flash

My ideas for the flash mob are:
- A The Sound of Music inspired mob


- that dance from A Knights Tale


- Jazzercice - 80's inspired of course


- The Handshake from The Parent Trap

"Good" films "Good" guys

A couple of weeks ago I watched The Good Guy on Netflix, which ended up being a very different movie than I expected after seeing the trailer, but still good. It stars Alexis Bledel (a la Gilmore Girls), Scott Porter, Bryan Greenberg and Anna Chulmsky(aka the Girl from My Girl!) and even Meg from Little Women!(Whaaat?! I know!). I liked the change-up in narrative structure that starts and ends with the end. It ends up how you expect, it just doesn't exactly get there the way you expect, which I liked. The acting and probably the dialogue as well were the weakest elements of the movie, which is a pretty big warning sign but the story is there and it was made well so I wasn't too disappointed.I liked the cinematography quite a lot, there were a number of really cool shots that played with depth and focus and incorrperated some cool New York street elements. The cinematographer really liked this 180 degree swing around shot but he used it sparingly so it came off as cool and not redundant. Over all I'd probably give the movie a C+. Not bad, not amazing but in terms of the mise-en-scene and cinematography it was a solid B+. I also really liked the use of an unreliable narrator, it puts a lot of irony into the movie oh, and it has a good soundtrack

may the forth be with you

apparently today is Star Wars day which is so funny May the Forth...haha love ittt!!! I happen to be a Star Wars lover so I'm very sad that my Star Wars movies are at home.

For my free day today I'm going to share a few lists. I love lists, the best thing ever is crossing an item off a list.

Countries to Explore/Travel To
- India
- Italy
- Ireland
- Wales
- Scotland
- Australia
- Germany
- Argentina
- Greece
- Turkey
- Israel
- Egypt
- China
- Jamaica
- Vatican City
- Switzerland
- Denmark

Visit
- Victoria Falls
- Great Wall of China
- Tower of London
- Taj Mahal
- Leaning Tower of Piza
- Grand Canyon

Do
- Go to all of the Grand Slams
- Go Suba diving, bungee-jumping, sky-diving, ziplining, base jumping, white water rafting, parasailing/paragliding
- Ride a mechanical bull
- Go on a cross country road trip
- Take kick boxing classes
- Take yoga classes

- Cirque Du Soileil
Learn to
- surf, snowboard
- play the guitar
- drive a stick-shift
- knit and crochet

- Music Festivals: Coachella, Austin City Limits, Bonnaroo, Lalapalooza, Sasquatch, Ojai
- Film Festivals: SXSW, SBIFF, Sundance Toronto, Tribeca

- Museums: Met(NYC), Smitsonian(NYC), Getty(NYC), The Guggenheim(NYC), National Gallery (DC), the Wallace Collection (London), Somerset House(London), LACMA, Norman Rockwell, MOMA(NYC), Uffizi(Florence)
- Read Complete Works of: Shakespeare, Austen, Kerouac, Sedaris, Klosterman, the Bronte Sisters
-The Stranger
-The Jungle
-Alice in Wonderland
-The Wind in the Willows
-Leaves of Grass
-War and Peace

among others...

Personal Narrative

Little bird with the breeze

heaven knows you will mean everything

you say you are a little bird

flying so high and free above

trying to see what I can't from a distance

trying to grasp but you’re drifting

further away, won’t you come back to the trees,

further away won't you come back and see

little birds are the first of the casualties

If you're a bird then I'm a fish

and all the fish in the sea are feeling good

all the fish are able to see what you cannot;

a world without light, yet they’re still happy.

You function only when the sun is shining

for you, never for me or anyone else

you're flying alone

no hint of a V,

no clue it’s only you and the breeze.

There’s a story you know

of the boy who thought he could

be a bird, one with the breeze

he too thought the sun was his to seize

but with disregard he came unglued

the little boy, first of the casualties.

Feathers do not mean flight

fathers discourage this approach to life

none but Kent can be one with the breeze

and alone he is, matchless but last of the casualties.

You think you hold the sun

you deem yourself the breeze

you little bird flying away from the trees

you assume you see what is inconceivable to all

but in reality its you that escapes

the truth you‘ll run away,

hide veiled in the open space.

The breeze will be none but your own

until in time she severs your casual ties.

and the fish will assemble,

pay their respects,

sit at their pews

but will they remember you?

the drifting, floating, sinking,

little bird flittering in the quiescent abyss,

just another one of the casualties.

Just another casualty.

It's weird to reflect on what inspired me to write this poem because what it started as and what it ended up being were two completely different things. I wrote a very rough draft of the first stanza a few months ago and when I saw it again last week I discovered it came across almost as me being envious towards the little bird(person, a boy at first) but then I realized that I wasn’t envious of the person at all and although the subject was well spoken and independent I also found him, arrogant and demeaning and out of touch with reality. So both my conscious and subcouncious selves redirected the poem to become a warning or sorts for someone out of touch with reality who wants to be the center of everything and won’t let anyone help them, who push people who love and care for them away when they need help. The new subject comes from my senior year or high school when a close friend attempted to commit suicide and the aftermath that included me and her other close friends and family being the only ones who knew of her attempt and how she acted in the succeeding months with reckless and attention-seaking ploys. She treated her friends terribly and kept pushing us away until we, for the most part, did. She hated that we knew her at her lowest and wanted to delete us from her life, which is what has essentially happened. These past experiences have helped shape this poem but not even I know truly where inspiration came from. I guess you could say this is one of the most personal things I've ever written because I don't know completely where it came from. I was kind of a combination of mad and sad while writing it, and I wanted to get across a feeling of unstable flight with how the poem picks up and slows down in terms of text. I think the message I most wanted to convey is if you pull away from others whether from insecurities or from thinking of yourself as superior to others, in the end will people remember or care when you’re gone? And that it's best to stay grounded(not necessarily entirely so but enough to make you a consciensious person) and invest in those around you and kind of a warning of what can happen if you don't.

p.s. the colored writing are links to what is alluded to.

narrative/sequence critique

My favorite presentations today were:

• Erica's Cat documentary: It was hilarious. I loved that it was in the form of a documentary. I only wish she would have done it for the alternative persona presentation instead, I think I has a little more merit as that but heck I'm not complaining, it was great.
• Amanda's documentary: Even though It wasn't finished, I thought she did a really good job at making it like an honest to goodness legit documentary. Plus putting Radiohead in there as pull-on-your-heart-strings music was a great touch. The concept behind it is pretty heavy but I think as their Aunt she probably has the least likelihood of creating problems as she cares for and loves all of the parties involved.
• Andrea's photo sequence: the premise was very simple but that just goes to show, simple done really well can be just as good or better than super complicated things

Lecture Response: Personal Narratives and Guest Performers

I enjoyed the lecture today quite a lot. I saw a few of Kip's advanced students this past fall in 1C and actually saw Christina's(the girl who talked about confessing her love for a boy) same performance then too. I liked it this time, but there's something about watching performances like those again that really turns me off, I think its the fact that they stop seeming as personal for the viewer(or just me) when heard again, or at least heard in the same year. Beau was really good as well, he was very straight forward and honest but I think I actually liked him outside of performance mode more than I did inside... maybe it was his performance voice which noticeably changed to a Kermit the frog-esk voice or the fact that he has been doing this for a long time, ever if his material is new, I feel like he's a little too comfortable. But I actually really did enjoy the topics he choose and it really made me think like he intended. Of the advanced students my favorites were Amanda's(Pineapple sister) and the first girl, who's name I cannot remember who talked about being nice, I feel exactly the same way sometimes.

On the topic of Obama, I saw this over the weekend. In my opinion, he does a good job of making fun of himself and his critics(and more specifically Trump) really well. Trump on the other hand, dear lord he was so stoic I seriously wondered for the first 10 minutes if it wasn't just a wax figure of him.

Personal Space/ Alternate Identity thoughts

This project seems both really intimidating and exiting for me. I have always been one who thinks about personal space and more specifically what being lonely or alone means to different people. For some people the very idea of being alone with themselves is terrible. Being alone for more than a little while with or without things like music or internet scares the shit out of some people while it is perfectly fine and welcomed with others. One of my idea's is to expand on this idea

the alternate identity part makes me think of a few things, acting, manic depressant people, social media outlets such as facebook, and... Bubble Boy. While I'm still pretty in the dark regarding what exactly the project will entail, I do like the many directions this project can go and look forward to take my own path on this project.