Tuesday, November 13, 2007

Heroes

addicted. novels and all. shit.

Facebook stole my trivia so here I am.

I'm currently on late day number 8th of trying to write a simple 700 word essay about a topic that I clearly understand but just do not want to finish.
I wonder what happens if you try to blog in spoken word format.
just saw ani difranco franco franco last week. I got to play the role of the guy standing out front saying hi to everyone he knows on the way in but is too cool, too cool, to walk inside yet. Like he's waiting for that special person to come in but makes sure he says hi to everyone else on the way in. Fearing rain and snow I waited, waited, waited. Tiny cubes rolling down my cheeks. Hands in sleeves feeding out to find the warmest nook in my pants. Man would probably be a happier species if testicles emitted heat.
Maybe not.
Well the show was fantastic, I tried to be a disrespectful asshole and take photos during ani's show on my cell phone. Before the insults are slung, I did ensure that no light or reflective light was emitted from my position. I mostly resorted to shooting between the backs of seats or from deep within the sleeve (with no flash of course). I assumed I knew the buttons on my phone well enough to operate blindly, and I paid for it. Instead of 35 photos, I had 1 maybe 3 if blurry people in the top right corner count. they don't.
Before I leave, (i know I'll be back in about 20 or so as this paper just sucks) I must state my position in Facebook trivia since ads have plagued the applilcation and possibly ruined my procrastinatory fruitions.
Movie Trivia - Rank 6-8 (shifted daily) out of roughly 19000
Addicted to Heroes Trivia - Rank 149 out of roughly 189, 000 (heartbreaker)
fuck you facebook, but goddamn you still have scrabble and backgammon. I will return.

Monday, April 02, 2007

On a lighter note

After tonight's shift at the curling club, I DO NOT HAVE TO VACUUM THE CURLING CLUB ANYMORE!!!!!
The weekend by the way?
thursday night all nighter working on Jutra
continue working all day friday
4:30pm start work at curling club, turns into back-breaker as I set up for Toronto Curling Tournament following day
2:00am - get home, eat cheese, banana, chocolate, peanut butter and orange juice
6:00am - finally head to bed after not wanting to sleep, fucking facebook, and general love for killing time on the internet
10:00am - wake up late for work at
10:30am - start work in a day that was so vile, and so fucking POORLY SCHEDULED that by end of day, I count up remaining hours left on sunday and tuesday shift, calculate total pay left to work for and seriously, seriously consider quitting, telling every asshole at the club to fuck off and walking home with a mile-wide grin on my face.
8:00pm - finish shift of death
9:30pm-get home, lie on couch, talk to bex on phone until I ultimately fall asleep around
10:20pm - zzzzzzzzz
1:45pm - wakey wakey eggs and bakey
2:30pm-work until
10:30pm - get home at
11:00pm - where I sit around for 5 hours eating, talking on the phone, and cutting my beloved essay topic to shreds until I reach the post below.
I'd love to just say fuck it to all of this and just walk away, making my life so boundlessly happy........but we all know what happened to Lester Burnham.
And as much as I hate what I'm in right now.....

I don't want to be Lester Burnham.

So it's come to this.

This paper started out as a study of Claude Jutra's early career, the opposing viewpoints that he consistently found himself between, and the childlike point of view that emerges in each of films. My discovery was that the childlike view relates his opinion and stance on all of these tensions surrounding him. I brought forth evidence of other critics recognizing his childlike view, i then brought forth the mammoth of all evidence, Jutra himself stating his quality as a 'perpetual child,' and then launched in to my theory on how this view came about.
When he was a kid, it was the family tradition to become a doctor, so despite finishing medical school to please his family, he had always loved film. My theory is that when he was going through medical school, he was only able to be himself and live out his days of youth when he was having fun making films, thereby attaching this relation of his childhood to movies, and his extreme joy in making movies that make him feel like a kid. The guy just wants to live out the childhood that was taken from him by medical textbooks.
While providing basic biographical linking, we then launch into A Chairy Tale, which hilights this childlike nature of his as I believe he was responsible for the direction and all of the movements within the movie, Mclaren was simply the genius who made it all seem real.....and maybe doing some directing. We see he's a kid, and likes to be a kid. Then we jump into his days at the NFB, showing the tensions of being French in an English company, being in Unit B - the favourite child of the NFB while everyone was jealous, then being in cinema direct vs candid eye, then as a filmmaker influenced by Jean Rouch within the cinema direct. While along the way touching on, being the only arts lover in his family to accept art as a career, everyone else were doctors and nurses, and also hinting on Jutra's supposed homosexuality, some confirm, some deny. It's a grey area, but still pretty relevant.
From this point, we are to jump into a view of The Devil's Toy illustrating all the problems of the NFB, and a look at Niger, Young Republic showing the Rouch influence. This is the step that I am currently at. What follows is what has been decided upon, no more than 20 minutes ago.
We then take a look at his place in the Quiet Revolution of Quebec, he was a seperatist and was extremely passionate about the nation of Quebec and the protection of it's culture. We show his fears of the invasion of american culture, the quebecois being degraded by the English, and how quebec, while a product of France, has made a clear and separate identiy for itself. We will look at his place in the French New Wave, a very sturdy topic as the man actually wrote in Cahiers Du Cinema........jealous, but then show how he is seperate from that movement due to his documentary background. Final tension begin fiction vs. documentary, Quebec seperatism and english vs. french.
We then round the bases and head for home with a brief view of how this childlike view has been received by other critics, why I think my view is better, and a nice meatty conclusion. Sounds good right? Well that's just the start, originally I was to include in this, but have now had to cut, due to a) I am running out of time and b) I DO NOT WANT TO FUCKING DO THIS ANYMORE. Here are the cut topics:
-A look at A Tout Prendre, his biopic, the best candidate for the french new wave and fiction/doc debate
-A look at Wow, his feature length film about THE YOUTH OF QUEBEC AND WHAT HE THINKS OF THEM!!!! my god this one hurt, but shit, I had over 20 pages of notes on this film and including it will mean that I never finish this paper.
-His role within the counter-culture
-his feelings toward the failing seperatist movement
-looking at the films
Perpetual Movement, the Madman of Jean-Jeunes Lake, Youth and Music (ouch), Cine Boum (double ouch, about the pressure placed on filmmakers from the gov't and about cultural censorship), Knowing to Learn (about the introduction of electronic teaching aids in public schools....just shoot me now) and Mon Oncle Antoine(a film about a youth growing up in Quebec.......actually kind of glad that one was gone).

SWEET JESUS!!!!! Why did this whole thing have to drag on forever, only to be torn to shreds in the last night as I watch this paper tower higher above me, gaining power through fear and stress (hehe, its now 4:20), as every other class seems to burst into flames around me. I did not go to school for 3 weeks, because I just could not pull myself away from finishing this damn thing. There's a chance, this paper won't even be excepted, but we must try or else the low, low mark in this class will decimate the 95 that I have been working my ass off for in Astronomy. I want that mark so bad so that I can finally.....maybe....even get my CGPA up high enough to become, wait for it, a cinema major. Or better yet, a cinema specialist, since that is what I am currently working towards, and screwing myself over for, if i never get in.

Friday, March 30, 2007

Workin Double Time

I'm currently trying to finish the Claude Jutra paper and hand it in by 4pm so that I can make it to work for 4:30. It's still possible, if I somehow just write like a madman, and edit in a single go. So I'm still hopeful, I could probably get downtown and then to work if I leave here by 3:40 which gives me just under 3 hours......to write about
Jean Rouch
The Devil's Toy
the Quiet Revolution
Quebec - U.S.A. ou l'invasion pacifique
French New Wave Filmmaking
the youth of the counter-culture
Wow
The reception of Claude Jutra as a filmmaker
my views of Claude Jutra
Conclusion
Edit
Reference
Format
Print
Staple
Deliver
Collapse.
Yeah, I'm starting to think this just isn't happening, especially with the blogging go on. But goddamn, this laptop business is really really cool. I never understood the coolness of having a laptop until this very instant. What could be better than the warm battery of the laptop warming my legs as I type? The warm battery of the laptop warming my legs in the cold bathroom as I watch Youtube on the throne. It's an all new low, but just think of the irony. I can watch shit.......
Good Riddance post, oh so much writing to do

A Radiohead Reason

As a brilliant follow up to the debacle of Sir Shitbag that happened a little while ago, Radiohead was recently asked if they're upcoming album is to be released through Starbucks, like Sir Shitbag. They're response to question "...dismissed as "completely untrue"...."
I knew I was on to something when I made them my Favourite Modern band. Way to go boys, keep this world from crumbling.

Full Article...which doesn't really say more but good on ya!

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

In Accordance with Canadian Content Regulations

Finally finished all the research for the Jutra paper. It's supposed to be 15 pages long and get this....I have 56+ pages of notes!!!! I researched the hell out of this, and all I want is the outline to include the phrase "Please hand in research notes attached." like they did in the old high-school days. I want to flaunt! Instead I'm searching over the internet for the name of a Jesse Cook, which you will see I found, and adding many many objects to my Amazon wish list. Here's to pulling another all nighter. Don't be surprised to find many more posts from now until 6pm tomorrow.
Jesse Cook's Mind Boggling "Rattle and Burn" - How the guitar does not burst into flames is beyond me.

Friday, March 23, 2007

I Really Wish It Hadn't Come To This



Sir Paul has become Sir Shitbag
recently. I felt bad for the guy after his relationship with Mills didn't work out, even watching a bit of Dancing with the Stars and loathing her on the inside a little. So much for those comforting feelings that I once shared with the Walrus. Around 10pm last night, I found out that the bass player for the legendary band the beatles, had signed onto a new label. Intriguing. Was it a personal project, or was he feeling trendy and wanted to start something with the likes of Timbaland? Nope. Sad Sad Nope. McCartney has signed onto the Hear Music label which is owned exclusively by.....Starbucks Coffee. Citing intenet piracy, and VIDEO GAMES !?!?!, as the main culprits behind the decline in CD sales. Number 1, when was the last time you were mowing through endless fields of soon to be corpses, only to start syncing up your assassinations to the opening of Live and Let Die, or even cruised around San Andreas listening to Norwegian Wood? Number 2, perhaps your CD sales are slipping, ol' chap, because YOU are slipping......ol' chap. Had the time to run through Chaos and Creation last summer, aside from the single, wasn't much substance. You are not the Beatles, or Wings, you are the remnants of the greatest band. And once more with feeling, band. Number 3, the big one. Why in the fuck do you need more money anyway? Ringo got by with gigs and full time work as a conductor. I seriously hope this is some scheme of your by robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, but until you come to your wits, I'm afraid I must draw the big red line.

Thursday, March 22, 2007

T-Minus 11 hrs 22 mins til submission

It's 6:30am. This will be the third consecutive 6:30 I have sat through in this computer chair (AMs and PMs). I'm currently approaching the 40th hour of my ongoing day that began on Tuesday when I woke up at 3pm. If I can last until 12:01am tonight, which seems to be a likier goal as the minutes tick past, I will have woken up on Tuesday and gone to bed on Friday. It's like I'm a forest firefighter or something. Yet no trees saved, just cereal eaten, information downloaded and time wasted. It's truly an amazing experience to be part of when you sit and watch the human mind keep itself busy for 35+ hours, and never accomplish anything. Thursday's always been my work day, and besides the Bex arrives tonight. The ultimate incentive of all motivators. The moment I finish these two damn projects, I am buying myself a video game SOOOOO damn quickly. Guitar Hero 2, God of War 2, Killzone, Tony Hawk Project 8, Burnout: Dominator or the highly intriguing Vice City Stories? If the slow motion trick simulator is really true in Tony Hawk, I don't have enough pot yet. If I find my agenda and see that there is another paper due next week, God of War 2, Vice City and Killzone are all out. Narratives are the main enemy when trying to limit your game time. So I'll probably end up getting Guitar Hero 2, unless Burnout is way cheaper or has the mother-of-all new features that I could not think of, because lets face it. Burnout 4 was flawless. Aside from just making the game bigger, not much else aside from hardware and software improvements. Ah well, that is such a very very long way away. Astronomy here I come.




Was to be posted at 3:30am Mar 22, 2007. Yet got distracted by LPs online.

Middle of the 2nd night and still going strong. If only I could say the same about my work getting done. Still astounded at the strength of my desire to procrastinate. Now that I have mastered the task of researching, I can genuinely get lost in a website that I may have gone to, even if I wasn't stressed for school. Apparently I like making lists and putting lots of pictures up. And losing hours of my life by not backing up what I'm doing and consequently losing it all. Its a bad habit.