Film Weekend Semi-Review

In the past 3 days, two courageous and far away from home buddies and I watched 16 movies. We were hooked up by this insanely awesome owner of a Ma & Pop video rental store who gave us a sweet deal because we wanted to rent so many movies. He said we only had to pay for the two new releases (The King's Speech and The Fighter), and that he would throw in the other five for free. I almost peed my pants I was so excited. We basically camped in my buddy Evan's room, setting up three semi-comfy chairs facing his huge TV that looks like it came out of the 90's. We ate meals there, we watched movies there, we decided what we were going to do between meals and movies there. It was wonderful.

I believe my film appreciation grew exponentially as a result of this film. For one thing, I feel like I have a better grasp on how to tell a story through a lens (this will not come out right, but it makes sense in my head). You have to show every action through a perspective that emphasizes that action. If two people are talking, one sitting and the other standing, you have to shoot the person standing at an up angle to give the subconscious impression that you are the other character (although you can shoot over the shoulder of the person sitting down. Actually, that's probably best), and the person sitting needs to be viewed from a higher angle. If two people are sitting on the same side of a table and are talking, the dialogue needs to be seen as if the camera is leaning out and looking down the table. Two films that I saw this done wonderfully were The Social Network and Juno (I think The Ring did it well too, I just can't remember because I was too captivated by the beauty of the film's overall color. The bleak, greenish grey palate was superb). Those films are articulate in the language of film, each shot emphasizing something and every camera movement perfect. I began seeing the films the way they should be seen; no, I began seeing the films as if I were making them. I think that's a good sign.

The Car Scene/Subsequent Reflections

I don't care if Chuck Klosterman is an asshole or not. I like him because his writing somehow causes me to think about things. Lots of things. And I enjoy that. Anyone who can make me think about things deeply and thoroughly is all right by me.

In one of his chapters, Chuck creates a scene that I will probably never forget. He is driving in his rental car, thinking about Eric Clapton's validity as a human being/guitarist and claiming that the only good music Clapton created was on Derek and the Dominos' album Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs. I don't really listen to Clapton, so I can't argue with him in my head and I'll have to resort to keeping his opinion in the back of my mind in the future whenever I consider Eric Clapton. During his consideration of Clapton, Chuck imagines that one of his best friends (and former lovers) Quincy appears in the passengers seat. She argues that Chuck views relationships all wrong. For example, she says, the year before they (Quincy and Chuck) had sex for the first time, she viewed the time they spent together as having fun, while Chuck viewed it as work he had to do in order to sleep with her.

Suddenly, Lenore (Chuck's current girlfriend) appears in the backseat. She agrees with Quincy and adds that Chuck merely casts different women in a script that has him always playing the same role. She supports this with an anecdote about how he used a cheesy, romantic line on her once, then used it again two years later and merely changed out some of the words.

Then Diane (the girl he's having an affair with...? I can't keep it straight) pops up in the back next to Lenore and questions Chuck about his attraction to problematic women/women in serious relationships. She asks why he was attracted to her, if he would be attracted to her if she cut her hair and gained 40 pounds. Then Chuck argues that if he was less funny or if he stopped caring about her trivial banter, she would like him less as well. But Quincy points out that the difference between those two arguments is the reason why he doesn't understand Layla. Diane's argument is one of attractiveness; Chuck's is one of likability. Then she continues and comments that Chuck's whole writing career is based on comparing two unlike situations in hopes that they will have undiscovered symbolic meaning. 

I find this whole scene fascinating. For one, the whole scene is taking place inside his head. Secondly, the three women he has loved/is currently in love with are in the same car, agreeing with one another and yet also arguing with him. I love this. I don't know why. 

. . . . . . . 

Something that makes me upset is that I live my life but don't remember most of it. Something that makes me upset more than most things is that I don't remember anything about the relationships that mean the most to me. Let me explain.

The relationship that has meant the most to me is the one I had with Andreina. I'm not going to lie to myself. Over the past few months I've examined our relationship from different vantage points and motivations, but what I'm always left with is the startling fact that I don't remember much about the 4 years we spent in each others' lives. What I mean is this: for a good chunk of those years, we saw each other literally every day. We spent so much time together that it was insane and crazy and yet perfect because that's what we both wanted. And yet, I can only remember several memories (by several, I mean a few hundred if I really thought hard). I don't remember the daily interactions that became the foundation of our relationship. I only remember the dramatic parts, the amazingly blissful, quietly heartbreaking, emotionally taxing situations that amount to a small fraction of the overall relationship. And more than anything, that makes me sad. Anger is a close second, but mostly, I'm just sad. I'm sad that I don't remember more things she said to me or things I said to her. She was my best friend, and yet I easily forgot everything.

I think I forget things because I don't value them enough. The reason I forgot interactions with Andreina was probably because I assumed that we would always have more. I held on to the most important memories but let the average ones fade away, unaware that I would later view every one as important but would be unable to get the forgotten ones back. 

I think about her when I think about romantic relationships, because I don't want to fuck another one up like I did the one I had with her. I wonder how much a person is actually a projection of themselves in one's own mind. But disregarding that, I often think about how much she loved me, how much she hurt herself because she kept loving someone so much who couldn't (or wouldn't) return the love, and how I might never have that again. She was smart, attractive, whimsical, badass, and completely in love with me. That might never come around again. That's the reason I think about all this-my fear that I might have missed the best thing that could ever happen to me. 

And I think part of the reason it fell apart was because I didn't value our relationship enough to take the time to remember. That made me ask, how can you remember the things that are important to you but currently seem inconsequential? The only answer I came up with was to write them down. Keeping a daily account of both actual events and internal thoughts is how one can chronicle, and therefore remember, the interactions that simultaneously mean nothing and yet mean everything. I think I'm going to try to do that.

Killing Yourself to Live Reflections

My friend Caitlin regularly reads this blog and asked me to write about something other than Facebook. So I will.

I am reading Chuck Klosterman's Killing Yourself To Live, a book where he travels around the US to sites where important figures in rock history died. I love reading Chuck, because he says what he's thinking, no matter if that will get him in trouble or not. In this book, he talks about how he cheated on his girlfriend, and I kept wondering how he could write about such a personal subject and not offend/hurt the people involved. I concluded that he must ask the people if he can write about them, or he just cares about making money more than maintaining relationships.

If you can't tell by now, my style of writing adapts to whomever I am currently reading. I'm writing like Chuck, or at least I'm sounding like him in my head as I write.

In his book, Chuck talked about how certain things are understood by a society. He said that "this is how popular culture works: you allow yourself to be convinced you're sharing a reality that doesn't exist." He talked about how when he was growing up, there was this one kid that everybody loved, but then everybody simultaneously decided to hate the kid. Out of the blue, people started harassing him to no end. I totally understand this concept. It is seen here at ACU through how all the freshman guys wear hideously trashy wife-beaters, and it is considered cool. No where on Earth should anyone be allowed to wear only a wife-beater. They're gross. But here, everyone accepts the fact that wife-beaters are "cool," while wearing a fedora is considered nerdy. I don't understand.

Chuck also talks about how "the greatest career move a musician can make is to stop breathing," commenting on how rock stars get exponentially more famous and revered than when they were alive. He wonders why that is (that's the purpose for going on his trip, he said), and I do to. Why are you cooler when you die? Why does everything you did in your life seem more meaningful after your dead when, while you were still alive, it was just considered normal? I know that if my sister died suddenly, I would want to know everything she did in the last 6 months (hell, I'd want to know everything she ever did in her life). I'd find her close friends and have them talk about her, telling me her daily routine, what she ate, what she did with her spare time. I would want to know everything I could about her. I don't know why everything would seem more important, but it would. It's almost as if death makes us realize that people don't go to work, wash clothes, and buy groceries forever, that people have a certain number of times they do things, and after someone dies, the number of times is finished.

Right now, my neighbors are blasting rap, and it's seeping through the wall. I don't mind though. I nod my head to the beat as I remember how I'm on a rap kick, loving Childish Gambino and My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. I tried to get my group into rap (specifically Drew, who hates rap), but I stopped when I felt that my efforts would not produce a crop. Some people just don't like rap. I don't know why. I genuinely like all types of music, even pop, the genre I taught myself to dislike because it is not "good" music. I don't remember when I started hanging around people who thought pop was below them, but it happened, and now I have to let myself realize that it's okay to like Lady Gaga or Kesha. I have this fear that if I tell people I like pop music, they will value me less because they won't think I have good taste. I never take that train of thought further and ask myself if I'd want to be friends with those people if they judge so harshly. I just allow myself to be scared into a stereotype that fits into a reality that doesn't really exist.

Facebook Day 7

Aha, here it is. The day has come. I got on Facebook just to waste time. I knew it wouldn't take long.

I was going to write about how Facebook had finally mutated into the time consuming, mind numbing entity I always assumed it was, but then I realized that Facebook didn't change. It didn't vie for my attention any stronger than it did the first day I got a profile. What changed was my resolve about how I would handle Facebook.


I didn't have anything to do today between 11:30 and 2pm (besides, you know, the homework and research papers and videos I have to make for the Optimist), so I pulled my laptop onto my thighs as I reclined in a round, sunken-in black chair and got online. First, as always, I checked the notifications that are specific to me, the ones about how people had commented on my status or my wall or on what I had commented on someone else's status or wall. That took no time. But then, I was bored, so I just let myself wander.


 I checked the newsfeed of friends' recent activities. Click. I found out that two of my friends are dating. Click. I friend requested people I don't know very well. Click. Click. I observed a conversation two people were having about a dog in a pool. Click click click. In no time, I realized I was caring about things that are a waste of time. Why should I care that someone I know found it funny that a group of people sang the Veggietales song "His Cheeseburger?" I shouldn't. Why should I be looking at prom pictures of someone I don't know and feeling like I'm beginning to know them? I shouldn't, and I don't. 


What I have done is begin to care about trivialities, things that don't matter whatsoever, because on Facebook, everything matters. If it's posted, it's newsworthy, no matter the legitimacy or merit of the content. And I even compromised my promise to myself that I would only post articles and videos that provide my friends with news about relevant or intellectual ideas, trends, and events. I posted "Conditions by The Temper Trap is the perfect soundtrack to driving through a lightning storm. Until it starts raining. Then it just makes you more nervous than you already are" because I wanted people to know that I had an enjoyable, then frightening, experience that I assumed was worth sharing to the general public. To justify the post, it is somewhat relevant, because people need to listen to The Temper Trap. Nevertheless, I bought into the mindset that whatever you do is noteworthy to everyone. 


How do you counter the way of thinking that says every action should be shared with the public? One way is to do something for the result the action provides, not so you can look cool and busy and fun online. When people do things for the sole purpose of taking pictures and posting them on Facebook, I call that Facebook-living, and I hate it. Facebook-living is a lifestyle for many people my age, but what they don't realize is that it also cheapens their real life. People who Facebook-live aren't really living. But when you reject Facebook-living and attempt to find life away from a computer, your life actually becomes more valuable. Do something and don't take pictures of yourself doing it, letting the memory of it only exist in the minds of those present. Instantly, the event is more intimate and organic, because the memories come from people's minds rather than someone's camera. 


Another way to protect yourself from practicing Facebook-living is to regulate your time spent online. If you get on without any specific purpose, you will do what I did today, aimlessly gazing at other people Facebook-living, legitimizing their illegitimate virtual lives, and mentally planning how you can become like them. Like many other things, Facebook can be a drug if left unchecked. It can provide affirmation, emotional stimulation, (artificial) connection, and other human necessities and people won't be able to stop. Therefore, take a break from Facebook. Go a few days without checking it. Some people can't, and frankly, it's sad. Tame the beast before it destroys you. 

Almost Famous

I love Almost Famous. I really do. From the opening scene of William and his mother walking down the street, discussing To Kill A Mockingbird to the last shot of the bus driving away into the orange sunset, I love this movie. I love it for so many reasons.

I love it because it has everything-humor, drama, heartbreak, rock and roll. The comedy is funny, the sadness is deep, the music is good. Try, just try, to find a better heartbreak scene than the one where William tells Penny that the man she loves sold her to another band for $50 and a case of beer. Penny turns away, takes a moment to collect herself, wipes a tear away. She looks back at William, smiling as she says "what kind of beer?" But everyone knows that she's using humor to cover her sadness, that she is always putting up a front to the world so no one can see the real girl. She asks what kind of beer, and she smiles as a tear rolls down her cheek.

I love it because I relate to the main character, William. I have always been the young one, the naive one, the one who is swept up in the whirlwind of a world of older, more mature yet still immature people who see something in me that they like. For some reason, I don't connect well with people my age. Like William, I am embarrassingly and overtly earnest, a trait I am coming to terms with. In the film, William is wide-eyed as he walks into concerts, into parties, into his version of heaven where angels are scantily clad Band Aides and the gods are the men with the guitars and the flowing hair. The reason the film is so potent is because William finds a place to belong through music. In the guitar solos and intense drum beats, William finds magic and wonder that, for him, exist no where else. I am the same way with movies. That's why I love this one so much. I experience a feeling unlike any other as I watch a character experience a feeling unlike any other. I'm watching myself on screen.

Multiple times, I found myself laughing, but it was a different laugh than usual. It was a laugh of empathy, of understanding. It was a laugh that came from the fact that I knew exactly what William was feeling. I heard echos of my mother in the way his mother guilted him for not calling everyday- "you told me you would call me twice a day. You told me you wouldn't miss more than one test..." I understand the mistake of introducing two people to each other when have already met. I know what it's like to have too much responsibility overtake you suddenly, and all you want to do is cry. I understand loving something so much and wanting to succeed and not knowing what's going on and feeling awkward at parties and singing while driving and having an overprotective mother and seeing the world only as that one thing that you love the most. I know William because in so many ways, I am William.

I love the movie for more reasons, like when Penny Lane dances alone among the trash and debris in the empty venue. Like when Penny Lane does anything, for that matter. Like when William's mother scares Russell into submission, but then tells him that he still has the potential to be a man of substance. Like when William finds out that he's 11 instead of 12. Like when... well, you get the idea. There are myriad reasons why I love this film. But mostly, I love this film because I am a part of it. Because it is a part of me.

Facebook Day 6 and Musings

I feel pressure to have as many friends on Facebook as I can. I think this pressure is ridiculous and self-imposed (which is even more ridiculous than the pressure itself). Why should I be embarrassed that I only have a few friends on Facebook? Is that supposed to be indicative to others about myself in real life? It's not, and it's not. However, I still hesitate to friend request some people because I don't want them to see that I only have 30 friends, think I'm a loser, and no longer want to hang out with me. Why would I want to be friends with someone if they were that shallow? I don't think people really are that way. Well, maybe I do. Even though I know they're not. 

I posted a video that I saw on Sandra's tumblr. The speaker is this woman who teaches spoken word poetry to high schoolers and uses it to show them how to express themselves creatively. It's an inspiring and emotional talk. It makes me want to write a best-selling book about my life. Not for the fame, but for the sharing of my story. Although I don't think my story is very interesting. I think it's getting better, though. 

Sometimes I pray that God would show Himself to me. He never does. At least, he never does in a way that I notice. Is that my fault or His? I wonder if I would follow Him if once, just once, He came to me in human form like I've asked Him to do for so long. I think He did once. But I shrugged him off and rejected any form of friendship with Him because He was socially inept. I assumed that wasn't God. But the more I think about it, the more I think it was. I don't take care of the outcast and the unloveable--I just pretend to.

Facebook Day 5

I think these posts are going to get repetative (if they haven't already). Basically my interactions with Facebook go like this:
I got on Facebook, checked my notifications, responded to wall posts and messages, sent some friend requests, posted a status update, checked my friends' pages, and got off.

Yay for the experiment.

I wonder if there are interesting things you could do on Facebook to keep it fresh, like finding a random person and starting a conversation. However, that might be a bad idea, because the person you befriend could actually be a 43 year old pedophile who fakes interest in Ke$ha and Gilmore Girls in order to prey on teenage girls. Or anyone else who likes Ke$ha and Gilmore Girls. Bad idea #1.

Maybe I could do something more rational, like start a conversation with someone I actually know. That's probably a better idea.

Facebook Day 4 and Ramblings

I'm in a rambling mood tonight. Forewarning.

I'm getting more or less bored with Facebook. I'm not allowing it to consume me like it once did. Instead, I take days between the times I check it. In doing so, I'm less obsessed with it. However, tonight, I found myself checking her page more than once. Awesome. I need to learn how to fall out of love with the idea of someone.

I accepted some friend requests and perused some walls. Mihir has sent me several lengthy messages that I have avoided reading because if I read them, then I'll have to take the time to respond to them, and I don't have the time to do that right now.

I saw pictures of an old friend who has a new girlfriend. It was strange seeing him being romantic. But I think about that the way I think about all the people from my past-they won't stay the same. Hell, I'm not the same, why should I expect them to be? I set double standards all the time.

Sometimes rooming without a roommate gets lonely. Take right now, for instance. If there were someone sharing the room with me, I could at least peek at them out of the corner of my eye and observe them studying, reading, playing on the computer, etc. and at least feel less lonely because someone is in close proximity to me. But right now, everyone is shut behind their wooden doors and I'm behind mine too, wishing that someone else's name shared the space on the outside of the door.

Everyone gets lonely. But tonight, I feel like the only one.

Teenage angst is understood when experienced, but is impossible to communicate with words.

I did down some Nyquil earlier. Maybe that's why I'm so reflective. Fuck it. I'll let myself feel sad today. Hopefully I can sleep it off.

Random Thoughts

Why do I feel like writing late at night? Why do I feel heavy-hearted whenever a certain song comes on, and I can't do anything but slowly drift into sadness, a feeling I've come to love? 

I think I'm emotionally masochistic. 

Oh, you're such a teenager, Ben. One day you'll forget what it's like to feel this way. One part of you is saying to cherish it, to remember it, don't belittle it. And another part of you feels the weight of everyone who has ever felt the same way and has grown up, gotten married, lived 4590 more days that have worn the memories thin and replaced them with thoughts of grandchildren, vocation, and retirement. You're young, so what? I was young once too. You're not unique.