-Ruth Fisher
Friday, December 31, 2010
Tuesday, December 21, 2010
Departure
I'm waiting at the airport.
How many times have we all waited at airports, either in the arrivals area, anxiously scanning the gate for our loved ones, or the departure area in tears from all the goodbyes, or waiting impatiently to board a plane that will take you to your lover whom, of course, lives far far away.
I love airports.
You'll never see so much sadness, pain, exhilaration and pure joy in one place. You'll never feel so connected to strangers, or so hopeful. Or so heartbroken. You'll never wish you could go back in time so badly, or force yourself into an unknown, but certainly happier future. There is, at times, as much grief in airports as there is at funerals, as much pain as in hospitals, as much uncertainty and fear and panic as there is in your own imagination.
Airports are places to transition. They are transformative. Whether we're shopping on ebay during that 3 hour delay, or running from one end of Pearson to the other to make our connection, there is nowhere to be in an airport but the present. A state of limbo, a place of unconditional acceptance. There is nothing to do in an airport but sit and wait with your own thoughts.
Ironically, my love is on his way to the very airport I am in. By the time he arrives, I will be on another plane, always one step ahead of him. I will see him at my final destination, an hour after I arrive, when time becomes fluid and inconsequential, as everything else is.
The airport in 6FU only ever features in the pilot. Yet it is essentially the beginning of several story lines that change several people's lives.
Everything is a near miss, hindsight, a what if or if only. Here I sit, waiting for my lover. Waiting to depart as he touches down.
How many times have we all waited at airports, either in the arrivals area, anxiously scanning the gate for our loved ones, or the departure area in tears from all the goodbyes, or waiting impatiently to board a plane that will take you to your lover whom, of course, lives far far away.
I love airports.
You'll never see so much sadness, pain, exhilaration and pure joy in one place. You'll never feel so connected to strangers, or so hopeful. Or so heartbroken. You'll never wish you could go back in time so badly, or force yourself into an unknown, but certainly happier future. There is, at times, as much grief in airports as there is at funerals, as much pain as in hospitals, as much uncertainty and fear and panic as there is in your own imagination.
Airports are places to transition. They are transformative. Whether we're shopping on ebay during that 3 hour delay, or running from one end of Pearson to the other to make our connection, there is nowhere to be in an airport but the present. A state of limbo, a place of unconditional acceptance. There is nothing to do in an airport but sit and wait with your own thoughts.
Ironically, my love is on his way to the very airport I am in. By the time he arrives, I will be on another plane, always one step ahead of him. I will see him at my final destination, an hour after I arrive, when time becomes fluid and inconsequential, as everything else is.
The airport in 6FU only ever features in the pilot. Yet it is essentially the beginning of several story lines that change several people's lives.
Everything is a near miss, hindsight, a what if or if only. Here I sit, waiting for my lover. Waiting to depart as he touches down.
Sunday, December 12, 2010
Let's Burn It. Let's Burn It All.
I feel antsy a lot.
It's been the reality of this term, being back at school and finding the stress of that incredibly torturous at times. It's the emotional drain and the feelings of insecurity as my confidence level yo-yos dramatically. My partner lives somewhere else and my closest friends have their own shit to deal with. My mum has empty nest syndrome. I have restless leg syndrome.
I am not comfortable in my own skin these days. I have endless wants. I feel irritated and unfulfilled. Time for a change.
It's been the reality of this term, being back at school and finding the stress of that incredibly torturous at times. It's the emotional drain and the feelings of insecurity as my confidence level yo-yos dramatically. My partner lives somewhere else and my closest friends have their own shit to deal with. My mum has empty nest syndrome. I have restless leg syndrome.
I am not comfortable in my own skin these days. I have endless wants. I feel irritated and unfulfilled. Time for a change.
Saturday, October 16, 2010
Is it okay to just post an entry after being on hiatus for the last three months?
Cause that's what I'm doing, yo.
Several things happened over the last few months that prevented me from blogging.
1. Full Time Employment
2. Cat Dying (RIP Ginny)
3. Partner In Saskatoon With Family Which Translated Into Multiple Board Game Nights and Weekend Camping Trips
4. Taught At Arts Camp (Where Many A Scandal Occurred)
5. Moved
6. Started School
7. Grew Increasingly Tired and Mildly Depressed Over Ridiculous Long Distance Relationship
8. Became Hooked On Friday Night Lights and Glee
And here we are. I hope you've had a delightful summer and fall. But let's get back to that show of ours where all our real friends are. I love these art school scenes.
Several things happened over the last few months that prevented me from blogging.
1. Full Time Employment
2. Cat Dying (RIP Ginny)
3. Partner In Saskatoon With Family Which Translated Into Multiple Board Game Nights and Weekend Camping Trips
4. Taught At Arts Camp (Where Many A Scandal Occurred)
5. Moved
6. Started School
7. Grew Increasingly Tired and Mildly Depressed Over Ridiculous Long Distance Relationship
8. Became Hooked On Friday Night Lights and Glee
And here we are. I hope you've had a delightful summer and fall. But let's get back to that show of ours where all our real friends are. I love these art school scenes.
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
You Can't Stay Here
A friend sent me a poem recently:
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Mark Strand
I'm moving. Out of my Toronto apartment, leaving my stuff in storage at my cousin's and will be back here at the end of August to move into a new apartment I don't have yet. I'm a little anxious, less about the packing and more about the fact that I don't really have any idea how this year is going to go. My partner has to be in Vancouver for the year for work and I'll be back in school in Toronto. And there's the rest of this crazy summer to get through. Which has actually possibly been the best summer ever so far, but it's also filled with a lot of moving around.
Which I'm kind of getting used to. I'm enjoying this strange part of my adult life where I don't really have a 'home' exactly, and I now have stuff in storage in three different provinces. For years I was stuck in this emotional state where I was afraid to leave my city. Afraid that I would just feel isolated and alone and never be able to build the kind of close community I've had. What I didn't expect was to love the sense of coming and going, leaving and arriving.
Which is probably why I love this scene. This is so me two years ago:
Keeping Things Whole
In a field
I am the absence
of field
This is
always the case.
Wherever I am
I am what is missing.
When I walk
I part the air
and always
the air moves in
to fill the spaces
where my body's been.
We all have reasons
for moving.
I move
to keep things whole.
Mark Strand
I'm moving. Out of my Toronto apartment, leaving my stuff in storage at my cousin's and will be back here at the end of August to move into a new apartment I don't have yet. I'm a little anxious, less about the packing and more about the fact that I don't really have any idea how this year is going to go. My partner has to be in Vancouver for the year for work and I'll be back in school in Toronto. And there's the rest of this crazy summer to get through. Which has actually possibly been the best summer ever so far, but it's also filled with a lot of moving around.
Which I'm kind of getting used to. I'm enjoying this strange part of my adult life where I don't really have a 'home' exactly, and I now have stuff in storage in three different provinces. For years I was stuck in this emotional state where I was afraid to leave my city. Afraid that I would just feel isolated and alone and never be able to build the kind of close community I've had. What I didn't expect was to love the sense of coming and going, leaving and arriving.
Which is probably why I love this scene. This is so me two years ago:
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Do the Work, Stay Out of the Results
I just did a little review of my latest posts and I was amused to discover that almost every post begins with some version of 'I can't believe how long it's been since I've posted on this thing...'.
I am clearly never going to be the weekly blog poster (secretly I hope this is a reverse psychology method being used on myself right now), but I try, right? The main problem with being a poet (with being any genre specific artist, really) is that whenever you are doing something not directly related to the craft, you feel like you're wasting your time.
Isn't that slightly sick (and kind of melodramatic)?
In season 4, episode 2, Claire meets Edie. A spoken word artist who breaks Claire's eye open just a little bit. Who shows Claire not to be afraid of her own work. Not to worry about how it sounds/looks/is. And more importantly, not to be afraid of what others think about it. This is her first appearance on the show:
Honestly, I have always loved this. Not because I think it's necessarily that great of a piece of work (though I think it's kind of cool, and I have to admit I kind of get chills when I watch this scene, probably because I can see a spark returning in Claire), but because it holds a certain kind of fearlessness and honesty, and it refuses to apologize for what it is. Yeah, it's self-indulgent (which Edie admits to herself) and it's melodramatic and probably not for everyone, but she sums it up in a later conversation with Claire and Anita, when she remarks matter-of-factly, 'I say do the work, stay out of the results'. That might sound dismissive and not to say that I don't think revising is absolutely crucial, but I think we do interfere in our own work half the time. And the better we get at our craft (I find) the more likely it is that the pressure builds to produce something of a certain standard and value. Edie's casual response when Claire mentions that she hasn't picked up her camera in months because she was experiencing a rough time, is 'That's the best time to work. When your guts are all raw and you don't have to spend too much time thinking about it."
I feel a panic inside me every single day that I'm not writing poetry. Even if I don't want to write poetry. Ever. Again. And it's been coming to that. Like, obviously that'll never happen. Certainly sheer stubbornness pertaining to the idea that I Am A Poet will take over. Because, really, who am I without that identity? It's a scary thought. I find so much assurance and confidence wrapped up in that silly little title. I feel boring without it.
But honestly, these days I can't seem to write anything I like. I feel tired of it all. I was working on a fiction project for awhile, just to do something different, but even that has come grinding to a halt. I told a friend this morning that I had finished with the majority of my residency/grant applications and my second collection is back circling again and now I can relax and just write. I can work on the raw stuff. Isn't that great? To be free of such obligations like the 'business side of writing'.
It's not great. It's hard. It's upsetting. It's like pulling teeth. Every twenty minutes I'm on Facebook, praying that someone's written me a message so I can tell myself that I should really reply to that. Every hour I decide it's time for a washroom break. Every ten minutes I try to read even one line from one of the twelve books of poetry I brought along for inspiration. I can't even be bothered to read poetry. It's just so dense and condensed and I don't even know why I want to write in such a constricted form.
Part of the problem is that I just don't have any new ideas right now. That never stopped me before, I was always one to write my way into the poem, so to speak. Believe you me (if I could throw this phrase into every post, I would, I love it), I was damn prolific. But I've been making the realization that about half the poems I write never make it above ground. They never surface and find their way to the published page. Simply put, they just don't make the cut. And I find it painful to know that probably all of the poems I might write today will get scrapped in another six months or a year or two years. But you have to write those underdeveloped poems in order to get to the goods. That's the rule. I mean, it's not a hard and fast rule. Maybe some people can polish every poem they've ever written to be immediately worthy of publication, but I can't. I guess because I'm still evolving as a writer.
So, maybe I secretly (or not so secretly) hope I never evolve to the point where I write the perfect poem in one sitting. I don't even know how that could be possible.
At one point in their conversation about producing work, Edie says to Claire, 'What's the worst that can happen, some asshole will make fun of you?...There are probably a ton of people here making fun of me" I LOVE this. What IS the worst that can happen? There will always be someone who doesn't like, connect or respect your work. There will always be someone who said what you wanted to say better than you can. Or so you think. There will always be nasty critics, yourself being among the harshest. There will always be a reason NOT to work.
So what, besides ourselves, is truly stopping us?
I am clearly never going to be the weekly blog poster (secretly I hope this is a reverse psychology method being used on myself right now), but I try, right? The main problem with being a poet (with being any genre specific artist, really) is that whenever you are doing something not directly related to the craft, you feel like you're wasting your time.
Isn't that slightly sick (and kind of melodramatic)?
In season 4, episode 2, Claire meets Edie. A spoken word artist who breaks Claire's eye open just a little bit. Who shows Claire not to be afraid of her own work. Not to worry about how it sounds/looks/is. And more importantly, not to be afraid of what others think about it. This is her first appearance on the show:
Honestly, I have always loved this. Not because I think it's necessarily that great of a piece of work (though I think it's kind of cool, and I have to admit I kind of get chills when I watch this scene, probably because I can see a spark returning in Claire), but because it holds a certain kind of fearlessness and honesty, and it refuses to apologize for what it is. Yeah, it's self-indulgent (which Edie admits to herself) and it's melodramatic and probably not for everyone, but she sums it up in a later conversation with Claire and Anita, when she remarks matter-of-factly, 'I say do the work, stay out of the results'. That might sound dismissive and not to say that I don't think revising is absolutely crucial, but I think we do interfere in our own work half the time. And the better we get at our craft (I find) the more likely it is that the pressure builds to produce something of a certain standard and value. Edie's casual response when Claire mentions that she hasn't picked up her camera in months because she was experiencing a rough time, is 'That's the best time to work. When your guts are all raw and you don't have to spend too much time thinking about it."
I feel a panic inside me every single day that I'm not writing poetry. Even if I don't want to write poetry. Ever. Again. And it's been coming to that. Like, obviously that'll never happen. Certainly sheer stubbornness pertaining to the idea that I Am A Poet will take over. Because, really, who am I without that identity? It's a scary thought. I find so much assurance and confidence wrapped up in that silly little title. I feel boring without it.
But honestly, these days I can't seem to write anything I like. I feel tired of it all. I was working on a fiction project for awhile, just to do something different, but even that has come grinding to a halt. I told a friend this morning that I had finished with the majority of my residency/grant applications and my second collection is back circling again and now I can relax and just write. I can work on the raw stuff. Isn't that great? To be free of such obligations like the 'business side of writing'.
It's not great. It's hard. It's upsetting. It's like pulling teeth. Every twenty minutes I'm on Facebook, praying that someone's written me a message so I can tell myself that I should really reply to that. Every hour I decide it's time for a washroom break. Every ten minutes I try to read even one line from one of the twelve books of poetry I brought along for inspiration. I can't even be bothered to read poetry. It's just so dense and condensed and I don't even know why I want to write in such a constricted form.
Part of the problem is that I just don't have any new ideas right now. That never stopped me before, I was always one to write my way into the poem, so to speak. Believe you me (if I could throw this phrase into every post, I would, I love it), I was damn prolific. But I've been making the realization that about half the poems I write never make it above ground. They never surface and find their way to the published page. Simply put, they just don't make the cut. And I find it painful to know that probably all of the poems I might write today will get scrapped in another six months or a year or two years. But you have to write those underdeveloped poems in order to get to the goods. That's the rule. I mean, it's not a hard and fast rule. Maybe some people can polish every poem they've ever written to be immediately worthy of publication, but I can't. I guess because I'm still evolving as a writer.
So, maybe I secretly (or not so secretly) hope I never evolve to the point where I write the perfect poem in one sitting. I don't even know how that could be possible.
At one point in their conversation about producing work, Edie says to Claire, 'What's the worst that can happen, some asshole will make fun of you?...There are probably a ton of people here making fun of me" I LOVE this. What IS the worst that can happen? There will always be someone who doesn't like, connect or respect your work. There will always be someone who said what you wanted to say better than you can. Or so you think. There will always be nasty critics, yourself being among the harshest. There will always be a reason NOT to work.
So what, besides ourselves, is truly stopping us?
Monday, May 17, 2010
Circling the Drain
I'm in Saskatoon now.
So much can happen in just a couple of weeks. Including coming home to Saskatoon for the summer. Including hearing six gunshots right outside my window, and watching as (within minutes) 15 police cars and dozens of cops flooded my block, crime scene tape is criss-crossed along the street, and my neighborhood turns into an episode of CSI Toronto.
Including spending five days completely sick and feeling VERY sorry for myself, so sorry in fact, that I decided to google all my ex's at once to see how much better their lives are without me.
Really, it's the best thing to do when you want to continue circling the drain.
I also re-watched both seasons of True Blood in preparation for season three's series premiere, which starts on June 13th. How am I going to get anything done this summer?
I'm meeting some wonderful friends for drinks tonight on a patio. Patios really are the best part of summer. I've been wanting to put this clip up for awhile, so here it is. Sometimes we cry for no reason, and sometimes we have to laugh at ourselves for it. And it usually feels strangely good.
So much can happen in just a couple of weeks. Including coming home to Saskatoon for the summer. Including hearing six gunshots right outside my window, and watching as (within minutes) 15 police cars and dozens of cops flooded my block, crime scene tape is criss-crossed along the street, and my neighborhood turns into an episode of CSI Toronto.
Including spending five days completely sick and feeling VERY sorry for myself, so sorry in fact, that I decided to google all my ex's at once to see how much better their lives are without me.
Really, it's the best thing to do when you want to continue circling the drain.
I also re-watched both seasons of True Blood in preparation for season three's series premiere, which starts on June 13th. How am I going to get anything done this summer?
I'm meeting some wonderful friends for drinks tonight on a patio. Patios really are the best part of summer. I've been wanting to put this clip up for awhile, so here it is. Sometimes we cry for no reason, and sometimes we have to laugh at ourselves for it. And it usually feels strangely good.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Rocket Man
Last night I went to see my friend perform in the queer choir Singing Out. It was super fun, and the perfect evening for a concert, though the church was a little on the warm side. They did a couple of hilarious numbers (the ladies performed a song called Big Butch Woman and the guys did a little soft shoe, jazz hands action with a song called The Fundamental) and the rest were more traditional chorus type songs. They did do a lovely rendition of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah, which, as it always does, broke my heart.
Anyway, it was a lovely evening and to top it all off, the night was so beautiful and all the Toronto flowers were so fragrant that I went for a nice long walk in a t-shirt and jeans. I love this city. I really do.
An added bonus was the fabulous queenie David look alike who made me think of David's venture into the gay chorus in 6FU. Here are some little clips for your viewing pleasure:
I love this one, mainly because I love Elton. He featured prominently in my childhood, on road trips with my family.
Today it's a grey, grainy day and I'm looking forward to reading and relaxing and perhaps drinking some hot chocolate.
Anyway, it was a lovely evening and to top it all off, the night was so beautiful and all the Toronto flowers were so fragrant that I went for a nice long walk in a t-shirt and jeans. I love this city. I really do.
An added bonus was the fabulous queenie David look alike who made me think of David's venture into the gay chorus in 6FU. Here are some little clips for your viewing pleasure:
I love this one, mainly because I love Elton. He featured prominently in my childhood, on road trips with my family.
Today it's a grey, grainy day and I'm looking forward to reading and relaxing and perhaps drinking some hot chocolate.
Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Breaking Your Eye Open
It has been a month since I've posted. Over a month.
No specific reason, except that I've been cocooning a bit. Which is fine, I guess, but I really need to get back into things. I'm pretty sure I only have about two readers, but I like those two readers. Two readers, you are both super awesome. And I really really don't want to disappoint.
A friend of mine sent me a 6FU quote a few weeks ago that I wanted to include in the blog. It's a quote I sort of agree with, but am also kind of unsure if I totally believe it. It's a quote by Nate Fisher.
"Love isn't something you feel, it's something you do. And if the person you're with doesn't want it, do yourself a favour and save it for someone who does"
I originally thought this was when Nate was with Lisa, but I mixed up episodes and this is actually from the fifth season, when Nate is with Brenda and Claire has just ended things with Billy and he's totally obsessing over getting her back. I suppose context really is everything.
I've been wondering about this statement, 'Love isn't something you feel, it's something you do.' I don't know what to make of it. A big part of me agrees with it, that love must be followed with action, and how you behave around your lover/partner, how you treat them really does make a difference. If love is something we do than we must focus on doing 'right' by the people we love, putting their needs above our own, not in a way that totally compromises our own being, and yes, we should also be prioritizing our own needs, but we must concentrate on what we can control in a relationship.
I suppose my hesitation to fully ingest this definition is that it seems to discount the mystical understanding of love, which is important. But perhaps in our society we put this up on a pedestal far too often, when we should be focusing on how our actions can portray the love that we do feel.
I'm not exactly sure where I stand. I get very caught up in the romanticization of love and sometimes I want to just focus on feeling good. I don't want my actions to have such weighted consequences. I don't want my love to be measured by my behavior. But that's just plain selfishness, on my part. Because isn't that what we should be striving for? To simply just be good to others? To act with integrity, which doesn't always mean 'getting it right', but it means that we try our very best to treat others respectfully and if we make a mistake we are willing to own it?
In theory, it seems quite simple, actually. In practice...well, anything in practice can and probably should feel like work at times. I mean, why else are we here except to improve ourselves as humans?
I've been thinking a lot about a specific scene in Season 4, Episode 1. This is one of my favourite episodes because the grief and pain is so intense that everyone is walking around all emotionally bloody and with big gaping slimy wounds that won't close. And those are always my favourite episodes because they are the most real and the most honest. In this episode, Lisa is dead and Nate and Lisa's family are trying to come together for the funeral. Of course, no one can agree on how best to honour Lisa's memory and everyone is in too much pain to compromise. At one point, David escapes to Claire's room, who is dealing with her own heartbreak over Russel, the abortion and Olivier's messy interference in her life. She is studying the work of Nan Goldin, one of my favourite photographers.
She tells David she's trying to 'break her eye open' like Olivier taught them in class, to see the world in a fresh way, 'without all the same tired associations we've had'. She refers to it as 'the hardest fucking thing in the world'.
So here we all are. Trying to break our eye open. Trying to see everything without painful memories, without past heartbreaks or trauma or irritation. Without baggage. To see for the first time, or perhaps to see in spite of knowing what we know.
No specific reason, except that I've been cocooning a bit. Which is fine, I guess, but I really need to get back into things. I'm pretty sure I only have about two readers, but I like those two readers. Two readers, you are both super awesome. And I really really don't want to disappoint.
A friend of mine sent me a 6FU quote a few weeks ago that I wanted to include in the blog. It's a quote I sort of agree with, but am also kind of unsure if I totally believe it. It's a quote by Nate Fisher.
"Love isn't something you feel, it's something you do. And if the person you're with doesn't want it, do yourself a favour and save it for someone who does"
I originally thought this was when Nate was with Lisa, but I mixed up episodes and this is actually from the fifth season, when Nate is with Brenda and Claire has just ended things with Billy and he's totally obsessing over getting her back. I suppose context really is everything.
I've been wondering about this statement, 'Love isn't something you feel, it's something you do.' I don't know what to make of it. A big part of me agrees with it, that love must be followed with action, and how you behave around your lover/partner, how you treat them really does make a difference. If love is something we do than we must focus on doing 'right' by the people we love, putting their needs above our own, not in a way that totally compromises our own being, and yes, we should also be prioritizing our own needs, but we must concentrate on what we can control in a relationship.
I suppose my hesitation to fully ingest this definition is that it seems to discount the mystical understanding of love, which is important. But perhaps in our society we put this up on a pedestal far too often, when we should be focusing on how our actions can portray the love that we do feel.
I'm not exactly sure where I stand. I get very caught up in the romanticization of love and sometimes I want to just focus on feeling good. I don't want my actions to have such weighted consequences. I don't want my love to be measured by my behavior. But that's just plain selfishness, on my part. Because isn't that what we should be striving for? To simply just be good to others? To act with integrity, which doesn't always mean 'getting it right', but it means that we try our very best to treat others respectfully and if we make a mistake we are willing to own it?
In theory, it seems quite simple, actually. In practice...well, anything in practice can and probably should feel like work at times. I mean, why else are we here except to improve ourselves as humans?
I've been thinking a lot about a specific scene in Season 4, Episode 1. This is one of my favourite episodes because the grief and pain is so intense that everyone is walking around all emotionally bloody and with big gaping slimy wounds that won't close. And those are always my favourite episodes because they are the most real and the most honest. In this episode, Lisa is dead and Nate and Lisa's family are trying to come together for the funeral. Of course, no one can agree on how best to honour Lisa's memory and everyone is in too much pain to compromise. At one point, David escapes to Claire's room, who is dealing with her own heartbreak over Russel, the abortion and Olivier's messy interference in her life. She is studying the work of Nan Goldin, one of my favourite photographers.
She tells David she's trying to 'break her eye open' like Olivier taught them in class, to see the world in a fresh way, 'without all the same tired associations we've had'. She refers to it as 'the hardest fucking thing in the world'.
So here we all are. Trying to break our eye open. Trying to see everything without painful memories, without past heartbreaks or trauma or irritation. Without baggage. To see for the first time, or perhaps to see in spite of knowing what we know.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Ripening
Oh my god, why do I suck?
I've had a REALLY difficult time blogging lately and I don't know if I have any real excuses/reasons, except for the fact that even though I still only teach once a week, I've been mad busy lately. I'm working on a couple of important (to me) writing projects and I have to say that it's crucial for me to put that energy into those projects when I have it. I've also had some company lately (my mum) and will have more company soon (my sister and squishy nephew) and have been going to the gym a lot and trying to clean the bathroom and dropping my phone one too many times and just generally being awesome.
I think it's the curse of the To Do List. I've started putting down things like, Get Up and Shower and Feed The Cat, because it's just oh so satisfying to check things off a To Do List. I've also been reading a lot lately and have been going back and forth between three novels, (Holding Still For as Long as Possible by Zoe Whittall, The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb and February by Lisa Moore) each of which are satisfying for different reasons.
So, anyway, yeah. I have about 10 6FU related blog posts that I've started but can't seem to get the inspiration to finish. I also really need to get back to the major job hunt. You know, the one where I go from business to business and try to look desperately pathetic enough so that someone will hire me for $10 an hour.
This is the tricky part about being mostly unemployed for several months. You get used to it. You learn to enjoy and the panic slowly seeps away. You forget that jobs equal respect and dignity and you ignore the fact that you ever thought you needed those things from society anyway. And if you're an artist of some sort, you spend time working on your craft and suddenly you realize that you can easily fill up the days and feel completely satisfied with your life. Possibly for the first time ever.
I sort of feel like Claire in this really ridiculous scene with Ruth. She's being such a little spoiled brat right here, but I kinda feel it. All she wants to do is go to Spain with Billy and 'ripen' (most hilarious bullshit phrase ever), and all I really want to do is stay in Toronto and work on my writing projects and never ever EVER have to work for a mere $10 an hour at some shit service or retail job again. So I'm feeling kind of like a spoiled baby these days.
I've had a REALLY difficult time blogging lately and I don't know if I have any real excuses/reasons, except for the fact that even though I still only teach once a week, I've been mad busy lately. I'm working on a couple of important (to me) writing projects and I have to say that it's crucial for me to put that energy into those projects when I have it. I've also had some company lately (my mum) and will have more company soon (my sister and squishy nephew) and have been going to the gym a lot and trying to clean the bathroom and dropping my phone one too many times and just generally being awesome.
I think it's the curse of the To Do List. I've started putting down things like, Get Up and Shower and Feed The Cat, because it's just oh so satisfying to check things off a To Do List. I've also been reading a lot lately and have been going back and forth between three novels, (Holding Still For as Long as Possible by Zoe Whittall, The Hour I First Believed by Wally Lamb and February by Lisa Moore) each of which are satisfying for different reasons.
So, anyway, yeah. I have about 10 6FU related blog posts that I've started but can't seem to get the inspiration to finish. I also really need to get back to the major job hunt. You know, the one where I go from business to business and try to look desperately pathetic enough so that someone will hire me for $10 an hour.
This is the tricky part about being mostly unemployed for several months. You get used to it. You learn to enjoy and the panic slowly seeps away. You forget that jobs equal respect and dignity and you ignore the fact that you ever thought you needed those things from society anyway. And if you're an artist of some sort, you spend time working on your craft and suddenly you realize that you can easily fill up the days and feel completely satisfied with your life. Possibly for the first time ever.
I sort of feel like Claire in this really ridiculous scene with Ruth. She's being such a little spoiled brat right here, but I kinda feel it. All she wants to do is go to Spain with Billy and 'ripen' (most hilarious bullshit phrase ever), and all I really want to do is stay in Toronto and work on my writing projects and never ever EVER have to work for a mere $10 an hour at some shit service or retail job again. So I'm feeling kind of like a spoiled baby these days.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
Every Day Above Ground Is A Good One
I've been sick this week....
Why am I always getting sick? It feels like this happens every month these days. I also had a few frustrating rejections in my writing world, though I was pretty out of it with my neo-citran high, so I don't really even remember much of the pain of that.
This is going to be a bit of a gummy post. I feel strange every day. There seems to be a lot of huge, potentially life-altering decisions that I need to make soon and I'd rather just cocoon up and dig a little hole inside my head to climb into. Or out of. Or something.
It's been raining in Toronto. A good time to snuggle in bed with loved ones. If you aren't too irritated with your loved ones, that is. Or if you aren't so frustrated with yourself that your loved ones seem particularly out of reach.
There is something about isolation that both feeds me and makes me a bit mad. Crazy mad.
Why am I always getting sick? It feels like this happens every month these days. I also had a few frustrating rejections in my writing world, though I was pretty out of it with my neo-citran high, so I don't really even remember much of the pain of that.
This is going to be a bit of a gummy post. I feel strange every day. There seems to be a lot of huge, potentially life-altering decisions that I need to make soon and I'd rather just cocoon up and dig a little hole inside my head to climb into. Or out of. Or something.
It's been raining in Toronto. A good time to snuggle in bed with loved ones. If you aren't too irritated with your loved ones, that is. Or if you aren't so frustrated with yourself that your loved ones seem particularly out of reach.
There is something about isolation that both feeds me and makes me a bit mad. Crazy mad.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Cacophony
Yes, it's been a few weeks.
There are no real excuses here, but I did have some issues that needed to get cleared up with my new teaching job, and then I began prepping, which of course filled me with anxiety until I was actually IN the classroom. High school students are kind of terrifying. Luckily I have a fairly good poker face (I practiced that face on friday night while playing actual poker) and I don't think they noticed how nervous I really was.
This weekend I went to an incredible art show at the CNE. My cousin was working there and got me a complimentary ticket (Thanks H!). Of course, when she said art show, I was picturing it in Saskatoon terms. A nice sized gallery with maybe a dozen artists. I suggested I would come towards the end of her shift and we could walk around for an hour and then go get some sushi. I got to the Queen Elizabeth building at the CNE and just about fainted. HUNDREDS OF ARTISTS were showing their work at this show, displaying practically every possibly medium. There was installation, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, blown glass, mixed media, digital art, etc etc. It was fucking amazing.
I pretty much had a panic attack as soon as I walked in. And, as if I couldn't have been more overwhelmed, the first artist's work I walked up to look at was none other than the fabulously talented Beverly Hawksley....Hawksley Workman's own mother. For those of you who read this blog who know me well, you know what this would've done for my existence. I was completely star struck. I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes. She's a very kind and down to earth person and while I babbled on about how much I worship her son (possibly mentioning at some point that I plan on having his babies....), she said sweetly, 'that's so good to hear, I will pass that message on to him'. Of course her work is stunning. Some of it is printed in Hawksley Workman's book, Hawksley Burns for Isadora.
Anyway, it was basically amazing for me. Here are some Hawksley Workman videos for your viewing pleasure:
And here is my all time favourite HW song:
Cacophony: best word ever.
Season 2 Promo:
Season 3 Promo:
Season 4 Promo:
Season 5 Promo:
Stunning, right? Each one gives teeny tiny hints to what will be coming up in the next season. What a way to advertise for a show. Soon, I'll be looking in more detail at Claire's artwork throughout the show, possibly posting some of my own humble photographs.
I think it's rare to find a show that is well written, incredibly well acted and visually stunning. Perhaps that's why I feel so fulfilled while watching 6FU. All of my senses are completely satisfied. Well, except perhaps touch and taste. But I'm usually eating tasty food while I watch the show. And I'm likely holding the hand of a dear friend.
There are no real excuses here, but I did have some issues that needed to get cleared up with my new teaching job, and then I began prepping, which of course filled me with anxiety until I was actually IN the classroom. High school students are kind of terrifying. Luckily I have a fairly good poker face (I practiced that face on friday night while playing actual poker) and I don't think they noticed how nervous I really was.
This weekend I went to an incredible art show at the CNE. My cousin was working there and got me a complimentary ticket (Thanks H!). Of course, when she said art show, I was picturing it in Saskatoon terms. A nice sized gallery with maybe a dozen artists. I suggested I would come towards the end of her shift and we could walk around for an hour and then go get some sushi. I got to the Queen Elizabeth building at the CNE and just about fainted. HUNDREDS OF ARTISTS were showing their work at this show, displaying practically every possibly medium. There was installation, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, blown glass, mixed media, digital art, etc etc. It was fucking amazing.
I pretty much had a panic attack as soon as I walked in. And, as if I couldn't have been more overwhelmed, the first artist's work I walked up to look at was none other than the fabulously talented Beverly Hawksley....Hawksley Workman's own mother. For those of you who read this blog who know me well, you know what this would've done for my existence. I was completely star struck. I introduced myself and we chatted for a few minutes. She's a very kind and down to earth person and while I babbled on about how much I worship her son (possibly mentioning at some point that I plan on having his babies....), she said sweetly, 'that's so good to hear, I will pass that message on to him'. Of course her work is stunning. Some of it is printed in Hawksley Workman's book, Hawksley Burns for Isadora.
Anyway, it was basically amazing for me. Here are some Hawksley Workman videos for your viewing pleasure:
And here is my all time favourite HW song:
Cacophony: best word ever.
How does all of this come back to 6FU? One might think it doesn't, but it does. Seriously, how could it not? 6FU has some fabulous songs written and recorded by some fabulous bands/musicians throughout the series, including but not limited to: Arcade Fire, PJ Harvey, Cold Play, Nina Simone, Jem, Sia, Radiohead, Interpol, Death Cab For Cutie, Lamb, and Zero 7. And let's not forget about the great Thomas Newman. There is also a rather large artistic theme running through the series. We have Billy (played by Jeremy Sisto), Brenda's scitzophrentic brother, a photographer and a loose cannon when off his meds. And, of course, Claire, who's artwork and artistic desire (as well as her desire to seek a place among the misfits of her world) features prominately in her story arc on the show, and includes friends and lovers who attend art school with her. Then we have Olivier Castro-Staal, Claire's indignant and self-absorbed art teacher who deflowers her boyfriend Russel's (Ben Foster) gay virginity and then looks Claire in the face and says, 'what a baby...just because I fucked your boyfriend. Real pain is what you need."
But it's not just the characters and their lives. The show itself is a work of art. The shots, the lighting, the sets. Even HBO itself shows its commitment to its artistic vision by these innovative promos they did for each 6FU season:
Season 2 Promo:
Season 3 Promo:
Season 4 Promo:
Season 5 Promo:
Stunning, right? Each one gives teeny tiny hints to what will be coming up in the next season. What a way to advertise for a show. Soon, I'll be looking in more detail at Claire's artwork throughout the show, possibly posting some of my own humble photographs.
I think it's rare to find a show that is well written, incredibly well acted and visually stunning. Perhaps that's why I feel so fulfilled while watching 6FU. All of my senses are completely satisfied. Well, except perhaps touch and taste. But I'm usually eating tasty food while I watch the show. And I'm likely holding the hand of a dear friend.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Best Fight Ever
So while the show may hold the theme of hope at its heart, it also holds immense pain, sadness, rage, fear and grief. I'm not having the best day today, and as always, when life is as disappointingly tragic as it so often is (for the existentialist in me), I can find a certain amount of gratification in HBO. In other words, there is a 6FU scene to go with every occasion.
This is Brenda and Nate's biggest and most horrifyingly amazing fight. It is a kind of monster, all flesh gouging fangs and claws. It is the kind of fight that owns you, that becomes epic and spills out every part of your insides until you're left with the bloody guts to clean up. It is full of truthful hateful accusations. It's the only thing that's comforting me today. Let it comfort you too. Other people, even if they're fictional, have it worse than we do:
This is Brenda and Nate's biggest and most horrifyingly amazing fight. It is a kind of monster, all flesh gouging fangs and claws. It is the kind of fight that owns you, that becomes epic and spills out every part of your insides until you're left with the bloody guts to clean up. It is full of truthful hateful accusations. It's the only thing that's comforting me today. Let it comfort you too. Other people, even if they're fictional, have it worse than we do:
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Why I Can't Let Anything Go
So, this is my favourite 6FU scene of all time. It seems impossible to pick just one scene from this show, since there are so many that I find poignant and/or hilarious, but this one has always felt like the epitome of what the show is really about. Yes, there is pain. Yes, each of us is walking around bleeding and full of baggage that we often feel we can't get away from. Yes, it is so incredibly frustrating to feel trapped inside a particular emotional response to that pain. It is so very difficult to move forward. But (and here's the kicker), we can. And what if it really is that simple.
(And in case you were wondering, yes, a dear friend did call and sing I'm a lonely Little Petunia...to me on my voice mail. She just gets me.)
I wrote this poem a long time ago:
Why I Can’t Let Anything Go
because of genetics because it’s a family trait because
my parents don’t help by never saying no
because my best friend says she likes me better
this way because I just met you three years ago
and we’ve barely scratched the surface because high school
because pizza and beer is all we need
to get along because life is made up of perfect moments
and spending years recovering from them because my dog
can’t hear me yelling because the best and worst piece
of advice you ever gave me was to do what I love because
I got to keep the tiny blue sweater your daughter wore
because there is a picture of seven of us on a mug
on my desk because my turtle died because my gerbil
died because my dog will die someday soon and when
that happens my family will be torn apart because
it’s never been in my nature to live in the present
because every time I meet someone I spend
the first six months wishing they were
someone else because I left all my furniture and
my fish in someone else’s apartment because maybe
he and I were never meant to mean much of anything
because I may miss you more now then when
you’re gone because the movies I watch make me
believe I’m doing everything all wrong but my favourite
TV shows convince me I’m right because we don’t drive
to see the stars anymore because sometimes I miss
my dish rack and shower curtain because I switched
to a single bed because it’s always over long before
I’m ready because once is never enough
We all have trouble with letting go of our attachments; those to people, places, memories and things. We cling to ideas and emotions and our own bad patterns. We are all afraid of change, even if that change could do us a world of good. We are terrified of the unknown. What I love about this scene is how much hope lies in it. The idea that we have the power to change our situation. We can nurture ourselves and our emotions, but also decide when to let it go. It is all within us. We don't have to look outside of ourselves for everything. There is comfort in that, and in the realization that there is control in letting go of control, and strength in allowing ourselves to stop fighting.
I think this scene beautifully articulates the core message behind the show. Hope.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
I'm a Lonely Little Petunia
Today I'm trying to write poetry. Basically it just makes me want to cry. So I thought I'd post this little video, in the hopes that someone will sing me this song today:
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
Sketches of Light and Dark
This is a fun early sketch of the main title theme of 6FU.
Some crazy bizarre differences that I have to say I'm glad they changed for the actual title sequence. In the end product I love the attention to detail with the embalming fluid going into the body, watching the levels of fluid move down, the flowers dying, and the cotton ball being brushed over the eyebrow of the dead person's face. As well, beginning with the crow and tree and ending with the crow and tree has some nice symbolism.
And how everything blows out to white at the end. This happens in every episode; every time someone dies the show fades to white. When it cuts to a new scene (or commercial), it fades to white. When each show ends it fades to white. Which has lead me to wonder about our obvious fascination with white and black, the two colours that are not even technically colours, that represent light and dark, life and death. But in some cases, life is represented as a dark reality and death is the serene afterlife.
The scene where Nate buries Lisa is poignant because of its play with dark and light. There's the white of the headlights, Nate's shirt, the body bag (which has always struck me as interesting since I always think of body bags as being black). Then there's the black of the night sky, the darkness of the grave Nate digs, the silhouette of the Joshua tree in the background. And towards the end, the light of an early dawn.
There are the obvious reasons for the choice made to have the scenes and episodes fade to white (especially right after someone has died). When you die you supposedly go towards some kind of light. You move upward, towards the fat fluffy clouds, the pearly white gates of heaven (if you believe in that sort of thing). You are relieved of the burden of dark reality. It's all very dramatic.
We are manipulated by colours. We can't help but attach emotion to, not only colours, but different shades of colours. We have different names for blue, like baby blue, navy blue, sky blue. These evoke an automatic emotional response. The sun is yellow and warm, therefore yellow is a colour that makes us feel warm and cozy. Vegetables are green, so green represents a healthy crunchy goodness for our bodies. Okay, that's maybe not an emotional response, but associations with food can apply as well. There are times where I've watched a horse grazing on green grass in the middle of a pasture on a hot sunny day and I can hear the horse's teeth chomping and grinding away, turning that grass into a florescent frothy paste and all I want to do is get down on my hands and knees and eat that grass.
We seem to give colours these meanings that aren't intrinsic. Red represents passion, strength, intensity, and is, perhaps, slightly dangerous. Pink is love and romance. We specify and attribute certain colours to different holidays and seasons. Orange is obviously Thanksgiving (or Halloween, whichever you decide to celebrate as your seasonal holiday). Red and green are Christmas. Pink is Valentine's day. We have visual cues in our world for our emotional state.
A while ago I started working on two poems, one called Sketches of White the other called Sketches of Black. I found definitions for each colour and worked with those as found poems. Then I incorporated lines from the definitions and wrote poems around those. Here are the found poems and the excerpts from these pieces.
Sketches of White (excerpt)
having the colour of fresh snow
or milk, which results from the reflection of
nearly all visible wavelengths, belonging
to people with naturally pale skin, unblemished,
especially in character, heated to such a high
degree that the substance turns white in colour,
the transparent liquid that surrounds the yolk
of an egg and turns white when the egg is cooked,
the part of the eyeball surrounding the iris, the white
outermost ring of an archery target or a shot
that lands in it, a white or light-coloured piece
or set of pieces in a game such as in chess or
checkers, or the player using them, a butterfly
that is predominantly white in colour, to make
or leave blank spaces in something, especially
something printed, to become or cause something
to become white, relating to a pure musical tone
that lacks warmth, colour and resonance.
The light that comes through the crack in the door,
the squares of the screen window, the part of the eyeball
surrounding the iris the slit between your legs, it bends
finds itself in compromising positions. The petals
of an orchid, velvet to the touch. Cuticles. The wind
is white. It blows knives against your cheeks. You used
to send my family sheets and pillowcases, starched stiff
Sketches of Black (excerpt)
being the color of coal or carbon
with no light
served without adding milk or cream
dealing with very serious things in a humorous
Some crazy bizarre differences that I have to say I'm glad they changed for the actual title sequence. In the end product I love the attention to detail with the embalming fluid going into the body, watching the levels of fluid move down, the flowers dying, and the cotton ball being brushed over the eyebrow of the dead person's face. As well, beginning with the crow and tree and ending with the crow and tree has some nice symbolism.
And how everything blows out to white at the end. This happens in every episode; every time someone dies the show fades to white. When it cuts to a new scene (or commercial), it fades to white. When each show ends it fades to white. Which has lead me to wonder about our obvious fascination with white and black, the two colours that are not even technically colours, that represent light and dark, life and death. But in some cases, life is represented as a dark reality and death is the serene afterlife.
The scene where Nate buries Lisa is poignant because of its play with dark and light. There's the white of the headlights, Nate's shirt, the body bag (which has always struck me as interesting since I always think of body bags as being black). Then there's the black of the night sky, the darkness of the grave Nate digs, the silhouette of the Joshua tree in the background. And towards the end, the light of an early dawn.
There are the obvious reasons for the choice made to have the scenes and episodes fade to white (especially right after someone has died). When you die you supposedly go towards some kind of light. You move upward, towards the fat fluffy clouds, the pearly white gates of heaven (if you believe in that sort of thing). You are relieved of the burden of dark reality. It's all very dramatic.
We are manipulated by colours. We can't help but attach emotion to, not only colours, but different shades of colours. We have different names for blue, like baby blue, navy blue, sky blue. These evoke an automatic emotional response. The sun is yellow and warm, therefore yellow is a colour that makes us feel warm and cozy. Vegetables are green, so green represents a healthy crunchy goodness for our bodies. Okay, that's maybe not an emotional response, but associations with food can apply as well. There are times where I've watched a horse grazing on green grass in the middle of a pasture on a hot sunny day and I can hear the horse's teeth chomping and grinding away, turning that grass into a florescent frothy paste and all I want to do is get down on my hands and knees and eat that grass.
We seem to give colours these meanings that aren't intrinsic. Red represents passion, strength, intensity, and is, perhaps, slightly dangerous. Pink is love and romance. We specify and attribute certain colours to different holidays and seasons. Orange is obviously Thanksgiving (or Halloween, whichever you decide to celebrate as your seasonal holiday). Red and green are Christmas. Pink is Valentine's day. We have visual cues in our world for our emotional state.
A while ago I started working on two poems, one called Sketches of White the other called Sketches of Black. I found definitions for each colour and worked with those as found poems. Then I incorporated lines from the definitions and wrote poems around those. Here are the found poems and the excerpts from these pieces.
Sketches of White (excerpt)
having the colour of fresh snow
or milk, which results from the reflection of
nearly all visible wavelengths, belonging
to people with naturally pale skin, unblemished,
especially in character, heated to such a high
degree that the substance turns white in colour,
the transparent liquid that surrounds the yolk
of an egg and turns white when the egg is cooked,
the part of the eyeball surrounding the iris, the white
outermost ring of an archery target or a shot
that lands in it, a white or light-coloured piece
or set of pieces in a game such as in chess or
checkers, or the player using them, a butterfly
that is predominantly white in colour, to make
or leave blank spaces in something, especially
something printed, to become or cause something
to become white, relating to a pure musical tone
that lacks warmth, colour and resonance.
The light that comes through the crack in the door,
the squares of the screen window, the part of the eyeball
surrounding the iris the slit between your legs, it bends
finds itself in compromising positions. The petals
of an orchid, velvet to the touch. Cuticles. The wind
is white. It blows knives against your cheeks. You used
to send my family sheets and pillowcases, starched stiff
as quills. The tiles of your kitchen, the long thin cigarettes
you would smoke. Your hair, a silvery ashen disk circling
your head. Halo. the white outermost ring of an archery
target or a shot that lands in it
Even at night there is white in the streets, headlights
Even at night there is white in the streets, headlights
are a blur in puddles, bags people are carrying, the heaviness
that settles in all of us.
Sketches of Black (excerpt)
being the color of coal or carbon
with no light
served without adding milk or cream
dealing with very serious things in a humorous
and often macabre way
carried out in the utmost secrecy
filled with anger or hostility
covered with mud, soil, or any other
carried out in the utmost secrecy
filled with anger or hostility
covered with mud, soil, or any other
dark substance
causing or associated with severely
bad conditions or misfortune
extremely dishonourable and deserving the most
extremely dishonourable and deserving the most
serious criticism
evil, or associated with evil
a color value that has no hue as a result of the
evil, or associated with evil
a color value that has no hue as a result of the
absorption of nearly all light
from all visible wavelengths
a pigment or dye that is the color of carbon or coal
fabric or clothing that is black in color
complete darkness
a black piece in a game such as chess or checkers
a player in games such as chess or checkers who is
from all visible wavelengths
a pigment or dye that is the color of carbon or coal
fabric or clothing that is black in color
complete darkness
a black piece in a game such as chess or checkers
a player in games such as chess or checkers who is
playing with the black pieces
a black ball in snooker, which is the last ball to be sunk
Perhaps this makes me evil,
or associated with evil, and the heart that I swore
was an accurate compass, weeding me along
the bottom of the ocean, guiding my hands to new
invertebrate beasts, had been passed down through a
generation whose colour value has no hue
as a result of the absorption of nearly all light
a black ball in snooker, which is the last ball to be sunk
Perhaps this makes me evil,
or associated with evil, and the heart that I swore
was an accurate compass, weeding me along
the bottom of the ocean, guiding my hands to new
invertebrate beasts, had been passed down through a
generation whose colour value has no hue
as a result of the absorption of nearly all light
from all visible wavelengths,
a pigment or dye.
That is the colour of carbon or coal,
the burn that settles in pocked ashes, or a drag queen’s
sequined feathery eyelashes. Don’t touch me
was all you mumbled when I reached for your hand.
a pigment or dye.
That is the colour of carbon or coal,
the burn that settles in pocked ashes, or a drag queen’s
sequined feathery eyelashes. Don’t touch me
was all you mumbled when I reached for your hand.
Between us, the hood of the car, space coloured by
the complete darkness, by a black
piece in a game such as chess or checkers. Always a player
in games such as chess or checkers, who is playing
with the black pieces.
Snake eyes, rattle in the night, screech of
rubber smoking the pavement, and your foot
piece in a game such as chess or checkers. Always a player
in games such as chess or checkers, who is playing
with the black pieces.
Snake eyes, rattle in the night, screech of
rubber smoking the pavement, and your foot
on the gas. There is no time left to know you.
A black ring. A target. A black ball in snooker.
Too many accidents cause us to be weary. To remain
A black ring. A target. A black ball in snooker.
Too many accidents cause us to be weary. To remain
wary. the last ball to be sunk.
Black and white, dark and light. These two colours are how we make sense of the world, how we order it out of chaos, how we make choices and how we defend those choices. How we shape the world into sense. Even those of us who continually see the grey in ideas and situations, can't help but stumble into a more confined territory. And since black and white aren't actually considered colours, we are essentially colour blind.
Black and white, dark and light. These two colours are how we make sense of the world, how we order it out of chaos, how we make choices and how we defend those choices. How we shape the world into sense. Even those of us who continually see the grey in ideas and situations, can't help but stumble into a more confined territory. And since black and white aren't actually considered colours, we are essentially colour blind.
Sunday, February 7, 2010
Frying Pan Theories
An old friend sent me a lovely message a few days ago. She had recently read my blog and informed me that she, too, had dreams about death on a regular basis and determined that it wasn't really a surprise if she was watching a show like 6FU. She also mentioned this:
"Also, I've been thinking about the death when the woman kills her husband with the frying pan and *I* think that she sat down and ate *her* breakfast after she kills him instead of sitting down and eating *his* breakfast. Because I was watching it the other day and it struck me that the chick was only making one serving of everything, that she wasn't making a place setting for herself. Frankly, I think that's more awesome."
SO right you are! Thanks R, for pointing that out to me. My thought had always been that she was making his breakfast because she had already eaten something herself earlier on in the morning and that she made the same thing for him every morning and was finally just sick of hearing his obnoxious nasal voice. But I like your theory better. I assumed she had hit him on a whim because she suddenly realized she couldn't take it anymore, but there's no way she 'suddenly' realized this. Obviously she's been sick of him for years and decided that morning that she was making her breakfast, and only hers.
On another note, the idea of her eating his breakfast as a final nail in the coffin (so to speak), well, I kind of like too.
"Also, I've been thinking about the death when the woman kills her husband with the frying pan and *I* think that she sat down and ate *her* breakfast after she kills him instead of sitting down and eating *his* breakfast. Because I was watching it the other day and it struck me that the chick was only making one serving of everything, that she wasn't making a place setting for herself. Frankly, I think that's more awesome."
SO right you are! Thanks R, for pointing that out to me. My thought had always been that she was making his breakfast because she had already eaten something herself earlier on in the morning and that she made the same thing for him every morning and was finally just sick of hearing his obnoxious nasal voice. But I like your theory better. I assumed she had hit him on a whim because she suddenly realized she couldn't take it anymore, but there's no way she 'suddenly' realized this. Obviously she's been sick of him for years and decided that morning that she was making her breakfast, and only hers.
On another note, the idea of her eating his breakfast as a final nail in the coffin (so to speak), well, I kind of like too.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
January is Whacked
So I've completely lost track of where I am and where I wanted to go since I got sick this past week and my dad came into town from Saskatoon and my partner had his birthday and it just seemed like there was a LOT going on around here. A lot for someone who's unemployed....well, almost unemployed. I've been lucky enough to land a contract position with Descant Magazine's S.W.A.T. program (Students, Writers and Teachers). They place writers in high schools around Toronto to be Writer-in-Residences and run writing workshops for the students. Totally my dream job and anything else I end up having to do for money wouldn't even phase me at this point. In fact, I have an interview at Blockbuster of all places, and I don't even care. I'm just thrilled that my education and my book have placed me on a slightly higher rung on the career ladder than I was a couple of months ago.
I've been wanting to do a debriefing of the memorial service I went to last weekend, though I'm wishing I had done it earlier as my mind has been clouded with other things since. Mostly I wanted to talk about how amazing it was and how deeply I was touched by the event. I went there knowing very little about this person and left feeling like I got to know him. The truth is though, there isn't much more to say. It was beautiful and moving and I don't know how I feel about talking about it on my death blog. I just don't know if it's my place to talk about this because I was really an observer. But in some strange way I was a participator as well. I wanted to be there, just didn't want to overstep my bounds. Anyway, I simply feel lucky to have been there.
January is basically whacked. It's the 31st day today and I'm just so happy this month is almost over. I feel like it's been a struggle from day one, fighting against myself and my world around things like work and money. January is the kind of month where everything goes wrong. Plumbing in the house backs up. You bounce cheques. The milk goes bad before the expiry date. You get sick with one cold, it goes away for a few blissful days and then a new one takes its place. January is the month of waiting. You wait to find out about the program you applied for, the contest you entered, whether or not your life is going to change. You make resolutions and you break them before the month is over. You hurl yourself through the days with your face against the painful knife-cutting wind of reality. At least three more months of winter are looming ahead of us, Christmas and its warmth and joy is over and what we really need to do is drink as much hot chocolate as possible, curl up on a couch (if you have one) and nap the month away. Put your head down and go forward as far into the future as you can make yourself. Pass the month by as quickly as you can.
I've been wanting to do a debriefing of the memorial service I went to last weekend, though I'm wishing I had done it earlier as my mind has been clouded with other things since. Mostly I wanted to talk about how amazing it was and how deeply I was touched by the event. I went there knowing very little about this person and left feeling like I got to know him. The truth is though, there isn't much more to say. It was beautiful and moving and I don't know how I feel about talking about it on my death blog. I just don't know if it's my place to talk about this because I was really an observer. But in some strange way I was a participator as well. I wanted to be there, just didn't want to overstep my bounds. Anyway, I simply feel lucky to have been there.
January is basically whacked. It's the 31st day today and I'm just so happy this month is almost over. I feel like it's been a struggle from day one, fighting against myself and my world around things like work and money. January is the kind of month where everything goes wrong. Plumbing in the house backs up. You bounce cheques. The milk goes bad before the expiry date. You get sick with one cold, it goes away for a few blissful days and then a new one takes its place. January is the month of waiting. You wait to find out about the program you applied for, the contest you entered, whether or not your life is going to change. You make resolutions and you break them before the month is over. You hurl yourself through the days with your face against the painful knife-cutting wind of reality. At least three more months of winter are looming ahead of us, Christmas and its warmth and joy is over and what we really need to do is drink as much hot chocolate as possible, curl up on a couch (if you have one) and nap the month away. Put your head down and go forward as far into the future as you can make yourself. Pass the month by as quickly as you can.
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
Waking
So, I've been invited to two 'wakes' this week, back to back. One is for a close friend's 93 year old grandmother and another is the friend of a close friend who died tragically of an overdoes. I find it strange that the universe is engaging me with death in these distanced ways. These are not people I knew, yet I am tied to them through the people we share our connection to.
I went to my friend's grandmother's home once. She lived in a huge gorgeous house, in a small community town outside of Toronto. I was around 19 or 20 when I went up there, but the image I have in my head is of my friend and I swimming in her glorious cement swimming pool, not as adults, but as kids. Young, immature and ridiculously self-absorbed adolescents with dreams and ambitions gushing from our lips and sexual energy spilling out of our pores. It may as well have been the summer we were sixteen, watching infomercials and talking on the phone; me ranting about my mother and how many chores she expected me to do until I found a summer job (seriously Mum, you want me to clean ALL the outside windows of the house?), and my friend lusting after Ludwig, the man we had met the year before, with the black curly chest hair who worked at City Perk, the local coffee shop we obsessed in. The man who bought the girl he loved blue roses and told our fifteen year old ears to watch the movie Stealing Beauty immediately, because that was the movie that would teach us about love. Or it could've been the warm autumn night we dirty danced with those beautiful Lybian men who we met at an ESL student party, who whispered in our ears the words to 'Shy Guy' and 'Be My Lover', our bodies grinding together, the room a haze of musky cologne, warm breath and sweat. That time has blurred into one long existential adolescent angst, and my friend and I were comrades in our mutual obsession, ecstatic wonder, and longing. The visit to her grandmother's was just one of hundreds of times we spent floating around in a desperate pool of our desire to become 'grown up'. To have sex, to fall in love (either order was fine), have babies. To have love affairs with sweet men and women who we'd tearfully have to part ways with due to our own high ideals and ambitions. We knew what we wanted, and at that time all we could do was hope that it would all turn out as we imagined it could.
As for my friend whose dear friend overdosed, he is one of those people who I didn't know and never heard of until his death. Kind of like Kurt Cobain. I was one of those girls who fell in love with Kurt after his tragic death and began listening non-stop to his music. The 'wake' I'm going to is more of a huge celebration of his life, the kind of thing I would want for my own life when I die. My friend asked me to come and at first I was hesitant. How could I be a part of a celebration for someone I had never known? I felt like I might be overstepping my bounds and was worried about how it might look to those who did have a relationship with him. My friend said that this was exactly why I should come, because he was the kind of person I would have really liked and gotten along with. 'I really wish you guys could've met," He said, "and now maybe you'll be able to feel like you had'. What a beautiful thought. I realized afterwards that I would be flattered if people came to a celebration of my life, simply because friends of mine were confident that we would've been friends HAD we known each other. And the world is connected over and over, intrinsic in how it draws us together.
I feel honoured to attend both of these celebrations. It makes me wonder how my own 'life celebration' would come together. Hopefully the food would be good. I think my family and friends would make sure of that.
Here's a little 6FU homage to Kurt Cobain:
I went to my friend's grandmother's home once. She lived in a huge gorgeous house, in a small community town outside of Toronto. I was around 19 or 20 when I went up there, but the image I have in my head is of my friend and I swimming in her glorious cement swimming pool, not as adults, but as kids. Young, immature and ridiculously self-absorbed adolescents with dreams and ambitions gushing from our lips and sexual energy spilling out of our pores. It may as well have been the summer we were sixteen, watching infomercials and talking on the phone; me ranting about my mother and how many chores she expected me to do until I found a summer job (seriously Mum, you want me to clean ALL the outside windows of the house?), and my friend lusting after Ludwig, the man we had met the year before, with the black curly chest hair who worked at City Perk, the local coffee shop we obsessed in. The man who bought the girl he loved blue roses and told our fifteen year old ears to watch the movie Stealing Beauty immediately, because that was the movie that would teach us about love. Or it could've been the warm autumn night we dirty danced with those beautiful Lybian men who we met at an ESL student party, who whispered in our ears the words to 'Shy Guy' and 'Be My Lover', our bodies grinding together, the room a haze of musky cologne, warm breath and sweat. That time has blurred into one long existential adolescent angst, and my friend and I were comrades in our mutual obsession, ecstatic wonder, and longing. The visit to her grandmother's was just one of hundreds of times we spent floating around in a desperate pool of our desire to become 'grown up'. To have sex, to fall in love (either order was fine), have babies. To have love affairs with sweet men and women who we'd tearfully have to part ways with due to our own high ideals and ambitions. We knew what we wanted, and at that time all we could do was hope that it would all turn out as we imagined it could.
As for my friend whose dear friend overdosed, he is one of those people who I didn't know and never heard of until his death. Kind of like Kurt Cobain. I was one of those girls who fell in love with Kurt after his tragic death and began listening non-stop to his music. The 'wake' I'm going to is more of a huge celebration of his life, the kind of thing I would want for my own life when I die. My friend asked me to come and at first I was hesitant. How could I be a part of a celebration for someone I had never known? I felt like I might be overstepping my bounds and was worried about how it might look to those who did have a relationship with him. My friend said that this was exactly why I should come, because he was the kind of person I would have really liked and gotten along with. 'I really wish you guys could've met," He said, "and now maybe you'll be able to feel like you had'. What a beautiful thought. I realized afterwards that I would be flattered if people came to a celebration of my life, simply because friends of mine were confident that we would've been friends HAD we known each other. And the world is connected over and over, intrinsic in how it draws us together.
I feel honoured to attend both of these celebrations. It makes me wonder how my own 'life celebration' would come together. Hopefully the food would be good. I think my family and friends would make sure of that.
Here's a little 6FU homage to Kurt Cobain:
Saturday, January 16, 2010
This Is Your Death
Ever wanted to know when your last day on earth is going to be?
http://www.everythingends.co.uk/quiz.html
http://www.everythingends.co.uk/quiz.html
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Part 1: Everything.
A couple of nights ago I watched the last episode of 6FU. Though that was likely the 7th or 8th time I'd seen this hour and twenty minutes of brilliance, it's probably been at least a year since I watched that particular episode and I watched it with friends who were seeing the episode for the first time. It was awesome. We all cried. All I want to do now is talk about the last episode, though this seems like such a monstrous task. So I've decided to divide this into a four part post.
Today is Part 1 of Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends.
I'm compelled to do this justice. I'm unemployed. I'm looking for work, job hunting, job begging, whatever you might call it. I'm struggling. It's January.
January is a shit month.
Here are my thoughts on Everything.
I like everything. I'm pretty sure my friends and family have noticed. I mean, I hate most things too, but when it comes to art and literature and and theatre I tend to really really like everything. And I always end up feeling kind of foolish because I really should be more critical about the artistic experience and entertainment I'm exposing myself to.
A few days ago I saw a staged production of Part 1 of Angels in America. For those of you who haven't seen the HBO mini series, it is so so SO worth it. Go out and rent it. Actually, no. Go out and BUY it, because you'll need a few years to properly absorb this drama. By the time I made my way through the entire six hour series (with some good friends in Vancouver), I had already seen the Part 1 about four times over the course of three years. A friend of mine and I tried to watch the whole thing together, twice, and failed. The first time we needed time after Part 1 to process and breathe and engage in some form of dialogue about what we were watching (which basically meant crying into our chip bowls and talking about how fucked up the world is). We needed a lot of time. So much time, in fact, that we didn't start watching again until a year later. Then of course we had to watch Part 1 OVER again because we had forgotten a lot of what happened. And again, the same conundrum. I tried to watch it alone, and failed. I tried to watch it with other friends and failed.
Finally I saw the whole thing this past May.
Maybe, it's just that I like absolutely Everything. that HBO has done (that I've seen). Is that wrong?
For the record, Al Pacino wins hands down for awesomeness playing Roy Cohn (opposite James Cromwell who plays George Sibley in 6FU):
There's an actor with clout.
Here is a lovely wikipedia definition of the Theory of Everything:
The theory of everything (TOE) is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and, ideally, has predictive power for the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle.
I don't REALLY know what any of this means, but I like how it sounds.
Today is Part 1 of Everything. Everyone. Everywhere. Ends.
I'm compelled to do this justice. I'm unemployed. I'm looking for work, job hunting, job begging, whatever you might call it. I'm struggling. It's January.
January is a shit month.
Here are my thoughts on Everything.
I like everything. I'm pretty sure my friends and family have noticed. I mean, I hate most things too, but when it comes to art and literature and and theatre I tend to really really like everything. And I always end up feeling kind of foolish because I really should be more critical about the artistic experience and entertainment I'm exposing myself to.
A few days ago I saw a staged production of Part 1 of Angels in America. For those of you who haven't seen the HBO mini series, it is so so SO worth it. Go out and rent it. Actually, no. Go out and BUY it, because you'll need a few years to properly absorb this drama. By the time I made my way through the entire six hour series (with some good friends in Vancouver), I had already seen the Part 1 about four times over the course of three years. A friend of mine and I tried to watch the whole thing together, twice, and failed. The first time we needed time after Part 1 to process and breathe and engage in some form of dialogue about what we were watching (which basically meant crying into our chip bowls and talking about how fucked up the world is). We needed a lot of time. So much time, in fact, that we didn't start watching again until a year later. Then of course we had to watch Part 1 OVER again because we had forgotten a lot of what happened. And again, the same conundrum. I tried to watch it alone, and failed. I tried to watch it with other friends and failed.
Finally I saw the whole thing this past May.
Maybe, it's just that I like absolutely Everything. that HBO has done (that I've seen). Is that wrong?
For the record, Al Pacino wins hands down for awesomeness playing Roy Cohn (opposite James Cromwell who plays George Sibley in 6FU):
There's an actor with clout.
Here is a lovely wikipedia definition of the Theory of Everything:
The theory of everything (TOE) is a putative theory of theoretical physics that fully explains and links together all known physical phenomena, and, ideally, has predictive power for the outcome of any experiment that could be carried out in principle.
I don't REALLY know what any of this means, but I like how it sounds.
Friday, January 8, 2010
People Who Died
I started watching 6FU by myself. A close friend of mine had been urging me to start watching it and I found myself at Blockbuster one evening on a search for the perfect movie. I don't remember the movie I rented, but in addition I ended up grabbing disk four of season one cause it was the only one left on the shelf. So the first episode I actually watched (called 'The New Person') was the one where, in the first scene, the woman kills her husband by bashing him over the head with a cast iron frying pan:
This is the first glimpse I had into the show. I love how she eats the guy's breakfast after.
I'm clearly into this. But then, I see the next scene with Nate and David where they discuss why this woman decided to kill her husband:
David: ...so now the wife's in jail, according to the cousin who arranged the funeral.
Nate: Yeah, I bet he was abusing her or maybe he had some sick sexual thing he made her do.
David: Please, stop. And you're wrong. All she told the police was that he was boring.
Nate: That's it? That's all she said? (DAVID nods) The sick part is I understand it.
David: I do too.
Nate: Sometimes I'm boring.
David: I am too..
Amazing, right? I thought so too. I finish the episode. I'm obsessed. I go right back out to a different video store and rent the rest of season one. Then I watch the pilot, which is going to be a whole other post (lots to cover about the pilot). Then one of my roommates comes home and I convinced her to watch the pilot with me. Then our other roommate comes home and the three of us watch the pilot together.
Basically I watched the first episode three times that first night (or at least this is how I remember it) and then finished that first season in five days.
So as you all know (and if you don't know, you probably want to watch the show before I start spoiling things for you), the start of each 6FU episode begins with someone dying. I've chosen some of my favourites for your viewing pleasure:
I've been having a lot of really nasty nightmares lately, all of them completely vivid and almost more real than life itself. Many of them have been dreams in which close friends die somehow and I wake up with that crying clenched-fist-around-my-lungs feeling. It takes all day to shake it off. I think about what I would do without that person in my world and it's inconceivable. The worst is when they have children. I also dream about old relationships coming back to haunt me in some form or another, a completely different kind of death. Boyfriends or girlfriends popping up in various parts of my daily grind, showing up to tell me something, give me something, or take something away. A reconciliation that I never thought would happen might take place in a dream. I might wake up so light and happy, only to realize that person is still walking around possibly hating me, secretly hurt by me. Or I am still hurt by them. Or whatever. We sort of mutually hate/love each other. I always dream about people in my life, about things that could easily happen to them. I dream about myself placed in situations I wish I could act out in my life. I dream about resolution.
Last night I dreamt I had a beard. Oddly enough, this hasn't been the first beard dream I've ever had. In the first one, I was looking in the mirror totally admiring my awesome, amazing beard. Like, it was surprisingly hot. In this one, I couldn't figure out why it had suddenly developed and why now? My partner was all diplomatic about it and was like, 'you know it's up to you what you do with it, I don't mind' and I was kind of like, really? You're seriously okay with me having a beard? Then he was like, 'well, if it makes you uncomfortable, you can shave it off, but do it for yourself, not for me (a nice Bridget Jones I-like-you-just-as-you-are moment)'. But I didn't want to do that because my face would be all stubbly. It was a really unsettling dream and I basically had to cup my chin when I woke up to make sure I hadn't suddenly sprouted all this facial hair.
My point? Well, maybe it's just that dreams are kind of like dying for a night, in the sense that we go off into crazy worlds that are so similar to reality that we think they must be, but actually they're a whole different existence. Death might be one long dream with beards and fairies and talking steaks. I have no problem with that.
Here's a special song that touched my heart so obviously it will touch yours too:
This is the first glimpse I had into the show. I love how she eats the guy's breakfast after.
I'm clearly into this. But then, I see the next scene with Nate and David where they discuss why this woman decided to kill her husband:
David: ...so now the wife's in jail, according to the cousin who arranged the funeral.
Nate: Yeah, I bet he was abusing her or maybe he had some sick sexual thing he made her do.
David: Please, stop. And you're wrong. All she told the police was that he was boring.
Nate: That's it? That's all she said? (DAVID nods) The sick part is I understand it.
David: I do too.
Nate: Sometimes I'm boring.
David: I am too..
Amazing, right? I thought so too. I finish the episode. I'm obsessed. I go right back out to a different video store and rent the rest of season one. Then I watch the pilot, which is going to be a whole other post (lots to cover about the pilot). Then one of my roommates comes home and I convinced her to watch the pilot with me. Then our other roommate comes home and the three of us watch the pilot together.
Basically I watched the first episode three times that first night (or at least this is how I remember it) and then finished that first season in five days.
So as you all know (and if you don't know, you probably want to watch the show before I start spoiling things for you), the start of each 6FU episode begins with someone dying. I've chosen some of my favourites for your viewing pleasure:
I've been having a lot of really nasty nightmares lately, all of them completely vivid and almost more real than life itself. Many of them have been dreams in which close friends die somehow and I wake up with that crying clenched-fist-around-my-lungs feeling. It takes all day to shake it off. I think about what I would do without that person in my world and it's inconceivable. The worst is when they have children. I also dream about old relationships coming back to haunt me in some form or another, a completely different kind of death. Boyfriends or girlfriends popping up in various parts of my daily grind, showing up to tell me something, give me something, or take something away. A reconciliation that I never thought would happen might take place in a dream. I might wake up so light and happy, only to realize that person is still walking around possibly hating me, secretly hurt by me. Or I am still hurt by them. Or whatever. We sort of mutually hate/love each other. I always dream about people in my life, about things that could easily happen to them. I dream about myself placed in situations I wish I could act out in my life. I dream about resolution.
Last night I dreamt I had a beard. Oddly enough, this hasn't been the first beard dream I've ever had. In the first one, I was looking in the mirror totally admiring my awesome, amazing beard. Like, it was surprisingly hot. In this one, I couldn't figure out why it had suddenly developed and why now? My partner was all diplomatic about it and was like, 'you know it's up to you what you do with it, I don't mind' and I was kind of like, really? You're seriously okay with me having a beard? Then he was like, 'well, if it makes you uncomfortable, you can shave it off, but do it for yourself, not for me (a nice Bridget Jones I-like-you-just-as-you-are moment)'. But I didn't want to do that because my face would be all stubbly. It was a really unsettling dream and I basically had to cup my chin when I woke up to make sure I hadn't suddenly sprouted all this facial hair.
My point? Well, maybe it's just that dreams are kind of like dying for a night, in the sense that we go off into crazy worlds that are so similar to reality that we think they must be, but actually they're a whole different existence. Death might be one long dream with beards and fairies and talking steaks. I have no problem with that.
Here's a special song that touched my heart so obviously it will touch yours too:
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Just Thinking About How Lucky I Am
Let's begin with the opening credits. If you've seen them before, you know what I'm talking about. If you haven't, check them out:
The tree. The crow. The hands that pull away. The tagged toe of the dead guy. The wheel of the gurney that does its quick jarring swivel. The flowers that slowly waste away.
The first time I watched 6FU I was living in a house with two roommates that we called The Spadina House for the obvious reason that it was on Spadina Cr. in Saskatoon (obviously, right?). It was an anomaly of a house on a block with fancy expensive mansiony type homes. Ours was all run down with yellow peeling paint (it has since been repainted blue and looks considerably nicer, though I still find it horrifying. It's the change that gets me) and a dingy unfinished basement. The kitchen was a 70s haven of wood and crappy linoleum tile. The upstairs was a sauna in the summer and an icebox in the winter (once, I took a hot water bottle with me to bed on one of those forty below nights in January and the next morning the water bottle had a block of ice in it the size of my fist). But it was ours. And it was CHEAP. Amazing for three undergrad students who lived off their wits and $520 worth of student loans each month.
So yeah, the opening credits are badass awesome. And yes, I've always been a fan of Alan Ball for his work on American Beauty. Therefore I've pretty much always loved the composer, Thomas Newman. He's quirky. He fills me to the brim with sadness, but in a good way. He (and Kevin Spacey's sultry hypnotic voice in the opening scene of American Beauty) makes me believe in possibility. And, like, the universe and shit. Listen to these:
So I watch the opening credits of 6FU and I get a little chill. I wonder why it is so easy to get pulled into a feeling of longing I can't explain. Truthfully, I have always been susceptible to this. These opening credits yank me down into a place where I'm allowed to be completely self-indulgent because all the characters on the show certainly are. I can think about death, examine and explore it, and it isn't cliche. It's dirty and raw and ugly and beautiful.
The plastic bag scene in American Beauty is probably considered overdone, in the sense that it was so profound and meaningful at the time the movie came out that most people are likely to roll their eyes at it now. Kind of like Titanic getting so much ridiculous publicity. Perhaps it was just too easy to manipulate the viewer in that scene, but honestly I still love it. The dialogue is simple and beautiful. Any time a scene is strikingly gut wrenching, no matter how overplayed in the future, I can't help but feel attached to it.
I get a little sick of trying to be cool and not affected by certain things. The funny thing is, once I get attached to something I can't ever let go. I'm not easily Buddhist. I have trouble with my attachments. Maybe that's why death is so fascinating to me. It's a loss of power and control, which is a bigger and much more impacting loss than losing people. Or maybe you just feel powerless whenever the threat of loss is obviously present.
Speaking of death and fantastic opening credit sequences, True Blood is another show I'm deeply invested in. I love the creepy fundamentalist theme here:
and (by suggestion from Ky from Open Fors) here's the opening sequence to Carnivale, which is also brilliant:
Thanks Ky. I love tarot cards.
On that note, I've got some read bad things to get done today (laundry), so I'll leave you with a wicked awesome remix of the title track for 6FU. Just to get you thinking about how lucky you are:
The tree. The crow. The hands that pull away. The tagged toe of the dead guy. The wheel of the gurney that does its quick jarring swivel. The flowers that slowly waste away.
The first time I watched 6FU I was living in a house with two roommates that we called The Spadina House for the obvious reason that it was on Spadina Cr. in Saskatoon (obviously, right?). It was an anomaly of a house on a block with fancy expensive mansiony type homes. Ours was all run down with yellow peeling paint (it has since been repainted blue and looks considerably nicer, though I still find it horrifying. It's the change that gets me) and a dingy unfinished basement. The kitchen was a 70s haven of wood and crappy linoleum tile. The upstairs was a sauna in the summer and an icebox in the winter (once, I took a hot water bottle with me to bed on one of those forty below nights in January and the next morning the water bottle had a block of ice in it the size of my fist). But it was ours. And it was CHEAP. Amazing for three undergrad students who lived off their wits and $520 worth of student loans each month.
So yeah, the opening credits are badass awesome. And yes, I've always been a fan of Alan Ball for his work on American Beauty. Therefore I've pretty much always loved the composer, Thomas Newman. He's quirky. He fills me to the brim with sadness, but in a good way. He (and Kevin Spacey's sultry hypnotic voice in the opening scene of American Beauty) makes me believe in possibility. And, like, the universe and shit. Listen to these:
So I watch the opening credits of 6FU and I get a little chill. I wonder why it is so easy to get pulled into a feeling of longing I can't explain. Truthfully, I have always been susceptible to this. These opening credits yank me down into a place where I'm allowed to be completely self-indulgent because all the characters on the show certainly are. I can think about death, examine and explore it, and it isn't cliche. It's dirty and raw and ugly and beautiful.
The plastic bag scene in American Beauty is probably considered overdone, in the sense that it was so profound and meaningful at the time the movie came out that most people are likely to roll their eyes at it now. Kind of like Titanic getting so much ridiculous publicity. Perhaps it was just too easy to manipulate the viewer in that scene, but honestly I still love it. The dialogue is simple and beautiful. Any time a scene is strikingly gut wrenching, no matter how overplayed in the future, I can't help but feel attached to it.
I get a little sick of trying to be cool and not affected by certain things. The funny thing is, once I get attached to something I can't ever let go. I'm not easily Buddhist. I have trouble with my attachments. Maybe that's why death is so fascinating to me. It's a loss of power and control, which is a bigger and much more impacting loss than losing people. Or maybe you just feel powerless whenever the threat of loss is obviously present.
Speaking of death and fantastic opening credit sequences, True Blood is another show I'm deeply invested in. I love the creepy fundamentalist theme here:
and (by suggestion from Ky from Open Fors) here's the opening sequence to Carnivale, which is also brilliant:
Thanks Ky. I love tarot cards.
On that note, I've got some read bad things to get done today (laundry), so I'll leave you with a wicked awesome remix of the title track for 6FU. Just to get you thinking about how lucky you are:
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Titles
Okay, here we are at post #1.
There's a lot of pressure to make the first post of the very first blog you've ever created to be amazing. I imagine mine will likely be fairly boring because I'm kind of doing this on a whim and I really have no idea how I want to organize this thing yet.
Truthfully, I want to talk about more than just 6FU. I want to explore all the HBO shows (and perhaps one or two more that really should be HBO shows, but just happen to be with other networks....i.e. How I Met Your Mother) that have proved their awesomeness and have given me something concrete to live for, while working crappy retail jobs and sinking further and further into debt. The characters on these shows have become my frustrating family, my loving but troubled friends, my irritating neighbors and my fucked up teachers. They are what I turn to when I'm getting my existential angst on and I need to get swallowed up in someone else's tragic circumstances.
The title of this blog is significant to me for two reasons. First, it is the title of a fabulous episode of 6FU (Season 2, Episode 12, written by Jill Soloway, a friggin genius, if you ask me and my favourite 6FU writer), and contains a scene, which I've been mulling over for years, in which Nate is helping a cancer patient fill out his pre need form:
Nate: What about a girlfriend?
Cancer Patient: Nah. I mean yeah, I had girlfriends, relationships. I'd be in something for, whatever, like two months, two years and then it would just get too....too....nothing. Just too. I would start thinking 'I don't like this about her' and 'I don't like this about her' and I would start to feel this thing on the back of my neck, just like one of those superballs and it would just throb with the word leave leave leave and so I would and the second I got my life back, the ball would disappear. I suffer from that American thing big time. You know, always looking around for something better. Shopping.
Nate: I think a lot of people go through that that.
Cancer Patient: No they don't man. Okay? They don't. Most people just pick someone. I never looked at someone and just said, okay. I'll take you.
The second reason (which stems from the first), is that it is the title of a poetry manuscript I've been working on, which will hopefully one day see the light of publishing day. It's very new, very fresh and rough, but it's been fun to work on because of its exploration of relationships, and why else to I write poetry, but to obsess over the trials and tribulations of my 'cushy alienated life' as Claire says in an episode. Basically I wanted to explore the idea of settling, and what love means within a relationship and what happens when you aren't 100% sure and how people choose the people they will spend their life with. And what happens to those who decide not to choose or who choose a life that strays from the traditional.
There is a lot bubbling around in my head about this blog, but I will leave it at that for now. Thanks for reading.
There's a lot of pressure to make the first post of the very first blog you've ever created to be amazing. I imagine mine will likely be fairly boring because I'm kind of doing this on a whim and I really have no idea how I want to organize this thing yet.
Truthfully, I want to talk about more than just 6FU. I want to explore all the HBO shows (and perhaps one or two more that really should be HBO shows, but just happen to be with other networks....i.e. How I Met Your Mother) that have proved their awesomeness and have given me something concrete to live for, while working crappy retail jobs and sinking further and further into debt. The characters on these shows have become my frustrating family, my loving but troubled friends, my irritating neighbors and my fucked up teachers. They are what I turn to when I'm getting my existential angst on and I need to get swallowed up in someone else's tragic circumstances.
The title of this blog is significant to me for two reasons. First, it is the title of a fabulous episode of 6FU (Season 2, Episode 12, written by Jill Soloway, a friggin genius, if you ask me and my favourite 6FU writer), and contains a scene, which I've been mulling over for years, in which Nate is helping a cancer patient fill out his pre need form:
Nate: What about a girlfriend?
Cancer Patient: Nah. I mean yeah, I had girlfriends, relationships. I'd be in something for, whatever, like two months, two years and then it would just get too....too....nothing. Just too. I would start thinking 'I don't like this about her' and 'I don't like this about her' and I would start to feel this thing on the back of my neck, just like one of those superballs and it would just throb with the word leave leave leave and so I would and the second I got my life back, the ball would disappear. I suffer from that American thing big time. You know, always looking around for something better. Shopping.
Nate: I think a lot of people go through that that.
Cancer Patient: No they don't man. Okay? They don't. Most people just pick someone. I never looked at someone and just said, okay. I'll take you.
The second reason (which stems from the first), is that it is the title of a poetry manuscript I've been working on, which will hopefully one day see the light of publishing day. It's very new, very fresh and rough, but it's been fun to work on because of its exploration of relationships, and why else to I write poetry, but to obsess over the trials and tribulations of my 'cushy alienated life' as Claire says in an episode. Basically I wanted to explore the idea of settling, and what love means within a relationship and what happens when you aren't 100% sure and how people choose the people they will spend their life with. And what happens to those who decide not to choose or who choose a life that strays from the traditional.
There is a lot bubbling around in my head about this blog, but I will leave it at that for now. Thanks for reading.
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