Wouldn't it be better if I were some shiny and useful cog in the guts of some faceless corporate entity- a kind of devotee of the Metropolis? Well my beloved hidden enemies, alas this shall never come to pass. I have tried my best to fit, and it will neer work. So I am asking you to reach down into the depths of your hearts and pockets, and make my humble vainglorious dreams come to fruition. It doesn't seem fair that I can't have any fun on planet Ooph, when everyone else is exhibiting their personalized frug, or manifesting their individual watusi of life. Why can't I be a simple Egyptologist/Paleontologist/Astrologer/Musician in a Thoreausian shack on the edge of a wilderness paradise within driving distance of a major city? I can live on the merest of stipends per annum and still be able to travel abroad once a year, living in a shoestring. I have done the fine calculations and determined that I can live emaciated and an iron lung yet ecstatic for 11,111 dollars a year. If 111,110 of you will donate a slim penny a piece, I can live in the style I have never been accustomed to, and will thank you through the eternities. I you would like to buy something (see astroplanetology link) that would be superb as well.
What would you get in return? Well besides the foregoing undying affection, you would enable me to put all of my time into pleasing and informing you with this gilded verbiage. If I am ever admitted to the hallowed halls of academia or the sacred chambers of Museumlia, then you might have the chance to meet me in person, where I can regale you with tales of ancient worlds, and maybe even teach you an extinct language or two.
If you are one of the many people out there with the excess cash that is leaking out of your pockets, and causing you to trip and fall to your public embarrassment and consternation, Please feel to relieve yourself of a few Billi barrels of it right here. If you find my creative output to be the abomination of the ages, the you can always hope that your donations will help me to vanish from your internet vantage forever. Can't promise that one though.
At any rate, give, and give freely and give in impossible excess. What you cast upon the waters will never come back to you, get soggy and be gulped by a stunted bluegill.. But how picturesque...
Notice please the donation button on the left...
Smother me with your monetary affections
I smell music...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xZMP-jowpJs
Saturday, August 2, 2008
Thursday, July 31, 2008
Why Classic Movies are Classics
Because I said so. Well that would be the shortest approach. And since this blog is my lonely yet sovereign realm, I can say so with the most brazen disregard. I have already exhaustedly gone through the reasons why modern movies look like they were produced by ambitious squids, and want to accent the positive in this post so I will merely briefly summarize the reasons why today's movies make me want to cry like a baby, and not in a good way.
1) Bad acting
2) Bad actressing
3) Bad directing
4) Bad writing
5) Bad editing
6) Either too much hand held camera, or the camera is going through DTs
7) Bad lighting
Good point- expert special effects.
Now that is enough cultish cultivation of negativity, let us glorify the great films of the past.
Some will rip to shreds the old silent films, but I think that they should not be judged by present day standards. Everyone was still learning the art of moviemaking- it was the pioneering period, so a few figurative wagon trains would be burned. But at least this was a noble adventure. Even though the acting could be stagy and the quality of of film abysmal, many lasting great movies were created. Some of the better ones took advantage of the absence of sound. Metropolis for example, created a very unreal but compelling world. A mixture of dream and nightmare. It was at its best being in both silence and black and white. Nosferatu did something similar with a different subject.
There were films though that I think suffered from not having sound. The silent shorts of Laurel and Hardy are really alot better when we can hear their voices, which only add to their lovable hilarious personalities. Those performers with good voices, and voices that the public imagined fit their characters, prospered with the advent of sound. Great Garbo was fortunate to be one of those performers, even with less than perfect English.
All of these stars of this time and into the 50s even, created a a very glamorous impression that is unfortunately lost today. I think it is in part due to over saturation in the media, and part to being children of a more modern age- our personalities are forever different. It seems to me that whether we like it or not, actors or not, we have become more homogenized- like a nest of termites.
Great movies from all periods in the past had great directors, who knew how to use lighting, camera angles and editing. As ancient as Eisenstein is, he is still an amazingly original director. No one is so inventive now, or even bothers to imitate him. There is Hitchcock, Huston, Kubrick, and many more who really knew their art. I think the last crop that were able to make films at this high level were rising in the 70s.
Actual writers were sometimes used to write screenplays. Unfortunately now there are no actual writers, at least not any involved in the film business or selling books in the bookstores. East of Eden was based on a Steinbeck book, 2001 based on Clarke's book.. there were so many. I think one problem today is the writer died out by the early 70s.. now we see lousy, yet technically impressive remake after remake. Next they will be filming Dylan Thomas' poems. They have run out of quality filmable material.
So there it is- all the quality that used to exist in movies has been silently sucked out while we all became slaves to keyboards of different kinds. Go watch a great movie this weekend! Try anything by the director Ozu.
And some dinner music for dinner theater:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F54sIDRWkNM
Horoscope for the terminally dizzy: You have achieved perfection. Not only in yourself and your astute attention to non existent details, but also through a species of cowardice shown through insulting those who have all of those disgusting qualities you have nothing to do with. Don't worry they will never catch you. Worms that have dug that deep are comforted by the roaring blaze at the Earth's core. Of course they are also barbequed to a vapor. Try to bring out the cross-eyed euglena within this month, as you experience a return to your core being. Face issues head on and directly contact those you have trouble with. Invest in ice cream. Control is impossible, but influence causing surrender is possible. But not for you. Lucky days: the 1/4; and the 32nd. Have a nice day.
1) Bad acting
2) Bad actressing
3) Bad directing
4) Bad writing
5) Bad editing
6) Either too much hand held camera, or the camera is going through DTs
7) Bad lighting
Good point- expert special effects.
Now that is enough cultish cultivation of negativity, let us glorify the great films of the past.
Some will rip to shreds the old silent films, but I think that they should not be judged by present day standards. Everyone was still learning the art of moviemaking- it was the pioneering period, so a few figurative wagon trains would be burned. But at least this was a noble adventure. Even though the acting could be stagy and the quality of of film abysmal, many lasting great movies were created. Some of the better ones took advantage of the absence of sound. Metropolis for example, created a very unreal but compelling world. A mixture of dream and nightmare. It was at its best being in both silence and black and white. Nosferatu did something similar with a different subject.
There were films though that I think suffered from not having sound. The silent shorts of Laurel and Hardy are really alot better when we can hear their voices, which only add to their lovable hilarious personalities. Those performers with good voices, and voices that the public imagined fit their characters, prospered with the advent of sound. Great Garbo was fortunate to be one of those performers, even with less than perfect English.
All of these stars of this time and into the 50s even, created a a very glamorous impression that is unfortunately lost today. I think it is in part due to over saturation in the media, and part to being children of a more modern age- our personalities are forever different. It seems to me that whether we like it or not, actors or not, we have become more homogenized- like a nest of termites.
Great movies from all periods in the past had great directors, who knew how to use lighting, camera angles and editing. As ancient as Eisenstein is, he is still an amazingly original director. No one is so inventive now, or even bothers to imitate him. There is Hitchcock, Huston, Kubrick, and many more who really knew their art. I think the last crop that were able to make films at this high level were rising in the 70s.
Actual writers were sometimes used to write screenplays. Unfortunately now there are no actual writers, at least not any involved in the film business or selling books in the bookstores. East of Eden was based on a Steinbeck book, 2001 based on Clarke's book.. there were so many. I think one problem today is the writer died out by the early 70s.. now we see lousy, yet technically impressive remake after remake. Next they will be filming Dylan Thomas' poems. They have run out of quality filmable material.
So there it is- all the quality that used to exist in movies has been silently sucked out while we all became slaves to keyboards of different kinds. Go watch a great movie this weekend! Try anything by the director Ozu.
And some dinner music for dinner theater:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F54sIDRWkNM
Horoscope for the terminally dizzy: You have achieved perfection. Not only in yourself and your astute attention to non existent details, but also through a species of cowardice shown through insulting those who have all of those disgusting qualities you have nothing to do with. Don't worry they will never catch you. Worms that have dug that deep are comforted by the roaring blaze at the Earth's core. Of course they are also barbequed to a vapor. Try to bring out the cross-eyed euglena within this month, as you experience a return to your core being. Face issues head on and directly contact those you have trouble with. Invest in ice cream. Control is impossible, but influence causing surrender is possible. But not for you. Lucky days: the 1/4; and the 32nd. Have a nice day.
Sunday, July 20, 2008
Various Well-Structured Ramblings
Hello, it has been a long time, hasn't it? Well, of course you haven't looked at this thing at all, so it really hasn't been a long time, or it has been a very long time. I just thought that I would add another post to see if I was still capable of writing. Today's whine will be: What on Earth is the matter with everyone, anyway? It seems like people have lost whatever fragmentary minds they might have once had. I really don't say this to offend, but it seems to me that on one is happy these days. I find that I am happiest myself when I am spending time by myself, with my soul mate, the computer. Of course when you are living in experimental Teflon FEMA housing, with the government continually testing controlled gamma ray bursts on your cranium, you can be a bit a cranky. Looking back in time a little, it seems to that towards the very end of the last millennium, my life reached a kind of breakneck pace that I guess it couldn't continually sustain. Really things were never that great.. I never had much money, but I certainly had more than I have now, and more than I will probably ever see in the future, barring the success of the FOREX gold rush. Maybe this crap that I write really isn't is as good as I think it is. Maybe it is really only suitable for the most erudite inhabitants of the Andromeda Galaxy. Maybe even cretinous euglenii curl their flagella at the merest insinuation of my writings. I have written enough to fill attics and feel that I am talking to some kind of audience, but they never really manifest very clearly.
That was a rather large tangent. At any rate, when 2000 arrived along with the wholly evil Resident Bush,Reagan inaugurated a decade himself) everything began to crumble. I have honestly not had very much fun since then. Maybe I have learned alot, but who cares? Depression? Mania? Hypothalamic Lesions? Water on the Spleen? Crazy ex-girlfriends poisoning my possessions while I am out? Maybe all of the above, but I really don't think that is it. I have had the worst possible luck, in a relentless trivial way, rather than in the " Oh my god, the Komodo Dragon severed my legs" way. Not like I haven't fought. I almost died in 2000, but I lived, maybe through my own dim determination and no thanks to the doctors. Life has been alot harder since. It seems to match something chronic fatigue syndrome, which I am sure I was skeptical of- until I got it. All of the physical problems I have had since then- none of which I had before - hyper-sensitive skin, memory/concentration problems, cold hands and feet, week, slow pulse, seeing afterimages, pain in odd places. Once I had pains in every joint in my body. The only one that has not recurred so far is waking up gasping for air, feeling like I was going to die- that was at the beginning of the whole nightmare.
I was nothing like this before: I worked all hours, slept 4-6 hours a night, ate drank everything ( including caffeine, NO alcohol though, tons of pop both diet and regular, vats of chocolate milk- I set up an altar to the Nestles rabbit at one point)
So here I am about 8 years later with many of the same problems. I am always low energy. It really upsets me when friends and family don't take this seriously. Don't they see what has happened? Don't they remember the juggernaut that I used to be? Old age is another alibi tossed out. Yes the only case of old age that descended in about 1 month, and includes skin sensations, cold feet and hands, weak/slow pulse, terrible sleep, memory and concentration problems and all around fatigue.
So maybe that is why is seems the world has gone crazy. I am the same person but it is so hard for me to achieve my goals now, which are not standard goals I admit. To adopt other goals is to me to become another person- I have no interest in it. I will be myself in a mediocre capacity rather than live someone else's life very well. I am interested in academic subjects ( I'll toss astrology in there-maybe it will make it someday) and artistic subjects. That is it. Death before the coal mine.
And to close- I still think people are nuts. They are way too materialistic for one thing. It is all about the body, and those of us without a body like me are worthless I guess. Bodies are for babies anyway...
Horoscope for wayward minds: an eraser that slipped out of one of the Apollo missions is conjunct their jettisoned toilet bowl cleaner, firmly in the constellation of "I have no idea what I am talking about, so I shouldn't critique you". Red and Green are lucky colors; bet on PI and negative infinity in the lotto. You will meet a tall short familiar stranger who will have some kind of effect on you. Or not.
Here is the movie of the week:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kPQR-OsH0RQ
That was a rather large tangent. At any rate, when 2000 arrived along with the wholly evil Resident Bush,Reagan inaugurated a decade himself) everything began to crumble. I have honestly not had very much fun since then. Maybe I have learned alot, but who cares? Depression? Mania? Hypothalamic Lesions? Water on the Spleen? Crazy ex-girlfriends poisoning my possessions while I am out? Maybe all of the above, but I really don't think that is it. I have had the worst possible luck, in a relentless trivial way, rather than in the " Oh my god, the Komodo Dragon severed my legs" way. Not like I haven't fought. I almost died in 2000, but I lived, maybe through my own dim determination and no thanks to the doctors. Life has been alot harder since. It seems to match something chronic fatigue syndrome, which I am sure I was skeptical of- until I got it. All of the physical problems I have had since then- none of which I had before - hyper-sensitive skin, memory/concentration problems, cold hands and feet, week, slow pulse, seeing afterimages, pain in odd places. Once I had pains in every joint in my body. The only one that has not recurred so far is waking up gasping for air, feeling like I was going to die- that was at the beginning of the whole nightmare.
I was nothing like this before: I worked all hours, slept 4-6 hours a night, ate drank everything ( including caffeine, NO alcohol though, tons of pop both diet and regular, vats of chocolate milk- I set up an altar to the Nestles rabbit at one point)
So here I am about 8 years later with many of the same problems. I am always low energy. It really upsets me when friends and family don't take this seriously. Don't they see what has happened? Don't they remember the juggernaut that I used to be? Old age is another alibi tossed out. Yes the only case of old age that descended in about 1 month, and includes skin sensations, cold feet and hands, weak/slow pulse, terrible sleep, memory and concentration problems and all around fatigue.
So maybe that is why is seems the world has gone crazy. I am the same person but it is so hard for me to achieve my goals now, which are not standard goals I admit. To adopt other goals is to me to become another person- I have no interest in it. I will be myself in a mediocre capacity rather than live someone else's life very well. I am interested in academic subjects ( I'll toss astrology in there-maybe it will make it someday) and artistic subjects. That is it. Death before the coal mine.
And to close- I still think people are nuts. They are way too materialistic for one thing. It is all about the body, and those of us without a body like me are worthless I guess. Bodies are for babies anyway...
Horoscope for wayward minds: an eraser that slipped out of one of the Apollo missions is conjunct their jettisoned toilet bowl cleaner, firmly in the constellation of "I have no idea what I am talking about, so I shouldn't critique you". Red and Green are lucky colors; bet on PI and negative infinity in the lotto. You will meet a tall short familiar stranger who will have some kind of effect on you. Or not.
Here is the movie of the week:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kPQR-OsH0RQ
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