a.m.kelly|mindspigot

Dear Tumblr-cable knit & beard, ready for a very serious...

Sun, 20 Dec 2009 22:03:33 -0500

Dear Tumblr-
cable knit & beard, ready for a very serious Christmas.
[apologies for shit camera phone picture.]

you can’t really tell but I’m 3 or 4 glasses of red wine into the evening at this point.

Avatar

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 23:19:12 -0500

Great. We all agree on the film’s technical achievements, but please don’t justify its banal/didactic plot and lousy dialogue as a “typical genre trend and necessary device to cater to all audiences in order to turn a profit with its $500mil cost.” That’s the Hollywood formula for every film. Every film tries to reach across as many demographics as possible and whichever it falls short of, the marketing campaign vigorously targets. Please don’t ask us to overlook and forgive such a “small” part of this “masterpiece”. Technical achievements alone do not render a film a masterpiece. Kubrick never sacrificed story/dialogue/characters/actors; no auteur would. Cameron’s resume and the technical wizardry alone would have brought in droves; he didn’t have to “dumb down the script” and I don’t believe he did. After all, no one has ever said that Cameron is a gifted writer.

Unfortunately, I cannot forgive a fifteen-year undertaking in an ambitious endeavor such as this that would miss to invest in the narrative as much as the f/x. I will not be repeating any of the overblown adjectives strewn around the net in its praise because I should be embracing a half-delivered movie which failed to stimulate and engage me in all fronts. Avatar left me disappointed, and for the amount of time invested in it, it’s inexcusable.

here here, agreed.
*SOME SPOILERS*
the story his is inexcusably bad. the subtext is hardly sub, there’s backstory so far as worldbuilding but nothing to let you know how the particular political situation has developed or what power is running things here. Don’t get me started on fucking unobtanium really, was there another name for this thing? why not call is plot-devicium? fuck. what does it do? how much was it worth? so much that it’s actually worth carting lightyears…what the fuck could this possibly do that is so valuable?

The closing battle of the film…should never have been fought. The tactile sense of that marine commander was non-existent. why on earth are you bringing the fight to the natives? you’re going to them to blow up some stuff when you have a fucking space shuttle, but you’re going to take that space shuttle and commit it to a bombing mission at low altitude. [and it’s basically hovering the whole time…it can only go as fast as it’s escort, the big helicopter thing.] Asinine. why aren’t you nuking the bastards from space? or at least using conventional weapons from higher altitude? stupid. very stupid. he’s fighting a 20th century war against opponents out of the bronze age. [and do the arrows go through the glass or not? I can’t believe that they can, surely it’s at least low-caliber bullet proof…] apparently they can only when it’s convenient.

I won’t even get started on the ham fisted environmental native-american stuff going on. or Sigourney Weaver’s crap performance…there’s just no good story here. the narrative’s not as well developed here. ugh. beautiful film with a crap story.

therealkatiewest: Christmas Past, 2006 I had to save this one...

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:25:44 -0500

therealkatiewest:

Christmas Past, 2006

I had to save this one for last since it’s the best Christmas picture of all time.

I don’t have a camera right now so no Christmas 2009 picture. sadface. But hopefully all of the past 3 years make up for it slightly.

I’ve decided Tumblr needs more Christmas Spirit. I just downloaded a SLEIGHLOAD of Christmas songs (see what I did there?). Get ready to get Christmasy!*

*sorry to my Jewish followers. If there’s awesome Hanukkah songs, let me know. I’m looking at you, Elana.

though I don’t want that for Christmas, i appreciate the impetus behind it. everyone wants a little Pon Farr for x-mas.

a concept for winter:

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 10:18:25 -0500

ironstring:

every single day, i will do at least two of these things:

read 40 pages of a novel

read one short story

watch one film

listen to an episode of radiolab/this american life/anything else that is good

i will write every day. i’m taking two workshops next semester and i don’t want every story to be crapped out at the last minute.

i will also limit myself to 90 minutes a day on the internet. hopefully.

i will also clean and organize my room to such an extent that can only be defined through units of sparkle.

this is all happening, goddammit.

These are all things I can get behind. I set very similar goals for myself all the time on breaks, vacations and stints of unemployment, though mine usually get set up as though there’s 36 hours in every day.

itsfullofstars: spacethebeyond: Space Santa via...

Fri, 18 Dec 2009 16:59:13 -0500

itsfullofstars:

spacethebeyond:

Space Santa

via atompunk:rrrick:pdvmorris: juliasegal:

Yes! Happy Holidays everyone!

CHRISTMAS ON THE MOOON WITH ROCKETS!

awe. nothing but awe, Sagan-grade astronomical awe.

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 21:39:45 -0500

awe. nothing but awe, Sagan-grade astronomical awe.

itsfullofstars: Shusei Nagaoka (via silver-rockets) YES!

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 19:36:10 -0500

itsfullofstars:

Shusei Nagaoka

(via silver-rockets)

YES!

"We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books..."

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 20:35:00 -0500

“We are the people of the book. We love our books. We fill our houses with books. We treasure books we inherit from our parents, and we cherish the idea of passing those books on to our children. Indeed, how many of us started reading with a beloved book that belonged to one of our parents? We force worthy books on our friends, and we insist that they read them. We even feel a weird kinship for the people we see on buses or airplanes reading our books, the books that we claim. If anyone tries to take away our books—some oppressive government, some censor gone off the rails—we would defend them with everything that we have. We know our tribespeople when we visit their homes because every wall is lined with books. There are teetering piles of books beside the bed and on the floor; there are masses of swollen paperbacks in the bathroom. Our books are us. They are our outboard memory banks and they contain the moral, intellectual, and imaginative influences that make us the people we are today.”

- excerpted from a speech given by Cory Doctorow on [what else?] the death of copyright and of the book. A definitive statement on Book Culture, Reading Culture and the ideas I love most in the world: other ideas, printed & bound and on a quiet shelf.

jacket lust [here] I want to live in a life that requires me to...

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:27:50 -0500

jacket lust [here]

I want to live in a life that requires me to put something like this on every day and have it get beat to hell and stand up to it. I want to live a life that requires such a jacket. I want to have something nessesary in all 7 pockets. I want to get used to traveling all over the world, to be constantly culture shoked, to be able to fathom all the movement and difference.

chessieann: at the mfa we also saw more murals by john singer...

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 16:52:08 -0500

chessieann:

at the mfa we also saw more murals by john singer sargent, including the above piece, hercules and the hydra. i am learning that you can’t swing a dead cat (not sure why you would want to do that anyway, ew) around here without hitting one of his paintings, which is endlessly pleasing. we theorized that jss simply snuck into places in the night and painted their ceilings where he felt they were lacking.

according to his wikipedia page, sargent painted approximately 900 oil paintings and more than 2,000 watercolors in his career, so i am sure (and i hope) that i will continue to come across more pieces that i have not seen before.

(image via the mfa)

I was delighted to look to my left and four panels over to see this painting I reblogged only a few days ago from symphonyno2ineminor. [who you should probably follow if you want exposure to Singer-Sargent, Malher and other things classical and artful.] I actually scampered to stand beneath it and said “OH! I just saw that on Tumblr,” it was great, I had no idea that that painting was on a ceiling, at the MFA here in Boston, or that it was on a ceiling I’d walked under a dozen times and never noticed.

"There are scholars for whom the history of philosophy (ancient as well as modern) is itself their..."

Tue, 15 Dec 2009 08:45:00 -0500

“There are scholars for whom the history of philosophy (ancient as well as modern) is itself their philosophy; the present prolegomena have not been written for them. They must wait until those who endeavour to draw from the wellsprings of reason itself have finished their business, and then it will be their turn to bring news of these events to the world. Otherwise, in their opinion nothing can be said that has not already been said before; and in fact this opinion can stand for all time as an infallible prediction, for since the human understanding has wandered over countless subjects in various ways through many centuries, it can hardly fail that for anything new something old should be found that has some similarity with it.”

- Immanuel Kant: Prolegomena to Any Future Metaphysics That Will be Able to Come Forward as Science (via fuckyeahphilosophy)

…………………………………………………………….

—To be (Post-)Modern: To go on and on saying, “There is nothing new under the sun,” knowing that this is a self-instantiating claim. To be always quoting, and to despair of ever escaping quotation marks, whether of direct citation or of self-protective ironicization.

(via enormousair)

There’s an enourmous temption here to get bogged down in the old, the foundational, the classic and to try and rebuild the history from the ground up by ourselves. This is what’s so appealing to some extent about the middle ages. There’s an idea attached to it that culture was sort of in neutral and we just spent time pouring over the bible and treatises on the bible and responses to treatises on the bible until it all came to a head and exploded in the Renaissance and the advent of printing.

(via amkelly)

Well, Renaissance humanists were also quite bogged down by the Greek and Roman classics and never pretended to be original. Originality is a modern idea, brought about by Enlightenment and turned into a self-defeating purpose.

(via msodradek)

Surely, that’s true. It seems to me though that rediscovery’s a kind of originality. “new to me” is as good as “new” as long as I’m only talking about me, and this is the Internet, of course I’m only talking about me. [I jest!] so what we’re saying along with Kant is that you cannot escape from your history

it can hardly fail that for anything new something old should be found that has some similarity with it.

I’d go so far as to say “it can never fail that for anything new…[etc]” nothing comes from nothing if you will, at least as far as culture is concerned, in a broader teleological or literally universal sense, that’s a whole other debate.

[via @GreatDismal] I’ve driven two of these, only one with...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 23:54:59 -0500

[via @GreatDismal]

I’ve driven two of these, only one with the power seats and locks required for such a feat. Annoying, but great for that small intersection of bad techno and Jeep Cherokee enthusiasts.

Journalism & Truth’s superhero: Spider Jerusalem Go...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 21:01:10 -0500

Journalism & Truth’s superhero: Spider Jerusalem

Go out and buy comics.

allenwiggs: wurzeltod: apocalypsechic: ohwellthisisnice...

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 20:54:59 -0500

allenwiggs:

wurzeltod:

apocalypsechic:

ohwellthisisnice midnight-radio rowanboat

Oh, Spider J.! Sometimes I miss you more than myself…

definitively time for a rereading.

"There are scholars for whom the history of philosophy (ancient as well as modern) is itself their..."

Mon, 14 Dec 2009 17:26:53 -0500

Jimmy fucking Stewart. YES, I want to be him, but I’m not...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:36:13 -0500

Jimmy fucking Stewart.

YES, I want to be him, but I’m not quite tall&lanky or naively kindhearted.

went tonight to see It’s a Wonderful Life at the Brattle...

Sun, 13 Dec 2009 23:27:59 -0500

went tonight to see It’s a Wonderful Life at the Brattle Theater in Harvard Square. It was shown on a print of the film, projected in a small theater packed full of people on a chilly night. I’d never seen the film not on broadcast TV, so didn’t know I was missing whole chunks editing out for TV. It was great, just the experience of being in a theater full of people, and in the last moments of the film, when you’ve got tears in your eyes and you’re a little in awe of the whole thing: you hear the clapping and you are bowled over, because the room you’re in is full of the same humanity that is pouring out their love for a good man and for a moment all that clapping brings home even more that wonderful sense of community you get out of George Baily’s Bedford Falls and it doesn’t take a miracle for life to be worth living but just two hours of celluloid with a light shown through it and a room full of strangers.

taken some time in the summer of 2005. Dug it out of my old...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 19:44:12 -0500

taken some time in the summer of 2005. Dug it out of my old [very very poorly written] blog archives because I still like the idea for the project I was doing: take a photograph and under it, write a little story under it that relates to the picture. A nice little warm-up exercise for all the writing I’ll never get around to doing.

Lucas wanted David Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi [via...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:50:00 -0500

Lucas wanted David Lynch to direct Return of the Jedi [via kottke.org]

I don’t know about you guys, but I want to live in an alternative reality where-in lynch decides the only way to rid himself of the growing headache is to direct Return of the Jedi, even assuming Lucas keeping him on a fairly tight leash, I’d be we’d have something weird and astounding. Imagine, just what Jabba’s palace would look like through Lynch’s lens, the ewok’s fighting off storm troopers. It’s fun just to try to wrap my head around what would be different just in terms of cinematography & editing, like if all the scenes happened the same in the same order but were shot by lynch and spliced together a little differently.

the haul from harvard bookstore today: [clockwise from top...

Sat, 12 Dec 2009 15:15:00 -0500

the haul from harvard bookstore today:

[clockwise from top left]

Kim Stanley Robinson’s A Short Sharp Shock. $3.50 and worth buying just for being inscribed by a previous owner with the following:

Fascinating Fantasy (not SF) surreal but not stupid. engaging tho [sic] I’m not sure I “get it” — great.
Plot is not tied up at end.
-Jon Monsarrat
May 9, 2002
Finished this rushing off to buy Star Wars II movie tickets

Woody Allen’s Side Effects [it was two bucks, and I’ve only ever seen his films, not read his prose.]

Looking Closer 3: Classical Writings on Graphic Design, my big ticket purchase at ten dollars, looks like fun.

Robert Jordon’s The Great Hunt (Wheel of Time, Book 2) I’ve been contemplating a reread and recently re-bought the first book new from my old job, picked up this one to replace my hard-worn Book 2 with no cover and rapidly disintegrating binding, unread for 4.50 a steal for this class of paperback.