American Beauty
Oct. 25th, 2002 09:28 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
transmothrai forgot to mention that i also picked up American Beauty today. there's Citizen Kane, and then there's American Beauty. everything else in between has been filler. really excellent filler at times, but filler nonetheless. i'm going to go and get some malt liquor, and maybe smoke a bit of a joint, and watch it in a little bit.
it occured to me when i was unwrapping the box that i can't quite look at that cover image the way i wanted to, the way i used to. see, i've seen a rather extraordinary mock-up of that cover shot, featuring a wonderful belly i would have loved to have gotten to know. *sigh* ...so i can't display it on my shelf the way it should be, next to Pi and C.K., in all its splendour and glory. oh well, the film itself is the thing anyway.
i really identify with A.B.. i guess because i feel like the last year here i've been gradually waking up from my own sort of coma. i mean, i've always understood that fantastic, surreal beauty about life and things and Experience (that thing Hendrix was really talking about, you know?)... the colours beneath the objects they represent. it's just that i let myself be turned into a smaller version of myself a while back. in fact, the day i took an office job, i let myself down in a way i hope i will never do again. oh, i might take another office job in the future, but i will never, ever, become a smaller version of jeremy like that again. i'm not going to wake up every day and find that i've been asleep for months, and will sleep again as soon as i get out of bed. i'm sort of relearning how to work the drive-thru, how to smoke a joint with the next-door neighbour's kid, how to own up to the fact that i don't drive a 1970 Pontiac Firebird (i'm speaking purely metaphorically here... i love my Dart, it's my 1970 Pontiac Firebird; and the one thing that's kept me in the world of the truly ALIVE for all these years has been driving the cool, older cars that i love so much) and god dammit, GET that car, lift those weights, speak out of turn whenever i'm moved to. i'm not that slave any more; my chains are broken... i still wear them, but that's only because i haven't run across the right tool to get them off, once and for all. but i can move about a bit more freely, and it feels much better. one day, very soon, i think, i'll find me a pair of bolt cutters and fly away, just... fly away.
on an entirely different note, i was relishing the fact that i remember very clearly when John Lennon's last few singles were radio staples, not just the posthumous ones from Milk and Honey but also the Double Fantasy stuff.
and i'm truly not any older today than i was several years ago. i'll soon be 31 years old (technically), but i don't think i'll start getting older for a long while. i simply won't choose to ("There is an art... or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." -Douglas Adams). there was a period, once, when i was fully chained and had my very own set of maya-masters, when i was far older and tireder than i am today, and thankfully, those days are long gone. i dunno, maybe it was just Jacksonville. anyway, my point is that i'm so much wiser and ten times more restless and energised and HUNGRY than i was then. and definitely stronger by the day. maybe i owe Lisa for part of that, i don't know. i know i owe it to myself more than anything.
all i know is this: someday i'll be dead, just like Lester Burnham, and you, and everybody else in the world is or will be, and i certainly don't want to have wasted so much time living by being dead through most of it already.
it occured to me when i was unwrapping the box that i can't quite look at that cover image the way i wanted to, the way i used to. see, i've seen a rather extraordinary mock-up of that cover shot, featuring a wonderful belly i would have loved to have gotten to know. *sigh* ...so i can't display it on my shelf the way it should be, next to Pi and C.K., in all its splendour and glory. oh well, the film itself is the thing anyway.
i really identify with A.B.. i guess because i feel like the last year here i've been gradually waking up from my own sort of coma. i mean, i've always understood that fantastic, surreal beauty about life and things and Experience (that thing Hendrix was really talking about, you know?)... the colours beneath the objects they represent. it's just that i let myself be turned into a smaller version of myself a while back. in fact, the day i took an office job, i let myself down in a way i hope i will never do again. oh, i might take another office job in the future, but i will never, ever, become a smaller version of jeremy like that again. i'm not going to wake up every day and find that i've been asleep for months, and will sleep again as soon as i get out of bed. i'm sort of relearning how to work the drive-thru, how to smoke a joint with the next-door neighbour's kid, how to own up to the fact that i don't drive a 1970 Pontiac Firebird (i'm speaking purely metaphorically here... i love my Dart, it's my 1970 Pontiac Firebird; and the one thing that's kept me in the world of the truly ALIVE for all these years has been driving the cool, older cars that i love so much) and god dammit, GET that car, lift those weights, speak out of turn whenever i'm moved to. i'm not that slave any more; my chains are broken... i still wear them, but that's only because i haven't run across the right tool to get them off, once and for all. but i can move about a bit more freely, and it feels much better. one day, very soon, i think, i'll find me a pair of bolt cutters and fly away, just... fly away.
on an entirely different note, i was relishing the fact that i remember very clearly when John Lennon's last few singles were radio staples, not just the posthumous ones from Milk and Honey but also the Double Fantasy stuff.
and i'm truly not any older today than i was several years ago. i'll soon be 31 years old (technically), but i don't think i'll start getting older for a long while. i simply won't choose to ("There is an art... or rather, a knack to flying. The knack lies in learning how to throw yourself at the ground and miss." -Douglas Adams). there was a period, once, when i was fully chained and had my very own set of maya-masters, when i was far older and tireder than i am today, and thankfully, those days are long gone. i dunno, maybe it was just Jacksonville. anyway, my point is that i'm so much wiser and ten times more restless and energised and HUNGRY than i was then. and definitely stronger by the day. maybe i owe Lisa for part of that, i don't know. i know i owe it to myself more than anything.
all i know is this: someday i'll be dead, just like Lester Burnham, and you, and everybody else in the world is or will be, and i certainly don't want to have wasted so much time living by being dead through most of it already.
