There are very few moments in the day that we aren't bombarded by sight and sound. TV, radio, commercials, billboards, everything geared to make you feel or want something someone decides you need and don't already have. It's rare I hear an advertisement, a new song, or even a movie that makes me feel anything but melancholy. Doesn't it seem strange that with all of the stimulation of our senses that, for the most part, we don't really notice the details in everyday life any more? We aren't inspired to do anything. You hear a song and you like the beat but you don't pay attention to the lyrics, you like a movie because it made you laugh or smile but did it do anything except kill the last hour and a half for you so you wouldn't have to fold those three loads of laundry sitting in the clean pile on your floor?
I have a wide range of musical tastes, it covers the wide spectrum of everything you can imagine. Some of it has meaning which takes me back to special times in my life, others sound beautiful, and a few are just fun to listen to. When I find a song that I've never heard or skipped past that comes on right at the time when I'm in a comparable mood to the lyrics and melody when the song was written it's very special to me. I'll wear a song out in a week as the music correlates to my mood. I believe in her (music) like I believe in literature and art; it's an interpretation and it's my interpretation. She calms me, she motivates me, she knows me. Four people can listen to the same song and come away having completely different feelings. I might listen to a song like Living Legends 'Nothing Less' with an eerily calm smile reflecting about my mistakes in life. Listening to +44's 'No it Isn't' today felt right to me when I was thinking about a recent multi-faceted relationship situation. I made plans earlier in the week to have lunch with a friend of mine today at an amazing Italian market and meat store in Dallas. The day was kind of overcast but in the low to mid 70's- for Dallas that means the yuppies break out their The North Face vests to complement their Sperry boat shoes- On the twenty minute drive to Jimmy's Food Store I played two songs on repeat as I thought about the week's revelations. I downloaded (ripped using an Mp3 Converter, potato, Pa-tato) both today and both were by +44. The previously mentioned 'No it Isn't' and 'Make You Smile'. We ordered our food, sat outside and people watched for about 30 minutes. Afterwards we ended up in Preston Center sitting on a bench people watching while dissecting their lives from their clothing, cars, and demeanor. A mother in her mid 50's and a daughter in her mid 20's; both wearing recently purchased raw denim jeans, almost identical new Tory Burch shoes, the same Louis Vuitton handbags and brightly colored shirts. Older women in groups of three from old Dallas money with chico's-esq attire adorned with antique Cartier and recently purchased David Yurman jewelry worth more than my car. We watched and speculated about recent divorcees, women obviously frightened about losing their youthful looks at the same time discussing what was going on in our lives. I continued to listen to the same two songs after we parted ways on the drive home. The sun was partially out and I needed to figure some things out. I threw on the 'Dummy' Album from Portishead, went outside and watched the city from above while getting lost in my mind. A thunderstorm came in, the rain stated, lightning was crashing and I couldn't be happier. I hit pause on Beth Gibbons mesmerizing voice and ingested the night with a glass of Tempranillo; alone with my thoughts in between lightning flashes.
In last couple years there have only been three movies that motivated me to evaluate myself and the themes of the movie for days after watching them. Don't get me wrong, I've seen a lot of great movies the past few years but these three stuck with me. Silver Linings Playbook, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Skyfall. Two of the movies share a focus on mental health while the third is an action movie.
I watched Silver Linings Playbook on a flight from Barcelona to Philly. I was about 2 beers in and a 1/2 bottle of Rijoa into the long haul when I decided that I would lay my seat "near flat" and either relax to the movie or sleep as my traveling partner was sound asleep and providing zero entertainment for me. Ten minutes in I raised the seat up to a more vertical position and had my glass refilled. This was the first movie I had seen that dealt with Mental health issues in a very realistic form. Most movies portray a character suffering from bi-polar disease as a killer who forgets that he just chopped up a slew of prostitutes or blew up a post office for Satan the Dog. David O Russell captured the lead character of Pat perfectly. His everyday struggles, the tension it creates in his life, how his friends and family deal with it were all done in the most realistic fashion that I've ever seen. There was no magic pill to fix it, no "AH-HA" moment where one thing corrects his imbalanced brain forever, there was just his life ruled by his pendulum swinging emotions and the inability to effectively control them. I came away with so much from it. Most of all was that I wanted to write more on here. Not for anyone else's benefit but for myself. Similar to music, writing calms me while providing me with a level head and quiet balance that is next to impossible to find outside of my other vices of music and literature. And red wine.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower has so many elements of 'Catcher in the Rye' in it without being Catcher in the Rye. I loved the book the first time I read it in Junior high and I still love it. In fact I own a copy given to me from an old friend that has basset hound chew marks I refuse to give up. I don't even know if she knows I took it from her, but I'm never giving it back ;) I don't relate to it in the way that I do Silver Linings Playbook. I didn't have a hard time in highschool, I was never the outcast or ate lunch alone with no friends. The reason I like it so much has to do with the characters and the line I hear over and over again from the movie: "We accept the love we think we deserve". When I heard those words spoken I believed it 1000%. The scope of friends I've had or known, including myself, where this applies is significant. When Paul Rudd's character utters the words Stephen Chbosky wrote faces instantly appear and previous relationships flash through my head. Current friends with failed marriages, friends in relationships just going through the motions afraid to admit they made a mistake and are unhappy, all of this flooded my brain.
Skyfall- I know, I lost all (if I had any to begin with) credibility when I included Skyfall with the above two pictures. It takes a stronger worded explanation than I can give as opposed to the feeling Skyfall gives me. It's hard to explain without watching it as a trilogy. The dynamic between James and M, the amount of non-verbal communication involved in the film, and the reflection of a soldier's life make it amazing. It has layers of depth that exceed Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy by not voicing them or wrapping the ending up in a nice tidy studio bow; aging, self doubt, failure, closure, consequences, and finality are all demonstrated by facial expressions or silence. If it were a song it would be Miles Davis' 'Autumn Leaves'. It's beautiful, it's fast, it's raw, most people won't understand the beauty of it without being told of it's genius. It moves with purpose and intent that can be loved at face value but the depth puts it on a different plane than what the masses are used to in an action movie. Now go watch it. Watch Casio Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall like you would the Dark Knight Trilogy and revel in it.
The Muse. She was art, dance, theatre, and literature in ancient Greece. She was the motivation and inspiration. Not all entertainment inspires us but I choose to believe that if we look hard enough. If we dive a little deeper into every day things that we see and listen to I feel it will help to inspire us. Maybe she'll give you that different view to see the project at work from a different angle, maybe she'll have you pull up some music on YouTube that you normally wouldn't have, or maybe she'll have you buy Munster cheese instead of American for your sandwich this week as a different kind of artist.
*Random note:
A few things I'm currently wearing out on my playlist:
I have a wide range of musical tastes, it covers the wide spectrum of everything you can imagine. Some of it has meaning which takes me back to special times in my life, others sound beautiful, and a few are just fun to listen to. When I find a song that I've never heard or skipped past that comes on right at the time when I'm in a comparable mood to the lyrics and melody when the song was written it's very special to me. I'll wear a song out in a week as the music correlates to my mood. I believe in her (music) like I believe in literature and art; it's an interpretation and it's my interpretation. She calms me, she motivates me, she knows me. Four people can listen to the same song and come away having completely different feelings. I might listen to a song like Living Legends 'Nothing Less' with an eerily calm smile reflecting about my mistakes in life. Listening to +44's 'No it Isn't' today felt right to me when I was thinking about a recent multi-faceted relationship situation. I made plans earlier in the week to have lunch with a friend of mine today at an amazing Italian market and meat store in Dallas. The day was kind of overcast but in the low to mid 70's- for Dallas that means the yuppies break out their The North Face vests to complement their Sperry boat shoes- On the twenty minute drive to Jimmy's Food Store I played two songs on repeat as I thought about the week's revelations. I downloaded (ripped using an Mp3 Converter, potato, Pa-tato) both today and both were by +44. The previously mentioned 'No it Isn't' and 'Make You Smile'. We ordered our food, sat outside and people watched for about 30 minutes. Afterwards we ended up in Preston Center sitting on a bench people watching while dissecting their lives from their clothing, cars, and demeanor. A mother in her mid 50's and a daughter in her mid 20's; both wearing recently purchased raw denim jeans, almost identical new Tory Burch shoes, the same Louis Vuitton handbags and brightly colored shirts. Older women in groups of three from old Dallas money with chico's-esq attire adorned with antique Cartier and recently purchased David Yurman jewelry worth more than my car. We watched and speculated about recent divorcees, women obviously frightened about losing their youthful looks at the same time discussing what was going on in our lives. I continued to listen to the same two songs after we parted ways on the drive home. The sun was partially out and I needed to figure some things out. I threw on the 'Dummy' Album from Portishead, went outside and watched the city from above while getting lost in my mind. A thunderstorm came in, the rain stated, lightning was crashing and I couldn't be happier. I hit pause on Beth Gibbons mesmerizing voice and ingested the night with a glass of Tempranillo; alone with my thoughts in between lightning flashes.
In last couple years there have only been three movies that motivated me to evaluate myself and the themes of the movie for days after watching them. Don't get me wrong, I've seen a lot of great movies the past few years but these three stuck with me. Silver Linings Playbook, The Perks of Being a Wallflower, and Skyfall. Two of the movies share a focus on mental health while the third is an action movie.
I watched Silver Linings Playbook on a flight from Barcelona to Philly. I was about 2 beers in and a 1/2 bottle of Rijoa into the long haul when I decided that I would lay my seat "near flat" and either relax to the movie or sleep as my traveling partner was sound asleep and providing zero entertainment for me. Ten minutes in I raised the seat up to a more vertical position and had my glass refilled. This was the first movie I had seen that dealt with Mental health issues in a very realistic form. Most movies portray a character suffering from bi-polar disease as a killer who forgets that he just chopped up a slew of prostitutes or blew up a post office for Satan the Dog. David O Russell captured the lead character of Pat perfectly. His everyday struggles, the tension it creates in his life, how his friends and family deal with it were all done in the most realistic fashion that I've ever seen. There was no magic pill to fix it, no "AH-HA" moment where one thing corrects his imbalanced brain forever, there was just his life ruled by his pendulum swinging emotions and the inability to effectively control them. I came away with so much from it. Most of all was that I wanted to write more on here. Not for anyone else's benefit but for myself. Similar to music, writing calms me while providing me with a level head and quiet balance that is next to impossible to find outside of my other vices of music and literature. And red wine.
The Perks of Being a Wallflower has so many elements of 'Catcher in the Rye' in it without being Catcher in the Rye. I loved the book the first time I read it in Junior high and I still love it. In fact I own a copy given to me from an old friend that has basset hound chew marks I refuse to give up. I don't even know if she knows I took it from her, but I'm never giving it back ;) I don't relate to it in the way that I do Silver Linings Playbook. I didn't have a hard time in highschool, I was never the outcast or ate lunch alone with no friends. The reason I like it so much has to do with the characters and the line I hear over and over again from the movie: "We accept the love we think we deserve". When I heard those words spoken I believed it 1000%. The scope of friends I've had or known, including myself, where this applies is significant. When Paul Rudd's character utters the words Stephen Chbosky wrote faces instantly appear and previous relationships flash through my head. Current friends with failed marriages, friends in relationships just going through the motions afraid to admit they made a mistake and are unhappy, all of this flooded my brain.
Skyfall- I know, I lost all (if I had any to begin with) credibility when I included Skyfall with the above two pictures. It takes a stronger worded explanation than I can give as opposed to the feeling Skyfall gives me. It's hard to explain without watching it as a trilogy. The dynamic between James and M, the amount of non-verbal communication involved in the film, and the reflection of a soldier's life make it amazing. It has layers of depth that exceed Christopher Nolan's Dark Knight trilogy by not voicing them or wrapping the ending up in a nice tidy studio bow; aging, self doubt, failure, closure, consequences, and finality are all demonstrated by facial expressions or silence. If it were a song it would be Miles Davis' 'Autumn Leaves'. It's beautiful, it's fast, it's raw, most people won't understand the beauty of it without being told of it's genius. It moves with purpose and intent that can be loved at face value but the depth puts it on a different plane than what the masses are used to in an action movie. Now go watch it. Watch Casio Royale, Quantum of Solace, and Skyfall like you would the Dark Knight Trilogy and revel in it.
The Muse. She was art, dance, theatre, and literature in ancient Greece. She was the motivation and inspiration. Not all entertainment inspires us but I choose to believe that if we look hard enough. If we dive a little deeper into every day things that we see and listen to I feel it will help to inspire us. Maybe she'll give you that different view to see the project at work from a different angle, maybe she'll have you pull up some music on YouTube that you normally wouldn't have, or maybe she'll have you buy Munster cheese instead of American for your sandwich this week as a different kind of artist.
*Random note:
A few things I'm currently wearing out on my playlist:
- No It Isn't- +44, When Your Heart Stops Bleeding
- Crime (with Kendrick Lamar)- Mayer Hawthorne, Where does this door go
- Furthest Thing- Drake, Nothing was the Same
- Showtime- Nelly Furtado, Loose
- She Needs Me- Kendrick Lamar, Good Kid MAD City
- Saving Grace (Live Acoustic)- Everlast, More songs of the Ungrateful Living
- Sweet Misery- Amel Larrieux, Infinite Possibilites
- Mysterious- Portishead, Dummy
No comments:
Post a Comment