writing archive: "telephone" brought to you by coke, wonderbread, and virgin mobile. oh, and lady gaga.

Collect calls, jail cell humiliation, girl fights. 50s diner, deception, murder. While it may seem like those are taglines for a feature film, it’s actually a description (in a nutshell) of Lady Gaga’s newest music video, “Telephone”. Shot in a Tarantino-esque style, even featuring the Pussy Wagon of Kill Bill fame, it seems that this is another effort from Team Gaga, following the footsteps of the “Paparazzi” video, to elevate the music video to short film status. Before the song actually starts however (almost at the three minute mark in the full nine and a half minute video) it becomes little more than another way to prove that Lady Gaga is in fact, a lady. One of the prison guards even remarks, “See, I told you she didn’t have a dick.” The song itself is catchy, and danceable, but the “enhanced” version with long interludes for weak dialogue detracts from the experience. The filming is intentionally choppy at times, but it gave off the feeling that my eyes were having a seizure, instead of some other techno effect. And what’s with all of the product placement? The shots of the Virgin mobile phone, the Diet Coke wrapped in her hair, the Wonderbread bag, all of it felt cheaper than Steven Colbert’s Doritos sponsored 2008 presidential campaign. While I’ve never heard that cow/burger line, I have heard that people say, “Don’t quit your day job.” Gaga, you do great dance music. Stick with that.

--as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course

writing archive: notebook fiend.

Imagine that you’re stressed out. Didn’t even have to close your eyes? Well then. Think of everything that you need to do, everything ever, and being able to keep track of it without losing your mind. Even better than checking off a to do list, imagine completing each thing and being able to look back and laugh at how silly it was to be so stressed about whatever tasks you had on your plate at the time.

Now, look at your calendar. While it may seem empty right now, given your responsibilities, you know that the 20^th of every month is pay your bills day, and that every Thursday is that coffee date with…whomever, and that any number of assignments, meetings or scheduled hours can be scattered around. Why not just look at the calendar and see all of this laid out, instead of having to remember it all in your head? Enter the organizer.

It may seem silly, but really, these things are works of art. Having made my own for the past year, more time goes into figuring out the right balance in formatting (in my case, between the weeks on the page and the extra space on the side) than I actually devote to the things I write in the planner itself. I think that a crack team of scientists and artists got together to engineer this creation, maximizing potential writing space while also making it aesthetically pleasing to do so. Don’t believe me? For every inspirational/thought-provoking/funny quote that is typed up in the corner of your planner, try coming up with three more on your own. It’s a lot harder than you’d think, and no Google search will give you the perfect quotations…even on your tenth try.

Let’s turn to writing in it now. I like things to look pretty, but since I’m not the kind of girl who even bothers to put makeup on, it can be easily guaranteed that I won’t spend that kind of time slowly crafting how each letter is written. I do however, indulge in Sharpies. Those wonderful little markers capture the rainbow boldly, and while I don’t color code (surprise: I’m not that OCD!) being able to see my various obligations in an array of colors is somehow comforting, because everything I need to do is isolated by the color used, instead of being an imposing LOOKATME chunk of text.

I won’t have enough time to even consider talking about the outside of these glorious little books of organization, because there are just about as many different covers as there are people, or even states of being. Each cover conveys a different sentiment, a unique “Hello world, this is me!” and perhaps depending on the day, you might want to address the rest of us differently. And, who says you only need one?

A word of caution, since the FDA requires warning labels on anything addictive: if you have concerns about becoming a Bic junkie, the following signs indicate that you’re beyond hope:

            1) Using post-it notes makes you smile. (Think of the extra space that just appeared!)

            2) You go back to school shopping…but you don’t have kids, and you’ve been out of college for 20 years.

3) You read this piece and didn’t feel repulsed.

While there is no Organizers Anonymous support group yet, I say just dive right in. There are no health implications of writing things down, and it’s a lot better for your liver than other addictions. It’s now time for me to plan out the rest of my week—I spent a whole day without my planner, and would like to avoid withdrawal. Happy organizing!

     -- as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course

writing archive: dance with the devil: "the wanting comes in waves/repaid"- the decemberists

Heavy and heaving, “The Wanting Comes in Waves/Repaid” is a nearly seven-minute hypnotic trance from the “Hazards of Love” album. Filled with throbbing instrumentals and haunting vocals, the Decemberists pry right into the corners of your mind, a deal with the devil seeping through your skin. The song features Colin Meloy as William, a forest dweller seeking freedom from his mother, the Queen, for just one night, while she, voiced by Shara Worden, responds to her ungrateful son’s fleeting wishes. William’s desire to be free flies unfettered through his rising refrains of “[t]he wanting comes in waves”. He calls out at first that he “wants this night” but as time progresses, the tension mounts and he cries out in desperation to the Queen, “you owe me life!” The Queen’s meditated, eerie responses seal William’s fate, as the debt between the two no longer binds her in favor to him. Her apparent anger morphs to use against William should he fail to comply, and as she consents to his request, she sharpens her scythe with which to exact potential punishment. The rushing joy of a wish granted sinks into oblivion, as the Queen in closing chants her refrain that the debt is repaid, with the mystic air of a spell being cast. “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” wrote Congreve, and William’s arrangement with the Queen gave him merely a taste of what’s to come should he disobey her.
--as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course

writing archive: call me, tweet me, if you want to read poetry

     140 characters to answer the question, “What’s happening?” What was once a way to effectively update peers, the away message or Facebook status has now become nearly epic in length, while tweeting is more like dashing off a haiku, capturing thoughts, feelings, physical or emotional states of being, social commentary and even philanthropy (Go #lollipoptheater!). 

     Because 140 characters can only get you so far, no tweet goes unedited, and putting together the right expression is a painstaking craft of splicing and rearranging, seeing more cuts than a plastic surgeon’s scalpel.

     And it has changed the way we think too--instead of taking the time to develop a scene of mounting tension, showing each and every stinging risk and sweet reward, “drama! tension! red or blue wire!” gets the message across, with a little over 100 characters to spare. If green is the new black, twitter is a new art.

More and more people are catching on to this new form of expression, and recently UK’s The Guardian posted a list of top 50 Twitter feeds for the arts. For more information, and a peek at everything from artistic work to the artists themselves, see the following link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/apr/18/twitter-and-the-arts .

--as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course

writing archive: what animators need to learn from miyazaki

“Around here, however, we don’t look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths.” -Walt Disney

     When do movies become films? For me, there has always been a difference, but like that of shapes; just as squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares, films are movies but not all movies are films. With films, there is something more than the moving picture at work. Take Hayao Miyazaki’s work for example. Based on the above quotation, I’m sure you thought that I was about to gush about Disney himself, but Miyazaki has that adventurous nature and then some. Show me a Snow White and I’ll see you a Sophie and raise you a Chihiro. Miyazaki can’t be beat, and he is still concocting creativity from his cauldron of art. His animated work steps out from under the cloaking western generalization of “cartoon”, which implies low class buffoonery aimed towards children, and walks gracefully into the realm of visual art. No, not just the visual--entirely art. Miyazaki not only writes and directs these pieces, he crafts them, guides them into being. It is not just the story told, the voice actors used, the soundtrack, or even the animation that makes his work singular among his contemporaries. It is the entire picture, the complete visual and aural symphony into which Miyazaki breathes life that sets him apart.

     For Hayao Miyazaki, the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, the animated films are explorations into his magical imagination. On the Howl’s Moving Castle DVD in fact, he explains that “for the rules of sorcery [in the film] he remained true to his heart, so [he] apologize[s] if it is confusing and hope[s] that you will enjoy it anyway.” That’s the key—his heart is in each and every piece. His characters are living, breathing people whose stories are vividly engaging and moving. And let’s address the animation itself for a moment. In a world of 3D CGI created with a mouse click, Miyazaki relies on hand drawn animation. Yes, it must be said that a few of his films do include some CGI work, but it is minimal at best, and Miyazaki has since abandoned the practice, even dissolving the computer animation branch of Studio Ghibli. While it has been said that Miyazaki is wary of computers, I think that it’s more of an interpersonal choice to stick with the painstakingly crafted hand drawn animation. Each cell has such vitality that is impossible to ignore, let alone recreate, which suspends reality and allows the viewer to tumble headfirst into Miyazaki’s wonderland.

     To find an American counterpart to this Japanese maestro of animated films, looking at the current market leaves something wanted. Granted, there is no shortage of Miyazaki fangirls among the animated community, as one should expect of his talent, but their admiration does not translate into their work. The American animators are good, but they’ve lost that fantastic curiosity that Walt himself had. Including a Totoro doll in Toy Story doesn’t mean that you understand Miyazaki’s work, nor is it something to be applauded: fanart has its time and place. There is joy, pain, calm, and wild energy running through all of Miyazaki’s pieces that has yet to be mirrored in CGI work, because Miyazaki has documented human nature in his films, instead of trying to force fit it within the realm of animation. Magic happens with Miyazaki, but the focus is not on the special effects, but instead on the curious nature of that magic. 

--as written for a binghamton university spring 2010 writing course