The Latest Disappointment from the Letdown Factory

Situation: Campus Movie Fest(ival) reared its ugly head on the confines of Tufts University this past week. In a fashion similar to the two other times this has happened my accomplice and I were interested enough in the annual ordeal to fill out the necessary online forms and offline papers in order to be granted custody of a simple camcorder, black Macbook, and unnecessary tripod, the first and last of which were left unused for a week or more, while the laptop was put on loan to an ally upstairs for purposes more noble than poor movie-making.

Yesterday evening, however, the deadline for our completed movie was looming within the 24-hour mark, and it became clear that something had to be done. In a trademark easy-way-outist decision, we opted to adapt something written months ago into a workable solution to our as-yet un-thought-about movie conundrum. Eighteen hours later the following emerged, springing fully-formed from the head of iMovie '06.

Enjoy, I'm sorry, you're welcome, and now you know.




Prediction: The powers that be at CMF will opt not to screen this labor of love at the University's finale event, and I will not be there to see it not happen.

Why Am I Going to New York?

You might already know my general sentiments towards the Empire State's main city and its surrounding nebula of Paved Areas, and if that is the case you are probably surprised to find that I am returning to That Place, just as you might have been surprised the Last Time it Happened. If you don't, the previous link should illuminate things in harsh, harsh words. The question is obvious: why would I go back there?

The (approximately two) answers I have to that question are not good, so I will not share them with you, unless one of them turns out, over the course of the trip, to have been right enough to justify the minimal bus fare and maximum hassle involved with what's to come (regardless of how matters go I am guaranteed two cool things). Don't worry - I've packed everything I'll need: tooth paste, my Swiss Army knife, and twice as much money as a person ought to need to last 4 days in order to buy food and T-shirts that prove to strangers the fact that I've been somewhere. What's ultimately important is that I may or may not wind up have information about the journey to share with you in the form of one of my world-renown travelogues. You're welcome, in advance.

P.S.

Here is some Information about how I spent a fraction of my weekend.

Here is Some Advice #2

Many months have passed since the most recent (and initial) time I offered advice here. That advice was about not repeating certain mistakes I had made in regards to sleeping during the afternoon in a lonely house, with the ultimate goal being to keep other people from experiencing unpleasantness in their brains. Sometimes, though, you cannot avoid unpleasantness, or maybe you’re already in the neighborhood and it’s hard to not make a stop on Unpleasant Street. Tonight I will describe the best way to get away from that street if you are me, right now, at this second. It is chocolate milk.

Just now I am drinking chocolate milk. I can’t tell you the last time I have consumed this beverage before this evening – my best estimate is approximately one year and two months ago, but that is a foggy speculation at best. What’s relevant is the fact that it has been quite some time since I’ve imbibed the liquid in question. I will tell you that it helps Things. some people do not know how to make chocolate milk correctly, though – they wind up making chocolaty milk instead, which is incorrect. It’s important to remember to put enough chocolate syrup/powder (I prefer syrup) into the (ideally skim) milk that resulting solution is nearly identical in color to the original chocolate additive. Once you’ve reached this point it’s wise to throw in additional flavoring just to be safe. Chocolate milk should be so strong that instead of alleviating any thirst you might have it exacerbates it, necessitating a glass of cold water after all is said and done. That is where I am right now, and it is the right place.

If the house you’re in is empty you can turn some music on at medium volume and sing along to it between sips, also. Everything will be alright as long as the gallon jug in the refrigerator holds out. After that though, who knows.

Here is How I was Almost an Asshole Today

Another movie-related post. I will try to do something about Typewriters or the Bad Time I Had at the Apple Store soon, in order for there to be variation. Until then though, there's this.

As anyone who knows anything about the greater Boston is well aware, there is a lot of stuff to see between stops on the T, which is why walking everywhere is important (biking is not important because biking is a good way to get killed while operating a device that makes listening to music unsafe). Anyway, what’s relevant here is that there exists a video rental place on the stretch of Mass Ave between Harvard Square and Central Square, and I happened to pass by it on my walk to Kinkos.* The franchise has at least two other locations – one in Davis and one on Mass Ave between Porter and Harvard, if that was information you wanted to know. I am getting off track though.

I saw something as I passed by the video store (the one between Harvard and Central, not the one between Porter and Harvard). It was this poster, hanging in a window, surrounded by yellow “caution” tape. I looked at the poster, and I read the words on it, and I processed the words on it. Here is where things get troubling: somewhere, probably in some highly-evolved human-only bullshit region of my brain, the thought “go in there and rent that” occurred. Obviously the more basic, survival-first parts of my mind (everything in the brainstem for example) recoiled from this notion by dumping hormones and adrenaline into my blood. Digestion stopped, respiration increased, and my senses became heightened as my body dealt with this threat. But still, just for a second, part of me actually thought that it would be a good idea to watch David Lynch’s 3-plus hour movie about…I don’t even know what it’s about. That is not the information I requested. But look, I have reached a conclusion about all of this: while I strive to be a good person, and to live a decent life, I am on some level – however repressed or minimal – a terrible asshole. At my age the desire to watch a David Lynch movie without knowing anything about it makes one a terrible asshole.

I don’t want to turn this into a big whole thing about David Lynch, but I feel like I might have to in order to fully explain myself. Let’s first get one thing straight: I don’t enjoy Lynch’s movies the way I enjoy regular, designed-for-humans movies.** I tried to watch “Eraserhead” once when I was barely a high school student, and wound up being pretty badly harmed. In early 2006 I watched “Mullholland Drive” and was reasonably harmed. More recently I watched “Lost Highway” and was not harmed too badly, but then I watched all of “Eraserhead” and was really badly harmed. Despite all of this, I’ll probably watch “Blue Velvet” sometime soon and be harmed some amount, and God knows I'll get through all of Twin Peaks even if it kills me.

You’d think that, after all these seemingly bad experiences, I’d just give up on watching Lynch movies. But such is not the case. How is it that I am a moth and David Lynch movies are enormous, unshielded 60-watt light bulbs that I fly into? Why haven’t I learned anything from this? Maybe it’s something you grow into unwillingly, the way we look at our parents’ ways with disgust simply because we know that someday we will be like them, and it bothers us now. My dad loves Lynch movies. He also loves watching golf on TV and listening to NPR. Maybe someday I will love Lynch movies and these other things too, after I have lived long enough to hate everything that makes people happy, and to have given up on making sense out of the world. At that point it won’t matter though, will it?

*I went to Kinkos so that I could see about getting that skyline picture I told you about a few days ago printed in big, nice paper. The man at Kinkos was very helpful and it looks like Friday will see the existence of that Nice Print.

**There are two exceptions to this: "The Elephant Man" was good, and "The Straight Story" was very endearing and sweet. Neither of these movies involved cowboys being in two places at once or a baby who falls apart and makes a terrible mess.