"We just don’t talk anymore"

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RFC: Choose a better caption for these melancholic blobs…

Saw Capote today and really liked it. Phillip Seymour Hoffman seems perfect in the role (although I don’t really know much about Truman Capote to be honest, except that David Sedaris was deeply influenced by him). A big surprise was Catherine Keener’s portrayal of Harper Lee; her incredibly grounded performance is a wonderful complement to Hoffman’s effete and selfish Capote. The last movie I saw her in was also one of the worst movies I’ve seen in years, namely Steve Carell’s execrable 40 Year Old Virgin. God, what a stinker that was. Seriously that movie was so bad that if you liked it, I think there’s something wrong with you.

Forgot to mention that I saw Walk the Line a while back too, and loved it. I mean it just buried itself in my psyche and will echo around in there for months to come. I suspect that’s the strength of a musically themed film; music is a fantastic memory aid, and so the film doesn’t just fade from memory within hours of leaving the cinema. When I see previews of Walk the Line now I just want to run out and see it again. Apart from all the great tortured man-in-black type moments, one of my favourite scenes was the one where Johnny playfully teases June by offering her peanuts and snatching them away. His haw-hawing and her mock indignation are just so goddam sweet. If you didn’t like this movie, I think there’s something wrong with you…

Ah, nostalgia, you slay me…

Today I spent a very lazy Sunday lying around the house watching TV (it was raining)… including a comically abysmal episode of Knight Rider called Slammin Sammy’s Stunt Show Spectacular, wherein David Hasselhoff joins a family run stunt show, jumping K.I.T.T. over a moving truck twice! (both times using the same clip of a Kitt lookalike about to be wrecked as it plunges toward the tarmac in a near vertical dive). Whilst the show sucked even more than I remembered, the combined sense of nostalgia/loss it evoked was still strong— Loss of a sort of innocence, the innocence of a time when shit like this would pass for entertainment; a time when it didn’t seem like the most retarded premise in the world— the lone crusader in his talking car backed by seekrit money righting wrongs wherever they might be found.

I was similarly affected by a bunch of New Order clips from late 80’s… and then even a Kylie Minogue song from 1990! All sweeping me back to a simpler, more fatuous time. Add to the mix a 47-year-old Madonna doing her disco throwback number at the Grammys, only to realize that she’s probably been performing at music awards shows since people danced that way without irony.

Perhaps all this is heightened by my move to NZ, breaking so much of the continuity of my old life, where up until now only one major change tended to happen at a time. Now when something reminds me of the past the sensation seems sharpened by the awareness of the gulf that separates me now from me then … Like the Tasman Sea, which made me sad yesterday while I was out driving my new car— I suddenly realized that I couldn’t simply keep on driving and find myself back in Sydney, or even the small town where I grew up. This has never been the case before, and it struck me as a powerful personal metaphor.

I’m older than I’ve ever been (and now I’m even older) and I can’t ever go back. Of course I’ve always known this, but there are certain subtleties that are only now starting to sink in; like the fact that the past continues to recede, regardless of whether I choose to move forward. Standing still isn’t actually an option.

And, disturbingly, my memory is becoming shallower; less easily imprinted. This is perfectly normal of course, I just don’t like it. The only positive aspect of this trend is that when I do something embarrassing or stupid I won’t be able to dwell on it as effectively as I might with the crystal clear recall of my youth. The much more negative aspect is that even if something really great happens to me, it also won’t stick like it used to. This really bugs me, because past experience has shown me that really great stuff hardly ever happens, and when it does I’d really prefer that it go into my permanent store, rather than just be a fleeting sensation.

And so I find myself delving into my long term memory, and being a little alarmed at the mold and degradation I find. I’ve forgotten names, sequences of events, motives, resolutions… this is my life!

So I’m thinking that maybe a new project is in order, something like a memory blog, in which I could start writing down some of these scraps before the details and contexts are too far gone. It seems like it could be a useful exercise, but also like the sort of commitment I couldn’t possibly keep up, being more like a diary than a blog (and I never could keep a diary). Hmmmmmm…

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Previous nostalgia themed posts: https://intepid.com/index.php?s=nostalgia

…I also have my own bedroom, bathroom and lounge!

For the last three months I have been going home to a single room, containing a single bed, a sink and a mini fridge— It wasn’t awful, but it was lame enough for me to not feel like bragging about it (or let anyone see it).

I’ve only been in this new place a couple of days, but already it feels like home, because it already has pretty much everything I need, including crockery, cookware, bedlinen, TV, washer & dryer, furniture etc… My landlords/neighbours are insanely nice and seem to be doing everything in their power to make me feel comfortable.

Plus it turns out they had a car for sale as well, which made the whole thing far too convenient a package to pass up!

So now I can drive to work, come home and fall asleep in front of the TV, just like a normal person :)

This is another of those posts with no title, because unfortunately I have nothing specific to write about just now. I just feel like writing something (and I’m too knackered to draw).

I did have a whole bunch of ideas in my head about more surprisingly persistent bad design in everyday life, but suddenly the only instances I can remember are a) that the ads that cover whole sides of buses are not actually transparent, only translucent, so for a passenger it’s like trying to peer through a congealed sneeze; and b) why do I always get stuck holding the stupid door open for people leaving the cinema? What is the secret to getting these doors to not swing shut again (only the ushers seem to know)…?

Anyway, heres an update on all the things that make my life so exciting…

Books I am in the middle of

Vernon God Little by DBC Pierre, The System of the World by Neal Stephenson, The Chocolate War by Robert Cormier.

Books I have barely started

Freakonomics by Steven D Levitt & Stephen J Dubner, How to be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson, Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula Le Guin.

Books I have finished recently

ermmm…

Television I’ve seen

Jeeves & Wooster — the marvellous TV adaptation of the PG Wodehouse stories, starring Stephen Fry & Hugh Laurie. — Perhaps this is why I’ve had a few people lately ask where I’m from; Even though I’ve never set foot in the UK, I occasionally seem to speak with a vaguely British accent, and suspect this is exacerbated by exposure to British TV. I’m sure I’ll write a post about this sometime (suffice to say that this episode of TAL made me cringe a little).

Battlestar Galactica Season 2 — holy crap this is a great show.

Dr Katz — I really love this show… just found two really badly compressed episodes on my hard drive and wishing I had more now.

Movies I’ve seen

Shop Girl — meh… I realize I am no longer a Steve Martin fan.

Stage Beauty — Also kind of meh… this is probably the last Claire Danes movie I’ll see for a while (she was also in Shop Girl )

River Queen — Too many endings! Samantha Morton plays Miranda Otto.

Memoirs of a Geisha — I quite liked it, although mostly for the atmos. Narration is a little jarring.

Just Like Heaven — Even though I found this quite watchable, it is so wet that I have to hate it on principle.

The Jacket — Keira Knightly doing her best retardo voice in a film that wants to be Twelve Monkeys.

Good Night, and Good Luck — Beautifully shot, and David Strathairn was mesmerising. Bookending seemed a little last-minute. Recovering smokers beware.

Broken Flowers — A likable low-key sort of film, don’t expect too much. Many of the secondary characters seem merely foils.