(no subject)
1. Movies, Photographs and Memory
2. Summer Blooms and Beautiful Onions
3. Gifts, and Their Nature
4. Friendship and Its Components and Consequences
5. Miscellany
1. I found a comic, a long, long time ago. It's called Cat and Girl, and I'm sure some of you have read it. The comic has progressed an awful lot over the years, beginning as a sort of analysis of the author and her society, seen through the eyes of an innocent catman and his cynical, bitter owner. As it's gone on, it's become more just an indictment of our society, mouthed by a cynical cat and her cynical owner. Occasional cameos by the beatnik vampire neighbor.
Well, a while ago this one was posted: On Digital Photography
This comic has always made me think about how we (I) view the world, and memory. I think one of the most vital evaluations of self is how one accesses memory, and interacts with their past, be it emotionally engaging memories or just recollecting where the damn car keys are.
For example, I tend to think of memory over a span of time, my mind compressing it into clumps and chapters, at least in the long run. I get basic information about large portions of my life when I rummage through the ol' dusty files: First grade is, to me, a blur of tiny bamboo groves, poorly painted bedrooms, and other people's parents (I and my sister were part of a playgroup). Second and third grade, similar. In fact, that's basically it up until this past year: it's all been collected, collated and compressed. The chapters are clearly marked, each one indented with an event or two (in first grade, a girl named Deronda pantsed me, and in my senior year of high school I went to King's River Falls). However, I can't remember anything much from my visit to California a few years back, nor do I remember what happened in the larger part of my freshman year of college.
I would imagine, from talking to people, that most people's memories function something like that. The difference comes in our methods of recollection.
I have to keep a journal; if I don't write in either my journal or my planner for a given day, I have no idea what's happened a week later, even if it was something memorable, like going to a party.
In terms of photos and drawings, sometimes even film: I often record my life in little bits, freeze-framing it with visual media. This is plenty, more than enough, to evoke emotion and understanding, even dozens of years later - I found a sketchbook from when I was 7, and still remembered what I was feeling when I made the different drawings.
However, it takes print media for me to access the memories. With writings of my days, I can remember what I did, what I was thinking and feeling, and even fill in the gaps where I didn't write anything. It may all be manufactured as I read it (who's to say?), but it still gives me the full picture. Visual is an emotional transmitter, words are a memory transmitter.
Anyhow. On to the reason I got up and got to the computer:
2. I have watched several movies over the past few days that were emotionally charged; not surprisingly, all of them were exceptionally good (critics and friends agree), and all of them were focused on art and creation in some manner or another.
I refer to The Brothers Bloom, Julie and Julia, and (500) Days of Summer. J&J is about connecting with someone else through food - a concerted, concentrated effort to accomplish a task, followed by the creator being swept away by her own craft. It evaluates a single, simple life through the lens of cooking, showing the connections in her life and how her art affects them.
BB is, in some ways, similar: The entire movie's drama hinges on the relationships of the main characters, and how these relationships are informed by the task at hand. Granted, conning someone and cooking have fairly little in common, except that in these movies, they are treated as an all-consuming art, a way of life. It doesn't matter that they're con men, in this sense. Steven and Bloom could have been car salesmen - so long as they were dedicated to it, enough so that it ran their lives, the movie would make sense to me.
Finally, I've just finished watching (500)DoS. In a nigh-unprecedented move, I've turned right back around and hit PLAY again. It isn't that the movie is really that exceptional. It has some cute conceits and a wonderful narrative voice, but the plot has been reproduced in a few places at least. What makes it so wonderful, to me, is the easy approach it has to making something new (art!). The boy of the film, Tom, is an architect, and his profession is reflected throughout. The film drops many, many references to aestheticism and the idea that life reflects art. The scene that just takes 20, 30 seconds looking at buildings in LA caught my breath.
That feeling, that life should imitate art and everything beautiful has value independent of its function, is something near and dear to my heart. I'd always felt (since I was a small, small boy) that the world ought to be more full of beautiful things. There is no reason I can fathom that anyone would make something purely functional; it just doesn't make any sense to me. Now, I don't mean we should put scrollwork and embossing on the cylinders of our automobiles, simply that there is no reason to make them drab and unappealing. I am a follower of the Aesthetic school. A thing of beauty has value independent of its use, simply by virtue of its beauty.
All of these movies, as well as others like Amelie, center around this concept as much as the characters.
3. Alright, so here's a thing. I have spent the last three days doing nothing but shopping. It's something I enjoy, and I've spent a good bit of time and money on it. Some may say that I'm buying into the consumerist culture, bowing my head to a massive organization of corporations that have commercialized a holiday, and throwing my (sort of) hard earned dollars away at things that are not only unessential, but, in fact, useless.
They are correct.
However, I still enjoy shopping and buying, especially gifts. Here's why: I am a Host. A few of you know this. Should any of you show up at my home at 4 in the morning, drunk, sopping wet and hungry, you would be fed, provided what clothes I had, and put to bed in new sheets. And I couldn't not do that. I might be a jerk about it - I'm not a good person, or even a nice one, often. But when someone is my guest, I do what I can.
And that is entirely a good thing, to me. I enjoy hosting a guest more than most anything. Putting people up, mixing them drinks and making them a meal feels good to me. I like to be the one taking care of others and making them feel at home.
The way this translates into gifts is that gifts allow me to take care of someone even when I'm away from home. It's a strange way of taking control of a situation, and making others at ease at the same time. Thus, I have shopped to an extraordinary extent.
Mind you, that doesn't mean I've gotten good gifts - I'm awful at picking them out and that's tragic (by the by, tell me if something I've gotten you ought to be exchanged or something. It really will make me feel better than the uncertainty of not knowing). There are several people that I was unable to find something for, something that was worthy of the person. They're now on a list that will stick around for a while until it's fully checked off, I think.
4. Ah, the perfect segue from the one to the other! Friendship is all manner of vital to me and my well being, as it is to most of you. Our friends (and family) give us something to work for and strive towards - let's face it, without other people we would do nothing. The reason I succeed at anything is my friendships. At a very basic level, a want for admiration and respect and trust is what drives my actions.
I don't draw for myself, or write, or learn to cook or any of that manner of thing. All of my actions that better me are engendered by others, and that is perhaps the reason I am most grateful to have friends. You all make me a better person, and more likely to reciprocate your kindnesses in the future, and your doings now create a me that will, in the future, be more able to have people I enjoy and trust.
The consequences mentioned above are simple, in that you have to put up with the dude I am now. I will be better later, this much is sure, but you have to live with the me of the now, who is infinitely imperfect and often kind of a dick (let's not lie).
5. Here's the short version of my life in the recent past and impending future:
Finished out last semester, with passing grades (woo-hoo! Eat it, Cultural Anthro), and not too much stress. Went home on the sixteenth, ala O'Hare, to meet my family. It's the first time I've seen them in a good while, and that's for reason - while I enjoy and understand my family, they are best in small doses. Those of you who have met them know what I mean.
I have bought gifts galore. See above. I got a book called Ex Libris. See previous post.
Soon, I will be taking plane from XNA to O'Hare again, in order to be picked up by Maggie and taken to Holland, MI (thanks again, Maggie, I love you). From there, to the East Coast to visit the people I enjoy, and then to Beloit again for a trying but wonderful semester.
Things that concern me right now include: being poor, being fat, being lazy and being allergic to cats.
Things that alleviate those concerns are: See all of the above.
Ah. Good talk. See you all later.