Things That Really Happened

It was at some mixer or birthday or one of those things. I’ve never really been good at telling what type of party I’m at. I was standing with your friends that I came with and didn’t really know well. Watching the crowded mess of people stand around and drink and talk,trying desperately to be funny. Not me them. They were trying to be funny. You were talking to some guy; some guy’s name I forget now. I knew the guy, though. You had talked about the guy, at some point, in length to me many times. I know he had cheated (in his opinion not cheated) on you with his girlfriend. I was watching you talk to him. In my head, I remember having a beer. But, I couldn’t because I was twenty, and we were at a bar. And, I remember having to get a red bracelet at the door because I wasn’t twenty-one yet. And, not drinking the whole night, I remember wishing that I were trashed. That I was the type of trashed where you aren’t really sure if you are asleep or just trashed.

But, there I was drinking my Bud Light, watching you talk to this guy, when your friend I didn’t really know said that you would probably like me to meet the guy you were talking to.

I thought this was because you and me were kind of on a date, and you wanted this guy to be jealous, to see that you were with some other guy. That’s what I thought. I didn’t know that we definitely weren’t on a date, which I would later hear back through a five-friend chain, and that you were in love with this guy. I was your good friend.Your good friend that you had high opinions of and wanted to like this guy too.

I don’t remember him. I’m sure he was nice. I’m sure he had deep blue eyes that make you feel like you’re a part of everything that is important and big. I’m sure it’s now hard for you to imagine those feelings you had for him that night- the mixed and equally consuming feelings of lust and infatuation. It’s not hard for me to remember how I thought of you on those nights. Spring in the south always feels like a room after you’ve had sex in it. That’s why I remember the feelings, I think; they felt consummated. I felt like we were already in a full fling. That we had secrets about each other- that we both were sharing with each other a side we had grown accustomed to hiding.

I liked you drunk. I remember that. You reminded me of the first girls I ever got drunk with in high school. Smiling, for the first time letting yourself think things you aren’t supposed to think around boys. You moved in slow motion, with an increased intensity. Maybe you were normally that way and that’s the way you appeared to me when I was drunk. Either way.

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A Cinema of Empathy: Spike Jonze and Where The Wild Things Are

by Jonathan Foster

It’s now happened twice, once in the form of a text message and once as an iChat response. And though they weren’t explicitly typed out, I suspect an alternating stream of question marks and exclamation points were more than likely implied: Seriously?!?!?!

That’s code for “Are you out of your mind?” Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they were genuinely asking. Maybe there was only one question mark. I’m not so sure, though, because when another friend actually heard the news (not all of my interactions are electronic), he simply let out a disappointed sigh. That confirmed it. I was meant to feel shame.

I really wanted to like Where the Wild Things Are. But I didn’t. What’s worse is now I actually do feel ashamed. I experience a quiet pang of jealousy whenever I hear about someone else being swept away by the film. It’s like I’ve been chosen last for Team Nostalgia. No, it’s worse than that. It’s like I’ve been asked not to play at all, to sit on the sidelines and watch the other kids have all the fun. And it’s a terrible feeling. Thanks for nothing, Spike Jonze.

Okay, maybe I’m just being overdramatic. Jonze has given me plenty to be thankful for. He easily could’ve retired after his brilliant debut feature, Being John Malkovich, and still left behind an impressive array of dazzling and inspired music videos and commercials. He’s proven himself time and again to be one of our most gifted high-wire-act filmmakers, and in order to write about what he does so well with any degree of accuracy, I must abuse adverbs. That is to say, his best work is: deceptively simple, hysterically funny, unexpectedly insightful, wildly inventive, richly nuanced, surprisingly emotional. In the case of something like Malkovich, any given scene could be all of these things at once.

#3

Starring John Reese and Augustus Heagerty. Both 4th year drama students at UNCSA.

Lady Gaga Makes Me Feel Werid

I had never heard of Lady Gaga until I saw picture of her performing at this years MTV Music awards. She was covered in fake blood and appeared to be singing, or having an orgasm. I was confused. What the fuck was going on? This looked like an idea of bad taste mixed with stupidity, and yet I was turned on. But, in the kind of way when you see something so disgusting it becomes sexy. Any one else get that? Just me? Anyway, it was weird.

Well, I forgot about it until I saw a clip of her from SNL. Not performing her music. It was a skit with Andy Samberg where they were both wearing outfits with plastic bubbles on them. They tried to kiss and couldn’t because of the bubbles. I found it funny and found her attractive. Although, I couldn’t pin point one single feature of her’s that I found attractive. I don’t think she is pretty. Her body appears oddly sculpted, so perfect its bland. Still though, I found myself wanting to for lack of a better phrase, “put my p in her v.”

At this point I had not heard any of her music. That would change after I watched somewhere between two or thirteen videos on YouTube. All of her songs are bad and appear to be the same song. I probably wouldn’t have known they were different songs if the videos hadn’t changed. They just feel like a pop song Mad Lib. Innuendo of Sexual Body part + Techno Beat + Spoke Word Chorus. And, after several focus groups with teenagers with sub-par intelligences and crappy parents we got Lady Gaga’s album.

But, something weird happened. I became more infatuated with her. Still I can’t tell you one single trait or characteristic of hers that I like. The more I find out about her the more evidence I have to extinguish my feelings of longing for her but, the brighter they burn.

Now, you have to imagine how my concern/infatuation/confusion of the Lady Gaga situation went into another more concerning/infatuated/confused stratosphere when I found out that it is widely believed that she may in fact be a man. Is my odd, indefinable, infatuation with her based on the fact that I some how sense that between those perfectly sculpted, smooth thighs are male genitals?

It’s a little too much for me to make sense of right now…

Really Cool, Really Awesome (MIT is)

Or, at least, Aaron Zinman is.

It would be dumb for me to explain it, because I don’t know anything more than it says here:

http://personas.media.mit.edu/

It’s neat.

You should run your own name. Mine was education heavy. I went ahead and did all the ones you’d think of doing next: