"Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth." - Albert Einstein
Dear Internauts,
Figured this week I should get this in before midnight since I was so late last week. I guess my mind's been a million places besides in the moment. I always think up something earth-shattering during the week and forget it by the time it comes around to posting. Even if I make a note, it's like thinking up some brilliant idea in a dream then when I wake up it's only nonsense.
On Monday night, after going to this fairly empty open mic I went to see the film Moonlight. I'd first seen in back in Philly at this tiny, independent cinema in December. I remembered enjoying it, finding some attachment to its unique charm. One of those films that feels independent on the basis of it being nothing like what the big studios are dropping, even though it had Brad Pitt as one of the executive producers. I thought and still think it succeeds at revealing a lot about character and interaction while being exceedingly sparse when it comes to dialogue. Being as most of the films I end up digging tend to rely far too much on barrels of snappy snark toppling down a Niagara's worth of exposition, I certainly appreciate the art here as different from my normal viewing as well as brilliant in its feel of being grounded in a sometimes conversational realism. Still, it manages to fill much of the tiny space allotted to dialogue—and much of it slang-heavy—with a splash of the kind of poetry more often reserved for theatre or the novel. Makes sense, considering the source material. Still, seeing it for a second time made me appreciate these aspects even more, while also confirming some of what I don't like about it. I was gonna write about my issues with it, but then realized it was just a bunch of sophomoric film snobbery about how I feel different watching a film now that it's award-winning. I think we can both do without having to read that bit of self-indulgence.
Not that this blog is anything but self-indulgent. After all, shouldn't I be working on my other writing?
So anyway, after getting back for the night, I got out of my car and felt a strange lightness in my pocket. After a bit of desperate scrounging, I realized that I was missing my notebook filled with sketches. Yeah, I kinda freaked out. I drove about halfway back to the movie theatre before realizing they'd been closed for a half hour. I tried to call, but of course their listed number only got me a listing of showtimes. Next day, I made the point to call the mall it was attached to and through their directory found a line for the cinema manager. He didn't find anything in the office but told me to call or come back that afternoon. When I did show up later, there was nothing in the particular theatre at the time, so they let me go look with an employee. Unlike what I'd suspected, it did not drop out of my pocket upon standing up after the movie. At least that seems to be less likely now. With my notebook not in the cinema's lost and found or the mall's lost and found, I left them my number and went off to go be disappointed with myself somewhere else.
Now, you may be thinking that there was absolutely no point in telling you this story because it's more an observation of life events with little change in character besides the monotony and sad resignation of the boring norm. Any conflict is mostly internal besides that which is outside the protagonist's control, and despite any effort to change to face this conflict, the real resolution is mostly just an acceptance of the way things are. While it would be great for me to somehow struggle and succeed here, the actual story is more about bouncing from interaction to interaction. Any real growth is like the passage of time, skipping between a few disparate points with the understanding that you as the audience don't require or desire anything more than the barest hint of internal motion or motivation. Maybe if it was better written I could win an Oscar for it.
Okay, what I'm trying to say is that I liked Fences and Lion better. While I'm really glad that the story is told and that its makers and tellers are getting the recognition they deserve, mostly I'm just ticked off that I lost my notebook and feel like being bitter about pretty much anything. Since the two events of seeing and losing were tied together, well, there ya go. There's the blog.
Honestly, the only person I can really write for is myself. More people read this than used to, but I don't much feel like I have anything to say. It's like the open mic I went to earlier that night. There wasn't exactly a list or anything, so I got to play five or six songs. They're just songs, not more than three to five minutes a pop. Still, I work harder than I do or have at anything else to make those songs worthwhile. I’m not just in this for fame or to get applause or even to make some political statement. I’m in it because I found something, this one thing, I can actually do that feels like a contribution.
How much would I love to finally have some employer call me back so I could get a job and move out on my own again and be an “adult” or whatever, but the truth is I’ve done that before plenty. Every single “adult” thing is just such a pain. It’s what you have to do and should be glad to do, and that’s great, but I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that more often than not it feels less like giving of yourself than it is like having pieces ripped away. Sometimes, at least in my case, those pieces radically alter your brain chemistry upon their expulsion. Still, everyone does what they’ve got to to get by. I get that. I do. And I want to be a contributing member of society. I sure have been trying to be my whole life, and certainly my whole adult life.
Still, I know that the best I can do at any job that’s not some kinda creative expression is be a cog in a machine. That kills me. It’s almost literally killed me more than once.
When I lost my notebook, I was reminded of the way my brain often responded to bad events as a kid. Growing up in my particular brand of Protestant Christianity, there were only two ways to look at any occurance. If it was good, then praise the Lord for being good. If it was bad, then something was wrong with me. Sure, we talked about how the rain falls on the good and the evil. But we also talked about mercy, and mercy can be a very fatal kind of poison. See, when you’re taught that the good in your life exists because God, the ultimate good, is refraining from giving you the punishment you rightly deserve, then any conversation about forgiveness becomes a sort of formality.
When children are taught that we humans are inherently corrupt, evil, twisted, and wrong, it’s a lesson that sticks deep down to infect our thoughts. When we can do nothing good, but only be a passive tool used by God to do good despite how weak and rotten we really are, there is no room for loving ourselves. The love of God for us children is expressed by the grace of anything positive being better than we deserve. This may or may not be theologically in line with the official stance of what I was supposed to be taught, but I bet I’m not the only one who grew up with it anyway. The underlying current of saying grace before a meal or praising the Lord’s healing hand after a surgery is the same line of thinking that once told me that even a parent feeding their child is a sin, if it is a parent who has not accepted Jesus Christ. Oh that’s not what we actually believe, many have told me. But that’s the thing, isn’t it? What we preach and sing and read and write must always stack up against the way we really interact.
Kids notice that stuff far more than we think. It sticks with us. It’s why even after all this time of being philosophically opposed to the idea that every single thing is a part of some cosmic battle behind the scenes, I still get hit with a dart of a thought that maybe I wouldn’t have lost my notebook if I still had the kinda faith I did way back when. Back then, all the songs were about how great and powerful our lord is, and all the stories all about how this lord killed or ordered the killing of everyone but the faithful few. After all, our God is higher than all those other gods, right?
I guess I’m just wondering how the story of Samson’s death, y’know the one where he knocks down the pillars and kills all those Philistines in the name of the Lord...how is that any different than a suicide bomber?
I don’t know. Maybe I’m still just bitter about losing my notebook. I’ve got others though, and it was just for practice sketching. What I don’t have is the culture of my youth or the feeling of belonging to a group of believers like I once did. I lost that, but it often feels more like it was ripped away from me. I sometimes wish I could believe again, in something as big and wonderful as I so passionately used to...but then again, sometimes I realize that I still do believe some of those things, and it drives me only to hate myself all the more. Faith and religion can be wiped away in time and reason, but the feelings of abusive inadequacy take a bit more scrubbing.
Anyways, I’m gonna end on that high note since the cafe is about to close and I just got a message from Joe about some more rough track mixes. After all, it’s still a music blog, right?
Thanks for reading,
Odist
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