Like You Know It All

today i saw a movie in downtown seattle that was part of the seattle international film festival, the ticket thanks to Mrs C Wilcox. the following is my take on "Like You Know It All" (South Korea, 2009, 126 min, Dir. Hong Sang-soo):

a 'famous' movie director walks around various visibly-storyboarded and abruptly-defined scenes with a blank face hidden under weakly shrugged shoulders. the movie opens through this main character judging films at a festival, though more peer judging happens than movie judging while most characters try to spout off knowledge through drinks; unfortunately, the banality of their insight led me to feel not only glad but enlightened during any break in scene, any generic camera panning from actors to landscape at the end of 'heavy' dialogue (held for 5 seconds, cut to next scene). twice in the movie was the characterization device used where the main character was signing an autograph for a young woman and was interrupted by a long-time friend who was dropped into the scene, and thus his life. these relationships (as well as many others in the movie) seemed forced, meaningless, confused, both ineffective and without affect. though touted as an 'asshole', the director seems unwittingly so, as his insincerity is simply a combination of bad tact and low self-esteem. when done correctly, revealing this kind of narrator can be quite interesting, however here it is done in such repose that it just seemed like i'd walked into a room that i wasn't supposed to be in.

a befuddled conversation ends starkly; camera pans to a green inch worm on the ground in front; end scene. the main character struggles again and again to get a cigarette out of his pocket to combat awkward dialogue. a supposed good friend is lost because it's revealed (out of the blue) that she was raped in a scene 20 minutes ago, and due mostly to the main character's indifference and lack of consideration. he loses two more good friends because of conversational disagreement; a rock gets thrown at his face, he sleeps with his friend's wife, he daydreams about his friend dying, he walks away quickly. though i did feel slightly light and whimsical at the films end, it could have been simply because of its length and the fact that i had completed something so arduous. relaxed scene of drinking and conversation in an apartment, an older, wiser friend commands the attention:

"what is most important to you in life?"

"everything is important, everything is beautiful..."

"you are so wise."

"i'm not... // we must learn only to live by our own beliefs and by no one else's."

i felt afterward not 'like you know it all' in general, or even about these specific characters. perhaps the title is stark, biting sarcasm. "Like, you know it ALL".

Needle in the Rye

cold pours of sweat from an above-average-temperature core. socks bathed in blanket like breath basked in blood. tingle of spine, lifting of hair, crawling of closed eyes up the body. tossed tourniquet, filled with air, full of confusion. sunken hips and shaking hands. sun came up when eyes rolled backwards, spinning spinning spins.s. s. dreams entailed the proverbial furrowed brow, much stagnation, but with nothing defined even as much as "stagnation". mind feelings and states (maybe analagous to worry, apprehension, decision?) corresponded to strange shapes and colors that were to be categorized, which seemed to go on for hours while never quite progressing. frustration found a voice as it escaped with an unconscious cough. many rigid forms, a horseshoe in a catcher's mitt, enlarged and in endless racks of 12, to be moved by someone. i took the initiative, and kept moving, and kept trying, without anything really happening. eyes cracked at the corners with grey crust and stabbed at fingertips, head throbbed to the beat of the heart adjacent that it wished it inhabited. washed over with harsh but healing soap, warm liquids and small bubbles down throats and pores.

i was ill and in bed for most of this weekend; for brief but significant moments i felt like that paragraph. such is sickness, as we all know, occasionally.

John Thomas

[the following is an actually email i just sent to brant hewelt, my friend and ex-roommate in chicago. i felt it was indicative of my current status. side note: priscilliano is our ex-landlord.]

subject line: "yo!"

body: "what up, homie?! hope work stuff is going well. i'd call today, but you're in work, and i'm going to work this afternoon till night, probably getting off pretty late as for chicago time. i'm listening to david bazan, he just recorded a new live thing at electrical audio in chicago. pretty standard (obviously), but it's still nice to hear. glad i downloaded it for free. also, big thing, kinda, i just got turned on to this band called 'memory tapes', they fucking rock! dance new wave indie shit. i'll send you a cd if you've never heard it. if you haven't, don't look for it, i'll just send it to you. which reminds me: you have mail at the handlebar. seems kinda goofy, but i guess it's because sylvia found it on the ground outside the mailbox at 2600 potomac (obviously), and didn't know how to contact you, and left it at handlebar because you've been known to visit there on the regular. so yeah. she also found a notice from debt collectors addressed to me because we didn't pay our final comcast bill (which we DID), and it was for the early cancellation fee for our cable. however, i called them and told them i had a comcast account in seattle (which i DO) under the same name, and they said "oh, ok, we'll link the accounts and you don't have to pay for that", so i surprisingly (but justly) got out of that one. crazy.

also, funny enough, i asked sylvia, "so, are there any people living in our old place, loud crazy kids or something?" to which she replied, "no, priscilliano is actually living there, he and his wife are having troubles i guess..." which i thought was pretty funny, considering the temperament of priscilliano and how he'd handle something like that. he's probably just complaining about the heat, or cold, or something.

anyways, yeah. i'm just working at the pie place still (did i tell you that?), i make and deliver local pies to coffee shops around town. company called 'high five pies'. super fun! and cool for now. i had an interview for clinician/case worker at a housing program for 'sound mental health', a place that houses mentally ill people who are trying to live on their own. sounds pretty awesome! the interview went really well, too. i'm optimistic. it's full time. i'll let you know how it goes. all your bitching about being a case manager actually helped my interview, too. i think it gave me a more realistic base of expectations from which to discuss social work from. so thanks! again, hope you're doing well. i'm still sincerely hoping to go to chicago for pitchfork, though i want to get established a bit more here, into a new place and occupation, before making any plane-ticket decisions. started growing the beard again, though, which is a good sign. missing chicago, too. the people there make more sense to me, now that i've gotten used to it in the last few years. i'm very much enjoying being with janine and the city at large, but am kinda annoyed by the demeanor of the seattle folk. i'm sure it's just transition, though. in total, chicago folk really are funnier, more adept at their nihilism in conjunction with personality and lust for life. xoxoxo,

matt"

Prospect Volunteer

two social human beings have a common need for sociability, pure and blind sociability, human association and social exchange. two social humans walk down the same streets many times daily, square shoulders parallel the right angles of concrete, never an exchange is given without a public or common rational reason. they walk past each other, they hardly look at each other. they spend much time looking for association without their eyes, or rather using an apparatus to help rationalize the endeavor and exchange. they both own small, fuzzy, lively, young, black-haired dogs; vaguely similar breeds. alike in stature, livelihood, excitability/energy, and perceived personality. they connect on a local-cyber-friend-finder, they both type and text the mutual recognition of their similar pet situations. two social human beings then meet on a tuesday afternoon at 4:30 amongst grass, the two small animals baring teeth, running while weaving, rolling around in the slope bathed in green sun. the people show teeth through smiles, relevant chat, a still wavering eye contact, but at least something is there.

the city and volunteer park.

Converge//Coalesce//Black Breath

last night i literally got the final ticket to see this show. black breath was pretty fucking sick, with varied styles of each personality in the band clashing nicely towards a very unified metalcore sound. i nodded my head a lot while mostly crossing my thin arms. it was at neumo's, which is only about a 6 minute walk from my house. it's hard to state how nice it is to be able to just drop into a show like this, to be so close to certain things that i have the privilege of treating them less deliberately. after black breath i walked home, brought janine some food from the taco building. i myself ate a handful of nuts, a carrot, and indulged in an allergy-curbing neti pot. i got back in time to see the last few songs of coalesce's set. talked with bo, bobby, turtle. didn't realize turtle lives here, as he has for 5 years or so. has 2 little kids, also, that he seems pretty stoked on.

converge fucking killed it, as per usual.

lights flashing, kids flailing, dizzying, darkening, lovely.

My Scheduled Release

predictability and excitement usually accompany various opposing adjectives, respectively.

i drive a car to work and back, down a hill, south, about 5 or 6 miles. the passing includes concrete, grass, vacancies and fulfillments, stores, lights, traffic woven like women depending on the time of day. on the way there, my mind's drift occupies the tide of sound inside the car; my car stereo layers loud music that purrs at a doorstep beside. the drive back is usually more conscious and purposeful, hence the music is left off in recognition of my usual ignorance of it. the battery power saves it's breath.

i drove to work; worked.

i visited the store before returning home. i entered the natural foods store with only the plan to buy a sandwich for lunch. i bought a falafel flatbread sandwich, 2 bags of kettle chips, and various marked-down beers. $1.51 a single, lost it's other 5 friends, seemingly cheapened by the schism but really about the exact same price. perspective.

on the quiet drive home i heard clanking from the paper grocery bag while passing over the road's imperfections. stopping fast for a yellow-then-red revealed more noise from the bag. during momentary stoppage, i turned my head and looked at a liquor store parking lot, saw a woman taking butts out of the ashtray at the front door, layering them in her hand, carefully placing them in the right side pocket of her stonewashed jean jacket. her skin looked a mess, it seemed like i could see details in the roots of her hair near the top of her head, from 45 feet away. estimated. i always used to look forward to a drunken release, a time of the week, or day, that i could completely melt, leave thinking or memory behind and sink into emotion, good or bad. i found solace in this, i found health in this. i seem to think, these days, that i find potential release from buying alcohol, without ever releasing that potential, without much consumption at all. but the purchase still finds it's way into my life, it still serves a purpose for me. it's harvey milk's threatening letter under a magnet on the fridge. i shook my head, narrowed my eyes, peered at green above in traffic. i turned on music very loudly, distorted guitars with sharp vocals, the still breeze of winding punk made me feel like i was back in high school.

i know that nothing is black or white, but it's nice to pretend things are, if for no other reason than functionality. like a light switch.