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Oh my god, you guys. You guys, seriously, oh my god. I could just die, oh my god. It was like, awesome, like, oh my god.
Okay, so, today, in National and Transnational Cinemas, during the break between the lecture and the film screening, I bumped into my friend from Film Music, and she invited me to come and sit with her for the film. So I did, and, ohmigod, guess who was on my other side?
Seriously. Oh my god. It was amazing, you will not even believe. It's like, the best thing that has ever happened in a film lecture ever.
Completely by accident and with no creepy manipulation from me at all, I totally sat next to The Boy Who Looks Like River Phoenix!!! For two whole hours. Oh my god I could die, it was so cool. Now I want to stalk him even more. Ohmygod. It was everything I ever dreamed it would be.
I just tried to find a good picture to illustrate what I'm talking about, given the completely unacceptable proportion of people I know who don't know who River Phoenix is or why I'm so in love with him, but the best one I could find that also compliments the features he shares with the Boy Who Looks Like River Phoenix is this one. It's not a great shot, it completely doesn't capture that quality of unutterably beautiful devastating vulnerability that he has, or the way he holds his head down, as though he can't bring himself to look the camera in the eye - but picture him there with blacker hair, lighter skin, and a slightly skinnier frame and you have the Boy Who Looks Like River Phoenix.
Who I sat next to today. And whom I kind of want to stalk (or, at the very least, I'd be amazingly happy if he turns out to be in the tutorial I'm transfering to on Monday) just so I can look at him.
Best day ever. Seriously.
And all of you go watch My Own Private Idaho.
I Ain'tnt Dead
Sep. 2nd, 2008 10:07 pmThings:
1) In the name of visitors and essays (FREUD. Dear sweet crap FREUD), I've been sort of avoiding LJ the last couple of weeks - apart from popping up on comms in the name of procrastination. So HI! f-list, sorry to be so silent. I feel rude, but really want to stay on top of work. But the light of the essay tunnel and therefore social interaction is in sight! Only a few more days! Huzzah!
2) "This is no more a chateau than it's my left leg!" "By any measure, that is a bastard of a sentence."
Oh Germaine Greer, don't ever change.
3) CRAIG IS BACK ON HOLLYOAKS TODAY OMG
(Obligatory shuttup trashy British soaps are AWESOME and Guy Burnet has a nose the Ancient Greeks and Michelangelo would have KILLED FOR disclaimer. Don'tjudgeme.)
ETA: With a new (fantastic) haircut and STUBBLE. DID I MENTION THE STUBBLE??
Also, I haven't watched since Craig left months ago, so I have no idea what's going on. This Newt chap looks like Nancy after a sexchange. But I think that's probably not right.
4) So I was out the other day, and saw someone wearing this t-shirt. And for reasons that are honestly completely (well, mostly) unrelated to slash (unlike my fondness for Hollyoaks, the origins of which can pretty much be entirely traced back to my fondness for pretty boys kissing and angsting),
OMFREAKINGG I want it I want it I want it.
I could only find that one photo online, and I need this shirt, peeps. It would freak people the freck out and oh the pop culture and the brilliance of taking the original art style and turning it on it's head and kljhsflsa I AM IN LOVE. Does anyone know of anywhere I can buy this thing? I will pay with blood if needs be.
5) 'Peeps' is my favourite word right now, homes. ('Homes' (sp?) is a close second.)
Right! Right! Right! Back to Freud! Okay! Yes! ...Right. Freud. Yes.
...dammit.
It was so worth it.
Aug. 12th, 2008 09:15 pmUuuuuuuuugh. I feel crook. Why do I suck so much at moderation?
Also, on a less vomit-related note; living in a suburb with three second-hand book shops within a five minute walk? Bliss.
... I'll be over there. Curled up in a little ball. Groaning. With my new old books and my teddy.
1. I can't stop eating these Mars filled Pods things. I buy them thinking I'll ration them as treats, but then I just munch on them constantly. I have no self control. Damn seductive caramel.
2. I have to get seriously working on my Games and Simulation assessment. I am making a text adventure game. It is set in Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. There are Oopa Loompas. It is a group project and we've got it quite nicely planned out. All I have to do is start coding my part. IT WILL BE EASY AND FUN BUT I AM STILL PUTTING IT OFF. WHY DO I DO THIS???
Dear Brain,
Can we please stop with the anxiety? It will be very difficult for me to pass my courses if a great whopping wall of terror is erected every time I contemplate doing an assessment. I actually really enjoyed the last essay I wrote, you know. And do you remember all that pride when I handed it in on time? Wasn't that nice? Don't you want that again? Come on, kiddo, let's get adjusting. That's how you're supposed to work.
3. My flat needs vacuuming, I could make up a load of washing, and there are clothes flung everywhere. Clean up day soon, YAY!
I loves domestic chores. They makes me feel real. And it's nice to see the floor. I have such a nice floor.
4. So, last night (as well as having a lovely night out with a friend at Circular Quay for a birthday dinner) I actually met someone from fandom in real life! Am not the only insane HP slash fangirl in Australia! Look, look, I have proof! Muhaha!! And I have made a new LJ friend! Hiiiii!! *waves enthusicastically* Will do proper greetings and exchanging of recs etc when I have taken care of point 2. Must... do... uniwork. It-will-be-fun, dammit!
5. Have to cook tonight. I refuse to have toast or cereal for tea and I've run out of left overs. Which means I have to wash pots. Curses.
6. My god this album. It's amazing. It flows and crashes and screams and whimpers and settles and brakes and falls and lifts and it's impossible not to go with it. He has the most honest voice - more like speaking than singing, and all the while trying not to fall to pieces, filled with cracks and strange little screams - and the most sweet, exposed, and devastatingly lovely lyrics. ('The world's got me dizzy again/ you'd think after twenty-two years I'd be used to the spin,' 'It's not something I would recommend, but it is one way to live,' 'This is the first day of my life,/ Glad I didn't die before I met you.' )
The songs - lyrics and music - are so beautifully complex, even the deceptively quiet ones. There is a real simplicity to what he sings about, he doesn't romanticise, but sings about things at a very basic level, creating such honesty. It's like, he's describing things as they are, as they actually feel, but somehow it sounds so breathtaking. And the music cascades in from nothing, crashes down and sweeps through or is so silent you forget it's there, you can only focus on his voice. That sort of honesty and reality is so rare and precious. It's impossible not to be affected.
The closest thing I can think to compare it to is The Cure - Robert Smith has that same stuttering honesty in his voice, and that same childishness and wonder in his lyrics, and that same cascading lushesness in some of his music. In fact, the stereo is set so that Disintegration is the next album to play after Bright Eyes finishes. 'Plain Song' is a perfect way to follow up I'm Wide Awake..., it too, never fails to be stunning.
7. I'm always pinning after my pets, wishing I could take them with me to Sydney. I am acquainted with all the neighbourhood cats, and am sure to say hello when I pass them. So my mummy made me a cat so I wouldn't be lonely.
I love my Mum.
I'm fine, really I am. But it's hard sometimes, getting used to not having them around. That morning, filled with sleep, I really missed them. Sometimes I just really want for them.
I believe I got carried away a bit there.
Mar. 27th, 2008 12:58 amI learnt last night about cave paintings, that they were the pinning down of visions had in trances. That every human, no matter where from, since the begining of the species, experiences the same basic internal images when in a trace state, or when suffering sensory deprivation. The human brain just throws them up, always the same. So in caves and on rocks, worlds apart from oneanother, the same patterning appears. And if we close our eyes for long enough, and expose them to the right outside stimuli, we can see the exact same images that people saw tens of thousands of years ago.
To see those paintings, and to know that they were painted so long ago, before buildings and farming and the idea of 'art', and to see how beautiful they were, how spiritual and otherworldly - it inspired such awe.
The world - nature, animals, plants, flowers, water, rocks, weather, the sun, the moon, the light they bring - it's all so incredible, so simply beautiful and so there. And the brain, and all it has created, is just the same. Is part of that basic, fundamental reality of the world. There really is so much harmony in life. I will never cease to be amazed.
And all the beauty we can make, all the places, the art, the literature, the poetry, the sentiment, the emotion, all of that, just takes may breath away sometimes. The brain gives us all that. The ability to create it and the ability to appreciate it. To feel it and to be it.
It's fascinating.
I love art, and I love psychology, and really, they are much the same thing. I tend to call this type of writing that I do sometimes whimsy, to say that I drift off into flights of fancy. But that's not entirely appropriate - what could be more grounded in reality than what my own brain generates? Whether I'm happy or depressed, excited or anxious, mad or sane, it's all happening. It's all maluable, it can change, but it is there. We can't see it, but we can feel it, which is undeniable proof that something is happening.
My mind is my own, only ever for me. But the brain is universal. But for a few quirks, this incredibly complex organ is the same in every living person in the world. And even some of the quirks are almost identical to those of others.
Sometimes, sometimes it all just hits me, you know? For all my rationality and talk of science, and for all I may experience incredible pain from what my brain and the world comes up with sometimes, I just can't quite help but be awestuck by it from time to time.
Life is astounding.
(no subject)
Mar. 8th, 2008 10:45 pm♥ ♥ ♥ !!!
There's an Irish movie on the telly, and the main guy and several of the others sound exactly like Liam Neeson. Not just the accent, but the voice and everything. And it's really confusing 'cause I keep looking up thinking I heard Liam Neeson, but it turns out to be this pale, oldish bald man who is so very not Liam Neeson. So apparently there are a lot of Irish men who sound like Liam Neeson and now I feel really dumb because I so thought Liam Neeson was Scottish.
I'm all gotether, all alone
Ni'm iineteen, ni'm iinteen,
by mirthday's today
a gig birl,
a loman,
a wady, sey thay
I'm nineteen, I'm nineteen,
my birthday's today,
a big girl,
a woman,
a lady, they say
I've been waiting for this day for, oh for years. I've always felt that nineteen carried a certain distinction. It's a far more romanitc birthday than eighteen or twentyone. Seventeen is the age at which one learns the truth, but nineteen is the age in which one is one's self, and the age to be a lady. And I've been waiting so long to sing that song and for it to be true.
Rocky Horror onstage tonight, and a party with my family and Winnie the Pooh plates, cups and party hats today. I am so very very happy, and so very in love with today.
The song is here, about two minutes and ten seconds in.
All class and dignity and mystery. Skin smooth, hair all soft and shapen, eyes glistening in the moonlight or lamplight or, well, in no light at all. A glass of somethin' balanced between two fingers of one hand, a cigarette between two in the other. Wrapped in fur, or diamonds, something that sparkles or shimmers, shines in the blacks, whites and greys. When I'd speak it'd be in that voice, low and wonderful and almost tangible - never simpering or small, but sultry, carrying in it a real sense of strength and style. I'd ask for a light. Always almost over my shoulder, eyes inclined slightly upwards, because all the men are slightly taller, and all so dashing.
But so few of them are decent. They give a girl a romance and promises of forever, but none of them ever stay. They never last in the end.
They make their romantic gestures, all of them, but one can't rely on them for a happily ever after. Mister Bogart skulks in the shadows, sweet little Jimmy Dean pouts and dares and looks oh so divine, oh so desperate and oh, so devastating. But he, he was never too concerned with winning the heart of a young lady. Far to much turbulance for room to romance. And Marlon Brando, well, Mister Brando is handsome, and strong, and very, unmissibly masculine - but he's a brute. Unpredictable and raging, he's all fiery tempers and cold, cold shoulders, all unfathomable and all screaming my name from the ground below as if it's the only thing keeping him alive. The only thing that's keeping his mind from falling to pieces and his body from tearing the world apart.
My mother has promised Gregory Peck next. She says he isn't beautiful, but is a prescence. Is tall and imposing, and is decent. That'd be nice. A decent man to hang some faith on. A girl needs something to put her faith in. Men don't often stand the test. Seems to me that, in the end, she ends up with only herself to rely on, only herself to get her by. Leaving her to depend more on strangers than those she knows. The men never really get them anywhere, but there is some sweet, sweet music playing along the way. And in the end, when the alley is empty and the players have walked off alone into the fog, there's music and magic and bleakness to break your heart and punch your guts. And, if not that, the full, sweet voices at least linger on; their permanance giving some small sense of solace.
But we know it's how it's meant to be. There's always a sad, strange justice in there somewhere, as frustrating as it is to not be able to change the things that would be so much easier to change now. To be the woman, strong and sturdy but with so little control of the world, in love with the man, who has only that tiny bit more. To have so much more than that on her plate that the camera can't quite penetrate, and that she never really says. The story will always be linear, set in stone. With the obligations and duty, the status and propriety, and the circumstances that are so very out of our control, all we can do is throw our whole hearts in, little by little, and hope that things will turn out for the best.
Why? Well, because. Because, altogether, oh, altogether it's all just so wonderful.
