While living out my last few days of being 19, I've noted a few surprising things. One, that my first novel has not yet garnered both critical acclaim and a spot near the top of the Times bestseller list. Two, that my face is still unusually small for my height. And three, that I don't really feel an intimate connection to Alpharetta anymore.
Not that I resent it, or look down on it. I've simply spent my energy reliving and revisiting old memories for the third and fourth times. High school feels farther away when I'm here at home than when I'm up north. With everybody gone to school, this place is just a ghost town with tasteful landscaping and two Mellow Mushrooms. I've been thinking a lot about that part in Garden State about growing up and seeking a new incarnation of "home," and it really resonates with me right now. The fourth surprising thing I've noted this summer is that people don't stay close solely by inertia. To paraphrase a certain physics teacher, we're not all just massless elephants on frictionless planes. There's weight and there's resistance in the world. I don't know, do you think there's a force that works between two or more people? If so, which way does it operate? Does it draw people together, like planetary motion, or does it push apart like two south poles of a magnet? I don't think it's either. Now that I think about it, maybe we are massless elephants on a frictionless plane, because if there's no outside force, how do we interact with each other except by our own work that we put in?
So Sky Captain really was the shit, and I thank Chase for waiting for me when I drove to the wrong theater to see it with him. The movie really was beautiful to watch, but what really struck me was the strong pacing of the story. Maybe that's a weird thing to say, but I've been watching more and more movies that should be great but aren't because they don't have a strong sense of sequencing or build-up or timing. Like Spider-Man 2, or Saved!. I suppose story is what all those old serials that Sky Captain references is all about. Anyway, I really want a movie poster now, and a bombadeer jacket that reads Join the Resistance! on the back.
Speaking of great movies, I was rummaging through some old toys of mine, and I found a great 7' Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man action figure. Now we'll never be separated again.
Not that I resent it, or look down on it. I've simply spent my energy reliving and revisiting old memories for the third and fourth times. High school feels farther away when I'm here at home than when I'm up north. With everybody gone to school, this place is just a ghost town with tasteful landscaping and two Mellow Mushrooms. I've been thinking a lot about that part in Garden State about growing up and seeking a new incarnation of "home," and it really resonates with me right now. The fourth surprising thing I've noted this summer is that people don't stay close solely by inertia. To paraphrase a certain physics teacher, we're not all just massless elephants on frictionless planes. There's weight and there's resistance in the world. I don't know, do you think there's a force that works between two or more people? If so, which way does it operate? Does it draw people together, like planetary motion, or does it push apart like two south poles of a magnet? I don't think it's either. Now that I think about it, maybe we are massless elephants on a frictionless plane, because if there's no outside force, how do we interact with each other except by our own work that we put in?
So Sky Captain really was the shit, and I thank Chase for waiting for me when I drove to the wrong theater to see it with him. The movie really was beautiful to watch, but what really struck me was the strong pacing of the story. Maybe that's a weird thing to say, but I've been watching more and more movies that should be great but aren't because they don't have a strong sense of sequencing or build-up or timing. Like Spider-Man 2, or Saved!. I suppose story is what all those old serials that Sky Captain references is all about. Anyway, I really want a movie poster now, and a bombadeer jacket that reads Join the Resistance! on the back.
Speaking of great movies, I was rummaging through some old toys of mine, and I found a great 7' Stay-Puft Marshmallow Man action figure. Now we'll never be separated again.
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