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AlphaSteve
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Name: Steve
Country: United States
State: New Jersey
Birthday: 6/28/1984
Gender: Male
Interests: Movie-making, reading, writing, going to movies, computer/console games, and of course, hanging out with my friends. a/s/l: height: 6'1 and 1/2" weight: ~165 lbs eyes: brown hair: dark brown
Occupation: Student
Industry: Other
Message: message me
Member Since:
5/14/2003
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| Two things: The first thing is that I cannot stand when people call the Facebook "Fah-chay-book." I don't know which pronunciation of that annoys me more, "FAH-chay-book" or "Fah-CHAY-book." The second thing is that last night I had a coherent-ish dream, and, as always, in two sentences: I was with people I can't remember, and one of them produced a large ring that, if you perceived something through it, would reveal "the truth" of it. The two things I did were 1) look through them at girls wearing burquas, and I saw them wearing their regular American clothes underneath and 2) listened to Fleet Foxes through the ring, and heard under the music someone with my voice saying "I don't really get Fleet Foxes," which is weird because I feel like there's no elusive message to "get." | | |
| I have come to the conclusion after messing around with Garage Band on my sister-in-law's computer for hours and hours that I Do Not Have Musical Creativity.
I have been working on a theory which goes like this: for you to be good at something considered an art, aside from the will to do it, you must have two things:
One: An aesthetic sense that can tell the difference between what is good and bad, risky and safe, etc.
Two: The creativity to make enough raw material that, aside whatever doesn't get caught in the crap filter the above holds back, can pass through number one and become produced art.
So, this allows a few types. People with just number one are connoisseurs and critics. People with just number two produce the trash you have to wade through to find what you like. People with both are very lucky. The theory also allows the occasional genius work from people with just the second one. I think that I lack either one when it comes to music. I'd say, though, that practice can help with either one.
As I said there's also the matter of motivation, but the two things I mentioned I think are the most necessary.
Do you agree? Did I miss anything? I would like to hear other theories.
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| The other night I had a dream that I really enjoyed because it was scary and about zombies. As I've said before, I like having scary dreams as long as they aren't real-world-based (ie. family or friends in peril)--so being chased by murderers and seeing demons are to me like more fun versions of scary movies. And I always wake up with the remnant of the dream spilling into my mood. I usually forget the dreams in the morning and then suddenly remember them later in the day like a bell ringing. One of them is going to get a full short story eventually and I'll post it here.
Anyway in two sentences, the dream: I was in the middle of a large, leaden-skied, tumbledown, grid-like ghetto of a city with rusty walls and cracks everywhere, all alone except for a very sparse supply of slow-moving zombies looking more lonely than bloodthirsty, who posed no real threat unless you were within grabbing distance. In the middle of all of the squat buildings was one very large one with various Keep Out type signs all over it, and I broke into one door and found in the outer room I'd entered a zombie, seen up close with bloody teeth and wide eyes, and he lunged at me and I backed up suddenly into consciousness, into my pillow on my side with the fan blowing at me and the window starting to brighten behind it.
I will take the GREs in a couple of months.
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| Even after I'd declared my embargo on poetry I couldn't resist David Berman because he had a pass (he's behind The Silver Jews, one of my most favorite musical acts).
The last few lines of one of his poems ("Classic Water") seemed apt for this weekend:
I still get a hollow feeling on Labor Day when the summer ends
and I remember how I would always refer to her boyfriends
as what's-his-face, which was wrong of me and I'd like
to apologize to those guys right now, wherever they are:
No one deserves to be called what's-his-face.
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| I'm not going to hide the fact that I became aware of a poetry book called Meditations in an Emergency because of an episode of Mad Men but I have read what I can on Amazon (Look Inside!), and I am willing to give poetry another shot.
I think that my "problem" with poetry really isn't a problem, as I usually say that I can't tell what is good and what isn't. Poetry, I am guessing, does not "strike" the way a song does. The thing that frustrates me about poetry is that, say, in a movie or a reading, I am supposed to know what is good and what isn't immediately. Since poetry, many times, comes with a guarantee that one will need to perform a close reading to get its whole meaning, it should almost always be approached that way. To illustrate my point: I took a creative writing class and was surprised to learn that every word, especially of a short story, is sweated over by the author. To send one out without having gone over and over it is to risk being glib.
Poems, by and large, are shorter, and can afford even further scrutiny. So they must beg repeated readings and absolutely require knowing the intent of the every word used everywhere, if you're even to hope to get the figurative melody. I don't think I'm going to try my hand at writing poetry just yet, though, so don't worry.
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