So much to do so little time.
-Novel
-Notes for class
-Parts and rehearsal for Christmas Spectacular
-Learning lines from Hamlet and blocking the scene for class
-Lying on my desk in despair
-Drinking tea
-Going to World Market to get more tea
-Having more despair
-Laying on the ground twitching
-Writing plot for running another session of Deadlands
-Trying to eat the stuff the school calls "food"
-Doctor Who
-Poems
-Despair
-Sleep?
-Exercise
-Trying to thank God for tolerating my ever increasing boughts of stupidity
Monday, November 8, 2010
Quote of the Day:
"Whenever a man does a thoroughly stupid thing, it is always from the noblest motives.”
-Oscar Wilde
-Oscar Wilde
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Things That go Bump in the Night
I have always had an interest in the dark and horror.
I believe the first movie with horror elements I saw that I latched onto was "Aliens" by James Cameron which was a sequel to the classic Ridley Scott film "Alien". Unlike the God-awful "Alien versus Predator" franchise which I believe is almost as bad if not actually worse than "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", "Alien" explored the isolation of space, the horror of a parasitic alien that not just feeds off of humans but uses us as a means for incubating their young and had one of the few strong female roles in sci-fi that isn't overly sexual in Ellen Ripley (which also launched Sigourney Weaver's career into the limelight).
The movie "Aliens" took the premise established and introduced a large contingent of egotistical space marines who upheld the popular myth that everything can be fixed with technology and superior firepower just to have almost all of them systematically slaughtered by creatures who merely operated on basic instinct.
It is weird to think that something as simple as those ideas became a multi million dollar franchise that practically any self-respecting geek is at least somewhat familiar with.
Besides the idea of hostile aliens and government conspiracies (that love was grown by the likes of TV shows such as "The X-Files", "Torchwood" and the like)my next big love in the horror genre came about with my exposure to George A. Romero's "Dead" series. "Night of the Living Dead" both the 1968 and 1990 and "Dawn of the Dead" were instrumental in establishing my love of scathing social commentary with dark plots that captured your imagination and showed that no matter what the circumstances that humans themselves are indeed the worst monsters to inhabit this planet.
Romero's ability to run counter cultural themes (having strong black males leads as not only heroes but typically the most established and balanced of the characters during the racially divisive 60's and 70's) while creating a monster that is essentially human with no moral restraint, taking and consuming with no notion of "right" or "wrong".
This theme was taken and expanded upon in the classic 'Dawn of the Dead' (the 1978 original, not the 2004 bastardization by Zack Synder) to where the zombie plague was spreading and a group of humans took shelter in a in door mall. The literal and metaphorical references to the growing consumerism that dominated the 80's was readily apparent and Romero managed to mix the grotesque with the profound.
The next step in my progress down this rather morbid, yet fun path is being exposed to the Evil Dead trilogy which introduced me to the amazing team of Sam Rami, Ted Rami, Bruce Campbell and the rest of their Michigan based team which created an awkward yet lovable series of horror films which merged dark humor with the mythos of HP Lovecraft (Necronomicon, anyone?) whose writings I would not read until I was in the midst of my graduate studies.
After these the only real movies to grab my attention in recent years in the same manner has been "Shaun of the Dead", John Carpenter's "The Thing", "Blade Runner" and the rock opera "Repo! The Genetic Opera!". A very diverse group of films mixed with nihilistic dark humor, horror and most important to me - a reminder that humanity is small, very small and even with my faith I think humanity forgets how remarkably fragile we are and how unique life on earth is in comparison to the rest of the known universe.
Once I started reading Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series and exploring the table top games of "Deadlands" and "Call of Cthulhu" I found this strange fascination with how humanity and the horror seem to go hand in hand.
Almost all of the Christian fiction I have had this misfortune to read is horribly dull, very two dimensional and completely sanitized for consumption within the Christian Cultural Bubbles.
This is a shame.
I believe this must come from the overly puritan roots that influenced a lot of churches and theological thought because once one starts actually reading the Bible from the idea that it is an actual historical document set in a particular time and place over thousands of years one starts to see how dark humanity is.
Sort of like Lovecraft and King actually.
You have murder, rape, genocide, horrifying plagues and so much variation just in Genesis alone, so much more over the rest of the time period recorded in the Bible.
Is it because humans are debase that we seek entertainment that reflects this or is it a means of drawing these horrors out of us so we can openly talk about those things we try to hide from?
I think those of faith who try to hide away from the darkness present in fiction, in the imagination, much less the world are doing themselves a disservice. If we have faith in a God who is bigger than us, greater than any force in this world then why do we cower in our rooms from reality?
It is almost like fiction can be used to liberate us from apathy, waking us from the cold slumber that there are genuine problems in this world that need to be addressed.
At least that is the idea I am shooting for.
There really is no point to beat some one over the head with the notion that there is good and bad...and really I would like to think a lot of my efforts are sort of in the vein of Flannery O'Conner.
"The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him... My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable... The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural."
-Flannery O'Connor
I believe the first movie with horror elements I saw that I latched onto was "Aliens" by James Cameron which was a sequel to the classic Ridley Scott film "Alien". Unlike the God-awful "Alien versus Predator" franchise which I believe is almost as bad if not actually worse than "Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man", "Alien" explored the isolation of space, the horror of a parasitic alien that not just feeds off of humans but uses us as a means for incubating their young and had one of the few strong female roles in sci-fi that isn't overly sexual in Ellen Ripley (which also launched Sigourney Weaver's career into the limelight).
The movie "Aliens" took the premise established and introduced a large contingent of egotistical space marines who upheld the popular myth that everything can be fixed with technology and superior firepower just to have almost all of them systematically slaughtered by creatures who merely operated on basic instinct.
It is weird to think that something as simple as those ideas became a multi million dollar franchise that practically any self-respecting geek is at least somewhat familiar with.
Besides the idea of hostile aliens and government conspiracies (that love was grown by the likes of TV shows such as "The X-Files", "Torchwood" and the like)my next big love in the horror genre came about with my exposure to George A. Romero's "Dead" series. "Night of the Living Dead" both the 1968 and 1990 and "Dawn of the Dead" were instrumental in establishing my love of scathing social commentary with dark plots that captured your imagination and showed that no matter what the circumstances that humans themselves are indeed the worst monsters to inhabit this planet.
Romero's ability to run counter cultural themes (having strong black males leads as not only heroes but typically the most established and balanced of the characters during the racially divisive 60's and 70's) while creating a monster that is essentially human with no moral restraint, taking and consuming with no notion of "right" or "wrong".
This theme was taken and expanded upon in the classic 'Dawn of the Dead' (the 1978 original, not the 2004 bastardization by Zack Synder) to where the zombie plague was spreading and a group of humans took shelter in a in door mall. The literal and metaphorical references to the growing consumerism that dominated the 80's was readily apparent and Romero managed to mix the grotesque with the profound.
The next step in my progress down this rather morbid, yet fun path is being exposed to the Evil Dead trilogy which introduced me to the amazing team of Sam Rami, Ted Rami, Bruce Campbell and the rest of their Michigan based team which created an awkward yet lovable series of horror films which merged dark humor with the mythos of HP Lovecraft (Necronomicon, anyone?) whose writings I would not read until I was in the midst of my graduate studies.
After these the only real movies to grab my attention in recent years in the same manner has been "Shaun of the Dead", John Carpenter's "The Thing", "Blade Runner" and the rock opera "Repo! The Genetic Opera!". A very diverse group of films mixed with nihilistic dark humor, horror and most important to me - a reminder that humanity is small, very small and even with my faith I think humanity forgets how remarkably fragile we are and how unique life on earth is in comparison to the rest of the known universe.
Once I started reading Stephen King's "Dark Tower" series and exploring the table top games of "Deadlands" and "Call of Cthulhu" I found this strange fascination with how humanity and the horror seem to go hand in hand.
Almost all of the Christian fiction I have had this misfortune to read is horribly dull, very two dimensional and completely sanitized for consumption within the Christian Cultural Bubbles.
This is a shame.
I believe this must come from the overly puritan roots that influenced a lot of churches and theological thought because once one starts actually reading the Bible from the idea that it is an actual historical document set in a particular time and place over thousands of years one starts to see how dark humanity is.
Sort of like Lovecraft and King actually.
You have murder, rape, genocide, horrifying plagues and so much variation just in Genesis alone, so much more over the rest of the time period recorded in the Bible.
Is it because humans are debase that we seek entertainment that reflects this or is it a means of drawing these horrors out of us so we can openly talk about those things we try to hide from?
I think those of faith who try to hide away from the darkness present in fiction, in the imagination, much less the world are doing themselves a disservice. If we have faith in a God who is bigger than us, greater than any force in this world then why do we cower in our rooms from reality?
It is almost like fiction can be used to liberate us from apathy, waking us from the cold slumber that there are genuine problems in this world that need to be addressed.
At least that is the idea I am shooting for.
There really is no point to beat some one over the head with the notion that there is good and bad...and really I would like to think a lot of my efforts are sort of in the vein of Flannery O'Conner.
"The writer who emphasizes spiritual values is very likely to take the darkest view of all of what he sees in this country today. For him, the fact that we are the most powerful and wealthiest nation in the world doesn't mean a thing in any positive sense. The sharper the light of faith, the more glaring are apt to be the distortions the writer sees in the life around him... My own feeling is that writers who see by the light of their Christian faith will have, in these times, the sharpest eyes for the grotesque, for the perverse, and for the unacceptable... The novelist with Christian concerns will find in modern life distortions which are repugnant to him, and his problem will be to make these appear as distortions to an audience which is used to seeing them as natural."
-Flannery O'Connor
Quote of the Day:
“He sends a cross, but He also sends the strength to bear it.”
-Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
-Leo Nikolaevich Tolstoy
Quote of the Day:
"“May today be peace within. May you trust your highest power that you are exactly where you are meant to be... May you not forget the infinite possibilities that are born of faith. May you use those gifts that you have received, and pass on the love that has been given to you... May you be content knowing you are a child of God... Let this presence settle into your bones, and allow your soul the freedom to sing, dance, praise, and love. It is there for each and every one of you.”
-Mother Theresa
-Mother Theresa
Saturday, November 6, 2010
Quote of the Day:
“I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.”
-Bill Cosby
-Bill Cosby
Dear Jesus
I'm here, confused as always and just hoping to find grace after such a long struggle.
Words are all I have and they are so cheap.
How do I begin to even speak sincerely after all the lies, the doubts, the fears, the hate, the lusts, the pride and all the self destructive wastes of time?
I will never be able to look you in the eye because of how much shame I feel...not just for surviving or being alive...but knowing how I relentlessly turn away from those you send to me...and I just want to hide with me and never see the light again.
But, why and how...you love me?
Not just narcissistic me.
But...this world, those hurting and broken...knowing they can't do this life alone and need love just as desperately as me.
All this aching, all this pining, worry and stress...
What matters?
What truly matters?
Is there anything besides love?
You are so just, so loving, caring, so much more than I can scarcely dare to dream...
Thank you.
Thank you for a new day to live and smile.
Thank you for my loved ones...friends and family who carry me when I am too weak to continue in this broken body.
Such beauty, such wonder.
Infinite splendor
and the priceless pearl
in this broken world of dirtiness.
Thank you now and forever.
Words are all I have and they are so cheap.
How do I begin to even speak sincerely after all the lies, the doubts, the fears, the hate, the lusts, the pride and all the self destructive wastes of time?
I will never be able to look you in the eye because of how much shame I feel...not just for surviving or being alive...but knowing how I relentlessly turn away from those you send to me...and I just want to hide with me and never see the light again.
But, why and how...you love me?
Not just narcissistic me.
But...this world, those hurting and broken...knowing they can't do this life alone and need love just as desperately as me.
All this aching, all this pining, worry and stress...
What matters?
What truly matters?
Is there anything besides love?
You are so just, so loving, caring, so much more than I can scarcely dare to dream...
Thank you.
Thank you for a new day to live and smile.
Thank you for my loved ones...friends and family who carry me when I am too weak to continue in this broken body.
Such beauty, such wonder.
Infinite splendor
and the priceless pearl
in this broken world of dirtiness.
Thank you now and forever.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Internet rage over pie and plagiarism:
I'm just trying to imagine how different this would have been if a cat would have been in danger and 4Chan got pulled into all of this:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131091599&sc=fb&cc=fp
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131091599&sc=fb&cc=fp
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
I'm feeling so disconnected.
The harder I try the worse it all gets.
I am so tired of being sick.
How long will this existence bathed in twilight will last?
Sometimes it just doesn't even seem worth it...to even ask why.
Then there are moments that without a doubt divine...like in Drama Production yesterday afternoon. With all the hell building up in my life...that was such an unexpected movement of prayer.
What is the point?
I feel so...
How do I trust anyone?
Will the questions ever fade?
I don't want to let anyone close, I do not want to let anyone with the name of Christian near me because I have been betrayed and turned on by almost all of them.
It is almost as if none of them are aware of the irony of wearing the name of Christ and yet being nothing more than baseless animals beneath the shined up and polished exterior.
But the thing is...I can't point the finger.
I am guilty of the same sins and more.
It's like all I am qualified to really do is hypocrisy.
Maybe...I will one day be able to slide out of this impossibly think cynical skin and be able to act as though I am in my mid twenties and not my eighties.
Being ahead of the curve is only good if it leads to something positive....being perpetually exhausted, burned out and seemingly on the verge of collapse helps no one...
It's just...
The harder I try the worse it all gets.
I am so tired of being sick.
How long will this existence bathed in twilight will last?
Sometimes it just doesn't even seem worth it...to even ask why.
Then there are moments that without a doubt divine...like in Drama Production yesterday afternoon. With all the hell building up in my life...that was such an unexpected movement of prayer.
What is the point?
I feel so...
How do I trust anyone?
Will the questions ever fade?
I don't want to let anyone close, I do not want to let anyone with the name of Christian near me because I have been betrayed and turned on by almost all of them.
It is almost as if none of them are aware of the irony of wearing the name of Christ and yet being nothing more than baseless animals beneath the shined up and polished exterior.
But the thing is...I can't point the finger.
I am guilty of the same sins and more.
It's like all I am qualified to really do is hypocrisy.
Maybe...I will one day be able to slide out of this impossibly think cynical skin and be able to act as though I am in my mid twenties and not my eighties.
Being ahead of the curve is only good if it leads to something positive....being perpetually exhausted, burned out and seemingly on the verge of collapse helps no one...
It's just...
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Monday, November 1, 2010
Dreams?
What are those?
At some point...there was this...
It was like...
Where are my words?
What did it look like?
How can I begin to paint it for you?
"Where there is no vision , the people perish; but he who keeps the law-blessed is he."
-Proverbs 28:18
I'm sure at some point it was different...
Sure, I will never be accused of being the poster child for optimism...but for some reason and someway it just seems that things...
There is every reason not to do the right thing.
In the world there is every excuse, every means and carte blanche excuse for every and anything under the sun that can lead to over saturation and addiction...
Do any of us really see our blindsides?
See our blatant hypocrisies?
Those sins we harbor and encourage, growing to our own perverse delight?
Is despair itself a sin?
Or is it one only after it becomes a sacred idol, a defining way of life?
I have to work all of this out...it's not just a school problem or an existential crisis...but it is finding myself, finding my work again...finding why I bother at all.
Waking up, breathing, taking care of myself just to do it...just because is not enough. I have to struggle to find some sort of vague echo of life, of health and peace.
I am much too tired to be self sacrificing and to pretend I care about everyone and everything right now...
Is it okay to be honest, even when it leads to pain?
Leads to looking at this slow downward spiral and see it for what it truly is?
I go from feeling nothing, to everything and back to feeling nothing at all...just vague pieces of dust blowing around in this cosmic wind...
I know there are good things, wonderful and beautiful...but I don't know if I was made for them...really made for this world...nothing ever makes sense...and it feels as if my body is continually trying to reject it...reject me...reject everything around here...
Small and stupid words and wonders of these worlds...
Plastic smiles are expected all the same.
Answers or not, truth or fiction...simply being...
Fading away, is it okay?
Is it really the truth?
I just...
Must I choose between everything and nothing?
My normality is so different from everyone else...all these large and impossible things...floating, spinning...growing, crashing, colliding...shaping, reshaping, form and defining themselves in such vivid means...
I just...
Too weary for battle or digging deeper.
I can breath, I can drink tea and I am alive.
I am so grateful for that right now.
What are those?
At some point...there was this...
It was like...
Where are my words?
What did it look like?
How can I begin to paint it for you?
"Where there is no vision , the people perish; but he who keeps the law-blessed is he."
-Proverbs 28:18
I'm sure at some point it was different...
Sure, I will never be accused of being the poster child for optimism...but for some reason and someway it just seems that things...
There is every reason not to do the right thing.
In the world there is every excuse, every means and carte blanche excuse for every and anything under the sun that can lead to over saturation and addiction...
Do any of us really see our blindsides?
See our blatant hypocrisies?
Those sins we harbor and encourage, growing to our own perverse delight?
Is despair itself a sin?
Or is it one only after it becomes a sacred idol, a defining way of life?
I have to work all of this out...it's not just a school problem or an existential crisis...but it is finding myself, finding my work again...finding why I bother at all.
Waking up, breathing, taking care of myself just to do it...just because is not enough. I have to struggle to find some sort of vague echo of life, of health and peace.
I am much too tired to be self sacrificing and to pretend I care about everyone and everything right now...
Is it okay to be honest, even when it leads to pain?
Leads to looking at this slow downward spiral and see it for what it truly is?
I go from feeling nothing, to everything and back to feeling nothing at all...just vague pieces of dust blowing around in this cosmic wind...
I know there are good things, wonderful and beautiful...but I don't know if I was made for them...really made for this world...nothing ever makes sense...and it feels as if my body is continually trying to reject it...reject me...reject everything around here...
Small and stupid words and wonders of these worlds...
Plastic smiles are expected all the same.
Answers or not, truth or fiction...simply being...
Fading away, is it okay?
Is it really the truth?
I just...
Must I choose between everything and nothing?
My normality is so different from everyone else...all these large and impossible things...floating, spinning...growing, crashing, colliding...shaping, reshaping, form and defining themselves in such vivid means...
I just...
Too weary for battle or digging deeper.
I can breath, I can drink tea and I am alive.
I am so grateful for that right now.
Sunday, October 31, 2010
Sometimes...my thoughts terrify me.
I don't like where they lead...where they go...
Sometimes I fear the best thing I could do for everyone around me...is to vanish, run and flee away from everything and everyone I love.
People love me, adore me, praise me, help me, take care of me...and still, they...they do not see the darkness hiding beneath the bumbling fool I desperately try to be.
Just so no one...no one will see the evil I am.
I don't like where they lead...where they go...
Sometimes I fear the best thing I could do for everyone around me...is to vanish, run and flee away from everything and everyone I love.
People love me, adore me, praise me, help me, take care of me...and still, they...they do not see the darkness hiding beneath the bumbling fool I desperately try to be.
Just so no one...no one will see the evil I am.
Saturday, October 30, 2010
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