Every year instead of making a new year's resolution I pick something new to become obsessed with. This started at the end of 2005 when I was visiting Hastings with a couple friends, and I mispronounced "Martin Scorsese" (SKOR-saes). The ensuing discussion resulted in my realizing that I was REALLY distanced from post-WWII cinema. I just didn't watch movies that much. So my 2006 resolution was to watch as many films as I possibly could. I was renting three films a week off the bargain rack, and checking off titles from the AFI's 100 list like a health inspector at Huddle House. And now I'm a film major, so that should tell you something about the benefits of obsession.
In 2007 my new obsession became music. Oh, I listened to music before that, but not like it was an insatiable god. Honestly, it seemed like kind of a cop-out at the time, because I already listened to music. But when the music I listened to casually became mine, it gained importance I didn't know it could have. Something switched on a whole world in my awareness of the nuances and politics of sound. I started buying Harp and Razorcake magazines, and I started this blog for concert reviews once I moved to Nashville where there was finally a music scene to analyze. I was a radio DJ... for a while (didn't make it to the final exam). Ok, so maybe I didn't take it all the way to temporal dusk, but I can still tell you all about how the Stooges ended up signing with Elektra back in 1968.
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By the way, pick up the new album from I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness. It's thick, moving stuff
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So this year, after much deliberation, I've decided that the winner of my affections in 2008 will be: The Graphic Novel. Yes, it is a medium I already have a bit of familiarity with, but thus far it's only been fleeting caresses with (mostly) borrowed books. This year I delve into cult comics like Maus and Sin City as well as artsy shit like Epilepsy and Black Hole. With the Great Escape comic store right outside campus, it shouldn't be too hard to get hold of stuff like this.
Things I will explore for probably less than year:
Eschatology, futurology and the coming Apocalypse
--Because the end of the world is coming, and I'd sort of like to watch.
The books of Genesis, Job and Ezekiel
--All contain great meta-narratives with themes of creation and destruction.
Zombies
--Somehow my knowledge on this subject isn't as extensive as I'm comfortable with.
H.G.Wells
--He was the Isaac Asimov of the century's turn, not to mention a fucking prophet
Hinduism
--I don't know a thing about this religion except that there's an Elephant and an Octopus-lady who get pissed fairly easily.
Happy New Year
Monday, December 31, 2007
Wednesday, December 26, 2007
The Twelve Days of Solitude
I am back in Dyersburg and I have not seen anyone yet. The day after I drove in, my mother began the process of moving all her possessions across town to a smaller, more manageable house.
Today we are still surrounded by cardboard boxes, and eating off styrafoam--maintence people stop by everyday to fiddle with the water heater or the electricity. My two brothers are in Florida with my father for Christmas, and my mother has to work full days this entire week, so I am spending a lot of time alone in this unfamiliar house. At least I get a chance to read. I didn't do too much of that last break because I was spending so much time with friends, so now that I have all this alone time, I am finally remembering how to lose myself completely in books.
Christmas was yesterday. I have never spent Christmas alone before. No presents under the tree, no laughing children, not even a warm meal, just boxes and boxes of old photographs and bed linens. I don't blame anyone; my mother has been going through a lot of stress lately and it's been almost all I can do to keep her from bursting into tears at times (the divorce and all). So on Christmas morning, I decided to paint a picture. I cut up some of the cardboard we had stuck in the garage, and unpacked all my paint supplies I had brought with me from Nashville. I spent about eight hours out in the garage, and I was pretty proud of the result. It's a single tree facing twilight at the dawn of a snow storm.
It made my day just wonderful, it really did. All that joy I was hoping to get from familial warmth I found in the act of creation and the intricies of nature. I usually go into "Everything is Beautiful" mode around full moons, and the one on the 23rd felt so intense I thought I would explode with joy, despite everything. I have been taking hour-long night walks ever since I got back in town--Nashville makes me miss the outdoors so much--and it just makes everything okay. How you can you be sad when there are molecues and electrons, stars and galaxies swirling all round you? There is so much love in the air around Christmastime.
So today I'm going to read another XKCD webcomic, microwave myself a paper cup of soy milk and read the last fifty pages of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. This probably should have been the saddest Christmas ever, but it wasn't. It's actually been one of my favorites.
Today we are still surrounded by cardboard boxes, and eating off styrafoam--maintence people stop by everyday to fiddle with the water heater or the electricity. My two brothers are in Florida with my father for Christmas, and my mother has to work full days this entire week, so I am spending a lot of time alone in this unfamiliar house. At least I get a chance to read. I didn't do too much of that last break because I was spending so much time with friends, so now that I have all this alone time, I am finally remembering how to lose myself completely in books.
Christmas was yesterday. I have never spent Christmas alone before. No presents under the tree, no laughing children, not even a warm meal, just boxes and boxes of old photographs and bed linens. I don't blame anyone; my mother has been going through a lot of stress lately and it's been almost all I can do to keep her from bursting into tears at times (the divorce and all). So on Christmas morning, I decided to paint a picture. I cut up some of the cardboard we had stuck in the garage, and unpacked all my paint supplies I had brought with me from Nashville. I spent about eight hours out in the garage, and I was pretty proud of the result. It's a single tree facing twilight at the dawn of a snow storm.
It made my day just wonderful, it really did. All that joy I was hoping to get from familial warmth I found in the act of creation and the intricies of nature. I usually go into "Everything is Beautiful" mode around full moons, and the one on the 23rd felt so intense I thought I would explode with joy, despite everything. I have been taking hour-long night walks ever since I got back in town--Nashville makes me miss the outdoors so much--and it just makes everything okay. How you can you be sad when there are molecues and electrons, stars and galaxies swirling all round you? There is so much love in the air around Christmastime.
So today I'm going to read another XKCD webcomic, microwave myself a paper cup of soy milk and read the last fifty pages of _One Hundred Years of Solitude_. This probably should have been the saddest Christmas ever, but it wasn't. It's actually been one of my favorites.
Thursday, December 13, 2007
Aaaaaaaaaaaannd, we're back!
So for those of you who had at any point been keeping up with my blog, you may have noticed a three month span or so in which I stopped caring for you, the reader. For this I apologize; allow me to explain. Shortly after the wildbirds concert I realized that I could not simultaneously (A) go to concerts every week (B) make decent grades and (C) have a social life. That's why I've decided to change this from a
If you were just reading this for the music reviews, you may want to unsubscribe. Haha who am I fooling. I'm sure the Matt Pagan element was the only reason you the reader read these little segments anyways, amirite?
I figured the concert reviewing was probably dead after I went to a momentous Regina Spektor show that I just didn't bother telling you about, reader. (Again, my apologies.) What's that? You hadn't heard about it? She overdosed and had to go to the hospital. Her clever technical manager told everyone it was a "stomach virus," that caused her to collapse onstage during the mic check, but we all knew. Everyone left the show really dissappointed and a little worried.
Mirrors
I kind of shocked myself today when I found that I had spent a considerable time in front of my bedroom mirror. I'm not really a vain person (at least I don't consider myself one), so I had to wonder if it's my own image I keep looking at or of it's the mirror itself. Mirrors have always had a surreal sort of attraction for me ever since I read Through the Looking Glass as a little kid--an attraction that was heightened the first time I saw the Matrix.
When I was a kid I would always try to get through to the other side of the mirror, but there was always someone who looked just like me blocking the portal. "He clearly wants to get to my world, and I to his," I reasoned. "If only we could coordinate our movements, we would both be happy." Of course we never got this figured out, mostly because every time I opened my mouth to give him directions, he would think of something to say at the exact same time, and both our sentences would get lost in interruption.
Perhaps I keep expecting to find some great truth through self-reflection. Occasionally I do, but it's usually more along the lines of "My hair is frizzy today" or "I have bags under my eyes." Maybe I'm just comforted by the knowledge mirrors give me that I actually exist in the physical world. I have a body like everyone else and I'm not just a bunch of mental energy watching some movie starring all my friends and acquaintences. You'd be surprised how easily I forget that sometimes.
MUSIC BLOG
to a regular oldWHATEVER-I-FEEL-LIKE-WRITING BLOG
If you were just reading this for the music reviews, you may want to unsubscribe. Haha who am I fooling. I'm sure the Matt Pagan element was the only reason you the reader read these little segments anyways, amirite?
I figured the concert reviewing was probably dead after I went to a momentous Regina Spektor show that I just didn't bother telling you about, reader. (Again, my apologies.) What's that? You hadn't heard about it? She overdosed and had to go to the hospital. Her clever technical manager told everyone it was a "stomach virus," that caused her to collapse onstage during the mic check, but we all knew. Everyone left the show really dissappointed and a little worried.
Mirrors
I kind of shocked myself today when I found that I had spent a considerable time in front of my bedroom mirror. I'm not really a vain person (at least I don't consider myself one), so I had to wonder if it's my own image I keep looking at or of it's the mirror itself. Mirrors have always had a surreal sort of attraction for me ever since I read Through the Looking Glass as a little kid--an attraction that was heightened the first time I saw the Matrix.
When I was a kid I would always try to get through to the other side of the mirror, but there was always someone who looked just like me blocking the portal. "He clearly wants to get to my world, and I to his," I reasoned. "If only we could coordinate our movements, we would both be happy." Of course we never got this figured out, mostly because every time I opened my mouth to give him directions, he would think of something to say at the exact same time, and both our sentences would get lost in interruption.
Perhaps I keep expecting to find some great truth through self-reflection. Occasionally I do, but it's usually more along the lines of "My hair is frizzy today" or "I have bags under my eyes." Maybe I'm just comforted by the knowledge mirrors give me that I actually exist in the physical world. I have a body like everyone else and I'm not just a bunch of mental energy watching some movie starring all my friends and acquaintences. You'd be surprised how easily I forget that sometimes.
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