ahn to the min

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond..."

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 02:21:00 -0500

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

- Marianne Williamson, quoted by Nelson Mandela in his inaugural address

Where The Wild Things Aren't

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 21:16:30 -0400

Check out the comments below this review for my heated discussion with 13-year film critic Glenn Kenny on “Wild Things”.

Only If It’s You(wrote this on the week i injured my...

Fri, 16 Oct 2009 01:15:52 -0400

Only If It’s You
(wrote this on the week i injured my ankle, recorded it today)

I was born a skeptic, so it’s hard to believe
in what I do not see
But even my arctic heart cannot deny
the love You have for me

I am trying to find some ground
To place my wobbling feet down

Call me to the water to walk on it
If it’s You, only if it’s You
Tell me to jump from the cliff and I’ll land safely
If it’s You, only if it’s You

I’m still hesitating when You’re asking for all of me
It seems a lot to give
And yet You promise that if I die to myself,
then I will truly live

I am trying to find stable ground
To place my wobbling faith down

I will lose my life that I once knew
If I find it in You, only in You
I will risk it all if I could be
loved by You, loved by You

The Sixth Borough

Thu, 01 Oct 2009 02:44:29 -0400

by Jonathan Safran Foer Once upon a time, New York City had a Sixth Borough. You won’t read about it in any of the history books, because there’s nothing — save for the circumstantial evidence in Central Park — to prove that it was there at all. Which makes its existence very easy to dismiss. Especially in a time like this one, when the world is so unpredictable, and it takes all of one’s resources just to get by in the present tense. But even though most people will say they have no time or reason to believe in the Sixth Borough, and don’t believe in the Sixth Borough, they will still use the word ”believe.” The Sixth Borough was an island, separated from Manhattan by a thin body of water, whose narrowest crossing happened to equal the world’s long jump record, such that exactly one person on earth could go from Manhattan to the Sixth Borough without getting wet. A huge party was made of the yearly leap. Bagels were strung from island to island on special spaghetti, samosas were bowled at baguettes, Greek salads were thrown like confetti. The children of New York captured fireflies in glass jars, which they floated between the boroughs. The bugs would slowly asphyxiate, flickering rapidly for their last few minutes of life. If it was timed right, the river shimmered as the jumper crossed it. When the time finally came, the long jumper would run the entire width of Manhattan. New Yorkers rooted him on from opposite sides of the street, from the windows of their apartments and offices, from the branches of the trees. And when he leapt, New Yorkers cheered from the banks of both Manhattan and the Sixth Borough, cheering on the jumper, and cheering on each other. For those few moments that the jumper was in the air, every New Yorker felt capable of flight. Or perhaps ”suspension” is a better word. Because what was so inspiring about the leap was not how the jumper got from one borough to the other, but how he stayed between them for so long. One year — many, many years ago — the end of the jumper’s big toe touched the surface of the water and caused a little ripple. People gasped, as the ripple traveled out from the Sixth Borough back toward Manhattan, knocking the jars of fireflies against one another like wind chimes. ”You must have gotten a bad start!” a Manhattan councilman hollered from across the water. The jumper nodded no, more confused than ashamed. ”You had the wind in your face,” a Sixth Borough councilman suggested, offering a towel for the jumper’s foot. The jumper shook his head. ”Perhaps he ate too much for lunch,” said one onlooker to another. ”Or maybe he’s past his prime,” said another, who’d brought his kids to watch the leap. ”I bet his heart wasn’t in it,” said another. ”You just can’t expect to jump that far without some serious feeling.” ”No,” the jumper said to all of the speculation. ”None of that’s right. I jumped just fine.” The revelation traveled across the onlookers like the ripple caused by the toe, and when the mayor of New York City spoke it aloud, everyone sighed in agreement: ”The Sixth Borough is moving.” Each year after, a few inches at a time, the Sixth Borough receded from New York. One year, the long jumper’s entire foot got wet, and after a number of years, his shin, and after many, many years — so many years that no one could even remember what it was like to celebrate without anxiety — the jumper had to reach out his arms and grab at the Sixth Borough fully extended, and then, sadly, he couldn’t touch it at all. The eight bridges between Manhattan and the Sixth Borough strained and finally crumbled, one at a time, into the water. The tunnels were pulled too thin to hold anything at all. The phone and electrical lines snapped, requiring Sixth Boroughers to revert to old-fashioned technologies, most of which resembled children’s toys: they used magnifying glasses to reheat their carry-out; they folded important documents into paper airplanes and threw them from one office building window into another; those fireflies in glass jars, which had once been used merely for decorative purposes during the festivals of the leap, were now found in every room of every apartment, taking the place of artificial light. The very same engineers who dealt with the Leaning Tower of Pisa were brought over to assess the situation. ”It wants to go,” they said. ”Well, what can you say about that?” the mayor of New York asked. To which they replied, ”There’s nothing to say about that.” Of course they tried to save it. Although ”save” might not be the right word, as it did seem to want to go. Maybe ”detain” is the right word. Chains were moored to the banks of the islands, but the links soon snapped. Concrete pilings were poured around the perimeter of the Sixth Borough, but they, too, failed. Harnesses failed, magnets failed, even prayer failed. Young friends, whose string-and-tin-can phone extended from island to island, had to pay out more and more string, as if letting kites go higher and higher. ”It’s getting almost impossible to hear you,” said the young girl from her bedroom in Manhattan, as she squinted through a pair of her father’s binoculars, trying to find her friend’s window. ”I’ll holler if I have to,” said her friend from his bedroom in the Sixth Borough, aiming last birthday’s telescope at her apartment. The string between them grew incredibly long, so long it had to be extended with many other strings tied together: the wind of his yo-yo, the pull from her talking doll, the twine that had fastened his father’s diary, the waxy string that had kept her grandmother’s pearls around her neck and off the floor, the thread that had separated his great-uncle’s childhood quilt from a pile of rags. Contained within everything they shared with one another were the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, and the quilt. They had more and more to tell each other, and less and less string. The boy asked the girl to say ”I love you” into her can, giving her no further explanation. And she didn’t ask for any, or say, ”That’s silly” or ”We’re too young for love” or even suggest that she was saying ”I love you” because he asked her to. Her words traveled the yo-yo, the doll, the diary, the necklace, the quilt, the clothesline, the birthday present, the harp, the tea bag, the table lamp, the tennis racket, the hem of the skirt he one day should have pulled from her body . The boy covered his can with a lid, removed it from the string, and put her love from him on a shelf in his closet. Of course, he could never open the can, because then he would lose its contents. It was enough just to know that it was there. Some, like that boy’s family, wouldn’t leave the Sixth Borough. Some said: ”Why should we? It’s the rest of the world that’s moving. Our borough is fixed. Let them leave Manhattan.” How can you prove someone like that wrong? And who would want to? For most Sixth Boroughers, though, there was no question of refusing to accept the obvious, just as there was no underlying stubbornness, or principle, or bravery. They just didn’t want to go. They liked their lives and didn’t want to change. So they floated away, one inch at a time. All of which brings us to Central Park. Central Park didn’t used to be where it now is. It used to rest squarely in the center of the Sixth Borough; it was the joy of the borough, its heart. But once it was clear that the Sixth Borough was receding for good, that it couldn’t be saved or detained, it was decided, by New York City referendum, to salvage the park. (The vote was unanimous. Even the most obdurate Sixth Boroughers acknowledged what must be done.) Enormous hooks were driven deep into ground, and the park was pulled, by the people of New York, like a rug across a floor, from the Sixth Borough into Manhattan. Children were allowed to lie down on the park as it was being moved. This was considered a concession, although no one knew why a concession was necessary, or why it was to children that this concession must be made. The biggest fireworks show in history lighted the skies of New York City that night, and the Philharmonic played its heart out. The children of New York lay on their backs, body to body, filling every inch of the park as if it had been designed for them and that moment. The fireworks sprinkled down, dissolving in the air just before they reached the ground, and the children were pulled, one inch and one second at a time, into Manhattan and adulthood. By the time the park found its current resting place, every single one of the children had fallen asleep, and the park was a mosaic of their dreams. Some hollered out, some smiled unconsciously, some were perfectly still. Was there really a Sixth Borough? There’s no irrefutable evidence. There’s nothing that could convince someone who doesn’t want to be convinced. But there is an abundance of clues that would give the wanting believer something to hold on to: in the peculiar fossil record of Central Park, in the incongruous pH level of the reservoir, in the placement of certain tanks at the zoo (which correspond to the holes left by the gigantic hooks that pulled the park from borough to borough). There is a tree — just 24 paces due east from the entrance to the merry-go-round — into whose trunk are carved two names. They don’t appear in any phone book or census. They are absent from all hospital and tax and voting records. There is no evidence whatsoever of their existence, other than the proclamation on the tree. Here’s a fact: no less than 5 percent of the names carved into the trees of Central Park are of unknown origin. As all of the Sixth Borough’s documents floated away with the Sixth Borough, we will never be able to prove that those names belonged to residents of the Sixth Borough, and were carved when Central Park still resided there, instead of in Manhattan. So some believe that they are made-up names and, to take the doubt a step further, that the gestures of love were made-up gestures. Others believe other things. But it’s hard for anyone, even the most cynical of cynics, to spend more than a few minutes in Central Park without feeling that he or she is experiencing some tense in addition to just the present. Maybe it’s our own nostalgia for what’s past, or our own hopes for what’s to come. Or maybe it’s the residue of the dreams from that night the park was moved, when all of the children of New York City exercised their subconsciouses at once. Maybe we miss what they had lost, and yearn for what they wanted. There’s a gigantic hole in the middle of the Sixth Borough where Central Park used to be. As the island moves across the planet, it acts like a frame, displaying what lies beneath it. The Sixth Borough is now in Antarctica. The sidewalks are covered in ice, the stained glass of the public library is straining under the weight of the snow. There are frozen fountains in frozen neighborhood parks, where frozen children are frozen at the peaks of their swings—the frozen ropes holding them in flight. The tzitzit of frozen little Jewish boys are frozen, as are the strands of their frozen mothers’ frozen wigs. Livery horses are frozen mid-trot, flea-market vendors are frozen mid-haggle, middle-aged women are frozen in the middle of their lives. The gavels of frozen judges are frozen between guilty and innocent. On the ground are the crystals of the frozen first breaths of babies, and those of the last gasps of the dying. On a frozen shelf, in a closet frozen shut, is a can with a voice inside it.

"Well then, I must be King Kong."

Tue, 01 Sep 2009 04:06:29 -0400

Quentin Tarantino’s main strength is not his visual style, his knowledge of films, or even his dialogue, as intelligent and razor sharp as it is. His most accomplished talent as a film maker is his understanding of the audience.

Consider the scene in Inglourious Basterds that takes place in the tavern basement.

(WARNING: Spoilers ahead. If you didn’t see the movie yet, don’t read on! It will ruin one of the best scenes in it).

You have at least 20 to 30 minutes of long, drawn out conversation punctuated by a meager 10 seconds of action at the end. Now, in any other movie, the audience would feel shortchanged. Why the hell sit through all that boring crap for not even a decent minute of great action? And the action is definitely great. That one tiny sequence is better than every single fighting scene from both Transformers combined, visual effects and all. But as you watch the scene end, you don’t feel jipped, you feel satisfied, like you just witnessed a great scene that will undoubtedly become a milestone of great movie scenes. How did he do it?

Let’s break it down: There are the two German-speaking Basterds pretending to be Nazis, the British agent pretending to be a Nazi with a weird accent, and the German actress/spy relaying them the info. Then, a wrench is thrown in the gears of their plan when an actual Nazi officer unexpectedly joins them and finds something fishy with the British dude’s unplaceable accent. The tension has begun. The Nazi plays it cool and they have a friendly game of 20 questions while the frustration, impatience, and questions of “does he know what i know and does he know that i know that he knows” underneath just builds and builds. Finally, the British officer has had enough and he outright tries to kick the Nazi out of their table. The Nazi counters and still plays it cool and calm. All the while, the tension is being tightened like a guitar string, ready to burst at any moment. Then, finally, the guns are drawn and that beautiful sequence of 1 second cuts are blasted in rapid succession.

Now, what Tarantino displays here is not his love for the spectacle. What he practices is an incredible amount of restraint. He’s constantly messing with the audience’s expections. In Resoivoir Dogs, he never shows the heist and yet, there’s still so much excitement and twists that come with great heist movies. In Death Proof, he makes the first half long, boring, and introduces characters that you immediately hate, only to brutally kill them in what should be a refreshing and relieving scene but is suddenly too grotesque to really feel all that good about. In Basterds, he deliberately holds back what the audience wants, which is a great action sequence, knowing FULL WELL that by keeping it from them, they know to expect it. And despite this, he holds it back further and refuses to give it prematurely or even on time. Most directors will simply build the adequate amount of tension and then deliver the goods, which would not be some measly 10 second sequence. Most directors would build the tension for about 5 minutes just so they could release all the stops and have a blast choreographing a glorious 20 minute shoot out. But Tarantino does the exact opposite. He relishes the half hour of tension pulling and feasts on the build up. Rather than focusing his attention on the shootout, he choreographs every single nuance and intricacy of the conversation and puts it together like it’s the most important part… because it is! The richness of the dialogue is the actual meal that you can chew on; the small bite-sized action at the end is merely an after-dinner snack. Most action is junk food anyway. What he knows that most directors don’t is that audiences don’t want to be catered to, they want to be challenged.

It takes balls to pull off a scene like that. And that’s what he does pretty much all throughout the movie. He knows the audience so well because he HIMSELF is the audience. He’s been watching movies his whole life and he knows the filmic language fowards, backwards, sideways, and upside down. So many films just pander to you, like giving a dog a bone. Tarantino treats his audience with intelligence and respect and treats them to a well thought out, well planned, well executed, full course meal.

And what a meal it is. Inglourious Basterds is a feast from start to finish. There is just so much to go through and think about and discuss. As i was walking out of the theatre and thinking about what i just saw, i immediately wanted to see it again. And i didn’t even mention Christoph Waltz’s masterful, confident, idiosyncratic, and hilarious performance. I wouldn’t say this is Tarantino’s best, my personal favorite is still Kill Bill Volume 2 (for its melding of genres and stunning conclusion), but it is definitely one of the year’s best and should be watched in a dark theatre with a good friend to talk about it afterwards.

'Funny People' review and a 3-Page Original Screenplay

Sat, 01 Aug 2009 01:53:14 -0400

I saw ‘Funny People’ today and enjoyed it. Unfortunately, I didn’t LOVE it as I thought I would. Maybe I put too much expectation on these movies that I spend a year and a half looking forward to. I was so nervous and excited as the Universal Pictures logo came up to finally be seeing this movie and as I heard the lofi audio of Judd Apatow’s old footage of Adam Sandler making crank calls as a 20-something-year-old, I thought, “Brilliant opening.” And the movie went on and the characters were established and the jokes kept coming and of course, I laughed out loud and was having a good time. Then came the tender moments and the conflicted moments and I was way into it. But the story just never really took off for me. I felt like Ira’s character was too flat and I wanted to see more of the supporting guys and the subplots, especially the romance with Daisy (maybe ‘cause I’m just a fan of Aubrey Plaza). It wasn’t a bad film by any means and it was made with a lot of thought, care, and sincerity that I appreciate from Judd Apatow’s movies but I dunno… The more I think about it, the more I feel that it was a really good movie, but like I said, there was never that moment where it really soared. Like for ‘40-Year-Old Virgin’ and ‘Knocked Up’, I absolutely adored the main characters, was rooting for them all the way, and wanted so bad to be a part of the group when they would just hang out and crack crude jokes. But with this one, I didn’t feel so much of that. Maybe that was the point though? Because George Simmons was such a miserable dude, all alone, and self-loathing. That’s one thing the story did really well: paint a picture of a successful guy who has it all but really has nothing. I felt the emptiness and loneliness. But again, I dunno… I’m still working it out with this movie. I want to like it so bad. But it just doesn’t hit that note for me. And why didn’t they include that part with the Rza where Ira says that joke about Grand Theft Auto??? I was really looking forward to that one. In fact, there were a lot of great jokes I’ve seen in trailers and exclusive clips that were taken out. I’ll just have to wait for the DVD.

I definitely enjoyed the stand-up parts. And this movie got me thinking about stand-up comedy and what it takes to stand up in front of a bunch of people armed with nothing more than a microphone and a couple of jokes. If I could pick any other profession, my top three choices would be: chef, slam poet, and stand-up comic. I just have such a deep appreciation for the art of telling jokes. It’s such a simple thing: set-up, punch-line. Yet executing it is the hardest thing in the world. You gotta be confident, you gotta be unique, you gotta have perfect timing, and you have to be quick on your feet. You gotta have the practice and discipline of a classical musician but the improvisational skill of a jazz musician. I really wanna try it at least once. I know I won’t be that great, much less decent, but I’m still so curious what it’s like to do it. It’s such a different animal from performing with a guitar. Such a different dynamic and mindset. Only problem is… I’m scared to death. Bombing a joke and hearing crickets has got to be right up there with getting shot in the stomach or finding out your dog just died. It’s definitely on my Things To Do Before I Die list.

With all that said, my favorite part in ‘Funny People’ is probably when Ira asks Daisy out. “I guess we Wil…CO to the show then.” “Not anymore…” Cute, awkward, and hilarious. I love scenes like that. So much in fact that I got inspired to write my own! It’s actually something I’ve been meaning to do. Here’s a quick sketch, enjoy:

Long Live Print!

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 18:44:50 -0400

Rumpus: You have a lot of optimism about print in general.

Eggers: Well, there are still a billion books sold every year. And there are about a billion newspapers printed every day. I understand when people are worried about aspects of the business, and as a small and always struggling publisher, we worry at McSweeney’s too, but there’s an element of doomsaying that’s just premature. The Kindle, for example, has a comparatively tiny portion of the overall book sales, but I have friends who already assume that new books won’t even be printed on paper in a year or two. It’s kind of extreme, and it ignores a fair bit of reality.

Rumpus: I know a lot of your optimism comes from your working with kids at the 826 centers.

Eggers: The students we serve at 826, by and large, just aren’t addicted to electronic media—not in the way we’re led to believe all kids are. Most of our students don’t have cellphones of their own, and they don’t have computers at home. So they come into 826, and they work with paper and pencil on their homework. Honestly, that’s about 80 percent of what we do. Even at the high-school level, the students we work with aren’t soaking in the Internet all the time. To some extent all the doom about the printed word is a class thing. Wealthier kids who can afford their own phones and computers are probably spending more time online and in some cases, less time with books, but the kids we work with are honestly pretty enamored of books and newspapers. It means a lot to them to have their work between two covers, an actual book that they can see on a shelf next to other books. There’s a mystique about the printed word. And the students who come into 826 every day really read. These middle schoolers have read everything. Judy Blume came into the center in San Francisco one day, and she was mobbed. Fifty kids swarmed her. They practically tackled her. Same thing with Daniel Handler, who writes the Lemony Snicket books. These are by and large kids whose parents immigrated here from Latin America, and English isn’t spoken at home. But they’ve read all thirteen Lemony Snicket books. So I have optimism about print because I see these kids and how much they love to read. And they work on our student newspapers and anthologies and a dozen other print projects. They really have a thing for print. And I do too. I fear sometimes we’re actually giving up too soon. We adults have to have faith. And we have to rededicate ourselves to examining what in any given issue of our daily papers is really speaking to anyone under 18. That’s a challenge. I was just in Chicago, and the Tribune there does all kinds of very interesting stuff to reach out to younger readers. It’s something that we all have to think about.

Rumpus: So you’re not looking at a post-paper world.

Eggers: My admittedly strange opinion is that we need to try harder with print. We can’t just give up on it. Inevitably there will be some loss of newspaper readership, but even that will stabilize. Not everyone wants all their news online. Do we all want to look at screens from 8am to 10pm? There’s room in the world for both online and paper. It doesn’t have to be zero-sum. I guess that’s one of the things that’s always frustrating to hear, that the rise of the Internet means the death of print. There’s always this zero-sum way of painting any given industry or trend, while the reality will be more nuanced. I think newspapers that adjust a bit will survive and still do great work. But we do need to give people reasons to pay money for the physical object. The landscape right now does require that we in the print world try harder. We have to think of the things that print does best, and do those things better than ever before. We need to use the paper, maximize the physical product.

Right now... now... right... now...

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 03:47:10 -0400

I’m learning how to enjoy the present, which is today, which is now, which is now, which is now… For so much of my life I’ve always looked forward to the future. In hopes of what I’ll finally become and achieve and acquire. I never realized how much of today I was missing out on. I feel this will change my life. I feel this is one of those life changing milestone moments. I feel the need to blog about this.

Yesterday is history.
Tomorrow is a mystery.
Today is a gift (that’s why it’s called the present).

That’s really corny, I know, but I like it.

Silent Fly

Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:10:43 -0400

What is the universal wordless signal for “your fly is open”?

“Air” by Ben Folds Five, from the Godzilla...

Thu, 02 Jul 2009 17:04:00 -0400

“Air” by Ben Folds Five, from the Godzilla Soundtrack.

A hidden gem of a song. Enjoy.

My Musical Hero Died Today

Fri, 26 Jun 2009 02:57:00 -0400

You were my first musical hero. In fact, the first music I even started listening to was yours. There wasn’t a VHS tape I watched more than Moonwalker. I memorized every single video in that film and those images are etched forever into my childhood. The claymation Bunny riding away from the fans on the motorcycle. Your animated version doing a choreographed dance with the Elephant Man’s bones. You transforming into a car. You blasting apart the entire room as a killer ROBOT. You in that white suit tossing the quarter straight into the jukebox from across the room. The kid turning up his stereo to 11 after his dad tells him to keep it down. That denim blue button down shirt with the black slacks. The strands of hair that fell down your face from under your top hat.

I worshipped your dance moves. I must’ve practiced it every day from age 4 to 10. The kick to the side. The flicking wrist. A huge part of my childhood was performing your dances in front of my family. They would order me to do it and I would deliver to enthusiastic responses every time.

Then something weird happened in the 5th grade. Our graduation song at P. S. 69 was chosen to be “Heal The World” and when all of the kids found out, there was a collective groan and shudder. All of a sudden it became uncool to like you. That was around the time you were getting major media coverage for your eccentricities, your plastic surgery, your bizarre relationships, and your chimpanzee. I would tell people that you were my favorite music and they would blurt out laughing at me. “Really? Why would you like him?!” “He’s so weird!” “Don’t you know he’s gay?” “Are you gay too since you like him?” I remember when HIStory came out, I was so excited. I was 10 years old. I bought it the first day it came out. I listened to both CD’s on repeat and flipped through the liner notes from front to back, reading every single essay and studying every photo. I remember when you performed at the Superbowl. There was palpable anticipation in the room as we waited anxiously for your entrance. With a burst of fireworks, you leapt into the air from out of the ground and landed defiantly with a thousand mile stare behind those signature shades. You stood there for what seemed like an eternity. You conquered that stage just by standing still. Then finally, after several interminable hours, you moved! You turned your head to the left. My heart stopped. I was glued to the TV set. People made fun of me but I didn’t care. You were THE coolest thing I had ever witnessed. I wanted to be just like you. I wanted to do what you were doing, be in that world. Little did I know that I was already starting to discover my calling and true passions in life.

Over the years, my musical tastes evolved and changed and I discovered new genres while discarding older obsessions (ah hem… k-pop… cough…). But the SINGLE constant that remained all throughout my life as a diehard fan of music has been you. Even til this day, I have to stop everything if any of your songs come on. I wasn’t young enough to get into your Jackson 5 phase. I never knew you as a young child star. I only knew you as the smooth criminal that walked backwards like you were gliding on water. The soft spoken shy guy who suddenly lit the stage on fire with raspy vocal utterances. The performer who seemed to render ordinary pieces of clothing into uniforms of ultra cool.

And yeah, you had your problems. Maybe your childhood was robbed from you due to the abuse from your father and the demands of stardom. Maybe all that attention just messed you up, as it so often does with most child celebrities. Do I think you’re a decent human being? I have no idea, I don’t know you. But it’s just really sad, that a guy like you with so much endless talent could become so isolated and maligned.

And seriously, what’s the deal with everyone now suddenly adoring this supposed pedophile and cracked-out weirdo? What happened, they forgot their child molestation jokes and black/white racial cards? It’s so sad how people only give a crap until someone’s dead.

Throughout all the terrible publicity, I’ve always stood by my love and admiration for your music and you as a performer. There are just some things in a childhood that one can never let go of. And I’m always glad to see that in a world that is constantly in flux, some things don’t change.

MICHAEL JACKSON IS THE REASON I WRITE, PERFORM, AND (WITH ALL MY HEART) LOVE MUSIC. MAY YOU REST IN PEACE 1958-2009.

The Beauty of Science & the Precision of Art

Thu, 25 Jun 2009 06:01:00 -0400

I was watching Encounters at the End of the World, and this physicist was talking about what exactly a nutrino is, and he started getting into this whole metaphysicial discussion of how it exists in a different realm yet is passing through us constantly.

And it got me thinking… it’s fascinating how scientists, physicists, and mathematicians, who work entirely with facts, numbers, precise measurements, and exact data without any room for error, are always looking for the inexplicable in their fields. Mathematicians love crunching numbers but what really interests them is the beauty of mathematical systems and equations; the progression of the Fibonacci sequence or the seemingly random and unidentifiable pattern of pi. And especially the simple formula of the Golden Ratio which, in theory, can be applied to every beautiful tangible object:

The zoologists, ecologists, and biologists who study living things day in and day out but are always searching for an answer to that ethereal mystery that constantly comes up in every area of existence: the organization of ant colonies or the resemblance between flowers and bees. The physicists who spend years to acquire a degree just so they can quantify some infinitesimal subatomic particle, which actually works more like an organic cell than a cold lego block.

And then you have the flipside with all these artists who basically make a living off of capturing and conjuring beauty, which defies logic, yet so many of them are concerned with the technicalities and exactitudes of art and breaking it down into some reliable formula. Photographers and cinematographers keep their eyes open for the stunning image but in the process they have to measure light and adjust with numbered aperture settings and shutter speeds. Painters have to display some important quality of life yet they’re limited to a specific canvas size which they’re already cutting up and diagramming into quarters and equidistant compartments.

The best example of this dichotomy has got to be Leonardo da Vinci.

A world renowned artist who was also a scientist, mathematician, botanist, inventor, anatomist, et al. He was constantly throwing in triangular themes in his work and his compositions are surgically, nevermind just mathematically, precise. The Mona Lisa broken down as such (note the Golden Ratio):

There will always be that push and pull between the concrete tangibile world and the unseen spiritual realm. C. S. Lewis mentions in The Screwtape Letters that humans are amphibians- half spirit, half animal. God made us as physical beings that inhabit the earth, but He injected us with a part of Himself that keeps us glued to the heavenlies. If water boils, it will evaporate and if it cools down, it will freeze; but how one thing can be all three at once is still such a beautiful mystery.

Streaming through the Leaf, or, Leafing through the Stream

Wed, 24 Jun 2009 17:54:14 -0400

Streaming through the Leaf, or, Leafing through the Stream

“Afterain” I think I was inspired by all the rain....

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 15:16:31 -0400

“Afterain”

I think I was inspired by all the rain. Reminds me of walking through wet streets at night.

DL it for free here.

Excellent Review of "Up"

Tue, 23 Jun 2009 04:13:00 -0400

There’s this cliche about movies like SHREK and all the different comedy cartoons that have come since Robin Williams did the Arsenio Hall impression in ALADDIN. They say those are good cartoons because they work on two levels: for the kids it’s a cartoon that moves around in front of them, for the adults there is sophisticated humor such as a reference to a TV show that you know about, and that’s why it’s funny, you have seen that show before or know people who have seen it and told you what it was one time.
Well, UP blows that shit out of the water by really truly hitting at what kids want and what adults want at the same time, and not by appealing to the lowest common denominator or the easiest jokes. No, this is a fantasy adventure comedy with some great action sequences, some colorful creatures, easily the most laughs of any Pixar movie and yet also it hits on profound emotional life issues much more effectively than most serious adult dramas and what not.
Also it’s Pixar’s version of GRAN TORINO: grouchy old man loses his wife, stubbornly stays in his old house in a rapidly changing neighborhood, reluctantly befriends young Asian neighbor, they help each other to learn life lessons. There is less shooting and racism, though, and more flying.

Couldn’t have said it better myself, Vern. This guy is currently my favorite reviewer. All of his reviews are laugh out loud hilarious while being quality commentaries on film. Read the rest of the “Up” review here. (Warning: he swears quite liberally)

“Boat Fishing” (acoustic guitar instrumental) Listen...

Sat, 20 Jun 2009 00:11:00 -0400

“Boat Fishing” (acoustic guitar instrumental)

Listen to it while you go fishing on some lake or pier or even over a hole in the Arctic.

Don’t mind John’s raucous laughter in the middle. Either he’s way too loud or my guitar pick-up is way too sensitive. Maybe both.

The Secret Signature of Each Soul

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 23:20:00 -0400

Are not all lifelong friendships born at the moment when at last you meet another human being who has some inkling (but faint and uncertain even in the best) of that something which you were born desiring, and which, beneath the flux of other desires and in all the momentary silences between the louder passions, night and day, year by year, from childhood to old age, you are looking for, watching for, listening for? You have never had it. All the things that have ever deeply possessed your soul have been but hints of it—tantalizing glimpses, promises never quite fulfilled, echoes that died away just as they caught your ear. But if it should really become manifest—if there ever came an echo that did not die away but swelled into the sound itself—you would know it. Beyond all possibility of doubt you would say “Here at last is the thing I was made for.” We cannot tell each other about it. It is the secret signature of each soul, the incommunicable and unappeasable want, the thing we desired before we met our wives or made our friends or chose our work, and which we shall still desire on our deathbeds, when the mind no longer knows wife or friend or work. While we are, this is. If we lose this, we lose all.

-C. S. Lewis

Here I was, thinking I was the only one caught awake at night, haunted by this inescapable electricity of anxiety and incredible longing. I’m reading The Sacred Romance and the first chapter is all about this. The whisperings at the dead of night or early in the morning. There are nights when I feel like I will explode. I feel that I must create something or explosion will be imminent. I’m searching for this mysterious shape of energy that I cannot seem to outline, no matter how hard I try. So I just wander restlessly. On the internet, on the ceiling, in a book, in my hands. But I could never quite grasp the squirming fish. What is it about our souls? God must have intentionally placed a crater deep in our center as big as Him.

Restless Nest

It is night time and I am wide awake
with a longing for deep sea adventures

My restless hands won’t stop
erecting buildings and organizing index cards

And I can smell an orange being peeled

Somewhere someone is thinking
the same exact thoughts as me
and realizing that I’m thinking
the same exact thoughts as them

Maybe she’s my soul mate
or maybe he’s my son

Either way, the trees continue shaking
and by morning, I will be covered in leaves

Two things mark our Romance, Brent Curtis says, a longing for adventure and a desire for intimacy. And never before have I felt these things more. I remember in college, it was really bad. I literally couldn’t contain myself. I shook at night like a winter leaf. There were things vibrating madly all around me and it was like that game at Chuck-E-Cheese’s with the two silver handles that would progressively shake harder until you were forced to let go; you’d get like 50 tickets if you could hold on the entire time.

Will there ever be that moment when you can finally say, “At last, here is the thing I was made for!”? Is earth even big enough for such a moment? Or will our souls be forever incomplete and longing until we unite with Him eternally in heaven? Is it the indelible mark to remind us that we are not home yet?

There at least has to be a night that comes when the shaking stops. When, instead of recklessness, I will be overtaken by peace. When I can turn over and see my beautiful counterpart and hear the slow breathing of my children and rest assuredly in the destiny at hand. I know that then I could put the pencil and paper down. I can click off the lamp. I can fall asleep easily. I can let go and earn my 50 tickets.

Transcendent.

Tue, 16 Jun 2009 01:05:00 -0400

Transcendent.

Has no idea what’s coming.

Fri, 12 Jun 2009 05:56:00 -0400

Has no idea what’s coming.

Dkam through the wormhole.

Mon, 08 Jun 2009 03:16:56 -0400

Dkam through the wormhole.