After Reading Him His Story

Sometimes I should keep some of my guts to myself.
Keep them inside me so that I can use them for the things that guts are used for.
Sometimes I think theyre communal property
Sometimes I think they belong to the ones who gave them to me,
Just because you cooked for me doesn’t mean I should hand you my vomit.
Just because you spoke words and danced your cinematic choreography does not mean you have the rights to my screenplays.
Sometimes I should keep some guts to myself.
Other wise late at night when I sit inside myself I have nothing to hold onto…
Because its all be spread out like butter onto the tiny cracked crackers in different countries…
I give a bit of it to you and it becomes less real to me and I wonder why I feel empty after I’ve handed it out to every stranger who I pass.
I need some of this angst to keep me oiled, keep me turning.
I need to hold this in my fingers like slime and see it seep through the cracks where my folded hands cant keep the air out.
Sometimes I think I should lie.
I should lie so that the truth feels sharper when its truth.
If theres nothing but truth than it doesn’t matter.
If theres nothing but white-
Over exposed
Under exposed.
We need balance
We need lies.
I need lies.
That’s the truth.
I always tell the truth.

home

i put toast in the toaster and water to boil for tea and then i came here to write a blog but its taking me too long and i keep thinking about the story we heard yesterday about the senior film student who left his film rewinding when he got caught up in a conversation and when he came back his film has been spun so fast that it had splintered into film splinters and had been shot off the reel and was stuck in the walls...

the only thing that will go wrong with my toast-in fact probably has gone wrong already-is that my brother will eat it... i heard him get out of bed about thrity seconds ago, he walked downstairs-i think my toast is probably history... and it was frozen too... ill have to unfreeze the next one...
ah
life.

Color Coverage

This weekend i filmed my color coverage assignment at The Spot.
Our clique of Green Meadow kids who transfered to nyack named it "The Spot." and then renamed it "Spotsylvania" (which never stuck) when we passed an exit for a town called Spotsylvania on our way to florida last summer.

The nyack kids who knew about the spot already and had been trespassing there since middle school-they called it "lord of the flies." both names suit it.

The Spot is a hill that has stone steps and then a wooden trelesy staricase that lead down to the river... on a bit of empty land between two expensive huge river view houses.

Theres a porch halfway down the hill where the stone steps turn to the wooden steps and where theres a lamp post thats going to fall one day but hasnt yet, just leans on a dramatic Caligari-esque angle.

i filmed Edy James and Raina.

they walked down the hill and sat on the porch and drank orange juiceboxes against blue skies in ektachrome colors. they looked out on the view and were probably out of focus because i had one of those zoom lense bolexs that is impossible to focus by eye through.

but
im praying to the gods of film labs and bolex cameras.
I making frequent offerings to them, i burn small animals over a fire and let the smoke trail up to them.
I've woven all my leftover film into a twisty celluloid shrine for them and i kneel before it and ask them to just forgive me that millienth of an inch that my focus was off.
and please make sure that the guys at pac lab have enough caffiene in their coffees so they mix the chemicals correctly.
and then
i get off my knees and feel quite confident in the gods affection for me
and wait for my film to come back...
all in focus and properly exposed with beautiful orange juice boxes contrasting unbelievably with blue skies and blue shirts and purple scarves and green eyes.
yum.
o and also
that shot that i planned to pull focus on
but all i did was zoom out
because everything looks focused through the lense
that shot
that shot will be perfectly pulled even though i know i didnt pull it.

New Moon

To Whom It May Concern,
CC: screenwriter, Melissa Rosenberg
CC: whoever hired Melissa Rosenberg

your characters need to smile.
why are they in love?
we dont beleive him just because he says it.
you have to show us why.

characters say "i love you" unashamedly in two kinds of stories- soap operas and fairytales.
do you know which story youre in?
because we do.
we, the little lovesick girls, even kristen sterwart, we know which story we're in.
Twilight is a fairytale. i promise. thats why we love it, thats why we hate the movies,
thats why we cringe, embaressed for your charecters while they profess their love. theyre sitting awkwardly outside their archetypes because you think they are a joke.
we dont think theyre a joke.
i promise.
we read those books and couldnt stop smilling.
i couldnt stop smiling for a month while i read twilight, holding it infront of my face while i walked from class to class.
and im sitting in the movie theater begging you to make me smile
trying to fall in love
i want to fall in love with your characters by how can i when you dont even show me then falling in love with eachother.


The story of Twilight is ridiculous. that is the point.
but
what you fail to realize is this: the reason that we-little lovesick girls- are so unbelievably obsessed with this story is that IT TAKES ITSELF SERIOUSLY.

stephanie meyer's books convinced us that vampires exist by putting it in our terms.
"what would it really be like?"
she gave us bella- who is in love with the most beautiful boy she has ever seen. she gave us Bella's disbelief and her excitement and her delight...
imagine a conversation between a priest and an atheist.
what does the priest say- a good priest- a learned understanding one- he is trying to persuade the atheist-in the atheist's own terms-to believe in god.

the twilight screenplays are giving us nothing!
they are giving us angst.
they are giving us a sci fi OC

im paying you for your time.

i want you to give me what i want.

i want the seriousness, and the believablily, the magical reality that i gave up my elite feminist integrity to read.
i want the fairytale.
please please study the differnce between a soap opera "i love you" and a fairytale one.
if thats all you do it will be enough.

Tiny Tale: in which a candy cane forest melts

once upon a time there was a forest of candy canes.
the children walked between the shiny red and white trees and stopped to lick the stalks, theyre cheeks and mittens got sticky with sugar.

when summer came the forest melted and became a sugar swamp.
in june the children swam in the syrup but by july they learned that walking around drenched in sugar attracted the bees.
so during july and august the children went only as far as the the edge of the swamp where they lay down on their stomachs and stuck straws in and drank.

in the fall the swamp turned hard because, it was not water, it was sugar and so it didnt need to wait for the winter to freeze.

the children set up a stall where they rented out sugar skates and scissors.
the people came and rented skates. they skated out onto the sugar swamp and when they fell they stuck to the sugar so they used their scissors to cut themselves free and then hurried home in their ripped clothes kicking yellow leaves away from their sticky feet.

and by this time no one remembered that it all started with candy canes.

i keep passing my room inspections

i keep passing my room inspections
even though they say no christmas lights.
and i have christmas lights.

My Trinity

note: a healthy understanding of The Matrix is recomended for proper enjoyment of this post

In my version of the matrix, in order to make myself fall in love with Neo and trinity; in order to make myself care about that tender moment at the end, I will make Trinity younger and purer.

What I mean is: she is the one who loves The One, so, symbolically-since we like to beleive that Jesus never fell in love-the only woman Trinity could be a symbol for is Mary.
So she should be like... young and pretty and quiet and virginal...



For all the feminists who are raising their eyebrows and accusing me of making a powerful heroin into a damsel in distress- please read on-

Trinity should be the little dangerous one, the one who cares for neo- like she does do in the movie- almost tucking him in like a mother, into the chair and sticking a long needle into his brain, tenderly, with a hand on his chest. She should be just like that... the tender careful feminine one and then
when she needs to be- when morpheus who- sorry- is God, calls upon her to "get neo out! hes all that matters!"
then she rises to the occasion and Neo is shocked that this little sister, little mother character is taking charge.
That is when he falls in love with her. Not when he sees her in tight black leather for the first time.
She can wear the tight black leather but she should wear it with a elemental sort of swagger... maybe her hair isnt greased back, maybe it's in two braids or maybe its curly.

The oracal told trinity that she would fall in love and that that man that man that she would love would be the one.
That bothers my Trinity. She dislikes neo. He does something… anything to make her feel unloved by him and she decides that he is not the one because she hates him. she wants him to fail. Until he does something to redeem himself but of course then she’s mad at him for making her not hate him.
Basically
What im trying to say is

If the point of the movie is humans fighting for humanity… give the characters some humanity… make them human…. Give them some angst and for a pair of storytellers so obviously talented at playing with metephore- learn your woman archytepes and play.

Something Fell

Something fell
And left that line of cloud,
That slices the sky
Beside the moon.
It looks like an angel stretched out his hand
Tried to catch hold of something
To slow his descent
But instead left the wake
That ends abruptly
After passing the moon
Which I think is where
The angel stopped grasping at nothing,
Where he let go of the air.
And with his hands crossed
Over his heart,
The way that they told me to fold
My arms at the water park
When I went down the tallest slide,
The angel closes his eyes
And thinks about
How it feels to fall.

When We Leave In The Night

We will find our socks
In the bottom of the bed,
Peel them back on
And leave in the night
But first we will wash
Our faces and drink
Handfuls of water from the bathroom.

We will strip the sheets
From the fold out couch
And fold it up. We will take
Apples from the kitchen
And hold them in our teeth
As we zip up our coats. We will slink

Across the lawn and pick up the bottles
And drop them
Into someone else’s trash,
A block away. But first we will find you,
Asleep in the next room, sit on your bed
And kiss your cheeks

We will try not to creak
As we leave down the stairs in the night,
Whispering that we are sorry
For waking you.



(molly looking at her film on the bus)