Winter break

Is over.

Here is a video I assembled that represents such a time.




I have been using this Vado HD mini-camera (?) lately.   The school loaned out to me as part of a poorly managed promotion/ contest (whatever) and strangely has not asked for it back.  I've shot quite a bit with it, and become a little bit better at capturing/ predicting "moments", or just spying on people looking at porn on their iPhones on the subway. Among other things.

It is, as most of you know, a new year. I have resolutions and am sticking to them (at least the ones I remembered).  My room has seen some practical improvements, like my new blue sunlight-obscuring curtains, and a padded computer chair. For the past year and a half I used a plastic folding chair. No wonder I've been having lower back pain.
I am looking for another bookshelf to tie the room together. Any suggestions?
I am also buying more frozen vegetables, on the advice of my mother, who believes frozen vegetables are actually often more nutritious than fresh ones.  Today I bought pizza dough and pizza sauce too. Tiny, domestic victories.


In academic news, I dropped Narrative because I was getting bad vibes from the pre-class emails and don't really feel like killing myself for a movie.  I'm taking Experimental Animation instead, which is an exciting prospect.  I have plans of making my wilderness/prison break film in the summer. For fun.
I'm also taking a fiction class, a Melville class, and an International cinema class. All have met expectations, for now. We get to watch Syndromes and a Century and Spirit of the Beehive and some other crap I haven't seen, which feels useful. 


The addition of Netflix instant to my life is a plus.
I am also trying to be more honest and learn guitar. 

Here is another video I filmed.



High hopes and optimism 2010.

One time,
there was a movie I wanted to make about a man who sees a beached whale on a city street. He tries to pour water on it, keep it alive, somehow get it back to the ocean. He can't get anyone to help him though, and the whale dies.

I abandoned this project, but still remain fascinated by the idea of the beached whale. As do others.



The mortality of a whale is something you don't encounter too much in life, so for one to die (or kill itself) in the realm of man is indescribably tragic.

Still reading Moby Dick.

Giant sea spiders

Respond to the music post! Tell me what I left out/ what I need to listen to!

WHALES

So I'm two episodes into Battlestar: Galactica's third Season, which, by the way, and not by the way, is AMAZING. Totally reminds me of why I like the show.

Anyway, Colonel Tigh, the second in command on Galactica, has a new getup for this season, and he looks like this.
Which, frankly, is pretty awesome.

He reminded me of a whaler, or a nautical man, I think they call them sailors, anyway and his actions and gruff voice match the idea I have in my head of a whaler. Which, is probably wrong. But it got me really into a mindset; a probably fleeting, yet passionate obsession with whalers and whaling.

Then I remembered this book my dad gave me, called









And it's about some shipwrecked whalers with eyepatches and beanies and GREAT white beards and maybe white whales,
who have to resort to cannibalism and other things while surviving at sea.

So I am going to read this

and then I went and picked up Moby Dick today for 5 dollars and i am going to TACKLE that thing next.



Yes. MOBY DICK. The one. The only.


I know you guys are like, "But Blake! I thought you only read Roald Dahl books or comics or the old Newsweeks that Thelma from down the street drops off? How are you going to read such a long book??"

And while such a claim is partially true, I have to become a man eventually, and NOTHING defines manhood like:

a) Getting into a fight
b) Growing a moustache
c) Reading Moby Dick

Since the first two have eluded me and will continue to for quite some time, I decided that IT IS NOW TIME TO READ MOBY DICK.

But first, that other book. Actually maybe a few episodes of BSG....

MY FAVORITE MOVIE

MY FAVORITE MOVIE EVER.

"Baby Squid, Born Like Stars"

By Brad Seibel


WATCH





THE FUSION OF SOUND AND IMAGE AND MOTION IS LOVE IS THIS MOVIE

enter RETURN

OK guys, so sorry, didn't manage to post much in the transition from New York to Poway. I'm sorry. After an encounter with a "good friend" earlier tonight in which this blog was referred to as one of my many "lies", I felt ashamed, naked, and defeated. But this criticism has compelled me to only press on further, and with more gusto than before; to continue with my initial mission statement of a post-per-day, and never falter.

So, with that said, here's to a fresh start and some more content.


Poway has been nice. I feel like there's this natural sort of falling into place that happens when coming back home, in which this same set of emotions, of lifestyles, of sleep patterns and dialects kind of fold back over and around your body. An environmental, distinct, specific sweater, persay. It's great to see people too.






I had a crazy dream the other night, but not in the "wow I had a crazy dream" sense. Let me start over.

So in reality, earlier today, my family was talking about cellphones in the car or something. Batteries, how Kevin needed a new one, how Kevin's fell off the rollercoaster. Talk eventually shifted to my embarrassing story where I flushed my cellphone down the toilet and it got stuck in the piping. People laughed at this.

Then I said, "Hey, I just dried off my cellphone the other day, it fell in the water too!"

Before anyone reacted, I realized and maybe simultaneously visualized the story I was about to tell. I remembered me, swimming in this clear, green ocean, with cellphone in hand, not a care in the world. Suddenly, I must have dropped the phone, and, helpless, watched it drift slowly to the sand at the bottom, maybe 30 feet down. I took a big breath and frantically dove to the bottom to grab it, picked it up, and returned to the surface. I pulled off the battery on the phone and began drying off the connection points with a blow drier I somehow had available. I watched some last bits of water drip out of the phone, and knew the drying had worked. Only by this time, the ocean was not calm and tranquil; a huge wave was sweeping towards me, a wave bigger than any I had ever seen. It grew above me and blocked the sun and stretched high and intimidating into the air. I dove into the ocean face of it and tried to hide underneath the water, but the tremendous pull of the wave sucked me back out and spit me out with the foam. It was chaos; I was tumbling and rolling and gasping for air.....

And then I said "Oh, nevermind. I didn't really drop my phone in the water. It was just a dream. A strangely lucid and memorable dream."

I had never so strongly mixed a dream with reality, even in my own head, before today. There was no hesitation in my mind; the memory of the dropped cell phone was as clear and real as other memories in my head. It was truly bizarre and fascinating, and something that I hope happens to some degree later in my life. I don't really know what it means, but if you have any ideas, let me know.