Secret Knowledge

I want to give you two film synopses.

1) A man receives a letter from a former lover of his. She wants to be his sugar mama. There is no return address. So, he travels to several of his former lovers searching for the one who sent this letter.

2) A man receives a letter from a former lover of his. She says that they have a son. There is no return address. So, he travels to several of his former lovers searching for the one who sent this letter.

The latter synopsis is from the movie Broken Flowers (2005). It was a small, independent movie starring Bill Murray and was directed by Jim Jarmusch. It was very well-received. I read a number of glowing reviews. But at the end of each one, I felt something was missing. This plot sounded so familiar to me, but no one mentioned it. I wanted to know what movie I was thinking of, but I couldn't remember.

I eventually figured it out. Anyone care to take a guess?

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So, no one did care to take a guess. That's cool. I'm not wounded.

To satisfy apparently no one's curiosity, the first plot description belongs to...The Ladies Man!

Perhaps no critic felt it necessary to bring up the similarities, but my guess is that very few of them had seen both. This may be more accurate considering that there are twice as many reviews for Broken Flowers as there are for The Ladies Man on Rotten Tomatoes.

Anyway, I feel I'm part of a very special class of moviegoer who has seen both. That's basically what all this has been about.

I haven't laughed this hard at anything on the internet since Afro-Ninja

Find it at 15 Minute Lunch.

5 Things

Tracy tagged me with this a while ago.

List 5 things that certain people (who are not deserving of being your friend anyway) may consider to be "totally lame," but you are, despite the possible stigma, totally proud of. Own it. Then tag 5 people to do the same.

1) Part of the reason I don't get a lot of sleep is because I think looking tired is cool. A friend/coworker told me the other day that I looked like I had returned from an alcohol fueled binge in Sierra Leone. Compliment? Check.

2) I am proud of my Netflix queue. Recently, I had He-Man and the Masters of the Unvierse, Battlestar Galactica (2000's), and Ingmar Bergman's Fanny and Alexander at home.

3) My DVD collection is alphabetized...by director.

4) When I am in a store and things are out of order on the shelves, I am always tempted to correct this. I sometimes follow through.

5) When I was young, and we're talking elementary school here, I would daydream about being married. My daydreams changed a little bit with the onset of puberty, but that desire was still there.

I'm going to tag Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Johannes Brahms, Tom Cruise, and Mickey Mouse.

My latest obsession

Modest Mouse's new single, "Dashboard." This song is infectious. Like Oukast's "Hey, Ya" and Smashmouth's "Walkin' on the Sun" that came before, I can't sit still when I hear "Dashboard". My friend Kate will often refer to the time we were walking from Piper's Alley and we passed a bar where "Hey Ya" was blasting from inside. I stopped on the sidewalk and simply started dancing. "Dashboard" is that song. My coworkers love it. I dance at work. And then, it gets inside my head so I hear it all the time. If you happen to be by me and I spontaneously start moving erratically, keep two things in mind: 1) I'm dancing, and 2) I most likely have "Dashboard" in my head. It's on their MySpace page. Check it out, funk soul brother.

iPhone

Did you hear? iPhone has taken over the world.

I swear, Apple announces a new piece of technology and the next day, the world stops and wants. I mean, really wants it.

"Did you see what it can do?"

"It's so cute."

"It's got a touch-screen."

"You can see the albums." (I don't know exactly what this last one means, but my friend sure was excited.)

This discussion happened at my church drama meeting. My church drama meeting! Please don't read the explanation point as saying Apple is the devil, but another friend looked over at me and said, "I feel like Apple is our sponsor." Which we immediately agreed would be awesome.

'Cause Apple makes cool stuff. That's the thing. It's like they look at something and say, "How can we revolutionize this?" And then they do. If Apple announced Monday that they were reinventing the wheel, Tuesday would be Michelin's and Goodyear's worst day.

Uncle

I cried, “Uncle!” 3/27/06. See, I have – HAD – an ongoing wrestling match with technology, but I got beat. 3/27/06. I was caught by surprise. I mean, I was reading a magazine article. A printed magazine. The kind the mailman brings to— Forget it. You get the picture. It was in the April 3, 2006 issue of Newsweek. The article “Putting the ‘We’ in WEB.” It talks about the revolution that is occurring on the web right now with sites like MySpace and Flickr. Call it Web 2.0. People shaping the web. Guiding it. It’s a fascinating and thrilling article, and…I gave up. I wanted to be a part of it.

Why had I been resisting? I’ve been afraid of it. I’ve been afraid of the speed of change. Of its impermanence. Its intangibility. I can’t go anywhere and pull it off a shelf. Maybe I’ve been waiting for it to slow down. To finalize. For the merry-go-round to stop. For the wheel to point in the direction I need to go. But it won’t. Maybe that’s what I needed from this article. Screaming in my ears. “This is not going to stop!”

But what of this? Isn’t this how we live? Isn’t much that gets us through a day intangible? I believe in God. I’ve never looked on Him with my eyes. Isn’t much of what gets us through a day impermanent? I believe in my memories. I’ve gone back to my elementary school and marveled at how small it’s become.

I’m afraid of the isolation the web can provide us. We don’t have to interact with people anymore. You don’t need to go to the grocery store. I no longer rent movies from a store. “Grocery and video stores are your concern?” Yes. In the name of convenience, people will isolate themselves. In the future, everyone will be agoraphobic.

And I mentioned technology earlier. Is the web any different than technology? Aren’t they becoming synonymous? Will every piece of relevant technology soon be web-compatible? Yes. Doesn’t that frighten me? Yes! I just soiled myself writing that.

And don’t get me started on what happens when one of our beloved systems crashes. We look like we’re Floridians and it’s snowing.

But anyway, I gave up. 3/27/06.

Here’s what I’ve done:
Taken a picture with my phone and posted it on the internet.
Created a MySpace account
Started a blog

Things to do:
Buy something off Ebay.

I’m not going to be a Luddite. This is happening. I need to find myself within the system. The system as it is right now. It may change tomorrow. But I’ll be there.