江ノ島へ行く途中

I guess we'll just have to wait and see
given the rate we're going
I think we must be heading somewhere important
the hours seem to grow shorter each day
but then again, some of them weren't all that great
for every precious memory and new discovery
I should've built myself some sort of museum
it seems the present has swept the past away
can all those things really have happened?
sunshine, blessed sunshine
new house, same house, old friends, blue skies
new jeans, a haircut, new shoes, another haircut
late night again? wanna order? nah, it's okay
staying up all night studying for exams the next day
wandering the city aimlessly waiting for work to start
sighing and crying and laughing and singing
faking smiles and hiding tears
which were the fears? which were the dreams?
the concrete heat, the mist and morning chill
it all comes back to me now, feeling just like yesterday
but if I really try to think about it
I can't recall a thing
time really does fly

bad news travels fast / one in every family

so I heard your son
recently murdered his brother
and ran away to start an empire

the muses dwell here

his tendency to laugh at my opinions never failed to annoy me. His laugh was one that contained no mirth - a hollow, miserable noise - unsettling and sudden as the screeching of a blackboard or the yelping of a cat. First his lips would curl in ugly amusement, before an infernal gargle would rise from the back of his throat to spew forth infuriating laughter like a thousand tiny daggers colliding in the air. His mouth was exceptionally skilled at producing a range of offensive and unpleasant sounds, but among them I resented his laugh most of all.

---

I wish to perish like the poets of old;
nursing a thousand afflictions and tending to none

nativity

prodigal son keeps trying to buy his way home

---

Let me wander no longer, I don't need forty years to see
that it makes no difference where I am
if You're not there with me

why does faith feel realer in the fire
why does God feel closer in the wilderness
could it be the closer one steps to comfort
the further he gets from God

you need both the rain and the sunshine, they said
but either way I still end up running for cover,
desperately trying to preserve my head

---

Holden Caulfield just wants to come home

the end, apparently

well, we survived today

---

Ruby Sparks was a promising film with a solid cast and an intriguing premise. I liked the way it explored the selfish, controlling nature of an immature love and the consequences of letting it get out of hand.

I thought the movie was pretty brave in allowing Calvin, the protagonist, to be an unlikable individual with a generously hideous catalogue of genuine character flaws, as opposed to the generic sugar-coated "faults" that a main character is often affected to possess, which are ultimately compensated for by some inescapably apparent redeeming feature. Whereas with Calvin, you have a character that is plausibly human - not succumbing to simple designations of good or evil, nor submitting to the archetype of the romantic hero - but simply fumbling about on a quest to find or define something and making many terrible mistakes along the way. He has his old wounds and they do affect him visibly, particularly in his interactions with friends (oh wait he has none) and family, but they aren't enough to excuse his actions toward the end of the film.

So far, Calvin is a great, complex, conflicted, classical villain - you have the audience feeling sorry for what he's been through but also kind of hating him for what he's done. Now if this were a typical romantic drama/comedy, the ending would have him eventually overcoming whatever wound(s) that had influenced his disposition, negating that which led him to his regrettable courses of action, transforming him into a new man and consequently turning him into someone deserving of a fresh start or second chance - in other words, he'd end up learning from his mistakes and make a sincere effort toward rectifying them, shifting  the audience's allegiances back in his favour. But this doesn't happen, and that is where the problem begins.

(Spoiler ALART)
What really chafed me about the ending is that they gave him a happy ending without showing he had what it takes not to screw it up again. Sure, he wrote a book and said that he was sorry, but that's hardly enough to demonstrate real development. The film offers no real penalty - aside from the pain of losing Ruby, which turns out to be only temporary anyway - no confrontation of consequence, no justice. Instead of being subjected to biting eventuality, our real and believable character is instead treated to some strange form of purgatory - a time-out session effectively. Plus, Ruby has no say in the matter. She doesn't decide to forgive him or take him back (goodness knows why she'd want to), she just has her memory magically erased by the overwhelming virtue of Calvin's self-pity and regret, which we're meant to mistake for love, refined and made true by the fires of contrition and sorrow (I'm assuming that's what it must have been) and everything's fine and peachy again. If she had considered his tortuous apology and appeal, and decided to love him again, warts and all, and in spite of his disastrous track record, that would have at least been somewhat poignant, if supremely cliched. In fact, I would gladly have traded the whole Happily Ever After idea for something bittersweet like "and Calvin continued to make money off his misery while Ruby lived a real life."

Perhaps in allowing her to be free (I hear feminists fetching their pitchforks), he is implied to have outgrown his selfish and jealous nature, but people have done kinder things in fits of remorse or intense madness; a kind word doesn't constitute a saint. Similarly, a book and sad puppy dog eyes do not a good boyfriend make. A change in character must be verified by some visibly consistent and sustained difference in practice. Also, the mere act of giving her up for good does not provide that he cares about her more than himself - people sometimes do the right things for the wrong reasons. It takes a lifetime to build a reputation and only moments to ruin it. My chief complaint is that Calvin is let off the hook before we see any hint of an attempt to rebuild.

I'm all for innovative subversion of formulaic expectations, and perhaps the filmmakers set out to defy the conventions of plot with this movie, but if so I just wish they had done it differently.

floaters / it's gonna rain

there is something that rests dormant upon the seabed

unperturbed by swirling currents and changing seasons overhead

lagan, sunken yet still tethered by a tenuous thread

bits of a previous life, remnants of some ancient shipwreck

into old wounds, into abyss, saltwater tears be seeping

thirsty creatures borne by years of sunless weeping

for ages men have feared monsters that lurk beneath the sea

yet the waves know that in darkened waters, the clearest mirrors be

안녕, 안녕

the apopemptic sky said its symphonious goodbyes as the planes kept shifting listlessly across the tarmac with a reluctance that made you think maybe they weren't coming back again

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they keep saying that the world is ending, so why do i feel as if it's just beginning

the True Chronicles of Sandy Buffleoak

- they told me that my mouth and my nose made me look like a stubborn person
- and then?
- and then I said, 'so what'

---

and the curtains were an ocean, endless waves in soft plication

berlin wail

L'enfer, c'est les autres

---

there is a wall in the city
whose name is brother
its bricks are laid with
spit and cancer

days and days

I must escape this frigid place

c'est la saison