laika on myspace

i come home from work today and find out that while i'm gone laika's already totally getting into social networking.

blogger reunites

really great to get back in touch with old friends because of blogger. hi to Randy, whose blog exists here, and to Steve, who i hope will create a blog soon.

july 5th journal entry

Nearly one in the morning, standing at the kitchen counter eating zesta whole wheat crackers with slices of swiss cheese I am cutting for myself.
Having read Hemingway’s “a moveable feast” tonight is keeping me up. I can only think of his Paris and his life, but am too tired to read about more. I have been reading more lately, coincidentally about writers writing and the process of doing so. Don Delillo’s “Mao II” has writers taking the place of terrorists, or the reverse really. And I don’t so much understand the importance of this as understand that it is important, for one reason or another.
My head is flooded with old places, and the painfully motivating sense that time is starting to slip away. I should be up every morning, devoting a few hours to some craft, my craft- it seems to be music. But I have not been. Is this a discipline I can gain? To what end and purpose should I be doing this? Tonight I seem to be coming to the conclusion that even if there is no other purpose, my self fulfillment is involved. At this point in my life I know that I will never be happy unless I am creating something. But the effort and time weighed against the earthly rewards it should/could or does not yield seems inbalanced. And that only leads me to think that it isn’t the process that is the problem, but it is my own lack of talent, or a misguided assumption made somewhere in the blur between craft and “hobby” . Wanting to do great things is much different from doing them. Is it ridiculous to sacrifice time in life that could be spent advancing one’s career or relationships for the sake of one’s own “art”?, especially when the art itself lends no tangible advantage to said life? But any great artist has had to start out un-great. The rewards change the process, and the process is changed by the purpose.
Perhaps, though, the only difference is a matter of a few hours of sleep.

happy birthday, sis

july 4th. julie's birthday.

oh yeah, and some sort of independence day too.

through a glass darkly

i started watching films by ingmar bergman back in college with an interest that i think was probably only because of the pseudo-intellectual-cool factor. he is THE director to watch for any young college student a notion that they really appreciate movie-making, is he not? but now that i've seen a handful, and a couple over again (years later), i think i'm beginning to understand just how powerful they are. but as always, they hurt. they are stark, they are excruciating- difficult to watch- possibly because of the bleak but honest spiritual content, possibly because i know their visual beauty is something totally lost and forgotten in movies these days. (maybe simply because they were made in a time period with clothing styles and mannerisms that will never exist again.)
amy and i watched Through A Glass Darkly together last night, and this one sunk in. bergman was the son of a pastor, had a lot of spiritual baggage, and it's obvious, of course. it's about a girl with a schizophrenic disorder, a father who sacrificies his family's well being for the success of his writing career, and a protestant God who seems to be missing. one of the most striking moments to me was a scene in which the main character, having "seen God", describes Him as a horrible stone-faced spider coming through a doorwary and trying to forcibly "enter" her. the movie ends on a slight upswing though, subtly stating that God is somehow love, and where there is love there is God, so God is all around us- but remains largely unresolved and realistic. The idea that our Love for others is God's protection of them is ummm...amazing.
The music in TAGD was very minimal, and mostly cello suites by Bach- meant to give a warm, but isolated feel (according to the movie's commentary). Bergman modeled his use of small casts during this period of his filmmaking after the chamber quartets he had become interested in at the time. They were meant to play off of one another as instruments would in smaller musical ensembles. I loved this feel, and might be why i prefer his later, simpler movies to ones like the Seventh Seal, etc. it's no wonder my music composition prof in college swore that bergman's films had changed his life when they first came out.

"For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known. And now abideth faith, hope, and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love." - 1 Cor 13:12-13

je t'aime

i saw this movie last night. i love paris, so it undoubtedly follows that i'd enjoy it. but really, this is a sweet little movie, and i great idea for a project. it's made up of several shorts all by different directors, and none fall short, i think. one thing i noticed was a really quiet "whirring" noise played very softly throughout the whole film, stringing it all together subconsciously. it made me smile when i noticed it. proves that some of the best directors agree that there is function and psychology in something so almost inaudible, in ambient noise. anyway, take your wives, girlfriends, or parents to go see this one.