radfrac_archive_full (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
radfrac_archive_full) wrote2008-07-11 10:30 am
radfrac_archive_full) wrote2008-07-11 10:30 am
Entry tags:
Gothic dreams, films, flowers
Dream: A postapocalyptic but relatively populous future -- communities the size of small towns. There was a bit with trying to negotiate getting out of a bathtub amongst a group of bio-men, including a guy named Jerry who had just had gall-bladder surgery right before the Collapse. Towards the end of the dream, he fell out of a theatre balcony, but because everyone knew him, they caught him.
Lessons of community, etc.
Watched Exotica twice yesterday for the Gothic Film and Literature course. I've never seen a movie that so satisfyingly replies to analysis. It can't be emptied. Well, it can, but it won't be by me.
The first viewing was in class. The professor put the closed captions on.
Sunlight coming in around the roller blinds made the visuals even murkier than Egoyan intended. The first time I saw the movie, it was also supplementarily occluded -- there was a flaw in the film that sort of danced around as the titles spooled past.
Because I have done a little closed captioning, I noticed that these were slightly odd. They included more sounds than is usual for captioning. [Seatbelt unclipping] [zipper]. This is a matter of style, of course, but I was taught to minimize sound captions -- you assume your viewer can infer most information.
Noticing this emphasis made me pay more attention to the sounds, which must have been the professor's intention. Whenever we see the club Exotica, we hear a siren. The soundtrack is often composed of two very different threads -- winding singing against formal piano.
The first time I saw the film, I was about 20 and enjoyed its formalism (always in love with formalism) but missed nearly everything subtle about it. Now I'm more aware of my ignorance about film. I've started to try to think about its visual language, but I'd given no thought to auditory formalism, so this was a joy.
Also a joy: I went back to Cafe Philosophy on Wednesday. People do hold forth, but they are mostly interesting, once you (well, I) get past the atheist's elitism about when to mention Dog -- and when they are not interesting, I have a chance to Examine My Own Responses. Always useful. The topic was head vs. heart, which I wasn't hopeful about, since it seemed to invite all kinds of muddy thinking. Yet, without working through any obvious evolution, at the end of the night several striking things were said, one after another, like gifts. I wrote them down furiously. I haven't checked back to see if they still awe me.
Lessons of community, etc.
I only spoke once -- a small logical curio wherein I Proved that reason did not exist for the purposes of personal decisions. "Well-reasoned," he said, but he had a broader idea of reason in mind -- something collective, maybe even something like consensus. I would have liked to hear about it, but we didn't get that far, or that was as far as he'd gotten.
Next week: Creation/destruction.
Wednesday was also the night![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
inlandsea, stitchinmyside and I climbed the stairs to J's apartment to see her night-blooming cereus. She left a voicemail at 9:30 -- "Come pay court to the Queen of the Night," -- we got the message at ten -- we hurried over to her attic apartment, all panels and angles and funny corners, wonderful -- and saw the cereus, green body coiled over the radiator in the kitchen alcove, broad leaves splayed, blooms like --
what could it be like?
Like the moon was a moth the size of both your hands together, and she and her mate had come to rest in the dark shining window. Like you'd brought your hands together underwater and they fused into one soft creature with an anemone heart, and then, lit from within, suddenly turned white-hot as ropes of glass pulled from a kiln.
inlandsea noticed that its smell was lilylike, and it was, but not as sweet, with a salty, almost pungent note at the finish. And the buds! Like purses of blind snakes.
Now it is Friday. This is what I have planned: Rest. Study. Haircut. (Please. Please. Haircut.) Class. Lindabeet's Herbal Garden Party. Maybe the Urbanite event at the Art Gallery, if I feel that lively. (Atomic Vaudeville is performing, I think, and you get to go through the Warhol exhibit and see one of his films. 8pm, if you're interested. $12.)
{rf}
Lessons of community, etc.
Watched Exotica twice yesterday for the Gothic Film and Literature course. I've never seen a movie that so satisfyingly replies to analysis. It can't be emptied. Well, it can, but it won't be by me.
The first viewing was in class. The professor put the closed captions on.
Sunlight coming in around the roller blinds made the visuals even murkier than Egoyan intended. The first time I saw the movie, it was also supplementarily occluded -- there was a flaw in the film that sort of danced around as the titles spooled past.
Because I have done a little closed captioning, I noticed that these were slightly odd. They included more sounds than is usual for captioning. [Seatbelt unclipping] [zipper]. This is a matter of style, of course, but I was taught to minimize sound captions -- you assume your viewer can infer most information.
Noticing this emphasis made me pay more attention to the sounds, which must have been the professor's intention. Whenever we see the club Exotica, we hear a siren. The soundtrack is often composed of two very different threads -- winding singing against formal piano.
The first time I saw the film, I was about 20 and enjoyed its formalism (always in love with formalism) but missed nearly everything subtle about it. Now I'm more aware of my ignorance about film. I've started to try to think about its visual language, but I'd given no thought to auditory formalism, so this was a joy.
Also a joy: I went back to Cafe Philosophy on Wednesday. People do hold forth, but they are mostly interesting, once you (well, I) get past the atheist's elitism about when to mention Dog -- and when they are not interesting, I have a chance to Examine My Own Responses. Always useful. The topic was head vs. heart, which I wasn't hopeful about, since it seemed to invite all kinds of muddy thinking. Yet, without working through any obvious evolution, at the end of the night several striking things were said, one after another, like gifts. I wrote them down furiously. I haven't checked back to see if they still awe me.
Lessons of community, etc.
I only spoke once -- a small logical curio wherein I Proved that reason did not exist for the purposes of personal decisions. "Well-reasoned," he said, but he had a broader idea of reason in mind -- something collective, maybe even something like consensus. I would have liked to hear about it, but we didn't get that far, or that was as far as he'd gotten.
Next week: Creation/destruction.
Wednesday was also the night
inlandsea, stitchinmyside and I climbed the stairs to J's apartment to see her night-blooming cereus. She left a voicemail at 9:30 -- "Come pay court to the Queen of the Night," -- we got the message at ten -- we hurried over to her attic apartment, all panels and angles and funny corners, wonderful -- and saw the cereus, green body coiled over the radiator in the kitchen alcove, broad leaves splayed, blooms like --what could it be like?
Like the moon was a moth the size of both your hands together, and she and her mate had come to rest in the dark shining window. Like you'd brought your hands together underwater and they fused into one soft creature with an anemone heart, and then, lit from within, suddenly turned white-hot as ropes of glass pulled from a kiln.
inlandsea noticed that its smell was lilylike, and it was, but not as sweet, with a salty, almost pungent note at the finish. And the buds! Like purses of blind snakes.Now it is Friday. This is what I have planned: Rest. Study. Haircut. (Please. Please. Haircut.) Class. Lindabeet's Herbal Garden Party. Maybe the Urbanite event at the Art Gallery, if I feel that lively. (Atomic Vaudeville is performing, I think, and you get to go through the Warhol exhibit and see one of his films. 8pm, if you're interested. $12.)
{rf}