perhaps ironically, the largest contributing factor is an electronic enabler they call "iphone." it's easier now to examine the dark tapestry that is the internet. but since those tiny virtual keys are just so darned hard to press with the precision you know i love, adding new weaves is just that much more difficult.

desks are so 2009½.

other obviously minor factors include (but are not limited to): a certain wee fleshling, being a breadwinner/baconbringer, a thing that increasingly seems not meant to be, twitter, and updating my xfn with a couple of 'met' tags.


i've been told this: when you are telling a story and can sense that you're losing your audience's attention, you should cut your losses: stop talking exactly where you are, and finish by saying "…and then i found twenty dollars."


…and then i found twenty dollars

not the cache we had set out to find, mind you. the locations to which the satellites directed us were respectively 1) a copse empty of everything except ants and scrub and various droppings, and 2) unreachable except perhaps by helicopter. so that bit didn't pan out as we had planned. but it's hard to imagine finding something more interesting, or stranger, than what we did find out there: the journal you kept and wrote in during those periods of time when your mind was so dissociated from itself that it may as well have been dictated by the actual invisible pink unicorn.

enough of my rambling. i'll let the best of yours speak for itself:

it goes on.

in my life i have seen faces i do not recognise. i have learned to swim. i have questioned the authority of my parents. i have screamed. i can quote shakespeare and blake and my mate simon from the pub.

i have had a shower on a train. i have stared into the sun and i eat salad and i have been where i wasn't supposed to go. i have said 'i love you' and honestly meant it. i have spilled my dinner.

i have fallen over in front of people; i have worn inappropriate clothing. i have had to be pulled away from hitting on a friend's mum. i have mourned the loss of someone i knew and admired the courage of.

i use words i don't understand. i have seen snow and sand and lived on a boat and been beaten up by someone i didn't know. i have acted in films; and i have been someone's favourite person in the whole world. i know why the sky is blue and i once deliberately set fire to the carpet of the room i was in at the time.

i have been beaten, i have drawn, and i have won. i have been moved to tears by music and i never wanted to let her go. i have let people down and i have pulled through; i have pushed someone in anger and i am a good backgammon player.

some say i have everything going for me. i am twenty-two years old; i am defined by everything i have ever experienced.

so if that's what you're asking me i don't know. but i'm never going to be anyone else, and that's fine. don't worry if things are different to how they used to be. today i made someone smile. that's my ambition for tomorrow, too.

[laughter]

shut up! which means a lot of you have been breakin the first two rules of fight club. man, i see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who have ever lived. i see all this potential, and i see it squandered. god damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables, slaves with white collars. advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit that we don't need. we're the middle children of history, man: no purpose or place. we have no great war, no great depression. our great war is a spiritual war. our great depression is our lives. we've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires and movie gods and rock stars. but we won't; and we're slowly learning that fact. and we're very, very pissed off.

if they mess with us
if we think they might mess with us
if we say they might mess with us
if we think we need a war
we need a war

(fischerspooner)

the answer, of course, was no.

I copy-pasted it from [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335345/]. it's written by a human named TC Candler.


—


First, let me say that I think it is a shame that this great film will be used in agenda-pushing by both proponents and opponents of its content and message. Many of the extreme right-wing Christian conservatives will use the film to fuel their fires, and some in the Jewish community will use the film to bolster their fears of worldwide anti-Semitism. Both groups will be equally misguided in their rhetoric and motivations.

Can't we all just remember that this is a film… only a film? 'The Passion of the Christ' is Mel Gibson's version of his faith-based historical beliefs, and it doesn't necessarily need to be any more than that. Most of us fall somewhere between the two extremes and, hopefully, in that group, this film will find a reasonable and open minded audience that can appreciate this work as art.

However, it is inevitable that people's beliefs will guide their opinion of this film. Most of those that believe this is all historical fact will love 'The Passion'. Most of those that think this is either folly or a twisting of truth will not. Perhaps, only those who can remove themselves from religious bias will be able to look at 'The Passion of the Christ' with an honest eye toward artistic and cinematic appreciation. Granted, that is a tremendously hard thing to do. But if you can muster that state of mind, I think you will discover a truly masterful film about a factual/fictional/symbolic man (depending on your point of view) who sacrifices himself, in the most unselfish of ways, for the benefit of mankind. In that sacrifice, lies a poetic profundity that serves as a magnificent story, a magnificent lesson, and a magnificent film… but just a film.

In the spirit of honesty, I must declare that, although I believe in a higher power, I am not a particularly religious person. I don't go to Church, I very rarely pray, and I definitely don't feel the need to impose my views on anyone else. But because of the nature of Mel Gibson's work, I feel it is necessary for readers of this review to be aware of my liberal stance on religion. I believe in the ideal of 'To each his own'.

With all that being said, I think it is important to note that, among reasonably open-minded people, your beliefs shouldn't really affect your admiration, or lack thereof, toward this motion picture.

I believe a great film should possess most, if not all, of the following – Originality, Focus, Passion, Heart, Intelligence & Wit… all framed by magnificent acting, sure-handed & inspired directing, gorgeous cinematography and a beautiful score. Pulitzer Prize winning film critic, Roger Ebert, claims that "a film should not be judged on what it is about, but how it is about it."

With those guidelines in mind, I believe that Mel Gibson's 'The Passion of the Christ' is a masterful visualization of his beliefs regarding the central moments of the Christian/Catholic religion. Those final twelve hours of Jesus' life are vividly realized in ways that many people, even devout believers, have never fully contemplated. Most Christian images have been sanitized for mass marketing over the centuries. To have the gruesome details brought back into light will shock many of those who are used to the 'greeting card Jesus' that they are so accustomed to.

This film is one of the most graphically violent you will ever see… and it needs to be. If you believe the gospel to be literal truth, as does Gibson, there needs to be an honest depiction of the horrific events that led up to and were manifested in the crucifixion. To recount those moments in this review would diminish their impact. The beating, whipping and scourging of Jesus is gut-wrenching stuff to watch. Mel Gibson's lens never turns away. He wants you to see all the suffering. He wants to convey, in the clearest possible sense, the vicious nature of this moment and the depths of man's inhumanity to man. This film offers no relief until the final fifteen seconds, when we see the first few moments of Jesus' resurrection.

This is an unrelenting film that challenges the viewer. How often can you say that about a film? It transcends the medium. It is a film that can make 'entertainment cinema' seem so astonishingly inconsequential. Its power can make so many other things in our daily lives seem inconsequential. This film demands a certain reverence, even from non-believers or casual believers like me. I found it odd that, during my screening, a number of people brought in tubs of popcorn and giant red slurpee drinks to feast on. This just doesn't feel like that kind of film to me. I think it deserves a little more respect than regular movies… a little more humility.

As for the claims of anti-Semitism, I think they are unwarranted. However, I also understand that if one approaches this film looking for anti-Semitism, you can probably find it. Biases will determine what you see or don't see in a film like this. I agree with Roger Ebert who wrote in his review, "My own feeling is that Gibson's film is not anti-Semitic, but reflects a range of behavior on the part of its Jewish characters, on balance favorably. The Jews who seem to desire Jesus' death are in the priesthood, and have political as well as theological reasons for acting. The other Jews seen in the film are viewed positively; Simon helps Jesus to carry the cross, Veronica brings a cloth to wipe his face, Jews in the crowd cry out against his torture."

I think "The Passion of the Christ" is a masterpiece. It is a great film about a profound subject, shown with astonishing clarity and unnerving conviction by Mel Gibson, who has now fashioned two of the greatest films that I have ever seen, the other being 'Braveheart'. It took a lot of guts to decide to make this film, even more to finance it himself. There are very few in Hollywood who will ever display the courage to venture beyond the next comfortable project. But Gibson wrapped himself in that conviction and surrounded himself with a tremendous cast who were willing to take this precarious journey with him. Jim Caviezel assumes the impossible task of portraying Jesus, but he does it with steely determination and unflinching emotional control. Maia Morgenstern is heartbreaking as Mary. When her sad eyes watch, as her son endures the inhumanity, we feel her pain viscerally. When she cries, we cry. Monica Bellucci is equally devastating to watch as Mary Magdalene, who remains loyal to Jesus to the end. And the supporting cast are all tremendously dedicated to delivering Gibson's vision to the silver screen.

This film is a collective effort of brave artists who risked more than we will fully appreciate. I commend all involved in the making of this transcendent motion picture. It is a profound work of art that deserves more than the petty controversies it will stir up. However, as time passes, both ends of the extremist argument will reflect as utter inconsequentiality when mirrored with Gibson's masterwork. Some films exist on a plain aside from all the other clutter. 'The Passion of the Christ' is assuredly one of those films.

TC Candler

—

Cities are not people. But, like people, cities have their own personalities: in some cases, one city has many different, unique personalities—there are a dozen Londons, a handful of Rio de Janeiros, a crowd of different New Yorks. A city is a collection of streets and lives and buildings, and it has identity and personality. Cities exist in location, and they exist in time. There are good cities?the ones that welcome you, that seem to care about you, that seem pleased you're in them. There are indifferent cities—the ones that honestly don't care if you're there or not, cities with their own agendas, the ones that ignore people. There are old wise cities and there are restive adolescents. There are cities gone bad, and there are places in otherwise healthy cities as rotten and maggoty as windfall apples. There are even cities that seem lost—some, lacking a center, feel like they would be happier somewhere else, somewhere smaller, somewhere easier to understand, somewhere that understands it better.

Some cities spread. Some move like rain, slow and deliberate; some like cancer, violently and unexpectedly; some like B-movie slime monsters, devouring all in their way, absorbing towns and villages, transmuting all into boundless conurbation. Other cities shrink—once prosperous areas empty and fail, buildings empty, windows are boarded up, people leave, and sometimes cannot even explain why.

Occasionally, I whittle the time away by wondering what cities would be like, were they people. Manhattan is, in my mind, fast-talking, untrusting, well dressed but unshaven. London is obese, unbathed, and confused. Paris is elegant and attractive, older and wiser than she at first appears. San Francisco is crazy but harmless, wears sandals, and is overly friendly. It's a foolish game; cities aren't people. Cities exist in location, and they exist in time. Cities accumulate their personality as time goes by. Manhattan can remember being unfashionable farmland. Athens remembers when his citizens proudly called themselves Athenians. There are cities that remember being villages. Other cities—currently bland and devoid of personality—are patient and prepared to wait until they have history. Few cities are proud: they know it's all too often a happy accident, a mere geographical fluke that they exist at all—a wide and attractive harbor, a mountain pass, a confluence of two rivers.

At present, thankfully, cities stay where they are. For now cities sleep. But there are rumblings. Things change. And what if, tomorrow cities wake, and begin to walk? If Tokyo engulfed your town? If Vienna came striding confidently over the hill toward you? If the city you inhabit tonight just left, and you woke tomorrow wrapped in a thin blanket on an empty plain where used to sit Rome, Sydney, or Moscow? Don't ever take a city for granted. After all, it is older than you are; it is much bigger; it has learned how to wait …

—

I miss fat confused London. I can't wait to go back.