merry christmas!

desert cold

i've decided i don't want to put my little movie up here right now. eh. over it, very ready to move on. perhaps, if you visit us we can all sit around and watch it while drinking copious amounts of RED WINE. my critique went really well though. i've never had such on point and well said criticism in my life. it was super helpful and inspiring.... so anyways, not going up right now. maybe later when i'm happier with it.

beyond all that noise, i'm in los angeles till the 6th of january. might go to peru too. thats a random new thing i learned when i got home. my family is going to peru and didn't really let me know, so i think they felt bad and invited me. my dad started an NGO in the peruvian andes to protect the watershed, because clean water is a big commodity in peru. so, maybe be back on the 6th maybe not.

i wish i could keep better track of posting on this thing. it's truly a lazy thing when i don't, which is disturbing to me. i hate laziness more than anything. "what are the two most common human traits?" "i dunno, what?" "fear and laziness"

i'd say thats probably correct when you look at all the problems we invent.

anyways, la is nice right now. i like being here, beyond being insanely broke. my very good girlfriends are here too which makes me happy. tonite is Caitlins tasting premier of her and Ola's new catering company Salty and the Swede which i'm thrilled to announce. i love swedish food... mmmsters.

take on me

today is my evaluation. poops. intense. i sit in front of 25 professors and they supposedly berate you the entire time and you're not allowed to speak. rad. tons of beer later for sure.

i'll post my little piece later this week. more pictures of star status dave later too.

xoxo

mystery cab, grave diggers and a black cauldron

too much nothing

all we've done is watch tv for the past four days. so gross. over it. being broke is such a bummer in ny. everything seems to revolve around money lately. i'm grateful for my nice apartment thats comfy n clean and has a little kitty kicking it in it. we tried to teach her how to use the toilet recently and she thoroughly denied it. sucks. its the one thing i hate about cats.

i show my film to my class tomorrow nite. we'll see how it goes. its not finished, just a very rough cut.

TRIUMPH

an adopted name

Discovering so many sentimental things lately. i think its the weather. its cold and dark out and its hardly 5 o'clock. i've spent some time thinking about the temporal nature of everything, especially relationships. things move so quick. when i turned 24, four people i knew in my life passed away. one after the other, two at a time. when i remember them, i always remember them laughing because that was when they were most beautiful. any negative parts of them i have somehow stored in a place that eventually disintegrates, and i think thats probably good, because they're gone and there's no need to judge them.
its amazing that i'm here and that i'm in this very committed relationship. its been 2 years, which is crazy to me. sometimes i look around our apartment and get scared. i don't how normal that is, but i think it goes along with the temporarlity of things. dave always says 'change is the only thing constant in our lives' and thats something i haven't thought about enough.
i ran across a friends blog and became very quiet. i've been reading it for the past hour, and its been this odd combination of feelings, generally melancholic and nostalgic. he's constantly traveling to random towns and living and working at places like the waffle house or something just to try a different sort of life. sometimes i feel like i'm wasting time, and i had a definite feeling of loss as i read his stories. i would never do what he does, but i wish i had the balls too try something like it. i'm constantly preparing for some time in the future where things will become solidified. i don't mean solidified in the sense of a house and family (please, not so generic) (not to judge those who aspire for this, however), but perhaps more about success, which is very ethereal.

---
i stepped outside this morning, into
the cold stark ocean of traffic from
the near by expressway
i found kids toys broken on the ground,
two small vintage plates
a microwave
and shoe
laying lonely in the cement, left
and forgotten.
these things bring memories
of sitting for hours, on my old porch
in shorts and tank top, put on me by my mother, who is soaking beans
in the kitchen.
i'm staring to the street, past the sidewalk that meets the lawn
boys ride by, call my name
men drive by, i avert my eyes
the women, in the neighborhood, are dragging furniture out to the street
things no longer needed,
by dwindling families
and i remember, feeling sad, for objects
whose gloomy, limp parts, broken and abused, sat waiting
for their end

control

just got back from POUGHKEEPSIE, NY, population 30050. we spent a couple nights up there working on the last of our crews short films. she made a period piece where a woman decides to lay down and die in a grave she dug herself. pretty ambitious, but i think the film will look great.

i saw this before i left and have been thinking a lot about it from a photograpy stand point. its fantastic. so i recommend it - its still playing here at east village cinemas.



back to school on monday. booooo.... i like production period the most.

the analogy of contrary

yesterday, we went to MOMA for the first time since we've moved here. There are certain moments where I become incredibly excited when I remember I live here. Its a feeling of endless possiblities and endless things to do. Thinking back to like 3 years ago when I just thought about NY as a far off notion, I had this incredible fear that I would be beyond broke, living terribly in some horrendous, loud apartment. I guess I just was scared of moving to such a huge and overwhelming place. So far, I have yet to be overwhelmed in a negative way. Every type of person lives here. Every type of artist lives here. You could go 12 blocks and be in a totally different world. anyways, i've had some days off recently and i've been able to appreciate everything a little more. dave and i walk for hours and find new places and see new people and things every corner we turn.

Seurat is on exhibition at the MOMA. I've loved his drawings for a long time. His tiny dots make up an environment where the subjects and the background move in and out of each other. they look like high contrast film stills from afar and molecular biology up close.below are a couple of nice ones, but nothing like the exhibit. google searches didnt render much.




seurat said...

Art is harmony. Harmony is the analogy of contrary and of similar elements of tone, of color and of line, conditioned by the dominate key, and under the influence of a particular light, in gay, calm, or sad combinations.

just as you are

i've always loved this dedication john steinbeck wrote for his novel east of eden. i thought of it today while coming home with a box of Veniero's which is the best italian bakery in the east village. awww mannn... akiva and i went crazy and bought a couple pounds of pastries after drinking beers at an old man bar adam likes ( i like it too though).
beyond the happiness of egg cream, i'm bummed i didn't get any stills from my shoot beyond the ones i posted below. my camera battery died which Never happens. but i'll import some later as i'm editing. tomorrow i'm on set for another crew member. ho hum. i'm ready for the thrills and kills of high speed action films. wish we were making one. below is the sentimentality i was talking about above that Steinbeck thought of while hanging out in central california, near the coast. i wonder who pat is....

Dear Pat,
You came upon me carving some kind of little figure out of wood and you said, "Why don't you make something for me?"
I asked you what you wanted, and you said, "A box."
"What for?"
"To put things in."
"What things?"
"Whatever you have," you said.
Well, here's your box. Nearly everything I have is in it, and it is not full. Pain and excitement are in it, and feeling good or bad and evil thoughts and good thoughts- the pleasure of design and some despair and the indescribable joy of creation.
And on top of these are all the gratitude and love I have for you.
And still, the box is not full.
John

stay with me

the reckoning

i shoot my film this weekend. goodbye till mon! i'll be sure to have some stills of my beautiful actresses sunbathing on an amazing rooftop under the bk bridge. xo till then ps i love this song. not sure how to stream it on here right now, maybe later but here's the link Robert Wyatt's Just As You Are its my newest inspiration. reminds me of cassavettes

more than this

makes me happy

R.I.P. SIMON

one of the most loving creatures i've ever met.

good health

HEALTH is officially one of my new favorite bands. so so good. i guess last nite was the last official mall appearance. it was sad. they're amazing. the kids here go crazy for them.

ps i love sf reunions. i invite you personally to come.

plotting and waiting

we're in what's called "production period" through November 12th. It's been cool so far, except a few set backs here and there. I was the director of photography on the first film we just finished last weekend. basically, our class is broken into several crews of 5 or 6 and each of the crew members make their film with the rest of the peeps as crew. dp'ing was pinche stressful, especially because it was film. i could have done a better job (i think) if it was video, but i guess that's obvious. the thing that started stressing me out was exposure and focus, the two most important things a dp should be exact with.
right now i'm doing preproduction for my shoot thats happening on the 27th and 28th of oct. OMG. i have great actresses though and i think its going to be ok. plus, dave's gonna be the ill craft service/pa guy. the only issue is locations - i've had a hard time getting permission for a restaurant front and for this roof top. so, we're gonna sneak the rooftop which is a scary thing. i would hate to get kicked off mid-shoot.

ANYWAYS this is the town i want to visit asap. VALPAIRISO, CHILE

Non Abita Più Qui

wish you were here!

CLOSE UP

this is the technique bob nickson showed us for planning out shots. he's our producing teacher.

inspired by...

this is just for yucks

hit and quit it

our camera tech teacher says hit it and quit it all the time. my directing teacher says "efficient" when he doesn't like your work. so, now we say it like twenty times a day when we're shooting.
we shot last weekend in the rain. it was crazy because we were in what felt like a hurricane for a minute. we shot these basketball courts though, and it turned out beautiful. the same day, we headed to a friends roof and got the rest of our shots down. the city looked amazing after the rain.

birds

soy cansada

soooooo tired right now. i can't stand it... it sucks because we don't have tv. but there's this whole arguement as to why we don't have tv. it sucked up most of my sf life, what with Damian's amazing set up (42 inch flatscreen, every channel possible, surround sound, ps3). so, now we download tv shows and watch our movies over and over again. its kinda dumb actually. i'm thinking i might buy cable while dave's gone. especially since i mostly just spend time on the internet now versus in front of the tv. i'm pinche creatively tapped out from school, i'm not gonna come home and paint a picture and compose three songs on the guitar (this is what we thought we'd do with our free time). the thing is, when you're in a relationship it can get way too comfortable just watching a shitload of tv and movies together, drinking/smoking and going to bed. i really think that can lead to a downfall. so... i guess its all about balance.
i'm working on my script right now. its a story about two best girfriends who understand each other's needs/wants tacitally. one of them has a new boyfriend who has zero personality and both realize they are in love with each other through a series of interactions. we'll see. the assignment is 4 minutes, no dialogue, all exteriors. this is what we have to focus on for the entirety of this semester. would you like to audition for Emma, Sara or Jason? god. i'm so cheesy. its so hard to avoid turning everything i do in a bad levi's commercial.

kisses are a better fate
than wisdom
-e.e. cummings

homies came to visit

the wit of the staircase

i was so sad to hear about jeremy blake and theresa duncan's suicides. i have always loved jeremy's work and followed him since punch drunk love and beck's sea changes. i was supposed to see him speak back in 2005 but never made it to the sfmoma that evening.... i think i had to work a late shift at BAVC then, so dumb. that exhibit was fantastic though, and i remember thinking how ahead of his time he was.
the church of scientology is by far one of the most bizaar and honestly scariest religious inventions created in the US. Its connections to the conservative right, to hollywood and to politics and money are, i guess pretty normal sounding. but it becomes creepiest when you know someone who's actually getting sucked into it. and by sucked, i mean completely and totally. once you have a toe in the door you are commited for life. my friend caitlin told me how her mom came to LA in the late seventies and had a small run in with the church. she said that upon realizing that she was not interested in joining they threatened her by saying that she would never, ever work another day in los angeles or california and that they would "crush her" by killing her reputation. well, she ended up escaping through a bathroom window in the church. crazy. i have another friend who went through whats called "purif" where u purify yourself until they decide you are cleansed of your sins - or toxins. you have to spend 5 hours a day in a sauna until you are pure. this friend spent 44 days straight in the sauna. this just doesn't sound correct to me.... jesus. well, as long as they have an ambassador like this guy things should just keep being prosperous for them.

sorry...

i lost my camera cord apparently and now cant get fotos off my pinche camera. thus, the long pause between posts. its also been pretty hectic up in here. i started class this week. I'm taking 8 classes! Thats fucking crazy! WTF are they thinking! Plus, a few other informational/tech sessions thrown in there for good measure. So, my weeks are completely full and my weekends are full with production exercises. This weekend i'm shooting a scene within a shot kind like this:

sooooo... thats whats going on. I'll post more later - fotos of some good homies that came thru... our house warming... etc.

con carino, t

thanks to maine

un petite monstre

new apartment and a new little beast

alumni.

all of these dudes came from the school i'm going to start in 2 weeks.... its stressing me out.
martin scorsese
spike lee
joel coen
morgan freeman
ryan fleck - half nelson
johnathan dayton and valerie fari - little miss sunshine
ang lee
jim jarmusch
susan seidelmen
oliver stone

there's a bunch more i don't feel like writing. its really exciting ... but i guess its still a man's world

i was going to put a bunch of trailers for some great films that have come out of the program - but here's just one of my favorites.


goodfellas

walking aimless

dave's in Maine till tomorrow. He's been gone for a week... its so wierd to be here alone. It's not even like I feel very lonley. It's wierd here because you're so constantly surrounded by people and things and noises that you don't feel alone. But I guess that would be different if I didn't have a guy coming back home to me. I have done basically a whole lot of nothing this week. I walked a lot. I walked through my neighborhood into this awesome neighborhood called Fort Greene. It's super diverse there - every race is there kicking it in rad restaurants and bars. Then I walked back down Atlantic Ave and there's this amazing cupcake bakery there where the cupcakes are just about the size of your face. Then over into a really wealthy part of brooklyn called Brooklyn Heights. There's these huge old mansion brownstones and trees and gardens and they sit along the water. Then the next day I went into Manhattan and walked up in Gramercy Park to look at this couch we're thinking about buying. We had this shitty experience wtih russian movers and now I'm all sensitive to russian intensity. Once I went into the shop and the Russian sales dude with a chin strap and pony tale started semi-yelling at me about buying the couch, I went into defense mode and ran out.
Akiva and I met up and I ate the bomb bagel and lox here:


and i watched this french film called Dans Paris at the IFC. It was good.... made me feel like I should probably live in Paris for a little while. This is not a new idea. I'll hopefully get there in a few years. There's this new series they're doing at the IFC next week called the New Talkies. I dunno... its this "new" wave of young filmmakers that use like zero money on their budgets and make really self conscious twenty-something films about 'coming of age' and work and relationships and stuff. It's totally a good subject and I actually like the sensibility and the look of the films. I just feel like the people making the films remind me of the same kids who dominated the editing rooms and theaters and stuff back in college. They're not quite gamers or thespians, thats harsh, but they're totally liberal art school nerdy white kids. Thats not a bad thing... I can't really explain what it is about them that bugs me. Maybe its partially that there isn't any diversity in their filmmaking. There doesn't have to be ... WHATEVER. here's the trailer for one of them that looks ok.


Tonite, maybe bbq at schuylers... I'm not sure. I'm ready for dave to be back. Everything is still in boxes ... transitional limbo continues.