So I haven't been doing much lately. I really need to get back to that, find a job and work it, do this schoolwork (I have decided officially that my class is bad and a waste of time) which accrues. I need to write. I need things to write about. I need more art to inspire. I need all that shit.

I downloaded some new music- Page France's first record, after finding two songs off the upcoming record on mp3 blogs. This album, which I play now, is much more emo than I generally tolerate. Or, more accurately, it's more soundtrack-indie than most bands I like. More delicate, and vocals and lyrics add up to "kind of a pussy" rather than the "kind of a weirdo" that I prefer. The one mp3 blog mentioned Death Cab as well as Neutral Milk Hotel. This first album plays up the former more than the later stuff. Moments? Yeah maybe a few.

Something else that has its moments: Three Kings, which I watched today.

Goodnight America.

I watched Orson Welles' F For Fake tonight. For those keeping a tally, the only bad Orson Welles movie I have ever seen is The Magnificent Ambersons. (which might've been ruined because of the people I was watching it with, the fact that I saw a video that might've been pan-and-scan, or the infamous studio cuts.) This remains the case. F For Fake is pretty great.

To articulate slightly further: It's kind of a documentary but it's completely insane.

It does what I kind of want to do with my writing and (this is shameful) even my talking/interaction. This kind of just kicking your ass with its intelligence. Not beating you over the head with the intelligence, not being pretentious about it, but just wielding it like it's a fucking weapon to achieve results. Those results being to charm you, which seems like it should be antithetical to the whole violence speak. But, no. I don't think so.

It's about magic, filmmaking, acting, art, and forgery. It's also about how Orson Welles is a bad-ass who even in his old age was able to have relationships with attractive women.

So I am late to the game on Nina Nastasia. Found out via Spoilt Victorian Child mp3 blog, as part of a John Peel tribute. Albini liked her so much she gave him the record, and then I heard a song from a Peel session he engineered. This song, Beautiful Day, it's a good one. And John Peel was indeed, as that Steve fellow says, a hell of a man.

So, one thing about DVDs that kind of sucks is that if they are subtitled and you are bored, you can't just have the subtitles on and watch it at twice the speed if you read fast. This is because the subtitles are syncronized with the audio, not the video. And with this fact, another aspect of Douglas Coupland's writing, one of the few things I held onto, ages poorly.

Speaking of books, did I ever mention here about how The Unbearable Lightness Of Being pretty much blows? And by pretty much, I mean I recommend you don't read it. Like if someone told you it was good, just ignore them and read The Book Of Laughter And Forgetting instead. That one is not only shorter, it's also about much more. Also, the asides that are kind of philosophical actually have a point, and amount to something. They're a part of the book, because so much of the book reads like asides and digressions. With The Unbearable Lightness Of Being, that stuff is just a part of the book's voice, and so the stuff that's said (like "metaphors are dangerous, because a single metaphor can give birth to love") not only doesn't mean anything (seriously, did that line I paraphrased affect you or strike you as true in any way?) but makes the book as pretentious as its title. I read that book awhile ago. I'm kind of reading books now, but the stuff I'm reading isn't really especially compelling so I'm kind of not.

Speaking of books, there's a top 100 English language novels written since 1923 up at Time.com and maybe it'll be in the magazine. It's a good list, I would say, although it's incredibly nerdy. Not only is Watchmen on it, the lone "graphic novel" (they're also called comics) but so's The Lord Of The Rings, Phillip K. Dick's Ubik, William Gibson, and Neal Stephenson. (None of these I've read, actually.) This is in addition to such stuff as 1984, Slaughterhouse Five, and A Clockwork Orange. It's a good list- both Pynchon novels I've read make it, as does Catch-22 and One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest. Also Lolita. Flann O'Brien's At Swim-Two-Birds made it, which I haven't read, but should.

Here's the link, actually, so I don't just name all the stuff I've either read or just like that's on there: http://www.time.com/time/2005/100books/the_complete_list.html

It's a really nerdy list. So, I'm happy with it, it reflects my tastes better than most. But it's not necessarily the list I'd read... It does a good job taking my tastes and the canon and making it all seem seamless. There's books on there I should read. (The Sot-Weed Factor- I should read more Barth just as a rule because I liked The End Of The Road.) (Maybe I should read Infinite Jest- I've heard like one bad thing, and that was from someone talking about someone else who'd read it, not their actual reaction. The "year of the Depends undergarment" thing doesn't make me laugh. And I think David Foster Wallace looks kind of an ass in photos, but that's true for most, if not all, authors.)

Oh, and Ulysses doesn't make it, which is funny because it's something I've got a bookmark in the middle (not the very middle... closer to the beginning than the actual middle) and don't know when I'll finish because I'm not feeling it.

EDIT: It actually didn't make it because it came out in 1922. That's funny for other reasons.

In other news, I watched Ong-Bak: The Thai Warrior, a movie where people get kicked and blown up and physically fucked up in all kinds of ways, and thought it was awesome. I fast-forwarded through most of the beginning. (Without reading any subtitles, as established earlier.) It's really good. You know what's not good? Oldboy. That's not kung-fu, but it's Korean and supposedly fucked-up but no, it's just total bullshit.

Finished another short story, "Reviewing The Dailies." "Erica Bleeds" I have decided is also finished. So that's it for short stories. The focus should now be on novels, but I'm sure short stories will come up when I become discouraged or think my form needs more work. "Reviewing The Dailies" is my stab at being experimental, and I don't know if it worked. I should really submit it, I'm thinking to Seattle's Golden Handcuffs Review.

So that's nine short stories, although some are very short indeed- I mostly don't count that thing, Rubberband Summer, I posted it on this blog awhile back, but I'm counting it now to make nine, even though it's crazy short, and I could order them into a book if I wanted to. I decided the arbitrary device would be the age of the narrators/main characters, and that ended up working fairly well.

I also have school work to deal with. Hm. Not so much a fan of that. Also, I should get a job, as I'm shit poor. Nothing new there. This is why I don't post so much. Well, that and I've been posting more on message boards and whatnot, as I find that a good outlet for nerd ramblings of those whose own lives aren't really amounting to anything.

So last year I made this end of year mix CD, one part best-of to two parts encoding the memories of the year into a soundtrack. I started working on a 2005 playlist, and it's hard. Because I liked a lot of music, and it's fairly disparate, but I want to work in a lot. And a decent amount went down this year, I suppose. It's not done yet, and many of the things are minor, or if they're not minor, they're not things that effected me personally. It's not like that at the end of 2003 when I ran around with This Boy Is Exhausted stuck in my head.

I know it's going to start off with The Mountain Goats' This Year (the version off the vinyl edition of The Sunset Tree). And there's probably going to be this song off the new Dirty Three album that Cat Power sings on, because of hurricane allusions.

I should maybe do the thing with editing and segueing the songs into each other with fades and stuff. I should maybe not even be working on it yet. I want to put The Skin Of My Yellow Country Teeth by Clap Your Hands Say Yeah on there but it has its own segue built into the end, into the next song on the album.

It's already over an hour long.

Maybe the reason the music's been good is the same reason the mix is hard to make, because of the multitude of feelings and mood contained within single songs: Every song feels like a segue, except for the occasional thing like the Dirty Three/Cat Power collaboration. This really works for albums though. But on mixes, even the stuff where the segue from track to track is smooth, the constant varying mood gets weird after a few tracks.

Yeah, Mountain Goats into A-Frames into Dirty Three doesn't work.

The only song I'm married to is Need New Body's Poppa B. I could maybe make two mixes. That might end up being what I do, that way I can repeat the same band.

Right now I'm listening to The Hold Steady's Cattle And The Creeping Things, going into the Silver Jews, How Can I Love You If You Won't Lie Down. I almost put Don't Let Me Explode on a mix for my mom, and maybe if I did two, that could go into the Dirty Three/Cat Power thing.

I will keep you posted. Two mixes... Yes, for I contain multitudes.

EDIT: Actually I think it's coming together. As one mix. I might ditch A-Frames (Flies), or Psychic Paramount (Para5), or Black Dice (Street Dude), or switch the Animal Collective song at the end (currently, Banshee Beat) for another that accomplishes the same ends. Right now I'm leaning toward maybe ditching the Psychic Paramount, as it's maybe a bit too long for something that one-note, although it's an awesome note, it might not be the most mix CD friendly one. (It's a note of pure loud rock propulsion through the future, and yes highly recommended.)

Just saw this movie Mind Game, downloaded off Bittorrent. It is completely amazing. Japanese animation, but good. And not good like Miyazaki is good.

Like... I liked The Triplets Of Belleville way more than I like anime. And that might be a better reference point. I don't know, I think it's beyond any kind of nation or nerdiness, and it just kicks out the animation jams something fierce.

The style is forever changing, although the story's mostly linear. And the story, the writing, it's great. It amounts to something special. There's a bit of the weird Japanese attitudes towards sex, and a perverted old man, but that's really the extent of it. Not nerdy in the least. FLCL's got some genre imagery with the robots and whatever, and Dead Leaves has this annoying fucking voice and is really just this vehicle for violence- It's awesome but this is better. And the style is never big eyes. Well, on occasion. That's not the main style, it's just sometimes engaged in for the sake of expressionism. It's really something special and great and HIGHLY recommended. It just started screening in New York apparently, although it was completed in 2004. It is awesome and pushes things forward on like fifteen different levels all while being this populist piece of entertainment.

Not just for anime nerds or kids who want to be japanese.

I asked for high fives DURING the movie, and double high fives afterwards.

It's really great. The first fifteen minutes or so only hint at the greatness to come. And they only barely hint.

I don't want to say I liked it better than Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind or 3-Iron or even The Triplets Of Belleville, as it's very much it's own thing, but I will say that I loved it wholeheartedly and it's... It's better than other films I liked it more, in that it's more experimental and forward-thinking, although it's still totally a populist piece of entertainment. I was moved close to tears of joy at the end. And throughout the middle, I was... My mouth moved in ways I didn't try to control. I spittled and I laughed in astonishment and I was completely entertained.

I loved it. Alex Tripp loved it. Loren Thor loved it. Evan Hashi loved it. These are all the people I watched it with. You will probably love it. You should definitely see it, on a big screen if possible, especially if you're into things like "movies" and "creativity," alone or together.

So I just went and reread some older entries and wow, this thing used to be a lot more entertaining. A lot more angst-filled as well, but I'm considering that bit, the whole "portrait of Brian as a neurotic college Freshman" to be more entertaining than the whole "true tales of my boring life" thing.

The reason I was looking at old entries was to find a copy of this short, one-page love story thing I had written and reread it. It mostly sucks, but so does that Erica Bleeds thing mentioned in my last entry. Let's be charitable and say my writing is just hit and miss.

But, huh, yeah, I guess that's good, the lack of the neuroses, now. I guess this comes down to living with friends in what I call "the pirate ship life." It drains the perpetual nervousness and the "everyone hates me" right out.

Class tomorrow, at night. I wonder how that'll turn out.

So as for writing: I've got these two short stories I've been writing for quite awhile. One's kind of done only maybe not really because it's deeply flawed in regards to pacing, and by extension, characterization, as the pacing falls apart when I can't meditate on the character's beliefs for a long enough period of time. This is a story called Erica Bleeds and it's one of my traditional modern short stories that are very "I like Raymond Carver and want to be literary" and I try to have it be narrated from a first-person female perspective. Only she's really fucked-up in certain ways that probably seem like a cop-out to avoid writing straightforward female characters, but that was not my intention at all. Anyway. I don't know if it's done or not. If anyone wants to read it, and then tell me whether or not it works or if it's deeply flawed, that would be cool. No one is going to take me up on this offer, as no one ever does. Even though "it works" vs. "it seems broken" isn't really hard. Although yeah fuck it honestly I think I know it's broken. I don't know how to fix it besides letting it sit around my hard drive for awhile until I have more stuff to say in this character's voice. Which is unlikely.

Then there's "Reviewing The Dailies" a short story more experimental in nature that I've been working on since April probably, and I could probably just dive into and just write and write and add some words to it and boom it would be done but I'm mostly uninspired and unmotivated.

Then there's two novels. Both in the very early stages. One of which I'm excited about, the other of which is an idea I've had for awhile. I was waiting until the short stories were done to do the novel bit, which I guess I gave up on due to feeling more inspired by this stuff, if for no other reason than the fact that new ideas are forever appealing. Those new ideas are brilliant, let me tell you. The same issue nonetheless persists for these as that of Erica Bleeds, that of needing more stuff for the voices to discuss and to keep it in the voice and oh yeah I mostly don't know where I'm going with this stuff. So basically when those short stories are done (because they're good, Erica Bleeds is good, inherently, at some level, if only as a platonic ideal in my mind, I like what it's doing and what it's about and think it's saying something that kind of matters, and if I can bullshit enough filler, it will work, basically, so I'm not saying it's done yet, although I would like to and it's closer to being done than it ever has been before- it can be read from beginning to end now, with no glaring plot holes, there's just a really fucking weird emphasis on the narrative on shit that doesn't matter at all- the majority of what exists so far is the first section, which is basically characters bullshitting and being filthy shit-talkers, and the main reason it's so long is because such things are really easy to write, whereas insight and internal monologue are way fucking harder, especially as such things need to exist as a way of alluding sideways to a thing which is the key to the story and the character- it's tricky is what I'm saying.) I will go into these novels with vigor. They will take up my time and energy, although the amount of time and energy I devote to any kind of writing is lacking.

Oh and then there's two movies. One's a thing I hope to start shooting fucking soon, and I don't really have a screenplay, just a loose structure and an idea for approach. Yeah. Said approach doesn't really require a screenplay, in my mind. Anyway. The other's a screenplay for a comedy, an idea I got really excited for over the summer, and I know the next couple plot beats but I don't know how to play them for MAXIMUM HILARITY.

Basically pretty much all my shit is stalled for the same reasons, i.e. my lack of insight, coupled with laziness. These are the trials you face when you try for more than strict autobiography.

So did anyone notice/know that three Jim O'Rourke album titles are taken from Nicolas Roeg movies, and that they were all released in the same order? (Bad Timing, Eureka, Insignificance) I just noticed that.

So last night I did the most ridiculous job ever, received courtesy of the manual labor temp agency. I got in a van and rode four and a half hours to central Washington, (beautiful area, by the way) where there's an airport. Then me and some other temps were dressed in Arab garb ("man-dresses" as it was put my the boss people) and armed with M-16s loaded with blanks as part of some army training thing.

I was supposed to be paid 14 dollars an hour, but transport was nine hours for which I was paid for three, and the work bit (which was mostly just waiting in the cold- I did maybe five minutes worth of acting, most of which was pretending to be dead. I did not fire my weapon.) I was paid for eight hours out of nine, because of a strictly theoretical lunch break. After taxes, I made like six bucks an hour. And had a day of my life (1 PM to 7 AM) sucked away by the military-industrial complex. I will not be returning.

And this morning I did some moving for ten bucks an hour. I haven't really slept, besides a few snatches of nap grabbed on the job in discomfort and cold.

Before I did any work, and was just going with these offers, I ordered the Chris Ware Acme Novelty Library hardcover from Pantheon and the new Broken Social Scene album with bonus EP from Amazon.com.

Today I got two job offers. One is for Wednesday and Friday, courtesy of a manual labor temp agency I applied to months ago. This is for security training. I am not a trainee, mind you. I play the part of a terrorist and get the shit kicked out of me for $14 an hour. I need to be there at 1 PM, they then arrange for my transport 3 hours away, paying for one direction, and I imagine I'll be back in Lacey at 3 AM, if my understanding is correct. Hopefully I will get a ride back to Olympia from a coworker.

Thursday, at 9:45 AM, I do some moving. I don't know how much I will get paid, but I imagine big bucks. This is because professional movers: kind of a scam.

I ordered the new Broken Social Scene record, along with the new Acme Novelty Library Pantheon hardcover just now. Also, last night I heard the Theater Of The New Ear plays written by the Coen brothers and Charlie Kaufman. The Charlie Kaufman play is particularly strong.

This time Saturday, I will have stories to tell. Classes at Evergreen start next week.

I received two job offers today. And I can do both jobs. This is what they are:

On Wednesday and Friday, courtesy of this manual labor temp agency, I will be used in security training. I will not be in training to be a security guard, mind you, I will be what people demonstrate on. I will be playing the part of a terrorist and getting beat up, basically, for $14 an hour. I need to be in Lacey by 1 PM, they pay for the three hours of transit to the place of unknown destination, but not for the ride back, which I believe would begin around midnight. Hopefully I'll be able to get a ride back to Olympia. Otherwise I will be waiting around until the buses start running again.

On Thursday, at 9:45 AM, I'll be helping a moving company move an old woman's stuff into storage. I don't know how much money this will get me, but I imagine the big bucks because oh man professional movers are kind of a scam.

Hope and pray for my safety kids. This time Saturday I will have stories to tell.

With this promised influx of cash money, I bought the new Broken Social Scene record (with bonus EP) and The Acme Novelty Library Report To Stockholders etc. hardcover, out October 4th and tomorrow respectively. This is a sign of getting too cocky but whatever. Classes start next week.

Tonight I went to see Growing play at Yes Yes, then came back and watched Jules Feiffer's Little Murders on DVD. Both of these were amazing. Let me record this for posterity, as sharpness tends to deteriorate. Oh man. Oh, and pay no attention to the Netflix summary of Little Murders, as it blows the ending even worse than the poster for 3-Iron.

I went to the school bookstore to look at my class reading today. It's not too bad- One Brecht play (Galileo, which fits with the astronomy theme and so is at least partially forgiven), one Shakespeare play (Romeo And Juliet), but there's also Sophocles' Oedipus The King as translated and adapted by Anthony Burgess, which I'm excited for. In his version of the play, the blinding is shown onstage, which it isn't in the traditional version. Oh, that Anthony Burgess.

It seems like the class to take would've been the 16-credit Business And Society though, with its use of Vonnegut and Calvino, and possible teaching of real skills. Sometimes I wonder if teachers just assign shit they like and then ask in seminar, "So, what does this have to do with anything we're learning?" Which, depending on how the book or the rest of the class strikes you, could actually work, as certain things effect everything else around them and can serve as a lens for interpretation. But only if you're really invested, sometimes past the point of what can really be condoned.

I also submitted my story For Those Who Lived It, previously rejected by McSweeney's, to ZYZZYVA. Fingers crossed, team. Truth told, in my skimmings of the thing, I didn't find it too awesome, so any rejection shouldn't sting too much. Which is not to say I'm not getting my hopes up.

So I've started writing this novel which is untitled and I don't quite know where I'm going with it and reading over what I've written so far I don't think everything's coming through that I want (like that I'm a supergenius, I don't know if anyone would pick up on that yet even though that was what I wanted to get across early on more than anything else) but I haven't given up on it yet.

I'm also writing other stuff, including two short stories which I really should've finished by now but they are tricky. Also I suck.

Rob Schrab's involved with Sarah Silverman's upcoming show for Comedy Central. Rob Schrab was involved with the Heat Vision And Jack pilot which sounded awesome, but I knew about when I was in seventh grade and he was writing and drawing Scud The Disposable Assassin comics. It's wacky to me that dude's done so well for himself and is still involved with good stuff.

I've heard things regarding the syllabus for this class I'm taking fall quarter that instill nervousness in me. Brecht and Shakespeare. Do I sound like an ass when I say I don't like Shakespeare, that he doesn't speak to me, that I find those classical tragedy structures which can be placed on so many things, boring?

Is it at least interesting iconoclasm to go after that and not the language (which I have no problems reading, although I don't find it especially compelling or beautiful)?

Oh well, we'll see how it goes, what we're actually reading, as opposed to just what I've heard.

Paul Thomas Anderson is working on an adaptation of an Upton Sinclair novel. He's also apparently assistant directing Robert Altman's movie of Garrison Keilor's The Prairie Home Companion, and he's supposedly really involved in the production, as Altman doesn't get around too good anymore. I'm down for both movies, despite my reservations about the source material. (And Altman, actually.) Dude also got Maya Rudolph knocked up.

The next Terry Gilliam movie, Tideland, is done and on the festival circuit. It's getting bashed, but in a way that still makes me want to see it. The criticisms are different than those being thrown at The Brothers Grimm: complaints of self-indulgence and a dark tone, as opposed to being compromised. People bitched about Fear And Loathing too. People know nothing.

In my last blog post, I might imply that the new Modey Lemon album is more awesome than it actually is. It has its moments, although it's sometimes kind of dumb. It fits with the other stuff I mention it in the same context as, although those records are better.

I had this dream where Johnny Cash did a version of Folsom Prison Blues that was just covered in fuzz and noise. It was really cool. Someone I know should make that song a reality.

Good year for music, this 2005. Seems like every other thing I download is all powerful guitar rocking (Not guitar rocking like riffs and classic rock or even indie with the treble, but a thickness and a distortion to this huge sound like of the Boredoms/MBV type, the kind we call next-level shit around these parts) kind of verging on psychedelia: Serena Maneesh, The Psychic Paramount, and just now, the new Modey Lemon record. This is probably abated by other stuff which isn't like that, but is noisy in its own way, like the new Black Dice, and the new Jason Forrest.

So like imagine that crossed with Folsom Prison Blues and sleep.

More people will be in Olympia shortly. Financial aid hopefully soon. Nothing ever came together, but things are improving nonetheless.