"You wanted a monster / Here I am"
I'm not entirely sure if it was because I was more tired than I thought, but I just socialized a bit after a Via Audio concert. I note the thing about tiredness because I just saw myself in a mirror, and . . . I look quite worn out at the moment.
Aforementioned concert was fun . . . the band has a fill-in drummer for traveling now, and the guitarist changed his style a bit. This seems to mean an edgier, harsher sound to most songs . . . which is actually what I prefer in my music. Awesome.
Found myself still thinking obsessively about Cloverfield at the concert . . . particularly realizing how I think it's effectively an excellent example of the kind of "new horror" movie I was trying to envision a few months ago: it terrifies not because of its gimmicks or thrills, but because it sucks the audience in and makes them feel just how difficult--impossible, even--the situation is. Scares come from imagining it's not a bunch of actors in make-believe getting increasingly screwed, but that it's you, and your friends, and the people you love. It digs in, making the entire experience eerie and unsettling. Maybe this isn't entirely different from the basic Horror-genre entry, but I stubbornly assert that Cloverfield worked far more effectively than any recent "scary" movie that I've seen. I want to say it was the scope of the destruction versus the stature of the perspective: a city under siege, thousands upon thousands of people's lives disappearing all over, with a fundamentally everyman vantage to the hopelessness and hysteria.
But perhaps I could buy in so easily because of my personal connections to a few "particles" in the frame of the film. Two such particles as follows: 1) the protagonist fights for a love that isn't exactly requited, and 2) I am right at home with the hand-held camera work. On the other hand, there was very little on the surface for me to connect with in any of the main characters--they were trendy party-goers, quite distanced from any of my preferred subcultures--yet the underpinnings proved to be quite compelling.
Hopefully I'm nearing the end of my captivation with the movie . . . I have to finish a half-draft of a short story tomorrow afternoon, and the little work I've managed I'm not very happy with. Also, planning on traveling downtown Wednesday to see Via Audio again will necessarily require finishing several things for Thursday in advance, so I'll just be tired (instead of tired and unprepared) for my Thursday classes.
A few notes on the postless interrim between late December and now: work has progressed to something like 95% completion on The Burning Five, with the newest plan being to finish that last 5% before February; I watched lots of Stargate: Atlantis and Monk; attended an interesting Medieval Music show in Hayward; I decided, ultimately, to drop a Literature & Film course for the sake of my sanity; Poetry Writing and Philosophy of Language are already very interesting courses; and Problems of Reality probably isn't challenging enough for me but it should be OK because by 3:30PM Tuesday/Thursday I'm nearing my sustainable limit for intensive critical thinking.
Existentially, I continue trapping myself in thoughts considering various depths of love/intimacy, am pretty confident in what I can get done in the next twelve-ish months, and continue expanding my abilities to appreciate persons who think in substantially different ways from me (as long as they can appreciate me in return).
Aforementioned concert was fun . . . the band has a fill-in drummer for traveling now, and the guitarist changed his style a bit. This seems to mean an edgier, harsher sound to most songs . . . which is actually what I prefer in my music. Awesome.
Found myself still thinking obsessively about Cloverfield at the concert . . . particularly realizing how I think it's effectively an excellent example of the kind of "new horror" movie I was trying to envision a few months ago: it terrifies not because of its gimmicks or thrills, but because it sucks the audience in and makes them feel just how difficult--impossible, even--the situation is. Scares come from imagining it's not a bunch of actors in make-believe getting increasingly screwed, but that it's you, and your friends, and the people you love. It digs in, making the entire experience eerie and unsettling. Maybe this isn't entirely different from the basic Horror-genre entry, but I stubbornly assert that Cloverfield worked far more effectively than any recent "scary" movie that I've seen. I want to say it was the scope of the destruction versus the stature of the perspective: a city under siege, thousands upon thousands of people's lives disappearing all over, with a fundamentally everyman vantage to the hopelessness and hysteria.
But perhaps I could buy in so easily because of my personal connections to a few "particles" in the frame of the film. Two such particles as follows: 1) the protagonist fights for a love that isn't exactly requited, and 2) I am right at home with the hand-held camera work. On the other hand, there was very little on the surface for me to connect with in any of the main characters--they were trendy party-goers, quite distanced from any of my preferred subcultures--yet the underpinnings proved to be quite compelling.
Hopefully I'm nearing the end of my captivation with the movie . . . I have to finish a half-draft of a short story tomorrow afternoon, and the little work I've managed I'm not very happy with. Also, planning on traveling downtown Wednesday to see Via Audio again will necessarily require finishing several things for Thursday in advance, so I'll just be tired (instead of tired and unprepared) for my Thursday classes.
A few notes on the postless interrim between late December and now: work has progressed to something like 95% completion on The Burning Five, with the newest plan being to finish that last 5% before February; I watched lots of Stargate: Atlantis and Monk; attended an interesting Medieval Music show in Hayward; I decided, ultimately, to drop a Literature & Film course for the sake of my sanity; Poetry Writing and Philosophy of Language are already very interesting courses; and Problems of Reality probably isn't challenging enough for me but it should be OK because by 3:30PM Tuesday/Thursday I'm nearing my sustainable limit for intensive critical thinking.
Existentially, I continue trapping myself in thoughts considering various depths of love/intimacy, am pretty confident in what I can get done in the next twelve-ish months, and continue expanding my abilities to appreciate persons who think in substantially different ways from me (as long as they can appreciate me in return).
posted by SJ at 1/20/2008 01:12:00 AM
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