Home
Moses Bomb's Journal
 
 [Most Recent Entries] [Calendar View] [Friends]

Below are the 20 most recent journal entries recorded in Moses Bomb's LiveJournal:

    [ << Previous 20 ]
    Tuesday, April 15th, 2008
    4:23 pm
    If you would like to know somthing about me, know these two things. I love the movies Elizabethtown and Life Aquatic even though they are both, by most accounts, failures.

    The ideas they play around with are so deeply powerful for me, that they overcome the fact that they are indeed failures.
    Monday, April 14th, 2008
    1:50 pm
    And a reccomendation!

    While I'm on this movie kick... If you loved Garden State you might kinda like: http://wip.warnerbros.com/introducingthedwights/

    The upside is, you'll be supporting some crazy indpendent movie from down under.

    The America website is:http://www.clublandthefilm.com/

    which has a trailer, but it's pretty defunct.

    8:14 am
    A story with less effort.
    Saturday, April 12th, 2008
    12:12 pm


    Just watched Michael Clayton. Not a great movie, not a  bad movie.

    But there is power in the ambiguity of the manic depressive going off his meds, being clearly insane, and being the character that throws the rock under the wheel.

    Friday, April 11th, 2008
    2:30 pm
    My motto is: Jamaica is for lovers!

    Why?

    Because I am irrationally in love with nonsense.

    Why irrational?

    Because I hate nonsense.
    Tuesday, April 8th, 2008
    3:06 pm
    Another Quote
    Just saving this one for myself.

    The soloist has to establish for the listener what the important point, the motif if you like, is, and then show as much as he can of what it is that he sees in that motif. . . while never giving the feeling he has forgotten it. In other words, I believe that it should be a basic principle to use repetition, rather than variety - but not too much. The listener is constantly making predictions; actual infinitesimal predictions as to whether the next event will be a repetition of something, or something different. The player is constantly either confirming or denying these predictions in the listener's mind, As nearly as we can tell (Kraehenbuehl at Yale and I), the listener must come out right about 50% of the time. If he is too successful in predicting, he will be bored; if he is too unsuccessful, he will give up and call the music "disorganized." - Jazz pianist and Yale instructor Richmond Browne
    2:55 pm

    Saw "Shine A Light" this weekend. It was enjoyable, but I was massively disappointed given all the hype.  It was at best a B minus Rolling Stones show, filmed very well.

    In other words: enjoyable. But certainly not a document representative of the teaming of one of the greatest live acts of our time with one of the greatest living directors.

    The cinematography was better than many of there recent concert DVD’s, but really…

    The sad part is that for me it demonstrates that most of our countries film critics really need to get out and see a Rolling Stones show live.

    In other news I found this quote:

    I am insulted by the persistent asertion that I want war. Am I a fool? War! It would settle nothing. -- Adolph Hitler, interview with Le Matin, 1933
    Friday, April 4th, 2008
    8:25 am

    Writing a book knowing that I’m not a particularly good author creates some interesting challenges.

    (This is not a plea for compliments- I’m a decent writer, probably the best writer in my high school (unless there was someone I didn’t know about- but on average I’m probably the best writer of some high school somewhere at least) but there are a lot of high schools in the country, and not a lot of great authors.)

    Given that I’m not interested in the effort it takes to make a living at it, I write primarily for myself.

    Writing a novel, just like reading one, involves some cool parts, and some in-between parts. Peaks and valleys.

    Now I’m working on a boring part that I’ve been dreading for awhile. Basically this novel is a sequel to my last, and so I need to do the whole catch the new reader up thing. Which I like, and I think will make the new novel more interesting for someone who hasn’t ready the first. But I’ve already told that story so it’s a pain.

    And it is harder than ever slogging through the tough parts, knowing that nobody is ever going to read it. Why bother to make it coherent?

    But if you take away any concept of audience entirely, you’re not really writing a book are you? You're just writing the outline of a book. And that kind of thing won't play at parties.

    Thus tension is created.

    Self-help writing guides recommend writing for an ideal audience, one person who you can focus your energy on. Only nobody reads my books, so my ideal audience is myself. And I already know what’s happening, so I don’t need it all spelled out for me.

    This isn’t really a complaint so much as an observation. There is a balance in here somewhere, and a pep talk I’m trying to give myself into acting like a professional.

    That is all for now.

    Wednesday, April 2nd, 2008
    3:31 pm

    Watched Knocked Up. Decent movie, although I worry about the idea that I was able to appreciate it, given the premise was about an extremely immature man becoming slightly more mature.

    I also regularly list High Fidelity among my favorites, so there is probably something wrong with me.

    I thought I had something more to say on this but I don’t.

    …

    I enjoy complete things.

    …

    In my mind, I really like the strange mystery thing I wrote the other day (with the plant ladies), but it was ripped more or less intact from a dream and time has taught me that my instincts on this kind of thing are usually wrong.

    So I am dissapointed that it probably sucks, but unwilling to go back and look at it.

    That is part of maturity I suppose. Growing from a stage of pure self-indulgence. To the aching teenage years of knowing the right thing to do, but still being pained by the disconnect. To finally having the right thing become second nature.

    I guess with Knocked up I’m in stage 3, but not as thoroughly as I thought. When he’s too immature to know not to side with her sister’s lying husband unless he’s prepared to do battle… well I think he’s a fool… and actually that part wasn’t that funny. But it didn’t bring the movie to a grinding halt.

    Nor did the self-indulgant trip to Las Vegas.

    And there’s reason to believe I should have.

    Aw well, I sound like an old fudy duddy, and I picked a bad example from the movie to make my point. But such is life.

    When I get a few steps more evolved, I won’t post this.

    Friday, March 28th, 2008
    10:30 am
    Petitions are useless

    Not only are petitions useless, but they are particularly useless online where everyone just assumes that you can get a million people to sign up for anything (see facebook groups).

    Not only are online petitions useless, but they are doubly so when dealing with authoritarian governments who could care less about what there citizens think.

    Not only are online petitions useless, but they are even more so when they are sponsored by organizations you’ve never heard of.

    Not only are online petitions useless, but they are quadruplely so when it’s a foreign government, and you can’t even get your own government to agree to take real action.

    Thusly, I present you with an opportunity to do something quixotic today:

    http://www.avaaz.org/en/tibet_end_the_violence/

    You are welcome.


    9:25 am
    short bit
    So my last few political rants have been a success, it’s time to change gears and insert another bit of nonsense. Today’s story is an idea for a book that I’d like to think I’ll end up writing someday, but probably won’t get around to doing anything else with.

    So rather than keeping this unedited snippet alone in my ideas folder, destined to languish away, I’ve decided to let it free. Don’t blame me if it doesn’t make any sense.



    Thursday, March 27th, 2008
    4:43 pm
    The thing about drug policy (as seen in my last post) is not that it’s the most important issue facing America today- although the overcrowding of our prisons would probably make a top 20 list.

    It’s that it does an admirable job of highlighting the insane combination of image politics (nobody wants to be the druggie candidate) and accepted lying (so that nobody trusts the goverment at all) that systematically keep decent politicians from doing anything productive, and good people from running.

    We can’t have honest conversations. Even the best politicians slowly become so calculating, constantly hunting for the right moment to cash in there savings of political capital (a moment that often never comes), that the best anyone can do is take an educated guess at what we are voting for.

    Will Obama really support health care reform? (or is it simply a slogan he took on to take the wind out or Clinton and Edwards but is unwilling to fight for if political winds change?)  

    Does McCain actually think staying in Iraq is the best plan? (what is he saving his capital for anyways, he already caved on torture).

    Is Clinton secretly a super liberal and a progressive idealist? (or will she be like her husband, making symbolic stands and incremental but realistic change)

    The point is not that they are bad. It is that what they say has only a tenious relationship to anything else.

    These questions and more can only be answered by tuning into next weeks episode. And probably not even then.

    Meanwhile almost half of all Americans have smoked pot, yet “12.7 percent of state inmates and 12.4 percent of federal inmates incarcerated for drug violations are serving time for marijuana offenses.”

    Nicely done.

    Wednesday, March 26th, 2008
    10:44 am
     “Criminalizing choices that adults make because we think they are unwise, when the choices involved have no effect on the rights of others, is not appropriate in a free society,” said (Massachusetts Rep. Barney) Frank while discussing his “Make Room for the Serious Criminals” bill - a proposal to de-criminalize small amounts of marijuana for personal use.
    Tuesday, March 25th, 2008
    10:20 am
     
    I worry (not really but I need the rhetorical momentum for this)…

    I worry about what people think of me.  I base a lot of my humor on the assumption that the people around me know who I am.

    For instance, I emailed a friend recently and made a comedic aside about being sad that I’d fallen off there top 8 in myspace. The amount that I care about that is low… and the contrast between that and the people who spend there lives obsessing about it was the premise for an admittedly weak joke.

    They responded in quite seriousness and apologized.

    This I believe signals a failure on my part to spend enough time conveying my true nature.

    But my nihilist impulses prevent me from taking life seriously enough to really manage this on a consistent basis.

    So

    I’m considering a manifesto.

    (not really.)
    Thursday, March 20th, 2008
    3:27 pm
    Livejournal Drama
    So I just now found out about the whole LJ protest thing, and I am annoyed. My world is surrounded by ad's and I hate it. I'm perfectly fine with picking up stakes and leaving except that nobody gives a shit if I do. I'm only hear because LJ is a nice friend RSS feeder, and if I take down my account I won't be able to see anyone elses.

    Hopefully someone will post pointing out a nice bit of technology that will replace this for me. This is the same nonsense that caused my close down my myspace and facebook accounts.

    The protest tommorw will do nothing. But I will support it. I do not cross picket lines. And I'll probably experiment with blogger.

    That is all.
    Wednesday, March 19th, 2008
    4:40 pm
    whatever you do
    don't lose your band.
    10:14 am
    With the exception of my family, and 4 others, every woman I talk to on a regular basis either knits or does cross stich. This is around 80%.

    It's insane.
    8:10 am
    a little of everything (life on the side)
    So I was impressed that Obama was able to make a speech impressive enough that even by the time it gets sound-bited down he conveyed a concept with two moveable parts.

                                   #

    In other news… details about my life etc…

                                   #

    “However” said the Llama, “Sometimes nonsense is needed”

    His overlarge hat slipped down over his eyes again, as if to indicate that the conversation was over. And it would have been, if not for the     innocence of youth. I turned to walk away, angry at myself. But then a tiny bear-cub sauntered across the road, stopping traffic in a cartoonish manner.

    In it’s last moments of life, it looked up at me, eyes wider than the widest, and deep within my soul I knew I could not let this stand. I made a shuffle step towards the road, to save its life, but before I knew it, the bear-cub was gone.

    Faced with unbearable guilt. I turned around to confront the Llama.
    Thursday, March 13th, 2008
    3:40 pm

    I have a tendency to randomly add people who I think might be interesting to my LJ. I'm genuinely interested in most people, and I view LJ as basically an RSS feed.

    So write more people!

    But in other thoughts- it also makes me wonder who I’m reading about. For example, an unusually large number of my “friends” have been job hunting lately (as am I) and it makes me wonder if I knew more people locally in real life, would I have a similar experience?

    Is that something with the economy? The world of people my age? If I knew these people in real life, would many of our conversations consist of these discussions? If not- which is more true to their inner thoughts?

    Or is it all an illusion created by LJ?




    Wednesday, March 12th, 2008
    4:21 pm

    Jerry Garcia tyes are interesting because Jerry always hated the concept of tyes.

    Yet others have made money selling .... bits of his artwork chopped off from all context and meaning, and forced into the shape of a tye.

    So businessmen can feel like rebels in there cubicles.

    I wear one now. And it is indeed slightly more stylish than most tyes I could buy.

    .....

    When I used to eat meat I would often joke that I enjoyed eating shrimp the most, because it was the best life to food ratio.

    I became a vegetarian, but I think it's the same awareness that drives it all.

    ....

    Also, apples (and jelly beans) in america are covered in a thin shiny film derived from bug guts. How to take that?

[ << Previous 20 ]
About LiveJournal.com