i saw quentin tarantino today.

Don't ask yourself what the world needs; ask yourself what makes you come alive. And then go and do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive. ~Attributed to Howard Thurman

folding john wayne's t-shirts with the swingset in his head

I would like to say a word on a subject I've been thinking about for awhile, and that I find myself thinking about tonight, after reading an exhausting amount of information about David Berkowitz, the Son of Sam killer.

But let me jump ahead for a moment and say this: I'm starting to think that the movie "Zodiac" is one of the most important films made in recent memory. It tackles something true and illuminated to me, and I hope to other people, something very meaningful and shocking. Although the movie shows the creepy scenes where the killer stalks and makes victims out of his targets, and though there's some good-ole detectin' goin' on at the paper and the police station, the movie primarily concentrates on the mental bug and the emotional wear-and-tear of the characters, and real people, who spent their lives trying to make sense of the killings and the phenomena, the people who tried to catch him. The obsession that takes hold of them, the paranoia that eats at them, the frustration, and, really, the horror that swallows them up is the main focus of the film. Their lives are essentially destroyed, even those who are not newsmen or detectives. They had no closeness to the actual DEATH, really, except that they fell into its grasp. They were helpless spectators that became victims just by observing-- and these characters stand in, to some extreme, for an age, for those people in San Fransisco, for those people who obsessively read the newspaper every morning, panicked about putting their children on the schoolbuses, knew what Dirty Harry was all about. Destructive behavior DESTROYS, it BREEDS destruction; the victims of murder stretch so far beyond merely the literally murdered. No one can put all of those pieces together. No other film has made this sort of statement, and the more I think about it the more the truth shines. It is an important thing-- no one really comes out clean, do they? So shouldn't we all do our best to prevent it, shouldn't we all care for oneanother, if we are all going to be effected by darkness shouldn't we do our best to shine the light?

I was procrastinating tonight, watching a movie I've been wanting to see for awhile (The Informant!), dreading when it would be over and knowing that I would have to get to my project that needs finishing tonight (way to start at 1AM...), and all of a sudden a funny little memory returned to me. When I was a little person, up until I was a teenager and going to movies all of the time, I would take such extreme delight in going to the movies. I mean, I still do, but then I would have no idea when I might be able to return to the theatre and wanted to savor every last second I spent there. Usually, whatever movie I was off to see I was already familiar with via hearing my friends talk about it or seeing commercials for it on TV (which must have been someone else's TV because we didn't have one...), and I would CLING to those pieces of information (children are so optimistic, they so want to love everything that's supposed to be fun). Then, during the movie, when I would feel the third act kick into gear, I would recall the info I knew, the snippets I had seen from commercials in order to figure out what I hadn't seen in the movie yet, and whether or not it had to be over soon. No, I had not heard Cruella DeVille say "Woof Woof, ahahaha!" thus, the movie could not be close to ending. I did not see the bad guys fall down the stairs yet, like in that trailer, so there must be aways to go yet. And of course, when the events would occur that I was looking for, a strange sort of satisfaction and anxiety would grip me-- how wonderful, just as planned, but now what's left?! it's almost at the end! The endings were unbearable. I suppose that's escapism in a nutshell, eh? I suppose that's most of America, isn't it? Even if they're not counting down the scenes, they really are dreading the moment the credits arrive, when they must leave Sandra Bullock or Avatar behind and lead their American lives again. Though I suppose for some people when the lights come up they feel invigorated, as though the fantasy they have just been a part of has given them a sense of hope. I guess that's film too, huh?

i have to stuff my head full of inertia and velocity.
-my overstressed room-mate on physics class.

on fandoms, comic books, creations.

if something exists nowadays, doesn't matter what it is, there will be freaks for it.
-my classmate, paraphrased.

american splendor.

ordinary life is complex stuff.
--harvey pekar

i love my mother.

my mother, who uses the graphic smiley faces that gmail offers rather than merely typing in ":)"

my mother, who sighs to convey that nothing has changed.

my mother, who got bad grades in college, except in dance and some literature classes.

my mother, who doesn't do something if she doesn't want to do it.

my mother, who sends me supplements in the mail to take because she thinks they will make me stop being sad.

my mother, who hates to watch sad movies and is continually disappointed in Hollywood because every portrayal of a Christian character, to her, is negative-- even if in the context of the film religion isn't even slightly relevant.

my mother, who used to tell me the plots of musicals and old movies i hadn't seen yet and passed them off as stories she had just come up with on the long walks from our house to the store or the houses she used to clean.

my mother, who bought me a star wars toothbrush just for fun when i was far too old for it.

my mother, who still thinks i should marry one if not all of the guy friends i have. she supports polygamy, apparently, and just because she loves them all so much for loving me, she is willing to overlook their mismatching religions.

my mom, who always did the voices just right when we read Mary Poppins or Chronicles of Narnia.

i want to make sure you're okay. i hope i can do that, and that you don't get old too quickly.