Hotel Chevalier/The Darjeeling Limited

I love Wes Anderson. Whenever he takes on a new project, he does it with such care and dedication. The Darjeeling Limited and Hotel Chevalier, I think, are his fifth and fifth and a half films. He doesn't have a lot in his repetoire, but he cares for his movies as much as someone would care for a child.

He nurses it, teaches it to walk/talk/play, and scolds. The stories are deeply rich and much more than a film. It's a story of someone or many ones whose lives are dramatically changed in some way. For Darjeeling, it's about three brothers on the path of becoming friends again.

And mostly, I love Adrien Brody in this film. He barely had any lines, but everything was well expressed through his face. You don't even see his character from his Academy Award winning movie "The Pianist." He's almost completely emotionless until you watch the scene from the past. It's incredible.

That's what fascinates me about acting. You can read a bunch of lines on a page and, if you're a good actor, you can act them out as if the moment was happening and you were just naturally saying those words.

Anyway, got two new albums: Radiohead "In Rainbows" and Loudon Wainwright III "Strange Weirdos".

I'm liking "Strange Weirdos" much better. I suppose it's the mix of folk and country. It's also music inspired by the film "Knocked Up" which Loudon plays the OB/GYN that goes to the Bar Mitzvah. He's so versatile.

So it's the first day of the cold days. I'm psyched and freezing at the same time.

What kind of person am I?

I was never good at expressing myself outside the pen. I’ve always been able to say what I want to say by just writing it down. In my life, I have only brought three people to tears. I’m not a mean person, but I can if I ever wanted to. I don’t see the point in being mad at all, actually. I find being mad to be something left for ravenous animals whose only purpose in life is to protect their family and their species. I don’t understand how people can find something good out of yelling and screaming and becoming so frustrated by something that will eventually become the last things on their minds.

So I don’t believe in being mad. I do believe in frustration and stress. I feel that almost everyday when it comes down for me to write the next line of anything I’m working on. It’s never the right consistency or the right style of comical performance that I wanted to portray. It’s always so dry with no ambiguous afterthoughts for the reader to take away. I have always been so straightforward. The mystery is that people somehow find the metaphor I never purposefully planned.

I always find myself to be a little hesitant when introducing myself to someone new. I can’t seem to get the words right or find the perfect conversation piece that will end up in an hour-long dialogue. They all usually just end short and I become so jealous of the people who can easily come up with any topic and busy away speaking about God knows what. If I knew the topics they chose, then I would be able to fill the “God knows what” with something more enthusiastic than the vanity of my use of God’s name.

However, I never display this quiet person online. When you watch my videos, I’m almost playing a role. I come up with the dialogue and the characters and for the most part, I always have something interesting to say. It’s almost as if I’m writing the great American novel, just without the endless days of typing and miming out the scenes with my hands. And my interest in this mysterious connection people make with each other has become an obsession. I aimlessly stare at couples or friends walking down the street wondering how exactly they got to that point in time. Was it luck? Was it fate? Was it anything other than luck or fate?

I’m a very old soul, but I’ve always also had this young heart. My manner of expressing myself can be so youthful, but when I’m alone, I’ve never felt so old. Perhaps it’s all the tea that I drink.

The Kite Runner

A young man named Amir must save his friend's son from a life of turmoil in Afghanistan. Hassan, Amir's friend, dies because of his certain ethnicity (Hazara) while Amir lives a life renewed in America (he is a Pashtun).

I read this book because I had heard about the movie being released in America. Sadly, while I was trying to finish the last pages of the book, my mother told me that the movie might not premiere as soon as I had hoped. Unfortunately, due to the content of the film and of the book, the movie will not release until mid-November.

What is the content?

Rape, murder, suicide, childhood sodomy, and above all racism.

In America, we face a lot of different challenges because we are a mix of races and religions and traditions. However, when you're born into a world where they aren't so lenient about difference, you become a problem. Afghanistan, in the 1970's, was still torn apart. The Pashtuns (Amir and his family) lived a wealthy life getting everything they want that is both Eastern and Western. Nothing is skimmed. As for the Hazaras (Hassan), life is set for them as a servant. They are considered lower than dirt and pretty much treated that way.

Hassan is also a Shiite while Amir is a Sunni. And i was thinking about all those differences in one country. All the fighting in Afghanistan because the people are divided into two religions; divided into two groups of people. Although we live in America, we still have to go through racism. There were neo-nazis and KKK members. The world doesn't tolerate everyone all the time. Even the ethnocentrics from Afghanistan who immigrate to America still carry on the long standing tradition. If you're a Hazara, you're a servant. People respect you more if you're born a Pashtun.

You can't even tell the people apart, but they are torn apart because of it. It's a lose-lose situation. How tragic.

The ending made me cry. Probably the first book in a long time. I was overpowered by Amir's promise to take care of his friend's boy. He brings him to America and gives him every opportunity that Hassan could have never had. That boy is lucky to come to a country that will accept him because he is a human and not because he is different than Amir.

And what bonds the two friends together? Kite flying.

sup

I was laying in bed the other night pondering the idea of sleep. What really goes into sleep and what do you feel when you're asleep? The body rests so that it can keep on going. And the state of unconscious is scary as fuck.

Just wondering

How many times this summer did I complain about not having a job? Probably too many to count.

Did I mention the two-hour lecture I got from someone who was interviewing me for a job? He said that I should follow my dreams and fuck everyone else. What did I say to myself? He's a fucking crock of shit, that's what I said.

He grew up in a time period where it was easy to start anything. Photography, fashion magazines, etc. They all started around the time he was born and didn't start getting popular until, what, the 1980's? He got to start his company in the prime time to get a job for a magazine. Now, he makes his money sitting around in a small office taking photographs of not-so-fat models and judging not-so-skinny women about how "fat" they are. And he has the gall to tell me that I should start dreaming and follow those dreams?

No.

This man doesn't know the pressures a person of my age has. We go to fancy schools for four or more years to follow something we believe is a dream, but once we are released into the world, we fall from the nest.

Maybe I've just become a little bitter over the summer. Maybe I'm right. We come out of college with the idea it will be a snap to get a job because we had it so easy in college. But we all fall. Some of us are able to stand up on our feet again and fly, but others get run over by the car the economy.

What this world needs is the inability to dream. Then, when our dreams don't come true, we won't be so fucking disappointed.

What Kind of Person Am I? (Revised)

I was never good at expressing myself outside the pen. I’ve always been able to say what I want to say by just writing it down. In my life, I have only brought three people to tears. I’m not a mean person, but I can if I ever wanted to. I don’t see the point in being mad at all, actually. I find being mad to be something left for ravenous animals whose only purpose in life is to protect their family and their species. I don’t understand how people can find something good out of yelling and screaming and becoming so frustrated by something that will eventually become the last things on their minds.

So I don’t believe in being mad. I do believe in frustration and stress. I feel that almost everyday when it comes down for me to write the next line of anything I’m working on. It’s never the right consistency or the right style of comical performance that I wanted to portray. It’s always so dry with no ambiguous afterthoughts for the reader to take away. I have always been so straightforward. The mystery is that people somehow find the metaphor I never purposefully planned.

I always find myself to be a little hesitant when introducing myself to someone new. I can’t seem to get the words right or find the perfect conversation piece that will end up in an hour-long dialogue. They all usually just end short and I become so jealous of the people who can easily come up with any topic and busy away speaking about God knows what. If I knew the topics they chose, then I would be able to fill the “God knows what” with something more enthusiastic than the vanity of my use of God’s name.

However, I never display this quiet person online. When you watch my videos, I’m almost playing a role. I come up with the dialogue and the characters and for the most part, I always have something interesting to say. It’s almost as if I’m writing the great American novel, just without the endless days of typing and miming out the scenes with my hands. I seek comfort in everything, but Youtube keeps me from it. The idea of people staring at me and watching me scares me, but keeps me bold. I’ve never wanted celebrity fame, but a recognizable face.

And my interest in this mysterious connection people make with each other has become an obsession. I aimlessly stare at couples or friends walking down the street wondering how exactly they got to that point in time. Was it luck? Was it fate? Was it anything other than luck or fate?

I’m a very old soul, but I’ve always also had this young heart. My manner of expressing myself can be so youthful, but when I’m alone, I’ve never felt so old. Perhaps it’s all the tea that I drink.