Author: colter

The Film of Tomorrow

“The film of tomorrow appears to me as even more personal than an individual and autobiographical novel, like a confession, or a diary. The young filmmakers will express themselves in the first person and will relate what has happened to them. It may be the story of their first love or their most recent; of their political awakening; the story of a trip, a sickness, their military service, their marriage, their last vacation…and it will be enjoyable because it will be true, and new…The film of tomorrow will not be directed by civil servants of the camera, but by artists for whom shooting a film constitutes a wonderful and thrilling adventure. The film of tomorrow will resemble the person who made it, and the number of spectators will be proportional to the number of friends the director has. The film of tomorrow will be an act of love.”

— François Truffaut, published in Arts magazine, May 1957

I couldn’t help but read that through the lens of blogging. In a few more years, blogs may morph into video podcasting for everyone, and then Truffaut will have been 50 years ahead of his time. Bloggers certainly aren’t filmmakers by any stretch of the imagination, but it still seems like an eerily prescient quotation. I also think it applies to my thrilling adventures with digital photography. I’m certainly no civil servant to the camera.

On a related note, I went to Suncoast last night, and DVDs were all 30% off, and I STILL bought nothing. I’m holding out for 50% off because nobody else cares about the DVDs I want (for example, Truffaut films and other snooty Criterion collection discs).

Happy Hallmark® Day!

I took Stinkfoot to the vet this morning because his left front paw doesn’t appear to be working. He’s been hobbling around for a few days. The vet gave him a shot and some antibiotics, and said if he doesn’t improve in a couple of days to bring him back for an x-ray. As I was waiting for the bill I heard a couple of the nurses talking about Valentine’s Day. One of them said, “we don’t do Valentine’s Day. It’s a Hallmark holiday.”

I can see her point. As much as I actually enjoy having a day to spread love around, for those of us who don’t have a significant other it’s a bit depressing. Like Christmas, Thanksgiving and New Year’s, Valentine’s Day is one of those days where single people feel culturally compelled to be doing something special. If we’re not, we’re inevitably depressed. I imagine it’s similar to being a lonely Jew on Christmas.

As a side note, thank heavens for myspace.com, where people can send odd pictures and leave notes for people rather than buy cards or even e-cards (good ones are really hard to find) for Valentine’s Day.

I am a Genius

America loves reality TV. America loves 24-hour news channel punditry. It’s only a matter of time before we combine them together for a series in which a handful of people are chosen to argue with each other, vote each other off the show, and whoever wins gets to become a Fox News pundit.

You heard it here first. It would be like American Idol, only with less beauty and talent.

Followup Songs

McSweeney’s had a good bit not too long ago about follow up songs to one-hit wonders:

How Are We Going to Get These Dogs Back In?

Bust an Additional Move

Seriously, Eileen, Come On

(Won’t You Give Me a Ride Home From) Funkytown?

Remember When You Lit Up My Life? That Was Great

I Will Now Pass the Dutchie Back to You and Thank You for Passing It to Me Originally Because I Really Enjoyed the Dutchie

The Morning That the Lights Came Back On in Georgia

Everybody Was Kung Fu Making Up

Achier Breakier Heart

Whoomp! There It Continues to Be

867-5309 extension 2

We Never Took It and Persist in Our Refusal to Take It

But I figure, why stop at one-hit wonders?

We Have Successfully Received the Funk

Hit Me Baby One More Time, Then Please Stop Hitting Me

I Wanted You to Want Me, But Now Not So Much

It’s Cooler Now, We Should Put Back On All Our Clothes

Feel free to add your own in the comments section.

Who I Am

All week I kept getting these MSN Messenger requests from people I don’t know, so I emailed them asking who they are and how they know me. This was one reply:

“oh im on jessica dycks and taylor bents and allie jones’s hockey team. ur also none as “yellow shirt kid ” ur the boy that my hole team knows about”

Good to know.

Listen to Yourself Churn

Anyone offended by discussions of a gastrointestinal nature may want to skip this entry.

As I approach the 30 year mark on this planet, some physiological changes have made themselves known. I have grey hairs. I hunt them down and kill them, not a big deal. My joints pop more often, so I’m taking glucosamine. The biggest problem, though, and one over which I have no control, is the abdominal noise. The churning after a meal is far noisier than the grumbling beforehand. I can’t stand it. It doesn’t seem to matter what I eat, although a taco salad from Hardee’s was apparently a big mistake today. Does anyone else have this problem, and do you have any recommendations to alleviate it? Do I need a colonic or something?

Perspective

Driving across the river bridge this morning I saw a man walking north in the soutbound lane of the interstate. For those who don’t know, the dowtown river bridge is three lanes on both sides with no room for pedestrians to walk. I noticed the man was carrying a gas can. I then passed by his stalled car just beyond the halfway point of the bridge. For the next two miles I saw the bumper-to-bumper madness, a product of his motionless vehicle in the right hand lane.

That guy knows the blues. To run out of gas on the interstate, on a bridge with no shoulder, and to have to get out of the car, go get gas and come back…that’s about the deepest troubles a motorist can have. At least with an accident, you have it and it’s over. This guy has to continually be in danger just to get some gas. Never again will I complain about having a bad morning.

Another One Bites the Dust

Suncoast, the DVD store in Park Plaza Mall, is closing its doors. This means I will have no other compelling reason to go to the mall beyond Chick-fil-A. This seems to be a pattern in entertainment media – they can’t seem to survive in malls anymore. Retail music stores have all but disappeared from malls, at least in Arkansas. Camelot Music, Musicland, Sam Goody…I’ve seen them all close between here and Missouri. There’s still a Sam Goody in McCain Mall, but I would wager that it will close within the next few years.

Of course the culprits are Amazon.com and Best Buy. I guess it’s just the natural evolution of the business, but I’ll miss the concept of a specialty DVD store. The only other place I can go to get obscure movies is Barnes & Noble, the place that never sells below retail.

Anyway. Going out of business sale at Suncoast. So far, it’s 20% off anything in the store, which in most cases puts the prices close to the Amazon.com rates (but still mostly higher than, say, DeepDiscountDVD.com).

My First Liner Notes

My friend and hero Ross Rice has just released his long-long-awaited second album, Dwight. For heaven’s sake, buy it. He’s awesome. The link has samples of the tunes, as does the website I maintain, and the myspace page. I’m particularly excited about this album because it marks my first mention in an album’s liner notes! And I’m in there twice! It’s such a little music nerd fetish…my name is right next to John Fields[1]!

So between jamming with a former Yes keyboardist last week, and now this, I’ve sufficiently jazzed the little music geek inside me for several months. Although last night would have made a neat trifecta, as I played a gig for Ducks Unlimited at the Doubletree Hotel, and there were rumors that governor Mike Huckabee might want to play bass with us. So I brought my Rickenbacker just in case. Sadly no Huck by start time. I almost bumped into him at the dinner, though.

1.) Collaborator with Andy Sturmer from Jellyfish, among many, many others.

Let’s Go to Japan…

…where apparently they kidnap American guitar players and force them to battle in cage-match riff-offs. I found this video at YouTube.com, which is slowly taking over the world as a video answer to Flickr. People upload videos and share them online for free. The content is an amalgam of home movies and TV clips. I did a search on some of my favorite guitar players and found this clip of Paul Gilbert and Marty Friedman from a Japanese TV show. Even if you’re not a guitar player, I think this video is illuminating as a cross-cultural experience. First the guys compete in a name-that-Kiss-riff competition (which Marty wins, although if the game were Beatles tunes, Paul would totally have killed him), then another one based on letters of the alphabet. There are also clips from random videos (UFO and Ramones, anyone?) and a completely surreal The Price is Right-esque advertisement for Paul’s PGM301 guitar. Watching it I couldn’t help but feel as though there is a parallel universe where guitar shredding never died. Kurt Cobain never made it to Japan.

Compounding the weirdness is the fact that Marty and Paul speak fluent Japanese throughout the show.