WolfDaddy's New Writeups

Dream Log: January 15, 2006 (idea)

2006-01-15T16:30:41Z

Hi dream log. It's been awhile, hasn't it? You and I used to have so many meaningful interactions, but in the past few years, well, I just sort have drifted away. I'm sorry about that.

I don't really know what purpose dreams are supposed to serve. I do know that dreams have always been important in my life. In them, I have experienced a gamut of situations and emotions, combined in ways in which I have never experienced them in real life. Some of the most vivid and intensely clear dreams I have ever had have turned out to be somewhat prophetic in nature. And that frightened me. Frightened me deeply.

So, I quit writing about my dreams. Though I didn't quit having them, although I have not had a dream that has come true since September 11, 2001, and for that I am both profoundly grateful and somewhat disillusioned. But I never stop thinking about writing about these dreams I have. Never. Many are the times I have awakened barely conscious with my body half out of bed headed toward the…

Primer (thing)

2005-08-07T21:25:48Z

"Dude, are you hungry? I haven't eaten since later this afternoon."

Take equal parts pi, startup.com, Memento, The Man Who Folded Himself, The End of Eternity, Donnie Darko, add a little LSD, mix well, and you've got Primer (full title: Primer: What Happens If It Actually Works?)

A movie filmed for only $7,000, Primer is one of those movies that requires repeat viewings. You will not "get it" your first time through, maybe not even the second. Or the third. I myself have seen the movie four times, which is very rare for me, and I can't stop thinking about it even so. The movie requires you to pay attention to details, listen to the dialogue, and speculate on what it is you're really seeing. There's a lot of geekspeak, but that's just babble, usually meant to divert your attention.

As the movie begins we're introduced to 4 geeks who are trying to bootstrap a new hi-tech company…

Exactly old enough, exactly young enough (idea)

2005-08-05T21:10:23Z

although the fact that there are so many over-35s sending messages through the internet to experimental youths is a bit icky
--anonymous

I hate being someone who was born in 1965. HATE IT. Neither baby boomer nor gen-X, old enough to remember Neil Armstrong, but not alive yet to remember JFK. Old enough to remember 300 baud modems running through rubber cups stuck on each end of a phone receiver--a phone that had an actual bell inside it!--but not quite old enough to remember Martin Luther King. Not old enough to remember how a group of drag queens took on the police department of New York City to say, "You have no right to hurt or hunt me because of who I am, who I will always be."

Most importantly, for the purposes of this story I'm telling you, I'm exactly old enough to have come out of the closet at a time to be exactly young enough to…

True love (thing)

2005-06-03T06:09:47Z

True Love is a low-budget film, shot in 2004 by gay Los Angeles filmmaker Michael Saul. The film's gimmick is that it is a collection of seven vignettes, depiciting the range of emotional situations a gay man might experience at various points in his life, from childhood to comfortable old (well, middle) age. While sometimes wandering into the melodramatic, for the most part the film is remarkably affecting.

Nearly each vignette's story leaves you wanting more, a strong testament to the writing as well as the overall acting chops of Saul's extremely diverse, and completely unknown, cast. The film opens with a non-verbal musical introduction, called A Christmas Story. We are taken back via grainy film effect to Christmas, 1969 and a home movie of a young married couple and their two children, a daughter and son. As the story unfolds through visuals only, we see the young daughter thrilled with her…

A man has died (person)

2004-10-27T04:59:05Z

The first thing you have to understand is community theater. It's a hobby for most people, not a profession, but it's every bit as melodramatic, not to mention as catty and backstabbing as Hollywood itself. What else can one expect when you get a bunch of people together for the express purpose of getting up on a stage to entertain others?

The second thing you have to understand is small town mentality. You can get fired from a civil service job for "knowing too much". You can go from hero to zero and back again in the space of three conversations, at least one of which will be mentioned in the local paper. You know everyone, you've known everyone, and anyone new isn't accepted until you've given them your own three kinds of hell and stood back and waited to see if they flee town or not.

The last thing you have to understand is the family about whom I am about to write. They were my kind of people, much more so than…

Donnie Darko (idea)

2003-05-08T20:44:59Z

Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion

Three notes: these thoughts are only my own speculations. Donnie Darko leaves many things open to the viewer's interpretation, and it's one of the few movies where I do not care to know the creator's intentions in producing the story we are watching. Secondly, as with any discussion of this movie, there are spoilers aplenty. Lastly, I've only seen this movie once, and it definitely bears repeat viewings. I'll update these thoughts upon subsequent viewings if necessary.

One of the most fascinating sub-plots in Donnie Darko, to me, is its damning condemnation of the educational system in the United States. At every turn, Donnie tries to gain knowledge that will help explain or justify his own personal situation, and at every turn, he is thwarted. The message is clear: conform, or else. He is punished by his teachers for…