Mental Challenges

The bookcases are falling, in both a physical and metaphorical sense. Waterstones, one of Britain’s leading book retailers has been forced the close a large proportion of their stores due to a recent dip in sales. Why is this? Amazon. Amazon.co.uk, Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, there’s hundreds of them and they’re all putting these atmospheric little book hoardings out of business with their ridiculously cheap prices and lack of travel-time. For example, I recently purchased Leo Tolstoy’s Russian epic ‘War and Peace’ off of Amazon for a mere two English pounds. You heard right, 994 pages of classic 19th century literature for £2. The point of this block of motionless jumbo is not to rant at Amazon for their fantastically small prices, no all of that (^) was the set up for precisely why I bought ‘War and Peace’. 

It’s easy enough to set yourself a challenge, a target, an objective, whatever you want to call it. But to set a reliable challenge, well that’s pretty hard. I personally find myself setting myself little goals and recording them in a nice long list (arranged neatly with my other lists). This prevents boredom and eventually leads to happiness, or so I’ve been told. Having completed several of these goals, I eventually reached the more… silly ones. And sure as hell “Read ‘War and Peace’” was written there in black and white. But on first glimpse, I thought nothing of it, instead passing over to the line “See ‘The Graduate’” instead (which, by the way, is a fantastic movie). It was not until last week, which I re-discovered this goal after a rather interesting trip through Amazon’s book market. Thousands of classics which I’d always seen myself reading at some point in life, all of which priced at £2. I couldn’t help myself and so, almost as a joke, me and a friend both purchased the biggest, thickest and most pretentious of the pile, which happened to be ‘War and Peace’. 

The book arrived today, classical war portrait cover, blurb blotted with eager and over-indulgent spiel about “Tolstoy’s views on history”. All 994 pages staring me in the face and yet I cannot for the life of me be bothered to raise a finger and turn the first page. It’s my brain, it immediately shuts down at even the thought of such a monstrous act of boredom. This is not only representative of the ‘War and Peace’ debacle, but many others in tail. My quest to finally see ‘Citizen Kane’ has not yet ended, nor has my recent urge to use a typewriter. These goals which seem simple enough, and require little thought always end up being sidelined for no particular reason. Maybe it’s just me, who knows, but this idea of setting myself tasks has exploded within myself. Meaning revision is impossible. Meaning exams equals failure. 

Will I ever get round to seeing ‘Citizen Kane’? Yes. Will I ever use a typewriter? Most certainly. Will I ever finish ‘War and Peace’? Erm… I’ll get back to you. 

One Brain-Fart of a Poem

So I was sitting in Business Studies at school today, as you do, in the middle of a controlled assessment. To those unaware, it's a silent work thing, which I had finished. I sat and stared absent-mindfully at the nearest wall when I suddenly had a brain-fart and scrawled the following on the nearest piece of paper I could find. It's far from perfect or even finished but who knows, maybe one day I'll be famous and you can all say "Hey, I remember reading that when it was first on his blog!". No one will EVER say that, but it's a nice idea. 

He lived as many but died as one, 

Under the fist of a social bomb. 

Crawling and cawing with hideous life, 

Beneath the circuits of his android wife. 

A borg sent forward yet backwards for love, 

Not a force from below but a force from above. 

Garnished with beauty but devoid of emotion, 

It exists without sadness in a forgotten notion. 

Outside, in the distance the conversation collapses, 

A bothered brain implodes as time elapses. 

If not for the minds of the tortured living, 

Live not be the evil of gross unforgiving. 

May joy be as fragrant as life in a day, 

For the waiting soul of the Head doth pray. 

Worth A Thousand Words?

They always say a picture is worth a thousand words. So here it is, a picture that has the potential to be worth a thousand words but in the end, is just Andrew Garfield in a Spiderman costume. A tight fitting one at that. But this picture is much more, much much more. If not faked, this is the first official (and I use the term lightly) glimpse we have had the new Spiderman movie franchise. There’s been a few cheeky paparazzi shots of Andrew Garfield and in particular, Emma Stone, shooting scenes for the re-boot but nothing as amazing and juicy as this. 

So what do we know? Roughly a year ago Sam Raimi pitched his idea for Spiderman 4 to Sony Pictures (the production company who fund it) and after the cock-up that was Spiderman 3 (even though I quite enjoyed it) Sony decided to make Mr Raimi jump through a few hoops. The original idea was to have John Malkovich play The Vulture, a rather menacing aging fellow who can fly and also have Anne Hathaway as Black Cat, but the story would be morphed so that Black Cat became The Vulture’s daughter, then she would play the whole villainess style Catwoman-type deal. With me still? Good, then Raimi wanted Tobey Maguire’s Spiderman (now married/engaged to Mary Jane) to deliberately murder The Vulture and ashamed at what he has become, throw away his alter-ego (quite literally throwing the Spiderman costume away). Then he would regather the super-hero persona in Spiderman 5 after Mary Jane gives birth to a little girl. Sony didn’t seem to like this much so they pretty much put Raimi on the chopping block and gave him his marching orders, supposably after (according to a lot of movie news websites) John Malkovich had signed his contract. Tobey Maguire, Kirsten Dunst and the rest of the original cast followed. Then a few weeks later came news of a re-boot.

Sony announced that the Spiderman series would be re-booted, still separate from the Marvel Universe (Spiderman is owned by Sony, not Marvel) and that Marc Webb, veteran of 1 movie (the truly stunning (500) Days of Summer) would helm said picture. Buzz began to circulate about possible ideas and casting choices and many assumed (and still do) that the movie will take a more teen-drama twist and be more about the life of a troubled young-boy as opposed to the fantastic action-driven script of the original Raimi effort. Casting rumours spread like wildfire but most were surprised when British actor Andrew Garfield was chosen ahead of the likes of Anton Yelchin to play Peter Parker. Later on Emma Stone beat out Mary Elizabeth Winstead to secure the role of the female lead, originally thought to be Mary Jane but later turning out to be Gwen Stacey (Emma Stone is a natural blonde apparently). Martin Sheen was confirmed as Uncle Ben then fIlming started roughly a month or so ago and there’s been the odd set photos leaked, a couple you can probably see darted around this article. So that’s all we know. 

My 2 cents on the matter however, is radically different to most people I know. I don’t embrace the idea of a re-boot but I reckon it’ll be nice to see a fresh twist on Spiderman’s story. I’ve been a fan of Spiderman since a very young age and one thing the first of Raimi’s efforts did was to modernise the super-hero story. Before 2002’s Spiderman there was one X-Men movie which, although very good, was a little daft for my taste. Spiderman suddenly made having super-powers gritty and cool, with just a smear of blood here and there. The casting was spot-on and the choice of villain was also right on the money. Sadly, for me, it just got worse and by the 3rd movie, the series was running out of steam. With a new team behind the re-boot and an ambitious new director we can hope for a surprising treat, even if he is a little un-experienced in the action field of cinema. My only beef being Andrew Garfield’s position as Peter Parker. I’m not condemning the choice, he was great in The Social Network, but that’s because he was in a supporting role. He’s yet to tackle a big beefy lead role with a bunch of stunt work and his American accent isn’t quite perfect. Although age-wise and appearance-wise he’s a better fit than most others, I still can’t place him beyond Tobey Maguire who, to me, was, is and always will be Spiderman. With the re-boot I like to look at it as a very much “get what you’re given” scenario. The circumstances could be better but I have nothing but hope for the new project and if the picture of Garfield in full Spidey gear is anything to go by, it should be different to say the least. The Spider on the chest is a little thinner and longer, the gloves are a different design and other features have been slightly changed. I don’t want to really go on record with anything about the new suit until we take a glimpse at the mask (it’s something that’s ruined previous adaptations) but I’m pretty confident that the re-boot is going in the right direction. Onwards and upwards as they say!

A Worrying Sickness

It seems that on some occasions we can’t help but bask in the eternal glory of pain. When I say pain, I don’t mean ‘stab-myself-in-the-eye’ pain, I mean more, worry. Sometimes it seems we enjoy being worried. We feed off of the glowing puss-ball since, subconsciously, we know that it will result in much happier times once the cruel, tiresome charade is over. This was recently brought to my attention due to the fact I have mock exams coming up, the only thing really worse than the final exams, as you can put in all the effort you like, just to be greeted with either failure, or nothing at all. Worry is factored into this little affair as I always seem to find myself talking about them. The mocks that is, not my testicles or the group of hazardously attractive Nuns that have just decided to take shelter in your armpit. 

Almost every conversation (primarily between family) the subject seems to snake its way in like a stealthy fart or an anaconda and I find myself babbling away at my fears and tiredness of the pen-scribbling nightmares which lay ahead of me. I have no desire to talk about such annoyances, but I almost feel like it’s my obligation, like, again subconsciously, I maybe want to moan and groan. Like it creates some form of sympathy. Truthfully, I hope I’m not true, for then I fear I will be turning into my father. Don’t get me wrong he’s a nice man, very trustworthy and sincere, but he’s almost the complete opposite of me personality wise, I hope. He seems to carry out tasks, not out of desire but like each and everything he does is some form of chore. Like by gobbling down a bowl of porridge in the morning he’s appeasing the man on the ‘Oatfarm’ box, or by driving to work he’s pleasuring the sick jester of traffic control. I’ve never really fully understood any of it, so by me showing early signs of such madness, I guess have good reason to be worried. Like diving into a pool of murky water which has a sign next to it saying ‘This pond may/may not contain used syringes’. It’s leaping into an unknown abyss of worry. Which in itself, almost proves my point. I’m now worrying about being worried. I would pray to the Lord and Savior to rescue my soul but who are we kidding, the only thing in that sky is precipitation and the odd bird or two. So instead I guess I’ll tittle off and complain so more. Did I mention that I have exams coming up? I hate exams...  

The Rise & Fall of Musical Interest

As you know, if you know me, which you don’t (well not really) I’ve never really been enthused over music. I’ve always been the guy that sits and laughs at the cliche of people posting song lyrics as their Facebook status, or announcing that something is “the soundtrack to my life” because that’s pretty much rubbish mostly just used so people will think they’re interesting. I say this now because, recently, I’ve been getting into music more and more, on a deeper level at least. Before, I would always have music blaring out of my PC whenever I was working, or playing, or writing or, just sitting. I have 4298 songs on my iTunes. But before I would never really be listening intently, I just used it as noise for the background. Sure one or two songs would catch my ear and I’d eventually be singing along, but I never really listened to the lyrics I was actually singing. Never really soaked them up at all. Which is why movie scores are so much better. Sure they may not be as catchy as some pop music, and they may not be created by some hot emo girl with pink hair and the ability to jump really high in the air whilst singing, but it’s this type of music that really makes you feel. 

The music, when used in the movie, usually simmers into the background, creating a tone but never really being prominent enough to spark the audience’s attention, unless it’s something as distinct at the ‘Inception’ horns, blaring across the screen or something as iconic as the ‘2001: A Space Odyssey’ trumpets, ushering in a new era of cinema. When bought alone, and listened to with a watchful ear, you can however, really pick up on the emotional angsts of the film or the up-beat action. The scores really allow you to hone in on what it is that makes you feel compassion, or lust, or anger (etc) at the characters and what builds the tension up, deep inside your veins until it fizzles out. A primary example lies within the score to ‘Inception’ by Hans Zimmer. Within the movie, it’s fantastic, but alone, with noise canceling headphones and a clear tone it’s even better. From the slow build up of ‘Half Remembered Dream’ to the action-packed fast-paced extravaganza that is ‘Mombasa’ and ending with the truly hauntingly epic ‘Time’, it really grabs you emotionally. In particular, ‘Time’ really drew me into the message of the film, the emotional tone of the dominant character’s story and his impact on the events. It builds beautifully, slowly growing and growing until it blooms into an epic and vengeful barrage of horns and drums, eventually sliding back down to an emotional finish. It was almost impossible to halt my brain from imagining the little metal spinning top circling it’s final resting place as the music dies and collapses in on itself, like a dream, leaving only the lasting impressions of the dazzling strings to disturb your mind into a frenzy of logic and astonishment. Then as it does inevitably end, I found my eyes snapping open at the final twist of sound, leaving the feeling of awaking from an intense and meaningful dream. Pure excellence. 

Another notable score being Clint Mansell’s score for Duncan Jones‘ ‘Moon’. It’s quite repetitive (but most scores are) and lacks the imaginative twist of Hans Zimmer’s work, but ‘Welcome To Lunar Industries’ provides a fantastic up-beat, and at times, depressingly memorable tone to the beginning and the end. John Murphy has always been a favourite of mine too, his utterly astonishing ‘Adagio in D Minor’ for Danny Boyle’s ‘Sunshine’ has always blown me away, as has his creepy, yet oddly perfect piece for ’28 Days Later’, another Boyle film. ‘In the House in a Heartbeat’ is by-far my favourite horror influenced score of all time. Then, in 2010, when he repeated said epics with an electrical twinge for the score for ‘Kick-Ass’ it truly was a dream come true. However, the ‘Kick-Ass’ score works best within the movie, and on it’s own, can drag a little. ‘Strobe’ is the hidden musical gem of the most astounding action scene ever created. 

Right, music rant over, I’ll go back to films next time, I promise. 

Bibular

I’m not sure what it is, or what I feel, but some ‘things’ (for lack of a better term) feel almost bibular. Bibular being a new word, just invented by yours truly, derived from the word ‘Bible’ which many people follow their lives from. Bibular is used to describe ‘things’ which you get influence from, which help you along in the trials and tribulations of the big wide world, which become the foundations of life itself. Well, for you anyway. I mention said word due to the fact just minutes, maybe seconds ago (however long it takes to power up a Macbook) I finished watching ‘(500) Days of Summer’, one of my favourite movies and also something I propose to be bibular. Off the top of my head I can think of two other movies, ‘Juno’ and ‘High Fidelity’ (why, of course) which too fall into this category. Basically making up my movie bible. There’s something about the character of Tom Hansen which makes him not only like-able, but live-able too. By which I mean, you want to be him. His likeness to the character of Ted Moseby from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ often baffles me (except maybe on the age front) but I’m not sure whether it’s his laid back, yet slightly smart dress sense, or architecture driven brain, or amazing taste in women which draws me so close to his personality. As I watch said movie I feel like I’m living his reality, like everything is constantly turned round and round and upside down, like a washing-machine. Beliefs are rooted to an idea, and an idea is usually rooted from something with influence. For me, the influence is movies. Since I saw ‘High Fidelity’ I’ve always wanted that slacker-style “I’ll do what I want’ type lifestyle. And one of those awesome old fashioned style telephones. But that’s not the point. The point IS that my beliefs stem from these 3 movies, thus making them bibular, thus meaning I live my life from movies. It’s very rare for me to find a movie which I feel connected enough to that I start wanting to be a part of, so when I find one, it’s the most precious thing in the world. A lot of people grab thoughts (mainly quotes) from books (mainly the Bible) to live their life by, so I see no reason why you can’t do the same from movies, it’s just a video based form of fictional story-telling instead of word-based.

There’s only one bone to pick, which isn’t even a bone because it’s fiction and fiction isn’t a perfect re-telling of life, because if it was, these ‘heros’ wouldn’t be heros, they would be whiney nut-sacks which everyone found depressing and dull. Said bone is of course, Tom’s ability to woo Summer into spending roughly 200 days as his girlfriend. It’s the same with Rob Gordon of ‘High Fidelity’ and even Ted from ‘How I Met Your Mother’ and I’ve come to the cruelly un-fulfilling but ultimately definitive answer that, it’s the city. All 3 dudes live in 3 of the greatest and most beautiful cities in the world (and the US of A) and somehow, they work the spirit of the landscapes into their advantage. The ancient cinemas, smokey bars and charming artistic underbelly of the cities’ histories makes them the most ideal and interesting places to pick up women. In my town you have a street of shops and thousands of houses, no where interesting to amuse your damsel. In the end, movies, like story books, are fictional meaning we can’t take everything from them, but there’s one dying piece of life love that still remains at the heart, and that is ambition. The ambition to truly be Tom Hansen, to be Rob Gordon, to feel what they feel, experience life like the greats. It’s the only good fight there is.  

The Joys of Sarcasm + Originality & School Dynamics

The Joys of Sarcasm

There seems to be a lot of confused people around in the world. People which point out obvious things. If I had 7 dead lizards for every time somebody has walked up to me and said in a rather dim-witted tone “You wear glasses.” or “I saw you yesterday.” I’d probably be knee-deep in reptile carcasses. It’s like these cretins assume you have no knowledge of anything you have ever done. “You wear glasses.” “Really? Oh I never noticed when I dressed myself this morning, thanks for telling me so I don’t accidentally stop myself from scratching the corner of my eye.” That’s usually my response anyway, and it normally leads to a scowl or an even more simple-minded reply; “Are you being sarcastic?” which almost always leads me to be even more sarcastic. I would feel sorry for these people, but then I realize there’s enough people in the world to feel sorry for, people that actually do need our sympathy, not this middle-class brain-dead bunch. 

The point I’m trying to make however, is that sarcasm is the most amazing thing ever created. Without sarcasm there would be no cool, easy and low-key way to take the piss out of these people. I’d have to stand there and shout “YES I DO RETARD!” and that’s no where near as fun or insulting and usually results in some upset from the league of people that don’t understand comedy and make a fuss about everything. The same people that attacked Jennifer Aniston for using that very word ‘retard’ in a press interview for her movie ‘The Switch’ starring the very awesome Jason Bateman. These blood-sucking funny-munchers deemed it offensive to people with special needs. I tell you one thing, I would love to see these invisible protestors take a stroll through a British secondary school. And not one of the posh ones where everybody plays croquet, I mean a bottom of the pile, chav-anistic (more word making *claps*) landscape of pure drudgery. The sort of insults batted around nowadays is pretty much sickening, although that is slightly hypocritical of me to say such a thing. But back to the case at hand, sarcasm. Sarcasm may not be understood by some, which makes it all the more fun. There’s nothing better than taking the piss out of someone that doesn’t know you’re taking the piss out of them, then they can’t ruin it by accepting it. WIN. Except not really win since you are actually insulting another human being and making them feel bad. Pretty much lose to be honest. Still, we all need our comic relief every now and again, and as long as it’s good natured, everybody wins! 

Originality & School Dynamics

Originality is one of those things which is both easy and hard to conquer at the same time. Hard in the fact that so much has happened already it’s difficult to find something which somebody has never said before, or find something someone has never done before. But easy in the fact that you can just watch what everybody is doing and do the complete opposite. Easy peasy lemon death punch. See, right there, that’s originality. You were expecting that to read “Easy peasy lemon squeezy.” but it didn’t. Shock horror. If it’s that easy to do something original, why doesn’t everybody do it, instead of leeching off of others? Well that probably leads to some complex psychological explanation, and as of yet, I don’t actually do psychology. But I can tell you about the types of people I’ve come across so far in life:

• Queen Bee - Named after the popular buzzing insect, these people are desperate for attention, constantly trying to draw people in. (E.g. laughing at a non-existent note so they get the opportunity to tell an off-the-wall story after you ask what’s up.) They are normally the trend setters.
• Dim-witted Follower - These people follow anybody they can leech onto. They pretty much adapt constantly, changing music tastes, common phrases and some times, even their own personality to fit in. They usually just run with the trends. 
• Outsiders - These are the people that really don’t give a shit about anybody. Well to a certain degree (we all give a shit really we just like to think we don’t). Needless to say everybody wants to be one, but always despises the kid that actually is one. They are usually seen doing something strange just for the sake of it. They go flat-out against the trends. 
• Conglatu - This is basically a mixture of all 3 of the above (I know it sounds like an endangered species of bird, but it’s original) with hints of silence and waywardness, by which I mean they can sometimes have opinions and set things in motion, but usually only with those they are comfortable around. To outsiders (adults, random relatives etc.) they are usually quite shy and protective. 

So there we have it. Four different kinds of people. We all know at least one, and we all know what we would classify ourselves as, but for now, silence is usually the trend. Many people ignore the obvious and just move along in life thinking they’re the best thing since roast chicken and that everybody wants to know what they’re up to 72 hours a day, 14.4 days a week. Which is why God (well, Mark Zuckerberg) created Facebook.  I could add another type to the list above but so many people fit into that category that for now and forever, let’s just call them 'dicks'. There’s no doubt it’s an endless chain though, well more of a circle. There’s always someone that get’s the piss taken out of them by someone else, so they take the piss out of someone smaller than them and the chain/circle moves on. No matter how smart, how popular (let’s face it, that’s not even a word) or how cool you are/think you are, there will always be someone that doesn’t like you. Even if that person has no real reason for not liking you other than just going against the crowd, they still don’t like you. This is another reason why we can’t have world peace. Because there will always be at least one person who wants to disrupt the flow of harmony and go against everybody/thing else. And with almost 7 billion people on this planet, there’s probably quite a few.