I publish this blog from Blogger via FTP and apparently Blogger is shutting that down soon. I don't care enough to migrate or even fix it, really. I dunno. We'll see.
Anyway, this is Villa Malaparte, from Godard's Contempt. Seems apt for this blog. I've fallen out of love with it, but I can't say why. Saturn Returns?
Labels: BAD DOG, BUY ME THIS, DESPERATE AND SAD, FILM
Artist Jeanne-Claude of Jeanne-Claude and Christo has passed away at 74. I didn't get to see THE GATES or any of their works, but I do have a piece of fabric from The Gates tucked away in my box of treasures. It's like having a little piece of her hair.
Read more on NYTIMES.COM.
Labels: ART, DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD
It hurts, but he doesn't show it. I could learn a thing or two from Chopin. Sometimes the day just resolves in a minor chord no matter how good things are.
Jag vill se du när sol stigningarna , och äsch hur den vilja stigning min vännerna.
Labels: DESPERATE AND SAD, FILM, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER
Uh-oh. I'm in a sensitive cycle. Mercury's in retrograde till the 30th and all I want is Jane Siberry and a warm set of arms. I know that's repulsive, which makes me crawl into folk and fetal that much more. Alela Diane will have to do for now. *Sigh* says Charlie Brown. I'll bust out again soon enough.
I wrote this post in October of 2007, but I chickened out and didn't publish it that day. I really wish I had remembered this post earlier cause now I'm realizing that I should probably just give people coupons to Burger King instead of discs of crazy. May this be a lesson to my fellow over-zealous, over-emotional Scorpios:
October 27, 2007
I just have a few tips/thoughts on giving someone a mixed tape (or CD or whatever you choose).
I always enjoy a good mixed tape/CD, but here's the thing - they can totally backfire.
I've received a few good ones in my day. I even got a tape delivered to my work once with its own custom-made jean sleeve - it was romantic/scary cause I had only met the guy once and happened to casually mention where I worked while we were talking. I was also involved at the time. But he eventually got a date or two out of it. Basically I'm a whore.
Then when we were dating I got another mixed CD from him. It was painted on top. Now don't get me wrong, I really liked it and all the creativity and effort and such, but it fucked up the disc drive in my computer. But the music was good, as I remember. There were some first exposures to a few artists which is always nice.
But, see, this is the thing...why would songs I've never heard before make me think of him after one date? Or me and him together? Isn't that the intent of a mixed tape? We had no musical experiences together, so what the fuck do I do with music I've never heard before, relation-wise? It might have been different if I heard it for the first time with him, but I'd never heard most of it before, period. So were these songs the ones that reminded him of me? If so, why do I need to hear them? He should just listen to them and think of me and then make me dinner or something I can really use. I think he wanted to show off how much he knew about music or something. MEAN! That's not true. He was sweet. I was cold.
Now, I've made the same mistake for sure. I actually gave the same mix to two different guys that I really liked. How awful is that? I obviously didn't relate experiences with them to the music, but I just wanted to give them something and impress them. It didn't work.
I got the best one I've ever received around this time last year. I was really into him and had seen him around and been asking about him for like 6 months before. Turns out he liked me, too, I guess. But when we finally started hanging out I was dating him for all the wrong reasons (even though he was gorgeous it just wasn't a good fit for me and I knew that but I kept going out with him for selfish reasons). We had hung out like twice I guess, and he gave me the CD. We sat down and he told me the titles of all the songs. "Love" was in more titles than I cared for on a third date.
Here comes the pathetic part.
The music was beautiful, and I listened to it on repeat for about 5 days. Most of the songs were about love, or the losing end of a breakup, or nostalgia - once again these were not things I had experienced with the mix-giver. Ironically, I think the music was so powerful that it slowly changed. It morphed from making me think about the guy that gave it to me and just made me think about the guy I was rebounding from. I think the new guy was sad and romantic. So was I, but I didn't realize it until I listened to the CD he gave me. The CD wasn't for me, it was about him.
Not long after, I broke it off. I think, had it been a different time and place, that relationship could have been good. He was much cooler than me with a lot to offer, (and with much cooler friends), but for once I didn't care about that. It just wasn't right for me.
A couple months ago my mom gave me a box of cassettes to go through after she moved. Among the Bette Midlers and Michelle Shockeds and Lion Kings and Dance Mix 94's was a tape with a single song on it labelled "When You Say Nothing At All." It was the first mix I received from a boy, but it was just one song. It was possibly the gayest song in the world (sung by Ronan Keating from Boyzone). But fuck, it meant something. I destroyed the letter he gave to me when he gave me the tape because I was terrified of someone finding the letter then curbing me (I was 16 and in a small town and American History X had just come out at the video store he worked at), but I remember the letter saying something about how even when I didn't say anything we were still connecting. So cheesy, but so far the most meaningful (though not the best musically).
Now I'm here, listening to the mix I got last year. I have some primordial response to the fall, almost like a seasonal version of olfactory memory. I'm remembering all the boys that have come and gone, the music they gave me mashing up against itself and their memories. Even though some of those compilations backfired at the time, they still stir up something about the men who gave them to me.
I'm looking forward to hearing some new music.
Here's a favourite from a mix - Finger Bib - Aphex Twin:
Labels: BAD DOG, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER
Another test from my upcoming series.
Labels: DESPERATE AND SAD, I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON., MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, PHOTOGRAPHY
Some whining I did in the winter. The last one was supposed to say "Hey Can I Borrow $100?" but I decided to go to sleep instead of finishing it.
Labels: BAD DOG, DESPERATE AND SAD, HOW TO PROCRASTINATE, I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON.
Next up: "iTunes Essentials: Black People Music."
When are people going to stop doing shit like this?
Lord almighty.
Labels: BAD DOG, DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, MUSIC, REALLY FUCKING GAY
Tonight's your last chance in Toronto to see DANIEL BARROW perform "Every Time I See Your Picture I Cry":
Daniel Barrow's newest "manual animation" combines overhead projection, with video, music, and live narration to tell the story of a garbage man with a vision to chronicle the lives of all the citizens in the city. Traversing the streets, drawing pictures of people as they sleep and gleaning what he can of people's lives through their trash, what he doesn't know is that a deranged lunatic is trailing him, killing off each citizen he records in his book, thus rendering his cataloguing efforts obsolete.
Maybe I misinterpreted it but I didn't think the central character was a garbage-man, but Barrow himself...or maybe I'm not so smart.
Either way, you shold BUY TICKETS NOW!
Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DESPERATE AND SAD, REALLY FUCKING GAY, THINGS I WISH I'D DONE
IT'S A SAD DAY. I suppose POLANOID will become a graveyard.
Here's one of my favourite Polaroids that I took way back in 2003:
I will miss Polaroid...but damn if only the film wasn't so expensive!
RIP
Thanks to Tim for the tip about Polanoid.
Here's one of my favourite Polaroids that I took way back in 2003:
I will miss Polaroid...but damn if only the film wasn't so expensive!
RIP
Thanks to Tim for the tip about Polanoid.
Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON.
I have $13.50 left on an iTunes gift certificate. Should I buy Enya or Ennio Morricone?
Vote in comments if you care.
Labels: DESPERATE AND SAD, REALLY FUCKING GAY
I haven't been posting much crap-garbage I find around cause I haven't found much crap-garbage that I care about at the moment. So I'm just gonna write some junk. And I'm gonna continue to do what I bitch about on other blogs...I'm gonna post more pictures of me...but they're from the trouble years so it's worth it.
I was on the subway today when I finally realized it's 2008. You know how sometimes things to do with dates and time changing take a while to sink in? Like after your birthday you'll say you're 7 when you're actually 8 and you win a colouring contest in the wrong age group and you go up to the front of the school to accept the award for best drawing in the 5-7 year old category and your classmates stand up and yell "He's not 7 he's 8!" and they strip you of your title of "Best Colourer of a Muskoka Winter Scene" in front of everyone? Grade 3 sucked.
Anyway, I realized it's been 10 years since I left to go on an exchange to Switzerland for a semester of school. It was the best thing that's ever happened to me. I worked and paid for my flight out of my two-horse title-stripping town, lived with a francophone Swiss family, went to a francophone school, saw Milan and Paris and Zurich, snowboarded amidst avalanches, ate breakfast and dinner every day with a view of Mont Blanc from the table, showered after gym class with a guy I nicknamed "horse-cock", and began to come out of the closet. It was terribly liberating, and the return to the misery of Gravenhurst was a prison sentence. I specifically remember standing in the hall a couple weeks after I got back, staring at the alternating brown, orange, and green lockers, paining for my European life, and thinking "In 10 years, I will not miss Switzerland at all." That devastated me.
At that point in my life my experiences overseas were the most important thing. There was nothing bigger or more important than those memories, and there was nothing better than those memories. And for some reason I recognized that one day they would not be the most important things in my life, and I dreaded not missing Switzerland. I anticipated THE DEATH OF MISSING.
And it faded, the missing. I went to school in a bigger town where they had photography classes, I found friends, a boyfriend, got my driver's license, and so on. Then other missings took over. Friends moved, boyfriends moved on, I moved to Toronto. A series of missings and renewals, all the while Switzerland became a sharp point in my mind. I wrote to my host family less frequently, I stopped looking through the album, I stopped watching the video, I just stopped missing it.
The most interesting thing to me in The Death of Missing is that by the time missing dies it doesn't hurt anymore. You fear losing those emotions, but in losing the emotions you lose the pain. There comes a time when thinking of something you used to love doesn't cause you to well up or get excited or swell in the heart (or another) region. When I break up with someone I have loved (okay...when I get dumped) I at first dread the day I won't long to feel him beside me. But it just fades...and in the end it doesn't hurt.
I know it's neurotic...to miss something is one thing, but to fear not missing something is entirely another, then to dramatize the fading of that feeling is beyond reason...but that's how my ticker tapes (what?).
I won't say I'm not nostalgic about things even when I don't miss them. I can't say that plowing through my packet of photos from Switzerland didn't swirl up some sludge in my black heart. But it just doesn't kill me like it used to.
I wonder what I'll miss in 10 years. Maybe if they stop making Twix bars I'll miss those.
Anyway, here are those pics:
^Me with my lesbian retiree haircut and exchange partner Maria at the Creux du Van.
^Standing on the balcony of my room at my friend Estelle's ski chalet.
^Eating chocolate on the boardwalk in Morges.
The photo at the top is from the window of my host family's dining room. Mont Blanc is between the V the mountains on the right make. The mountains on the right are where Evian water comes from. Oooooooooooo!
Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, I MADE THIS. ME. GRAYDON., MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM, NOBODY LIKES A NERD
It's true. I remember a friend of mine used to tell me her dreams every day at school and it was the most boring thing I could imagine. I mean, it didn't even happen...it's of no consequence...and I can't/won't decipher it, so why are you telling me?
Anyway, the title of this post was my favourite line from THE DIVING BELL AND THE BUTTERFLY (that's a truly hideous and misleading schmaltzy website by the way). I went with my dearie Johanna (who just applied to Yale among other schools to do her MFA...let's wish her luckies!) after a gorgeous dinner at the A&W in the food court under The Bay.
Sooooooo...I expected to be manipulated to death as the film is about Jean-Dominique Bauby, the former editor of Elle France who suffers a stroke. The stroke causes "Locked-In Syndrome," meaning that he is completely paralyzed (save for his left eye) but can see, hear, and think as usual. He is literally a prisoner inside his body. It's pretty heavy. But, as I was saying, it wasn't depressing. In fact, the film was quite uplifting through its pained lens.
It's shot very cleverly, making you feel the panic and claustrophobia of being trapped in paralysis as well as feeling nostalgia and hope through the lens that mimics Jean-Dominique's good eye as well as his mind's eye.
Johanna turned to me after the credits and said "That was sad." My response was "Yet, I'm jealous of him." HA! How terrible. But it's true...at this point I'd rather be the editor of Elle with 3 kids, an ex-wife, a hot lover, a wicked car, who then strokes out in France and gets a cool rare condition and then writes a best-seller turned posthumous bio-pic than a lonely, bitter, head-shaving, pancake eating, Oprah watching, Canadian. Oh well.
Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM
I'm back after holidays and the flu.
I had a dream last week that my teeth were falling out. According to online dream dictionaries either something great is going to happen, or something terrible is going to happen. So I'm going to continue spending my time alternating my mindset between "excited" and "terrified".
Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, EW, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM
Or you'll end up like Freddy Mercury (that's apparently who is depicted in the last image) in Moscow's Anti-Drug Wax Museum.
From the now defunct YDA.
Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, THINGS I WISH I'D DONE
Labels: DESPERATE AND SAD, NOBODY LIKES A NERD
Skip to the end if you want to see a funny picture.
Otherwise, read on if you dare. I warn you, it's gonna get a bit "free-flowy."
You know how sometimes a theme pops up in your life? A bunch of coincidental things happen in a row and it feels too unlikely that it's just a coincidence? I love that. Even though it probably just is a coincidence or you're thinking about something so you're more atune to other happenings of the same nature.
Anyway, my most recent theme is the relation between consciousness and physicality - mind and body (sort of).
If you've ever been high, whatever your drug choice is, you know that physical reactions cause mental changes. Drinking makes you drunk, smoking pot makes you paranoid or giggly or lightheaded, taking ecstasy makes you euphoric, heroin makes every pain melt away. Even smoking a cigarette causes a mental change.
I'm reading "Theatre of the Mind" by Jay Ingram right now. He used to host "Daily Planet" on the Discovery Channel and "Quirks and Quarks" on CBC. I saw the book at my friend Claire and Jaron's apartment a while ago and decided to buy it recently. It seemed a more plausible read than my perpetually half-finished "Godel Escher Bach" endeavour (that was an inside joke for GEB-readers) that started 4 years ago.
I'm not that far into "Theatre of the Mind," but it's about trying to understand what consciousness is, if it is tied to a specific physical part of our bodies, and why we are conscious of ourselves. (The book talks about animals being alive and thinking about getting food or escaping harm, but that animals don't stop and ponder themselves. Their feelings are direct responses to the present.) Ingram often talks about how our conscious thoughts seem to appear behind our eyes. When you recall a memory or think of what an apple looks like, the image seems to present itself one or two inches back from the centre of your eyes (AKA, the "Theatre of the Mind," the stage on which your consciousness plays out). Why don't these visions materialize at the back of the head, or a couple inches outside of the skull? Is it possible to have out of body experiences by moving your conscious
Apparently, ancient cultures believed the heart to be the centre of consciousness because it is where the physical response to conscious thought most obviously appears. I have always struggled to understand why thoughts I have can cause physical pains or aches in my body. I also am trying to understand why drugs and alcohol can make those pains disappear.
This brings up when I first thought about separating my consciousness from my physical self. After a mind-bending (read inebriated) summer, I had a thought about the idea of Heaven. I have always thought that Heaven would be pretty damn boring. I mean, if you have to do boring things and follow The Bible or whatever doctrine you choose to follow in order to get into Heaven or Nirvana then chances are you have to keep doing those things once you're in. SNORE. I always find the best things in life are the opposite of religious ideals. Namely sex, drugs, and all those other deadly sins. My idea of Heaven is a bareback massage orgy in chocolate sauce followed by cancer-free cigarettes and champagne with HENRY CAVILL (shut up he's hot) on the couch watching endless all new episodes of The Sarah Silverman Program and throwing my best actor/director/screenwriter Oscars at the screen when we don't like a joke one of the ugly gays makes (I have a LOT of Oscars in Heaven). At least that's one version.
So, if being free of all those wonderful sinful things on Earth is what gets you into Heaven, then you must have to do those things in Heaven. And if that's all you do in Heaven, then shouldn't the people who do those things on Earth be in Heaven already? Heaven on Earth? Shouldn't they be so blissed out by being good Christians that they have no pain in their lives? If not, what's going to make them be blissed out in Heaven? What's going to be different? That's when it came to me. Heaven, if it does exist, is a place where no matter what you're doing you're enjoying it. That's exactly what drugs are. Why else would it be so much fun to be pure?
So then, if Heaven is the same thing as drugs, then why not just do drugs all the time? Why not just alienate yourself from everyone and chase the dragon off the cliff? Get higher and higher till you die. You'd be in Heaven on Earth, and since I don't actually believe in any afterlife, why not experience it now? It's a complete separation of your mind from your body - or at least an alteration of your body by your mind.
This is the idea of Tantra and Tantric sex as well - using your mind to create bliss in your body.
Same with trying to attain Nirvana - you're attempting to free your mind from the constraints of the body. My friend Ariel just went to a retreat and meditated in silence for 10 hours a day for 10 days straight. She wrote to me:
"Back from meditating. I'm enlightened, wheee!
But really, I am changed. Life changed. Clear. Inspired. I have learned how
to release and free myself from misery."
Thank God it worked cause I didn't do the website changes she asked me to do while she was gone.
My friend David was looking at himself in a reflection on the streetcar. He said he feels better knowing he can see himself. He said it would be great to be able to get past the idea of the reflection as only a narcissistic object. I told him that I remembered looking into the mirror as a kid, really looking. I was only 6, and it was the first time I thought "Why am I in this body?" It's funny how shit you figure out or think about as a kid comes back up in university, and you think "Oh, I really was touching on some deep crap when I was 6." Anyway, I remember it really freaking me out that my conscious mind seemed to be this alien peeking through my eyes and analyzing the physical form of me that I could see in the mirror. In that last sentance "I" becomes a manifestation of two beings - the physical "I" and the conscious "I". This is something I recognized when I was 6.
So then I just watched PAPRIKA, an Anime film about a machine that allows you to share your dreams - the actual experience of your dreams - with other people. People are able to visit other conscious minds. The dreams meld into each other and soon the physical world and dream world meld and switch. People act out their dreams in real life and die, people get killed in the real world from dream-wounds, and dream-objects enter the real world. It touches where Nightmare on Elm Street and The Cell could not.
Then while listening to Anna Karenina (I bought the audiobook to listen to during the drudgery of housework - thanks to CORRIBLE for the reco) yesterday a few characters discussed whether or not "a line should be drawn between the physiological and psychological experience in man. And if so, where?" They go on to talk about how if they can't even understand the psychological experience (consciousness) then how could they denounce religion/spirituality? That freaked me out. Anna fucking Karenina was preaching to me about consciousness and Heaven.
Finally, tonight, I went to see a movie. I'm completely ashamed of myself for wanting to see it, and for actually going to see it in a theatre. If it makes you feel better I didn't have to pay for it. I went to see..........ENCHANTED! Heaven help me for admitting that on my blog, but if you've come this far I expect that you might be open to hearing what I have to say about it.
I went to see it with a friend, who shall remain nameless in order to protect his or her identity, because I needed something light and stupid and funny and kind of wanted to see Enchanted. So did my friend. Plus Amy Adams is such a fuckin great actress. We laughed at ourselves as we skooched past little girls and their fathers to find our seats. In the movie, a Disney princess is cast into our world by a wicked witch so that she can't marry the wicked witch's stepson, the prince, and become queen. I knew the premise before I went, but I didn't realize until we were in the theatre why I was drawn to see it (other than the fact that I've seen The Little Mermaid about 50 times). It hit me that it was all about physical and dream states. Also, a fairytale Disney romance is many-a-person's idea of heaven. This movie was a very simplistic take on reality versus dream, physical versus dream/spirit/consciousness.
So this theme of separating reality, mind from body, physical from conscious keeps presenting itself. It keeps challenging me to take it on. But what will be my weapon? Booze? Drugs? Meditation? Tantra? Books? Films? Love?
Fucked if I know. Look at the kitties!
Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM, NOBODY LIKES A NERD, REALLY FUCKING GAY, SEX
Some great images I found while watching BLOGGER PLAY:
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Labels: BAD DOG, DESPERATE AND SAD, HOW TO PROCRASTINATE, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, THINGS I WISH I'D DONE
Enjoy your weekends.
Via MNMN
Labels: BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER
When I see someone I know but don't really feel like stopping to talk or even waving but I know I have to pass through their sight-line and I want them to think that I haven't seen them if they see me I just do something like pretend to pick my nose or stick my finger in my ear then look at it or try to lick at an imaginary piece of food on the side of my face or something really embarrassing so they think "Ew, look what he's doing! There's no way he saw me if he's doing that!"
It probably would just be easier to wave. Oh well. I'm retarded.
Labels: BAD DOG, DESPERATE AND SAD, EW
THIS DUDE gives me the creeps. It looks like he has trees growing out of his hands and legs and bark up his arms, but it's WARTS! I actually get the shivers just from looking at it...
Via !! OMG BLOG !!
Oh and I know it's weird but his son's really hot. What?! He's 18!
Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, EW
My friendquantance, Lesley, told me about THIS EPISODE of THIS AMERICAN LIFE. It's all about breakups and divorce from different perspectives. A woman goes on a walking tour of her neighbourhood and all the things that remind her of her freshly finished relationship. An 8 year old girl speaks about why she doesn't understand her parents' divorce. And, most notably, Starlee Kine gets Phil Collins to help her write a torch song. Though I don't like the song she wrote, I like her recognition of every song taking on new meaning when a relationship has ended.
By the way, Phil Collins DIVORCED HIS WIFE BY FAX.
Image Source
Labels: DEATH AND DRAMA, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER
I wrote the rant following the video below after reading my friend Claire's post about Lynch and commercialism vs. artistic merit over at ENCHANT AND DOOM.
The above video is of some commercials by ROY ANDERSSON.
Here's my rant-comment from E&D:
Nothing makes me angrier than the "ARTIST or SELLOUT" debate.
When I first started doing ads after getting a degree in Fine Art, I lost some friends because of it. I got so paranoid of being a sellout that I thought people were against me that weren't.
Because of this I did a ton of research on commercial artists versus "pure" artists. There are very few who have been able to live without producing commercial work (especially those in Canada who are under a conservative regime at the moment).
Kenneth Anger is someone who has remained a "pure" artist, and even he has said that he regrets being such a renegade because now people just rip him off and he gets no credit or money for what he created.
TONS of people who are very successful filmmakers and photographers and artists have done commercial work. Wes Anderson (of course), Nan Goldin, even Roy Andersson (who directed SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR) have done lots of commercial work (Andersson directed at least 300 commercials between his first film (which flopped) and SONGS).
Look at the old UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON ads, or a million other ads that so-called "pure" artists have produced.
Anyway, point is, the people I had lost now think I'm crazy for even taking a break from advertising. Turns out I took too much stock in the opinions of those people. Turns out it doesn't matter what the people think, you just have to do what you want or need to do and you have to separate your passion from your practical needs (such as food and shelter). Turns out I lost those friends because they judged my career choices instead of supporting me, not because I chose to do commercials or because I felt I was disapopinting them. I even thought my boyfriend at the time was dead against me doing anything commercial and that I was letting him down.
The idea of a "sellout" comes from the hoi polloi's own insecurities OR your own insecurities. I considered myself a sellout for a long time. Then when I thought I would just be an artist wasn't able to eat for days at a time and decided that that really sucked and I would rather be a "sellout" than dead. Even artists sell their work.
So good for Lynch. He has his priorities straight. He does commercials for products and does a damn fine job (I'd rather watch a Lynch or Andersson or Anderson directed commercial than 99.99% of the shit commercials that are on TV anyway) and he directs amazing films with NO PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
Sorry for the rant. Maybe it's cause I just drank a whole bottle of champagne and ate a batch of cookies instead of having dinner.
Apparently Ingmar Bergman says Roy Andersson's commercials (posted above) "are the best in the world".
Accept it.
The above video is of some commercials by ROY ANDERSSON.
Here's my rant-comment from E&D:
Nothing makes me angrier than the "ARTIST or SELLOUT" debate.
When I first started doing ads after getting a degree in Fine Art, I lost some friends because of it. I got so paranoid of being a sellout that I thought people were against me that weren't.
Because of this I did a ton of research on commercial artists versus "pure" artists. There are very few who have been able to live without producing commercial work (especially those in Canada who are under a conservative regime at the moment).
Kenneth Anger is someone who has remained a "pure" artist, and even he has said that he regrets being such a renegade because now people just rip him off and he gets no credit or money for what he created.
TONS of people who are very successful filmmakers and photographers and artists have done commercial work. Wes Anderson (of course), Nan Goldin, even Roy Andersson (who directed SONGS FROM THE SECOND FLOOR) have done lots of commercial work (Andersson directed at least 300 commercials between his first film (which flopped) and SONGS).
Look at the old UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON ads, or a million other ads that so-called "pure" artists have produced.
Anyway, point is, the people I had lost now think I'm crazy for even taking a break from advertising. Turns out I took too much stock in the opinions of those people. Turns out it doesn't matter what the people think, you just have to do what you want or need to do and you have to separate your passion from your practical needs (such as food and shelter). Turns out I lost those friends because they judged my career choices instead of supporting me, not because I chose to do commercials or because I felt I was disapopinting them. I even thought my boyfriend at the time was dead against me doing anything commercial and that I was letting him down.
The idea of a "sellout" comes from the hoi polloi's own insecurities OR your own insecurities. I considered myself a sellout for a long time. Then when I thought I would just be an artist wasn't able to eat for days at a time and decided that that really sucked and I would rather be a "sellout" than dead. Even artists sell their work.
So good for Lynch. He has his priorities straight. He does commercials for products and does a damn fine job (I'd rather watch a Lynch or Andersson or Anderson directed commercial than 99.99% of the shit commercials that are on TV anyway) and he directs amazing films with NO PRODUCT PLACEMENT!
Sorry for the rant. Maybe it's cause I just drank a whole bottle of champagne and ate a batch of cookies instead of having dinner.
Apparently Ingmar Bergman says Roy Andersson's commercials (posted above) "are the best in the world".
Accept it.
Labels: BAD DOG, BOOKS MOVIES AND OTHER CULTURALISTICALITIES, DESPERATE AND SAD, MAYBE THE FUTURE WILL BE BETTER, NARCISSISM
I found out about the following sadness over on OMG BLOG yesterday.
A 15 year-old French boy was raped by 3 men in Dubai. The following is from the NEW YORK TIMES ARTICLE:
"The authorities not only discouraged Alex from pressing charges, he, his family and French diplomats say; they raised the possibility of charging him with criminal homosexual activity, and neglected for weeks to inform him or his parents that one of his attackers had tested H.I.V. positive while in prison four years earlier."
His parents have set up the website BOYCOTTDUBAI.COM.
Tonight I got so excited when I remembered there was cake in the fridge that I tripped over a table and fell on my face when I ran to the kitchen to get it. I feel like Cathy.