So this has become a thing now. This movie just won’t let me go.
This is not a case of unrealistic expectations or fanboy outrage about how Tron “ought” to be done. I had adjusted my expectations: a bare bones story which served as a life support system for an astonishing 3D experience. I dismissed Ebert as being curmudgeonly, Massawyrm liked it and Dave had seen it *twice*. All good signs. Continue reading →
I get this guilt from not having the Next Big Thing queued up. The Project is what I use to validate my existence. But I’m waiting for someone, guys. None of this makes a lot of sense without her. I feel like I got to do most of the things I wanted to do on my own.
Now I just want to do things with you and with her.
But sometimes you’re busy and she… She’s taking her time.
I finished a new short story the other day. It started out three or four years ago as a handful of vignettes. It took this long to coalesce into an actual story. I may still tweak and poke at it, but I find its current state presentable.
Tonight at w00tstock I ran into my friend Steven and he asked the perfectly normal question, “What’s new with you?” He just wants to say hi and see what has been going on in my life. I hate that question. It’s like asking a chronic stutterer to read Fox in Socks in front of a crowd. I hate that question not because nothing of note has happened to me but because I don’t remember. My brain does not parse events like yours does. If I don’t make an effort to mentally tag something as anecdote fodder so I can participate in small talk, I won’t think to mention it. I can maybe keep track of a few days, but beyond that is a compressed field of time where everything that has ever happened exists. Some time ago, when I knew I was going to meet a new person, I would look over a document which detailed facts like how long I had lived in my current city, how long I had been married, how long I worked at my current job. Part of this blog still does the job of that list. Without it, time becomes “a while now” inching ever closer to “always”. So don’t ask me time questions.
“How are you doing?” is the other pleasantry that annoys me. I think I’ve made my peace with it. It isn’t a real question; it is a greeting like “hello”. What gets to me is that these two questions remind me of the disconnect I feel from the world where everyone is confident with the answers to those questions. Even now I’m getting frustrated at having to attempt to express this. I don’t want to talk about what’s new with me or how I’m doing because I am so disinclined to participate in your world that there is hardly any overlap with mine. There is nothing to talk to you about except the lowest common denominator: television shows, the job, the weather. There is nothing new to report and no day is distinguished from another because I do not have the energy to be here with you unless it is going to matter. Unless it is going to be real.
Sometimes my life feels like my job: I’m exhausted by doing hardly anything. I’m burning out. Even on autopilot the fuel has to come from somewhere. Why should I do anything about it? What compelling reason is there? Man delights not me.
The movies I saw, in order of enjoyment:
1. Golden Slumber
2. Summer Wars
3. Sound of Noise
4. Drones
5. Let Me In
6. Ip Man 2
7. I Saw the Devil
8. Rubber
9. Agnosia
10. Transfer
11. Never Let Me Go
12. Outrage
13. RED
14. Corridor
15. Enter the Void
16. Bedevilled
17. The Dead
18. Troll Hunter
19. Rare Exports
20. Buried
21. Rammbock
22. Bibliotheque Pascal
23. True Legend
24. Bunraku
25. Hell Driver
Alive – Pearl Jam
All I Really Want – Alanis Morissette
Bad – U2
Catapult – Counting Crows
The Mirror Song – Thomas Dolby
Everything Falls Apart – Dog’s Eye View
Tender – Blur
Down With Disease – Phish
Ghost – Indigo Girls
This Time – Ryan Houlette
Looking at the World From the Bottom of a Well – Mike Doughty
Running to Stand Still – U2
This Year – The Mountain Goats
This Too Shall Pass – OK Go
Maybe writing from my iPad will magically inspire me to write. While sitting here watching words appear on this glowing obsidian slab is a delight, it is still a wonder which I have anticipated. The tools are a convenience, not story engines. When I dip into some new app or device, I feel like I’ve taken hold of a magic sword. Now anything is possible, I think. But the sword does not know how to sing without me.
Lately I have been devising strategies to trick myself into creating something. I come up with various exercises, low commitment stunt projects, fire and forget one offs. Nothing wrong with that, I guess.
But I still must return to the font, which now wheezes and gasps a faint mist (or is it now sand?). In my ponderings of what may have happened to my creative fire I have drawn a correlation to having become less crazy. The unspoken agreement has worked too well and the safe harbor from the storms of my mind has become a home. From this vantage point I observed much, my world held before me in a snow globe, regarded with clear eyes.
I have spent much of my life in fear of various measuring sticks. I always felt I was getting it wrong, that I was found wanting. This permeated all spheres of human interaction. But at the core was the feeling of failing at reality, of a diamond hard superstructure crushing what I felt was real. Now that I see that there is only a reality of consensus, a ridiculous web of dependent causality governing behavior, I wonder if there is anything left to fear.
I do not think it is healthy for me to be sane. It is a survival trait necessary for the muggle world, but I fear it may be a cancer of the spirit.
What is the flint and steel for creativity? How do you re-ignite it? I’m not talking about writer’s block. I’m talking about a dried up well, a sputtering font.
This year I’ve lost the drive to create anything at all. It isn’t that I can’t. I just don’t want to. I see no point.
I’m burned out and used up in every area of my life. There isn’t much of me to give any more. There is just a little bit left. I feel faded.
I have no idea what batteries I once ran on, but they need to be replaced. Or the power system needs to be upgraded.
The other morning I realized that there is a sub-theme that I sometimes encounter within the hotel dream. Once in a while I will come across a buffet or a cafeteria. The cafeteria is usually closed, having just shut down or making preparations to open for the day. If I do make it to the cafeteria or buffet while they are open, most of the food is already gone. And if there is something I’ve been craving, they are most certainly out of that dish. Sold the last one just before I got there.
Idea. Single point. Sounds a distant trumpet. Waveform. DJ scratches a marble disc across the needle treetips of a dark forest, introducing mutations, bullet points, details. Extrude waveform on Z-axis to generate topographical map. Throbs to the beat. Nodes ignite, blooming flowcharts and hyper-links to extant research, tutorials, blog threads, possibilities. Superimpose standard template load-out. Aggregate a menu of unforeseen applications. Encapsulate entire structure. Planet. Tag it. Systems of relationship form. Zoom out. Galaxy. Zoom in. Molecules. Background process|despair. Foreground process|mania.