30 April 2012

At the Park


Walks are nice because there is so little going on I remember to take photos. And then suddenly there's so much going on: hostile geese, baby ducklings, guarded eggs, mysterious birdhouses, tiny pinecones, and abandoned pinatas.
One of my first film class assignments in high school was to film an example of the various types of shots - close ups, wide shots, etc. - and I shot a close up of some berries nestled at the foot of a tree, almost identical to these. Something about the red, green, and brown is so comforting to me. 
Parks sometimes seem a sad replacement for wild, untethered nature, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much life there was, no matter where I looked, from grumpy old men reclined on benches simultaneously playing electric guitar and smoking cigarettes (no lie) to small hard-working honeybees who grazed my ankles. 



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27 April 2012

Eyeball Roller Coasters

Anthropology was especially enlightening today, full of gems. Highlights:

Are you familiar with the term, "castration?" It's when they remove a man's phallus. Followed by a gasp not heard since the early 20th century.

The Bella Coola, who live in the Pacific Northwest, that Twilight-y area you all know about. How sad that an entire culture must be summed up with a poorly-written populist fantasy novel. He also used "Indiana Jones" to describe Shiva.

Are you guys familiar with Bollywood?
I miss that multicultural bubble where white people were the cultural other. 

And finally...

You know, Prince William married - what was her name? Everyone knew this one. There was, in particular, a breathy Kate Middleton fangirl in the back corner. Priorities?

At the end of the semester, I still don't have a clear picture of anthropology. My eyeballs, however, have loved this semester. Every week they get an average of seventy-three rolls, aka eyeball roller coasters. 

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23 April 2012

Weekend Time Machine

I never thought I'd find inspiration by looking to the past. We're always moving forward, aren't we? Ideas build upon ideas, technologies upon technologies, until we get the wonderful mind-bending complexities of contemporary cinema. Audiences, I have always felt, are so jaded that a twist is usually necessary to wow them. Sometimes, it feels like modern philosophy is that visual bombardment will do the trick.
And then I saw Girl Shy with a live orchestra and more importantly (if that is possible), an audience that laughed and jumped more than I did. For the irrepressible grin as I walked away from the Egyptian Theater alone, I do not regret sitting through unreasonably heavy traffic for two hours. I admit that I had recently started considering other careers. Filmmaking is so uncertain, and what is life and who am I and why are we here and all that. This weekend I found the cure. I just have to think about the joy in that theater and ta da!

So yes, I spent Sunday on Hollywood Blvd, which I like in that kitschy neon tourist cesspool sort of way, watching new (to me) oldies at the TCM Classic Film Festival. Next year I hope to attend the whole thing. I found all sorts of people there - a guy who spoke of LA as a casual Manhattan (really?) and was really excited about being in Hollywood, a woman who clung vehemently to "they don't make 'em like that anymore," and another who declared, "The Titanic sank tonight. On this very night!"

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22 April 2012

Cure for the Common Cold

My throat's secretly been hurting for the last few days. I didn't tell anyone because I was in denial about my oncoming cold. Then last night, I hacked up a bit of phlegm - wait, where are you going? It gets less gross in a minute - and found a dog hair in it. 
I lied. This is pretty gross. I had ingested one of Niu Niu's hairs sometime last week and my body freaked out, attacked until it packed it into a mucus car, and shipped it straight outta town. My throat immediately stopped hurting. It's a miracle!

So today, we learned what phlegm is for, and not to sit behind your dog with a fan blowing towards you and your mouth open. Biology at work, you guys!

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21 April 2012

Classes

Yesterday my literature professor announced an upcoming activity: Theater Detectives. Wait, am I in kindergarten? Deep down, I think it'll be a lot of fun. But here's the thing. I don't want to mooooooove.

Then we returned to group presentations, which I guess I had overly high hopes for because so far I've been giving people pretty "eh" grades. One after another, they read their outlines word for word and underwhelm with their skits. I want to be wowed, or at least not to feel like I've walked into a cesspool of half-assery. (Speaking of half-assery, have some blurry photos from the Classic Film Festival.)
As I placed my evaluation sheet up front, I noticed everyone else had given near-perfect scores. What. I love evaluations and editing papers. I love the feeling of the blood red ink seeping in the paper, seeing the marks all over the page. There's often this disparity between my standards and everyone else's, but unlike other things (body image, restaurant orders, what is and isn't offensive), I am unwavering in my critique. I was not too harsh - your presentation sucked. And everyone else is too easy. I suppose I am the token grumpy British man of peer reviews.
Let me tell you about something that happened in anthropology the other day. Oh, anthro - the stories I could tell if I gave guided tours of my notebooks. They're lined with snarky notes. One day I will make a coat lined with snark and flash people when they are idiotic. 

My professor, who is a nice guy and eager to make sure his students understand by constantly asking "does that make sense?" and writing each statement out on the board (forget short hand!) after rewording it several times (so we can cover all the learning styles!), wrote that Tchambuli men were expected to go to market. 

This followed: "...and when I say market, you guys know what I mean, right? They obviously don't have Ralph's in New Guinea. I mean like a place where they sell produce in stalls, that sort of thing." He proceeded to place "market" in quotations. As though not being a Ralph's made you a quasi-market. Which came first, Ralph's or fruit stalls? Not good enough, Guinean "markets"- or should I say places of trade? Step up your game!

Now I have to go to linguistics, where my professor name-drops "Doctor Who" as a synonym of British. 

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17 April 2012

That's Absurd!

Some would say the title of Krapp's Last Tape is indicative of its merit. Certainly, my classmates in my comparative literature class would. After a lengthy explanation of the play's background - absurdism, post-modernist theater, the despair of the 20th century - we watched the beginning of a film version with John Hurt as the 69 year old Krapp.

Not five seconds had passed before the uncomfortable giggling began. I looked around - was this high school French, where my classmates had launched proclamations of disbelief and confusion at the highly fantastic French films we watched during finals weeks. Laughing at what we didn't understand, whose presence made us uncomfortable. 

Now, in university where the youth of America willingly come to educate themselves, it was the same. Shifting in their seats. Playing catch with the word, "awkward." Mockery of the actor for sitting there - "Great actor right here," "Grammy* for this guy!" - when I would consider the lack of action to be indicative of his talent. Complete and immediate dismissal once the piece had failed to entertain. 

"It's so hard to teach American students European theater," murmurs my professor. Oddly enough, we are covering similar pieces in my upper division French class, and my classmates there are respectful of the work. Our discussions make me go, "oh," and bring the philosophy of each work into the present. It's wonderful and almost convinces me to stay here. Perhaps it comes with age. 

Respect. I try to give at least that to everything I read, watch, or hear. Because someone put in effort, and to them it is the most important thing in the world. Would you mock someone's baby? 

...You are terrible. I've been frustrated by my peers' lack of respect and awareness for difference, and frustrated when I have found it in myself. Why does the world keep returning to those old wars, we say, we desensitized American children who have never experienced war in our homes - or rather, we have, in plastic boxes - for whom war is a story and a reason for mind-blowing explosion sequences. 

Sit still for a second - someone's trying to tell you something, and your initial discomfort only hints that it'll pull you out of your shell. Follow them down the rabbit hole and save your doubts for the end. Don't cast early judgement. You might miss out on something amazingly eye-opening. 

*Grammy's are for music, idiot.

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09 April 2012

Adventure Pack

Every morning is like setting out on an expedition. Once I leave the house, that's it - I'm stranded until evening. I have a lot of free time between classes, and like a petulant child I demand constant amusement. Thank god for sturdy canvas backpacks and free wi-fi.
A purple scarf to keep the morning cold away,
A bottle of dependably refreshing water,
Earphones for when neighboring conversations grow annoying,
A laptop as my virtual refuge,
A worn journal stuffed with captured thoughts,
Glasses to recognize the approaching figure saying hello,
A thin but well-written book for precious moments just before class,
Rose balm for when anxiety destroys my lips,
Cookies for resisting the siren aromas of the food court,
And a phone to warn my family -  I'm heading home.

I'm sure what a person carries daily speaks of the person themselves, whether their character or situation. During graduation, our class advisor read excerpts from student pieces on the contents of their backpacks based on Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried. In retrospect, it was quite fitting.

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No Time for April Showers

April in Los Angeles is jam-packed with festivals and events. Maybe I'm finally discovering what a sun-drenched and urine-scented crumbly gem this place is. And I say this with the greatest affection.

Looking forward to...


I've always felt a strong pull away from this city, with its isolating sprawl and early bedtimes. I wanted ivy and brick, community, something at every corner. There was too much dead space in LA. I wanted to be able to walk outside on a sleepless night and find the city still alive, like I could during the summers in Taipei. I'm reminded of Zan Romanoff's piece on Joan Didion. 

Now that I've had more chances to venture downtown, the city's opening up to me. I'm still excited to leave in the fall, but it's a bit more like, no wait - I'm not quite done here just yet.

And the city's like, I'll wait for you come back.

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05 April 2012

Magic and White Noise

I'm excited to say magic is here again and I am knee-deep in a new screenplay. The best part is, I have no idea where the story is taking me.

I started with an image of a girl in a garden, then I layered another image onto that, and another, and another. I have to say this is one of my favorite ways to work. In the moment, I have no concerns other than, what will look amazing following this?

Creation is all reaction. You're constantly fighting the past, and if you're not following the grooves left by previous generations, you're running from it. Awareness of the past and making choices about whether to approach or avoid is a huge part of making art.

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Successful bloggers advise consistent posting, but I feel as though there is so much noise online that the sheer volume of stuff overwhelms me. Imagine we continue producing content at this rate - much of it will become nothing but white noise. So I want to preserve my words until I have something worthwhile to say. I don't want to add to the noise.

Just some thoughts. Of course, being a human being and thus prone to fickleness, I will change my mind in a moment of insecurity at seeing my pitiful blog stats.

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04 April 2012

At the Peak of Mt. Happy

At the top of the world right now. I've got a copy of my article in this month's Dig Magazine in one hand and a letter from Paris bearing exciting news in the other. I may be studying in France for the next two years!

Foreign mail is incredibly fascinating. It's addressed to Mademoiselle Katherine in the États-Unis. Dated with the day before the month, with four stamps that I've never seen before. La Poste! I might just be a bit too excited to see that euro sign and 000,85.

I can hear all the worldly people sighing, "Oh, Americans," with a shake of their head.

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A peek at some of my desktop companions - Paddington Bear and...squirrel? Not to be partial, but Paddington did come home with me all the way from said station last year, when I was distraught and clomping about in a pair of granny pumps and missing trains all over the place. Squirrel was on sale at Urban Outfitters this Christmas, when, in a moment of weakness, I let my sister buy a ridiculously overpriced Domo plushie as a gift for her friend.
But I must say Squirrel is more photogenic. Squirrel 1 Paddington 1? It's a tie!

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