» Fringe Blog – Writing on Film, Culture, and Things on the Fringe

The Music My Car Makes

jelewis8 — Mon, 05 Nov 2007 17:53:15 +0000

Monday. A time for speculation, gray matter scratching, pondering, waking up slowly, and meandering inside the comforting and familiar space of a coffee shop. At least, that’s what most Mondays are to me. Not today. Took one of the roommates to work in Van Nuys, due to his car being out of commission. The drive there–not so bad. The drive back–a nightmarish, tortuous wandering among side roads and main drags, skips and jumps on and off the freeway, down to inches crawling forward, soldiers in mud fields and bullets (I believe I saw a bullet-riddled car drive past me at an agonizing pace, like a wounded combatant still attempting his duties). The return might not have been so bad–I was making decent time, despite the above-histrionics–but I was rearended coming down Interstate 10, a scant five miles from home.
Granted, bumper-to-bumper snail driving doesn’t lend itself to explosive wreckage or excessive damage, at least not outside the world of entertainment and Michael Bay films (note, the two ideas are distinct and separate). So the impact was not great. But I, in my little Honda Civic, already battered by one wreck earlier this year, was nearly consumed by the Escalade that struck my rear bumper. Despite the slow rate of impact, I was jolted and briefly my heart rate went vertical. A minor bumper indentation and phone and license information later, I was on my way again.
It’s funny the things we consider important. I, for instance, rather like the squeaking my car makes as it careens over bumpy, ill-paved streets. It’s like an old chattering friend who only stops talking when the road smooths over. With the absence of my stereo, the squeaking is a bit rhythmic and melodic, and I feel comforted by the sound. Like an old Jewish mother who only wants everything in the world for her son, my car possesses an infinite variety of squeaks, creaks, cranks, strains, whines, and wheedles, all directed from the car’s heart, the center. And on a long drive in traffic, it’s my music. Should I get a stereo again, the music would change. But would I?

A Year’s Prospectus

jelewis8 — Mon, 07 Aug 2006 23:53:20 +0000

I returned from San Francisco last night around 11:20, after a grueling drive back along the 5. Driving there is like waking up from a wonderful dream. Driving back is the long wait of horrible anticipation before brain surgery. And it’s not just San Francisco. Any drive of four or more hours has a special quality of exquisite delight or depression. Every hour passed is a knife. It only depends on whether it’s being removed from or stuck into your flesh.
San Francisco is like no other place on earth, and you can say that even knowing full well it’s exactly the same as every other place on the planet because it is global, in the same way that Siberia and the Solomon Islands and Antarctica are global, in the same way that people are global, no longer confined to their little plot. San Francisco keeps a person looking straight ahead, always toward the water, always toward the setting of the western sun.
This week promises to be interesting, though that usually doesn’t translate to the blog very well, for reasons which I am about to elucidate. Generally my life is easily graphable, following a line which resembles a desert hovering along the asymptotal horizon, which implies not an excess of things which might be put into memoirs, unless memoirs were suddenly redefined to writing about the life of someone whose very existence is less interesting than that of a fuzzy caterpillar. And it’s true, let’s face it. Caterpillars go through incredible transformation a short time after being born, becoming something nature hardly has words to describe for sheer complex beauty. Meanwhile, I’ve been in Los Angeles a year, and I still have the same two pair of shorts I brought out with me. Wear them constantly.
But it’s not the kind of thing that sells books.
Nevertheless, I figured I could take this week to discuss two milestones, one being my birthday tomorrow, and the second being an LA resident for a year on August 9. I’m sure that sounds like the beginnings of a maudlin look back at the past year, with fruitless pondering of what I could have done differently, what things have occurred to bring me to this point in life, blah blah blah. Please shoot me in the head if I start doing that. I’d hate to write it ~~more than~~ as much as you’d hate to read it.
No, what I would like to do is make this a hilarious, E! Hollywood True Stories kind of looking back, where secrets are revealed, photos are taken, and lawyers gather like vultures to sue each other’s clients because the picking gets so vicious. In short, I want to say exactly what I’ve been wanting to say all this time, but needed a year in which to establish residency, so as not to taint what I have to say with the hint of illegitimacy. Now that I’ve been here long enough, my words might have some weight. Just not as much as anyone who’s been here longer than me. But that’s the advantage of having a forum. People tend to listen if you shout loud enough. Even if they’re just rubberneckers trying to catch a glance at the crazy guy on the corner shouting weird things and wearing no pants. So watch and wait, people. There’s good stuff a’coming.
Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering, yes. You did just spend five minutes reading something with absolutely zero content value. I’m kind of like the LA Times that way.
See you tomorrow.

Flight Envy

jelewis8 — Tue, 20 Jun 2006 19:12:13 +0000

It’s that time of year again, when the sun and blue sky begin only after a sullen morning of grey, as if it’s beneath their dignity to stick their heads out from under the cloud cover until they’re sure everyone’s up and has had their Starbucks enema and can now appreciate the hard work that is required in making a day beautiful and bright. Not that I don’t love it, but waking up at 7:30 when the clouds look like death isn’t all that easy to do. Your psyche objects to the early and dull awakening, and your soul, usually the quiet one, goes on a ten minute rant about needing actual light for there to be morning, and what the heck is wrong with staying in bed anyway?
Had a really really really long day yesterday. Flying just saps you to the bone, and it’s really one of the easiest things in the world to do. But when you’re as poor as I am, you have to opt for the multi-connection method for getting from point A to point F. You’re paying less, even though you’re using more fuel to get there. And you wonder why the airlines are going broke. But it makes sense to charge more for the straight shot. No one wants to be on an airplane for eight hours when you can do it in four. But double your pleasure, and all that.
So I get stuck with back seats the entire way back from Richmond. And in a metal cylinder with over 268 people on board, deplaning takes longer than a Chernobyl apple tree takes to develop gonads. I’m sitting back there thinking there’s gotta be a better way of doing this. Maybe ejector seats for everyone in the back forty. Or you know, a second jetway. They all have multiple exits, of course, which they reiterate fifty times just in case the plane has to make “an emergency landing”, which might mean on the tarmac or four hundred meters beneath the ocean surface. Why aren’t we ever afraid of that happening? It’s not like they hide the possibility from you. “Most of the seat covers may be used as a floatation device”. That’s what they tell you, but if the plane loses an engine and you jump out with that seat cover shouting “Cowabunga!” you can count out any chance of leading a Lost-like existence on a mysterious jungle island. Stay in the plane, people.
I never understood some of the terms airlines use. What the hell is preboarding? Is that like mental preparation for being stuffed into a tiny compartment with no legroom and poor ventilation and an endless parade of tiny snacks that are supposed to make up for the lack of sleep you’re enduring? And first class is so insulting, not because it’s a class issue, but because they make no effort to hide the fact that these people paid way more money than a seat should be worth. On the video they should just have an arrow that points to the first class section and text that reads “These people aren’t really better than you, they just pay more to feel better.” I think I might respect an airline that tried that.
I made it back at about 9:40pm last night, in Burbank, which normally would be hellishly difficult to drive to from my place, but the timing was such that we just missed the last of the worst Sunday traffic. Good trip, but too fast. I was happy to get back, but wished I could have stayed a bit longer. But it is good to be back. Hope your weekend went well. More tomorrow. Thanks for your patronage.

An Excess Of Machine Deaths

jelewis8 — Tue, 23 May 2006 00:01:36 +0000

If you’re like me, you are surrounded by a battery of technology and mechanical hardware that, in typical 21st century fashion, goes belly up at the worst possible moment. And like plant pheromones signalling others of its kind, there seems to have been a broadcast transmitted to all my creature comforts, causing them to fail in a kind of chain of destruction, akin to a butterfly flapping its wings in Peking causing earthquakes in California and hailstorms in New York City. My car died last Sunday. Yesterday, a hard drive failed in the middle of editing, which is one of the scariest events for an editor to live through, second only to coming to on your apartment floor, your clothes bloody, and your favourite steak knife embedded in the chest of a famous Hollywood director (why this auteur would be in your home is a mystery the detectives solve many months later, after your swift and publically brutal trial and execution). I mean, waking up to that would be quite frightening. What happened? Did I stab this visionary (yet curiously selfish) director in the chest because of something he said to me? Have I been framed? Can I get OJ’s defense team for my trial? Next to that, a failed hard drive seems rather an inconvenience, inevitable, yet able to be overcome, if only by brute stubborn resolve to see the project through no matter what the problems.
Then I went to edit the Grounds Zero title animation. Just a few tweaks, easily done. Except the file refuses to open. I try it again. Nothing. Not only that, but After Effects gives me an error. Something about a corrupt file. Oh. No. Not again.
Unfortunately, this is the file that houses all the animation and artwork for the title sequence. For some reason, it is the only one of all the project files that won’t open. I check the file header, and it appears there’s nothing in it. The ghost in the machine has struck again, leaving me in shambles. By 1:30am I’m exhausted trying to recover the file, even going so far as to call the local diocese to see if they perform exorcisms on home computers. The bishop hung up on me. Even knowing it was a lost cause and there was nothing to be done about it, I still teared up in frustration. This has not been a good week for me and my technology.
But we struggle on, don’t we? The human history of experience is fraught with failures and faultlines, marked in pain and sadness at the mountains nearly conquered, the battles almost won, the successes faintly tasted. The truest hero is not one who wins because he is good, but who doesn’t quite win because he is flawed, and yet rises again the following day to hope for the best. I’m not saying I’m a hero. I am saying I got up this morning and emailed my contact about the situation, ending with the ever ambiguous “oh well.” Like the Chinese character combo for crisis, “oh well” conveys the duality of disaster. One may find in it equally the reason for dismay (oh) and potential for opportunity (well). In this case, it cut short what might have been a long running series of “improvements” to an already completed title sequence. Perhaps I have won out after all.
The weekend was good. I’m well on my way to putting up a portfolio site, which will render my meager skills in such a way as to highlight the least flawed moments of a highly suspect career. May many employers find it compelling and hire-worthy. That’s all for today, as I’m scrambling to get Floyd updates ready for the server and finish up some other work before I leave for Texas on Wednesday.
See ya tomorrow, if my monitor doesn’t die first. And if it does…oh well.

Pinsching Myself Awake

jelewis8 — Wed, 22 Mar 2006 18:46:30 +0000

Do you ever notice in dreams how if you’re running, you can never quite run the way you know you’re capable of running? You’ll be trying to escape from a crazed serial killer, or a giant doberman pinscher, or a crazed serial pincher, and your legs. Just. Won’t. Go. They’re like jello settling into concrete, and inside your dream you’re mentally flagellating yourself for your insipid inability to run.
Then you wake up and discover your arms and legs have lost feeling because you’ve cut off their blood flow in your sleep. At least, that’s what happened to me this morning. It’s a dissatisfying feeling waking up from dreamland inadequacy. It makes facing the day less about getting things done and more about measuring up to mean expectations.
I’m working like gangbusters on several different projects, so I’ll have to keep this short and sweet. Why don’t you visit some of the sites on my sidebar while you wait for me to come back around? Or listen to one of four Fringecast episodes, also to your right. I’ll be back tomorrow.

Islamofascism Vs. Faux Christianity: What’s Scarier?

jelewis8 — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 01:12:27 +0000

I had a triple shot medium latte today, which is three times more than my normal daily dosage. A little later on, I drank a large Coca Cola. And then the shaking, which was a fun experience… If they ever want a Parkinson’s simulator at a museum of unnatural health, the triple ought to do the trick. The reason behind the excess caffeine is best distilled into three words, one for each shot: really late night. I managed to snatch about five hours of sleep, waking up at nine, but my sleep cycle was thrown off radically.
I’ve been striving through Book 2, which has a clever double meaning title that will most likely confuse and deter some. In striving to imagine a somewhat distant future for the story, I’ve come across what seems to me an interesting conundrum: every scenario in my mind heavily features Islam, yet I don’t care at all to write about a future in which Islam is the focus and Sharia is the status quo. So I’ve actively rebelled against my natural inclinations (and what seems to me logical conclusions) regarding the political and religious landscape of the world in 50 or 100 years. Oh, I’ve written in snatches of future historical events that involve terrorists, and in my mind, they’re all Islamofascist in nature, but I’ve intentionally left Islamofascism on the backburner. Perhaps that’s a realistic portrayal of things to come, perhaps not. Though as a fiction writer, I’m not sure I want absolute parity. Whether or not Europe still exists as, you know, European, in my future dystopic existence, is a question I blithely ignore, though clearly it has merit for today.
I think the biggest question I am trying to explore in my book is what happens after we presumably solve all our current crises? I assume an awful lot: terrorism still exists, but advances in computer tracking of cellular groups have decreased the efficiency and effectiveness of such networked organizations like Al Quaida, who are thusly placed firmly in the box of murderous has-beens; Islamofascism has been quashed, to be replaced by a kind of Bizarro World version of it, which is basically watered down Christianity without the damnation/salvation thing. It’s gotten me to thinking: why have I chosen this route?
As an author, I want to explore the other side of myself, the side I don’t often let loose in public. So I’ve placed a pseudo-Christian faith (more faux than pseudo, now that I think about it) in my crosshairs, for it’s this kind of faith I would imagine to be more appealing to non-believers than Sharia, but in some ways, more deadly, at least from an eternal standpoint. I suppose what I’m trying to say is, in my current worldview, Islamofascism is a deadly cancer, but part of me realizes, or at least imagines, that what’s even scarier, more vicious, and more troublesome than a jihadistic religion, is one in which there is neither heaven or hell but what we make ourselves, in which God is a mere word upon which can be placed all manner of potential human virtues, and in which we ourselves are the arbiters and adjudicators of morality. In this sense, I see a Christianity in which Christ has lost all meaning.
And that’s infinitely more dangerous than a pile of people who wear suicide vests as business attire.
But I also wonder about my propensity to rail and rant against Islamofascism in my every day life, but then I tackle a much less physically harmful religion in a piece of speculative fiction. It caused me to wonder about writers such as Noam Chomsky or Maureen Dowd, for whom there is no greater danger than the fundamentalist Christianity they see creeping upward in American politics and social agendas. Why do they tackle Christianity over something that is obviously more of a physical and sociological danger to them?
I don’t have an easy answer. I can claim that I at least see the physical dangers Islamofascism presents to human beings. But given an opportunity to explore in fictional depth the future state of political religion and religious politics, have I shirked my duty? For as much as I despise the anti-Christian writer crowd for their biased take on the state of the world, I have to give them credit for being consistent.

The Way Things Should Be

jelewis8 — Fri, 20 Jan 2006 06:09:47 +0000

Some days were never meant to wake up. They should just throw the covers back over their heads and sleep until 10. Today was one of those days, which is why I slept until almost 9. I’ve developed a new and superhuman habit of waking up at a fairly regular time of about 8AM, give or take ten minutes. And by superhuman, I mean everyone in the freaking world can do it, but since I find it extraordinary, I will consider myself one of the ubermensch. Not that I have a trace of German in my blood. It’s just lack of sleep that makes me talk crazy. On to the news of the day.
To date, I have sold less than ten copies of Red State on DVD. This is troublesome on a number of levels, including one that rivals President Bush’s fiduciary nincompoopery. To wit, I have achieved a state of mercantile imbalance, whereby my earnings have no chance of topping my production costs. Now, I’m no MBA, but it strikes me that this is a particularly unenviable position. Moreover, as I understand it, it takes someone of unparalleled moronic disposition to fail to account for various cost factors such as raw materials.
The tally of my financial ruin is thankfully less than triple digits…but not by much. In truth, I’m a bit more altruistic than I let on. My fondest hope is that purchasers of the DVD will find it to be an enjoyable and entertaining product (I refuse to say “experience”–it’s a DVD, not an experience!), with enough value to warrant a few laughs and chuckles throughout. I put a lot of effort into the DVD, and I think it shows. It’s a damn fine piece of work, if I may say so myself, and that’s after accounting for the gaffs, miscues, and sloppiness on my part during DVD development (I somehow lost an entire interview with my roommate Tim Fescoe for the Voiceover Featurette).
The movie is pretty good too. The Director Commentary is not one of my finest, I will admit, but it was my 3^rd attempt at recording it. It just wasn’t meant to be a very successful DC. But it’s there. With 50% less “Um’s!”
On the writing side, I’ve been formulating Book 2 of The Cold Goodbye. I’ve got a fantastic opening that should make the ending of Book 1 seem like the prologue to a children’s story. It’s explosive, sexy, and salient. Strangely silent too, though I’ll let you guess as to what that might mean.
I was considering entering my book into the Lulu Blooker Contest. Those who have read it might like to comment at this point. I’m waiting for wailing and gnashing of teeth and cries for mercy. If I don’t hear anything, I won’t enter. If I do and the suggestions are polite but firmly in the negative, I also won’t do it. So the onus is on you, my friends. But this is one situation where apathy will only help you!
Unless you liked the book. I take compliments well.

C’était un Rendezvous

jelewis8 — Fri, 11 Nov 2005 03:21:58 +0000

August, 1978. Paris, France. The city and its denizens were waking up slowly, as they always do. In the corner cafes and street markets, bread was being baked, coffee was being poured, and several married people were waking up with people other than their spouses, and were slipping their clothes on hurriedly, though quietly, so as not to wake their partner.
On the Porte Dauphine, filmmaker Claude Lelouch strapped a gyro-stabilized camera onto the bumper of his Ferrari 275 GTB. He had a ten minute reel. Ten minutes to make it through the Louvre to the Basilica of Sacre Coeur. And with no legal permission to do so, he had only the aid of one lookout, using what was later discovered to be a broken walkie-talkie. Achieving speeds of up to 140 MPH, Lelouch came close to hitting cars, pedestrians, and buildings as he careened up one way streets and through red lights.

The film instantly became a classic, a legend of “cinema verite”. Thanks to the internets, we have access to this breathtaking adrenaline rush. Watch it or purchase the DVD, which, naturally, has been remastered. I love the aughts!
Via MonkeyFilter
UPDATE: The link was dead but now should be working again.

Poetry For the Insomniac

jelewis8 — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 11:41:55 +0000

I can’t sleep. I don’t know why. I overslept this (yesterday) morning by an hour, waking up at nine instead of eight. Maybe that’s the culprit.
I find times like these to be the best for inspiration, especially in the poetry department. I often can bang a couple out that may or may not reflect my current mood at the time. My latest, entitled Elemental, is a less than serious musing on some institutions or values (or institutional values, for that matter) that we hold dear, and some things that I, as an individual and an artiste (yes, ar-teest) think about from time to time, including the muse that keeps me awake and writing poetry when I should be in bed dreaming of interpolitical power plays between my roommates and I (as I dreamt the other night). Elemental is less about the real or even the metareal, but rather the scope of such seemingly untouchable qualities, marrying them to real or imagined situations that 1) defy expectation and 2) cause a slight upward twitch in your mouth muscles, causing what might be considered a smile.
Because it’s funny that the City has indigestion. I mean, right?
Of course, it’s all very stream of consciousness and has no real bearing on metered poetry, except the barest hint of a rhyme here and there, and some measure of purpose in verse/line separation. Perhaps Van der Leun can do a bit of editing on it, as he has in the past. Editing my poetry is not one of my strong suits. Once it’s out, it rarely is examined more than once for spelling and grammar and for the most part, I’m confident of its purpose, if not its success. I’m a rare species, a poet with no sense of parting. I don’t miss the words I write, I don’t dwell on them, and I don’t expect any return from their departure from my mind. It is, to me, merely an end to a means, that which only authors and artists and madmen can understand.
Interesting fact #1: I was an English major in college. True. Once I figured out Computer Science was the devil, I briefly flirted with Graphic Design, had an affair with Interdisciplinary Studies when Graphic Design decided not to go out with me (it was a rebound relationship), and then English came along, and I never looked back. Well, there was the ongoing fling with Communications, but that was more of a friendship thing. We never were intimate.
Interesting fact #2: I never took a poetry class. Weird, huh? In fact, as an English major, I think I took fewer English classes than most everyone else. Naturally, we all were expected to take a minimum amount to receive the degree, but I was interested in a wide variety of subjects. What classes weren’t part of my “bare necessities” degree were focused outward, on music and art, on history, and the occasional communications class that I found tedious and wretchedly simple (which is why I did so poorly in them!).
So my training in poetry is pretty much nil. Which makes me about as qualified to write it as the next guy. Naturally, this also puts my poetry in the same pedantic category as everyone else. After all, who doesn’t write poetry? I think it’s safe to say I’ll never be Seamus Heaney. Then again, no one is Seamus Heaney except for Seamus Heaney. And even he isn’t Seamus Heaney on a bad day.
Well, it’s 1:40. I’ve been out here twenty minutes, I’ve written a poem and this stupid essay. I’m going to go back to bed and try and wake up at eight. Waking up at nine is so Senior year of college.

The Empire Strikes Back

jelewis8 — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 20:33:45 +0000

The lesson for today is: Do not oversleep, lest ye become the victim of a perfidious city’s malfeasance. At 8:15 this morning I became a statistic, which says that within your first two months of living in Los Angeles, you will A) receive a speeding ticket; B) receive a parking ticket; or C) get into an accident. Of the three choices, the obvious lesser weevil is B, and for that I am grateful. How sad is that, I’m grateful for receiving a parking ticket…Now I’m guaranteed no accidents for up to a year, right? Well, not quite. And to think, I had it all planned out. Get up at 7:30, move the car. It’s all so simple the night before. But that doesn’t take into account the fact that you’ve never, ever been a morning person, and the very process of waking up takes more brain cells than you have at your disposal at such an early hour. Thus deprived of thinking power, the first instinct is not “Save $45!”, it’s “God bless the snooze button!” Alas and alack. Still, I maintain my position on so-called street cleaning; the fact of my ticket only exacerbates the issue.
I watched Vertigo last night, which was the first time I’d seen the whole thing through. The big revelation surprised me. The ending shocked me. Well, shocked in a modern viewer’s sense. It certain was apropos, and the whole film was a ball of wonder. The Hitch, he was a genius.
Watch the remastered film for the incredible VistaVision colour scheme that Hitchcock and his cinematographer, Robert Burks, used to underline the psychological characteristics. The entire film is foreshadowed by colour, and the palette of human emotions is visualized by sharp colour contrasts. The eerie blue-green of Judy Barton’s apartment, as illuminated by the joke-within-a-joke Empire Hotel sign, is a perfect indicator of Scotty’s obsession, his possession of Judy’s outward characteristics. The passionate reds, the guilt of gray, and the calm of beige (tied to religion, no less) are all spaced throughout the film with all the subtlety of a jumbo jet flying 400 meters above the ground. Yet it’s so intricately tied to the humanity of the story and the characters, that you end up noticing the shadow of the jet, rather than the jet itself. So masterful is the direction, so precise is Hitch’s devious translation of “pure cinema” into visual emotion, that we, the viewers, simply absorb it like sponges.
Yesterday it rained all morning. Remarkable. It was the first time I’d seen rain in over a month, and the feeling of walking through a light drizzle was a delight. This is in sharp contrast to Blacksburg, where nearly every afternoon was host to a thunderstorm, and every third morning a light drizzle commenced. Despite my love of southern California’s weather, I appreciate the occasional variation. Overheard a story of one woman complaining of the cold. When asked where she was from originally, she replied that she was from Minnesota. She lamented the fact that she was now assimilated to the point of forgetting her climate roots. I hope I never reach that point.