Author: briancollapsing

oh man… new tenenbaums trailer. this movie i cannot wait for. definitely the most promising film of the year. even if it’s not the best thing i see in 2001, which it really could be, i know it’s the movie i’m most anxiously awaiting.

this is a good season for gene hackman, apparently. i wouldn’t have said i’m a fan of his, but he’s doing great things lately. i’m really looking forward to catching the heist soon, which he also stars in. i love the david mamet. i’d see it tonight, but my two mamet-loving compatriots are taking a weekend jaunt up to the bay area, which i sadly cannot afford to join.

soon though. soon.

what am i doing right now? i know it only takes me about twenty-five minutes, tops, to get cleaned and dressed in the morning, but i always get up an hour before my classes. so i finish scrubbing up and all that, and even on a slow day, end up with 15 minutes until it’s time to leave (15 minute skate to class), during which i sit here and stare at the wall or something. at least one of my roommates is still asleep so music is out, checking email takes up about 30 seconds, and i never have breakfast anymore, so what do i do with this time? well, for now, i do this.

i should take up some intricate hobby, like building a ship in a bottle or one of those little scale model cars, and work on it just during these fifteen minutes every day. then i wouldn’t be stuck sitting here drooling every morning, and in a year maybe i’d have a nice dumb ship in a bottle, or a stupid little car (i don’t really like cars, in that guy way where you’re supposed to be excited about them. they are good for transport, though) that i could look at and say, “i was really stupid for not just sleeping an extra 15 minutes every morning and then rushing to get ready on time, you damn ugly trinket”.

but if i did that, i’d always feel like i’m running late, since this routine is already ingrained. how about that.

uh oh, time to go to class.

(should have been posted at 9:45 — blogger error)

not a promise or a threat or an ultimatum, though i can do those too, i’m just telling you i’ve got this life i’ve got to live

after singing this to myself a thousand or more times it only gets better and better, not to mention i feel like i understand more and more where he’s coming from. best song of the week yet.

it’s peculiar how the slightest attention from a couple pretty girls can turn my day around. for example, tuesday i had a short chat with the sexy girl at work about independent film and books and music. this is someone i really hadn’t done anything other than politely acknowledge prior to that day. not only was it nice but i found out she’s more interesting than i gave her credit for. today i got the feeling she made a point of talking to me even though she was only around for a little while. more likely though i’m just pathetic.

this was even better though: a girl sat next to me in my visual culture class today, whom i’ve said hello to before, and who’s good looking and wears the coolest thrift-store type clothes. during the lecture, i looked down and saw that she was wearing two different socks (one thin stripes of lavendar purple and blue, the other plain gray). i turned to her and said (i’m so smooth, watch this:), “your socks don’t match.” she said she knew, but that she’d lost the other striped one, and she liked it too much not to wear it. i’m sure she had no idea how much i loved her right then. i could have died (to borrow from catcher in the rye). though i did manage to tell her i approved of the decision because it really was a good sock.

so i decided that’s the kind of girl i want — although not necessarily this girl, specifically. i just want a girl with mismatched socks.

to convince you further, for those of you who haven’t done so, to buy the dismemberment plan cd, i put up one of the songs that i’ve been really digging this week. download the others from their site, but in addition now you can check out “following through”, the new song of the week.

the long list of things i’d love to do right now does not include writing a short paper on “art in the age of mehcanical reproduction”; and to do the top few things on the list i would need a special someone which i’m painfully aware of not having tonight. these are not good feelings.

why is it that over a month later i’m feeling more instead of less pain in regard to this? not constantly but in occasional but very piercing little jabs. the thoughts that things maybe aren’t so bad, finally, are mixed up with the intermittent reminder that oh yes, they are.

someone needs a hug or a root beer.

ugh. i wonder sometimes if it’s at all possible, at any point in your life, to be happy with what you have. will there ever come a time when i realize the things i have going for me are enough to keep me satisfied? will the grass on the other side always be greener? it seems to me like there won’t be any end to the habit of perpetually telling myself, “things would be better if only…” or “i’d be happier if i gave a chance to…”

of course, i pick something out, and make it so, and it’s only a matter of time until i want something new, or sometimes want back to how things were before. so where does it all stop?

the whole time i ask these things though, i know the answer and just don’t want to have to admit it — it doesn’t stop. the case could be easily made that i don’t really want it to stop, because what’s the excitement in having everything you want? still, knowledge of this doesn’t keep me from hoping that at some point i can just finally “get it right” and be okay, no matter how irrational a hope that is. even worse, maybe, is the suspicion that at some of my high points in the past i did have it right and i just messed it up or let it slip away. horror of horrors, what if i missed my best chance of being as close to “getting it right” as i was going to get?

what a ludicrous thing to think at age 20, i know. but what can you do but sound like a fool when you’re in love with the past and the future but stuck in a present that lacks the spark of either?

my answer to that for now will have to be dismemberment plan and dreamland, until something better comes along. see you in the morning.

why don’t you come home, i cannot remember why you left, and i’d rather be happy than right this time

it seems to me that there are some cds that i cannot fully appreciate until i listen to them on headphones. i’m almost never without music playing on my stereo here in my room when i’m on the trusty laptop, or if i’m reading or just chilling. but for some reason certain songs don’t really slap me in the face with their greatness until they’re channeled through headphones. maybe it’s because i’m forced to listen more closely with everything drowned out, maybe it’s because it’s easier to hear the words. something about it just provides a unique music experience, i think. in the same vein, there are things i don’t like nearly as much through headphones, but that’s another story.

which brings me to my point: the new dismemberment plan cd, change. i’ve had it for a couple weeks now and it’s been in heavy rotation. it’s really good and i knew that from first listen. the songs have a groove to them which takes hold and the head nodding is irresistable. although it’s not always as fun and frantic as emergency & i, which i really loved, at the same time i think that almost makes it more approachable. not to say that was necessary or that it makes this cd better or worse. i do think though that it’s something less likely to scare off people that are afraid of — well, a change. i was reminded by this cd of some of the more recent and better work of the flaming lips, in it’s oddball use of guitars and peculiar sounds to make a beautiful whole.

to bring things full circle though: i had refrained from listening to this cd at work because it seemed too laid back to listen to while doing an already dull job. i decided against this verdict and listened to it this morning — twice through — via headphones, and it propelled me into not just liking and enjoying but absolutely adoring this cd. whereas before i appreciated it for its funky rhythms and fun sound, now i finally picked up on the brilliant songwriting and more subtle musical touches that must have passed me by on the casual listen, and which make this cd really amazing. the whole rest of the day, naturally, i’ve been fighting to keep the songs from taking over my mind. especially the personal highlights like the middle of “the face of the earth” and the chorus of “following through”. it’s all fantastic though, really. the line at the top from “coming home” (the title of my absolute favorite song of all time, but by another band) also got to me. so now i know what i’ll be listening to even more obsessively for the next few days. or weeks.

thanks for indulging me in my review-writing practice, or whatever this was. nothing much personal to share so i’m gonna go . . . well, you can probably guess.

it’s time to go to bed, but since i won’t get to blog until late tomorrow, here’s a quick note for the morning crowd.

check out aereogramme and slow reader. the first is a band i heard at the radio station that is really good (thank you music director brigette for pointing me to this band, driving me home from the station tonight, and for being so damn cute on top of it all), and the second is the impossibles in disguise as a soft sad emo band, but still making very enjoyable and listenable music. at least in my opinion.

the song color cast on the latter site is really doing it for me tonight, so i thought i’d share.

something to think about: isn’t it strange that a sad moment shared with a friend can be the best part of your day? maybe you don’t have to feel ‘happy’ to fell ‘good’ necessarily, all the time.

good night.

sitting here in computer class . . . i like this class not only because it’s more fun and interesting than my other classes, but i can sit here and read and write weblog stuff during the lecture. i can do it without losing track of what’s going on too, so it’s a nice side project to help me get through the three action-packed hours of this one class. right now, we’re talking about making a pong game in macromedia director. watch out world, i’m taking these skills into the job market in just over a year and a half — prepare for some fierce competition!

potential employer: “well, there are about a hundred other people applying for this exciting as well as very lucrative and satisfying position . . . what makes you stand apart from them?”

brian: “did you by chance pop in the cd i included with my resume? it has a pong game that i built in director. as well as some other cheesy examples that i certainly know my way around a computer.”

potential employter (putting in cd, playing game): “wow! this is neat!” (mumbles, trailing off, absorbed in game . . .)

brian: “i’ll take that as a ‘you’re hired’. see you next week in my 32nd floor corner office with reclining, spinning leather deskchair!”

note: some credit is due to new topography, whose fictional conversations always make me laugh out loud.

i guess i just can’t shut up tonight.

i had no idea that the co-singer-guitarist of one of my favorite bands, rory from the impossibles, has his own blog. how interesting.

now i will read one more thing compulsively twice a day.

hot new look over at kind of like sonar. did you guys (if you read this) design that yourself?

it’s nice. very sexy.