Damn, my last post here was over a year ago now. The idea of blogging is fun to me, but the actual doing it is where things get covered in quick-setting cosmic syrup. But anyway.
-THE INTERNET-
The internet has been freaking me out lately. Not in a bad way really, but freaking me out nonetheless. I finally started a tumblr, and have been scratching the surface of what there is to explore within its dauntingly vast caverns of people posting cool ish. I love the kind of potential it offers for people from all over to connect through interests, however obscure or specific, and I think this positive aspect of the internet is in general not given the same attention that the potential negatives are (props to the last episode of American Horror Story this season for not feeling the need to throw any shade on Sally’s newfound happiness through social media). But tumblr is also very intimidating to me, because there is just so much out there to investigate and engage with. It almost feels like being on page 1 of an infinite book, or like the e-version of going to an observatory and looking up at the often wonderful whole of the e-universe.
-WRITING-
Writing wise, the past few months haven’t been too productive for me, though this past weekend I wrote the first short story I’ve been happy with since August, partially inspired by the weirdly located vent in my bathroom and my memories of the impressive hot dog making skills of the vendors on Ballard ave in Seattle. I’ve also been working on a mockumentary-style sitcom about two friends and a small-time theatre company (Uncomfortably close to the setup of Waiting for Guffman? Check) that has been a lot of fun as long as I ignore the voice in my head telling me it’ll never get filmed and the fact that I’m shunning proper script format. But I’m enjoying the characters and have cast most of the parts in my head, so anytime those NBC executives want to hit me up for my recs on that, I’m ready. I was also psyched to start the submitting year off with an acceptance from Jersey Devil Press, which will be publishing a weird detective story I wrote come March. There have been subsequent rejections, of course, but there always will be.
-MOVIES-
My need-to-see movie queue is overwhelmingly long right now, but I was lucky enough to catch one via netflix recently that FLOORED me. It’s called “Queen of Earth,” and it’s a terrifically psychological and slow-burning thriller about the unraveling of a talented painter with a killer central performance from Elisabeth Moss. It’s the first movie I’ve seen by writer-director Alex Ross Perry, whose brilliantly chosen camera angles here put us inside the deteriorating psyche of Elisabeth Moss’s Catherine (one of the most haunting characters of ever I do believe). I’m always drawn to psychological-breakdown movies, but Queen of Earth certainly carries plenty of objective merit. It’s alive, jarring, and wonderfully intimate. It also reminded me of my immense love for monologues in film, especially when they’re as amazingly acted as the ones delivered by Elisabeth Moss in this movie (her deliberately paced, neutrally-toned verbal evisceration of Patrick Fugit’s character ((the guy plays a great asshole)) towards the end is especially memorable).
But anyways, yeah. See it, it’s good. And til next time the frog smirks,
-Timothy
