run just for fun!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2012-01-06T22:00:00.000-08:00

Thanks for running just for fun with me since 2007. But in 2012, I moved the conversation to jimmymarble.com/updates. See you there. We had nice times on this site, though. Here's a list of my all-time favorite posts to remember this all by.

LA I LOVE YOU
LOOKING FOR AMERICA
I THINK ENOUGH TIME HAS PASSED
JOURNEY TO THE CENTER OF THE BIRTHDAY
GRAVITY
SUMMER JOBS
MOZILLA MY DREAMS

"Thanks."

Insides

2011-10-30T15:02:00.001-07:00

Los Angeles I Love You and I Never Want You To Change

2011-10-14T12:49:00.000-07:00

Teenage Melodrama Perfected

2011-08-23T13:48:00.000-07:00

What she does to me
When she makes love to me
And she says, "Don't worry, baby
Everything will turn out alright."

youknowwhatimean? c'mon.

A Lighthearted War

2011-08-11T01:46:00.001-07:00

My friends and I made this short film over the course of a few weekends over the course of half a year.

My Directing Reel

2011-07-31T22:16:00.000-07:00

Jimmy Marble's Directing Reel from jimmy marble on Vimeo.

jimmymarble.com

2011-07-13T01:28:00.001-07:00

it exists!

c'mon!

Looking for America

2011-07-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

America's West Coast wound up looking like this this summer:

"Carolina Days" by Megafaun

2011-04-04T13:18:00.000-07:00

This video just premiered on Pitchfork last week. I directed it with the Sirocco Research Labs.

Gillian Jacobs

2011-03-26T09:39:00.000-07:00

Here's a video I made with Gillian Jacobs, who stars on the hit NBC show Community.

Adrianne Goodrich by Kelly Moore

2011-03-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

My friend Kelly is a talented photographer. He just posted this picture of Adi Goodrich to his photoblog. The picture was taken during our trip to Chicago last January.

I love it so much I had to repost it. Isn't she beautiful?

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Talking About It

2011-01-31T02:28:00.000-08:00

Here's something I made for Flaunt Magazine last summer, set to the hit song "Round and Round," by Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti:

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti Talking About It from jimmy marble on Vimeo.

Los Angeles Beauty Supply: Then and Now

2011-01-11T14:48:00.001-08:00

2009

2010

I made a resolution this year to dress nicer, so hopefully in the 2011 picture I won't be continuing in a gross out trajectory. Although, there is a certain amount of charm to that Ed Gein-esque tank. And! Fun Fact: I'm wearing the same pair of pants in both pictures.

Hello, Dreams

2011-01-07T10:28:00.000-08:00

Last night I somehow ended up in a confrontation with a gang of baby owls, all of whom got punched in the face by me. That's just how dreams go when you're 25.

More on what being 25 is like shortly. Really!

Sirocco in Portland! and Bellingham!

2010-11-11T15:46:00.000-08:00

The Sirocco Research Labs will be in the Pacific Northwest showing our two new short films, Cleo in the Universe and Red Moon (links route you to the teasers). We'll be making stops in Bellingham, Washington and Portland, Oregon, bringing hopefully a little bit of sunshine to the rain capitals of the world. (Incidentally, the Good Dr. Richard Francis was recently in Los Angeles during our rain week in October. He was literally stopping people in the street to make the joke, "Yes, we're from Seattle. Looks like we brought the weather with us." It was beyond amazing.)

Here's the event poster:

DATES:

Bellingham, WA Nov. 16

Old Main Theater @ WWU

7 PM, Free, Raffle

Portland, OR Nov. 17

The Living Room Theater

7 PM, Free, Raffle

And I'll post again soon about the LA screening and an upcoming Chicago, IL screening!

From the Vaults: DESHOVELING PHILIPPE

2010-11-03T14:50:00.000-07:00

I haven't watched this video in years. But, I stumbled across it a second ago, checked it, and was amazed at this weird-o project Dave, Karl, and I made. I'm also amazed that it's been nearly five years since we made it. I can't even imagine!

What a beautiful time-capsule, though, of being young, cold, and in Yakima, WA for a couple of weeks.

"I was a pistol leaking music out of its holster."

2010-09-15T12:59:00.000-07:00

Barry Hannah, icon of Southern Cool

I have cited Barry Hannah as one of my favorite writers since I read his novel Geronimo Rex during my last summer in Bellingham, WA. He passed away this past March.

I bought the novel with graduation money and it was an integral part of my golden summer of gardening, friendship, and deep conversion from casual maker-of-things to desperate maker-of-things. He was emphatically recommended to me by my friend Elizabeth who was reading his The Tennis Handsome, which still might be the coolest title of any piece of creative work I've heard of to date. Elizabeth was on summer vacation from her MFA at Oxford College in Mississippi where Hannah was her adviser.

It was such a rush to know that the author of the words which were flooring me so much was only one person away. All the time I kept thinking, "I have to have Elizabeth tell Barry Hannah ... for me." His words connected with my imagination and feelings in the same way Marquez and Bulgakov's had. And while Marquez' heart continues to beat to this day, these authors aren't human beings to me. They're from some place where normal humans are forbidden, and first-rate sentences are strung together reconciling the shortcomings of existence with the inexhaustible joy of breathing. Meanwhile, my friend Elizabeth spoke of him as Barry, and made fun of his habits and speech patterns.

Later in the summer, to my complete bewilderment, my aunt Carol casually and coolly told me she and Barry (if you could hear my aunt's Southern drawl, you'd understand why I just italicized Barry. It's a marvel.) used to share an office at the University of Arkansas in the 1960s when they were getting their MFAs. She told me stories of how he'd hole himself in their office all hours of the night writing on the school's typewriters.

Even though I've always surrounded myself with active and creative best friends, it never occurred to me that people (with a lower-case P) make art. To all of a sudden be confronted with these personal anecdotes of interactions with a Person who wrote beautiful things was unravelling. It wasn't like celebrity name-dropping where people say, "Oh, I totally partied with RUN DMC last night at Social Club in Paris," which enforces mythology. No, they were talking about Barry like I'd talk about Adi or Martin.

Just a guy with a heartbeat, typing through the night, saying hi to my mom's sister Carol when she came in for the morning. Not too big of a deal, only making stuff.

I liked it. It made me feel like anyone could do anything if they tried their hardest.

I would have liked to have met him.

Here's a passage from Geronimo Rex that I find especially wonderful. In fact, I think it's close to perfect:

"When did you get married?"
"About at the first of last summer, out at the Alamo Plaza Motel Courts, which we've been to again several times. The ceremony went like this: I woke up with my hand on her nipple. She left the bed and went to the television and then got back in bed. She replaced my palm on her nipple, and on the television came a gospel show, the Blackwood Brothers, because it was Sunday morning. These boys were singing in earnest, the bass man with his mustache, the slick skinny man singing high, the blind man with sunglasses on piano. So holy, you know; they'd never made a cent out of doing this. 'I take this man,' she said, lifting up the sheets, 'while these men look on and sing.' Then she kicked the sheets back and raised her toes to the ceiling, and I enjoyed her, while she hummed with the quartet on TV with her eyes closed. I happened to be on my knees holding onto her ankles above me. It was the condition of being in an ascending chariot. I cherished the music I heard behind me and the music under me. Everyone agreeing, everyone celebrating."

Portland, Oregon Ice Cream Cake

2010-09-10T14:44:00.000-07:00

Somehow reads, "PDX"

While visiting Ben and Katie in Portland, Oregon, I made my very first ever ice cream cake. I winged it because I figured it would be impossible to mess up. Turns out, I was right.

Telepathic Devices

2010-08-16T21:10:00.001-07:00

My newest post on the Sirocco site is a must read for anyone interested in friendship. Truly.

Electric Beans

2010-08-10T12:51:00.001-07:00

I have a new post up on Sirocco's site!

Teaser:

I Think Enough Time Has Passed

2010-07-31T17:31:00.000-07:00

I'm going through old emails from around a year ago and re-discovered one of my all-time favorites. It's from long-time friend Douglas Sacrison. He wrote it to me during an especially rotten spell. I'll allow his email to put into words the context. At any rate, it's pretty genius.

Legs-

Well, I hope things are going alright. As I sit here typing this, I'm wondering to myself about whether I should play dumb and pretend I didn't hear any news from Nick about how your first night in Australia went, or if I should not beat around the bush. I suppose I'll go with the latter, and dearly hope you are feeling better. I'm not sure how things are going now, since my brief discussion with Big Stick took place almost a week ago. I dearly hope that someday, perhaps not right now, but someday you can see how comical it sounds to fly all the way to Australia to be given the ax by a German. I'm sorry if this is insensitive of me; it's meant to be the converse of such.

-DOUG!

Word for word, pound for pound, I'd pit Doug against any literary figure.

Fighting the good fight.

Thanks, Doug.

KITES

2010-07-25T02:42:00.000-07:00

Los Angeles really smiled down on my today. I was at Renegade Craft Fair with ReForm School, helping people build and color kites. Here's the one I made and drew on for myself:

Outer space is not outside you.

It was a nice reminder things can float in mid-air.

Can You Believe Summer Exists?

2010-07-20T13:43:00.000-07:00

I feel like it should be April still. What happened to May? And June ended already? And now the calendar is taking a deep breath, about to say "August?" Forget about it! 2010 is the year of the Time Warp. The year walks the fine line between discouraging and being absolutely the most brilliant exciting period of existence on record.

I've spent pretty much all my time pitted against the grinding stone. There were some exceptions, like a work-vacation in Big Sur:

A meadow, Big Sur, CA

And a whirlwind tour through the Northwest:

Martin and David, Portland, OR

But all and all, I have been building. Which is the most satisfying part of living in a Time Warp. When you start, you're somewhere (like April), and then when you come back to, you're somewhere else entirely (like late July). And while it might feel like time just disappeared, you have all these tangible things hanging out that weren't there before. Like three new videos for Flaunt.com. Expect them to go live within the next several weeks. In the mean time, here are some stills from the vidz.

Still from Ariel Pink for Flaunt TV

Still of Vincent Kartheiser in Coaxial Vanguard for Flaunt TV

Still from Kat Dennings for Flaunt TV

I'm excited about them, Flaunt's excited about them, and I'm looking forward to having people look at them. In the mean time, here's a video I made for Flaunt last March (the previous Time Warp).

CARRIED AWAY IN L.A. from jimmy marble on Vimeo.

I have one more week to push hard through, then I am going to take a quick little LA vacation and see what my friends have been up to.

it feels good to be back

2010-07-18T02:42:00.000-07:00

I was a big time user of Microsoft paint when I was growing up. But, coming-of-age meant switching to an Apple computer. While it gave me Final Cut Pro and other okay programs, I was still robbed of my original computer-based creative outlet. No more promo-posters for one-act plays that only close friends and family ever read --

The ExtraOrdinary Day of Monsieur Panda, 2005

-- Until today. My 4 year hiatus of bold lines and colors ended with one google search engine search.

Man in Glasses, 2010

While drawing this guy, "Man in Glasses," I realized that the paint program is the only time in my life I get to be creative with my right hand. Because I grew up sans a left handed mouse, I had to do all of my illustrations with my opposite hand. It's actually rather freeing.

Let's Explore Making Art

2010-07-16T18:50:00.000-07:00

Now that the Sirocco Research Labs' website has come to life, I'll be posting over there with my Sirocco-based ideas (which should be often). With that said, I'm still planning on keeping this blog active and moving forward. But, if you like this blog, I think you'll love Sirocco's. It has a pretty amazing cast of contributors.

The website is gorgeously designed by Lab member Karl Peterson (also of sidearm design).

And, in case you didn't hear about it, Sirocco got featured in the Chicago-based, art-and-culture journal Jettison Quarterly. It's real honor to be included. They're fantastic people, and have a gorgeous periodical. Here are some images from the edition, but you should really read the whole thing from cover to cover.

The LA Labs: Kelly, Jaro, Adi, me!, and Martin

The Portland Labs: Ben and Katie

The future seems to become more exciting by the day. Which, incidentally (segue), is the topic of Sirocco's inaugural podcast that just went live today over at the site. The cast is called "Let's Explore." Each episode features two Lab members exploring a topic. The first is between Adi Goodrich and myself, and the topic is Making Art. Adi is, by the way, potentially my creative-soul mate. She designs all of Sirocco's sets and produces volumes of incredibly intricate, beautiful, hand crafted work on her own as well. I have learned tons about the creative process from being in proximity to her. I can't tell you how lucky I am to have her to work alongside. Check it out here!

Kelly took this picture

Hey! Did you see this yet??!

2010-07-16T18:27:00.001-07:00

RED MOON teaser from Sirocco Research Labs on Vimeo.

TO LIVE AND CAKE IN LA

2010-06-28T01:11:00.000-07:00

Something about the city of LA makes me want to make cake for my friends. Here's a sample tray covering the past however-many-months I've lived in this weird-o city. I hope you have a tarp to lay over your keyboard! (hint: because you'll be drooling!)

The Crumple Cake

1. This was for Adi's birthday. It was my first attempt, and looks-wise, it didn't go that well. Meanwhile, the taste was second to none. If I remember correct, it crumpled because I used olive oil instead of vegetable oil. You just wouldn't believe, though, how moist this guy was. The white frosting icing somehow reads, "Happy Birthday." Also, as a quick aside, the night we ate this cake, some Hollywood-types were over, talking about which club they should head to, and I asked them if they had ever been to Planet Hollywood. They hadn't, as it turned out.

Jaro's Home Cake

2. Jaro spent some time in Russia over Christmas. When he got home, I greeted him with this. It's a good looking cake, I think. If you're wondering how I went from the crumpler with chicken scratch for frosting to this guy, there were three cakes in between that went undocumented. One was for Kelly's birthday. I decorated it by drawing the K Records logo on it with frosting. The other two were made when Ben and Katie visited for the first time in October. Two cakes, you're probably thinking, is a bit decadent for one week, right? Not when you stay up until 4 every night watching Are You Afraid of the Dark?, it's not.

Annie Hicock's Birthday Cake

3. This cake was made during the second round of shooting Red Moon. I remember it was the night we shot Katie and Ben had their kissing/mauling moments. It was a chocolate cake, and I dyed the cream cheese frosting pink. I ate so much of this cake. You wouldn't even believe.

Bievenue à California

4. I made this cake for Andrej Savol and his girlfriend when they visited us earlier this year. It's fun-fetti frosting dyed yellow, and the cake inside was dyed the same blue as the icing. My hope when I started the icing was to be able to write "Bievenue à California!" on the cake. But, I realized rather quick there wouldn't be enough room. I improvised by drawing the state of California and writing, "SUNNY" beneath it. I am pretty sure I got my point across.

U R ART on top of M for Martin

5. I made this cake tonight for my friend Martin. It's his birthday tomorrow. So far there are not too many anecdotes to accompany this guy, except the possibility that he could potentially see this cake before his party if he reads this blog post by then. It's lemon frosting, marshmallows forming an M, with pink icing on the outside, and carrot cake + pine apple chunks on the inside. Though it's hard to decipher in the picture, it says U R ART in icing at a diagonal. I'm pretty sure it's going to taste weird, but with any luck, it will taste good anyway.

NEW SIROCCO EVERYTHING!

2010-06-20T22:06:00.000-07:00

The NEW TEASER at the NEW SIROCCO RESEARCH LABS website!

He NAILED it: INSPIRATION

2010-06-16T01:53:00.000-07:00

"He was a very old man, a former seaman who still had the waterproof jacket of his trade, the cap and pipe, and a skin scorched by the salts of the world. In his free hours he would play bowls in the square with veterans of several lost wars, and drink apertifs with tourists in the taverns along the beach, for with his artillery man's Catalan he had the virtue of making himself understood in any language. He prided himself on knowing all the ports of the planet, but no inland city. "Not even Paris, France, as famous as it is," he would say. For he had no faith in any vehicle that did not sail... That day, as he secured the doors and windows in anticipation of the disaster, he spoke to us of the tramontana as if it were a hateful woman, but one without whom his life would lose its meaning."

-- From "Tramontana," by Gabriel Garcia Marquez

I've never read such vivid nostalgia before. It's like he wrote in super 8mm.

There's a growing trend around my apartment where I keep stacks of books everywhere I might need inspiration. It's proving to be rather remarkable. Some books next to the couch, some books on a shelf, some books on my desk, some books in the bathroom, some books in the submarine. Typically books I've underlined my way through, but sometimes also books that just have nice pictures. This way while I'm working, if I get frustrated or discouraged, there's always a memorable passage or moment within arm's reach waiting to remind me that creating is worth the struggle.

!!!!

LE MONDE DU SILENCE

2010-06-13T01:42:00.000-07:00

sous-marine avec volcan

la lune et la mar

We Are Getting Closer: The Dreamers

2010-05-25T03:21:00.000-07:00

This week the Sirocco Research Labs had our first photo shoot. Making it particularly nice, we were the artists as well as the subjects (an on going Sirocco meme). The editorial photo is a mode of creativity I've never had a go with, but have always been attracted to. Overall, I found it to be fantastic. My role on set was art direction, which feels a lot like screen writing. I came up with an idea, handed it off to the photographer, and then BOOM, photo magic was born.

The shoot was for an article being written about us in the Chicago-based online arts journal Jettison Quarterly. We're going to upload all the pictures from the shoot once the magazine "hits stands" in the middle of June. They're so exciting, though. I can't wait.

While Kelly and Jaro were setting up lights and Martin was putting last minute touches on the costumes, Adi and I took a moment to take some pre-shoot photos.

I didn't know her a year ago. Now I make things with her every day.

Sirocco Uniforms, vol. 1
Design by Martin Morse

2010 is nearly halfway over. We're almost in full affect. I'm almost nearly 100% certain the future is friendly.

I Heard that, Too

2010-05-22T00:16:00.001-07:00

I've officially entered my ghost phase.

Coachella 2010

2010-05-20T23:39:00.001-07:00

Leaving Los Angeles is a phenomenal feeling. It's a mix of relief and embarrassment. Embarrassment because I all of a sudden realize, Oh My God I Can't Believe I Was Just Caring So Much. Just about a month ago I was invited by photographer Dove Shore and Stylist Luke Storey to put together a video documenting this year's Coachella music festival. Spending a long weekend in the desert with rock stars was just what I needed at the time. I left LA on a Thursday after pulling two all nighters, and the next thing I knew, I was poolside beneath the desert sun re-reading Wuthering Heights; I blinked and low-and-behold, I was pointing a camera at John Waters.

What a time for it. And even though I was working all weekend, just being out of the city was refreshing. There was room between those hills that you don't find between buildings.

COACHELLA 2010 from jimmy marble on Vimeo.

In Sirocco news, I'm very excited to show you why I bought these bags colors today, but I need a second first:

Now That We Have an Overhead Projecector

2010-05-17T03:03:00.001-07:00

Things should really start moving.

The Mail

2010-05-16T18:10:00.000-07:00

I got an envelope in the mail from glamour puss Jessica Tracey. All that was inside was a long stretch of red yarn and a type-written paragraph-excerpt from The Catastrophe of Success by Tennessee Williams.

It read:

Then what is good? The obsessive interest in human affairs, plus a certain amount of compassion and moral conviction, that first made the experience of living something that must be translated into pigment or music or bodily movement or poetry or prose or anything that’s dynamic and expressive—that’s what’s good for you if you’re at all serious in your aims. William Saroyan wrote a great play on this theme, that purity of heart is the one success worth having. “In the time of your life—live!” That time is short and it doesn’t return again. It is slipping away while I write this and while you read it, and the monosyllable of the clock is Loss, loss, loss, unless you devote your heart to its opposition.

Both the passage and yarn are now taped onto my wall, like an IV Needle to my heart.

CATASTROPHE AVERTED: Water Box Edition

2010-05-03T10:50:00.000-07:00

Here in the Labs, we're currently filming all the moments in Red Moon that require miniatures. This past weekend we took on the Moon and Clouds section. On Saturday night, I wish you could have seen us, Adi, Kelly, Martin, Jaro, and Me. It was like we were veterans at the game. We had all of our clouds up, the moon hanging in there, and the camera on sticks. Everyone was manning a cloud, moving it, revealing the full moon, but it looked dumb. So we sat on the ground at 2 in the morning, trying to not be asleep, trying to work past the sleep-over giggles, to come up with a plan to make our shot of the moon being revealed look cool. And we came up with some ideas, and then we set them into action, and we filmed it, and it wasn't dumb anymore. It was so dynamic, our Teamwork! There was a problem, we collectively set our minds to it, solved it, and Yes!

Adi situating the Moon, Martin standing by.

Sunday night things went a little bit differently. Not because we weren't using teamwork, but because we kind of let our own handmade, seat-of-our-pants, whimsy aesthetic get the better of us. We wanted to get a shot from a submarine's periscope's point of view, emerging from the sea, revealing the moon. Enter: The Water Box.

A while ago at our miniature-production meeting, we were coming up with an idea as to how to fake the ocean's surface. We wanted to use real materials that were as real-world as possible, as the rest of the film is so fabricated. Using actual water for the water's surface was important. We came up with an idea that if we took some 2x6s, lacquered them with sealant, cut them up, constructed them into a box frame, screwed two pains of plexiglass to both sides, sealed the screws and edges with caulk, that we could probably expect it to hold water, safely. Later, after it just about went as not-swimmingly as possible, we agreed that it was an idea fit to exist inside one of our movies, rather than as a device to assist in filming one.

Getting the Water Box ready.

But that's not to say it wasn't a charming experience I won't soon forget. To fill up the Water Box, I lowered string from the Hang Zone down into our building's courtyard to Martin. He tied the end to our neighbor's hose, and I hoisted it up. We put the hose inside the box, and Martin turned on the nozzle below. We had a nice blue light shining inside the box, and even when there was only a bit of water inside, it was already looking like movie magic.

To the top!

Starting to look like an ocean.

Then it started to drip. Just a little bit, and only out of one place. Our Water Box team had been reduced at this point in the evening to just Jaro and me, with Martin helming the nozzle outside. Jaro and I laughed the drip away and put a glass bowl beneath it. A moment or so later, another leak sprung on the other side of the box. But it was a little bit more streamy than a drip-drip. No big whoop. Nothing a sauce pan couldn't handle. On my way back from the kitchen to the Water Box, I heard Jaro's voice sound more serious as he told me the Water Box was getting full. The plexi was bowing, looking like a TV screen. At this point we were still amused, and I took out my phone to take another picture when there was a distinct crack.

And it got real all of a sudden.

Near-Catastrophes are nothing new to the Red Moon set. Back in December we had a fire, and it only seemed fitting that now we would be dealing with a large amount of water. But the look Jaro and I gave each other could only be read as, "Why didn't we come up with a plan to get the Water Box out of our apartment in-case-something-like-this-happened beforehand?" Martin cut the water. The Box was making damning noises. There was water all over the floor. And electrical equipment.

Thinking as quick as I could, I told Jaro to grab the spare hose and jam it into the box (incidentally, I'm still trying to piece together why we had a spare hose in the Hang Zone). We flew the other end down to Martin and told him to start sucking. Within seconds gravity took over, and the pressure on the box slowly eased as its insides spilled into the court yard outside. Once again, gravity coming through when it counts.

Post-Calamity; Looking funny/like Hell.

Martin came back upstairs and the three of us sat around the Water Box looking at it's crack along the bottom, wondering why we were so confident our wooden box would hold water. Any adult, we noted, who saw what we were up to would have told us sternly to stop. Which is in large part why I consider this failure a success. We just had to be sure; we just had to experiment.

April Exists! Right Now!

2010-04-20T17:39:00.000-07:00

There's a film where a clown remarks, "Like the old Muslim proverb says: Never quit three minutes before the miracle." If my heart has been beating anything lately, it's to not stop.

From the get-go, it was obvious if you were to blink in 2010, it would already be 2011. I only know March happened with genuine certainty because I have these things I can hold in my hand to prove I was moving as fast as I could move, making as much as I could make. Otherwise, the month was a time machine, and I just showed up in April somehow. My only real memory of hanging was the night Martin showed up carrying a parcel mailed from his Grandma, opening it, and discovering a fog machine inside. And even then, this photo could just be residual time machine relic:

Martin in the thick of the fog.

But, there are these artifacts laying around proving to me that March happened like all other months. Most of the proof lies in two new reoccurring gigs that have given me the most incredible opportunities to explore my imagination. The first is with Flaunt magazine, where I'm heading up several projects for the Flaunt TV portion of their website. My first assignment was to make a video to run concurrent with April's print editorial for the MCM Carried Away in LA insert. I believe it's going up on the site sometime this week or early next, and I'll post it here once it does. I couldn't be more happy about how it turned out. In the mean time, here's a couple of stills from the vid:

Meanwhile, on quite the opposite end of the Los Angeles-based spectrum, I've started doing displays for Reform School in Silver Lake. My first display is currently up and running. One motif Tootie and Billie, the store's delightful and perfect owners, and I have decided to wander through is childhood memory. Sort of in line with Spring and Baseball Seasons starting, the current display is a representation of Tootie's memory of believing Big Foots were living in the Elysian Hills surrounding Dodger's Stadium. With that, I constructed a scene where a gaggle of Sasquatches are parachuting through the clouds, down into the hills, into a little neighborhood. The airplane carries a banner that says, "This is the best day in my entire life!"

Here are some iphone pictures of the construction process, and very soon I'll post high resolution photos of the display assembled and looking quite charming.

I constructed amass of Big Foots from clay:

I built hills from green fabric and cardboard and paint:

Tootie put together some beautiful, full clouds:

Little homes were built from milk cartons:

And now it's the middle of April, and it feels great. It really, really does.

Friday Afternoon, Los Angeles, CA

2010-04-05T22:06:00.000-07:00

I took this picture with Kelly's camera. The girl just happened to be walking by, just like that, and was nice enough to say yes to my, "Hey, do you mind posing for a picture?"

Afterwords we just stood their, jaws agog at spring time in Los Angeles. Yellow for as far as I could see.

Ghosties

2010-03-24T12:01:00.000-07:00

Someday, we'll plot who we'll haunt.
And darling, it won't be each other.

SRL P.S.A. 1: Wheelchairs Are the Best

2010-03-17T09:56:00.000-07:00

Every quarter the Sirocco Research Labs plans on taking a topic close to our hearts and educate the general public with our moving images. The inaugural topic is that wheelchairs are definitely not sad.

SRL P.S.A. 1 from Sirocco Research Labs on Vimeo.

Stay tuned.

What a Time For It, Spring

2010-03-15T19:29:00.000-07:00

Tonight, it seemed, there was an unusually long dusk. I was out riding my bicycle through my neighborhood, and it was just reflecting orange and purple from every direction. The buildings were screaming it back to me, and it had the most invigorating affect. I felt like I was floating entirely. What's more, it was so warm being above the pavement. And I was the only person on the street in both directions of traffic. I was weaving through the yellow line like I was in a quiet suburb rather than in the downtown of the second largest city in America. There absolutely wasn't a worry in my head, and my heart was beating so well.

The notebook I keep in my back pocket somehow got scooted out of there on an up-peddle and fell to the street. I felt it happen, fortunately. I turned around and scooped it up, and saw that a list from earlier this month had fallen out. The list was titled in a friend's handwriting, "JIMMY LIST," and it noted all the things I needed to pick up on a particular errand run, as well as encapsulate existing in 2010 rather perfectly.

Here's the list:

I folded the list up, tucked it away, and could not stop laughing as I rode my bike through the seemingly abandoned booming metropolis.

Waning

2010-03-03T10:59:00.000-08:00

Today, March 3rd, marks the first day of the last Red Moon shoot. By the end of the weekend the only thing left to shoot will be miniatures of submarines, periscopes, volcanoes, moons, and clouds. I don't know how we did it. But we have. Our crew is going to be smaller than usual, as Katie, Ben, and Doug will all be manning their posts in the Northwest Labs this weekend. And even though we haven't even shot a single frame, and call time isn't even until 8:30 tonight, I already miss their on-set presence sorely. It's a bit like the last day of summer camp when everyone goes home and you're the last person at camp and you realize it was the people, not the place that was so special.

All the same, over the past little while Adi and I have been building sets for the upcoming shots. It's my favorite part of pre-production, always. Below is a picture of some ghosts building the Czar's room. Below that is a portrait of Captain Ovechkin hanging in the narrator's office (in the process of construction).

It's been a wild ride. I remember last year at this time when Red Moon just looked like this:

Preliminary sketch, March 2009

What a time for it.

Hometown Heroes

2010-02-22T16:53:00.000-08:00

I'm not entirely sure where my new fascination for vintage professional basketball is coming from, but it's settling in for sure. And even though Valentine's Day was a few weeks ago, I couldn't resist drawing hearts instead of basketballs.

From my Showtime-era Los Angeles Lakers Valentine's Day collection:

Happy Valentine's Day From the 1990-91 Chicago Bulls

2010-02-18T17:03:00.001-08:00

When one really loves something, one loses the ability to offer up anything but the Best. For example, if you love cinema and you have the opportunity to make a film, you're going to do it the best you can. Otherwise it'd be dumb, and there's no point in being dumb when you don't have to be.

Romantic love and friendship should be no different. And that's why this year on Valentine's Day when I was looking for the Best way to show off my affection, I went straight to the source:

The 1990-91 Chicago Bulls.

The Chicago Bulls of the 1990s dominated professional basketball, winning the NBA championship 6 times. And the 1990-91 team was the team that started it all. Not only can you say in good conscience that the 1990s Chicago Bulls were the greatest basketball dynasty of all time, but you can also say that they're pretty much the pinnacle of being the Best in general. Godard, for example, was the 1990s Chicago Bulls of 1960s Cinema. Alexander the Great was the 1990s Chicago Bulls of conquest. They're the universal reference point.

If I really want someone to know I think they're the Best at being nice, how could I give them anything but all 12 Chicago Bulls + Head Coach Phil Jackson, hand drawn and colored on cardboard with oftentimes basketball-themed puns?

Here's a real small sampling:

On Valentine's Day, I hope you kissed someone with your eyes open. It's so daring.

SRL Identity by Sidearm Design

2010-02-16T13:27:00.000-08:00

A few years ago during the spring of my sophomore year of college, I was given the opportunity to make a short film called Nate and Natalie. I was in the advanced play writing course at the time, and I remember the instructor, Bryan, let me alter my syllabus in order to write the screenplay. He had received his MFA in screenwriting from NYU some years before, and had been (and continued to be) my mentor all throughout college. By the end of the term the script was finished, and the film was in the advanced stages of pre-production. My friend Daniel had just composed the movie's main theme, and I was going nuts over it I liked it so much. I brought it to Bryan to listen to on my ipod before class. We were standing outside the Old Main theater and it was sunny. He put on the headphones and bobbed his head to the noise of synthesizers and girl vocals and drums; I remember how green the campus looked. After the song was over he handed me back the headphones and with a smile said, "The most exciting part is when it all starts coming together, isn't it?"

I agreed with Bryan then, and I agree with him now. The most exciting part is when everything comes together from wine bottles and ideas to tangible, sharable pieces of creation.

The Sirocco Research Labs is very lucky to have Karl Peterson of Sidearm Design on our side. Just yesterday he launched our website at www.siroccoresearchlabs.com. He is responsible for the Labs' graphic identity entirely. From our movie posters to logo:

The basic idea for our aesthetic is the retro-future. For one, it's a perfect contradiction, which is exactly what the Sirocco Research Labs is attempting to create every time we make something. And two, it taps into a time period when Scientists were society's heroes. These are the people we identify ourselves with: We're not artists or filmmakers anymore, but Scientists experimenting with narrative possibilities in constructed realities.

Karl has fashioned us an identity. We're fashioning worlds.

We're becoming better!

What's Next?

2010-02-16T12:30:00.000-08:00

The People's Champ Series

2010-02-09T00:06:00.000-08:00

The People's Champ II

I sat down to the laptop tonight and got ready to really-hunker-in-and-get-some-real-writing-done. Next thing I know: I'm water coloring Larry Bird. And frankly, I'm glad I did. It's a good companion piece to a painting of Billy Jean King I did last spring.

The People's Champ

Sirocco Research Lab Updates!

2010-02-07T19:03:00.000-08:00

Here's a quick photo-montage of the past month and a half. It has been a real ride.

You can check out the rest of the images on our flickr account.

In other news, we have a revised cut of Cleo in the Universe put together. The idea is we'll have it finished entirely by the end of next week. Can you believe it?

Ben Sellon as Captain Ovechkin

This RED MOON cast and crew photo was taken after a scene where we had the crew act in a scene and the cast act as crew. I treasure this one a lot.

Hizzzah!

Mini-Portland.

Like Mike.

Don't Worry. You're Not Forgotten About, Cleo.

2010-02-04T13:12:00.000-08:00

Mike Wilson, Ben Sellon, David Drori prepping a scene at the YAKIMA, WA Lab

Katie Reardon and DeeDee Orlando in costume next to the Moon.

Jaro Savol rolling 8mm film, Me pulling focus in zero gravity.

With all the talk about Red Moon lately, you'd think that the Sirocco Research Lab's first movie, Cleo in the Universe, either doesn't exist, or maybe has been finished for some time. In any case, neither are true. But, it has been accidentally back-burned by reason of all of our other projects, mainly Red Moon. However, one of the Lab's resolutions for 2010 was to find better ways to balance our projects, and find ways to be in pre- and post- and production all at once.

With that said, Kelly and I have been taking some trips to outer space lately. It has been a fascinating experience watching Cleo come together in the editing room. The movie is shaped exactly like a stick of dynamite. A concentrated, linear burn, almost like a shotgun blast, moving forward, never to the sides, never looking back.

Then it explodes.

And it's painfully close to being done. And I cannot wait to share it with you.

On set photo credits in order: Abiel Hoff, Ben Sellon, Greg Boudreau

A Note From Russia

2010-02-01T20:10:00.000-08:00

"It's too bad you weren't there," she said. "That is, not that you weren't in the room... I wouldn't have been so natural with you there... Now I am blushing much more, much, much more," she said, blushing to tears. "But that you couldn't have looked through a crack."

From Anna Karenina

From Katie's iphone.

One more night, and round two of production is finished. After that, we'll only have a handful of shots left. Red Moon has, without rival, been the most marathon exercise of creativity I've faced. I can't tell you how happy I am; it's truly impossible.

"I felt unbearably happy all evening."

2010-01-29T18:23:00.000-08:00

Zooey was in dreamy top form. The announcer had them off on the subject of housing developments, and the little Burke girl said that she hated houses that all looked alike --meaning a long row of "development" houses. Zooey said they were "nice." He said it would be very nice to come home and be in the wrong house. To eat dinner with the wrong people by mistake, sleep in the wrong bed by mistake, and kiss everybody good-bye in the morning thinking they were your own family. He said he even wished everyone in the world looked alike. He said you'd keep thinking everybody you met was your wife or your mother or father, and people would always be throwing their arms around each other wherever they went, and it would look "very nice."

-- From Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters, by J.D. Salinger

PDX By Way of Cardboard

2010-01-26T12:55:00.001-08:00

Back when I was growing up, my family would spend a few weeks every summer on the shores of Puget Sound at our cabin (incidentally, by and large, the majority of my dreams still take place just there, inside that inlet, where I'm pretty sure I learned to swim). Because the cabin was so rarely used (not to mention it was old as dirt), there would inevitably be a year's worth of repairs waiting for us. Bushwhacking, painting, patching, digging -- you name it. Under the leadership of my father, my brave family would take care and tend to all the chores in a single day. We called this day, for whatever reason, Work Party. It was always great, and it left the rest of the holiday open for my young self's more passionate pursuits, like throwing rocks and opening my eyes under water.

The Sirocco Research Lab has been having a Work Party for roughly the past three months. This week Adi, Martin, and I have spent basically all of our waking moments re-creating the city of Portland out of cardboard for the Portland-based company Badge Bomb. It was one of those old fashioned draw-the-curtains, don't-leave-your-home-ever kind of weeks. There was a ton of kneeling, tracing, razor blading, crayoning, hot gluing, sewing, and gabbing. On Friday night Martin Morse may have told one of the best anecdotes I've ever heard. I don't want to give it away, because it's really the type of story you just need to hear. I'll tease you, though, with his brilliant opening line:

I had one match, a bag of marshmallows, and nothing but time.

We listened to a lot of jazz, talked a lot of shit about kids who had the 100+ crayon boxes in elementary school, and watched a city rise out of a pile of cardboard.

Here's a quick photo montage of the Badge Bomb Work Party:

This is the taped out space for the diorama with Adi's body as a reference point for size.

Landmark Portland buildings in two dimensions...

... sharpen the crayons...

...and then landmark Portland buildings in three dimensions with Mt. Hood in the distance.

Stumptown Coffee sign.

Portland, Oregon inside the interior of a Russian Naval Office.

We're hoping to have this project done tonight, because tomorrow afternoon Ben, Katie, Annie, and Doug are all flying in to help us finish off Red Moon. Left to make today are some signs, a couple of bridges, and the sky.

Let's go!

Finished product update:

The Sun Waving His Ass Off at Some Flowers

2010-01-26T12:50:00.000-08:00

Brother Shirts: Hello, Henry, Charlie, and William

2010-01-19T11:45:00.000-08:00

Two years ago for Christmas I made my nephew Henry his own private children's show. Last year I illustrated and bound a story book for Henry and the-then-recently-acquired Charlie called, The I Love You Comet. This year, now with a William hanging around, I made the babies brother uniforms to wear.

To wear when the troops need to be rallied. To wear when things are looking their most grim. When you feel like you don't have a friend in the world. When all you want is to look at your comrade and see their matching crest beaming back to you. To know in the face of hard times, without words, someone is saying, "I'm on your side."

Which is especially convenient for Henry, as Charlie and William are truly not the most skillful conversationalists as of yet.

All the same.

Here they are, looking good:

The H is for Henry, the C is for Charlie, and the W is for William.

Copy Copy

2010-01-17T14:50:00.000-08:00

Here at the Lab, we got hired to cut together a trailer for a fairly magical documentary, and we thought it'd a nice touch to physically create the promotion's copy instead of using computer type/graphics. Last night we wrapped on the little-mini shoot, and we're all feeling pretty good this morning about how it went. Our collective's first experience with a client was a three day process, and a real testament to our working operation. On our own projects, our m.o. is explorative and imaginatively dynamic, but with a client we had to be much more deliberate and critical. It was a blast. Adi and I sat on the tile floor of the art store staring at paper for an hour going over color value and subjectivity.

Here's a photo montage to show a glimpse of the process:

Detail of the paper selection at Raw Materials on Main Street.

Fabric store in the garment district. Purchased: 1 yard of navy blue fabric, gold string, and pillow.

First we rubbed dirt on paper to give the color a more unique value. Martin then hand drew the type and cut it out.

Martin embroidered gold stars into the fabric, then cut and shaped it to form a theater curtain. I hot glued deconstructed clothes pins to the cardboard to give the stage a bit of a gilded feel.

Adi cut open a pillow and used the synthetic cotton inside to create a cloud mobile.

Kelly and Jaro shaped the lights while Adi situated the letters to form words.

Nearly ready for movie magic.

It took two nights to shoot all seven set ups. We listened to a lot of Queen, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, Dr. Dre, and the Blow. I'll be sure to post a video of the sequence once it's cut together.

This morning I slept in, never bothered to put on pants, made breakfast for my roommates, listened to a mix I made last year at this time for a girl I had it for real bad, and realized that if every year of my life were a film still, I'd only be one second old.

Boom!

2010-01-12T12:28:00.000-08:00

Around 11 pm last night we officially re-entered production mode. It was the best I've felt all 2010. Adi and I both stripped down into our tank tops and really just laid into it. Sam Cooke was supplying the noise, our bodies were supplying the labor, and our minds were wandering all over the conversational landscape. Making things with friends is it; it is absolutely it.

RED MOON resumes shooting January 29-31! We're getting there!

Talkies -- A Year in Review

2010-01-11T12:04:00.001-08:00

Here's the complete list of films I watched during 2009. The list is considerably shorter than 2008 largely because I didn't watch a single movie during July while getting ready for Cleo, and likewise with November/December for Red Moon. All in all, it was kind of a lukewarm year in my relationship with seeing moving pictures. While I finally saw some movies I had been meaning to see for years, I also spent a lot of time watching new releases on airplane rides. Not even valium, as it turns out, could rescue the Ben Affleck vehicle State of Play from being genuinely not enjoyable. My watching habits were also shaped on the whole by which retrospectives the Parisian movie theaters were screening, rather than Bellingham's movie-free-for-all at Film is Truth (which I'll probably miss for the rest of my life).

All the same, from start to finish, 2009:

Bicycle Thieves -- Vitorrio De Sica
Deconstructing Harry -- Woody Allen
Manhattan Murder Mystery -- Woody Allen
Loaded Weapon 1 -- Gene Quintano
Playtime -- Jacques Tati

Billy the Kid -- Jennifer Venditti A successful documentary, in my opinion, needs to flirt with surrealism. Despite the movie looking like the world you and I exist in, the world Venditti captures is entirely Billy's. What should be familiar, like the hallways of a high school, when seen through the eyes of Billy, seem both bewildering and foreign. Like a Maysles' film would, Venditti treats her eccentric protagonist with the utmost respect, never exploiting Billy's quirks and shortcomings. And like Errol Morris, Venditti is able to celebrate his eccentricities without seeming condescending.

Man on Wire -- James Marsh
Rachel Getting Married -- Jonathon Demme
Burn After Reading -- Joel and Ethan Coen
Night and Fog -- Alain Resnais
Joy Division -- Grant Gee
The Tenant -- Roman Polanski
Zero de Conduit -- Jean Vigo

Howl's Moving Castle -- Hayao Miyazaki I kind of disliked animated movies as a rule until this guy came along. I'm also a bit dubious of story driven movies, or at least, I should say, less interested in story than in technique, but Miyazaki got me on all accounts. His narrative was completely compelling and had me not only engaged, by caring. It was stunning, truly. And, I only saw it on a laptop. The added impact of a big screen, I imagine, would be remarkable.

Wet Hot American Summer -- David Wain
Lolita -- Stanley Kubrick
The Hunters -- Tony Scott
The Killing -- Stanley Kubrick
Annie Hall -- Woody Allen
Barry Lyndon -- Stanley Kubrick
Shortbus -- John Cameron Mitchell

Brazil -- Terry Gilliam I do not, for the life of me, understand why people like Terry Gilliam. Watching this film was the equivalent of being put into a windowless ball, getting thrown off a cliff, bouncing around, and having no clue what was going on, in a bad way. I was frustrated, bored, and basically upset-in-general. I think this is the movie Ronald Regan would have directed had he been taking LSD.

Shoot the Piano Player -- Francois Truffaut
The Shining -- Stanley Kubrick

Eyes Wide Shut -- Stanley Kubrick I love the use of Christmas lights throughout this movie. So simply, Kubrick underscores the theme of bourgeois escapism through practical lighting. If you ask me, being able to sum up your film's message with a mise-en-scene motif is pretty cool.

The Great Muppet Caper -- Jim Henson
2001 -- Stanley Kubrick
Stardust Memories -- Woody Allen
Rebel without a Cause -- Nicholas Ray
The General -- Buster Keaton
Blood Simple -- Joel and Ethan Coen

Slumdog Millionaire -- Danny Boyle I couldn't believe how much I didn't like this movie. Truly. Genuinely. To the point where when people ask me if I have seen it, I will say no just to end the possibility of having to spend more time dwelling on this picture.

Nightwatching -- Peter Greenaway
Spellbound -- Alfred Hitchcock
Modern Times -- Charlie Chaplin
Design for Living -- Ernst Lubistch
Magnificent Obsession -- Douglas Sirk
Milk -- Gus Van Sant
Unfaithfully Yours -- Preston Sturges
Happy-Go-Lucky -- Mike Leigh
Heaven Can Wait -- Ernst Lubitsch
Strangers on a Train -- Alfred Hitchcock
Red Desert -- Michelangelo Antonioni

Two Faced Woman -- George Cukor I have it so bad for Greta Garbo, I can't even explain.

Science of Sleep -- Michel Gondry
Being John Malkovich -- Spike Jonze

Taste of Cherry -- Abbas Kiarostami This movie was super meticulous, but also one of the most humane movies I've seen. Any story that presents a moral that life is worth living because life offers the taste of cherries is automatically a dream come true. Not to mention the ending sequence is absolutely transforming and affirming.

Wendy and Lucy -- Kelly Reichardt
The Kindler -- Cecil B. DeMille
The Lonesome Pine Trail -- Cecil B. DeMille

Old Wives For New -- Cecil B. DeMille My brother, Ludmilla, and I saw this at the Cinematheque francaise, and the silent picture was accompanied with live piano. It was the first time I've had live music accompany a movie, and it was a wonderful thing. I love cinema most when it's a performative act, a one-off. Not to mention, and I can't offer much of an explanation why, DeMille's characters look like ghosts to me, making the whole experience seem somehow occult.

Synecdoche, New York -- Charlie Kaufman

Barbarella -- Roger Vadim Later on in the evening I finished reading, "All the Kings Horses," by Michelle Bernstein on a metro ride to northern Paris where I met with friends. Several months later I was thumbing through the book, and on the last page was a to-do list for this exact day of Barbarella and friendship. Despite it not being written on the to-do list, while meeting with friends, I fell in love with someone. The ensuing several months were affected wonderfully.

The Paradise Case -- Alfred Hitchcock
Punch Drunk Love -- P.T. Anderson
The Pleasure of Being Robbed -- Joshua Safdie
Paris qui dort -- Rene Clair

17 Again -- Burr Steers Single-handedly the most bizarre movie I saw all year, to the point where it was almost thrilling.

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou -- Wes Anderson
The Jerk -- Carl Reiner
Gran Torino -- Clint Eastwood
Bride Wars -- Gary Winick
The Royal Tenenbaums -- Wes Anderson
Mighty Aphrodite -- Woody Allen
Duplicity -- Tony Gilroy
Juno -- Jason Reitman
Once -- John Carney
It's All Gone Pete Tong -- Michael Dowse
Fargo -- Joel and Ethan Coen
W. -- Oliver Stone
State of Play -- Kevin Macdonald
The Great Buck Howard -- Sean McGinly

Ponyo -- Hayao Miyazaki I took my four-year-old nephew to this movie. It was his first experience in a movie theater. He was so curious about everything. When I asked him if he didn't mind the darkness, he said, "It's okay. I like the darkness. I like it a whole lot."

Sex and Lucia -- Julio Medem
Whatever Works -- Woody Allen
Y Tu Mama Tambien -- Alfonso Cuaron
The Happening -- M. Night Shamalon
Don't Look Back -- D.A. Pennebaker
Bruno -- Larry Charles
Rosemary's Baby -- Roman Polanski

Whip It -- Drew Barrymore A.O. Scott gave it a good review. Robert Yeomen did the cinematography. And when I went to see it with Greg Boudreau, he assured me it would be a subtle movie dealing with the discovery of a young woman's homosexuality amidst her roller derby hobby. Though it is about a young girl, and it is about roller derby, there is very little self discovery involved, homosexually or otherwise. As far as I could tell, it's mostly about Drew Barrymore giving herself the opportunity to be quirky. For example, during the ending credits as it says, "Directed by Drew Barrymore," she plays a clip of herself flubbing a line. Greg and I were both super confused leaving the movie theater as to how we could have been so misled.

Breathless -- Jean-Luc Godard
Charlotte et son Jules -- Jean-Luc Godard
Double Life of Veronique -- Krysztof Kieslowski
The Devil and Daniel Johnston -- Jeff Feuerzeig
Heart of the World -- Guy Madden
Where the Wild Things Are -- Spike Jonze
Blue Beard -- Jean Painleve
Amadeus -- Milos Forman
The Fly -- David Cronenberg
Cabinet of Dr Caligari -- Robert Wiene
Death to the Tinman -- Ray Tintori

4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days -- Cristian Mungiu This isn't a movie about abortion or government nearly as much as it is a movie about a girl who just wanted to smoke a cigarette. It's so moving and so nice despite its incredible intensity.

And the Pursuit of Happiness -- Louis Malle
Water Lilies -- Celine Sciamma
Vernon, Florida -- Errol Morris

Huge shout out to Woody Allen for being my go-to-guy for the second year in a row. I am, however, disappointed by the lack of female directors on my list this year. It's strange because I was just having a conversation the other night about how I've become more and more interested in women musicians and the new noises they're creating. It is beyond me, incidentally, how I managed to go an entire year without watching an Agnes Varda movie.

Comics! Wall Paper!

2010-01-09T11:54:00.000-08:00

Since leaving Paris last spring I think I can count on one hand how many comics I've made. But, last night I had the Hang Zone all to myself for the first time in who knows how long, and I took full advantage of it, going straight for my old past time. The entire process is thrilling for me, from laying out the paints to mixing the colors, to figuring out the quote, to everything. What was especially nice last night was the way painting transported me back to Paris, where I was on my own, hidden in the sea of metal-blue rooftops, dreaming up schemes. I sat at my kitchen table, drinking terrible tap water (which is painfully nostalgic for me), dreaming about old friends, the boulevards, red wine, and secret movie theaters. I could have died! Traveling through time and space in my imagination. And when I got back from Paris, I looked up, and there was a Soviet submarine in front of me, and I thought, "What's happened?" What a time for it. 2010: Not bad.

Aside from revisiting friendly faces and street corners, last night I remembered my idea to start designing wall paper. The idea crept back into my mind as I was drawing this comic of the solar system. I think it'd be fantastic to be in a room where the walls are covered in solar systems like this one:

But imagine it without the text, and then imagine a bunch of other solar systems: some with two asteroid belts, some with only big planets, some with two stars, some with a black hole.

Anyway, I think it'd be a nice room. At least to talk with your friends in.

Feel free to check out the other new comics at my comic blog, Deuce-Love.

Whatever Happens, Don't Stop: 2010 Means Going; Resolutions

2010-01-05T14:26:00.000-08:00

Learn to Make Clothes: It's hard to justify buying new clothes when there are practically millions of gorgeous fabrics just down the street from me in LA's garment district. Not to mention the unthinkably cool clothes hanging on racks at Goodwills tailored for the overweight that are just aching to be altered to fit my body. Lookswise, I may just turn a few bucks into a million.

Write More Essays: In 2009 I wrote two essays I was especially pleased with, though I only shared with a handful of people. But I miss writing about art, and I have a new fascination with co-opting cosmology to fit my world view. And I like combining them, too. Comparing Cezanne's fractured perspective with the human miracle of soulless love and affection: they both look like they're going to fall apart, but so far, no. My ideas right now, though, are leaning towards writing about the imaginary architecture we construct to better define our relationships (being in love, for example), and calling for a move away from realism-based counter cinema to one rooted in the imagination.

Write More Fiction: In paragraph form with descriptions, asides, et al.

Become Clever: It seems like the key to anything is being a deft anticipater. But, when things get crazy, and projects and jobs and friendships start moving a million miles a second and there's little time for planning and anticipation, I want my brain to be trained to already have processed multiple scenarios, situations, and possibilities without me having to ask it to. Five, maybe six, outcomes already played out in my mind by the time an idea, decision, or task reaches me.

Become Deliberate: Especially with the way I see opportunities. I want to stop myself from thinking "I feel like doing this," or "I don't fee like doing that." Instead, seeing opportunities as, "I can do that," or, "I can't." Because when it's black and white, the wiggle room for not doing things dissolves. Even for things dumb like getting out of bed when I want to keep sleeping. I can get up in the morning, so I will.

Get My Bike Fixed

Buy an Old Factory in Detroit: I hear they're cheap, and I have an idea for a movie to take place in one.

Write Everything Down: Even just a few months ago I was killing it, sometimes with two notebooks on my person to keep the ideas better organized. But I stopped thinking in terms of ideas during Red Moon and switched into production mode. Ever since it's like I am just carrying the ghost of a journal around with me. It's especially rotten because it's just the physical habit I've lost; I'm still thinking of stuff, I've just stopped reaching for that pen. It's dumb of me/ embarrassing. Also, I need to start writing more on this blog (running just for fun, so to speak). There's a lot happening these days I'd like to remember in fresh detail.

Build a Machine: I like the idea of making a series inanimate objects animate a great deal. And I think electricity is exciting by nature.

This Happened, Too

2010-01-04T12:28:00.000-08:00

Moment for moment, pound for pound, the past month has been completely nuts. In the middle of December, par exemple, four of my friends flew down to Los Angeles from Washington to join Team Sirocco Research Lab in our submarine, where we spent a long weekend in the Atlantic Ocean above the mid-Atlantic volcanic ridge. As a group, we pushed ourselves to our creative and physical limits in a way I've never thought I could. Yet we all did. And despite still having one more long weekend of filming left (last weekend of January), something special has happened, it seems. By that, I mean I couldn't be more excited to share this movie friends and strangers alike. Regardless, I wish I had written about it publicly then, because now the weekend feels like a blur of red and blue lights, bobby pins, industrial felt, and Russian accents.

Truly, only one event stands out with complete lucidity.

It was Sunday night, December 13th, and Martin, Adi, Jaro, Kelly and me had just spent nearly every waking moment of the previous month and a half working on Red Moon: story boarding, script editing, light designing, building a 36' submarine from cardboard, designing costumes, buying fabric for the costumes, making costumes, et al. The next day, everyone from out of town was showing up for the shoot. And somehow, we were on schedule. Even better, at 9:30 in the evening, I had the entire Hang Zone to myself with no more work to do until the following day. My body was achy, my brain was weird, and I crawled into a warm bathtub. With the most recently updated script, feeling entirely satisfied, I read lines aloud in a Russian accent, held a cigarette, and soaked and soaked and soaked. There was nothing else for me to do. The water was as gray as could be.

Other than that, Red Moon's production is more or less obscured by the Fog of Production. I'm still piecing it together through the pictures Katie Reardon took on her iphone:

Making movies is fun. Everyone should try.

Sirocco Research Labs Update!

2009-12-04T13:52:00.001-08:00

Hey Everyone! We made a Flickr account for the Sirocco Research Labs. On it are pictures archiving the Hang Zone's various projects starting when we moved in last October. The account contains, but is not limited to, the following photos:

Click here for the whole set.

safety zone

2009-11-29T13:18:00.000-08:00

A couple of days ago while building the submarine set for Red Moon, we had our first real accident in the Safety Zone. One of the fly walls, which was supposedly being supported by some 2x4" pieces of wood at the bottom, toppled unexpectedly to the ground. Fortunately no one was standing in its path, or they would have suffered the same fate as this iron:

Didn't make it out alive.

It unfortunately set the Safety Zone Accident count back to day one, but we've fixed the problem, continued our pursuit of putting safety first, and have gotten back to work on the submarine.

Stay tuned everyone! We've got some fun things happening down here!

CLEO IN THE UNIVERSE teaser

2009-11-12T00:27:00.000-08:00

CLEO IN THE UNIVERSE teaser from Sirocco Research Labs on Vimeo.

CLEO IN THE RESHOOTS

2009-10-25T18:28:00.001-07:00

In August my friends and I shot a short film titled Cleo in the Universe. It's a movie* about confronting the infinite with the intimate. The picture was shot at our labs in Yakima, Washington over the course of one intense, heat-drenched 24-hour period. However, during the transfer from super 8 film to digital, fate revealed some of the shots we thought we had nailed were never actually burned onto celluloid. After a real quick nervous breakdown and recovery, my cinematographer and roommate Jaro suggested instead of trying to edit the film around the missing footage, we build new sets here in Los Angeles at the Sirocco Research Labs and fly our star Katie Reardon in for some re-shoots.

While the August production was both dramatically and unreasonably rushed (totaling one week from the purchasing of the set's lumber and paint to calling wrap and everyone driving home), this go-around was much more leisure and enjoyable. The movie set was constructed in my kitchen, for example, rather than a 100+ degree warehouse without ventilation or local lighting. The labor process proved to be much more cathartic as well; the geometric patterns broke down several creative-blocks I have been experiencing with Red Moon's set design (specifically the blue-line geometries in the pictures below). What's more, the construction of the set truly broke in the Labs here in LA, and I feel more at home than ever. The creative community I've stumbled into in southern California is a sincerely wonderful group.

Here is a series of pictures documenting the new set's fabrication beginning last Sunday through the shooting late last night.

We shot until 4 in the morning, and sat on the kitchen floor drinking wine until 5. Several hours later we woke up and went swimming in the ocean.

*moving picture.

BABY BABY GOES HOLLYWOOD

2009-10-21T16:32:00.001-07:00

BABY BABY GOES HOLLYWOOD! from Jimmy Marble on Vimeo.

Projects!

2009-10-18T00:39:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of on-goings in the hang zone in the past month. For starters, I'm now the host of a hit new TV talk show called "The Jazz Hour with Jimmy Marble." It's a talk show where I interview my friends and discuss their forthcoming jazz albums. So far two episodes are "in the can," (look how industry I've become!) and are waiting on editing. Once the first five episodes are shot I'll put them all together at once and release the first season.

In a different pursuit all together, last spring I became interested in making and designing wallpapers done in the style of my water color comics. My idea was to start developing a portfolio over this past summer, but in large thanks to an overwhelming schedule, I wasn't able to. But, now that I'm in sun-drenched, care-free Los Angeles, California, I am finally giving it a shot. To buffer my sometimes-too-big ambitions, my first go at wall paper design is in the form of a dressing screen. It is a four-2x6' panel, accordion-style folding screen. Here's a video of Martin and me making the frame:

The actual screen is a cityscape on the edge of a river. In the river is a whale. And above the city in the sky is series of clouds with an airplane flying a large banner across the Welkin saying, "ça ne tire pas à conséquence." I'm maybe halfway done with the water coloring, and I'm excited about it. I think the screen's going to look pretty cool.

Last August, at the Yakima, Washington branch of the Sirocco Research Labs, some of my closest friends and I shot a short film titled Cleo in the Universe. Unfortunately when it came time to start editing the project we realized there were a few scenes in need of re-shooting. Fortunately, my friends Adi and Martin are currently en route to the Hang Zone for a slumber party. We're going to watch an episode of Are You Afraid of the Dark, shut our eyes, wake up in the morning, make some coffee, and start building movie sets. Then, Tuesday evening Ben Sellon and Katie Reardon are showing up with a muppet-style puppet and spacesuit in tow ready to re-shoot a motion picture.

(Concerning the Cleo shoot, I realize I haven't written anything about the production and the shooting of the movie. But, I'm waiting for the trailer to be cut first, and I definitely thought come mid-October it'd be finished. Once these re-shoots are out of the way, I'll for sure write a post explaining the short film and the Sirocco Research Lab-in-general.)

In the meantime, here are some stills from the super 8mm footage:

Cleo and Lt. Baby Baby in heart-felt conversation.

Duke Jupiter waiting for Cleo on the Moon.

The Hang Zone: Los Angeles

2009-09-25T12:23:00.000-07:00

For as long as I can remember, whenever the topic of Los Angeles creeped into conversation I've met it with violent eye rolls and phrases synonymous with, "What a shitter." But, as the late Arthur C. Clarke pointed out in several of his publications, reality is much stranger than fiction, and you wouldn't believe it, but I'm a firm believer that Los Angeles might just be America's best kept secret.

More on that soon, but, in the mean time, here's a my new apartment and home to the Sirocco Research Labs, located in the concrete canyon's of Downtown Los Angeles:

Let's go, okay?

2009-09-11T10:14:00.000-07:00

Last year right now Chad Robertson and I were putting the final editing touches on a documentary about meditation and education in a small village in northern India. I was meanwhile packing my bags for what I was expecting to be a four month stay in Paris, France. But, the four months turned into nine, and my 23rd year revealed itself to be filled with by far the most fascinating and exciting days of my life.

Today, some 365 days later, I'm starting over again. Which is nice. Sometimes getting into a car filled with books and shoes, a bicycle, and an old lamp is the only way to set things right.

Next stop: Los Angeles, CA.

There's no time-line, which terrifies me. But, that's fine. I typically try harder when I'm scared; it's why courage exists. Plus, like Ben Sellon explained to me over the telephone last night, my future is wide open, and all I have to do to move forward is what I love: Write things, make things, and meet people. How can the future not be nice? We make it!

I hope the sun melts my heart. You know what I mean?

Inside Cleo's Universe

2009-08-01T04:25:00.000-07:00

Here's a video Ben shot tonight down at the Sirocco Research Lab:

CLEO LEAK from Benjamin Bearclaw on Vimeo.

PDX!

2009-07-18T20:38:00.001-07:00

Where I've Been

2009-07-12T16:06:00.000-07:00

You know the Kings of Convenience song, "I'd Rather Dance With You," with the fantastic verse, "Even if I could hear what you say/ I doubt my reply would be interesting for you to hear/ Because I haven't read a single book all year/ And the only film I saw, I didn't like it at all"?

It more or less sums up why I haven't written an entry in the past month. The truth is, unless I'm going to work (another bag of beans all together), it seems as though I only leave my bedroom for my German lessons, dinner with my family, or a Bellingham weekend. Or, on the occasion when someone with a delightfully sweet heart prays hard enough, I'll sometimes show up in an explosion on the other side of the world.

My joys have all been too intimate to share in such a public venue, and my day-to-day much too flat. But, in the next few weeks I'll try to muster energy up to write blogs explaining some of the art projects I've been working on, my August plans, and why I've decided to put graduate school on the back burner for now.

I maintain that the future is categorically exciting, and if a phrase were to be stitched into my heart by this summer, it would undoubtedly be: Ad astra per aspera.

What's it Like?

2009-06-10T21:43:00.001-07:00

It's pretty good, in general. I'll start with that.

For example, tonight I was sitting at my sister's kitchen table with my four-year-old nephew Henry while he colored a rocket ship. We were sharing my i-pod, listening to Grandmaster Flash's epic "White Lines," and Henry was jiving. EB, my sister, was writing a thank-you card to Henry's pre-school teacher and asked him what else he wanted her to include on the card. "This song," he said coolly, not taking his eyes off the rocket, his head bobbing to the hypnotic bass. I thought I'd die I felt so envious of this child's wit. It's a humbling feeling to covet a four-year-old's cleverness.

It was either while I was in the Costco parking lot a few weeks ago with my mom, or while I was driving to Bellingham last weekend, when I realized being in America is a lot like playing Super Mario 3 on the NES in world 4. Everything's gigantic! It really is the land of plenty! The cars, the roads, the mountains! Being back has been a bit of a thrill in this regard. I could basically go anywhere I want right now, order something, then ask, "Do you have a bigger one?" And they probably would. And for some reason it'd probably be cheaper somehow. Because that's just how things get done here. What a country!

I'm in Yakima, Washington for a couple of months, and I've been re-exploring it via bicycle these last several evenings. The roads are incredibly wide in this town, and I feel like I'm on an interstate whenever I'm heading somewhere, making the experience terrifying. Plus, every other vehicle on the road is an oversized pick-up truck. It'd be interesting to do a survey of Yakima in order to find out just how many people are actually hauling things around. If the trucks are any sort of indicator, the citizens of Yakima are wild about moving stuff. I can't even imagine what sort of stuff it might be, but they've got to move it out of here! I feel kind of embarrassed to be on my little blue bike out there, like I'm totally out of place and alien. So I can't even imagine what the guy in the muscle t-shirt with the 5-inch lift is thinking. This is more or less a perfect example of how I imagine the summer is going to progress. Lots of this doesn't really make sense kind of moments.

Other than that I split a bottle of white wine with my mom in the evenings, and eat my breakfasts in Paris each morning with the sweetest girl I know.

Oh, and I'm going to start learning German next week. It's cool.

On the Wall inside the Men's Room at the Up and Up:

2009-06-03T23:25:00.000-07:00

The Universe is becoming aware of itself.

As a rule I normally don't believe in poetry, but it's hard not to when such a strikingly simple sentence is scrawled onto a dirty, tattered wall.

So Long, Fox C.

2009-05-15T09:46:00.000-07:00

Little Ciara got on a bus today taking her away from me and Paris, France toward the airport and the rest of the world. Last night we stayed up late thinking of which animals best suited our friends and ourselves (for example, I'm an elk while Ciara's a koala). We did the same thing on the metro ride to Port Maillot. It's the lightest way to spend time with a friend when you don't want to think about how sad you are.

Before we fell asleep she asked me what my favorite part of outer space was. I told her it was how things can be at the same time very big and very small. I prefer a universe where things don't make sense. At her going away party on Wednesday we smiled and held hands the entire night, emptying bottle after bottle of wine, saying to each other, "I'm so happy and so sad right now!" If you have to be sad, the only way to be is smiley, I'm positive. It's the natural way of our universe. We have to contradict ourselves. We weren't happy, but sad. We were happy and sad. One breath, two things.

We stayed at Le Perle until they kicked us out and moved to Stolly's where we danced together even though no one else was. I think they were playing Bob Dylan, and I don't remember it being especially dancy. You just have to dance though when you're with people you love. There's no getting around it.

Time is incredible. These 9 months have been a dream. It seemed impossible that I could become so attached to a city in such a brief amount of time, let alone new people. Last night while walking along Rue Saint Denis with Bevan, I said to him Hemingway may have described Paris as a moveable feast, but that I see it much more as a rocket ship perpetually headed toward good.

On that note: Right now I need to go meet with Ben, drink some whiskey, and lament it all. We've got to turn this rocket back in the right direction. We have to go back.

F.C. et moi, rue Humboldt circa 2007

I Can't Believe I Forgot to Show You!

2009-05-14T04:42:00.000-07:00

What it looked like when I invented hanging out at the beach:

The funny part is I was actually looking at something.

Always Try to Have a Good Time

2009-05-10T16:29:00.000-07:00

On Friday morning at Gare de Lyon I boarded a train for Cote d'Azur. I love train rides, and I love the idea of train rides. I like getting somewhere without any effort. I had five hours to sit and catch up on reading and writing. Like always, my goals for the train ride were lofty. I brought a novel and three different notebooks, and I was hoping to have finished the book and outlined all kinds of brilliant new projects by the time I was back in Paris. But coming up with an idea on a train is hard. Everything's distracting. Who are these people? What was that just whizzing by? The sway and the hum. It's a spectacle! What modernity! I did, however, work on an essay about the fragility and wonder of love in our arrestingly large universe, which I hope I get to share with some of my readership very soon.

I hadn't taken more than three steps off the train before Rhiannon jump-hugged me from behind, welcoming me to Nice. I gave her some of the bonbons Gretchen and Wade had given me for the train ride, and the two of us laughed at how absurd it was to be greeting each other in the South of France. She walked me to the hostel we were staying at. Conversationally we covered a lot of ground on this trek: 1. I needed cigarettes and a sandwich. 2. Let's get an espresso. 3. Let's forget the tourist stuff and pitch camp at the beach and not move all weekend. And that's precisely what happened. I was in the water almost immediately, doing somersaults, getting salt up my nose.

That night, under Ben Sellon's recommendation, we went to a bar named "Jonathon's." Ben had warned me that the place would look closed from the outside, but to ring the doorbell and we'd be let in into a magical world. It was exactly as he described. Rhiannon and I rang, and a woman with a warm smile ushered us in to the bar, and we ordered Ricards. With our drinks we moved downstairs into an arched-white-ceiling dungeon where Joe Danger was throwing a sing-along on his acoustic guitar; everyone loved him. He played all the hits from "What a Wonderful World" to "Paint it Black." We were the only Americans in the place, and all the Frenchies were having the best time, singing, drinking, and laughing. We stayed late, and the refrain of the night was always, "How did we get here?"

We spent from noon to 18h laying out on the shore Saturday afternoon. I'm actually terrible, my body has revealed, at applying sunscreen evenly. I have the worst splotches of sunburns here-and-there all over my stomach. Half of my neck is red, and half is fine. My back, where Rhiannon helped me out, is great. But my legs are touch and go. We drank rose and ate bonbons and fruit. We smoked and listened to music. I never noticed until this weekend that a lyric in "Comfy in Nautica" is coolness is having courage. I thought I'd die. It was just the best thing to hear. I went back for another swim.

Rhiannon had to leave early this morning, leaving me a whole afternoon to myself before my train at 4:30. I went to the Museum of Contemporary Art, which has free entrance for everyone, and had the pleasure of finally seeing in person Andy Warhol's Diamond Dust Shoes. The painting was formatted larger than I had anticipated, making the experience all the more mesmerizing. It's like a crime scene of glamour.

Tomorrow I am going to wake up and make a watercolor of two people on a tandem bicycle, and then visit the park. Being in Paris is always a dream.

catching up

2009-04-30T02:35:00.000-07:00

Though it's insanely beyond me how time has gotten here, I'm somehow expected back in the United States of America in less than one month. I can't imagine packing up my little apartment with its rooftop views and sky, taking down the comics from my walls, let alone saying goodbye to the spiral of Parisian friendships. The month of April has been lifted from Hemingway's imagination with late night wanderings (scrawled into my notebook: I'm walking through Paris holding onto a gym bag: Tuileries is closed, the metro is closed, and even the Eiffel Tower is turned off asleep. How can I be walking by the Louvre right now?), days where I'd sit and write for hours and hours, as if I were writing to save my life (which can't be too far from the truth), and naturally the nights, and sometimes afternoons, of endless Cloud Berry. My brother visited. I've met people. I can walk from the Arc de Triumph to Rue de Pyrenees with my eyes closed shut. April has been the month where life in Paris felt like I was living in Paris. I cracked wise with a Taxi Cab driver en francais.

I started a new blog specifically for my comics: Deuce-Love. Why call it deuce-love? Because it doesn't make sense while sounding somehow familiar, a characteristic I'm interested in pursuing with all my creative projects from here out: There and not there all at once.

In May I plan on going swimming in Nice, row-boating at Versailles, and sneaking into the Opera. I'm going to finish reading Wuthering Heights and All the King's Horses and finally knock out Intimacy, too. I need to start writing the script for the movie Jessica Tracey and I are starring in this summer. So far all I have is the line, "How can we believe in poetry? We've put a man on the moon. Robots said everything we'd ever want to..." Working title: A Light-Hearted War.

Two weeks ago I had a dream where the Beatles got back together. What's more, they asked me to write a song for them to perform. Later in the morning I made a girl smile on the metro. I was an inch away from asking her to marry me. I think she would have said yes. We'd have been gorgeous.

PS: Thanks to everyone for patting me on my back about San Francisco; I think you're all great, too. We did this together, you know.

Boom!

2009-04-07T17:33:00.001-07:00

I got a letter in the mail today informing me I have been accepted to San Francisco State University to study for a Masters of Fine Arts in cinema beginning in the fall of 2009.

It's strange, but I cannot help but feel as though I've been preparing for this moment my whole life...

If you happen to be in Paris, let's get a glass of champagne, no?

SEAWIND -- Musical EP -- "SECRET SONGS"

2009-04-01T14:03:00.001-07:00

Over the past few weeks I've been recording my debut EP under the name SEAWIND. It'll probably drop sometime in the beginning of May. The concept album is titled "SECRET SONGS." It's a collection of five songs done in the genre of secret music found at the end of albums, typically minutes after the presumed last song. Last night I recorded what I can only assume will be the EP's memorable hit single, "Ghost Friends."

This will probably be the album art:

With SEAWIND in big white type across the top.

Dreams Are Atomic

2009-03-31T03:41:00.000-07:00

I'm interested in the uninvented inventions. Specifically the impossible ones. The Safety Bomb, for example: The bomb dropped into neighborhoods and communities where kids aren't allowed to go outside, women are afraid to walk at night, and the dudes are all caught up in the hustle. When it explodes, buildings become more efficient and secure, and everyone lightens up, giving out high fives and "You look greats!" to everyone they thought were rivals. I haven't yet thought of what goes on inside the bomb to produce these sort of effects, but I'll keep thinking about it. In a Universe where infinity exists, everything's possible. I'm sure we can figure it out. After all, I just figured out how to make, in theory, my favorite and most fantastic uninvented invention just recently: The Dream Recorder.

I had originally been going about it backwards, trying to think of a way to, in layman's terms, hook a VCR to my brain and record my dreams that way, onto some sort of phantasmagoric videotape. Then, just recently I had a Eureka! moment. Dreams are, after all, just atoms. All I need to do is build a machine that can read the atomic structure of my dreams, gather other atoms, and then (re)construct my dreams on the atomic scale. It's as simple as that. We'll be sharing dreams in no time.

Red Moon

2009-03-20T15:44:00.001-07:00

You may have put together based on a few previous posts that I've been working on a project based on Doug Sacrison's one-act play Red Moon. Here are some questions you may have formulated on the topic:

What's Red Moon?
Who's Doug Sacrison?
How have you (meaning me) been "working" on a play that has already been written?

Red Moon is a tale of tragic love. It takes place in the late 1980s aboard a Soviet nuclear submarine, and the trick to it is that the submarine's captain is a werewolf.

Doug Sacrison

Doug Sacrison is a friend I've known for nearly eight years now. We met at Camp Cispus at a week long leadership camp when I was just 16. At the time, Doug was actually going by the presumed named Dickie Fox, and impressed me greatly with his uncanny ability to link movie stars to Kevin Bacon in six steps or less. Through good fortune Doug also ended up attending Western Washington University, where we rekindled our friendship's flame. Together* we founded the now-legendary Team Sea Bear, a group of explorers and adventurers most famed for poorly attended, but always delightful, Day of the Dead parties, and our eerie ability to show up at themed parties (non-themed, too) in conflicting constume:

Cocktail party, circa 2005

Doug is also a talented writer, specializing in the comedic and absurd. I have a lot of admiration for his work, and am spell-bound by his work ethic (hitting his stride typically at 5 in the morning, wearing his briefs and a sunglasses). There are few people in this big world I'd rather work with.

I'm currently adapting his play into what I am anticipating to be my next short film. I'm very pleased that Doug has graciously let me have such freedom with his script, and working with him has given me a lot of happiness. I'm writing it in the style of how I imagine a Russian propaganda film for children would look. The project is very much in its infancy, so I don't want to get into any of its details. But, like I said, so far the time I have spent on the project has given me a considerable amount of joy. If you've noticed a decline in posts recently, it is surely this script's fault.

*with Sean Naman.

The Star Spangled Banner

2009-03-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

I babysat a French baby yesterday morning, and she and I had the best time. Her mom, Ludmilla, left us at around ten in the morning, set to return at one. We wasted no time to start partying. The baby, a curly-haired, three-year-old girl, and I went straight away into an intense game of cow and dog where she played a cow and I played a dog (or, "un petit chien," as she'd say it). She and I chased each other around her bedroom on all fours; she "moo'd," and I "woof'd." This went on just the two of us for about fifteen minutes before we invited her stuffed animals to join in. Eventually my knees began to give, and I had to quickly think of a new game to play. Unfortunately for the baby, the game was called "combing the hair." It's a perfectly straightforward game, consisting mostly of me combing the baby's hair while she screamed at me and pretended to cry. Her mother had, incidentally, warned me this would undoubtedly happen, but that it was a daily necessity for the child to avoid developing something akin to dreadlocks.

(A quick note: The baby doesn't speak English in the same way I don't speak French.)

After testing the limits of our friendship with the hair combing, I thought the atmosphere needed to be lightened, so I put on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band. I helped the re-engergized baby put on some socks, some pants, a nice sweater, a hair scrunchy, and a coat, and by the time "She's Leaving Home" came on, we were closing the shutters to the windows, about to head outside. We smiled greatly.

The sky was a pale blue wonder, and the baby sat high atop my shoulders as we strolled through the streets of Saint-Mande. She asked me to sing a song. I did my best to think of all the songs I knew all the way through, but the only one I could think of was Francis Scott Key's famed hit "The Star Spangled Banner," popularized in 1916 upon becoming the United States of America's national anthem. I had a baby on my shoulders, what else could I do but go for it? So, I did. Upon reaching the song's end, the small voice above my head cried, "Encore!" And I, of course, could not disappoint her. The passer-bys looked on with delightful mixed reactions of total befuddlement and striking curiosity, but always with a look that read, what a pair!

By the time we got the park we had a new game. This game probably would have to be called Bonjour, objet. Still on my shoulders, she and I walked around the park's lake spotting everything we could see, only to say, "Bonjour," to it.

Bonjour, banc.
Bonjour, abre.
Bonjour, canard.
Bonjour, pain.
Bonjour, cigarette.

And the game lasted all the way until we got home.

Bonjour, maison de moi.

At home we rounded out our morning together with a lunch of noodles and apple slices. I drank a glass of rosé, while she on the other hand did not. Like old friends we sat in silence, only broken when she offered me bites of her apple, and when I would occasionally prove to her I could count to ten.

Unrelated entirely, I took this picture out of my apartment's window the other night:

Paris, France nigh the dusking hour.

oh, no!

2009-03-09T16:31:00.000-07:00

I've been posting a lot of these comics I've been making during the past little while, and it's created a bit of a departure from how things had been developing here at runjustforfun. Is that fine? Should I start a new blog specifically for my comics?

At any rate, I'm especially fond of this new one. It came to me while watching Carl Sagan's Cosmos last night during an explanation of the fourth dimension. As Mr. Sagan was illuminating the fourth dimension, it dawned on me how bizarre and out of my comprehension the Universe actually is. Then I started thinking about fractals.

It's easy to understand the infinity of a fractal when it's presented in just two dimensions, as its a simplified version of space: length and width, and if you dive in, it doesn't quit. The fractal becomes a bit more dubious in three dimensions. Though we can see them in our own world (crystal formations, snowflakes, etc), since we cannot modify the timescale of a crystal like we could a two-dimensional computer representation, the infinite seems to be much more finite, less abstract where we live. Yet the concept is still clear: Given an infinite time scale, staying with the crystal trope, the formation will continue moving in its geometric pattern indefinitely.

But the fourth dimension is another bag of potatoes all together. What would a fractal in this dimension look like? How does it move? How does it utilize length, width, and height? Does infinity look different in a fourth-dimension fractal? In which dimension does imagination live? Do ideas bend to gravity? Do dreams have atomic structure? Could I simply construct a dream?

captain ahab is still MIA at this point

2009-03-03T11:17:00.001-08:00

I'm listening to Melville's Moby Dick right now. Whoever's doing the reading is overacting in the weirdest way, as if he were performing some sort of fancy soliloquy in a play written by Jane Austen, had she written a play. Only the trick to it is the soliloquy is actually an entire novel that the character would be reading verbatim in the play. It's just the weirdest experience to have whaling sound so effeminate and dainty.

I got a letter in the mail from perfectly adorable Megan Bedard this morning. In it was a photo she had taken in Los Angeles of a love seat and a couch, writing to me I was the long skinny couch, and she was the miniature one.

Everyone deserves such a winning friend as Megan. She's just great. Anyway, I painted this tonight because I liked her picture so much.

haiku pour la femme de Bibliothèque nationale de France

2009-03-03T06:54:00.000-08:00

puffy wrinkled cheeks
aroma: puke, chocolate
make up in fiction

Nature is Creeping In

2009-03-01T07:06:00.000-08:00

Glamour puss Jessica Tracey told me her New Years resolution was to make a new resolution at the beginning of each month, so she'd have a whole years worth of progress and development. I'm quite taken by this idea of taking the year as a series of bridges to cross as you find them. Now that it's March, my resolution is to schedule my days as aggressively as possible, from when I wake up, to when I fall asleep. The idea being the more strict my schedule, the more productive I'll be, and the more products I'll have to show for myself. Today I've put my plan into action, and so far it's been smooth operating. I'm currently taking a breather from working on the adaptation of Doug Sacrison's one act play RED MOON.

Lately I've been keeping my windows open in the afternoon because the air is finally warming up, becoming agreeable. Moments ago during my breather, I was having a cigarette at my open window overlooking the courtyard and saw ivy creeping up the wall.

No sooner did I see this nature overtaking architecture than did, truly, Vivaldi's Concerto no. 1 in E Major "Spring" rise into the air from my iTunes. Spring has been creeping in all around me, and everything about it seems nice. Yesterday I sat on a hill made of magic with Ben and Ciara in just a t-shirt and sunglasses, taking in the sun and shooting the breeze; a lake, a mountain, and Paris-like-an-ocean strewn before us. The last day of February was the first day of how I remember spring feeling. At dinner I could feel my skin tingling from outside's crispness and I thought, "This is exciting."

Thanks, spring. I like that you creep in; I like that you're a waltz.

Don't Worry

2009-02-16T13:29:00.001-08:00

I do my best to not let the gray-drear and down-cast gloom of February wear me out. Last year's was dismal. I spent the month with my nose rubbing up against text books, being cooped up indoors beneath shitty overhead lighting, not having enough time to watch movies, and not even having enough time to eat healthy, let alone exercise. Everything was rotten, made all the worse as my disciplined routine of creating, which I had been developing throughout the previous fall, slowly spoiled off. (Remember when I used to make things like The Bellinghome Funshine Hour just for fun?)

This February, in thanks to a considerable decrease in commitments and the resulting huge surplus of free time, I've committed myself to art projects to off-set the month's bleakness. I've been spending a great deal of time and effort on a my new screenplay Cleo in the Universe. If I had to pitch the movie right now to a big-shot film executive, I'd pitch it as "2001 meets Sesame Street."

I've also been trying to paint with water colors. For me, water coloring, with the mixing of paint, adding of water, is a lot like solving the answer to a riddle I'm writing simultaneously. To sit down with an empty piece of paper, several brushes, and an armory of paints, is a fantastic way to spend time. I can't help but feel light and nice about things in this setting.

Anyway, today I combined the two to make a poster for my apartment. The paper is from a metro advertisement I tore away on a walk to or from some train. The way it tore reminded me of a run-down flier I'd see stapled to a telephone pole on Capital Hill in Seattle. I tried to make it look as much like a weathered poster for a movie that had either stopped screening a month or so ago, or had just been found in some Grandpa's dusty old trunk from way back before the war.

Ghost Home

2009-02-11T11:37:00.001-08:00

"Ghost Home"

I realized just now as I'm posting this that the color palette is very Goodnight, Moon.

Going Great!

2009-02-10T16:00:00.000-08:00

Today I was walking along the Seine as the sun was falling behind the big dark storm clouds which had just passed through Paris, when I was approached by an adorable, young, Japanese-tourist girl. With her camera out, she asked me in pitter-pattering, broken English if I'd be okay taking a photograph. My assumption was she wanted to have a picture of her taken in front of the river with the glowing Louvre in the background; but, no. Instead, she wanted her picture taken with plain-Jane, ol' me. I was surprised, but happy to oblige. So we clambered together in front of the digital camera, she threw two fingers into the air, and I showed my teeth as the camera clicked and the moment was captured. She graciously thanked me and walked away, just like that. And I walked away too, just like that, as if people stopped me on the streets of Paris for photographs all the time. Part of my routine, even.

For the remainder of the city block, all the people walking in my oposite direction looked at me intrigued, clearly wondering what it was about me that merited perfect strangers stopping me for photographs.

My New Years Resolution to be more mysterious is progressing to a T.

I spent yesterday locked up in my kitchen painting watercolors listening to The Great Gatsby on audiobook. I don't have the best paper for it, so the pigment doesn't absorb like it should, but I made two all the same. One's the blog's new header, and the other is just below. The big dipper, the second painting's subject matter, was the first constellation I could ever find. I still always look for it first. I imagine if I ever travel to the southern hemisphere, I'd feel faraway from home at nighttime.

"The Big Dipper"

chambre d'amour

2009-02-08T13:51:00.000-08:00

I have a new routine of waking up in the middle of the night and not knowing where I am. It's unsettling and kind of fun asking my half-awake, half-dozing self, "Where am I?" and having to wait a few moments before it comes to me. Intrigued by this, I consulted the calendar from December 15th until a few days ago to count up the total beds I have slept in, with the amount of friends I slept with, and also the number of times I slept by myself.

In the past 51 days I've slept with friends 27 times, and by myself 21 times. When I was with friends, I slept in 14 different beds, and when I was by myself, I laid my head down in 6 different beds. A bed, incidentally, is anything from a real bed to a couple of blankets strewn across the floor, and by sleeping with a friend, I'm modestly suggesting we slept in close proximity with one another. It should also be noted that "sleeping with a friend" could be plural, as I was a participant at more than one multi-friend slumber party during the duration of the past 50-some days. It's strange when sleeping by myself has become the irregularity. To cope during the lonesome nights (I'm hypothesizing because it seems likely), my dreams have become more flamboyant and starry than usual. A week ago while sleeping by myself I had a dream where I was in a dance club/bunk cabin with a big gang of elementary school friends, and was blowing everyone away with my latest dance moves. One of my cool moves was to act like I was falling over, then just an inch or so from the ground, pop back up as if it were the easiest thing in the world. Their jaws were all agape, impressed with how remarkable of an adult I had developed into. We should have let him into talent pool, they were thinking.

I've been back in Paris now for just over a week, and I've found a new apartment to live and sleep in. It's in the 7th arrondissement, just near where Boulevards Saint Germain and Raspail meet. This marks my second go at living on my own, and I feel optimistic about it all. I've my own kitchen equipped with hot plates and a shower; a bed that turns into a couch and back again; a toilet I get to share with people; and so on. Ben and Ciara helped me break the place in the other evening with a dinner of steak frites, dessert, wines, and an inspired viewing of Wet Hot American Summer (maximum yuks). Let me share some photographs with you:

Kitchen/water closet

Living quarter/Ciara

chambre d'amour

Come visit. Hurry!

America = Friendship City?

2009-01-25T21:53:00.000-08:00

When I got back to America I had two things on my mind: The first was how smug I probably looked walking through JFK with a carton of duty-free Marlboros in tow, tucked beneath my arm; listen, America, my demeanor said, I'm not sweating it even a little bit. The second thing on my mind was how happy I felt to be in the same country as my friends again. I had anticipated this, in fact, and had readied my American SIM card into my phone all the way back in London so I could call these wonderful people as soon as possible. Once I was through customs and was in baggage claim, I plopped down on an out-of-use carousel and dialed for Bellingham, WA. To my joy, my homeboys and homegirls, who had been stretched across countries and time zones this past fall, were all hanging out together at the old hang zone, the Vanilla Dome.

Throughout the fall I had talked with basically everyone present in some fashion or another, but to be on the same continent, and moreover hear all their voices at once, was like someone had dipped my ears in magic. Karl captured the charm and delight of the moment deftly:

speaker phone in the middle.

This moment supplied me with an amazing lightness I can still feel.

A bit over a week ago I was eating dinner with my aunt and uncle and a close friend of theirs in Bellingham, WA. I was explaining to them how hard it has been for me saying goodbye to so many friends just every few months, and I was offered a piece of advice that eased a lot of my anxieties. They told me it's not going to get easier, but that it gets better. The friends I've developed intimate relationships with will never be easy to say goodbye to, but through time the friendships will only become more fulfilling and rich. I was struck by that, because even in my limited experience as an adult I could see this already operating. Despite the four month gap of time shared between my friends and me, the excitement of being around each other again, of sharing jokes and insights, was tremendous. My anxieties turned to optimism. These old people are pretty cool, I thought.

Later that night, Karl took this picture of Sean, Nick, and me.

Of SEAWIND fame.

Friendship, I've noticed, is the best.

Two Parter: Shoes and Pizza

2009-01-15T14:30:00.000-08:00

Today Nick and I were strolling about town, getting coffee, window shopping, when we passed by the world famous Left, Right, Left shoe boutique. I said to myself, you know, maybe it's time I get some shoes. Mr. Nick and I stepped inside the warm world of shoe smells and friendly young women and began browsing. To describe myself as anything other than a finicky shopper would be a bald-faced lie, but today God had different plans for me. He all but literally split the Red Sea in two, just for me, as I was divinely guided to a pair of shoes that I saw and said, "Wow. Those look like shoes an astronaut would wear." And you wouldn't believe it, but not only did Left, Right, Left have them in my size, but the nice girl working pointed out to me that the shoes were 20% off. I walked out of the store with my old shoes in the box, and my new shoes on my feet. Boom.

"Shoes an astronaut would wear."

In the wonky Spring of 2007, I invented the greatest comic series in the world. The premise was simple: There was a widower who had also lost a son. The man ended up remarrying, and his new bride turned out a to be a witch of some kind. Turning lemons into lemon aide, the man proposed he and his wife perform a seance so he could catch up on what his dead son had been up to all these years. Well, it's tough to say what went wrong exactly, but the witch must have been a bit too enthusiastic when beckoning the dead son's soul, because it shot into the room at an enormous speed, ricocheted off a chandelier, and landed in a near-by pizza box. The next thing they know, the pizza box is the the widower's son reincarnate. The comic series is called Pizza is For the Children, and it chronicles the more tender moments of raising a son who also happens to be a pizza box. After a two year hiatus from the series, I made a triumphant return last evening. This drawing, which I've titled "Bed Time Story," is a real testament to my personal development and creative processes over the past two years. I'm very pleased, and very excited to share this with my readership. It's been a long time coming.

Talkies -- A Year in Review

2009-01-14T19:16:00.001-08:00

Each year I go through three to four little notebooks, and in each book I keep two pages dedicated to logging every movie I see so I can keep track of them all. About this time of year, I usually compile the lists from all my notebooks into one list, giving myself the opportunity to stroll down memory lane and relive some nice moments. For the past two years I've written them into larger notebooks, but these notebooks typically get lost in the shuffle at some point, and then they're lost. So, this year I'm using Runjustforfun as my batch capture device.

Here we go, from first to last:

Lust, Caution -- Ang Lee
I'm Not There -- Todd Haynes

Bernard and the Genie -- Paul Welland I borrowed this VHS tape from Kyle Roe, and it supplied me with one of the laughiest-nights in all of 2008. It's a Brittish comedy from either the late 80s or early 90s, and it's essentially dedicated to "fish-out-of-water" humor; the genie adjusting to modern life, Bernard not fully understanding what possessing a genie means, etc. To be honest, my roommates and I had gotten pretty silly before watching this, and it enhanced the experience times a million.

Loves of a Blonde -- Milos Forman This story is about a young woman in love with a touring pianist. The simplicity of Forman's craft is prodigious, and should be admired by anyone aspiring to create film. Very little happens in the movie's story, but Forman utilizes his surroundings (post-war Czechoslovakia) to evoke an unstable enviroment for his tale of innocence and romance.

Being There -- Hal Ashby
Margot at the Wedding -- Noah Baumbach
Muppets Take Manhatten -- Frank Oz
The Great Muppet Caper -- Jim Henson

Spirit of the Beehive -- Victor Erice This is probably my favorite movie of the year. It's so wonderful and innocent, yet mysterious and cunning. Set in the Spanish countryside during the Franco years, this is the quientessential film on childhood. It made me wish I had a younger sister and a big pasture to look at.

Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown -- Almodovar
Zoo -- Robinson Devor
M -- Fritz Lang
Ten -- David Wain
The Dark Crystal -- Frank Oz and Jim Henson
The Eternal Jew -- Fritz Hippler
Red Squirrel -- Julio Medem
The Savages -- Tamarah Perkins
The Double Life of Veronique -- Kiezlowski
Chain Reaction -- Andrew Davies
Belly of an Architect -- Peter Greenaway
Sullivan's Travels -- Preston Sturges
Flower of My Secret -- Almodovar
MASH -- Robert Altman

Beach Blanket Bingo - Willam Asher This was my first Frankie and Annette movie, and let me just say -- loved it! It wasn't a musical musical, but it was in the same sense the TV show California Dreams is; everyone was just in a band, and it was cool. Plus the bad guys were in a gang called The Rats, and they had fantastic leather jackets with a white outline of a rat on the back.

CB4 -- Tamra Davis
Ghostbusters -- Ivan Reitman
La Pointe Court -- Agnes Varda
George Washington -- David Gordon Green
Passion -- Jean-Luc Godard
The Diving Bell and the Butterfly -- Julian Schnabel
The Orphanage -- Juan Antonio Bayona
Cafe Lumiere -- Hsino-hsien Hou
La Bonhuer -- Agnes Varda
Be Kind, Rewind -- Michel Gondry
La Vie en Rose -- Olivier Dahan

2010: The Year We Make Contact -- Peter Hyans Better.On.Paper.

Man Bites Dog -- Remy Belvaux, Andre Benzel, Benoit Poelvoorde If there were ever a movie that nails the meta-film, this is it. The film presents itself as a documentary about a serial killer (a la a Maysles doc), and slowly the film crew becomes part of the movie's plot. Most amazing scene: During a shoot out the boom-mic operator is seen hiding for his life in the background. The audio remains faithful to his location, placing the film's observer into two locations at once, highlighting cinema as both a visual, as well as an audio, apparatus.

Stripes -- Ivan Reitman
Interkosmos -- Jeff Finn
The Joke -- Jaromil Jires
Flowers of Saint Francis -- Roberto Rossellini
4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days -- Cristian Mungiu
Rome, Open City -- Roberto Rossellini

Duck Soup -- Marx Brothers Funny!

Vidas Secas -- Nelson Periera des Santos

For all Mankind -- Al Reinert The shots from the lunar rover on the moon are probably the greatest tracking shots in the history of cinema. Absolutely. No doubt in my mind.

National Treasure -- John Turtletomb A professor of mine described this film by saying it was like watching a machine destroy itself. He was right.

Vagabond -- Agnes Varda
Battle of Algiers -- Gillo Pontecorvo
The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou -- Wes Anderson
Xala -- Ousame Sembene
Live Flesh -- Almodovar
National Treasure II -- John Turteltomb
Salesman -- Maysles
The 400 Blows -- Francois Truffaut
Point Break -- Kathryn Bigelow
Confederate Park -- Bill Brown
Rosemary's Baby -- Roman Polanski

Oratorio for Prague -- Jan Nemec This film was shot during the days of the USSR invasion of Prague, and is the only footage that made it out of the city untouched by the Soviets. The filmmakers were originally creating a film about the emerging youth culture in the city, when the tanks started rolling in. I don't know if it's on DVD, but Film is Truth had it on VHS.

What Time is it There -- Tsai Ming-Liang
Trekkies -- Roger Nygard
Field of Dreams -- Phil Alden Robinson
Superbad -- Greg Motolla
Southland Tales -- Richard Kelly
Manufactured Landscapes -- Jennifer Baichwell
Ali: Fear Eats the Soul -- Fassbinder
Branded to Kill -- Suzuki
Uncle Buck -- John Hughes
Man of the House -- James Orr
Grey Gardens -- Maysles
All About My Mother -- Almodovar
Young Frankenstein -- Mel Brooks
Wayne's World II -- Stephen Surjik
Airplane! -- Jim Abrahams, Dave Zucker, Jerry Zucker
On a Wing and a Prayer -- Max Kaiser
Blackboards -- Samira Makhmalbaf
The Celebration -- Thomas Vinterberg
Gates of Heaven -- Earl Morris
Blow Out -- Brian de Palma
Bottle Rocket -- Wes Anderson
2 Days in Paris -- Julie Delpy
Dans Paris -- Chrstophe Hanore

Robinson Crusoe on Mars -- Byron Haskin If this is what the 1950s were all about, then I'm all of a sudden way more sympathetic toward the Neo-Con movement.

Antonio Gaudi -- Hiroshi Teshigahara
Russian Arc -- Aleksandr Sokurov
Wall-E -- Andrew Stanton
I Heart Huckabees -- David O'Russell
The Dark Night -- Christopher Nolan
The Fall -- Tarsem Singh
Mr. Freedom -- William Klein
Funny Games -- Michael Haneke
Lola -- Jacques Demy
Encounters at the End of the World -- Werner Herzog
Talk with Her -- Almodovar
Zero de Conduit -- Jean Vigo
Be Kind, Rewind -- Michel Gondry
Forbidden Planet -- Fred M. Wilcox
Tropic Thunder -- Ben Stiller
Wild at Heart -- David Lynch
Darjeeling Limited -- Wes Anderson
La Bonheur -- Agnes Varda
A Woman is a Woman -- Jean-Luc Godard
Jules and Jim -- Francois Truffaut
Vicky Christina Barcelona -- Woody Allen
You Don't Mess with the Zohan -- Dennis Dugan
Written on the Wind -- Douglas Sirk
Bodon Saved from Drowning -- Jean Renoir
Summer of Sam -- Spike Lee
Lucian lacombe -- Louis Malle
The Siren of Mississippi -- Francois Truffaut
The Passanger -- Michelangelo Antonioni
Zero de Conduit -- Jean Vigo
Do the Right Thing -- Spike Lee

Entres les murs -- Laurent Cantet This won Cannes? Snooooooooozer.

The Dreamers -- Bernardo Bertolucci
Forbidden Games -- Rene Clement
Crimes and Misdemeanors -- Woody Allen
Hannah and her Sisters -- Woody Allen

La monde du silence -- Jacques-Yves Cousteau and Louis Malle

Cut -- ??
A Woman is a Woman -- Jean-Luc Godard
Trainspotting -- Danny Boyle
Lady From Shanghai -- Orson Welles
Basquiat -- Julian Schnabel
My Night at Maud's -- Eric Rohmer
Affects of Gamm Rays on Man-on-the-Moon Marigolds -- Paul Newman
Love and Death -- Woody Allen
La Jetee -- Chris Marker
Who the Fuck is Jackson Pollock -- Harry Moses
Swimming Pool -- Francois Ozon
Muppet Christmas Carol -- Brian Henson
It's a Wonderful Life -- Frank Capra
2001: A Space Odyssey -- Stanley Kubrick
Forrest Gump -- Robert Zemeckes

Wendy and Lucy -- Kelly Reichardt This film is unfortunately getting over-looked this award season, but it shouldn't. It's the best piece of American cinema I've seen this year. It doesn't try to make a big statement, and it doesn't reach for any brass rings. I'm very excited about what Kelly Reichardt is going to do next. Her voice is entirely fresh,well-informed, and timely.

Frost/Nixon -- Ron Howard
Cosmic Collisions -- Carter Emmart
Aladdin -- Ron Clements and John Musker
So I Married and Axe Murderer -- Tom Schlamme
The Spirit -- Frank Miller
Afraid to Merge -- Caleb and Joshua Young
Mall Robbers -- Anthony Watkins

What a year. I traveled around the world and through time. Special thanks to Woody Allen and Pedro Almodovar for being my most frequently visited directors in 2008. You both make enjoyable movies; I like them.

If you watched any of these movies with me and would like to share with everyone a brief anecdote, please direct yourself to the comment section.

Everything Gets Better: 2009 Means Progress; Resolutions

2009-01-11T14:58:00.001-08:00

Learn how to Dance: Now just hold on a moment, you should be thinking, why would Jimmy need to learn how to dance in 2009? After all, he's already the best at it, says your concluding thought on the idea. Here's the truth, while I greatly appreciate your confidence in my movement abilities, in reality I've had you fooled this entire time: I don't know how to dance. On the other hand, I do know how to drink, as do most of my friends, providing a sufficient illusion to make it appear like my flailings are coherent and rhythmically timed; but, no. For the moments in 2009 when there is no booze, or it's too expensive to buy, I'm going to need a solid plan B. Now that I'm an adult, house dance parties are becoming more and more a thing of the past, while dancing in clubs around strangers is apparently the future. This is the grounds for my dancing resolution: While my friends know I'm nice, it's these strangers I've got to impress (they have no idea!). Everyone knows that there's nothing more charming than a boy who can dance, making this resolution a natural in with anyone (whether they be dancing strangers, bank tellers, police officers, or whoever -- they'll all start giving me the benefit of the doubt when they see my great moves).

Start Hustlin': From here on out my projects are going to be more ambitious, requiring larger budgets, and someone's going to have to finance that bill. There's a lot of money in this world, and I'm going to have to start convincing people it's a good idea to give me some.

Be More Mysterious

Stop Using the Word "Really": But only as an adjective. I'm still fine using the word to confirm something. But done are my days of saying something was really good. If something's good, then it's good. If it's something's really good, then it's great, and so on. I'm going to stop using it as an adverb, too. If I love something, that's good enough for me. I shouldn't really love it. I guess this resolution could alternately be called something like, "Letting definitions do their jobs."

Learn how to Spell "Reastoraunt": Incidentally, it's spelled restaurant.

Draw and Post More Comics: Like my current header, or this one:

A comic series I started in 2007 where a Dad winds up possessing a Pizza with his son's soul during a botched seance. Subdued zaniness ensues.

final thoughts on Paris, France (for now)

2008-12-15T02:11:00.000-08:00

How is it possible for a city so old to always be new? Walking through the streets is like writing a mind-map; Paris will never make sense. Within the périphérique, wander and wonder are one of the same.
This remains true, as well.

Is a Spiral a Fractal?

2008-12-11T07:43:00.000-08:00

Because I don't think Paris ever ends.

Today I was at the Saint-Germain-des-Prés metro stop around lunch time. Lucie was late, so I ducked into a magical tobac. The barman was named Jean-Pierre and the gentleman to my left was the best. I never caught his name, but his breath was filled with sweet beer. He immediately struck conversation with me while trying to count on his fingers, with mesmorizing difficulty, how many beers he had drunk. I suggested infinity, which must be close to the French word because he laughed and said, "Oui." We kept talking while I drank my espresso.

And by talking I mean he was basically shouting and using wonderfully theatrical body gestures to describe the deepest secrets of his universe to me (I presume). He also kept shaking my hand and saying, "Merci beaucoup, monsieur." We must have shook hands twenty times in the fifteen minutes we knew each other. It didn't bother him at all that I didn't speak enough French to be any sort of conversation partner. In fact, he was having such a great time, I'm not even sure he noticed that I don't speak French.

After I finished my espresso I told him, "J'ai un rendezvous avec une jolie fille, monsieur*." Once he had thoroughly sifted through my accent, the man's face lit up. He paraded me around the bar as if I were his son and had just pitched a no hitter, or had just gotten home from fighting in some heroic war effort. He kissed each side of my face and gave me a hug before allowing me back into the world outside the exceptional orbit of Jean-Pierre's bar.

Later I was in San Francisco Book Company -- doing some shopping -- when I overheard the customer at the counter mention to the teller she was relocating back to Michigan. The teller asked if she was moving to Detroit, but she said no. Then I butted in and said, "Detroit? I heard they have a Robo-Cop there." No one even got that it was a joke, and unfortunately it sparked a twenty minute conversation about crime and policing that I had to listen to.

On the metro ride home I got excited while thinking about space exploration. I hope I live to see the day when they start making movies on the Moon, or on Mars. How strange of a film scene we've yet to see, and not even begun to imagine.

I want it to always be like this. It's only 5:50.

*Please pardon all of my grammatical mistakes, both in French and English. I'm trying my best, typically.

"2 Reason I'm Excited to LIVE in Portland, Oregon"

2008-12-04T05:31:00.000-08:00

Last night while falling asleep it hit me that I won't be on winter break this Christmas; I'm going to be unemployed. This is a big first for me. Technically, I have no prospects. No job offers. No place to live. Nothing doing. Fortunately I'm an endless optimist, and all this translates to the world being my oyster. One thing I'm particularly looking forward to is my big move to Portland, Oregon coming up in January. It will mark the first time I've lived in a city where everyone speaks English. I like that. Nothing against the Parisians for speaking French, but its impossible to count the times I've wanted to strike up conversation with the interesting strangers surrounding me on the metro: What do you think of that book? Where did you get your shoes? Are you interested in drinking wine? Do you want to share my i-pod with me for the rest of this ride? Do you like outer space? Language barriers! I could have been friends with so many people. . . But, in Portland I can ask these sorts of questions, literally, because I know how to speak English and so will everyone else.

To get myself excited I started a list in my notebook called "Two Reasons I'm excited to Live in Portland, Oregon." But when I wrote it out, I originally wrote "Move to" rather than "Live in." It just didn't work. To talk about moving somewhere made me feel like a statue, like I was going to be uprooted from Paris and set up in a in a museum rather than a city. Fuck no! I'm going to live there. I'm going to be fluid. I'm going to have ideas, make friends, put stuff on! Find nooks, and discover crannies!

Earlier this fall I watched Woody Allen's Hannah and her Sisters, and it affected me a great deal. On the metro ride home from the Filmotheque I wrote this into my notebook: "I'm really starting to feel like my life is something. Not because I'm "doing" things, but because I exist. Everything is icing. I get to be part of all this." I am assuming by this, I meant the waltz; life moving by means of comings and goings, hellos and goodbyes, old friends and new friends, projects and downtime. I just finished my final lecture of the semester, and I feel fantastic. I've embarked on a new feature length screenplay, and I've never had so much love for a project. It takes place in outer space, and confronts intimacy with the infinite.

The other night my friend Maggie brought me to an invitation-only party for the unveiling of the new limited edition Coca-Cola Light bottle. It was at the designer's studio, and was not only ultra-chic, but also way swank and super mod. Imagine the party from I'm Not There during Cate Blanchett's portion of the film, take away the excessive drug use, but keep the white space, and that's the soiree. I credit the event as my first real-life adult party, and Maggie and I definitely felt as though we were at the kid's table. Setting out to prove our rookie status for everyone, Maggs and I obliviously found our way into the VIP room to enjoy our free champange. To seasoned adult-party goers, a secluded room with overstuffed leather sofas and diamond encrusted Coca-Cola bottles would probably be enough to signify that this was not a room for normals, but we were just bushy-tailed kids trying our best! Of course we sat down and partied for a while. (Incidentally, while sitting on these sofas we hatched our plans for the rest the evening post-party, which mostly involved eating candy bars.) Eventually the actual VIPs showed up, resulting in an awkward moment where social status, etc, had to be explained. After cracking some wise that fell on deaf ears, we graciously left and headed again for the free champagne bar.

We giggled, and we didn't stop giggling for some time.

Being an adult is the best.

November, 30 1:15 AM

2008-11-29T16:21:00.001-08:00

It is snowing.

Journey to the Center of the Birthday

2008-11-23T07:12:00.001-08:00

The night began with a great deal of deliberating.

Actually, I should start the story even earlier in the day when Greg and I picked up Stef on platform 5 at Gare du Nord. After saying how happy we were, hugged, got over how weird it was to see each other in Paris, and we were walking toward the metro, I told Stef, "You couldn't have timed your arrival in Paris any better; tonight we've been invited to an illegal party in the Parisian Catacombs."

But, when I told Stef that we had been invited to this party, what I really meant by that was my friend Emily had been invited to a party in the catacombs and that she had extended the invitation to us. So we (Stef, Greg, and Ciara) met up with Emily (and several more of our American friends, both mutual and otherwise) and her Frenchie friend outside a metro stop near a secret entrance into the catacombs. The Frenchie, who was familiar with these sorts of underground parties, told us to "Get ready to get wet." Surprisingly, only the people from Bellingham laughed at this unintentionally funny remark. Eventually we stopped laughing and began weighing the situation. The deal was that in order to get to the party inside the catacombs we had to trudge through small, cramped passageways that often had dirty water depths of around thigh high (a thigh for Ciara, a knee for me). None of us were dressed to get wet (maybe to party, but...), or were too enthusiastic about staying out past last metro, or hanging out in a cave with wet pants and socks. A few people from our group said that the night just wasn't for them and left. We said the same thing and began to leave. Fortunately my friend Andrew stopped us. He told us we were being [dumb] and what were we thinking, etc. So we decided to stick with it, and started walking toward the secret entrance.

About halfway there Ciara and Greg and Stef and I started being dumb again and decided to not go in. Let's just go drink in front of the Eiffel Tower, we said. That's a fun thing to do, we thought. You can only do it in Paris, justifying our cowardice. So we started walking back to the metro.

But then something changed. The crux of our argument was that even if it took 3 years for us to look back fondly on this adventure, it would still be worth it. Plus, even the idea that we were already regretting not going told us a great deal about the situation's potential. The four of us, even Scaredy-Cat Ciara, ran and caught up with our friends, had a sports ball roll up to our feet, stopped it with our foot, looked at our friends and said, "Let's do this thing," bought a bottle of whiskey, and fucking went for it.

First we had to walk through an abandoned train tunnel for nearly twenty minutes. It was dark. What made it especially creepy and like a scene from a nightmare was that it was pitch-black but also enclosed with a vanishing point; we had to keep walking further toward the darkness into a looming abyss.

Eventually our guide told us we had made it to the hole we were to climb into the earth from. This is when I stopped being nervous. All of a sudden there were several groups of young people, all smoking and drinking and laughing. Most important to me was their laughter. If they were having such a fantastic time before going inside the earth to get wet and cold, inside had to be a pretty special place.

Outside the Catacombs in The Cave of Darkness. Long legs = Birthday Boy.

We drank the whiskey. We did some other stuff. We climbed into the hole. Here are some pictures documenting the event:

Walking through the cavern.

Greg inside the Catacombs, taking a time out from the party.

This girl was explaining to me that it was also her birthday. Note even mid-conversation I'm n. 1.

This picture demonstrates the party's lighting well.

Other moments of note include:

A performance piece put on by three Frenchies. They tried to explain how we all have one foot in the grave even though we're indeed not dead. I think my favorite part about the performance was the part where I got to hang out with my friends in the Catacombs.
I was kissed by a very pretty Danish girl.
Ciara met a boy named Tank Top.
People loved us!
I turned 23 without noticing it right away (because we were using Stef's time judgement, and she was an hour behind on London time).
Some people sang me "Happy Birthday," but not everyone, which is how it should be. I don't care much for the idea of strangers telling me something they don't mean.
Greg talked to a lot of people and felt good about that.
The party was lit entirely by candles; the flash pictures from inside the catacombs make it look a lot different than it actually was.
No parents allowed.
People were dancing to a battery-powered boom box.
I've never seen Stef shine so brightly. At one point I questioned whether or not Jules Verne had written my birthday, and on cue Stef proclaimed, "Journey to the Center of the Birthday."

Stef, on fire.

We left wanting a little more (the only way to leave anywhere, really). Our coats were dirty. Our shoes would never be same. But then again, neither would our hearts. We walked back out of the Cave of Darkness just the four of us, no guide, no flashlight. We reached the city and were blown away by how sensitive our eyes were to light. Even our cornias had been transformed by the journey.

We got into a taxi cab and headed home, cementing my theory all perfect evenings in Paris end with a taxi ride.

The next morning, Greg and Stef and I brunched from 11-3 and my actual birthday began.

Ground Zero, best year of my life.

developing...

2008-11-20T17:33:00.000-08:00

I can say that without exceptions, my twenty third year is the most death defying, dirty, slightly illegal, and memorable year I've had yet. I won't go into the details, but please allow me to say this: I got so wet tonight.