hostel," the "Saw" movies have actually tried to make their sequels feel like extensions of the original story, instead of just a bunch of new people being killed in a bunch of new ways (although, admittedly, the "Saw" films are also guilty of this one).

Maybe I'm in the minority, but to me, it's the growth of the "Jigsaw" character in "Saw 2" that makes that an interesting film for me. And it's the continued story of that character in "Saw 3" that makes it a compelling film (because, judged just on the film alone, it's not quite as strong as the second, though still above the first -- in my own humble opinion, of course).

Of course there's still more the "Saw" franchise than just that. As much as I hate to admit it, there's an almost existential heart pulsing at its center.

Okay, so it's unlikely that the "Saw" franchise will ever face serious critical study as part of a university film program, but you have to admit that a serial killer who tracks down people who have squandered the gift of life and forces them to re-evaluate their own desire for life (or death) has a little bit more going on under the surface than your average slasher flick (not counting attempts to find threads of Freudian subtext in the Friday the 13th series).

I'm not sure it's possible to watch one of the "Saw" movies without thinking to yourself, What would I do in that situation?

And any film that makes you ask questions about your own life and your existence has to be doing something right. Even if it's doing it with some of the most brutal and disgusting images to have yet been capture on film.

Unfortunately, what was a near-perfect existential horror trilogy has been marred by studio greed. While "Saw IV" isn't a terrible film, it doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessors, and was clearly a film made for money's sake, and not because the filmmakers felt the genuine desire to follow the lives of the characters they had created in the previous films. As much as "Saw IV" tries to be a part of the franchise, tries to continue to job of fleshing out the character of Jigsaw, it ultimately comes across as a pale imitator of the previous films, and not quite worthy of their praise.

Hope for the franchise isn't completely dead, of course. Horror films like this never really die, and Saws V and VI are already planned. As a horror fan in general, and as a fan of the first three "Saw" outtings, a part of me hoping that two more films will once again elevate the genre to something at least slightly above the norm, but if "Saw IV" is any indicator, we're in for more of the same thing we've already seen enough of.

Awards and more

2007-10-21T19:45:00.000-07:00

So "Dinner & Drinks" snagged the "Tenneessee Williams Award for Creativity" at ACToberfest last weekend. What that means, of course, is that no only did this show make a decent profit here in WL, it also grabbed some critical attention too, which is sort of the best of both worlds, and sort of make me happy. Really frigging happy, actually.

Ideas are already starting to rattle around in my skull for a one-act to write and direct for next year's event (whichi will be held in Prince George) and even though I'm feeling the burning excitement to get started on it, I need to remind myself that it's still and entire year away, and I really can sit back and take my time. No need to rush anything. Especially the ideas. Rushing those can sometimes be a serious mistake.

The trip to Kelowna, and the attempt afterwards to get back into the swing of things here in town again, have put a bit of a damper on the Month o' Horror thing. I'm doing an okay job of catching up on the films (sitting, I think, at about 16 right now), but I haven't done a very good job updating with my reviews of those films. And I'm beginning to wonder if I'll get around them all at this point, or if I'll just let them slide. I'd hate to let another project like this sort of go by the wayside, but time wise, it might be inevitable.

It was a busy weekend for horror movies, with two devoured on Friday night (From Hell, which isn't any better than the last time I saw it, and Freddy vs. Jason, a better film than it had any right to be) and three Cronenberg flicks on Saturday (Rabid, The Fly, and Dead Ringers). I followed up the Cronenberg fest by taking in his new film, Eastern Promises, at the theatre, but it left a mostly meh reaction, unfortunately.

That'll do for now. I think I'll try to toss out a Scream 3 review just to pretend like I might actually get caught up on this "Month o' Horror thing."

I wish I could plan things better...

2007-10-08T18:07:00.000-07:00

So this month o' horror thing was sort of a late idea, and I missed the first few days of October. However, I do still intend to watch one horror movie for each day in October, even if maybe I'm not watching one PER day. If you catch what I mean.

For example, I watched "Scream" on Oct 6, with "Scream 2" and "Scream 3" on the agenda for tonight. So, due to the magic of fucking around with time, I will label "Scream" my Oct. 1 film, "Scream 2" my Oct. 2 film, and "Scream 3" my Oct. 3 film. Even though I watched them on the 5th and the 7th.

I know it sounds unnecessarily complicated, but trust me, it works.

I might even futz around a little bit with the posting dates (if that's possible) to make it all *look* better. Because it's all about the looking good.

Speaking of "Scream" I think a review will be appearing within the next few hours (probably before I fire up "Scream 2")

Making habits

2007-10-07T16:51:00.000-07:00

Apparently making a habit of writing regularly is going to require more than just buying a laptop. This isn't entirely surprising to me -- I didn't think the acquisition of a portable writing device would suddenly, magically create the habit where, at least recently, the habit had started to stagnate. I did hope that having access to portable writing might make it easier to get back in the habit, when I could just start typing away in the living room, instead of having to get off my ass, go into the office, etc.

So far, though, that hasn't been the case.

I need to do, just for the sake of doing, and for the sake of breathing new life into this currently stagnant habit. Even if I haven't got anything of any particular value to say, just log in and say *something*.

Which is why I'm here.

The ACToberfest one-act festival we're taking "Dinner & Drinks" to is less than a week away. Only one or two more rehearsals to get the last few polishes in place, and to be honest, there's very little to polish anyway. Some of the actors on Thursday were a little rough on their lines, but there's not much I can say about that except, "Please, review their lines," and then hope that, you know, they actually do.

While in Kelowna for the festival, we'll be chatting with a videography team that's filming the event for 2010 Legacies Now, because our show was chosen to be the focus of the videography. Apparently our show "exemplifies" what Theatre BC was attempting to do with the fest, which was to give a venue to up and coming artists in British Columbia. So, you know, that's pretty cool.

Also trying to watch a horror movie every night this month, in honour of Halloween. Missed the first few days, but started on Friday with "The Ring," then followed up last night with Wes Craven's post-modern slasher flick, "Scream." I had gone out in search of the Friday The 13th box set, but after months of thinking about it, but passing it by, it was finally gone, so I grabbed the Scream package instead.

I've got about another 16 horror movies in my collection, so that'll get me through the majority of the month, but I have to rent a few, or add a few to my collection.

I may try to either write up some reviews or live-blog the movies as well, just, you know, as an exercise in getting back into the habit of doing some writing. And because this here interweb isn't already filled with a buncha wanna-be movie reviewers.

EDIT: Just found this interesting look at some of the stats from the Friday the 13th films (how many deaths total, per movie, blah blah blah) that's actually a pretty spiffy read for any fan of the slasher genre. Sadly, it just makes me wish I'd found the box set yesterday. Sigh.

Month o' Horror: The Ring

2007-10-05T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Ring was viewed on Friday, October 5

In way similar to how "Scream" dissects the very conventions of the sort of slasher film that it aims to be, "The Ring" attacks the very thing that we commonly use to bring those sorts of films into our lives -- the television and, more specifically, video tape.

Of course we don't *all* watch movies on video. Many of us have upgraded to DVD, and there are still the few, the proud, the hardcore, that actually like to experience a movie in the theatre. But videotape is still a cultural phonemenon. It's the technology that brought film into the home, and it's something we can all recognize and relate to. It's that connection that "The Ring" relies on. Its our familiarity with the concept of videotape, and the idea that death could strike at anyone -- ourselves included -- that help to make the film work.

"The Ring" was the first of what became a long line of horror films that had originated in Japan before being remade for American audiences. And for my money, "The Ring" is still the best.

It's not a horror film in the way that most of us are familiar with horror films. It doesn't use a lot of blood or cheap make-you-jump tactics. It's got more of a creepy-vibe going on. A slow simmer of unsettling imagery and and the unrelenting passage of time. In fact, if I had to compare it to an American horror film, it would probably be with Stanley Kubrick's "The Shining" which, much like the ring, relies on a tense atmosphere instead of kinetics or blood-buckets.

Watching "The Ring" on Friday night marked, I believe, the third time I had seen the film, and while I can't say it necessarily gets better with each viewing, it certainly doesn't get any worse. The cinematography maintains a sense of dread and death, while the dreaded videotape of death is still just as unsettling as the first time I saw it.

What might be my favourite part of the film (and there's sort of spoiler here, so consider yourself warned if you're against that sort of thing) is the ending. No, not the ENDING ending, which is fine in and of itself, promising a happy ending for the mother and son at the centre of the story, even while it suggests a far less optimistic ending for, uh, well, the human race, on some level. No, I mean the tease-ending. The one that makes you think it's going to have the cliched, "release the dead girl and she will be at peace and everyone lives happily ever after" sort of ending that, seriously, we're all pretty fucking tired of. But that ending is just a tease, and there's something for nastier waiting for us after the dust has apparently settled.

And that's the sort of thing that a horror movie supposed to do. It's supposed to unsettle us. It's supposed to make us nervous. Good horror movies aren't predictable. Good horror movies work because they give us the feeling that anything can happen, and that no one is safe.

Something "The Ring" accomplishes in spades.

Month o' Horror: Se7en

2007-10-04T21:26:00.000-07:00

Eventually, every film genre -- or film sub-genre -- births a film that is forever linked to that particular genre. Maybe it redefines it, maybe it brings a new legitimacy to it, maybe it's the perfect marriage of writer, director, and performers that bring a level of quality never seen in that genre before.

Whatever the case, "Se7en" is a film that will be forever linked to the serial-killer movie. And with good reason.

"Se7en" has a phenominal cast in front of the camera. Maybe Morgan Freeman has gotten a bit cliched in recent years as the wise, older man, but in "Se7en" it was still fairly fresh; Brad Pitt, as much as he could have taken the pretty-boy film career of someone like Tom Cruise, chose instead to challenge himself on a fairly consistent basis, and while "Se7en" maybe isn't his finest work, it's far from his least; and, of course, there's Kevin Spacey as John Doe, one of the most perfectly calm and perfectly chilling psychopaths ever caught on film.

And then behind the camera is David Fincher, whose previous film -- Alien 3 -- was a visual masterpiece even if the film was ultimately a failure. Fincher is one of the most interesting director working in Hollywood, and while his films vary from interesting if a little too pocorny (Panic Room) to jaw-droppingly brilliant (Fight Club), you'll never see a boring film from the man.

But it isn't just the cast and crew that elevates "Se7en" above most of the films in its genre. The script also works brilliantly, with a killer whose motivations are grotesquely easy to understand. As he slaughters those he views as sinners, and as the film flashes their sins in front of our faces, we can understand the twisted logic of his actions. Maybe we'd never commit those crimes ourselves, but when Doe talks about how sick our world has become, it's difficult to disagree.

Unfortunately, one of the drawbacks that comes from crafting a genre-defining is film is the inevitible copy-cats. And while "Se7en" certainly has its fair share of them, none of them can live up to it, and they don't come anywhere near surpassing it. The film remains one of the finest examples of the genre, and one of the finest examples of powerful genre filmmaking of any kind.

Month o' Horror: Scream 3

2007-10-03T19:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it couldn't last forever, I suppose.

As inventive and subversive of the genre that they were intended to be a part of as the first two Scream films were, the third film simply couldn't live up to the bar set by its predecessors (and that's even conceding that the bar was lowered following the second film). While the marketing materials in the box set give the impression that Scream "Trilogy" was intended as a trilogy from the get go, it seems pretty obvious upon viewing the third that this is a flat out lie intended only to make it look like the third film wasn't a disgusting grab at fans' wallets.

Screenwriter Kevin Williams didn't return to pen the script for the third outting, and director Wes Craven only signed on after being promised a greenlight on his own non-horror project, ensuring that he was likely not putting his heart and soul into the film. Which, for the record, shows.

Even Neve Campbell seemed reluctant to return, as her character appears in no more than half the film, and it might even be subustantially less. Instead, we're left with Courtney Cox and David Arquette carrying the film, making Scream 3 the "Gale and Dewey" show. And while these character, and their on-again-off-again romance might have been moderately entertaining in the background of the previous two films, it's nowhere near interesting enough to be thrust into the spotlight, as is done in Scream 3.

Also lost in the third outting is any attempt to poke at the conventions of the horror genre. Instead what gets poked at is the Hollywood system in general. If I didn't know better, I'd assume after watching this that both the screenwriter and the director had a overwhelming hate-on for the film industry while they were putting this film together. Hollywood actors, actresses, directors, and businessmen are portrayed in a stunningly negative light. I can only assume that the producers behind the film though that these scathing attacks were funny, because otherwise I can't imagine how something this critical could have gotten the green light from within the hollywood system.

And without spoilling the specifics of the end, I can tell you this: The inevitable reveal of the third murderous mastermind is likely to leave you with a reaction along the lines of, "Oh, it's him. Uh, who the fuck cares about him?" instead of the sort of, "Oh, of COURSE it was him!" sort of moment that we'd been expecting after two films with a far more logical explanation at their respective climaxes.

While there has been recent speculation that a Scream 4 may be in the works, I can only hope that for fans of the horror genre, and fans of at least the first two scream films, that this speculation remains nothing more than speculation. The end of this serious is awkward and embarassing enough as it is. Let's not actively work to make it any worse.

Month o' Horror: Scream 2

2007-10-02T20:00:00.000-07:00

Scream 2 was viewed on Saturday, October 6.

The one problem with sequals is that, inevitably, even when they're good, they're usually not quite as good as the first. And while "Scream 2" certainly makes the effort, it just doesn't quite reach the heights of its predecessor.

In fact, there's a scene early on set in a film studies class, where the discussion turns to sequels, and the fact that they're never quite as good. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if the scene was included as a small, knowing, wink of acceptance to the fact that, okay, yeah, "Scream 2" isn't really as great as the first one.

Part of the problem is the first half hour and inevitable re-introduction of every character. It drags the film down a little bit as the movie is forced to play "Where are they now?" just to get us caught up on everyone's life.

Part of the problem is that the movie-references that made the first film such an interesting take on the horror genre are mostly gone, except for a few references to sequels.

On the bright side, they approached the idea of a "real-life" sequel in the most obvious and least contrived way -- a copycat killer. It fits the theme, and it makes sense. They may not be the most common thing in the world of serial killing, but it does happen from time to time.

Also on the bright side, there's enough of a carry-over of the previous film's characters, and the details of their storylines, that this does feel like a legitimate sequal. Meaning that it feels like we're seeing a continuation of the lives of the people featured in the first "Scream" film, and not just another bunch of random kids being slaughtered in similar ways, as is the case with most horror sequels.

"Scream 2" is a decent enough ride, and while the eventual revelation of the masked psychopath doesn't work quite as well as it did in the previous film, it works well enough for a sequel. Which are often, as in this case, sadly inferior to the original.

Random Spam Moment of the Day

2007-10-02T15:13:00.001-07:00

From my inbox today:

Make a wild beast out of your penis - big and fleshy.
Don’t make women freak out when they take your pants off.

I can't say for certain, but I think if a woman took off my pants and found a big and fleshy wild beast, they'd be pretty damn freaked out. I know I would be.

Time flies when you're...wait, what have I been doing?

2007-10-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

So it's been a bit more than a week since I lost posted. Since then, Dinner and Drinks hit the stage and was a phenomenal, near-sellout hit, closing to standing ovations on three of the four nights, and exceeding my wildest expectations. I am ridiculously happy.

Also, I finally got my laptop which was ordered from Dell about four months ago. This also makes me happy, and it is with this laptop that I am currently blogging. Hopefully the laptop -- which was purchased for the express purpose of being able to write just about anywhere -- will actually help me to, you know, write a bit more often. On plays and novels and short stories and things like that. But, you know, on a blog too, from time to time.

Back to the play.

I have to admit that the somewhat surprising success of the show has left me feeling like...well, like there actually might be some avenue to success through this writing thing. It made me feel like all these years spent tapping words on out word processors were maybe not wasted, that maybe I *have* been working towards something all this time, even if maybe I wasn't always quite sure what it was, and even if at this moment I'm maybe not entirely sure what it is.

I have, of course, been considering the inevitable "follow-up." You don't have a success like this without thinking, "What next?"

And I really don't even know where to begin. As goofy as it sounds, a "Dinner and Drinks 2" has actually been rattling around in my head, just because the concept -- two people have an inappropriate conversation in a public place -- lends itself nicely to so many different scenarios. I was also reminded today of an old writing project I started but never really followed through on, which involved crafting fictional backstories to some of the classified advertisements that I would stumble across in a given week while working the classified department at the newspaper. This, I realized today, was another idea that would work well on the stage.

And then there's my multimedia theatre project, involving an onstage narrator, offstage voice actors, and a slide show of bad drawings, called "Spiffy The Chicken" which is about a chicken named spiffy and his adventures in the city, where he meets drug dealers and prostitutes and the like. And which would probably a disasterous choice for a followup.

But the biggest issue isn't so much finding the idea. There's ideas everywhere, they bounce around in my head constantly. The problem is writing them.

I look at parts of the script for "Dinner & Drinks" -- especially the particularly funny bits -- and I find myself thinking, "Where did that come from?" I know I can be a funny person, but it's mostly reactionary humour, someone says something, and I'll say something funny in response to it. Having to just be funny all by myself...well, I didn't think I was very good at it, but the crowd at the show certainly seemed to think otherwise.

But that's what makes the prospect of a follow-up even freakier. Now I've done something that was successful, that people enjoyed, that people laughed and applaued. What if the next one isn't as good? What if I get a metric buttload of people out to another show, based on the strength of this one, and they all hate it. What then?

This is, of course, the inevitable fear of any creative type, particularly a creative type on the edge of even a small degree of success. And I'm sure in time I'll fight past this particular fear and start working on *something* for the stage again, regardless of whether it's good or bad. Eventually, the desire to create is a desire that demands to be dealt with.

And when that time arrives...that's what this spiffy new laptop is for.

Month o' Horror: Scream

2007-10-01T19:01:00.000-07:00

Scream was viewed on Saturday, October 6.

When the "slasher" sub-genre of horror first appeared in the 70s, with films like "Halloween" and "Friday the 13th" there was something fresh and exciting and, yes, scary about them. Here were faceless maniacs, wielding all manner of sharp object, ready to gut you for no particularly good reason (except the fact that you had sex or drank beer or did drugs).

Unfortunately, what started out as fresh and exciting quickly got dull and stagnant. And the worst part of it was the feeling that these people you were watching in slasher films had never actually SEEN a slasher film. Because everyone always ran around doing the same dumb, cliched things that get them killed, even if they should know better.

It was this notion -- that, hey, maybe the people in a slasher film had actually seen a slasher film -- that made "Scream" such a breath of fresh air when it appeared in the 90s.

Wes Craven's film isn't just a deconstruction of slasher film cliches, it's a film about a generation of people who grew up watching movies. The relationship between our virginal heroine and her boyfriend is described with movie ratings -- a PG13 when she flashes her breasts following her boyfriend's attempt at getting his hand under her panties for a hard R rating.

The funny thing about "Scream" is that, after you watch it, the premise seems ridiculously obvious, but it took Wes Craven (the man responsible for the "Nightmare on Elm Street" franchise) 20 years to actually put the pieces together.

And on top of it all, it even works as a slasher film, even if it is a slasher film where most of the characters eventually figure out they're in a slasher film. Or at least in a situation that bears eerie similarities to most slasher films.

Craven's had an up and down career, to be sure, but between "Scream" and his final chapter of the Freddy Kruger saga "New Nightmare," Craven did something that not a lot of other horror directors have done. He stepped outside of the box. He looked at a bigger picture. He actually dabbled in something you might call "Meta-Fiction" a term that's almost highbrown enough to convince folks that horror films can actually be about more than gore and cheap jumps.

Admitted, "Scream" isn't a perfect film. There's a few points where it seems almost too hung up on its own cleverness, a few lines that are awkwardly bad, but for the most part, the premise holds up, as does the film, ten years later. There's rumours circulating of a "Scream 4" on its way at some point in the future, but while my memory of the second and third chapters of the franchise are hazy, I don't recall them having quite the same power as the first entry. So for the sake of respecting a trilogy that maybe didn't hit every note it intended too, but still managed to be a bit more than your average slash-a-thon, let's hope the rumours stay exactly that.

It opened. It didn't suck.

2007-09-20T13:19:00.000-07:00

After months of work (and blood and sweat and tears and booze), "Dinner & Drinks" opened last night to a not-exactly-crowded theatre. Which is to say, we had about 15 people in the audience, which isn't quite as many as I would have liked.

But of the 15 who were their, they seemed to enjoy it. They laughed in the right places, and in some spots the laughter was huge. Finding out that there were a couple of servers in the audience, who could relate with the idea of stumbling into private conversations they probably shouldn't be stumbling into, was also entertaining, because it illustrated that, even though it was only a very tiny consideration, I got *that* part of the play accurate. And having never been a server, I'll admit that I pretty much made that part up.

Sound was a little weak. Apparently we were missing an amp, which we should be snagging tonight to improve that. Lights were a little glitchy too -- there were some dark spots that could stand to use a bit more illumination, so I might try to see if I can rearrange where the light is falling (though we're pretty limited, only working with four lights, hanging about ten feet off the ground).

The houses are looking to improve in the next few nights. With sales and comps, we should be sitting close to 40 or 50 for tonight, and Saturday is already sitting around 50. Friday might be light, but I'll be content to break the 100 ticket mark for all four days, making the show perhaps not a raging success, but hardly a failure either.

The only thing that seems a little bit disappointing at this point is the four-day run. After the amount of work that everyone put into this, it seems like we're cutting it off just when things should be starting to really rock. On the other hand, I'm still incredibly exhausted, and am eager to start my richly-deserved vacation from the land of the thespians, so maybe only running for one week was the right thing to do after all.

So, uh, yeah, it's been awhile...

2007-09-17T11:51:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's been awhile since I've been around these parts. Almost two months from the look of it.

Looking back, it seems my posting came to a close right around the time I was A) dealing with the cancellation of column, and B) dealing with an overwhelming series of problems on "Dinner & Drinks" -- the play I was, and am still, working on.

Which actually makes perfect sense.

The cancellation of the column was a pretty major blow, and losing that one avenue of self-expression left me feeling far less inclined to express than usual. And when the show hit a roadblock that required not only postponing the performance dates, but also recasting one of the characters, I found myself very, very quickly drowning in an almost unbearable level of stress.

Most of that is over now. The show opens in a couple of days, so most of my work is done (though I still need to finish the program work tonight, do some painting tonight, finish an article for the paper, and print the program tomorrow, after our final rehearsal), and in a little less than a week, it'll be all done, save for the trip to Kelowna for festival (and the possibility of working with someone to work the script into something more appropriate for film). At which point...I'm taking a very long break.

I've toyed with the idea of taking the next season off from the Studio Theatre, and as each do goes by, I'm more and more certain I want to. For one, I really do need a vacation, after working on a show almost constantly since last October. For another, I have two novels in varying states of completion that I'd like very much to get focused on again. Unfinished novels collecting dust aren't likely to accomplish much artistically.

Of course my mood for these last two months hasn't been fantastic either, but I doubt that would come as a surprise to anyone anymore. Sometimes I get the feeling that I've been in the gutter for so long that I'm starting to get used to the decor. Which, by the way, is a pretty sucky mindset to have.

More to come sometime after the opening of the show, when I can rant or rave, depending on how it went.

Drowning

2007-07-26T10:37:00.000-07:00

I've been feeling for awhile -- at least a few weeks, maybe even a few months -- that I'm drowning under the stresses of having far too many things to do in nowhere near enough time. It's a horrible feeling. There are times, I swear to God, when I feel like I might die.

The problem is that my general approach to this feeling is to avoid the stresses entirely -- watch a movie or play video games, and just try to ignore the stresses that are making me feel like I'm going to die. But then, of course, these things don't get done. They're still hovering over my shoulder the next day, with even less time left in which to complete them, leaving me to feel even more like I'm going to die.

This is obviously a horrible cycle. It's a cycle I need to break.

I'm not sure exactly how to do this, except to try to focus on one thing at a time, forgetting the things that aren't quite as urgent. Prioritize and focus. Looking at too much all at once is only going to fill me with dread and avoidance.

And that's not going to help me get anything done.

Forgetting things

2007-07-26T00:32:00.000-07:00

Today was an odd day.

Like most Wednesdays, there were numerous points throughout the day when I would find myself suddenly terrified that there was something I was forgetting.

In the shower today: Holy crap, I'm supposed to do something -- what is it?

Eating breakfast: Holy shit, I'm supposed to do something -- what is it?

Sitting at the computer: Holy shit, I'm supposed to do something -- what is it?

Turns out, what I was forgetting was the same thing I forget every single Wednesday -- that I'm supposed to write my column. Unfortunately, I was also forgetting that I don't have to remember to write my column anymore. So there was some kind of weird, meta-forgetting thing going on.

Of course, I'm dusting off this blog today, so in a way, this is where my column writing is going. Although, let's all hope that I'll find my way back here a bit more frequently than just once a week.

In other news, I'm now giving serious consideration to completely rewriting the end of Dinner and Drinks, only two weeks before we open. How fucking psychotic is that? Nevermind, don't answer, there isn't even a word for how psychotic that is.

My Week (or Why God Hates Me)

2007-07-19T12:53:00.000-07:00

So, Merritt didn't entirely suck, which was a nice surprise, and all around I had a pretty decent weekend. Which should have been a sign of the horrible, horrible things to come. And would have been, if I had maintained my usually pessimistic attitude. Instead, I found myself thinking, "Hey, things are going along kind of good! How awesome is that!"

I'm a stupid, stupid man sometimes.

On Monday, driving home from work, my car dies on the highway for no apparent reason. I manage to steer it off to the side of the road, but it won't start back up again, and it's 8:00 at night and I don't really know what else to do with it, so I leave it there and walk home. The great thing about walking to my house is that the further you walk, the steeper the hills get to be. So as you get more and more tired, the hike gets more and more exhausting. It's really brilliantly designed, if you happen to be a masochist.

Tuesday, I get the car towed to Canadian Tire, where it'll sit in their parking lot until Wednesday morning, when they'll get the chance to look at it. So I'll be transportationless for one whole day. Nothing to lose sleep over.

Tuesday afternoon, I get a phone call from the Tribune. They're cancelling my column after 14 years (ten years of that time spent calling their "Weekender" or "Tribune Weekend" or whatever it's now called home). This makes me sort of sad. Actually, this makes me inredibly sad, and I spend Tuesday night getting wickedly shitfaced, essentially holding a wake for my soon-to-be-deceased column (speaking of which, if you feel like sending angry letters of protest to the editor and the publisher at the Trib, you can reach the editor at editor@wltribune.com or the publisher at lorne@wltribune.com -- I'm not suggesting that you do this, of course, but it'd probably make my heart feel a little warm if you did).

Wednesday, I'm hung over from the wake. Canadian Tire calls and tells me it's the starter, and it'll cost about $500 to repair. Ugh. But I tell them to go ahead, because, hey, I need my car. I haven't heard anything further by late afternoon, so I call back to see how things are going. Apparently they didn't have a starter in stock, so they had to order, and it'll be done on Thursday. So...another day without transport. Not a big a deal.

Thursday morning, Canadian Tire calls again. The starter's in, but the car still won't turn over. The engine is seized, and the car is, for all intents and purposes, a gigantic chunk of scrap metal. Which is awesome, because I'm still going to have to pay the $500 for the starter job that was done, essentially dumping half-a-grand into a car that is never going to move under its own power again. Because, you know, I've got fucking money to burn. This also means that I'm currently transportationless for...well, who the fuck knows at this point?

And that's my week so far. Since monday. Four days. Not even four WHOLE days yet, because, you know, Thursday is just starting.

At this rate, I'm going to probably die of a stroke tomorrow. And right at this moment, a part of me thinks that would be just fine.

Roadtripping

2007-07-13T15:01:00.000-07:00

So, in just a couple of hours, I'll be heading to Merritt for the music fest. If you know me, this might seem odd, as I'm not big on country music. But I have media access, and I'm covering the event for ArtScene, so...you know, free vacation and all that rot.

There's a good chance I'll be moblogging parts of the trip either here over at the ArtScene blog, so if you're bored, and feel like checking up on how the event is going, you can watch for those mini-updates. If you're not bored...then I assume you're having a lovely weekend.

Cycles and epiphanies

2007-07-02T00:40:00.000-07:00

As the years roll by and I get older, I begin to notice more and more how parts of my life run in cycles. Reading, for examples, runs on a cycle. For weeks or months at time I won't read anything except web sites and occasional newspapers. And then suddenly I'll pick up a novel and I'll be a reader for a period of weeks or months, devouring the first book I picked up, and then another, and then another, and then another, sometimes even going out of my way to buy a batch of books because I've run out of stuff to read.

And then as quickly as it started, it'll stop again -- no reading.

My writing tends to work in the same way. For a period of weeks or months I'll be desperately passionate about some new piece of writing, and I'll work on it constantly -- sometimes every night, if things are going particularly well, but at least every second or third night.

And then, almost out of blue, I'll hit a period of burnout. I wouldn't touch the book if my life depended on it. I fill my free time with movies, video games, and mindless web surfing. And I'll go on like this for weeks at a time.

Inevitably, though, I'll begin to feel guilty about these time-wasters. I'll begin to feel the untouched book actually starting to die from neglect, and I'll put the games and the movies and the web down and get back to work again.

I got back to work tonight.

I tried to play some video games, but they just didn't hold any appeal to me. I sat on the sofa and I stared at the Xbox and Wii and I knew that they weren't going to provide any enjoyment. But I tried anyway. Fifteen minutes on this game, fifteen minutes on that one, but nothing. The book beckoned.

I should have seen it coming. I've been sitting on the edge of something not-so-pleasant for the last few days. Not a depression, exactly, but I haven't been terribly upbeat either. I felt, in fact, like I was on the verge of an epiphany, and it didn't feel like a terribly good one.

Epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes. And, I think, differing levels of clarity. This one was vague. I couldn't put my finger on exactly what it was, but it stirred up some memories, made me question what I'd been doing with my time lately, and made feel -- once again, because this is something I've felt quite often -- that my life is filled almost entirely with mistakes.

I felt the overwhelming need to change something significant about my life. But I didn't know exactly what.

So without any clear indicator of what needed to be changed, I wrote. Because that was something I could change, and is always something worth changing -- doing a bit more work is never a bad thing.

Unfortunately, that feeling -- the feeling that somethings significant needs to change -- remains. Which leaves me little choice but to flail around trying to figure out what it is, hoping that either the answer finally arrives, the feeling leaves me in peace.

Mourning the death of the english language...

2007-06-25T17:09:00.001-07:00

From an email I received at work today...

"Wha Laa..."

Which I'm pretty sure is a phonetic representation of the word "Viola." Which I'm pretty sure I was familiar with by, well, at least the eighth grade.

This sort of thing makes me want to bang my head against a wall. Or eat a bullet. Or both.

Or maybe it's just that I'm having a pissy day.

It was magic!

2007-06-21T18:58:00.000-07:00

So far, the production of "Dinner and Drinks" has been a...well, let's say interesting, experience. This is my third time in the director's chair, but the first time directing something I've actually written myself. And I have to tell you, that changes things considerably.

I've already done one polish on the script, prior to the first readthrough. And since then -- with only the one readthrough, and two rehearsals under our belt -- I've made copious notes on even more things I want to change. Things that sound awkward, things paced badly, things that aren't funny. All sorts of things.

Which is good. That's what this was all about -- using the production process as a phase of the editing process.

With only two rehearsals complete -- and with those two rehearsals focused on only two of the play's four scenes -- I'm incredibly excited about how good things are already looking. It's fun to hear the words I've written coming out of people's mouths, particularly when the work. I hate to pat my own back, but there are some pretty funny exchanges in the play, that work even better when read allowed. And seeing those moments play out on stage, when they work, is just...amazing.

But, so far, the best part came last night, when rehearsed the, er, climax to the show. There's very little dialogue, and the scene plays out against music, with changes in the music as the cue for changes in the action.

This is a scene I've had imagined in my head for probably close to two years now. Last night I saw it, for real, on stage, for the first time.

And I loved it.

I got chills.

Little hairs on the back of my neck stood up.

I am not kidding.

I know as the weeks go on, and I see the scene again and again and again, it'll lose some of this initial charm, and become just another moment on stage. But I'm hoping that some of this initial magic will be preserved -- even if I don't see it -- until we actually put the show on stage, so that, if all goes well, those in the audience might have the same sort reaction I did. That is, after all, what it's about.

Past, present, future...

2007-06-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

Leaving work today, nursing my numerous crises, reflecting on the crises of others, I found myself thinking about the script to Dinner and Drinks, in particular its final scene.

It's a scene that, at least at first, wasn't actually supposed to be there. As originally envisioned, Dinner and Drinks was going to be three scenes, involving three different couples, and when the three scenes were done, the play would be as well.

As I wrote it, though, I discovered that these three scenes that were going to make up the play were, while occasionally funny, essentially downer stories. The people were in bad relationships, or ditching bad relationships, or refusing the start bad relationships. Once you stripped the chuckles away, you were left with some pretty messed up, unhappy, dysfunctional people.

I decided I needed the play to end on a slightly more positive note, so for the fourth scene I decided to revisit the couple from the first scene -- whose story ended on probably the most downer note of the three -- and decided to give them some semblance of a happy ending.

I was inspired as well, I think, by a desperate need for a happy ending in my own life, not just in general, but for a specific circumstance I was going through at the time that I was writing that play. For the record, my own happy ending didn't come, but since then, I've become increasingly convinced that happy endings are a bit of a rarity even at the best of times.

I bring all this up because, while thinking about the script today, I realized that if I were writing that same play right now, I don't think I would have ended it quite the same way.

I still believe, to some degree, much of what is contained in the final scene. That sometimes you have to fight and take chances to try to get the things that mean the most to you. And that sometimes that most important thing is love. But I don't know if I believe it quite as passionately as I once did. Which got me to realizing that, on some levels, I'm not the same person now that I was when I wrote that script.

Which got me thinking about writing in general.

Writing, if you do it properly, can give the writer an amazing ability to look back at himself. It doesn't matter if you're writing a daily journal, writing a novel, writing a play, or writing a poem -- if you're putting part of yourself into it, then you're creating a permanent record of who you were at that point in your life. The things you believed in, the things you cared about, the things you were terrified of. And you can look back at those things years later and go, "Oh, so that's who I was."

Which is sort of cool.

Phase Two is almost complete

2007-06-07T11:10:00.000-07:00

Following yesterday's callbacks from callbacks, Dinner and Drinks is 99% cast. I just need to make a few phone calls, confirm with all the actors their availability for the performance in Kelowna in October, and make the official announcement of the cast.

Which I won't be doing quite yet. Because it's only 99%, and things are still pending, and if I made any sort of announcement I would, without a doubt, be jinxing an already fairly sufficiently jinxed production.

First readthrough is scheduled for next Wednesday, with a Wednesday and Saturday rehearsal schedule. I won't lie to you -- I picked a Wednesday rehearsal night because Wednesdays are wing at Oliver's, and the more common Tuesday / Thursday rehearsal schedule tends to miss that fine bar special.

For some, it might seem like their priorities were a bit shuffled to schedule their rehearsal time around what night had the really good special at the pub, but when a visit to a local watering hole is pretty much a given post-rehearsal (as it tends to be when I'm in the director's chair) this seems like the most obvious approach. Plus the wings at Olivers are damn fine.

So if anyone wants to come and hang out with a bunch of loud people, drinking beer, eating wings, and probably conversing about all manner of filth (two hours of rehearsing a play about sex will do a lot to diminish conversational taboos), feel free to drop by our table. We'll usually be hitting the pub around 9:00ish.

It's feeling surprisingly good to see things finally falling into place for the production. Getting the approval, getting accepted into ACToberfest, and now (almost) having a cast. Next on the agenda is a quick polish / rewrite of the script before next week, so I can have a copy of the script for everyone in the cast at Wednesday's readthrough. I keep looking at the script, and at some of the sequences that I want to fix, and then I just sigh and put the script away, because I don't really have the energy to push through with the changes.

One of my cast members had commented a few times that the script is quite "clever" and I sort of agree -- with one scene in particular. Or, at least, half a scene. The latter half of the scene, less clever, and that's one of the big trouble areas I want to try to fix before next week. It's all going along just fine, with some really nice back and forth wordplay, and then all of a sudden it's like it's on a race just to get to the end. And it just doesn't *work* when compared to the earlier part. It's not as good, it's not as funny, it's not as clever.

I can't remember for certain, but I think I may have just gotten tired of all that cleverness, because as easy as it looks on paper, actually coming up with those clever lines can be rather a lot of work. And after doing it for half the scene, I think I probably just got lazy and took the path of least resistance.

Don't take the path of least resistance. Yes, it's easier, and yes, the road less traveled probably looks a little scary. But the path of least resistance is where all the carnivorous animals are hanging out, because that's where everyone else goes, so they can be pretty sure there'll be a good meal if they hang out there for a bit.

Let's get things rolling...

2007-05-31T13:36:00.000-07:00

Well, I'm never going to get to 500 posts if I don't start, you know, posting. So here's another one.

Casting for Dinner and Drinks just got a little bit easier, now that one of my candidates has dropped out of the running, leaving me with almost exactly enough people for the show (there is one additional candidate, who I'd have to reschedule to accommodate, but I don't think I'm going to be doing that, as a reschedule drops someone else out of the running). Now I just have to hope that everyone's schedule is free in October so we can take the show to Kelowna. If not, I have to spend some time sobbing into a frothy mug of beer, and that's never any fun.

I want to do at least one polish on the Dinner and Drinks script before rehearsals start. There's a sequence towards the end of the second scene that has never sat well with me. Something about it seems kind of awkward and forced. Maybe I'm just being too picky, but I'm hoping I can get two people to sit down and do a reading of the whole script so I can try to zero in on what -- if anything -- is bugging me about the dialogue, so I can do a major cleanup before actors have scripts in their hands.

Oh, we're set for sponsors too -- we officially have a business sponsor for each of the four performances we'll be doing, so that's one less thing my producer needs to be working on, and one less thing I need to be stressing about. Fewer stresses are always a good thing.

In other news, I'm going to be swamped in major ArtScene work for the next three or four days. Hooray.

Slowly but surely...

2007-05-30T17:07:00.000-07:00

"Dinner and Drinks" is -- little by little -- finally coming together. Following two auditions, there is almost a cast in place. I just need to drag a few people back for callbacks, just to double-check how my gut is telling me to cast the show, then we'll officially be able to start rehearsals, after confirming the casts' availability for a performance in Kelowna in October.

That's the other piece of exciting news in regards to the show -- we just confirmation today that we are have been selected to participate in the Actoberfest one act festival that Theatre BC will be holding for the first time his year. Festival performances will run on the hour from 4:00 pm to 11:00 pm on Friday, October 12th and 10:00 am to 11:00 pm on Saturday, October 13th.

"Dinner and Drinks" has two performance slots -- 1:00 pm on Saturday afternoon at the Black Box Theatre and 7:00 pm on Saturday evening at the Black Box Theatre.

So, you know, if you happen to be in the neighbourhood, come by and check the show out.

So far, just about every facet of bringing this show to life has seemed a little surreal. This is without a doubt one of the boldest moves I've taken with something of my own creation. Trying to mount a local production of this show would be stressful enough as it is, but the Actoberfest entry seemed too good an opportunity to pass up, so I thought, why not at least try?

So I did.

And now we're in. And now I'm not only going to be showing this thing that I wrote to the local folks who come to see it, but a festival full of theatre junkies from around the province.

Good lord, I hope they like it.

Exciting news, nonetheless. A full report on "Dinner and Drinks" casting will probably arrive next wee.

Blog post #464

2007-05-13T18:12:00.000-07:00

Yesterdays Moblog posts provide compelling reasons for why I should never be allowed to attend Karaoke-based events. They just make me sad. And they make me hate the human race.

Yesterdays Moblog posts also provide compelling reasons for why I probably shouldn't moblog if I've been drinking.

On the bright side, those two posts helped the blog get two posts closer to the magic 500 blog post number, which I've been thinking about for awhile now (at least as far back as last year).

With approximately 36 posts to go before I reach the 500th meaningless ramble in this space, I've been wondering if I'll make it across that line before the end of the year. It's certainly conceivable -- one a week would almost be enough to do it -- but I have to concede that this space has been a little dusty lately.

My attention has been diverted. Too many other projects. Writing my ass off for the ArtScene, being in a play, prepping to direct a play, and yes, on occasion playing video games when I should probably be doing some actual work, has sort of gotten the better of my free time lately.

Not that this is an apology for that. Sometimes life happens, and some things take a back seat to old things. Like this blog. C'est la vie.

Nor is this a promise to blog more. It's a promise I'd like to make, but I'm also pretty sure that the odds of my actually following through or on the slim side, so why bother with a promise I'm not likely to keep.

Instead this is...I'm not sure what this is, really. An acknowledgement, that I realize that there hasn't been much to read here lately, and that it might go on that way -- except, of course, for the 36 more posts I hope to do before year's end, so I can celebrate the 500th post.

Which makes me wonder...what should I do in celebration of the 500th post?

No need to stress right now. It's not like it's right around the corner or anything.

Dear world (Part 2)

2007-05-12T22:45:00.001-07:00

No, seriously, I fucking hate you.

Your friend,
Todd
---
Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network because I am teh kewlz0rz.

Dear world...

2007-05-12T22:43:00.001-07:00

Dear world,

I hate you,

Best regards,
Todd
---
Sent via BlackBerry on the Bell Mobility network because I am teh kewlz0rz.

It's Official

2007-05-09T15:15:00.000-07:00

After more time spent on the edge of my seat than I'd like to admit to, I can finally announce the second secret project that I've been trying to pull together for the last few weeks. Or months maybe, it's hard to remember now.

Dinner and Drinks, a play written and directed by Todd Sullivan (that's me, by the way) will be on stage at the Limelight in August. Dates are tentatively set for August 10 and 11, and August 17 and 18. Here's the somewhat flowery synopsis I came up with a few weeks back:

"Four scenes involving three different couples, out for dinner on the same evening. The first couple struggles through the awkward aftermath of an unexpected one-night stand. The second couple, on the verge of divorce, find their attraction briefly rekindled by the most mundane of things — a post-break-up division of property. The third couple attempts to deal with the uncomfortable issue of stale bedroom activity after a few too many drinks. In the final scene, the first couple is revisited, ending the play on an upbeat note of hope, and a celebration of taking chances to achieve the things that are the most important."

This is obviously exciting for me, as a writer, to have the opportunity to actually put something I've written onto the stage, and see people go through the motions, reading the dialogue, and bringing it to life. This is also exciting for me, as a writer, because it should give me the opportunity to polish the heck out of this thing, because in seeing people delivering the lines, I'll be able to spot the lines that aren't working, that are clunky, that need to be fixed, or cut, or lengthened.

Hopefully it'll be exciting for the actors too, as they'll be able to have some input into the creation of the script. They'll be able to say, "You know, this line seems sort of awkward," and, with the playwright in the room, actually have someone there who can change it.

Of course, there'll be challenges for the actors as well -- if the script is going to be constantly modified, they'll be constantly learning new lines. But hey, we're not in this theatre thing for the glory, are we? No, we're in it for the challenge. And sometimes glory.

Given the subject matter of the play, there is of course the potential to offend, so the trick in the promotion will be to ensure that we're upfront about that subject matter, and make sure that we don't get people in the audience who aren't going to appreciate it. It's a problem I've had in the past (particularly with "Some Things You Need To Know Before The World Ends: A Final Evening with the Illuminati") when the marketing of a show didn't quite bring in the intended audience.

I've been nearly bursting at the seams waiting for this to become officially greenlit so I could make the announcement of it. That moment has finally arrived.

If you're reading this, and you want to take part, auditions will be held on May 19 at 7:00 pm and May 20 at 2:00 pm. Hope to see *someone* there.

The history of the Internet

2007-05-07T00:29:00.000-07:00

Years ago, I started work on a book that would be, more or less, a collection of columns that I had written under the "Caught in the 'Net" banner. It was intended to be a sort-of history of the Internet, during its more popularized phase (meaning, when it broke out of the universities in the mid-90s) and was going to be titled something kind of catchy like, "The Internet: An Autobiography."

Nothing ever came of the few days of work I put into the book, because the few days of work I put into the book probably had more to do with it being therapy following the break-up with my wife than it being an actually decent idea for a book, though the memory of the idea is still bouncing around in my head, which is why my discovery of this strangely similar timeline of Internet history seemed so darn familiar.

I'm pretty sure that 90% of the stuff listed here was stuff that I covered, at one point or another, in "Caught in the 'Net" and is stuff that would have found its way into my own History of the Internet project. Thankfully, the fine folks at this site have done the work for me, in a far more concise form. And, also, in a far funnier way than my project likely would have turned out to be.

Anyone with more than five years of time spent on the Internet should give that link a quick look, for a walk down memory lane -- and a few chuckles along the way.

Some days I feel like this.

2007-05-03T21:51:00.000-07:00

Holy busy, Batman...

2007-05-02T21:26:00.000-07:00

So the first issue of the ArtScene -- formerly known as the secret project -- went to press yesterday, and is officially on the streets as of today.

It's not quite as beefy as I would have liked to see, but it's still a damn fine product that I'm damn proud to have worked on. I only hope we can kick as much -- if not even more -- ass with the second issue.

Work on the ArtScene has meant, somewhat strangely, that I've been doing a fairly good job of maintaining my New Year's resolution to write a whole lot more often, although I haven't been writing in many of the things I had been intending to. The novel is still stagnating and this blog is getting dusty, but I there's a fair amount of content from me in ArtScene #1, which is sort of cool, as it's something that's actually out and being read, and not something that's just sitting on my hard drive.

Secret Project #2 (the unannounced announcement from my last post) is still up in the air, and while I'm eager to spill the beans on what it is, I'm wary to until there's a 100% confirmation that it's going ahead. People who know me already know what this project is, so they don't have to feel left out. For the rest of you -- of which I suspect there might be two, maybe three -- you'll just have to wait. Sorry.

Those of you interested in keeping up with the goings-on at the ArtScene, we've cobbled together a blog dedicated to it. There's not much to look at for now, but we're going to try to keep a fairly regular flow of content their, whether it's behind-the-scenes goings on, articles that didn't make the final cut, or just random silliness, there'll hopefully be something new there every couple of days. Which is more than I can say for this space here.

I know it's been sparse lately...

2007-04-25T22:25:00.000-07:00

...but I've got big news coming soon.

Or I won't. I can't tell at the moment. Which is why I haven't said anything about it yet. But if I don't have big news soon, then I'll have more time to blog, more likely, so things won't be so sparse. So it'll be one or the other.

I confess, I'm certainly hoping for the big news.

Eulogizing

2007-04-24T01:17:00.000-07:00

So there's a fantastic Eulogy for Kurt Vonnegut at the Onion AV Club, in which they countdown the 15 things he said that no one else could say as well. And there's definitley some killers in there, and it was nice to sit back and remember why I adored Vonnegut's writing so much, and really feel the sting at the passing of one of the finest literary minds to walk the earth this century.

Strangely, though, in reading through the comments, I came across a response to the article that moved me almost as much as the article itself.

I've been going through such a rough time now, and Vonnegut's passing has made me turn back to books of his I haven't read since I was a teenager... and there's some great solace in knowing that I'm not crazy. Most people are cruel, and arbitrary, and selfish, and fate even more so. But that's no excuse to join in making it worse. All we can do is try and make the world a little kinder, and enjoy those few moments we're given when being human gives us the opportunity to enjoy something beautiful.

Okay, maybe it's not quite as tight as Vonnegut himself would have put it. But the man's spirit is in those words, and that's the most important thing.

All any of us can ever really hope to do, in the effort to achieve some form of immortality, is leave others around us changed -- hopefully for the better -- by our presence here on this earth. It is through those who we have changed that we have a legacy after we are gone.

In the words of that comment, one thing is clear: Vonnegut has achieved his immortality, and has left those of us who are familiar with his words better for it.

Tout comprendre c’est tout pardoner

2007-04-22T01:20:00.000-07:00

The massacre at Virginia Tech has been haunting me this week, for reasons obvious to anyone who knows me -- I have a weird sort of obsession with school shootings. I'm not entirely sure why. On some level, it's because I see it as a sort of epidemic that is unique to our current place in history, and find myself wondering just what that epidemic says about our society -- put another way, if school violence is the symptom, what is the disease?

I think, on some level, I obsess about these things because most of these school killers were fucked up loners, people who didn't quite fit into any particular social group, they didn't get along with the other kids, they were weird, they looked funny, whatever. And that's something I can relate to. Who knows -- in a different world, with a different set of circumstances, maybe I could have been one of the kids behind the gun, not really evil, just angry and confused and alone.

So I've been reading whatever I could on the killings at Virginia Tech. And one of the articles I came across cited Charles Whitman as the man who ushered in the era of mass killings to the United States. And I realized that this was probably true.

Charles Whitman, for those unfamiliar, is better known as the guy who climbed to the top of University of Texas clock tower in 1966 with a handful of rifles, and shot and killed 15 of his fellow students.

Whitman's been named a lot in the coverage of the Virginia Tech massacer as, up until Virginia Tech, Whitman's 1966 spree of violence was the worst school shooting in American history. And if there's one thing that the American media likes to do, it's draw comparisons.

So Virginia Tech led to read about Charles Whitman -- again, as I'd looked him up on the 'Net before -- and he remains fascinating. 40 years after he dragged a rifle to the top of the University of Texas clock tower, there's been plenty of time to rip his life open, to rip his head open, to try to understand the only question that matters when someone murders more than a dozen people: Why?

And there are plenty of answers.

He had a brain tumour. He had a history of drug problems. He had psychological troubles. He was under tremendous stress.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Unfortunately, knowing what *might* have motivated to do something horrible, doesn't actually open any door into their lives. It doesn't give you the answers that you're seeking. In fact, by creating so many possible answers to the question, it simply makes the question itself that much more difficult to answer.

In reading about Whitman, I came across an almost-amazing piece on his spree of violence a the University of Texas. As I read this piece, I became convined that Whitman's story could -- and should -- be examined in an art form of some kind, because his story, and the story of 15 innocent people dead becausew of him, resonates just as powerfully today as it did 40 years ago.

Unfortunately, I have to say "almost-amazing" because the piece didn't quite go where I was expecting. And as much as the writer's message is noble and pure, I disagree with his ultimate condemnation of Whitman's actions, not because I think the slaughter of 15 people is perfectly fine, but because it's far too easy to simply condemn with making the effort to understand.

And that's what disappoited me about the article. In everything that led up the final few paragraphs, it looked like the writer was going to do something that is done far, far too infrequently these days -- actually try to understand the man behind the horror.

He cites the french phrase, "Tout comprendre c’est tout pardoner" in the article, and it's now one I want to memorize, because it resonates so powerfully with me.

Translated into English it means, “To understand all is to forgive all,” and it is a beautiful, true, and ultimately dangerous idea.

Beautiful, because forgiveness is always a thing of beauty.

True, because to completely understand what motivated someone to do the sorts of things that happened at the University of Texas or Virginia Tech or Columbine, is also to have no choice but to forgive. Because if you completely understand every single motivating factor, you would realize that they had no choice but to do the things that they did.

And dangerous, because of this truth, and because no one wants to accept that these sorts of events are unavoidable.

God Bless You, Mr. Vonnegut

2007-04-11T22:24:00.000-07:00

I suppose it can't come as a great surprise, given that he was 84 years old and smoked unfiltered Pall Mall cigarettes, but it sent a shock through my system when I read the news just a few minutes ago that Kurt Vonnegut died tonight.

And no, it wasn't the unfiltered Pall Malls that did him in. It was, apparently, the result of brain injuries sustained after a fall a few weeks ago.

There's only been a handful of writers who have managed to captivate me so quickly in so little time. Douglas Coupland is one, Chuck Palahniuk is another. And yes, Kurt Vonnegut is on that list as well.

I'd known the name for years, but didn't become acquainted with his material until just a few short years ago when I picked up a copy of "Timequake" at a second hand bookstore.

To say I fell in love with the way he used words would be an understatement.

In 2005 I read a stage adaption of four of his short stories called, "Welcome to the Monkey House" -- named after Vonnegut's short story collection that had contained the original stories.

I went on to direct a production of that show in 2006, all the while looking for other Vonnegut material I could get my hands on. I tracked down a copy of the "Monkey House" collection, as well as what is probably his best known book, "Slaughterhouse Five," which I devoured in a couple of evenings. I fell madly, desperately, psychotically in love with "Breakfast of Champions" which might very well be the largest, broadest, most successful satire I've ever set my eyes on, being nothing more than a great big, "What the fuck is wrong with you?" letter to America. Penned in the 1970s, "Champions" remains incredibly relevent today.

But then, that's the way of it with Vonnegut's material. The material I worked with in the "Monkey House" production was originally written in the 1950s and the 1960s, and except for a certain flavour to the language and setting that kept it locked in the era in which it was created, the contant was just as relevent to the 21st century as it was halfway through the last one.

It's something that plenty of writers can, and should, be jealous of -- the ability to write something that can live on beyond the time in which it was created. Something so universal that it can speak to the hearts of those who weren't even born when it first appeared in bookstores.

I have hard time thinking of anyone more deserving of that sort of success than Mr. Vonnegut. If there was one thing that shone through in his work, it was a fantastic love of mankind. Sure, he poked his finger at our faults, but it wasn't to make us feel bad or guilty, it was because he knew we could be better than we are. And should always strive to be.

About this he was always very clear.

In his later years, he would tell a story -- and, in fact, that story would find its way into "Timequake" -- about the answer his son gave him when he asked the ultimate of philsophical questions: "Why are we here?"

What his son said -- a son who clearly had the same love for mankind that defined his father -- was this: "We are here to help each get through this thing, whatever it is."

I can think of no better life philosphy than that one.

God bless you, Mr. Vonnegut. You will be missed.

After the twitters have twittered

2007-04-09T00:03:00.000-07:00

So I've been thinking the last few days, wondering what sort of impact this silly little Twitter thing might have on my blogging, or if it will have any impact at all.

Looking around here lately, one might get the impression that making frequent, short, mini-blog sort of posts at Twitter has distracted me from the longer form of blogging. But I'm not so sure that's true. More than likely, it's simply that I've been busier than normal lately, and the blog has been taking the necessary back-seat within that context. Any somewhat regular reader of this space knows that my blogging kind of goes in waves -- sometimes there's a massive output, and sometimes...well, not so much.

Having said that, I think it'd be wrong to ignore Twitter's impact entirely. I'm sure there have been at least a handful of things that I've dumped onto twitter, with 140 characters or less, that I would have blown up into a full-size blog post if not for something like Twitter. And I can only think of that as a good thing.

Twitter, besides being a way to obsessively chronicle the minutia of your day-to-day life, is also a fantastic outlet for the little annoyances that would, very likely, turn into long and not-so-terribly interesting blog posts.

So while it's possible that Twitter is stealing some material from this space over here, if it is in fact happening, then trust me on this: It's not stealing anything you'd want to read anyway.

It's all about finding the appropriate container for the idea.

More on twitting.

2007-04-05T18:00:00.000-07:00

It's not happening quickly by any stretch of the imagination, but I'm slowly wrapping my head around the usefulness of something like Twitter, because it really does work in ways that extend beyond what is obvious.

At first glance, it looks like a mini-blog. "What are you doing?" is the question you're meant to answer with a Twitter post. Most of the time, most of us aren't doing anything of any particular interest, myself included. So the first time I looked at Twitter, my first reaction was, "Okay, that's dumb."

But thankfully I actually decided to give it a try. And I'm beginning to see that it's actually quite a bit bigger than just a repository for the boring details of your boring life. It's also a collective of the boring details of the lives of a bunch of boring people.

Which, okay, maybe doesn't sound that much better. But stick with me for a second here.

I got my first friend on Twitter yesterday, and discovered that while I'm using Google Chat to update my own Twitter status, Google Chat also reports back to me on any of the status updates made by my friends. Which allows me to keep track of what they're up to and what they're doing.

It's sort of like a social RSS feed for the people you want to keep track of.

For example, if someone on my friend's list decides at 5:30 to post, "Fuck this, I'm ditching work and going for a beer," I'll get the notification. Maybe I wouldn't have known that any other way. So maybe I call him up and say, "Hey, I saw you were going for a beer -- want some company?" Or maybe I just hit the bar and crash his table. Or maybe I let him have a beer and I just go home, whatever, it doesn't matter. It's a way of keeping abreast of the ins and outs of the lives of the people around you, without having to phone them constantly. It's like a short-form of the holiday letter you send to your friends and family, telling them how your life has been for the last twelve months, except you can update it every hour instead of every year. And everyone who's following your updates online gets to see it.

And the more I use it, the more I have this strange, instinctive gut feeling that there's still more that can be done with it. I think Twitter in its current incarnation could very well be just the tip of a massive and exciting iceberg. The potential is potentially fantastic.

As a quick example, just a few minutes ago I found that CNN had a breaking news Twitter page. Now, if I added CNN's breaking new coverage to my friends list, I'd have an automatic news update in my google chat anytime an important story broke. Sure, that seems nothing more than a non-traditional way of distributing traditional media, but there's a convenience factor too.

In fact, I *would* have signed up as a friend to breaking news, but it doesn't look like it's getting much use from CNN. They may still be trying the product out. Or maybe it's just a bored intern.

Either way, there is some fantastic potential in this thing. I'll be sticking with it, I suspect, to see how that potential works out over the months and the years. And it's not like I'm the only person on Twitter sharing the boring details of their boring life. That's pretty much everyone.

New toys, new techniques

2007-04-02T13:01:00.000-07:00

One of the most interesting things about changes in technology is how those changes inspire us to change the very ways that we use technology. This is obviously the case with big, sweeping changes in technology. No one can argue that things like the telephone (in its day) and the Internet (during the last decade) had a massive impact on the way we communicate with each other.

But smaller changes in technology can also change the way approach our day-to-day lives.

When I first got my blackberry a couple of years ago, it was nothing but a cell phone with a bunch of kind-of interesting features attached to it. But after playing with it for a few months, I started to wrap my head around those other features, and I began to modify -- in small ways -- the way in which I used technology. I started scheduling things instead of actually depending on my memory. I stopped checking my email on my computer, and started to get it on the blackberry. More and more of my life began to find its way into that little device.

Mind you, this level of dependence has caused more than a little panic on the one or two occasions that I was convinced that I had lost the damn thing somewhere, but that's not really the point I'm trying to make.

The point is that in order to really progress in the 21st century, you can't pigeonhole new technology into the old ways of doing things. You have to invent new ways to capitalize on what new technology offers you.

In the last week, I've started to play around a bit with Google's "Docs and Spreadsheets" and "Notes" -- both web-based applications, and both incredibly cool, if you are able to look at them in new ways.

There's a new project currently under development at the newspaper I'm working at, and I'm currently trying to find ways that these online tools can be used to make this project more efficient. The ability to open both your word processing documents and your notes to collaborators means that processes like story editing and project planning can be more easily performed by multiple people.

I'm sure I have yet to maximize the possibilities provided by these two Google services, and I may never get around to doing that. But already their existence is inspiring me to rethink the way I do some of the most integral parts of my job. And, assuming those changes lead to improvements, that can only be a good thing.

I'm a twit.

2007-03-30T15:20:00.000-07:00

Okay, two days later and I'm actually starting to get into this stupid Twitter thing. I'm still not sure I entirely understand what the point of it is, but that doesn't make it any less fun. I don't entirely understand the process of digestion, but I remain awfully fond of food.

Awfully quiet around these parts.

2007-03-28T16:42:00.000-07:00

And this post isn't going to do much to get things rolling. I'm still in post-play vacation mode or something, completely unable to get motivated to do anything constructive. Well, that's not entirely true -- there's a new project going on at work that I'm sort of pumped about. But I can't talk about that yet.

So, for now, I'm playing with some annoying new web 2.0 thingy. It's called Twitter, and it's like a mini blog. Instead of long rambling posts, you just post short, 100 character entries about what you're doing right now. The potentially interesting thing about it is that it works Google Talk, which means I could technically update the twitter site wherever I was -- at home, at work, or out at the bar, thanks to my blackberry.

My twitter page is here. Only two entries to speak of at the moment, but let's see if I get into this thing or let it die.

Housecleaning

2007-03-19T00:17:00.000-07:00

So, "Sylvia" has reached the end of its initial run, and now goes into a sort of hiatus / hibernation for a couple of weeks, until we drift back into a casual rehearsal schedule to prepare for festival.

This, of course, means that I have been given the gift of freedom again. Freedom to sit around and stare at the ceiling, and play with the Xbox 360, and drink beer, and not really care if there's anything more important I should be doing.

Which should last for about three days, before I start going insane from boredom. At which point it'll be time to dust off some writing again. The "will write every single day" resolution made in January hasn't worked out so well for me so far, though I admit I've been pretty busy. Now that I'm not, I really should get back to work on something.

Editing of "Waiting for A Miracle" should, and probably will, become the primary focus. It's the easiest work, in some ways, as it's something I can do on the sofa in the living room. And it's the hardest too, because sometimes you just run into a page or two that's just so horribly written that you can't think of any way to actually fix it, and then you want to cry.

If I can edit to the end of the first half of that novel, I think I might put it away long enough to finish writing the second half of the latest novel, currently titled, "Everyday Epiphanies."

Although, there is a sort-of secret project going on in the middle of all this that will either take up all of my attention, or none at all, and eventually wind of flushed down the drain is an interesting but ultimately flawed idea. So we'll have to wait and see how that goes.

Oh, and if you have any interesting in video games, or what I think about video games, I'm currently hacking out a multi-part piece over at my *other* blog. Which I'm mostly doing simply to justify having that other blog. You can find it here.

Random 1/4

2007-03-15T01:56:00.000-07:00

The phone rings, it's early, it's seven o'clock.
He says sorry I woke you, but I just had to talk
You know last night, remember when I tried to choke you?
I didn't mean it, I was drunk, it was only a joke.

I think the reason that I don't care so much for the Barenaked Ladies when they're in goof-ball mode -- like in "Be My Yoko Ono" that appeared in yesterday's Random 10 -- is because when they're being serious, they can be just jaw-droppingly, staggeringly brilliant.

The lyric quoted above just rings so tragically true on so many levels that it isn't even funny. And that's a tragedy. And that's why it's brilliant.

Random Whatsit?

2007-03-14T01:55:00.000-07:00

Yeah, it's a Random Ten, probably close to a year since I did the last one, so I'm not spending much time caring if it's Friday or not. Because, for the record, it's not.

1. Peter Gabriel - In the Sun (Princes Diana Tribute Track) - I'm sorry, besides the fact that she married a goofy looking prince, and had the tabloids willing to pay more money than was probably sensible for pictures of her, Princess Diana really wasn't a whole lot different than you or I, and while her death was certainly tragic, it wasn't really any more tragic than it would have been if the same thing had happened to you or I. Only, if we had been the ones in that car, it's unlikely that Elton John would have bastardized one of his greatest songs over us. I'm not sure what this Peter Gabriel song has to do with Diana, I've never heard it before, but if it is, in fact, a "Candle-In-The-Wind-Esque" sort of thing, then I'm disappointed that I have to lower Mr. Gabriel a notch on my respectometer. [Edit: He apparently didn't write this song, which ups him on the respectometer, because it means he didn't create some sappy love-fest over the death of a british almost-monarch]

2. Cat Power - I Found A Reason - Don't quote me on this, but I'm fairly sure this is from the "V For Vendetta" soundtrack. Admittedly, I don't know this song terribly well, but I'm struck by how haunting her voice is. Quite beautiful, really.

3. The Big L - Sounds vaguely like Roxette, and its place on the playlist seems to confirm the idea. It's very...Roxetteish. Which sometimes is good. This time, not so much.

4. Cher - I Found Someone - Cher's mid-80s comeback song. And it sounds it.

5. Radiohead - Blow Out (Live) - Wow, this is a crappy recording. I really need to clean out my MP3 collection someday. Hopefully before the next time I do a Random Ten, because this list, quite frankly, isn't doing much for me.

6. Debbie Gibson - This So Called Miracle - Okay, confession time, I guess. I had a super insane teeny-bopper crush on Debbie Gibson when I was a teen. In part, I think, because she was, herself, a teen. She won my heart because, unlike Tiffany -- her archnemisis in the battle to be the teen-queen-pop-star, she actually wrote her own material. This track comes from her third album, the last that I bought, as by the time it was released, I had pretty much grown out of the the crushes-on-teen-pop-stars thing, and because, for the most part, it wasn't a very good album. This song, though, was the standout track for me, and it's still something I'll queue up when I feel like enjoying a few musical guilty pleasures.

7. U2 - Please - Dunno it. Moving along.

8. Fury in the Slaughterhouse - Afternoon in the Cemetary - A great early-90s german (I think) band who faded into obscurity following one major radio hit. The music marketplace is so damn fickle. Of course, I don't recognize this song, so I suppose I'm just as guilty as the rest of the world for ignoring these guys.

9. Onion Radio - A Beloved Minister Dies Just As He Lived - Of A Heart Attack - The Onion is the best damn thing ever. That's all I have to say about that.

10. Barenaked Ladies - Be My Yoko Ono - You know, I'm quite fond of these guys, but this song doesn't do much for me.

And I guess that's ten. Cheerios and corn flakes.

Mmmmm, booze...

2007-03-13T14:37:00.000-07:00

The Guinness Book of World Records is a source we can all turn to when we need to know those random, pointless bits of trivia, like who has the longest fingernails, or who has eaten the most raw eggs in less than a minute. Unfortunately, if you're looking for booze-related records -- and really, who wouldn't be? -- you're out of luck with current editions of the book.

Apparently the folks behind the Guinness book stopped including liquor-based records in 1991, fearing lawsuits inspired by stupid people drinking themselves to death in attempts to find the sort of fame we all dream about: By being that guy who chugged a bottle of Absinthe faster than anyone else in the world.

Thankfully, the folks over at the calwineries blog have dug up some older booze records from Guinness, most of them from the 1979 edition, before retarded lawsuits became the norm.

Here's some highlights:

Strongest Beer
The strongest known beer in 1979 was EKU Kulminator Urtyp Hell from Kilmbach, West Germany, at 13.2 percent alcohol (1979).

Update: Bavarian brewer Harald Schneider, from southern Germany, brewed a beer that was 25.4% alcohol. Source.
Fastest Beer Drinking Relay
Czech patriots drank 2,662 half-litres of beer in less than 17 hours. Drinking at a rate of over 156 beers per hour, or 2.6 mugs per minute, the Czechs can now claim to be the fastest “relay” drinkers in the world (2004). Source.
Most Alcoholic Person (actual name of record)
It is recorded that a hard drinker named Vanhorn (1850 – 1911) averaged more than four bottles of Ruby Port per day for 23 years prior to his death at 61. He is believed to have emptied 35,688 bottles (1979).

So, for those of you thinking you're hardcore, serious drinkers, keep this in mind -- you have a lot to live up to. But if you plan to drink like a fish with an indestructible liver, don't do it for fame -- fame is fleeting, and most people would probably laugh at you for being the most alcholic person -- do it for yourself. Do it because you love the booze. And because the booze loves you.

Lovely, lovely booze.

Fuhcking Mondays.

2007-03-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

I drove into work this morning earlier than usual because I couldn't sleep last night and I'd been tossing and turning since about 6:00 a.m. anyway. On the ride in, I noticed that the rear end of the car was making a bit more noise than is usual, and a bit more than I was comfortable with. Decided to give it a quick look when I stopped at the Mohawk for a Beaver Buzz and bottle of water.

The noise, it seems, was the result of a flat tire. Which I fucking drove all the way into town on. Now the rim's fucked too, I'm sure.

It was too early in the day, and I was too tired and cranky to deal with it. I left the car at the Mohawk and walked to work.

The damn thing will probably end up towed by the time I get back to it to swap the flat for the spare. Because that's just the way my day's going.

Why you shouldn't just approve any and every MSN "Friend" request...

2007-03-12T01:13:00.000-07:00

Because I now have someone on my friends list whose screen name is "BITCH YOUR MOUTH IS ON THE BARREL AND MY FINGERS ON THE TRIGGER."

For God's sake, it's not even punctuated properly.

Human race, I'm ashamed of you.

"This is the best story and the worst story anybody ever wrote."

2007-03-09T14:07:00.000-08:00

I have just rediscovered one of the most amazing short stories I ever laid eyes on.

I read it years ago, in a little known anthology which was called, I believe, Tales By Moonlight (Volume Two). 99% of the stories in the anthology did little if anything for me, but one of them, "The Manhattan Phone Book (Abridged)" by John Varley, crept into my brain, made a massive impact, and stayed there ever since.

The anthology I once owned is long since lost, so while I have told just about every person I know about this story at one point or another, I haven't been able to show it to them, which is sort of disappointing, because we all know that listening to some hack try to *talk* about how good a story is is nothing compared to the power of the original story itself.

Which is why I am excited beyond words to have discovered the story, in its entirety, online. Right here.

Now, go read it. RIGHT NOW. It's jaw droppingly good, and it isn't terribly long, so it's not like you've got to invest a lot of time into it.

Seriously.

RIGHT NOW.

Here's the link again, in case you missed it.

New! Improved!

2007-03-09T11:25:00.000-08:00

Those with a keen eye may notice a slight face lift of the layout here, a result of my finally converting my old blog template to the newer, spifier, and much more user friendly version. In the former version of blogger, all sorts of the page elements on the sidebar had to be hand-added with HTML to the page code (thankfully, I have some, albeit rusty, HTML skillz) -- with the new blogger templates, those sort of elements can be added through a spiffy new editing interface. Some of it still requires a degree of HTML knowledge, but instead of dropping it right into the template code, you can make each element an individual, uh, element. Which you can then drag around in your template, to decide where and how you want it to appear.

For the most part, at the moment, everything still looks about the same (though the appearance of the previous posts archive is a little bit modified), but if I ever decide to do a great big redesign here, it'll be a whole heck easier to do now.

Why "'Night, Mother" doesn't exist in this dimension quite yet...

2007-03-09T00:10:00.000-08:00

This started off as a quick reply to a comment in the previous post, but the words got a little out of control, to the point that it seemed to make more sense as a post of its own. So here it is.

In response to this question, from the comments on my previous post:

Admittedly I know nothing about plays, but why do you have to wait so long to direct ‘Night Mother? I would like to see it on stage, and I don't think you'd have a problem finding anyone to play either part. Or is it a matter of license?

It's a matter of the way our local community theatre club works. And that's intended to diss the local theatre club in any way -- I'm actually fond of the way it works.

Before the start of each season, anyone interested in directing a show for that season goes and proposes the show they want to do, explaining why they want to do it, why they think the show will be successful, and how the play to mount the production.

Following all the proposals the "proposal committee" spends a couple of weeks reading all the proposed plays, then gathers to discuss the proposals to plan the upcoming season. And, thus far, 'Night, Mother has not been part of a season.

I do know that the play isn't universally hated by the people who've sat on the proposal committees in the past. I know that there have been a number of people who fought in favour of the show, but ultimately lost their argument. And, admittedly, it's not a simple play, it's not an easy play, and it's not -- and this might be it's biggest hurdle -- a happy play.

But I love it. And so I keep proposing it, time and time again, confident that, eventually, I'll either hit a committee that's more on my side then against it, or I'll simply wear down those in opposition.

I'm currently a bit on the fence about proposing it for next season, but not because I'm on the fence about doing it. It's because I want to do the show for festival, and preferrably a festival held in Williams Lake, because of the complexity of the set as it exists in my mind. It'd be one thing to build a complicated set that can be torn down and then set back up again in four hours, its another thing entirely to take that set on the road. And I've already had my experiences with taking complicated sets on the road (as can be seen here). I'm in no hurry to do that again.

But then, who knows. I've got until April (I think) to figure out what I intend to propose next season, and 'Night, Mother could certainly end up in front of the selection committee again. And if not next year, maybe the year after. And the year after that. And the year after that. I mean, I've got to wear them down eventually, don't I?

In another dimension, this might already exist...

2007-03-08T17:13:00.000-08:00

...in this one, I'm still waiting.

I get bored of waiting sometimes, so I pretend like I'm not, and I do things like plan intermission music and design posters for plays that I want to direct and might, fates be willing, actually direct one day. Like "'Night, Mother." And like "Closer."

The actual point of this post, though, is to point out that I've fired up a Picasa Web Gallery, where I can dump all the photos that I don't actually take, because I don't have a digital camera at the moment. But if I ever get one, I'll probably dump them there.

I'm not quite as keen on the layout and interface of Picasa's Web Gallerys, compared to the layout at Flickr, but I'm going to give Picasa a try as it's a Google product, and between Gmail, Blogger, and (maybe) some use of Google Docs and Spreadsheets, I'm feeling sort of inclined to keep my web-based apps somewhat unified. So Picasa it is.

Not much to see there at the moment -- a couple of loose poster designs for some plays I want to do, and an archive of the five different Monkey House poster designs, for anyone who didn't see them, or wants to see them again.

Hit my Picasa web album here.

Stick Figure Surprise

2007-03-06T21:59:00.000-08:00

A few weeks later, but as promised, the Stick Figure Drama season four web gallery is live, current as of the edition of the Cariboo Advisor that hits the streets tomorrow. Because season four includes the crossover event with SAFEHOUSE -- another regular strip that appears in the Cariboo Advisor -- I will be including SAFEHOUSE strips in the web gallery, for as long as the crossover lasts. Which means twice the comic strip action! Or, I guess, 1.5 times, because SAFEHOUSE only runs every two weeks.

The links is on the right, under STICKAGE, but for those too lazy to scroll, you can just click here.

While I'm on the topic of the crossover, let me just say a few things about this whole idea, which was essentialy my brain child, and which, I was sure, would turn out to be a miserable failure. For no other reason than the fact that, for the most part, I don't play well with others.

Let's not mince words. When it comes to the creative world, I'm a power-hungry psychopath. I have a vision, and I will fight to bring that vision to life, and anyone that gets in my way is just going to end up road kill.

So, of course, teaming up creatively with someone else is just a really, really stupid idea. It's been a stupid idea when I've tried it in the past, so surely it's going to be a stupid idea this time around.

Except...it hasn't been like that.

Thus far, Jazmyn's been a dream to work with. Ever idea I've had has been something she's been willing to work with, and every idea she's had, instead of something I need to fight against, has actually proven to either be an idea that improves one of my own, or is flat-out better than one I already had. The ideas I had going into this have been, and continue to be, shaped and modified and ultimately improved by her involvement, which I must say is as big a delight as it is a surprise.

Which isn't to say that I've rethought my stance on playing with others. I still think I don't do a very good job at it. But, at the very least, it's interesting to learn that I'm not necessarily going to stab someone in the throat just because they've stepped into my sandbox.

More on Maslow

2007-03-06T00:41:00.000-08:00

I realized after my earlier post on the self-actualized avocado pit (which I'm still, admittedly, a little bit jealous of) that I had missed out on opportunity for some self-criticism. If not criticism, then at least self-examination. And if I'm not willing to put myself under the knife, to confess the unfortunate or uncomfortable, and in doing so maybe find myself a little better for it, then what the heck am I doing this for?

I explained that, according to Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, I was probably stuck at the "Love / Belonging" level.

For those unfamiliar, Maslow's hierarchy of needs theorizes that we, as human beings, are striving towards a state of self-actualization. According to wikipedia, Abraham Maslow had this to say about self-actualized people:

They embrace the facts and realities of the world (including themselves) rather than denying or avoiding them.
They are spontaneous in their ideas and actions.
They are creative.
They are interested in solving problems; this often includes the problems of others. Solving these problems is often a key focus in their lives.
They feel a closeness to other people, and generally appreciate life.
They have a system of morality that is fully internalized and independent of external authority.
They have discernment and are able to view all things in an objective manner. Prejudices are absent.

Okay, it's been awhile since I took this in psych, so I can't vouch for Wikipedia's accuracy, but it all sounds about right to me. And it all sounds pretty good, doesn't it?

On our way towards self-actualization, we have to work our way through a series of obstacles, starting with Psychological (breathing, food, water, sex, etc.) and continuing through Safety (security of body, of employment, of resources, of morality, etc.), Love / Belonging (friendship, family, sexual intimacy), Esteem (self-esteem, confidence, achievement, etc), and finally, yes, the glorious world of self-actualization itself.

Any roadblock along the way, regardless of how small, would prevent one from reaching that light at the end of the tunnel, and the happiness and contentment associated with it.

I've confessed that, if I have a roadblock in that hierarchy, it's probably at the "Love / Belonging" level. And I could probably tell you that it's because I have difficulty with sexual intimacy, but then I'm pretty sure you don't want to hear about that. So instead, I'll go with an even broader explanation: I have difficulty connecting with other human beings.

Growing up, I was shy, I was a loner, I didn't spend a lot of time with other people. I lived in my own space, I entertained myself, I kept myself occupied. I had friends, of course -- who doesn't? But they were few, and the time I spent with them a fraction of the time I spent on other pursuits.

I was, of course, lonely, as is the result of a lifestyle of this sort. Sometimes I'd find myself frustrated at the loneliness, sometimes I'd find myself desperate for a way out. And, eventually, with much effort, I found that way out, I found more and more people who were willing to listen to me, who were willing to spend time with me, who -- it seemed -- actually liked me.

However, this was fairly late in the game.

Not to say I was in my late-40s when I finally started making some sort of legitimate human contact, but it wasn't until I was in high school that I had a circle of friends that you could actually make a circle out of. Which, I sometimes fear, is late enough in the game to have a serious impact on your psyche.

The problem with having this sort of thing come into your life later in the game is that it places that very thing on rocky ground. I had friends, sure. I had people I liked to be around, and people who seemed to like to be around me. But I'd spent so many years *not* having them around, that all it took was one misstep and the whole thing would go sliding down the hill.

And, because life is life, there have been plenty of missteps. And plenty of times to see that fulfillment of love and belonging needs go sliding down that hill.

Fast-forward through twenty years of struggles and missteps. Where am I now?

Now I'm in a position where I have a circle of friends far larger than anything I could have imagined at 12 years old, and a circle of acquaintances that almost boggles my mind. And I have a difficult time feeling legitimately close to any of them.

I'm a cynical and sarcastic bastard at the best of times. I go through the motions of having a cold heart and indifferent nature to the world, but -- and I'm sure those of you who know me won't be at all surprised to hear this -- that isn't really me.

Sarcasm and cynicism is a defense mechanism. It keeps me separate. It keeps the world at a safe distance. It keeps the world at a level where I can interact with it, but where it can't knock me feet out from under me. And this, of course, is a problem.

Safety has never led to anything particularly significant. It's certainly never led to contentment, much less happiness. It leads to complacency. It also leads to fear. A fear of achievement. A fear of trying. A fear of reaching out and connecting with other human beings. And if you can't do that, you're never going to get past that stupid "Love / Belonging" phase in Maslow's hierarchy of needs.

And you're certainly never going to overcome issues with sexual intimacy.

Which, uh, we're also not talking about.

In my defense, at least I'm aware of the problem, and I continue to try to make improvements on it, and have -- at varying speeds -- since high school. This doesn't mean that a resolution is around the corner, but at least it means that a resolution is conceiveable. And that is, at least, something.

Of course, as I said in my earlier post, all of this assumes that Maslow's hierarchy of needs isn't total horseshit. And, to be honest, it quite honestly could be. 90% of psychology doesn't really have much to do with empirical study, like most science. It has instead to do with labels and containers, with ways of categorizing things in a way that makes sense, with our need to establish order out of chaos. The human mind, and through it the human experience, is nothing if not, perhaps, the finest example of chaos imagineable. For that reason, most of these theories remain only labels and not answers, containers and not solutions. Which is why I've always had a thing for existential psychiatry.

But then, that's a topic for another day entirely.

On drinking.

2007-03-05T11:33:00.000-08:00

"Something has been said for sobriety but very little." --John Berryman

"Sometimes too much to drink is barely enough." --Mark Twain

"The worse thing about some men is that when they are not drunk they are sober." --William Butler Yeats

"Beware of the man who does not drink." --Proverb

"When I realized that what I had turned out to be was a lousy, two-bit pool hustler and drunk, I wasn’t depressed at all. I was glad to have a profession." --Danny McGoorty

"I drink to make other people interesting." --George Jean Nathan

All quotes courtesy of an amusing list of drinking-related quotes found here. Booze is a topic that just about everyone seems to have had something to say about at one time or another. Unsurprisingly, most of what they have to say is pretty good, even when it's bad.

I do feel something's being missed, though, in the absence of one of my favourite quotes from Hunter Thompson. So I'll add it to my own list here:

"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Well said. Well said.

On avocadoes, pits, and Abraham Maslow

2007-03-04T19:11:00.000-08:00

I love watching spam message subject lines. Well, okay, not always. The ones that say things like, "DID U WANT TO CUM LIKE A PORN STAR!!?!" are sort of boring, but some of the ones that try to sneak through the spam detectors can be fun to watch.

I got one today that made me smile. It said: "Self-Actualized Avocado Pit."

That wasn't what the ad was about, actually. The ad was trying to sell viagra and cialis, but that doesn't much matter.

What matters was, the subject line made me smile. I'm not entirely sure why. Maybe it was nice to be reminded of self-actualization, and Maslow's hierarchy of needs, a concept I haven't thought much about since the handful of psych courses I took in my misspent youth. Maybe because the idea of self-actualized avocado is just plain goofy. Maybe because I just needed a smile.

But then I got to thinking.

*What if* an avocado pit actually *was* self-actualized? What then?

Then an avocado pit would be better off then me. Better off than a flesh-and-blood human being, with hopes and dreams and fears and disappointments. Mind you, I suppose that avocado pit would actually be better than *most* of us, but that didn't really occur to me at the time. Just that, for a handful of seconds, I faced the possibility that somewhere in the world there was an avocado pit that was happier and more psychologically sound than I was.

That made me a little bit sad.

Looking at Maslow's hierarchy of needs (which you can find nicely summarized at Wikipedia here), I'd say I'm probably stuck at the "Love / Belonging" level, which is sort of frustrating, because if I could get past that, I think I'm actually doing okay at the "Esteem" level, which means self-actualization for *me* and not just for some stupid avocado pit would then be on the horizon. And that would be pretty cool.

All this is, of course, assuming that Maslow and his hierarchy of needs isn't horseshit. Which, hey, maybe it is. What do I know.

I am such a geek.

2007-03-02T10:08:00.000-08:00

And, as such, I have fondness for certain geeky things. Video games, for one. Now that's not terribly uncommon, there are plenty of people around the world with a geeky fascination for video games, so nothing worth mentioning there, really.

I also have a fondness for newspaper style guides. I have a copy of the CP Stylebook at home, on my bookshelf. Sometimes I browse through it for fun. I really do.

Well, would you get a load of this.

Someone (well, technically three someones) has put together a newspaper style guide for video games. It's like peanut butter and chocolate for someone like me -- two great tastes that taste great together.

The best part is that they're giving away a *free* copy of the e-book version for any working writer. So I have, of course, sent off my request. Not because I spend a whole lot of time writing about video games -- I don't, much to my occasional surprise -- but because, like the CP stylebook, I'll actually read this silly little thing for fun. More than once, I'm sure.

I bought some cheese.

2007-02-28T14:18:00.000-08:00

Also, some sourdough bread. And a few other things.

That's all I have to report.

Oscars: Aftermath

2007-02-26T13:18:00.000-08:00

And so another Oscar season has come and gone, and yet again, much like I have seen few, if any, of the movies nominated, I have not seen the actual Oscar broadcast. Because, really, who needs to. Four-plus hours of Hollywood back-slapping and grip-and-grinning? Puh-leeze. I'll just get the winners' list off the 'Net the next day.

And the winners list seemed to mesh even better than usual with my predicts this year. 16 right out of 24 categories gives me a success percentage of about 66.6666666 (into infinity) %, or -- if my math is correct -- about two-thirds. That ain't too shabby. Let's discuss.

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Prediction: The Departed
Winner: The Departed
Thoughts: Yay Marty!

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role:
Prediction: Forest Whitaker
Winner: Forest Whitaker
Thoughts: I don't know what the movie's about, but I really like the title "The Last King of Scotland." I also like Forest Whitaker. Maybe I should watch this movie, eh?

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role:
Prediction: Helen Mirren
Winner: Helen Mirren
Thoughts: As always, you can't go wrong by voting for someone who either goes through an uglification, or manages to bear an uncanny resemblance to a historical figure.

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role:
Prediction: Alan Arkin
Winner: Alan Arkin
Thoughts: Is Alan Arkin Canadian? I saw his Oscar win on the front page of either The Province or The Sun this morning (can't remember which) which seems like a weird spin for the front. My guess is they either had to ship the front to press before the Oscars were over, or else they went for Canadian content. Assuming Arkin's Canadian. If you hadn't noticed, I'm not sure.

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Prediction: Jennifer Hudson
Winner: Jennifer Hudson
Thoughts: Haven't got any. This was just a "well, guess Dreamgirls might win something" prediction. I don't even know who she is.

Best Achievement in Directing
Prediction: Martin Scorsese
Winner: Martin Scorsese
Thoughts: Yay Marty!

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Prediction: Letters from Iwo Jima
Winner: Little Miss Sunshine
Thoughts: No love for Mr. Eastwood this year, I see.

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Prediction: The Departed
Winner: The Departed
Thoughts: Yay Marty! Er, I mean, Yay William Monahan!

Best Achievement in Cinematography
Prediction: El Laberinto del Fauno
Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno
Thoughts: Dark, weird, creepy and moody wins the cinematography category. Big surprise.

Best Achievement in Editing
Prediction: The Departed
Winner: The Departed
Thoughts: It's interesting to note that not only has Thelma Schoonmaker (the winner in this category) been nominated for five Oscars, she has also won three. All while working with Scorsese.

Best Achievement in Art Direction
Prediction: El Laberinto del Fauno
Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno
Thoughts: Again, no big surprise.

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Prediction: El Laberinto del Fauno
Winner: Marie Antoinette
Thoughts: Well, I didn't have a chance in this category, as Fauno wasn't even nominated. For whatever reason, while copying the info from my Oscar ballot, I typed up the nominations for Art Direction under this category. It's easy for me to say, after the fact, that I would have fingered Marie Antoinette for the win had I actually looked at the proper nomination list, but I probably would have. That or The Queen, just because of the way period stuff tends to take the Costume Design category.

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Prediction: Babel
Winner: Babel
Thoughts: What did I say about big, sweeping, emotional scores?

Best Achievement In Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
Prediction: Dreamgirls
Winner: An Inconvenient Truth
Thoughts: How often does a documentary win in this category? Next to never, I'd reckon. Although, clearly, it isn't impossible.

Best Achievement in Makeup
Prediction: El Laberinto del Fauno
Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno
Thoughts: More shiny statues for dark and creepy.

Best Achievement in Sound
Prediction: Dreamgirls
Winner: Dreamgirls
Thoughts: A movie with people singing wins best sound. Moving right along...

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Prediction: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Winner: Letters from Iwo Jima
Thoughts: I'll blame my miss on the fact that I still don't understand the difference between this category and the previous.

Best Achievement in Visual Effects
Prediction: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Winner: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Thoughts: Did anyone else find this movie a bit underwhelming? Too much setup for part three, I think.

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Prediction: Cars
Winner: Happy Feet
Thoughts: I hate that title. The movie might be fine and all, but that title just rubs me so many different shades of not-right.

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Prediction: El Laberinto del Fauno
Winner: Das Leben der Anderen
Thoughts: Huh? How does a foreign movie, that manages to win Oscars in three other non-foreign-specific categories *not* win the foreign language category? Granted, those other wins were for more technical awards, and not for the merit of the movie, but this seemed like such a no-brainer to me.

Best Documentary, Features
Prediction: An Inconvenient Truth
Winner: An Inconvenient Truth
Thoughts: Speaking of no-brainers. Glad this category didn't turn out to be a surprise as well, otherwise I'd have to stop putting my money on the apparent no-brainers.

Best Documentary, Short Subjects
Prediction: The Blood of Yingzhou District
Winner: The Blood of Yingzhou District
Thoughts: While I wouldn't recommend making all your Oscar predictions based on what has the coolest name, this is evidence that, on occasion, it can actually work.

Best Short Film, Animated
Prediction: The Little Matchgirl
Winner: The Danish Poet
Thoughts: In honour of the winner, here is a pastry haiku.

Pastry, you are best / with fruit in your soft centre / yum, fruity pastry.

Thank you.

Best Short Film, Live Action
Prediction: The Saviour
The Winner: West Bank Story
Thoughts: I'm all used up. The haiku took the last of my energy.

Proof that horoscopes are strange. And random. And somewhat schizophrenic.

2007-02-26T10:45:00.000-08:00

Checking my horoscope for the week, while I prepare the horoscope strip for the Quesnel Advisor newspaper, I see that the next seven days will be a rollercoaster ride of conflict as I try to appease every aspect of my horoscope's recommendations. Observe:

You are best to stick to yourself this week.

Okay. I can probably handle that. I've been thinking I need some me time lately, anyway.

Get together with those you find mentally stimulating.

Like...myself? I mean, didn't you just tell me to stick to myself? How am I supposed to stick to myself while hanging out with people I find mentally stimulating. Unless I'm supposed to get together with them, then hide in the bathroom, thinking about how much I hate them.

Plan a nice evening for two.

Again, hard to do when I'm supposed to stick to myself. Unless I'm supposed to plan a nice evening for two, then dine alone and think about how pathetic and lonely I am.

Thanks a lot, Mr. Horoscope. Now you've made me sad.

Oscars! Ack!

2007-02-24T17:42:00.000-08:00

I don't know exactly how this happened, but apparently the Oscars are tomorrow night, and here I am without my annual know-nothing Oscar predictions. How the heck did that happen?

So here I am, about to rush through them, because I have managed to catch in time, and because this is a tradition now, after three years, maybe four, I can't actually recall. Granted, I won't be able to stick to the predictions for the top awards in my column as I have for the last few years (a point made more annoying by the fact that I was sort of struggling for a column last week as it was) but posting them at all is better than nothing.

So, let the predictions begin, starting from the bottom of the official IMDB Oscar ballot, and working my way to the top.

Best Short Film, Live Action:
Binta y la gran idea
Eramos pocos
Helmer & Son
The Saviour
West Bank Story

Interesting to see a couple of (apparently) foreign films in the list. I like the title of "West Bank Story" as it seems to be a sort-of play on "West Side Story" but I'm gonna go with "The Saviour" as my prediction here. Who's gonna vote against the saviour? Not me, that's for sure.

Winner: The Saviour

Best Short Film, Animated:
The Danish Poet
Lifted
The Little Matchgirl
Maestro
No Time for Nuts

I wonder if "The Danish Poet" is about a guy who writes poetry about pastries? I know that's not the *obvious* meaning of the title, but wouldn't that make for a great play on words? "No Time for Nuts" is clearly a losing bet, as everyone knows there's always time for nuts. Always. I'm gonna go with "The Little Matchgirl" to win this, because hopefully it's a movie about a girl lighting stuff on fire. That'd rock.

Winner: The Little Matchgirl

Best Documentary, Short Subjects:
The Blood of Yingzhou District
Recycled Life
Rehearsing a Dream
Two Hands: The Leon Fleisher Story

As much as I'd like to pick "Recycled Life" as the winner under the assumption that it's about recycling (and, therefore, a hot topic in the same year that "An Inconvenient Truth" made waves), I'm going to choose the movie with the word "Blood" in the title, even though I'm not entirely sure how an entire district can bleed.

Winner: The BLood of Yingzhou District

Best Documentary, Features
Deliver Us from Evil
An Inconvenient Truth
Iraq in Fragments
Jesus Camp
My Country My Country

I've actually seen Jesus Camp, and would love to show it some support by predicting a win -- it was a fantastic, if mildly frightening, look at extremes of evangelical Christianity -- unfortunately, I think this is probably locked by "An Inconvenient Truth." Global warming has been a hot, hot topic for a number of years now, this year included, and this movie was EVERYWHERE, and on everyone's mind. I even saw an article within the last few days how an oscar win here might even push Al Gore into a run for the President in the next US election. Which is maybe putting too much power in the hands of a little gold statue, but whatever.

Winner: An Inconvenient Truth

Best Foreign Language Film of the Year
Efter brylluppet
Indigenes
El Laberinto del Fauno
Das Leben der Anderen
Water

Hard to comment on movies whose titles you'd need to put through a translator to understand. Harder still to make jokes about them. So I think I'll just point the finger of prediction at "Water" because it at least appears to be somewhat understandable in English. And because there's a pretty groovy Oingo Boingo song by that title.

[EDIT: After seeing it's name pop up in other categories, I've figured out that "El Laberinto del Fauno" is actually the film better known as "Pan's Labyrinth" which seems a better choice for a winner here, so I've changed my official choice accordingly.]

Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno

Best Animated Feature Film of the Year
Cars
Happy Feet
Monster House

I can't remember if this category exists every year or not. Are there always enough animated films in a year for this category to exist? I don't watch a lot of animated stuff, so I'm not really sure, but it seems plausible, I guess. I'll pick Cars for no other reason than I think it's a Pixar movie, and for the most part, Pixar stuff rocks.

Winner: Cars

Best Achivement in Visual Effects
Priates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
Poseidon
Superman Returns

Wow, looks like a light year for SFX movies, with only three nominations here. As much as there was some nice FX work in Superman, I'm going to give this one to Pirates, just because it seemed to have a whole lot *more* FX going on. Sure it's great to make a man fly. But to make two dozen pirates look like strange, half-fish creatures is an even bigger deal.

Winner: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Best Achievement in Sound Editing
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Flags of our Fathers
Letters from Iwo Jima
Pirates of of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

I still don't really understand the difference between this category and the next one, how one differentiates between "Sound" and "Sound Editing." I want to give it to Apocalypto, because I suspect it was pretty noisy, but I think Gibson's getting snubbed this year, after proving to the world that he's pretty much completely batshit insane. So let's go with Pirates again, instead.

Winner: Pirates of the Caribbean

Best Achievement in Sound
Apocalypto
Blood Diamond
Dreamgirls
Flags of our Fathers
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest

Dreamgirls was a musical, wasn't it? I can't remember. Sure, why not, give it to that one.

Winner: Dreamgirls

Best Achievement in Makeup
Apocalypto
Click
El Laberinto del Fauno

I've only seen a handful of shots from El Laberinto del Fauno, but there's some bizarre, freaky, nightmarish stuff going on in that movie, and it's all thanks to the makeup work. Besides, Apocalypto continues to get snubbed, and Click is a bloody Adam Sandler movie. Let's move on.

Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Song
An Inconvenient Truth - "I Need to Wake Up"
Dreamgirls - "Listen"
Dreamgirls - "Love You I Do"
Cars - "Our Town"
Dreamgirls - "Patience"

Hard to go wrong here -- seems like picking something from the movie that was nominated three times in one category is a safe bet. But which one to choose? Patience, I think. Because it's a virtue.

Winner: Dreamgirls - "Patience"

Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score
Babel - Gustavo Santaolalla
The Good German - Thomas Newman
Notes on a Scandal - Philip Glass
El Laberinto del Fauno - Javier Navarrete
The Queen - Alexandre Desplat

What a weird category for me this year. Glass is the only composer who's name I recognize, and yet the movie he scored doesn't ring a bell at all for me. I'll pick Babel, is it was apparently the sort of movie that you feel sort of sad while also sort of poignant, so it probably had a score like that too. Big sweeping moody music is always good for an award.

Winner: Babel - Gustavo Santaolalla

Best Achievement in Costume Design
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
El Laberinto del Fauno
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Prestige

It's usually safe to bet on the period stuff in this category, except there's a few period pieces on the list -- Dreamgirls, The Prestige, Pirate, I think Shepherd is. What's a fella to do when faced with that particular problem? Easy. Choose the one that isn't immediately thought of as a period film. And the one with lots of freaky costumes to complement the freaky makeup.

Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno

Best Achievement in Art Direction
Dreamgirls
The Good Shepherd
El Laberinto del Fauno
Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest
The Prestige

Seriously, with a movie that looks as messed up as El Laberinto del Fauno, how could this not win?

Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno

Best Achievement in Editing
Babel
Blood Diamond
Children of Men
The Departed
United 93

Most people have been predicting Scorsese's The Departed as a big sweeper at the Oscars this year, and tend to agree, so I'll start the sweeps with this award right here.

Winner: The Departed

Best Achievement in Cinematography
The Black Dahlia
Children of Men
The Illusionist
El Laberinto del Fauno
The Prestige

Going for the Fauno yet again, even though I'm tempted to pick The Prestige -- Chris Nolan's films always look fantastic.

Winner: El Laberinto del Fauno

Best Writing, Screenplay Based on Material Previously Produced or Published
Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan
Children of Men
The Departed
Little Children
Notes on a Scandal

Comedies are rarely honoured at the Oscars, so that puts the kibosh on Borat. Children of Men was apparently quite good, but also quite overlooked. I'll give this one to The Departed.

Winner: The Departed

Best Writing, Screenplay Written Directly for the Screen
Babel
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
El Laberinto del Fauno
The Queen

Both Babel and Little Miss Sunshine are hot picks for the Best Picture Oscar, but I don't think they're getting that one. This category could give voters a chance to hand either of those films an honourary Oscar of some kind. On the other hand, Letters has had a lot of critics raving, and it's got Paul Haggis behind the screenplay, who's been Oscar bait for the last few years, so it seems like a safer bet.

Winner: Letters from Iwo Jima

Best Achievement in Directing
Clint Eastwood
Stephen Frears
Paul Greengrass
Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu
Martin Scorsese

Just give Marty the damn award and admit it's at least a couple of decades too late.

Winner: Martin Scorsese

Best Performance by an Actress in a Supporting Role
Adriana Barraza
Cate Blanchett
Abigail Breslin
Jennifer Hudson
Rinko Kikuchi

Dreamgirls seems likely to win *something* and this seems as good a category as any.

Winner: Jennifer Hudson

Best Performance by an Actor in a Supporting Role
Alan Arkin
Jackie Earle Haley
Djimon Hounsou
Eddie Murphy
Mark Whalberg

Pardon my french, but what the fuck has happened to the world that Eddie Murphy ends up with an Oscar nomination? I mean, okay, I haven't seen the movie, so maybe this is the performance of a lifetime, but I just don't see it going to him. Whalberg didn't have enough to do in The Departed to really snag the Oscar, so I'm giving it to Alan Arkin, because he's a fine actor, and because Little Miss Sunshine will probably snag something.

Winner: Alan Arkin

Best Performance by an Actress in a Leading Role
Penelope Cruz
Judi Dench
Helen Mirren
Meryl Streep
Kate Winslet

Everyone seems to be predicting Mirren, for having so completely embodied her character in The Queen. Seems like a safe bet, even against Meryl Streep, who has sort of lost some of her award-winningness in the last decade or two.

Winner: Helen Mirren

Best Performance by an Actor in a Leading Role
Leonardo DiCaprio
Ryan Goslin
Peter O'Toole
Will Smith
Forrest Whitaker

It could go to O'Toole, as a sort-of honourary, sorry-for-never-giving-you-the-award sort of thing, but Whitaker's been winning just about every pre-Oscar award around, so he's the one to put money on.

Winner: Forrest Whitaker

Best Motion Picture of the Year
Babel
The Departed
Letters from Iwo Jima
Little Miss Sunshine
The Queen

Babel's been hotly debated for a winner here, and also described, somewhat unflatteringly, as CRASH PART 2. I haven't seen the film myself, but if it's anything like Crash -- last year's best picture winner -- I have two things to say. It's probably annoying as hell. And if it wins, I'll be disgusted to the point of vomit. In fact, if Babel wins best picture, I think I'll probably retire this annual Oscar prediction thingy, out of disgust for the awards in general.

Winner: The Departed

And that completes this year's list of pointless, know-nothing, bullshit opinion Oscar predictions. Hope you enjoyed them. Check back in the next few days for a post-Oscar analysis of my wins and my losses.

The pinnacle of slightly-inclined upward motion technology.

2007-02-20T14:01:00.000-08:00

I watched the original 1978 version of "Dawn of the Dead" for the first time last night. It's strange seeing a movie like that, almost 30 years later, separate from the general climate of the era it was released in. I know it's billed as a horror movie, and I know that it was also intended as a not-so-subtle satire on consumerism, but what I'm *not* sure of is just how funny the movie was intended to be in 1978. I found myself laughing quite a lot, watching the zombies shuffle around the mall while cheesy mall-style Muzak poured from the speakers. But was this scene more horrifying in 1978? Did the zombies send chills along with their satirical message? I really can't be sure.

I noted that 1978 era shopping malls differed little from the shopping malls of today, and after a few minutes of research (thanks wikipedia), I found that the movie had been shot at the Monroeville Mall in Monroeville, Pennsylvania.

The mall was constructed a decade earlier, which made the mall similarities even spookier -- the malls of the late 60s doesn't look much different than the malls of the late 2000s, it would seem.

I was struck by the escalators in in the mall -- certainly a staple of shopping centres, among other locales, but something about seeing the escalators in a 1970s mall made me think of the cheery, optimistic, we'll-all-be-living-on-the-moon-with-our-flying-cars attitude of the 1960s. And it occured to me that escalators were a wonderful 1960s sort of idea.

They're stairs. BUT THEY MOVE. ON THEIR OWN. It's just like science-frickin-fiction.

So I wiki'd escalators. And what do you know, they aren't really a creation of the 1960s. In fact, the modern version of the escalator appeared in 1921.

1921.

The original versions of the escalator (apparently there two competing products that ended up merged into the 1921 version) actually appeared in the 1800s.

The escalator originated in the 19th century.

Tell me that's not stunning. Tell me that doesn't make your jaw drop.

And tell me that doesn't make you wonder why, more than 100 years later, we're still using them?

Put another way, is the escalator *really* the pinnacle of slightly-inclined upward motion technology? I mean, granted, I don't really have any suggestions for improvements or new technologies, but I'm not an engineer. I'm a sort-of-geeky newspaper guy. The actual invention of something like that is sort of out of my area of expertise. Talking about it, though, is well within it.

I know there's plenty of technologies that last for a long, long time (the automobile seems a pretty obvious example) and just become regular parts of our lives. But the escalator has remained almost unchanged since 1921. That just seems...indescribably bizarre.

Another 17 down. 300-something more to go.

2007-02-19T11:08:00.000-08:00

I dusted off the editing work last night, pushing my way through another 17 pages on the novel, bringing me to page 67 and nearly the end of chapter two. During a break in the editing, I hit the computer to print chapter three, which runs from page 67 to 97, and approximately one quarter of the novel.

Looking ahead at future editing work on the first half of the book, there's one lengthy section in the first chapter that needs a from-scratch rewrite that I haven't sat down to do yet, and another entire chapter near the end that needs to be created from scratch (when I was originally working on the book, I leapt ahead to the second half, as the first half was beginning to depress the hell out of me).

All of this work followed a dish-washing binge. Because, for reasons I could only begin to guess, I was in a super-productive mode last night.

While doing the editing work, I was listening to what I sort of consider the spiritual soundtrack to the novel, Leonard Cohen's "The Future." It's from that album that I yanked the quotes that open the first part, the second part, and the epilogue of the novel. But while editing, with the songs I had quoted drifting into my head in the background, a further idea occurred to me.

I realized that, instead of *just* using quotations from the songs, it would actually be appropriate to retitle those section based on sections from the quotations.

I rolled the idea around in my head for a bit, and found that I liked these section titles far, far better than what I had originally planned to use, so I made the official change to the manuscript.

And so, the section titles are broken down as such:

Part One: The Awful Truth
Part Two: The Miracle
Epilogue: The Light Gets In

These titles replace the originals, which were:

Part One: Faith
Part Two: Truth
Epilogue: Happily Ever After

And this is why I generally don't title things until I'm finished them. Because it isn't until I'm finished that I really know what it is I'm writing.

It's also nice to know that these sorts of random, sudden, overwhelming moments of inspiration are still able to make an appearance, even after 95% of the creation work is done, and I'm the middle of the more clinical editing stage.

Here's hoping that there's still a little bit of that inspiration left for when it comes time to do those few bits of from-scratch writing. I'm beginning to *feel* the narrator's voice again, just from reading it, so it shouldn't be too hard to sit down and find my way back into his head for those few sections. But it'd be an added bonus if those new sections were particularly inspired. Of course.

Oh, and over the course of last night's editing, I actually came across a section that seemed solid enough to post here. Taken from a scene at a funeral...

And then, I did need to be beside her, and hold her, and let her cry onto my shoulder as I cried into hers, pressing ourselves together, unaware of anything outside of us except the other, closing our eyes to the world around us, and the universe beyond that, making a new universe that would exist only of she and I, where no one died and love was eternal and just wanting something bad enough was all it took to make it happen.

And then dirt was being thrown, and the sobs came a little more loudly while the droning holy man quieted, and people started milling around, moving to comfort those they knew and cared about, because it was all over now except the mourning.

That's all for now. Cheerio.

The wait is over. Sort of.

2007-02-17T18:07:00.000-08:00

Last night's technical difficulties have now been dealt with, and the newly face-lifted web gallery for Stick Figure Drama Season Three can be officially unveiled. It is linked in the side bar, under Stickage Season Three, but the sake of convenience, I'll also link it in this post. Right here, in fact.

Season Two will be the next to receive the face-lift treatment, followed by Season One. As the web gallery format allows me to publish commentaries along with each strip, I am currently undecided whether I will simply copy and paste the original Season One commentary as it appeared in the printed collection, or rewrite the commentary froms cratch. That's why it'll be done last.

I *may* do a up-to-now Season Four gallery before either completing the Season Two or Season One galleries, but at the moment I'm a little wary of it, as once I start the Season Four gallery, I should probably make the extra effort to make sure that it remains up to date on a weekly basis. And we all know how I am about that sort of thing, don't we?

Technical Difficulties

2007-02-17T01:07:00.000-08:00

Those of you looking to access Season Three of Stick Figure Drama...you can't. For now.

Season Three is currently being migrated to a new (and much, much better) layout, unfortunately technical difficulties have gotten in the way, preventing the new layout from going live at this time. Unfortunately, I dumped all the previous Season Three images before this technical difficulty reared its ugly head. So you'll just have to wait until tomorrow for your Season Three fix.

Yeah, I'm sure that'll be super difficult.

I really should stop watching filmmaking documentaries.

2007-02-16T23:19:00.000-08:00

Or, I dunno, maybe I should watch more of them. Because watching them just makes me think, goddamn, I wish I was doing that. I was out making movies. Does that sound stupid? It probably does. But who gives a damn. We're all allowed a few moments of stupid fantasy now and then.

I wish I had come out of high school with a better idea of what I wanted to do. Instead, I came out of high school with almost no idea what I wanted to do. I thought I wanted to be a writer, but I didn't even know what that meant at the time. I was raised on horror and fantasy fiction, thinking that all you needed to tell a good story was some interesting twists and shocking ending. It wasn't until I was in my twenties that I realized what real storytelling was about, how you could actually use a story to say something about the world, about the human condition, about things that really mattered.

So coming out of high school, all I knew is that I wanted to write, and that got me a crappy job as a junior reporter at a crappy little 8-page newspaper. And that crappy little job somehow blossomed into a career that I still have to this day -- not writing, exactly, but newspaper. I didn't come out of high school thinking, "I want to work at a newspaper," but somehow that's what ended up happening. Careers have a way of sneaking up on you like that.

It's probably no surprise that I've been dealing with some discontentment issues lately. Those who know me personally have probably heard me say as much, and those who only know me through this blog have probably sensed it seeping through the writing lately. I'm not really going out of my way to hide it. I'm discontented.

I've been turning to just about anyone I can get my hands on for advice. There was a group discussion at the bar following one of the "Seen Change" performances that was dedicated to trying to find me a new career, something that might be more satisfying. One of the suggestions that came up was, "Write a good book," and that suggestion got me to actually start editing work on a novel that's been waiting for an edit since the summer of 2005. Which is good.

It's going slow. I'm 50 pages into a manuscript that's just shy of 400. I'm not working at it as hard as I should be, I'll confess, but I'm picking at it. Bit by bit.

Someone else told me, you're young, go have an adventure.

It's lovely advice. I want to. I wish I could.

Someone else suggested going back to school, retraining. They were doing it, why couldn't I?

Which, you know, is a damn good question.

So while browsing through the courses available at BCIT, what do I find but this.

Yeah, BCIT has a film program. And it's a film program designed with a flexible schedule to accomodate older adults who need to hold down a somewhat steady job while they go back to school. How perfect is that?

I can't afford it, of course. I could save, and maybe afford it in a year or two. Or maybe three or four depending on how many things break down (heaven knows my car doesn't have much life left in it).

And I can't help but think how much easier this would have been ten years ago. Before a stupid marriage that was doomed to failure, and the acquisition of debt that comes hand in hand with that. I can't help but think how much easier this would have been without a mortgage, without a credit line, without a visa, without an overdraft, all of which I'm struggling to make disappear so I'll be free of the remnants of that former life.

There's a part of me that wants so badly to just throw everything around me in the trash, and go somewhere else, and start over again. Maybe with the same career at a new location, and maybe with something brand new. Maybe start everything fresh, back at school again, for something I might have a passion for. Something I might actually love to do.

But there are just too many pieces of my former life that still have their claws dug into my current life. Too many to just shake off and be free of.

I'm still young. Have an adventure.

Sure. As soon as the bills from the last one are paid for.