Start the Machine

I haven't posted in five days.  But now I have.  This should tide me over for a couple more days until I come up with something interesting to write about.  But now you're all saying, "But Jon why don't you just wait to write until you have something worthwhile instead of wasting our time?"  I'm not sure.  But I felt the need to update.

Manchester Orchestra.  May 10.  Simple Math.

this blog is now worth your time.  You're welcome.

Funny how it seems we never get anything done
until those final seconds when we're staring down the gun

the end

Now that I've stopped crying

well....that was a heart-wrenching little post.  Let me sum up that post in emotionless prose.  Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is a very good movie.  The end.

Blessed are the Forgetful

Ever since I first watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, I said it was one of my favorite movies, even though I'd only seen it once.  I was never quite sure, though, if it was legal to call a movie one of your favorites if you'd only seen it once.  Today, I finally saw it again after at least a two year break.  And it lived up to its billing after one view.  I still love this movie.  The idea is original, it features Jim Carrey, and it possesses that perfect dosage of reality with a fantastical side.  The scene where Joel and Clementine are in the beach house while the tide and sand comes in as the house crumbles blew my mind the first time I saw it because it was so...I don't know how to describe it; the only way to understand it is to watch the movie.  Not just the scene, the whole movie.

The movie plays through Joel's memories of Clementine in reverse, with life afterwards as bookends to the winding road through regrets and reminisces.  The movie rummages through Joel's brain and tosses what it finds into your hands for you to cling to as Joel lets go.  I get sucked into Joel's perspective because I can't help but see myself in him, more than I'm comfortable with. What exactly I see, I'm not sure, but he often reminds me of me. Meanwhile, he's so helpless, so cautionary, such a victim in his mind.  His frailty feels familiar.  His struggle is so aching.  Its as if Jeff Buckley's "Hallelujah" alone could have been the soundtrack.

Taglines describe it as romantic, comical, and poignant.  Poignant, yes.  The other two? Depends how you define them.

Tragic.

Tragic is the way I feel when I watch this movie.  Because I think this movie is a tragedy.  Not a weeping demolition of the human spirit  tragedy, but something else.  Reaching out for something as it's slipping away.   Desperation and fear and insecurity and helplessness quietly sneaking in and stowing away in your basement. Cutting down a thick oak tree to plant a seed in its place.   Watching a heart being broken in reverse, from its final intertwined string being pulled out to the first unwinding of its delicate lacing.  So poetic, so sad.

So hopeful.  Joel and Clementine duke it out in reality and his memories, but at the end they try to hold on as long as they can.  After the truth comes out, the new seed seems to be smothered.  But after everything, they still hold on to the vacant space where their love used to be.

Animation Inspiration

As I wait for my friends to respond to my textes, I will update ya'll about my evening.  I studied for Western Civ, which, as you might expect, lived up to all the expectations of something so awesome.  Then I joined several fellows in a band called Amos Slade to play some songs.  The bassist and I are on the same worship team, and he asked if I could play some lead parts for them.  They're pretty new, so they had a couple songs they had worked out, so I hopped in and played a little and listened a lot as they fleshed out their stuff.  The songwriting and song constructioning, in my opinion, is really good, and all three guys are very musically inclined, which makes the songs pretty tight, both music-wise and coolness-wise.  It was fun to jam with them as they begin to spread their wings and fly.  Oh wait, you don't understand that.  Inside joke already.  Awesome.  Now Trevor is getting very nervous.

Seriously, you should check them out.  Very good.  Click on tracks for music.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Amos-Slade/148977365158269

An Infuriated Discourse of my Post-Rearrangement Abhorring of our Dormitory

OH MY WORD I HATE OUR NEW ROOM SET UP SO MUCH I AM SO ANGRY AND UPSET MY ROOMMATE THINKS ITS GOOD BUT I HATE IT SO MUCH I AM LITERALLY SO UPSET THAT I HAVE LITERALLY FORGOTTEN HOW TO PUNCTUATE AND I TURNED ON CAPS LOCK FOR EFFECT SO THAT EVERYONE KNOWS HOW ANGRY I AM BECAUSE OF MY ROOMMATE I CAN'T WAIT TILL HE READS THIS SO HE KNOWS HOW MUCH I TOTALLY don't really care, as long as I have my desk space and get to see his lovely face while I'm doing homework.

Seven 8 Nine

I had 49 page views yesterday.  I'm a little bit freaked out about that.  I'm not really sure how I got that many on one day, since I don't usually get that many in a week.  Maybe it's because blogging is the new cool thing to do.  At least, in a little bit of my friends circle.  It's spreading like wildfire.  I'd like to think I started the trend.  But that still doesn't answer how I got that many views.  I'm not trying to brag, I'm just puzzled.


I'm also confused as to why I have views from Russia, China, Slovenia, Singapore, and other countries which I have no contact with.  Search Engines?




Or spies?