what i'm listening to these days

• yo la tengo- i can hear the hearts beating as one
• patti smith- horses
• u2- the joshua tree
• arcade fire- funeral
• kraftwerk- the man machine and computer world
• michael jackson- thriller
• tally hall- marvin's marvelous mechanical museum
• stacey kent- breakfast on the morning tram
• jane monheit- the very best of jane monheit
• vladimir horowitz- rachmaninov concerto #3
• johan sebastian bach- the best of bach
• wolfgang amadeus mozart- the best of mozart
• the shins- wincing the night away
• r.e.m.- accelerate and fables of the reconstruction

this is not a joke!

as i write this, my blog visitor counter is at 9,999. the first person to see this post will be the 10,000th visitor to sheep go to heaven (since i instituted the counter, which was a while after the blog's inception).

please leave a comment.

blog shots

a series of small to short posts from the past week, to be taken similar to the virgin jell-o shots at monday's f.h.e.

enjoy.

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the seventh seal indescribably gets better and better every time i see it. and, on blu-ray, rises to become one of the crown jewels of my collection.

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i've been a fan of frisbee golf for years. but kinetic speed frisbee golf is a whole new level. i like it.

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lighting an interview in austin, tx.:

i love lighting; it's my passion.

once we've started shooting, i begin to notice things i should have noticed before.

there are half a dozen things i would desperately love to change if we could start over and light for another 20 minutes.

does anyone notice these? are they blatantly obvious because i'm looking specifically for them, or are they legitimately blatantly obvious?

i feel like charlie kaufman, not janusz kaminski.

i remind myself that brian, who trained me (?) seems to feel the same way about most of the shots he does, too.

i let it go.

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as we were getting breakfast tacos, someone said it was supposed to be record highs that day.

the evening news confirmed it: austin set a new record with 105. as long as i'm in austin, i may as well get the best.

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my brother loaned me his macbook so i could watch movies on the plane. in my case:

the making of fanny and alexander

fellini's 8 1/2

le jour se leve

the spirit of the beehive

vampyr

buster keaton's three ages

kind hearts and coronets

sansho the bailiff

pepe le moko

shrek 2

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in keeping with the theme of amazing food on this trip, i had the best ribs i've ever had (sorry, mom) at stubb's bbq in austin. afterwards, my mouth tasted like bbq smoke; it was amazing.

they might be giants played a concert in their basement a year and a half ago.

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flying into salt lake, we went through possibly the worst turbulence of my life. when the plane blew sideways, and the ground below shifted in an uncommon way, i decided to close my window and let what happened happen. the crying babies seemed to vocalize how most of the people around me looked. when the plane safely landed, several people cheered.

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i went to the lehi rodeo on thursday night. they were doing a "tough enough to wear pink" theme for breast cancer awareness, with several horses, cowboys, and much of the crowd in pink. when i went again on saturday, i wore pink.

evidently, that was only for thursday night. excluding several little girls, i was about the only one in pink.

i'm tough enough.

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101.9 has reinstated their acoustic sunday morning playlists. as my i lay in bed, listening, "achy breaky heart" came on. that was perhaps the most surreal event of my whole weak.

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provo monogatari

the night before my parents got into town, i cleaned as much of the house as i could--pretty much everything except my bedroom and the backyard, which was untended since before the winter--then sat down and watched ozu's tokyo story.

my dad had some time off from work, and so he and my mom were driving out west, stopping along the way to visit my mom's family, then swinging around to see us kids. being that i'm the one with the largest residence and a recently empty room, i was also the headquarters for their visit. having them come out was not unusual; they seem to be out here once or twice a year. what was unusual was that they were out here together. in the past, my dad will be out on a ski trip (visiting his progeny is simply an afterthought), and my mom will be out visiting family. so having them here together was, more or less, a new one. as i was bedding down on the downstairs couch, i had a peaceful feeling that took me a moment to place: it was the same feeling i get when i'm back home in minnesota for the first night of Christmas vacation. it was good to have my parents here.

what i enjoyed most about their visit was taking the time to learn from my parents. while i'm starting to play tennis (jack? jaime?), my understanding of the rules is mostly the vestiges from the two-week unit in high school gym class, and my technique is stems from, if anything, wii tennis. but my dad used to play (i think he actually has a trophy or two somewhere), and i asked him to bring out his tennis racquet. on the courts by westridge elementary, he helped me polish up on the rules, pointed me in the right direction with my technique, and even gave me a few pointers on strategy, where to stand, how to anticipate, and the like.

and then, of course, we went to f.y.e., where dad happily found weird al's uhf on sale and promptly bought it.

like i mentioned, the backyard garden looked, well, unpleasant, excepting one pleasant surprise: the snapdragons, flowers that did only moderately well last year under my care and were supposedly one-shot annuals, had grown back in greater fortitude that before. one afternoon early in the visit, we were thinking of what to do with our time when i threw out the option of going back and weeding the garden. i planned for it to be little more than a way to occupy a few hours until becky and brady and the blessed grandchild arrived. yet plucking weeds gave way to thoughts of getting a few flowers and the need for a shovel. a trip to lowe's brought the idea of "why stop at little flowers" and "why not a climbing rose bush"? and "why not some asian poppies?" (my mom has them and they look awesome) a few days later, we were at a serious flower shop, loading our pallet with not only exotic poppies, but dahlias, tomato plants, jalepenos, and purple bell pepper plants (i didn't even know they existed). and then off to another expensive nursery, where hand trowels are sold for $25, to get the best darn rose bush we could find.

my dad got into it to, offering to go to the store to repair my recently broken garden hose and, after some collaboration with my mom, coming back with enough gadgets and gizmos to set up a watering system for my tiny backyard. i didn't need the stuff; in fact, part of the reason i planted flowers back there last year was that i wanted something to work on (although by september i was pretty tired of watering everything every night and decided that their season would end prematurely), but my parents were having more fun with this than i was that i decided to let them enjoy it all.

while it's always nice to have life return to its familiar order, i was sad to see them go, feeling a bit like my grandma waving goodbye as they left that morning.

update: gardening is not my natural forte; everything out back is looking sad. the snapdragons fared much better before i touched them, i see no signs of fruit or flowers on the vegetables, and my beloved rose bush bears a disturbing resemblance to the apostate olive tree of jacob 5. i am hoping that it's just the daily rain showers we've been having, flooding my plants and blocking out the sun, trusting that, when the desert's rainy season passes, my secret garden with one day flourish.

the new watch list: geriatrics

i'm trusting that the airport security teams know more than i do, and that perhaps al-quaeda is changing their recruiting tactics.

going through security at the small airport in portland, maine, elderly people were being pulled aside for security searches on either side of me. to my left a woman who had trouble bending down to take off her shoes, while the man on my left moved so slowly that it took him a while to gather all of his belongings. in wilmington, north carolina, a frail woman with swollen ankles in a wheelchair was being taken behind the glass partition and searched for guns, bombs, and any other signs of being a terrorist.

meanwhile, i, a man in my late twenties with a scruffy beard and copy of the qur'an in my hand, moved through both security gates without a second look.

good eats

in 24 hours, i've become "a regular." josh the photographer and i have each been to the dock street oyster bar four times. the ad guys were there as were walking down the boardwalk at sunset, getting more "b-roll" shots, and after more oysters, mussels, and a cherry coke for me, we left to find some dinner. food--good food--has been in abundance on this trip. at a restaurant on the water i got the crab cakes and the flounder, two of the most-recommended items by the locals. the crab cake was full of flavor and spices, living up to all that had been said of it; the flounder was nothing to blog about. just the same, i was still full as we left the dock street oyster bar.
we walked past two sushi bars, numerous italian restaurants, a cafe, countless pubs, taverns, and bars, including a russian bar, a nice french restaurant that looked promising but was, for some reason, passed up (i think because it was empty inside, and therefore couldn't be that good), past another riverside cafe, debated over a classic ice cream and fudge parlor that piped out the smell of new waffle cones, stood in front of an oyster bar with live music on the outdoor patio, and finally conceded amongst the seven of us on the dock street oyster bar, walking in for the fourth time in 24 hours to the place we had just left.
when you've got the best, why do anything else?

two things i wish i'd brought: my still camera and my running shoes.

the interview went great, today. the guy we were interviewing works as a gaffer, and a self-lighting subject is as wonderful as a ron popeil invention: it slices, it dices, it lights itself, and my life is all the easier.
working in this (or any) sort of artistic position is a balancing act; could i have done better? if only i knew more, had more experience; what would the guys who trained me do? are the ad guys happy with it? well, it's kind of like jack johnson song: "everybody thinks that everybody knows about everyone else, but they're all worried about the themselves." so the trick is to keep your wits, think clearly and do your best, then let it be.

after a couple of final hours at the oyster bar and filling bucket of crustacean shells of every sort to overflowing, we were the very last people in our favorite hang out. we parted ways, and those of us walking home noticed some people with ice cream cones, and followed the scent to the ice cream parlor, just minutes from closing. there are few better ways to end a day than with a single scoop of chocolate brownie in a fresh waffle cone and a small box of fancy chocolates.

i hope i go running on saturday.

"great grits are perfection"

editor's note: due to our senior photo editor being on the road without a camera, some posts will be without the customary picture.  we apologize for the inconvenience, and hope that the evocative nature of the writing will make up the gap.  (why not having a camera prevents him from grabbing images off google--as he usually does--makes a difference, i don't understand.  but you know how these creative types are)

wilmington, nc.  8:43 p.m., eastern daylight time

north carolina has jumped to the lead for "best meal" at the moment, no small feat on this trip.  at the dock street oyster bar, a little caribbean-style restaurant shack just a few hundred feet from the river.  everyone i've talked to said to try to the crab cakes, but with no cakes on the menu, i went for the day's special, shrimp and grits.

best meal yet.

a flavorful cream sauce with red peppers and green onions with excellent shrimp over a plate of grits, i savored each bite.  afterward, we were brave and tried a plate of raw oysters on the half shell.  delicious.

yesterday was our first day of shooting.  i was generally happy with the lighting on the interview (and grateful for the good help around me), but it's still an odd feeling to not have anyone between me and the ad guys.  i like them, and they like me, but they're turning to me for answers and suggestions.  it's easy to offer the occasional suggestion or improvement, but now i'm the one giving the main ideas for lighting and shots; it requires a step up.  i think i can do better on tomorrow's.

we had lunch at a new england pub that looked like patrick henry could have given a rousing speech in, where i got the fried scallops but should have gotten the lobster roll.  from there me and the sound girl went out with an ad guy to get shots of the city.  again, not "jeff, put the camera here", but "shoot what you think is good, jeff."  i think standing up to shoot out the sunroof as we were driving across the bridge impressed them.

shooting during the afternoon is never really good; the overhead sunlight is just boring.  i told the ad guys i might go back out when the sun was setting, but after getting into my hotel room, lost the motivation for that until the photographer called me.

"hey, i heard you were going out to shoot around town; mind if i come along, just to get out?"

"um, yeah.  i'll be down in.... 10 minutes."

i'm glad he called; the footage we got was much better.  and we ended the day with swordfish at a very nice restaurant.

the night we flew in to maine, i told the shuttle driver that my connotations of maine were pretty much lighthouses on rocky shores and lobsters.  he said that was pretty much it, adding blueberries (and chickadees), saying we will have the best blueberry pancakes in the world here.  the hotel's breakfast cafe, decorating with not with wallpaper but genuine cloth wall coverings, confirmed it: the blueberry malt pancakes were the best i've ever had.

after all this, north carolina seemed like it could only go down.  and, yes, it has, but only slightly.  our hotel is equally nice but more modern, and overlooks the cape fear river (yeah, i always figured "cape fear" was a cape, or even just a movie), and has a nice boardwalk along the river.  

my connotations of north carolina don't seem as accurate as they were in maine: i think of tobacco plantations and toned-down versions versions col. sanders and scarlet o'hara.  instead, jimmy buffett and the island culture are much more predominant in the tourist (?) areas.

the one thorn in this whole trip is that i did not bring my camera.  it's hard to tell if a trip will be a whirlwind, where the camera is just one more bag to carry and keep track of, or it there will be countless moments to capture.  tragically, this trip has most definitely, been the latter.  *sigh*

mental pictures......  (and tim's point-n-shoot, which i appreciate).

josh, our photographer, got in a few hours after we did, and although we'd already eaten, i went out with him to dinner.  and after meandering the streets, which seemed busier now than they did at 7, he chose the same place i went to earlier (largely because i wouldn't stop raving about it).  josh got the special.  i've been jonesing for a good slice of chocolate cake for days, and he noticed that, while it wasn't on the menu, it was on the "today's special", just like the shrimp and grits (and another plate of mississippi oysters).

through the mercy of the fates, we picked the best day of the year to come to this place.

as if that weren't enough, the clock/radio here, too, is ipod friendly.  and i've got jane monheit singing to me as i finish this.

wish you were here.

who needs the old england?

after 30 minutes, maine had already become my second favorite state in the nation.

and hour and a half later, i have to confess that maybe it was a little overzealous, but it's been a long day of travel (and this is a seriously dang place).  alarm went off at 4:44 a.m. after four hours of sleep.  my sleep cycles seem to be about fours in length, because i recover much better if i sleep for four hours instead of 5.  having the good fortune of a friend who works in salt lake early in the morning and who offered ride, mark drove me to the airport, eliminating the hassle of getting myself there (and avoiding a repeat of the vegas trip, where my sister kindly parked my car then forgot where in the long term parking lot she put it).  the plane to jfk in nyc was full but big (and we considered staying on with it to barcelona).

we landed 45 minutes early, only to have to wait 30 minutes and then disembark through the rear of the plane onto what looked like a monorail on wheels (instead of on one rail).  still, that's a net of 15 minutes early, and our plane was delayed for 90 minutes because the stewardess for our plane was on another plane that was delayed in portland, me, due to nasty weather (catch all that?)  i used the time to find out that another part of our team had their flight rerouted to boston and had to drive up, to straighten out some misunderstandings from last tuesday's commercial, and to make sure that the lights and gear was picked up in portland- called the electrician to let him know it was ready, and he'd already done it; that's a good feeling.

once on the plane, the pilot announced it would be a bit of a wait to take off, about 40 minutes.  30 minutes later, he came on to say that we were behind all the international flights and it would be another... oh, 45 minutes.  thankfully, the sole stewardess was very cool and the passengers were understanding.  and we each got our choice of cookies or peanuts while we were waiting.  i chose the cookies.

then dozed off to vivaldi.

ask my geographically astute sister informed me from the airport in new york city, maine in the pinetree state.  that it is.

it's beautiful here.  the air is moist and cool, the city's downtown is rich with new england heritage.  the kid who picked us up in the hotel's shuttle was amiable and helpful, and, in addition to affirming my connotation of maine being the land of lighthouses and lobster, added blueberries and chickadees, declaring the best blueberry pancakes i will ever have.  i tipped him well.

i was already in love with this place.

the rest of the hotel staff was equally friendly.  the hotel is in the heart of the cultured city center (with cobblestone streets), and, though smaller, my room is a exquisite as the venetian in las vegas (but without the vegas part).  whereas most hotels have a simple clock/radio from the earlier nineties (i don't thin the venetian was even that different), here i have a clock/radio with an ipod dock, playing new age spa sounds (or the main menu music on a wii) when i came to my room.   and the downstairs lounge served excellent fish and chips.

forget barcelona; i want to stay here for a week.

life is like a hurricane

last year was full of "bumper crops", to borrow from joseph musical interpretation of the pharaoh's dream. and, like an egyptian dream, this year has been dry. not just for me, but for everyone. i've turned down a couple of features, one for moral reasons, the other due to academic obligations. and that's actually become a blessing.

a commercial company in salt lake that has been giving me most of my work in the past few months (i'm one of the lucky ones who is working right now) asked me to come onto their feature, but i had to decline, as i was busy learning to make three-dimensional cubes at byu (more on that in the days to come). being that those guys are busy on making a movie, they've started passing some of their commercial work on to me. i've been to las vegas, shooting some friendly verizon execs and discovering a fantastic sushi place, and just a few days ago directed for the first time. granted, it was a continuing the previous day's work on a provo craft infomercial, but that was me in the chair calling "cut" and "action" (and i quite enjoyed it).

a few weeks ago i got a call to go to nauvoo for a weekend. three days with a good guy and good pay and i wouldn't miss any school- cool. then i got a call from fifty films, the guys in salt lake, asking if i was available to shoot and direct a seven-city, two-week commercial. i'd miss the last two weeks of school, i'd have to cancel on my friend for the nauvoo trip, but this was too good to pass up.

so i made it all work. then, a few days before we were supposed to leave, the ad agency pushed the trip back a week. i called to see if they had a replacement for nauvoo; they did.

then, two days before nauvoo, they called to see if i could still go. cool.

nauvoo was beautiful, especially driving through the midwest farm lands as the sun was setting, seeing streaks of light beside the road. ...fireflies. : )

and now i'm working on sorting everything out in scheduling this two-week verisign project. it's a shift i'm responsibilities, but it's a lot of fun, too. so i've got that going for me, which is good.

and my flair for writing has atrophied, too.... that's my own darn fault.

bohemian requiem

i've written before about my funeral, but today i heard queen's "bohemian rhapsody" on the radio and thought it would be a great song to request for my deathday party.

too late, my time has come,

sends shivers down my spine
body's aching all the time,
goodbye everybody, i've got to go
gotta leave you all behind and face the truth-
mama ooo- (any way the wind blows)
i don't want to die,
i sometimes wish i'd never been born at all-

no, i don't mean to be morose; as i was listening to the song, i realized how sad and tragic the lyrics were (i've never analyzed the song or pondered what it's about; maybe there's some other meaning), and it seemed such a poor choice for a funeral that i found it interesting, especially contrasting with the second half of the song.

i imagine a slideshow of dramatic pictures with cross-dissolves.  then, when the much more fun and popular part of the songs starts, the show lets loose with all the pictures of me being the jeff i'd like everyone to remember.  headbanging is optional.

so, if anyone's taking notes...  : )

landmark moments

lds missionaries serve for two years (the guys do; the girls are out for 18 months).  at first, it can seem like a daunting time, then it's soon been a whole year.  about three months from the end, you get your "trunky papers", the plans on getting home.  it can be a sobering time, realizing that this singular and defining era is fast drawing to a definite close.

i was homesick for the first part of my time in japan, and so allowed myself little time to seriously consider returning home (i took the requisite "surprised" photo with said papers when they came).  i'd heard the idea of reading all 138 sections of the doctrine and covenants in reverse order when you had 138 days remaining, and so counted out the days so that i could read the whole book in the remaining time, but, apart from that, i did not look to the finish line but continued to keep the pace.

soon i could no longer count months, but weeks.  and, soon, it was only days.  on the very last night before my time was over and i would return to the mission home in kobe, my companion and i biked down to the shotengai, a sort of covered outdoor mall, going out to do the most basic and iconic missionary work, out talking with people on the streets; one last time.

i would have loved to find that one "golden" person that night.  to give away a book of mormon to someone who, i would found out in a letter a few months later, read it and joined the church.  but the truth is, no one would talk to us.  we were out there for a few hours, talking with whomever would stop, asking them what they knew about the meaning of Christmas (it was just a week before the holiday)' telling them we had a message that would change their life if they would give us only five minutes; working just as we had worked every other day.

and nothing.

no books.  no numbers.  nothing.

sure, it would have been cool find someone on the very last night of my two years (and another missionary from my group did have such an experience), but it didn't bother me.  i realized that my mission was not based upon the success of my last night.  that the meaning of all the work that i did was not contingent upon that one day, but, rather, every day that i had worked.  the sweetest and best and most memorable did not necessarily come on notable days; i don't think my 6-month, one-year, or 18-month days were inherently better than other days.  instead of forcing the fun and favorite memories to come at pre-arranged times, i had a library of experiences that had happened when they happened.

and so it is with posts, too.  i'll look back over the year and see which ones rose to be the best, likely growing from the occasion, rather than being forced into greatness.

like the young boy, russell, comments in up when speaking of the few times he has had with his father, "i guess it's the regular stuff i remember best."

thanks for reading my first 400 postings.

profundity

i haven't taken much time to write lately.  i've wanted to share my joy of my computer graphics class (which is where i've been spending as much of my free time as possible) and to launch a secondary blog (inspired by my boredom during monsters vs. aliens), but i haven't had that fire inside that compels one to write (that compels me, anyway).

i was about out the door (to the beloved byu labs) when i took a moment to read em's latest post, a moment of insight from her busy life.

i loved it.

if you have a moment, i'd like to recommend it.

blogger tells me this is my 399th published post; what do i do for number 400?

the biggest ball of twine in minnesota

we took a fair amount of family car trips when i was younger.  at least, it seems like we did.  apart from the annual trek down to grandma's for either thanksgiving or Christmas, the only other notable car trip i can remember at the moment is the drive out to washington state for a family reunion.  but, heck, i have trouble remembering my college years sometimes.   wait, that makes it sound like i was a drunken frat boy; let me rephrase that: i have a hard time separating college memories.  which may be due to all the apple beer we drank....

wherever those car trip memories come from, attached to them are a pile of cassette tapes.  because i was a bit older, i sat up front with my dad, while mom usually stayed in the back with becky and tim (they got very good at playing travel guess who?, and would do two or three people at once; that always impressed me).  i also seem to remember me usually choosing the music.  whether this is due to: a. me being the oldest, b. me being up front, or c. me having a poor memory of this whole era in general, i know not.  all the same, when i wasn't consumed with final fantasy legend 2 on my gameboy, we cycled through a trusty collection of tapes.  the three that come to mind at the moment are the ghostbusters 2 soundtrack, an oldies rock 'n' roll compilation with a neon jukebox on the cover, and my dubbed copy of the uhf soundtrack.  as i type that, i already want to call my mother and commend her for her job-like patience in hearing the same inane-songs again and again across much of the western united states (a similar scenario occurred when they drove me out to the mtc years later, only this time it was the CATS soundtrack with which my father and i were obsessed).

while the uhf soundtrack was, as the title suggests, the accompanying music to "weird" al's under-appreciated  masterwork, it also contained a handful of songs not in the movie.  these songs, like all of his oeuvre, are novelties, genius to anyone under fourteen, mildly amusing the first time to everyone else.  this includes parodies like "spam" (before i had ever heard "stand" or even heard of r.e.m.) and original gems like "attack of the radioactive hamsters from a planet near mars."  the last song on side two was "the biggest ball of twine in minnesota", a ballad wherein al and his family use their annual family trip to visit the eponymous string ball.

today i was playing mah-jong when my phone rang.

"jeffrey, guess where i am!"

now, my sister and i call each other when we're on top of mountains; it's just what you do.

dad wasn't as easy to guess, although my first two guesses were logical, considering the circumstances.  i'm sure there are so some father-son teams out there who would call when one of them is being welcomed at buckingham palace, waiting to be seated at a fine restaurant in paris, or just leaving a meeting with the board of trustees at harvard.  and i'm sure that's wonderful.

i first suspected texas, in reference to pee-wee herman proving he's on the phone in texas in pee-wee's big adventure (yes, nearly all of the in-jokes with my illustrious father are rooted in campy 80's movies).  in fact, it was my plan to call him and then actually holler, "the stars at night are big and bright!" when i was in texas for allison's wedding last summer, but completely forgot.

my second guess was that he was at the alamo (again, pee-wee).

"i'll give you a guess," said my dad.  "'weird' al."

and then i knew it: 

my dad was at the biggest ball of twine in minnesota.  

it was probably the coolest thing of the whole week, and today was only sunday.  i told him to take a picture, even if he only had his cell phone camera.  i don't think he'd ever used it before (his finger's in part of the shot) but it would be a tragedy not to have a memory of the occasion.  

according to wikipedia, it is 13 feet in diameter, weighs 17,400 lbs., and is the largest ball built by one person (a man who wrapped for four hours a day for 23 weeks).

seriously cool.

and that's when i knew...

i think it was when natalie wished jack a "happy restoration of the aaronic priesthood" that i knew she was the right girl for him.  

i'm pretty sure he already knew it.

for the love of the game

jack and i are getting better, i'm loving it more, and real tennis is a heck of a lot more fun than wii tennis.

it's also awesome to hear "what's the frequency, kenneth?" on the radio.

we close our eyes

at heart, i'm a hopeless romantic. i've never had that professionally diagnosed, but i'm pretty sure i know myself. but, lately, i've wondered if that romantic really is starting to lose hope: i skip past "the luckiest" when it comes on my playlist; i no longer look wistfully at my sleepless in seattle dvd in hopes of having someone to watch it with.
what happened to me?

tonight i was asked why i loved wall-e so much and i had to think about that for a moment. anyone who's been around me in the past nine months has heard my rantings of it being the greatest thing since blah blah blah, but i had to really think for a moment why, at the heart of it all, did i love it.

artistry, beauty, and humor aside, at the core of it is a love story that i love.  a tractor and an ipod fall in love, and that's told in a way that makes it universal. when wall-e first sees eve power on, when she flies around with such grace and beauty, when his eyes focus on the most sublime thing he has ever seen, that is when i fall in love with the movie, and that is why i love the movie.

coming home from dropping off my date this evening, i was thinking about that scene, and thought of my other similarly potent scene, the "ruby tuesday" scene in the royal tenenbaums. i just melt.
i'm still a sentimental guy, and that's a comfort.

i turned up the volume to the point of the speakers starting to fuzz and sang ben folds' "landed" with all my heart as i drove past years of memories on ninth east.

the greater good

i've really enjoyed my "intro to animation" class.  i feel a bit out of my league, as some of these kids can name off animators like i can list cinematographers, and i'm not really in love with all animation.  granted, i got a looney toons dvd set for Christmas and love them as much as i loved watching them on saturday mornings, but they never really inspired me to make a career choice.  but it's been fun, even with just two days of class, to learn different rules of animation.  i love sitting at the light table, with my stacks of paper all lined up, drawing a bouncing ball.  we also have to keep a weekly sketchbook, a responsibility i like largely because i'm so fascinated with others' sketchings and want to make mine look like theirs.  two hours at the bean museum after the first day of class left me with little more than determination to stick with it in the hopes of getting better.

i hung out at the mall one night, trying to draw people without freaking them out, hoping to master the art of staying out of "stalker distance" without being so far away that it was impractical to draw people.  kristin gave me some good tips on how to get away with everything (i'm openly envious of her sketchbook), but plans to spend saturday the mall were altered and i went to the byu library, instead.

three of our week's sketchbook pages had to come from some figure drawing handouts.  as i began reading about the different muscles of the chest, i soon felt inadequate to even pick up my pencils.  i knew enough of how complex the human body was to know i didn't know much, and, the more i learned, the more i felt like i shouldn't be drawing yet.  if i had the time, i would definitely take an anatomy class; i like to know every muscle, instead of just drawing what i think should there.

that's not really an option on a saturday night, although i did learn some about the muscles of the chest and back, and worked very hard to make my drawings as accurate as i could.  and, after six hours, i had three pages i was proud of.

now, six hours for three pages is more than usual.  most of the work is just sketching, which can go much quicker.  and i had fun animating my bouncing ball the night before.  but next i had to animate a flour sack as well as keep up with the drawings.  and i could probably balance this with my computer graphics class.

but i'm only here for seven weeks, and we're already into the second week.  time feels so very short, and the computer class is the number one reason why i'm here, and i committed to invest as much into it as i could.

i thought about it on saturday, thought about it on sunday, and, after my computer class today, knew it was the right choice.  i dropped "intro to animation."  it was for the greater good.

sadly, my animation and sketches won't get graded, which is sad, because i would have liked my teacher's feedback.

instead, i'll show them to you.

interestingly, that blue pencil is, technically, "no-photo blue"....  yeah.

the ball is only 3 seconds long.


i made the right choice: my computer class is pretty much the coolest thing ever. i spent some time in the lab tonight and it already pains me that i'll be out of there in only six weeks. so i'm going to get every bit out of it while i can.

back 2 school

yes, after four years and a bit, i'm back with a byu student id.  it's pretty awesome, really.  when i learned that the 3-D animation world really likes (and needs) nice guys with a real-world understanding of cameras and lenses, i looked around and found that i could come back to byu for the spring.  i signed up for a 3-D computer graphics class, then, deciding that, as long as i'm here i may as well learn as much as i can, signed up for "intro to animation" as well.

i was excited for my first day of school and wore my best clothes: my new vest, nicest jeans, and favorite shoes.

it's a bit of a shift, getting back into the mindset of going to class and doing homework, as well as being a little detached from the student world, as i'll only be here for seven weeks. but i do love the academic environment. i love the light tables we draw on in my animation class, the fact that my teacher worked on "the little mermaid", "beauty and the beast" and "aladdin", and that the computer graphics classroom/theater is decorated with all sorts of amazing designs, storyboards, and concept drawings.

special thanks to kristin for being the right person at the right place at the right time to take my "first day of school pictures."

one-liners

joel posted a list of movie plots boiled down into one-sentence summaries.  they were fun and clever and, at the bottom, he asked for any other suggestions.  my list kept growing so much that i decided to make it into my own posting.

2001: a space odyssey- space program doesn't run mac osx, has to reboot.

about a boy- socially-awkward youth is surrounded by poor role models.

adaptation- repulsive man doesn't finish book assignment.

aladdin- upper-class girl conned by street thug.

amelie- reclusive introvert stalks numerous parisians.

apocalypse now- boat travels through southeast asia; crew meets interesting people.

babel- everyone in the world is sad.

back to the future- anachronous teen steels car, almost destroy space-time, kisses mother.

casablanca- man commits theft, adultery, homicide, befriends police captain.

citizen kane- successful newspaper man loses toy.

close encounters of the third kind- delusional man deserts family, runs to wilderness with single mother.

crash- l.a. is full of racists.

the deer hunter- veteran doesn't want to play game with friend.

the departed- irish men achieve goals through lying, violence; woman perplexed.

doubt- paranoid nun ruins everyone's life.

dumb and dumber- devoted romantic travels cross country to return briefcase.

eternal sunshine of the spotless mind- doctor helps lonely man overcome heartache.

fight club- successful soap company expands interests.

the godfather- old man believes in family, instills values in children.

gone with the wind- high-maintenance girl stops being hungry, man doesn't care.

goodfellas- after thirty years, man leaves friends, attempts career change.

hero- terrorist lies to head of state, is subdued.

kill bill- stubborn woman refuses to forgive friends.

the last emperor- richest kid in the world isn't content.

lean on me- principal abuses students; parents outraged, students happy.

the lion, the witch, and the wardrobe- little girl not afraid of predators.

little miss sunshine- drug-addicted grandfather teaches little girl dance, makes family happy.

the matrix- internet geek uses cheat code in video game.

mr. smith goes to washington- overzealous visitor disrupts congress.

the muppets Christmas carol- lonely british man talks to puppets.

mystery science theater 3000: the movie- aimless man and associates make fun of others.

newsies- street gang attacks local business.

the nightmare before Christmas- foreign celebrity commits kidnapping, identity theft.

ocean's twelve- director promises entertaining sequel, audiences realize they're the ones being robbed.

pulp fiction- stolen briefcase is safely returned, clothing soiled.

punch-drunk love- romantic businessman visits hawaii, doesn't tell sister.

the rocky horror picture show- lost couple makes new friends, learns to dance, tries on new clothes.

the seventh seal- melancholy man plays chess, makes new friend.

shrek 2- fat man intimidated by rich parents, attractive younger man; donkey intimidated by adopted cat.

singin' in the rain- woman is ostracized by friends because she talks differently.

sunrise- man attempts to kill wife, finds marital bliss.

the terminal- confused immigrant accosted by airport official.

there will be blood- oil tycoon attends church.

this is spinal tap- reporter and musician have miscommunication about amplifier.

transformers- import vehicles difficult to control.

uhf- innovative young man runs successful tv station.

up- elderly man kidnaps boy scout, flees country.

x-files: i want to believe- paranoid man disrupts medical research.

keep talking

for millions of years, mankind lived just like the animals. then, something happened which unleashed the power of our imaginations and we learned to talk.

-stephen hawking

i'm comfortable with silences.  like mia wallace, i don't feel the need to continually fill the air with words; it's a special friends with whom you can just sit and be quiet.

but silence does make a lot of people uncomfortable, and i suppose it's good to not let that happen too often in most circumstances.

i am a believer in conversation in life, though.  talking is what keeps the air from going stale in a house, a car ride, an evening out.  not necessarily philosophical musings on existentialism, nor one-word answers lobbed from behind a wall, but simple and honest talking.  it's healthy to a relationship of any kind.  it feels good to talk with someone, and it's not always easy.   but i'm surprised at the differences in environment when words flow back and forth freely.  and i don't exclusively mean telling your innermost thoughts, hopes, and dreams, although i think i once did.

sharing who you are, what you're up to, what you're thinking about.  like flowing water, conversant talking helps our relationship stay fresh and clear.  it keeps us from becoming weird.

i'm not the best at this.  i partially credit my scandinavian heritage for part of it, but also an effort to be a better lister (as opposed to "waiting to talk") and, as a result, preferring to listen to others.  to quote sydney greenstreet in the maltese falcon, "i'm a man who likes talking to a man who likes to talk!"

and then there are times when i won't shut up....

all we need to do is make sure we keep talking.