Dearest Frida,

I really do love you. Even though I don't clean your ikea purchased vase-come-fishtank as often as I should. If its any consolation I went to Petcetera before bankruptcy closed its doors and stocked up on your favourite brand of concentrated bloodworm pellets. I love coming home to see your navy blue self floating around beneath my jungle of house plants. When I walk in the room I swear you're cognisant of my arrival. I hope you enjoy the Bosch print that I moved from by the desk to behind your tank. It is now less visible to our guests, but I think it's a worthwhile sacrifice because I am fairly certain it is serving as inspiration and a daily reminder of the beauty in the world beyond your waters. I know that you are content, and dearest Frida, for the record, so am I.

Love always and forever,

Lo

things are easiest to say when no one is listening

Lo's commentary on the film 500 Days of Summer.. because I'm sure everyone in the abyss of the internet want's to know my thoughts about a film...

The film began with a clever and charming split screen montage set to Regina Spektor's "Us" An indie soundtrack and atypical cinematography definitely resonated through the film.  This music placement was a little overbearing. disarming even. It almost read like a diet coke product placement in a summer released high budget action movie. It was a little contrived when the Smiths and Belle and Sebastian's names were "dropped".  It cheapened the experience. I think it would it have been more genuine if CD jackets where obtusely left on coffee tables and posters managed to make the way into the shot every now and again. In this romantic comedy, music didn't just set the tone but rather starred in a supporting role.. Overt music references aside, I did love the fact that protagonist Tom was always listen to his ipod on transit, at work, when walking and when he was at home :) I also particularly enjoyed the precarious Henry Miller reference. 

Early in the film hopeless-romantic-Tom and cynical-Summer's opinions of love were juxtaposed against each other. I immediately identified with Tom's pro-love stance and began to brace myself for the impeding heartache he would suffer and my subsequent tears. I liked this. I find that I can always relate to male leads more so than female. I like to listen to male fronted bands, and read books with male protagonists. I'm sexist. I also like to cry in movie theaters. I felt absolutely sick to my stomach for Tom as he placed his fragile heart in the hands of someone who would surely break it. It startles me the amount I can empathize with fictional characters; I swear that for an hour and a half I actually felt the emotions Tom felt. There was one instance at a roof top garden party where my tears were literally leaping from my eyeballs and making the suicidal plummet towards my blouse. 

I think that the most striking part of the film was at the very end when the narrator stated that "most days are unremarkable". He went on to, in so many words, justify this assertion but I just didn't agree. I've always thought that many aspects of each of my days are quite remarkable.  I just looked up remarkable in the dictionary. and it defines it as "worthy of attention or striking". striking, I JUST said that. I think that maybe for some people daily life is unremarkable. I guess my expectations are low. It must not take much to impress me? I've always been a watcher. I'm always listening. I sat in the dark cool theatre, mostly paying attention to 500 Days of Summer, but a small part of my conscious mind was enjoying the elderly couple in front of me. straining to hear what they we're whispering to one another, eavesdropping on what they found remarkable about the movie we were watching. the devil is in the details and if you aren't looking, if you aren't listening, you are going to miss it.

to me, seeing movies by myself on sunny days at awkward 5:10 showings happens to be remarkable. 

 

you can't start a fire without a spark..

Drive drive drive! Today I had to drive out of the city to run an errand. Driving south as the sun set. I was singing so loud, my voice was all gravel and cement trucks in my larynx. Buildings shrank as the space between them expanded. At the river the streets are numbered in the 200’s and I found my self at number 3. The border looms in the distance. It looks clear, maybe only 10 minutes to cross.  I pass by the truck stops. Monstrous semi’s lay idle. Slumbering giants. Each one from one place and going another.  

                                                                         New Pornographers

Is it bad to say that when I go to show’s I’m not always there for the music? That sometimes, maybe most times, my attention is diverted?

 

I look away from the stage, where the band looks like they are made of play dough; their beings tinted the shade of whatever light has been shone upon them. My gaze falls to the crowd, the backs of their heads. A sea of hairstyles and shoulders bobbing to the rhythm. The LCD screens of cameras that all rise and fall at the same momentous moments like a school of luminescence in the north pacific.

 

The band innervates the crowd like an artery, like a nerve. Our movements merely a reaction, a reflex, entirely dependant on the surge of blood and electricity they supply.

 

I like the part when I see two hands side by side, fighting the magnetism of love pulling them together. I like the number one fan. First in line, new t-shirt already on. I like that instant where all of a sudden the space between us all melts into a puddle on the floor and we become one. A single organism, every member if the audience writhes as a whole. The music is ubiquitous, the motion unanimous, the feeling omnipresent. When the energy swells with the chorus, making the air thick and palpable.

 

I think that will suffice to defend my admission that I’m not always at the show for the music.. 

start.

I can't be bothered with editing. it just takes too much time.