I just finished watching a writer movie, and was compelled to make a list of all the good writer films I’ve watched, so that you, dear fellow writer, may be inspired when you’re stuck and too lazy to read a book. Here are the ones I know of, in order of my knowing them:
Finding Forrester
Freedom Writers
Dead Poets Society
The Ghost Writer
Capote – though I haven’t watched it all the way through yet. The book was excellent – and I hope that when I say this you wonder why I said it, because you know that this is a given. If you don’t know this and are inclined to watch movies to not have to read books, well, I think you’d be better off elsewhere.
Those were the titles I could come up with, but not being satisfied with that paltry list, I went searching the troves of the internet. And of course I found stacks and stacks. But I also found something I was not expecting – a somewhat kindred spirit. As I hope you are. And this is what he said (my thoughts italicised):
“I first came to Los Angeles many years ago with the hopes of doing a lot of writing (always the hope, always the hope), but instead I did a lot of walking (sounds like my first time in London). Given the profoundly accustomed car culture (blech) of the landscape, I was an anomaly (don’t I know it – scenes of me biking along the freeway perilously close to the rushing traffic on the outskirts of Philadelphia come to mind) as I walked everywhere and glimpsed at apartments (no ‘at’ there, mate) I would never live in (is this a common writers’ pastime?), restaurants I wanted to eat at but never got around to, and bars where I wanted to drink at with friends I didn’t have yet (nice – that’s the spirit). Los Angeles was my compromise (hmm?), one of many in a lifetime (the truth hurts). Los Angeles is the city where people who are too afraid to go to New York end up, in the same way that Chicago is the city where people who are too afraid to go to Los Angeles end up (he had me with this line – there’s a quote for sure). But in my heart, New York was supposed to be mine (wait – I thought it was supposed to be mine). I had always wanted to be a writer living in the Big Apple (are you channeling me? Am I channeling you? Am I not alone in my dreams after all? I kid you not, I see this in my head all the time) – it was a desire straight out of a Woody Allen movie (will have to check out Woody Allen then). The mosaic colors and mental acoustics were so vivid with this dream that it painted me as occupying a nice apartment in upper Manhattan (yep) with my junior editor at VOGUE Euro-Asian girlfriend who had enough style to make up for my lack thereof (this is reaching a self-fulfilling prophecy level of ridiculousness; the parallels, I mean), while I labored away at my great American novel (mm, guess it’s not a complete match), at my desk under my framed Velvet Underground poster, in the evenings after a full day’s work on the staff of THE NEW YORKER magazine. Well, ahem (ahem, indeed). In the cosmic battle of dream versus reality, reality won (I intend to win my cosmic battle, that’s why I’m wasting so much time right now not writing), and instead, I ended up in Hollywood (tough break, lad), suffering writer’s block on an untitled science fiction screenplay I couldn’t for the life of me figure out the ending (were you channeling Chuck Lorre as I channel you now?). So instead of hunkering down to finish my script I walked everyday to my local video store and rented movies about other people writing (such an alluring rut suddenly so deep when one wishes to climb out – immersing oneself in other lives when one’s own fails to provide, usually thanks to oneself). Something about watching movies about writers inspired me (and yet the inspiration is so short-lived; by the time the film finishes all I want to do is watch another). I remember a former creative writing professor once told our class that when you sit down to write you should surround yourself with books (books, that’s the key) by your favorite authors. It’s akin to the philosophy that being around smart and creative people will only challenge you to elevate your own game. “Hang out with your heroes,” the professor would trumpet (which leads me back to the ever-hanging question: why am I still not studying writing?). And hang with my heroes I did – some of them characters from these movies, some of them filmmakers of these movies. Not only did movies about writers put the fire to my ass but it also kick-started a prodigious creative period that led to my first writing assignment at a studio (that could be the problem – TV being inspired by TV. The blind leading the blind, except in this case it’s those who can do nothing but watch leading the same. But I don’t mean to sound so harsh, man). Oh Hollywood, compromise and all, I’ve finally arrived (I just prefer to hang on to my New York for now, thanks).
The art-critic Robert Hughes once wrote, “There is no tyranny like the tyranny of the unseen masterpiece.” (Oh the beauty of true words) For us writers, that is what inspires us to put pen to pad at our desks at home, in our cubicles at work in between spreadsheets, and in our beds before surrendering to slumber (These days I wish it would go more on the night-time offensive, not these mid-day ambushes). When our muse heads for the door (Oh Calliope, where art thou, and why hast thou forsaken me), we follow her outside to park benches, to cafes and restaurants, or as Chuck Palahniuk once did, wrote the pages to his novel Fight Club underneath the cars he was fixing or as Michael Martin who wrote the pages to his script Brooklyn’s Finest while working the New York subway system (is it really thought that Americans don’t get irony?). David Mamet deplores writers who write in public. “When did writing become a performance art?” He bitingly asked in one of his essays. As per usual, Mamet is right. Writing is not a performance art. Insular and singular in its act of cerebral stewing, writing lacks the dynamism of dance or the force of slam poetry (I find myself not much into slam poetry; it’s like the pop of music – obvious, beating, and usually shallow. But it has its place, and at least poetry continues to morph). The act of writing is dull to everyone but the writer (word). Sometimes it’s even dull to the writer (double word). Nothing is more boring than filming someone writing. But yet there have been many great films about writers and about what inspires them and what tortures them. Here is my list of the 20 Greatest Movies About Writers.”
And you can check out this list if you’re still interested. I found that by this point I cared very little about what I’d originally come to the page in search of – that want was lost in the excitement of once again finding someone whose thoughts had at least once traveled along paths so similar to the ones mine traverse all the time.
I was inspired, not so much by the writer movie I’d just watched, though it did do a bit for me, but more by a post listing good writer movies. Ha. What are the odds. Oh, inspired enough to revisit my neglected blog page.
And here you are.
I am still writing up my December blog, by the way, slowly and not always surely, but it will get done. And I am still, though undeserving, being graced with various events taking place in rapid succession, connected in my mind to string me along to all sorts of cognitive destinations.
(I seldom end these on a note related to the bulk of the post, do I? Always promising more, never delivering. Always plagued by a guilty conscience for not.)
[Originally published 8 March 2010. Updated 7 November 2010.]
[Reading a commentary showed me why no one reads commentaries. Writing one showed me why they should be read, if only to see something through eyes other than one’s own.]
(Don’t read this.
Not if you want to keep your perceptions intact concerning any of the existences referenced herein.)
You asked for it (one of you, at least), so here it is. My interpretation of Owl City’s Fireflies, for all who care or are mildly interested, though it would likely be far more appropriate to call this ‘thoughts incurred by Owl City’. I am by no means declaring this the definitive interpretation of what Adam Young means to say; this is merely what I get from the songs, through my deeply tinted lenses. Several of you protested my classification of it as ’emo’. I stand by my word, but it may not be that for you seeing as you are quite a different person from me.
I’m not calling myself a true fan, either – I agree, amazingly, with a particular angered iTunes reviewer – that takes time. I only found out about Owl City a week ago thanks to Thursday Hi-B.A. Godfather and Pandora (which, true, is not available in Japan, but for a price, I do share secrets). I heard The Saltwater Room playing and, quite honestly, hated the sound of it. Ugh, not another acoustic indie whiny voice, I thought. But then I heard the line: If this is what I call home, why does it feel so alone? And that got me. Because I will definitely check out any group that can resound with me so completely and so instantaneously. I listened to more of their (his) songs, among them the much-celebrated Fireflies, which I later learned is his flagship song, but apparently ‘true fans’ like other songs better.
I fell in love with Owl City around this time. I can’t exactly say why, only that his lyrics resonated with me and where I’ve come from. For one, there’s no way he didn’t listen to Relient K during his formative years. I did too, so I don’t mind that tongue-in-cheek rhyme-at-every-corner style, and electronic, well, I’m all for it. In fact, I remember thinking that this was exactly the style I would’ve made if I’d spent more time messing around with Garageband. Clearly, I’m not saying it’s anything deep, profound, or incredibly talented, but it gets me where most other music doesn’t. To put it simply, anything that makes my head do [read the analysis below] is a winner in my book. If I might dare to be so presumptuous, I think this is called inspiration – the gateway to marvels ever greater.
Enough intro. I first intended to do three songs that I particularly like, but after finishing Fireflies, the one I feel I have the best handle on, I decided to call it for now and possibly return later. That’s the one most of you care about anyway, I presume. The others are a little less accessible and, to my over-analytical mind, much more time-consuming.
Now, before any discussion of meaning, it’s important to understand that Adam Young is an insomniac who first began making music in the basement of his house as a diversion during sleepless nights, so nearly all of his songs suffer from overtones of longing for the dream world and everything else that runs through our heads on those long nights. It’s wonderful. He’s snagged two of the greatest figures of imagery, sleep and water, in nearly every song, every line, and I’m a sucker for imagery.
Yes, I do realize that this is far more about me than Adam Young. And I do realize that in just a few years my “interpretation” will very probably be completely different. All I can say is, welcome to the twisted wrought-iron gates through which all external input must pass to reach my innards. I’ve tried to write it in the form of thoughts flitting by as one listens to the song, just like my experience with it, and probably failed, but here you have it. I apologize for the switching of perspective, but when you think about it, it’s only fitting for an analysis of dreams, eh?
I warned you once, I’ll warn you again. If you’re satisfied with your own interpretations of his songs (and several other things) and don’t want to be influenced in any way, go no further. I assure you that, speaking from my own experience, regardless of your opinion of me or the ideas presented throughout this note, there will be at least something you take away that will shade your thinking every time you listen to these songs hereafter.
If you’re fine with hearing other opinions, opinions that, while sounding crazy or convincing, could be very right and very wrong, then read on, read on. Just bear in mind that analysis is painful and, in some cases, mutilates that which is being scrutinized. I hope you can emerge still able to enjoy these songs simply for what they are. I do! (says my already-deranged-beyond-the-ability-to-hold-any-sort-of-‘normal’-interaction mind)
Fireflies
You would not believe your eyes
Because I’ve waited for this moment of falling asleep for so long (who but one with experience can imagine how much an insomniac longs for the comforting arms of sleep, and the escape from harsh reality into fantastic dreams?),
If ten million fireflies
this moment at which I say good-bye to this world and hello to that of dreams, a joyous greeting bursting with light (fireflies are magical, and romantic, what better way to light the passage into long-awaited realms beyond consciousness?),
Lit up the world as I fell asleep.
and because you could not possibly imagine the wondrous things I dream could happen.
‘Cause they’d fill the open air
Freedom.
And leave teardrops everywhere.
Even if you don’t accept ’emo’, surely you must admit that overtones of sadness string through all of his cheery-sounding music, and here is one such instance. Though the light is beautiful and healing, in its wake is left cold, real tears – each dream reflective of some real-life sorrow. To be blunt, I submit that each firefly is a unique dream, and each tear some instant within each dream that sticks with us through waking, making us long for something we can’t quite put our finger on.
You’d think me rude
But I would just stand and stare.
Observers – that’s all any of us really are in our dreams, isn’t it? Barring a few rare cases, we have no power, we can only watch strange events unfold and, just when we’re most glad we’re above and not within these horrible happenings, be plummeted into the passenger seat and swept along in them. Someone watching us play these parts in our own dreams might wonder what we’re thinking, how we could possibly be making these choices. We’d be more than rude. But choice is an illusion – in the dream world.
I’d like to make myself believe
In the dream world, it is not fact that matters but what we believe, consciously, subconsciously, or unconsciously.
That planet Earth turns slowly.
Because then the sun’s rays would be delayed, the night would stretch a little further. There’d be time to sleep, to reach the dream world, and to see the story to its conclusion, rather than be rudely pulled away to a groggy mind and impatiently expectant new day.
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay
Awake when I’m asleep,
It’s so easy to stay awake, eh? We hold our eyes open doing who knows what, wasting time, like I most likely am right now, and never fail to regret it in the morning. However, when we finally acquiesce to the bidding arms of sleep, or, in some cases, the reluctant embrace of sleep, we don’t regret and we see what we were missing out on.
‘Cause everything is never as it seems.
Because we never know what’s good for us until we’re force-fed it, and even then we’re slow to return after scampering away foolishly once again. But when pure grandeur is staring one in the face, it’s nigh unto impossible to turn one’s back – the truth speaks for itself when superficiality is torn away.
‘Cause I’d get a thousand hugs
Someone cares,
From ten thousand lightning bugs
even if it’s only the illusion of hopes attained, voids filled, life fulfilled,
As they tried to teach me how to dance.
because I believe there’s a better life to be grasped if only I knew how – how to dance the dance, how join in the magic that binds what is to what could and should be.
A foxtrot above my head,
[I am just about the least qualified person to comment on this section, because I couldn’t tell the difference between a waltz and a salsa, and have no desire to be able to, but Wikipedia and YouTube do shed some light in cases such as this. The ‘foxtrot’, a ballroom dance, emerged in the early 1900s and for the first half of the century was the most popular fast dance, being fitted to all different types of lively music, ranging from ragtime to disco and even some rock and roll.]
Note that it’s a pair dance.
A sock hop beneath my bed,
[A ‘sock hop’ is not a particular style but an event – an informal sponsored dance at American high schools, usually in the gym or cafeteria. Its hay-day was in the 1950s; now we simply call it ‘a dance’, unless of course you’re from CAJ, in which case you’re more accustomed to the word ‘banquet’, with quite a different mental image. For a shockingly in-your-face demonstration of the general structure and reason for its demise, get a load of <a href=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ENn6v5S_Sk”>this</a>. Blech. Okay, sorry, back to the reverie.]
The sock hop needs no partner, simply a moderately uninhibited group or a very uninhibited individual. Might I point out that while the sock hop could represent general sociality, which he certainly seems to be wishing for, it is relegated to beneath the bed, whereas the pair dance takes place above. There’s one who stands out in his mind from the rest.
A disco ball is just hanging by a thread.
But this exhibition of youthful frolicking spanning the decades could so quickly come crashing down, for it hangs on the thread of belief, of dreams of something better…
I’d like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
…if only I had time to find that something better before morning.
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay
Awake when I’m asleep,
Sleep is grateful for itself, which cannot always be said of wakefulness. Upon awaking we may wish for or regret the false fulfillment of dreams, but for the duration of that sleep the dream was fulfilled, with a promise of more to come in just a bit – if we could only, the next time, find our way back!
‘Cause everything is never as it seems
Sadly yes, the achievements and acquisitions of the dream world are limited to just that, and slip away quicker than the haze from our eyes on the pillow – or is it that in reality we are closer to the realization our dreams than we realize? Nothing is ever as it seems, after all,
When I fall asleep.
in that peculiar moment (of traveling among worlds).
Leave my door open just a crack
There must be some escape from this prison of darkness, the bars being either my eyelids or the blank bedroom walls, even if it means denying what I so desperately need and venturing back through the known and futile to any sort of diversion from my deepest physical and emotional needs/wishes so clearly not being fulfilled [remember the basement, making music to pass the sleepless time, thing].
(Please take me away from here)
However, the preferred route by far is not down the stairs but up into the clouds of rest and fantastic wonderment.
‘Cause I feel like such an insomniac.
(Please take me away from here)
Here it is, flat out, what is wrong with me?
Why do I tire of counting sheep
Any desperate measure to get to that place
(Please take me away from here)
When I’m far too tired to fall asleep?
failing in the face of a barrier transcending logic and physical necessity, laughing at suffering, dragging on…and on. How could I not be asleep by now?
<rueful snicker>
To ten million fireflies
Dream-filled sleep cycles (or perhaps half-awake dreams of sleep?) pull away as another bright morning dawns far too early.
I’m weird ’cause I hate goodbyes.
Why is it that though everyone dislikes parting words, they all still insist on going through with them, and the strange one is he who refuses to observe these empty and petty traditions? But some of us know the pain of said and unsaid good-byes a little better than others, and hate them a little more. [This is the line in this song, similar to that one in The Saltwater Room, that “had me at hello” – this line would have been enough to make the song, for me.] But the fireflies, the dreams, promise to return – what’s to hate about this moment? What’s so hard about “good-bye”? It’s only ever “see you later”. We tell ourselves.
I got misty eyes as they said farewell.
So that’s where that crusty gunk on my eyes when I wake up comes from – the dried tears cried at the departure of my dreams, or rather my departure from them for my day-job. As good as dreams are, we’re forever separated just before the good part, the climax, the happy ending.
But I’ll know where several are
I won’t let go.
If my dreams get real bizarre,
What could be more bizarre than a dream becoming reality? Not all, but for some dreams, especially their undertoned promises, that is the final goal. And it could happen yet,
‘Cause I saved a few and I keep them in a jar.
because I keep a firm grip on them as I come crashing down through the misty layers of waking, and they do not escape my mind as I proceed through the day, for though they’re far from the present, they’re very close to some distant future, close to being set free on this side of the clouds.
I’d like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
And that it’s not rushing towards disaster, spiraling downwards, but gravitating upwards. It all takes time – do I have enough time? Certainly none to waste.
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay
Awake when I’m asleep,
Because my sleep is so good, but could it be that the time awake could hold some promise comparable to the joy of dreams? Could the one actually be experienced in the other – pure, unbridled joy in achievement – and actually seen through to the end?
‘Cause everything is never as it seems
The morning should be glorious, and welcomed, not dreaded for the fear of what it bears tidings of, or lack of spirit to survive another cycle. Still, there’s no denying that ultimate triumph comes not in the world of the night but in the day. We just have to find that way to merge the undeserved fulfillment of dreaming with the reality of choice, and taste success amidst our human weakness. Is this possible?
When I fall asleep.
When I no longer have to fight my selfish self.
I’d like to make myself believe
That planet Earth turns slowly.
Surely this isn’t too much to ask, when once it stood still.
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay
Awake when I’m asleep,
But for you, I’d stay awake forty days and forty nights. For you, I’d stay awake all night.
‘Cause everything is never as it seems
When I fall asleep.
What, is, this, love?
I’d like to make myself believe
Please.
That planet earth turns slowly.
We would have time.
It’s hard to say that I’d rather stay
Awake when I’m asleep,
There is time, not because I’ll hold myself awake, but because there is outside of time (everything is never as it seems).
Because my dreams are bursting at the seams.
It is possible, because ultimately and fortunately we are not the ones in control of realizing that success, only the blessed players in this waking dream. However, this merging will not come by a forceful sewing together of opposites on old seams, but by a rending, a curtain torn from top to bottom, a bursting open, an explosion of furious opposites weaving together in flight, a new scheme, to create a breathtaking panorama of real-AND-happy-ending-story, like fireflies in evergreens against the dark blue starry sky.
[And this is why I fell in love with Owl City. You could say, “You don’t love them, you only love your own ideals,” and I would reply, yes, but certain things remind forgetful me of them.]
On the night of the 14th of October I awoke around 5 am the morning of the 15th. There was probably an easier way to say that. I’d had a scratchy throat for a few days and, when I woke up, couldn’t stop coughing. So I went to the kitchen to get my water bottle. I was on my way back to my room when I ran into a flatmate who was just getting back from some party in Leeds.
He said, “Happy birthday.”
What? My sleep-addled brain couldn’t manage this level of conversational incongruence. My mouth said, “It’s not my birthday,” but my mind was thinking, how long was I asleep?
He asked when my birthday was, and not being able to remember the current date, I answered about a week away (it was actually exactly ten days). He responded with “Oh right” and I returned to proper dreamland.
The next day (well, the same day actually) in the morning at a library session another friend, also, told me happy birthday. Huh? It’s not my birthday (I was more confident this time). He said he’d gotten the 15th and 25th mixed up. Fair enough.
But that wasn’t the end of it. In the afternoon yet another flatmate knocked on my door and with a big smile said, “Happy birthday, man.” At that point I should’ve just gone with it, but I again replied with the same insistence. He’d even bought muffins. Well.
Surely birthday wishes from three or more people in a single day necessitates a change in rules. I submit that in this case people should not be bound by the usual one-day-before, one-day-after laws governing Facebook- I mean, any congratulations. Be free, ye newsfeed loiterers. Sorry to those of you obsessed with being first, though.
Let the celebration begin.
What’s a partridge? What’s a pear tree? I don’t know, so please don’t ask me. But I can bet those are terrible gifts to ge~t…
Christmas is coming too, boys and girls. What AM I going to do without access to my Pandora?
[Seeing as the event is now completely passed this is a little out of date, but I suppose I should report that I got a veritable abundance of well-wishes on Facebook, so many that I still have not replied to some of them. Many are content to do a one-size-fits-all thank-you on their status, or worse yet, go through the comments ‘liking’ each one, but I decided that this year I would settle for no less than a personal response to each message. Yes, I hear the calls saying, “Where’s mine, then, I haven’t heard anything back and it’s been over a month!” Yes. I’m sorry. Thinking of things to say to people you wouldn’t otherwise talk to can be quite tiring, you see. Haha. That’s horrible. You’ll get yours soon, I promise.
As for the lack of Pandora I’ve been exploring other options, but you’ll hear about that shortly.]
Inspiration's Waiting Room 