sundries

[rm]

Yesterday was a long rough day. Today will hopefully be a shorter, albeit likely to require equal amounts of massive focus sort of day. Nearly all desk job stuff. Not exciting. You know, except for the part where it was really stressful. Thank god for Patty being funny and keeping me sane during various parts of it.

Tonight I am going to see The History of War at NYMF. Also, since yesterday sucks my weekend is going to be less constricted than initially thought. So if I feel inspired, tomorrow will be when I peak in to NYCC for a bit during the day. Although, in truth, I may just run away to Soho again instead. Something to inspire me before getting ready for my class reunion.

Sunday -- another rehearsal and shooting footage for the D&J funding video and whatever else we need for the website. When I got home from the office at 2:15am last night, I stopped myself (by muttering "you are not allowed to play auteur at two-fucking-am" over and over again until I put the case down) from looking at the D&J disc that rufus provided me with during a brief meet-up in Tribeca yesterday, but I'll try to glance through that tonight and make some notes.

One of the current tasks isn't to work on all my projects at once (I have some things staggered, that I know are more 2011 or 2012 or later or maybe or not ever or whatever), but to know what all the projects are. Part of that is looking at things and going "what is this story? why does it matter? and what is the vehicle for telling it?" Once I know that, it can go on the list, even if that's on a list that's "Maybe I'll never care enough." Part of this means looking at work that's incomplete, or was created in one context for a small audience, but can perhaps be shifted to a different context for a broader audience. Which means, I'm looking at something old and half-finished and realizing that the answer to it is writing is as a poly-romance (novel/play/musical/film? story, what are you???) that takes place in the film industry of the 1930s. Not saying it's a priority, but that's what it is. Which is buckets of funny. BUCKETS.

I've mentioned, recently, a bit about the summer where I only slept four hours a night, because I believed that was the path to making lots of art and being wildly successful or something (Yeah, laugh at me; it's okay. I know). Now that I find myself somewhat in that position again, but this time because I am making lots of art and success and everything else is super busy besides, I've finally realized why this shit is so hard. Or at least why it has been so for me.

Because when you're sleeping four hours a night, sweet heaven, do you need physical comfort. Which is why this was soul-sucking when I was single in 2003/4 and why it's grueling now with Patty away. This is totally doable with the soothing and confidence-inducing nature of human contact; It's damn fucking tiring without. But, hey, less than a month until I see Patty, and I'm going to sleep in tomorrow; I've earned it.

I've been randomly thinking about films I love that I can watch over and over again vs. those I can't. Now some, that's obvious -- they're just different categories of emotional experience. But let's look at bleak, grueling films -- I can watch The Children of Men over and over again (that sequence in the Tate Modern is the best thing in ever) no problem. But I can't even tolerate the thought of watching 28 Days again (not because it scared the crap out of me, but because of that scene where he finds his parents and that note that reads "we're sleeping now; we hope you're sleeping too.") or V for Vendetta (a film to which I am admittedly over-sensitive, because the night I came back from seeing it, was the night I got sick with celiac, and my getting ill and staying ill is linked in my mind to the medical torture sequences in the Valerie's letter portion of the film). Anyway, I love stuff like this, but it's always weird to me which ones I can and can't do over and over. I also feel like a coward about it.

Okay, the problem in this story isn't that the hotel staff member was cross-dressing, but that the staff-member was inappropriately in the guest's room and using her stuff! So CNN, your headline? Totally sucks.

Twin discrimination? I get her being frustrated by the idea of having to bring a second care-giver with her, that seems like something I could get my head around bending in these circumstances. But it's not some outrage to have to "pay double" if you have two children enrolled in the same class. There are two of them. Am I missing something? I may be missing something.

The man who repairs time.

New York's queer tango festival. I sort of want to say "choreographers take note!" because you can produce such different energies in a piece, if you aren't trying to recreate or play into heteronormativity, no matter the gender of your dancers -- especially, especially, especially with tango. *flaily hands*

Prison guard held in attack on inmate who is a trans woman.

The bullying conversations that have been opened up by "It Gets Better" and the tragedies that launched that project are so valuable. Today I want to ask people to remember that not all the cases of kids who have killed themselves due to anti-gay bullying were, themselves, gay. Sometimes they were just awkward or skinny or whatever else leads to these things. Once again, homophobia hurts everyone, and as long as gay is a dirty word, it will keep hurting everyone. And all of this is about sex-negativity and misogyny too. Notice how the female suicides of this ilk are usually the outgrowth of being called a slut. This is about words for women and the shape of desire.

I also want to say I am starting to see a certain amount of "[Dead kid #56356365] was a bully too." Yeah, probably. You know why? Because it's how you survive. Because if someone is picking on you, you find a target, any target, to ensure you're not at the bottom of the pile and you do the only thing you've been shown how to do by your peers: hurt. Our kids are in pain and they are afraid, and they deserve all the empathy and action we can muster. I don't have a great deal of compassion for people who have hurt me, but this is a failing. They did, after all, hurt me because they were afraid, not just of me, but of themselves. It's a terrible way to live.

Finally, National Coming Out Day is coming up. Being out is a privilege and can have serious consequences, even when you wouldn't think it because of the year or the location or whatever. But, one of the good things about being out is that it makes it harder for other people to make gay a dirty word. Please consider the possibility of being more out this year.

Comments

[tsarina.livejournal.com]

Oh thank god I'm not the only one. Dancer in the Dark made me chain smoke my way through half a carton of cigarettes in horror and despair. I couldn't sleep that night. I thought it was an amazingly constructed movie but I will never, ever, ever watch it again.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I struggle with Lars von Trier, as I think you know. I have enjoyed some of his films, and I think Dancer in the Dark is an interesting an valuable counterpoint to some of what it emerged from, but I had so much ragey frustration with those films he did with Nicole Kidman, that I just can't engage his work anymore.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Yes. Apparently I had even blocked out the name.

I almost want to watch it again because I think there are even more things that would enrage me now.

But basically it opened with something that pushed my buttons in a personal way. Then it was a series of artistic statements that were abrasive without necessity. And the whole "you just hate it because it's a statement against America" thing infuriated me, because no, I'm _fine_ with that. But it was such "student work" to me. Masterful, student work -- but I need more than "fuck you, rar, puke on the audience, CONCEPT" for that type of work to matter.

God, I hated that movie.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Although, apparently I was nicer about my rage when I saw it: http://rm.livejournal.com/88711.html

It's interesting to me, that it is only the anger at the film I recall.

[yamx]

Oh, me too! I loved Dancer in the dark when I first watched it -- shortly after it first game out on DVD, years ago -- but i've never managed to get myself to watch it again.