6.03.2010
3.16.2010
2.02.2010
conversation
-why did you do that?
-because i wanted to remember.
-remember what?
-what's the most important thing to you?
-well...my mom and dad.
and soccer.
-would you ever want to forget about mom and dad and soccer?
-no.
-okay, well this is my way of not forgetting about what's most important to me.
-oh...
what's that?
-we only get one shot at this.
-at what?
-at life.
[crying.]
-because i wanted to remember.
-remember what?
-what's the most important thing to you?
-well...my mom and dad.
and soccer.
-would you ever want to forget about mom and dad and soccer?
-no.
-okay, well this is my way of not forgetting about what's most important to me.
-oh...
what's that?
-we only get one shot at this.
-at what?
-at life.
[crying.]
1.28.2010
tightrope
wednesday is the only weeknight when something isn't going on after work, so it's come to feel much like a sunday. in celebration of going straight home, i left work, cracked a beer, cooked myself dinner, and sat down to watch a movie: man on wire.
i was expecting only a documentary about a frenchman who walked a tightrope rigged between the world trade center towers in 1974. instead i was sucked into the story of phillippe petit's unrivaled passion and obsession with the seemingly impossible. not only was the story well told by those who lived it, but it was visually translated with some stunning black and white scenes, old photos, and playful quirks. the music was also great, making the mission's risk and its resulting tension tangible.
the story took an abrupt turn in the last, maybe, 10 minutes when the petit of the story--this creative, vibrant, incorrigible youth--crashes into the petit of present--this arrogant, self-centered, pompous man. after accomplishing a feat like that one has to change--there's no choice. and while the movie doesn't expressly mention it, it shows his once-best friend alluding to the fact that relationships were broken as a result of the feat. with a little smirk, he said it "didn't matter because, well, because we succeeded, and..." and then a few minutes of silence and he comes to absolute tears.
the story's tone so quickly turned from this amazement and euphoria to this heartbreaking nostalgia that bordered on regret. that said, the fact the film showed this downturn and ended there made it so much more complex and real.
when watching i wondered what petit felt when he learned that the two buildings, these two buildings that he thought were built for him and his tightrope, were destroyed. the answer didn't fit into the movie but it did make me wonder about the connections he have to non-living things and the "lives" that those things "live".
* * *
i was expecting only a documentary about a frenchman who walked a tightrope rigged between the world trade center towers in 1974. instead i was sucked into the story of phillippe petit's unrivaled passion and obsession with the seemingly impossible. not only was the story well told by those who lived it, but it was visually translated with some stunning black and white scenes, old photos, and playful quirks. the music was also great, making the mission's risk and its resulting tension tangible.
the story took an abrupt turn in the last, maybe, 10 minutes when the petit of the story--this creative, vibrant, incorrigible youth--crashes into the petit of present--this arrogant, self-centered, pompous man. after accomplishing a feat like that one has to change--there's no choice. and while the movie doesn't expressly mention it, it shows his once-best friend alluding to the fact that relationships were broken as a result of the feat. with a little smirk, he said it "didn't matter because, well, because we succeeded, and..." and then a few minutes of silence and he comes to absolute tears.
the story's tone so quickly turned from this amazement and euphoria to this heartbreaking nostalgia that bordered on regret. that said, the fact the film showed this downturn and ended there made it so much more complex and real.
when watching i wondered what petit felt when he learned that the two buildings, these two buildings that he thought were built for him and his tightrope, were destroyed. the answer didn't fit into the movie but it did make me wonder about the connections he have to non-living things and the "lives" that those things "live".
* * *
today i came home and after going through the mail picked up this book i'd bought at target earlier in the week. i knew it was about some event happening in new york in the 70s but not more than that, and i only bought it because it won the national book award and was on sale. from the book's jacket, "In the dawning light of a late-summer morning, the people of lower Manhattan stand hushed, staring up in disbelief at the Twin Towers. It is August 1974, and a mysterious tightrope walker is running, dancing, leaping between the towers, suspended a quarter mile above the ground. In the streets below, a slew of ordinary lives become extraordinary in bestselling novelist Colum McCann’s stunningly intricate portrait of a city and its people."
can i get a definition, please?
i think my understanding of the word 'meme' is going to be a lot like that of 'status quo'. while it may take months for me to accurately grasp it's meaning, it's real importance has already become clear: 99% of the people who use it in daily conversation are not as cool as they think they are.
12.01.2009
running around the graveyard
fall, leaves. rip down
your wrinkled remains. the sun's high
in the autumn sky, but everyone's
on to winter.
listen--city buses, church pews
barber chairs--the incessant chatter
of the unrelenting chill.
this isn't small talk.
no one consults the calendar,
the thermometer--the vital signs
of your future that reason weeks
more orange & yellow.
people hear your crunch as they walk
like a death rattle. an echo
of their fear, of the looming
dark days and icy streets.
they know better
but willingly excuse themselves
with complaints that "it just goes so fast."
fall, leaves. stop clinging
to temperate times. cut loose
your full veins, cover these cracked stones
like a life less decoration.
it's the same circle every year.
your wrinkled remains. the sun's high
in the autumn sky, but everyone's
on to winter.
listen--city buses, church pews
barber chairs--the incessant chatter
of the unrelenting chill.
this isn't small talk.
no one consults the calendar,
the thermometer--the vital signs
of your future that reason weeks
more orange & yellow.
people hear your crunch as they walk
like a death rattle. an echo
of their fear, of the looming
dark days and icy streets.
they know better
but willingly excuse themselves
with complaints that "it just goes so fast."
fall, leaves. stop clinging
to temperate times. cut loose
your full veins, cover these cracked stones
like a life less decoration.
it's the same circle every year.
11.18.2009
universe, you've done it again.
in my unexpected day off, i was going through some things and found this. i'm not sure what the source is, but it obviously it spoke to me at the time and certainly does today.
"a knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, our perceptions of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which only in their most primitive forms are accessible to our minds: it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute true religiosity. in this sense, and only this sense, i am a deeply religious man... i am satisfied with the mystery of life's eternity and with a knowledge, a sense, of the marvelous structure of existence -- as well as the humble attempt to understand even a tiny portion of the reason that manifests itself in nature."
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