The nine of us met at the start of the semester, after the end of our journey. Two of us were absent - one gone home, having lit his fuse, and Danielle was somewhere in the theatre pod (I imagine). I think about Evan sometimes - more now, that I've been told he left because he "couldn't take it anymore," and we discussed his semi-neurotic behavior on the field, his quirks and enthusiasm and talking over himself. A lot of times, it's "What the hell happened?" but of course there's no way to answer for him. And Danielle, and I see her only when she's fleeting, and I have to hold her with one hand, the other hanging on to the ground for as long as I can before she flies off, always flying off, all Mary Poppins in my business. Looking at each other now that we're back, surrounded by snow, wind and classes, we tried several times to speak, but laughed - loud and short - instead. A movie was playing that night. "We could load up and leave this place to see it." Calls were deliberated and made, as a group, to free up our evenings in order to hit the road. "See you at 8:30," and then we scurried home to finish what we had to do.
I encouraged my dad to kick his students out of class more. If I were the prof, I told him, I would instruct the jerk-heads to drop out and get a job "if you're not going to pay attention in my class, stop wasting everybody's time." I was frightened to see that my suggestion registered.
My mom asked me how I think I'll manage to raise $1,600 + this summer to get to Honduras. There are no jobs to be had, which is a strange situation for the world to be in if you think about it.
My sister asked me to recall homecoming week when I was still in high school. I struggled to remember and felt her disappointment when I came up short.
Dee, Neal, Jane, Margot and I came up with very little ideas to run with concerning Wall e and children and creation and crafts and... what else? Puppets? But I was distracted anyway, because Danielle showed up. Then Piper and Jake. And then Todd and then we caught up with the caravan to see Slumdog Millionaire in Sioux City.
"Garbage is garbage," we said afterwards, milling in the lobby of the theatres, shocked and jarred from how the poor in Mumbai live in carbon copies of where the poor in Manila live. This all happened two days ago, but today I got a message from a friend reading, "If you haven't seen Slumdog Millionaire, you have to. It's so so good." I wrote back, "Overrated. You wanna fight?" and she sent back a frowny face. Ah crap.
I have no fight in me. I have no fight in me. Shush; it is late and you won't need to fight again for some hours.
Jan 30, 2009
Jan 19, 2009
From an autobiographical essay in NAEL...
on William Wordsworth,
"During the summer vacation of his third year at Cambridge (1790), Wordsworth and his closest college friend, the Welshman Robert Jones, journeyed on foot through France and the Alps (described in The Prelude 6) at the time when the French were joyously celebrating the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. Upon completing his course at Cambridge, Wordsworth spent four months in London, set off on another walking tour with Robert Jones through Wales (the time of the memorable ascent of Mount Snowdon in The Prelude 14), and then went back alone to France to master the language and qualify as a traveling tutor."
And later,
"He fell in love with Annette Vallon, the impetuous and warm-hearted daughter of a French surgeon at Blois. It is clear that the two planned to marry, despite their differences in religion and political inclinations (Annette belonged to an old Catholic family whose sympathies were Royalist). But almost immediately after a daughter, Caroline, was born, lack of fund forced Wordsworth to return to England. The outbreak of war between England and France made it impossible for him to rejoin Annette until they had drifted so far apart in sympathies that a permanent union no longer seemed desirable."
After that, and some other things,
"His suffering, his near-collapse, and the successful effort, after his break with his past, to reestablish 'a saving intercourse with my true self,' are the experiences that underlie many of his greatest poems."
I've left a great deal of it - the man's life and accomplishments, neatly bundled in two pages - out. What a life though, eh? I'm not sure how I feel about condensing it down to such simple phrases like "He fell in love with Annette." I suppose it is of no immediate use to the student, and it would provide room to explore... if one were so inclined to explore, in more detail, the biographical story of Wordsworth. All things fiction is what I'm talking about.
The film challenge is over. I felt a bit of obligation to participate that largely stemmed, I feel, from the question of how many college hold a film challenge? And I want to support something like this. I'm glad that it's over for another year, but Neal and I discussed (lightly and enthusiastically) producing another film for the hell of it because, and I think this needs to be said, you don't need a film challenge for permission to make a film. So I hope we do.
A film challenge is rushed and fun but I think it's greatest contribution to Dordt's campus is that it brings the larger digital media geeks (and their friends) to PRODUCE SOMETHING. And maybe that's an exercise we need once a year. Should we spend the rest of the year carefully crafting other things, putting thought into concept? I think so. But we should keep doing things, telling stories - that's the main point, innit?
Should Faith and Film hold a regular film festival for the media geeks (and their friends) to showcase, and celebrate, a year's worth of work? I think that'd be fun.
-more, because I'm such a huge geek...
Tolkien writes...
"We read that Beowulf 'is only a version of Dat Erdmanneken'; that The Black Bull of Norroway is Beauty and the Beast, or 'is the same story as Eros and Psyche'; that the Norse Mastermaid is 'the same story as the Greek tale of Jason and Medea.'
Statements of that kind may express (in undue abbreviation) some element of truth; but they are not true in a fairy-story sense, they are not true in art or literature. It is precisely the colouring, the atmospshere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count."
And,
"In Dasent's words I would say: 'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.'
By 'the soup' I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by 'the bones' its sources or material - even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup."
He's talking about the value of story, of fairy tales in particular, but I felt a strong response in agreement to a lot of what he says. There's a matter of blatant plagiarism to discuss and acknowledge, sure, but there's a larger issue of when someone tries to tell you how awesome a movie is and one of their points is, "And it's a true story too!" Perhaps moreso is the danger of losing the joy of falling into a story. (I told you I was a huge geek.) When I took Fiction Writing with Schaap, he instructed us to read Best American Short Stories with a serious attention to how the authors wrote what they wrote, or, how they relayed the desired effect upon the reader. It was difficult to do and reading with the intent to see find the author's intent made the reading less enjoyable.
In the same way, it really angers me when a film discussion sinks so far down as to ask, "What is the director trying to say here?" or, at the end of the film, to turn to your neighbor and ask to "explain the film." Dude/lady, you were right there! I want to scream, "Who cares what they TRIED to say? What did the film say?" or, rather, "What's your response?" If you read an interview that the director said, "Oh, this movie's about this or that," and you didn't get that at all, pending initial attentiveness and intelligence of the viewer, then maybe the filmmaker slipped up. But please stop trying to sum up the story, or film, in one sentence because doing so murders every other decision that was made for the story/film to be what it is. There's no neat answer - no story or film is an equation in algebra.
There's a big danger in losing this joy in reading, if you're trying to be a writer, or in films, if you're trying to be a filmmaker. But it's more difficult in filmmaking because of the technical strategies involved. Instead of watching a film and falling in to the world that it presents, it's easy to slip up and pay attention to the production values. "OK. The camera is handheld and shaky as hell so I'm supposed to get that this Bourne guy is EXTREME."
I apologize - there's enormous value in acknowledging the methods of literature and film and it's hard to "turn it off" sometimes, but I think it's extremely important that we learn to do so because why else do we (try to) write stories or make films?
"We may put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such "fantasy," as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator."
Instead of saying, "I see what you're trying to do," and then doing it, we should be able to respond naturally, by instinct. If we don't learn to dial the obsessive sense of production down, we're lose our ability to enjoy.
"During the summer vacation of his third year at Cambridge (1790), Wordsworth and his closest college friend, the Welshman Robert Jones, journeyed on foot through France and the Alps (described in The Prelude 6) at the time when the French were joyously celebrating the first anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. Upon completing his course at Cambridge, Wordsworth spent four months in London, set off on another walking tour with Robert Jones through Wales (the time of the memorable ascent of Mount Snowdon in The Prelude 14), and then went back alone to France to master the language and qualify as a traveling tutor."
And later,
"He fell in love with Annette Vallon, the impetuous and warm-hearted daughter of a French surgeon at Blois. It is clear that the two planned to marry, despite their differences in religion and political inclinations (Annette belonged to an old Catholic family whose sympathies were Royalist). But almost immediately after a daughter, Caroline, was born, lack of fund forced Wordsworth to return to England. The outbreak of war between England and France made it impossible for him to rejoin Annette until they had drifted so far apart in sympathies that a permanent union no longer seemed desirable."
After that, and some other things,
"His suffering, his near-collapse, and the successful effort, after his break with his past, to reestablish 'a saving intercourse with my true self,' are the experiences that underlie many of his greatest poems."
I've left a great deal of it - the man's life and accomplishments, neatly bundled in two pages - out. What a life though, eh? I'm not sure how I feel about condensing it down to such simple phrases like "He fell in love with Annette." I suppose it is of no immediate use to the student, and it would provide room to explore... if one were so inclined to explore, in more detail, the biographical story of Wordsworth. All things fiction is what I'm talking about.
The film challenge is over. I felt a bit of obligation to participate that largely stemmed, I feel, from the question of how many college hold a film challenge? And I want to support something like this. I'm glad that it's over for another year, but Neal and I discussed (lightly and enthusiastically) producing another film for the hell of it because, and I think this needs to be said, you don't need a film challenge for permission to make a film. So I hope we do.
A film challenge is rushed and fun but I think it's greatest contribution to Dordt's campus is that it brings the larger digital media geeks (and their friends) to PRODUCE SOMETHING. And maybe that's an exercise we need once a year. Should we spend the rest of the year carefully crafting other things, putting thought into concept? I think so. But we should keep doing things, telling stories - that's the main point, innit?
Should Faith and Film hold a regular film festival for the media geeks (and their friends) to showcase, and celebrate, a year's worth of work? I think that'd be fun.
-more, because I'm such a huge geek...
Tolkien writes...
"We read that Beowulf 'is only a version of Dat Erdmanneken'; that The Black Bull of Norroway is Beauty and the Beast, or 'is the same story as Eros and Psyche'; that the Norse Mastermaid is 'the same story as the Greek tale of Jason and Medea.'
Statements of that kind may express (in undue abbreviation) some element of truth; but they are not true in a fairy-story sense, they are not true in art or literature. It is precisely the colouring, the atmospshere, the unclassifiable individual details of a story, and above all the general purport that informs with life the undissected bones of the plot, that really count."
And,
"In Dasent's words I would say: 'We must be satisfied with the soup that is set before us, and not desire to see the bones of the ox out of which it has been boiled.'
By 'the soup' I mean the story as it is served up by its author or teller, and by 'the bones' its sources or material - even when (by rare luck) those can be with certainty discovered. But I do not, of course, forbid criticism of the soup as soup."
He's talking about the value of story, of fairy tales in particular, but I felt a strong response in agreement to a lot of what he says. There's a matter of blatant plagiarism to discuss and acknowledge, sure, but there's a larger issue of when someone tries to tell you how awesome a movie is and one of their points is, "And it's a true story too!" Perhaps moreso is the danger of losing the joy of falling into a story. (I told you I was a huge geek.) When I took Fiction Writing with Schaap, he instructed us to read Best American Short Stories with a serious attention to how the authors wrote what they wrote, or, how they relayed the desired effect upon the reader. It was difficult to do and reading with the intent to see find the author's intent made the reading less enjoyable.
In the same way, it really angers me when a film discussion sinks so far down as to ask, "What is the director trying to say here?" or, at the end of the film, to turn to your neighbor and ask to "explain the film." Dude/lady, you were right there! I want to scream, "Who cares what they TRIED to say? What did the film say?" or, rather, "What's your response?" If you read an interview that the director said, "Oh, this movie's about this or that," and you didn't get that at all, pending initial attentiveness and intelligence of the viewer, then maybe the filmmaker slipped up. But please stop trying to sum up the story, or film, in one sentence because doing so murders every other decision that was made for the story/film to be what it is. There's no neat answer - no story or film is an equation in algebra.
There's a big danger in losing this joy in reading, if you're trying to be a writer, or in films, if you're trying to be a filmmaker. But it's more difficult in filmmaking because of the technical strategies involved. Instead of watching a film and falling in to the world that it presents, it's easy to slip up and pay attention to the production values. "OK. The camera is handheld and shaky as hell so I'm supposed to get that this Bourne guy is EXTREME."
I apologize - there's enormous value in acknowledging the methods of literature and film and it's hard to "turn it off" sometimes, but I think it's extremely important that we learn to do so because why else do we (try to) write stories or make films?
"We may put a deadly green upon a man's face and produce a horror; we may make the rare and terrible blue moon to shine; or we may cause woods to spring with silver leaves and rams to wear fleeces of gold, and put hot fire into the belly of the cold worm. But in such "fantasy," as it is called, new form is made; Faerie begins; Man becomes a sub-creator."
Instead of saying, "I see what you're trying to do," and then doing it, we should be able to respond naturally, by instinct. If we don't learn to dial the obsessive sense of production down, we're lose our ability to enjoy.
Jan 14, 2009
Running List
of films to watch this semester. Please contribute, comment, clarify, cleanse and cacophony. There are no denies for a running list - these are mostly from a conversation with Lief. What else?
-Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-Arranged
-There Will Be Blood
-Dogville
-Mongol
-Juno
-Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
-The Counterfeiters
-Hellboy II
-The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
-Away From Her
-Stardust
-Waitress
-Once
-The Savages
-The Squid and the Whale
-Fargo
-The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
-Slumdog Millionaire
+
-Seven Pounds
-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
-Revolutionary Road
-Diving Bell and the Butterfly
-Arranged
-There Will Be Blood
-Dogville
-Mongol
-Juno
-Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day
-The Counterfeiters
-Hellboy II
-The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford
-Away From Her
-Stardust
-Waitress
-Once
-The Savages
-The Squid and the Whale
-Fargo
-The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T
-Slumdog Millionaire
+
-Seven Pounds
-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button
-Revolutionary Road
Jan 13, 2009
It seems I'm back in Sioux Center. The wind howls and throws sheets of snow at me. I shout at it, my teeth and bare fists shaking, but it drives me inside. The wind laughs at me.
My head is spinning at the reality of the new semester and all that it will drag with it. I stop to find my pulse quickening. My neck aches.
I will not attempt to define, or defend, my impatience for smiling people - it is no fault of theirs that they believe their (feigned) joy can alter the world or erect a plausible guise in which to escape. My disposition is to truth: blatant and unabashed and grumpy. A beauty with a smile is fine, but I'd rather a cold-blooded darling. You see, of the two it is the latter that calmly says here I am, here I am, here I am.
But it's fun to dance. I'm inclined to dancing, to smiling instead of speaking. Sometimes. Because it's fun.
Maybe what we're supposed to do, in a sense, is to follow our selfish desires and make our lives a pursuit of that... altered, of course, in such manners so as to bring in financial stability and sustainability. Or maybe we're not the men they think we are at home. Oh no no no - we're rocket men. We're rocket men burning out a fuse out here alone.
Take a close look at a Dolce & Gabbana ad. Gauge, on a scale of one to ten, how much of the concept was based on shock value. I'm looking at one now and I'm going to say about eight.
Gray hairs. I've noticed a few heads of friends and colleagues succumbing to that nonsense. I found my first one a few weeks ago.
My head is spinning at the reality of the new semester and all that it will drag with it. I stop to find my pulse quickening. My neck aches.
I will not attempt to define, or defend, my impatience for smiling people - it is no fault of theirs that they believe their (feigned) joy can alter the world or erect a plausible guise in which to escape. My disposition is to truth: blatant and unabashed and grumpy. A beauty with a smile is fine, but I'd rather a cold-blooded darling. You see, of the two it is the latter that calmly says here I am, here I am, here I am.
But it's fun to dance. I'm inclined to dancing, to smiling instead of speaking. Sometimes. Because it's fun.
Maybe what we're supposed to do, in a sense, is to follow our selfish desires and make our lives a pursuit of that... altered, of course, in such manners so as to bring in financial stability and sustainability. Or maybe we're not the men they think we are at home. Oh no no no - we're rocket men. We're rocket men burning out a fuse out here alone.
Take a close look at a Dolce & Gabbana ad. Gauge, on a scale of one to ten, how much of the concept was based on shock value. I'm looking at one now and I'm going to say about eight.
Gray hairs. I've noticed a few heads of friends and colleagues succumbing to that nonsense. I found my first one a few weeks ago.
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