Shittown: The value of a life
What is the moral of the hit podcast S-town? Rarely has a story given you so many options.
All posts filed under: writing
I am a visitor here, I am not permanent (The Snow Leopard review)
“God offers to every mind a choice between repose and truth. Take which you please – you can never have both”, said Ralph Waldo Emerson. Truth or repose, said Matthiessen, in my ear today, quoting Emerson. I want both, of course, but for now I’ll settle for becoming a traveler again.
Station Eleven and other books like turquoise blue seas
How do you choose what worlds to get emerged in? I finished a book last week and I’m having a hard time moving on. My book selections are pretty random, but afterward I usually see the beautiful symmetry of adding this particular world to the thousands of worlds I already hold within. A Facebook link led me to a Buzz-whatever like list of books that “contain horror in completely ordinary settings” and I am so down with that. Of Station Eleven: A novel they said, “that moment of genuine terror when the internet goes out forever in this post-apocalyptic world.” For all my talk of wanting to usher in a new evolution of consciousness more aligned with the planet we live on, I’m not really into dystopian, post-apocalyptic books. They are too bleak and lack the beauty I crave in my worlds. I devoured The Hunger Games, and moved on. I’m happy that the movies are somehow better. But it’s not somewhere I want to live. I went into Station Eleven blind and found something …
Old Hollywood on the page
A well-written biography is the intersection between life, story and truth – my three absolute favorite things. To follow someone’s journey through their whole life, their highs and lows, regrets and lessons learned, is a very intimate thing. And unlike fictional stories, it feels more intimate because it is all true. Sure, they can’t all be gems, and it’s up for debate whether the fault lies with writer or subject, but the really good ones – oh gosh. It really is like gaining a friend. You come to know this person. You laugh with them at their silly stories, you read the poignant moments over and over, marvel at their perfection, and ultimately, you cry when they die, no matter how rich and wonderful a life. Mainly, because it was so rich and wonderful. In October I went to Hollywood for a few days to hang out with my favorite girls – Rita Hayworth and Gene Tierney – and I took a tour of the Warner Bros lot to get the feel of a historic …
Terrorize this
Can we just take a moment to appreciate the irony of all the world’s leading governments “taking a stand against terrorism” by launching the most massive surveillance apparatus the world has ever seen. And the perpetual warfare in countries with vastly different cultures than the West and victory is only declared when the countries more or less resemble the Western ideal of the corporate state. And if that’s not bad enough, how about those flying killing machines called drones that they like to launch over countries not even declared war upon, making sure that for every civilian killed, 20 more revenge-bent “terrorists” pop up. And let’s not forget about the West’s own citizens, in their desire to protect us against dark boogeymen, every ounce of privacy awarded us through the ages are wiped out in less than a decade “for our own protection”. Hey, sociopaths in charge, guess what? Living has always come with certain risks. One of them is death from unexpected events. Like falling in the shower. Or getting shot by your gun-crazy …
Your story matters
Who else is feeling like the world just imploded this summer? Gaza, Syria, Iraq, America’s reentry into Iraq, so many refugees, an endless stream of people with nowhere to go… every place is “full” and the money supply is always dwindling as the 0.1% keep stuffing their secret bank accounts with more billions each month. And it’s all there, right in our face on social media. It’s exhausting just to keep up with all the senseless suffering. But then I had this thought. What if social media is eventually going to put a stop to all this? When enough people have had enough and join together in a massive show of civil disobedience of this bullshit system of war and profit over people and peace. Wouldn’t that be something. Soon, everyone under 20 won’t know a world without social media. Soon, it will be impossible to justify war when its true face is in our face every single day. Stories have the power to change the world. One visionary photographer, Brandon Stanton, was recently unemployed …
Everyone we know is brokenhearted
I think Joshua Ellis just made my blog obsolete with this amazing, somber, absolutely human post. Please, please read it. I also think, whenever I get down in the future, I will just go back and read this and spare everyone my take on contemporary sadness. Not that everyone’s pain isn’t valid, it is just so… the same. Without further ado, go read: Everyone I know is brokenhearted.
Readers appreciation post
In celebration of reaching almost 500 followers on WordPress, I wanted to open up the floor for a little informal Q & A. When I started this blog 1,5 years ago I really had no idea what kind of blogger I wanted to be. I thought I wanted to be a lifestyle/personal blogger but over the past year I have learned how much I truly value my privacy and not having to put every little thing out there. Not to mention, my life is really not that interesting! I’ve even stopped maintaining a personal Facebook because I just don’t see the point anymore, although I’m more than happy to creep on others! It also seems to me that personal bloggers tend to buy a lot of stuff to constantly show off and that’s really not going to work for me since my blog is basically an anti-blind-consumerism forum. So here we are, and I’m very happy to be right here. I’ve really been enjoying the WordPress community lately and discovering a lot of insightful and …
Anatomy of suicide
In this post I’m going to talk about something that is difficult to talk about, but also very important. To me, it cuts to the very core of what it means to be human. The act of taking your own life. Humans are unique among the animals as in we are capable of deciding if we want to keep living or not. Do most people consider it a choice?
The Artist’s Walkabout ft. Lana Del Rey and Charmaine Olivia
I don’t know if you are born an artist, or if you become one. I guess deep down I think everyone is an artist at heart, it’s the human condition to want to create something beautiful and meaningful, but not everyone feeds that particular beast. I have all these moments from childhood that stand out to me, and lately I’ve been cataloging them to see if they can steer me on the right path since I’ve been feeling a little lost lately. I’ve always been kind of a loner and at age 9 my biggest luxury was to stay home alone and spend all day building and playing with pirate Lego. Pirates appealed to me from a very young age because they had two things I’ve always desired: absolutely freedom and tropical islands. I could easily spend six hours or more totally engaged building ships and deserted islands with crumbing forts. I had an audio book of Treasure Island that I knew inside out, I had played it so many times, but it always help …
honeythatsok 