howdy everybody. It's Saturday. Matt's likely in another stretch of Utah countryside subjecting his kids to all-new incredible things. Am I jealous? Yeah. Bien sur! Who wouldn't also wish to participate in such fine weekend adventures with wonderful people?Which brings me to why I write.
Here's some of my own adventures for you to enjoy:
My adventures in healing.
This week has been strange. I have been sleeping a lot. I could write a book about what it's been like getting seriously injured and how the body and mind deal with it. For instance, healing. How incredible! This adventure is a passive one, watching my hardworking epidermis repair itself with insane speed and precision. How in the world! I'm certainly not sitting here telling my ant-like cells what they need to be doing, and in what order - somebody else is definitely in charge here. Which freaks me out, I'm no longer in control. And so my powerhunger places me in a state of wanting to "know": I have been gathering as much information (mostly local, IE from Mom) about wounds and the healing process, about head trauma, scabs and infections, neosporin and ibuprofen. In truth, this injury easily ranks in my top 5 life-threatening situations, so hypochondria's kicked in like never before.
Enough about that, what about art?
My adventures in art. Joey mentioned in a blog recently about how he was spending a lot of time watching good films and interesting television shows and making music, etc. Well for a long time I have been almost anti-TV, anti-film because it truly wasn't active enough and I would feel lazy sitting in front of a screen and not participating in any way except through observation. Well since living with Joey (and having left) I find myself on a new mission: to appreciate the art in recorded/edited performances (TV, movies) as much as I have come to love uncut, live performance. Obviously I have become a huge advocate of the theater, and live performance of every kind, so watching a cut and manipulated piece of art feels like watching a television advertisement. I become overly skeptical and ooze cynicism to the point of usually turning it off to go make food or go for a walk. Well, being around Joey was really good for me (seriously dude, you probably didn't really know this) because it was like looking at my life through a different lense. I get so enraptured with doing doing doing that to allow someone else to "do" whiles I simply observe and listen, well I have forgotten how beautiful and important this can be. Yes, have a critical mind and eye. Look for things that work and don't, and why. But also, it's sometimes OK to just give in your trust and to let yourself be entertained.
I sometimes feel like watching a film or TV show is like shopping at WalMart, but worse. Because everything in a film or TV is designed to manipulate you: your perspective is FIXED. You are literally told where to look and what to hear - which then dictates what you think and feel. Watching a film is 2 hours of sheer submission on your part. That's why I hate camera lenses and editing a little bit.
Then again, my hate is totally unsound. Joey, again, helped me out. Because what he wrote reminded me that there is no bad or good in art - just perspectives. In school at UC Santa Cruz, there was one thing I heard from so many of my teachers, usually near the end of a term. They would tell us this: "Now that your class is finished, your learning in the world will begin. Go out and educate yourself in everything - go to local Art museums, watch shows and performances, sign up for new letters, attend concerts and rallies, watch films and read books, read everything you see, everywhere you go look at what has been created around you- that's your next big task in learning, especially as artists. You have a responsiblity to feed yourself with the art of others"
So TV and film - it's important to recognize the power of this art too, the art of the fixed camera lense and masterful effects of editing. Films and TV shows are huge works of art, the pains and hours of hundreds (if not thousands) or hardworking artists and individuals are working together to earn money and create a large collective single work of recorded art!
This is important stuff. This is the meat, to me. Humans working, collaborating for months and months, so much work and so much money, and for Why? For the purpose of effecting society through entertainment. This could be one of the greatest causes in human history, and it's an age-old one, dating back to the Greeks and their theatre.
Two more adventures:
My adventures in Gladcorn.
Recently I read online that the health foods store in Cameron Park sells Gladcorn. (I read this whilest still living in Santa Cruz). Overwhelmed with excitement, I made a special trip down there early last week to get myself a savory bag of the stuff.
To make a long adventure short, they had none. Instead, their spot on the shelf was empty, and since their boss would be out of town for the next 10 days, I wasn't to expect any new shipments until after that. I was slightly heartbroken, so I bought some chips at Food 4 Less instead.
And Finally:
My future adventures in the City of Angels.
In the beginning of September I am finally going to attempt to move to LA. Funny how much encouragement I get from family, which is much the opposite from friends back in SC. Well I think I will love that place, particularly because there's this breeze of electric ambition which dances through the air, down streets and around buildings, making you breath a little quicker. The few times I've been there, I get giddy. I mean, it's LA. And I want to act and perform more than anything else in this world.
So that's all for now. Here's a picture or two.
3 comments:
You want Gladcorn? I got you covered.
My vote's for LA too, we will come visit you. That's not a promise, it's a threat.
About film: remember this Orson Welles quote (Darin first introduced me): "A poet needs a pen, a painter a brush, and a filmmaker an army." Totally goes along with what you're saying, about art and the collective work and such.
Film and TV are great mediums, but I do have problems with both (though I guess one could with any mainstream art form). With TV, there's that selfimposed necessity people have to tune in every week or day and follow 24 hours of a storyline (like a soap opera) instead of maybe two hours like a film (though with DVDs and doing it on your own time and that sort of thing, I'm all for that.) It just can get a little silly, and overboard, the extremes to which studios go to harvest "ratings" and how (like you said) TV/film can be so manipulative . . . but not every movie is Mission Impossible 3 or Armageddon and not every TV show is 24 or Lost . . . anyway I'm just rambling and obviously there are different sides to art--obvious moneymaking schemes and those who do it for passion. Sometimes the two get mixed, like good bands with good ideals signing to a major and getting a bad contract. It's just that the integrity of it all gets diluted. *Someone* usually wants money out of it. I wrote a paper about adapting films from novels and how that process can warp the story and purpose, and how film is passive vs. reading which is active, and the moviegoer often doesn't want to read the book if a movie "version" is available-- Weird, all of this, because I really love film. More than TV, but they're pretty related.
Anyway. Yeah, move to LA! Encouragement abounds. And Gladcorn. So good--so addictive. Recently I've gotten both jalapeño and barbeque flavors too--both delicious as well.
Sounds like you're doing some cool learning about the wounds/accident stuff. One class I always wanted to take (that's supposed to be pretty hard, lots of memorizing) was Anatomy. Bodies are just amazing, aren't they.
one word about all that art stuff keeps coming up, matt, and that is: MONEY. funny how it truly is (seems to me at least) the root of all evil. really it's not money that's the problem but greed. this is a long established realization amongst us, i think, but someday i wish we could attempt to change it a little, a little more than we have/do...in the meantime all we can do is try not to rely so much on CONSUMPTION for pleasure or purpose or drive in life. film and television consumption should be done very very selectively.
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