Mish Mash

They don't show animals getting theirs in nature documentaries anymore.

Anymore, the courting male is rejected. The hunting predator is evaded.

Scene after scene of animals denied and deprived.

I understand that in life, an individual experiences an outsized portion of failure compared to success.

But let's not forget that life exists because of the success stories.

Dwelling on failed hunting and reproduction efforts in these nature shows feels existentially perverse.

Sometimes the most exciting and memorable things you can do in life is nothing.

Think of all the opportunities you took. The ones that worked out for you, you don't even think about, because those are behind you now. Think about the ones you took that failed. You don't think of those because you've worked hard to move past your mistakes.

The ones you think about are the opportunities you had but didn't take. Those are the ones that are actually useful to you, nowadays, because you can really think about them-- what they involved, what you would've done, how they might've gone. You can build ideas off of those. You can imagine, and dream, and maybe even recognize different choices you can make in the present based off of the realizations you make when thinking of those old missed opportunities.

Missed opportunities can weigh heavily on our hearts and minds, and we may wish we could go back in time to revisit them again-- but that's what's so great about them. They're little treasures in your past, and the treasure inside is always different every time you revisit them. 

Painful, perhaps, but missed opportunities stir the spirit.

Plot has its place, but it's become the end-all-be-all for movies and I think they've suffered as a result. I'm not saying movies should be plotless (though I have some ideas for 'plotless films' that I get a lot of satisfaction from), but a de-emphasis on plot could reinvigorate creativity in our culture again. Plot has an underlying implication that suggests character change occurs as a result of a single motivating force--the plot of the movie--but that's certainly not true in reality. Change is the result of many different factors exerting pressure on a subject from different sources, caused by different forces--that all lead to the subject adjusting their habit (often, begrudgingly; sometimes to their benefit but sometimes to their ruin). You may argue this isn't interesting to watch as cinema, but I'm saying this way of storytelling hasn't been adequately explored--at least not in the main.

"But what is it ABOUT?" is such an insidious question. How are you supposed to respond, with any seriousness, to someone who asks a question like this?

There's got to be a scene, in literature or in film, of someone playing a piano with a gun. With the muzzle, or with bullets, or proceeding from one to the next--or just get a talented actor to improvise. I have no specific vision in mind, I just have an instinct that it would make for a memorable 30 to minute long sequence.

I had a dream that would make for an [adjective] horror story. A young woman receives a gift from her mother; a new technological device known as a "Look Ahead," billed as an all-enconpassing AI personal assistant. She takes it out of the box--and at first it looks like a mannequin head, but once activated it scans her facial and skeletal structure and, in real time, models itself after her specific facial configuration to look and sound exactly like her. For a bizarre moment, shes holding her own head in her hands, staring up at her-- until it turns hostile. Using fiberoptic tentacles that come out from underneath its neck, it wraps itself around the woman's real head until it's replacing her entirely with this new, artificially intelligent "digital head", which then takes its place in her life and starts giving "Look Ahead" gifts out to all her friends and family.

In the proper hand, any object can be “magic”. Ditto with places, people, foods--you just need to be imaginative and curious, which are my favorite qualities in anybody I meet.

Can't swat a fly on purpose. But I can inhale one by accident.

I had a friend years ago whose grandmother bought a dildo as a chew toy for her dog. I'm pretty sure it was accidental but I never had the courage to ask her.

Scene: You are a pianist, and this is your first public performance. You play your heart out (with your hands--not a gun) and as the final notes ring out, you sit and wait for the audience's reaction. Breathing heavily, your heart beating, you hear a slow clap begin from somewhere in the darkened seats. It starts slow, but, slowly, the sound of the single clapper grows and grows. You strain your eyes. There's a murmur in the auditorium as everyone turns to see the mysterious clapping man, who is clapping an amazing beat with his palms--going incredibly fast, then slower, then speeding up again. The audience turns away from you to try and get a glimpse of the amazing applauder, as a spotlight hits him from the catwalk. There he stands, applauding--but not for you. Everyone around him looks at him in awe as he claps and claps, until, encouraged by the chanting crowd, he attempts to clap faster than ever. Straining, he claps his heart out, the sound filling the auditorium like a drumroll, but inexplicably from his hands. The crowd cheers him on as the mysterious clapping applauder reaches his pitch--clapping faster than anyone has ever seen before, sustaining it for an unbelievable duration that dizzys the imagination, before finally stopping and raising his hands into the air in climax. He receives a standing ovation, bringing down the house. Everyone is so glad that they came to your piano recital so that they could witness the remarkable human clapping matchine who put on a show of a lifetime.

Inspired by this guy:

"Hurting sheep?!" The neighbor woman repeats back, in shock, to the two investigators standing at her door. "I had no idea. I would hear the sheep, but, he always said he was 'hearding' them."

It'd be fun to say goodbye to people as though you would never see them again. 

And then, one day, it really would be the last time you ever saw them. They might remember your last goodbye to them, and always wonder...

Game show ideas: "That's Debatable!" Two contestants are given mundane topics to debate before a panel of judges. "Do straws have one or two holes?" "Do pigs have eyebrows?" "Are emoji's grammar?" "The best sandwich cutting orientation, horizontal, vertical, or diagonal?" If the contestants agree, they are both disqualified. 

Surreal Cereal: artisanal cereal boxes that contain cereal pieces that are meant to bewilder and confuse the eater. Each box (should ideally) contain a unique dining experience. One may have marshmallows of melted clocks, ants and pomegranates. Perhaps another will contain one, large cereal pieces in the shape of the box containing it. Another may have smaller boxes inside of it, each containing more cereal. One can include a small painting of a man eating cereal. No false advertising, just surreal experiences in every bite. (As part of a nutritional, balanced breakfast.)

I directed a play, once. This was years ago, and it was not my finest hour. I was absolutely in over my head. Part of the problem was that I was selected to direct, with the play already picked out. I had no interest in the play on its own--but took it on as a favor, and personal challenge. But I didn't really understand the material. What I needed was, like, a Cliff Notes version of the play. It made me think there could be a niche market for theater directors who are out of their depth on how to mount certain productions. "So, You're Stuck Directing Death of a Salesman And Don't Know How to Kill Willie Loman?" "The Importance of Being Ernest and YOU: A Guide" "What's in the Pie? A Step-By-Step Hide to Titus Andronicus"

I'd like to meet the guy who made all those puffing and breathing sounds with his mouth for the Seinfeld theme song. I'm just curious.

"Getting the cult back together again." Years later, after having disbanded after a botched sacrifice, members of a radical cult track down the last remaining member who has moved on with his life in an effort to re-recruit him for one last shot at The Grand Awakening.

Fantasy of a surgeon with repressed obsessions: "Wow, I really wish I didn't have to wear this face mask during surgery. I wish that I could take it off so that little droplets of this patient's blood could occasionally splatter upward, splashing tiny drops into my open mouth and eyes. But I can't take my mask off or else everyone will think I'm weird."

How about a movie where the main character is lost in the wilderness. When trying to return to civilization, he encounters a massive hive full of very aggressive hornets that plague him mercilessly until he finally manages to escape far enough that they give up and return back to their hive. That's the first ten minutes. The rest of the film is his uncanny experience running into twelve more hives of the exact same species of hornet, one after the other, as the unlikeliness of his predicament weighs heavier and heavier on his mind.

I'm curious about the replicas of the Horses of St. Mark. The replicas are on display, outside, while the originals are housed "safely" in a museum. 

The originals are great, but, the replicas-- they're wonderful*, too! And yet, that always comes with an asterisk, doesn't it? "Wow look at those beautiful* sculptures of horses, there." "Yes. But they're replicas*." Not the original. Not as good. Symbolic of the genius of the originals, because they are so similar as to be the same, except they're not. 

I think about what's going to happen to the Mona Lisa someday, once it really begins to lose its lustre, and perhaps is at risk of ever increasing attacks upon it by climate activists throwing fucking soup on it. They hire someone to paint a replica of the Mona Lisa, so they can display that instead of the original. I'd watch a movie about that, how that guy feels-- what he goes through recreating the Mona Lisa, the world's most renowned painting, because the original is wasting away-- and what that does to someone's creativity and sense of meaning.

So when people go to visit the replica-- are they still seeing the Mona Lisa? The original wouldn't even be itself, anymore. But then again, the replica isn't really the Mona Lisa, either? People may wonder, where did the real Mona Lisa go?

“You gotta know how to know.” --Joe Biden

You know those commercials for the medicines? The ones that show somebody just doing great? Living life? Smiling. Just on top of the world now that they have this new pharmaceutical in their life, saving them from the misery of their disease, illness or affliction. You know the commercials. 

You watch them just having a grand old time, and then they get to the part of the commercial-- near the end-- when they begin listing all the side effects. Dry mouth. Incontinence. Rectal bleeding. Nausea. Liver failure. Stomach pain. Narcolepsy. The list goes on and on and can sometimes be quite shocking.

But that doesn't matter. In the commercial, they're canoeing, skiing, vacationing in Italy. Despite all their rectal bleeding, they're in Rome!

You think, watching at home, "Well, sure, there's side effects, but look at the benefits! They're not sick anymore!"

Take the same commercial. Don't change anything about the visuals. See them canoeing, skiing--vacationing in Italy. But don't mention anything about illness. Just describe the medicine name, and lost the side effects, and watch how wonderful their life is now. 

“Goosebumps” - I love the idea that the feeling of being so ecstatic that your skin ripples in anticipation has become synonymous with geese– as though geese must feel that way all the time.

What’s worse - having been forgotten, or being remembered? 

I met a girl at a bar once. Not the kind of thing that usually happened to me, I just wasn't that kind of dude, but I guess it happens to everyone once. I met a girl at a bar, on a weekend, with a live band playing-- and it was loud. Not 'really loud', just a lot of conflicting noises, which, for me, is even more debilitating. When there's a lot of conflicting noises, I am as good as deaf, really-- so when I was trying to talk to this girl, I kept looking at her mouth, making a lot of gestures with my hands-- and straining to understand her. Soon after meeting and struggling to communicate this way, a look came over her. Like that she 'realized' something about me, except whatever it was, she seemed to like it. So I didn't really think much of it. We danced. It was loud. We kind of hung around each other a bit. Then, sitting at a table with some of her friends, barely hearing or understanding anyone, I did happen to hear her say to a friend of hers, over the music, "HE'S DEAF." It took me a minute or two before I realized she was talking about me, and that she thought I was deaf. Looking at her mouth when she talked. Hand gestures. Struggling to communicate. I nodded along, politely, but all the while I was deep in thought.

"How do I come out of this?" I asked myself. The look on her face when she 'realized' this mistake about me, and how it seemed to endear her to me, fraudulently. 

I had never 'ghosted' someone before but I did, then. It was just too much to explain, over too much noise-- and I also didn't want her to feel bad about it. It was an honest mistake. If I'd have had my drothers back then, I might've been able to maneuver out of the misunderstanding in a more elegant way-- but, of course, back in those days I drank, too-- so being half drunk doesn't help anything either. So, I found an opportunity to slip away.

I hope she's doing okay.

As mentioned, I directed a play once. That was the only time I'd directed a theater piece, but I had been in many plays prior to that. I never really enjoyed the parts with a lot of lines. I always loved being background characters. My favorite part I ever played was a newspaper salesman in Guys n' Dolls. You just get into costume, chew up the scenery, and go home. 

But you do that part well, they start casting you in bigger parts. That's your reward for doing well. More responsibility. More lines. More scenes. That's great, but it's a bit of a hassle. The real good parts were the background characters. In their own worlds, living their own lives-- passing by the main characters in the streets. Maybe ONE line-- and that line, to you, is everything. 

But once you're cast in the big parts, they keep giving you big parts. You can't go backwards. You can't return to the small background characters that made you famous. As much as you might like to.

https://x.com/EmmaSzewczak/status/1849452824066686997

Then you hear about a kid who's been cast as a door in their class play. Because they have to have a part for every kid to play, but there are only so many parts. So, cast one of the kids as a door. It's interactive. It'll be great! 

In fact, I can see it now. Parents in the audience. The lights come up on stage. You see the set. And one door with a face cut out of it. And there's the star. The kid cast as the door. 

If that kid plays that part right, and really commits to it-- picks and chooses their 'moments', I guarantee the parents are going to be talking about the kid who played the door on their way home that evening.

That's the part I'd love to play. The door. Are you kidding? I don't care what play it is, if there's an option to play a door-- that's the part I'd go for. 

It's been years since I've done theater but I'd return to the stage for a part like that.