welcome to paradise

i've been in texas for six months now.
i hadn't really been counting the days and months, but a week or two ago i noticed that it was february, my half-birthday month, and that kind of tipped me off that my six-month anniversary for living in the lone star state was probably around.

like a lot of major life changes, it's a mixture of it not seeming real at all and feeling strangely normal.  naturally, most days i don't even think about it.  one day many years ago in japan, my companion noticed the "orient hotel" and then reminded himself that he was in the orient.  same sort of thing here.  i'm in texas.  idaho and wyoming and las vegas are no longer nearby.  but things like louisiana, arkansas, and hurricanes are relatively close to me now (when you live in central texas, anything other than "more texas" is a substantial distance away.)

six months.  i've got my apartment mostly unpacked and looking like my home, finagled my way into teaching sunday school, and am getting back into the habit of being a good hometeacher again.  i've got a friend to geek out about movies with, have hosted some good rock band nights, and my movie library continues to grow.  i've got a group i eat dinner with on sundays, friends to do things with on friday nights, and i've been on some dates.  i've interviewed with pixar, gotten somewhat used to the humidity here, and still don't say "y'all."  i've written numerous blog posts that i'm proud of, been to the houston temple five times (i think), and managed to find opportunities to design real lighting for photography and other performances.

in short, i'm still me.
and hopefully a little better.

text results: hooray for sisters

my phone was starting to move slowly and i'm blaming the approximately four thousand text messages i had accumulated on there over the last five weeks.
breaking it down, it looks like this:

1. jaime 898
2. jess 537
3. kristin 413
4. joel 316
5. mark 196 (cool, didn't know if i'd ever see you in the rankings again...)

yes, it is oscar season, so joel and i should have plenty to talk about.  and we do, but me and my favorite pair of redheaded sisters always have things to muse about as well.  i love you girls so dang much.

in the "actual phone time" category, sariah is dominating without any hope of being caught.

lastly, as my sister likely saw the post title and thought that it was referring to her in some way (the phrase usually does), i would like to note that she texted me three times.

moon.

my dream house

"last night, i dreamt i went to manderley again."

there's house that keeps coming up in my dreams.  as best as i can tell, it's been in at least three different dreams i've had in the past couple of weeks (months?)  essentially, it's an amalgam of manderley, the house from hitchcock's film rebecca, one of my childhood friends' house, and the remaining memories i have of my grandma's farm house.  it's huge, it's very old, and it's completely rotten.  plaster seems to be flaking off of everything.

the house is vast.  narrow spiral staircases lead to vast ballrooms where extravagant parties must have been held a century ago and it seems it hasn't been touched since.  sometimes white sheets cover all of the chairs, tables, and bars.  there are other rooms that i don't know what they were for, but they're similar: large and grand and seemingly so old that they would fall apart if you touched anything.
it's very possible that this house is haunted.  i don't know, i've never seen a ghost there.  but that doesn't really scare me, either.  ghosts belong in a house like this.

whatever the case, it keeps appearing in my dreams and it's always a fascinating visit.

the return of the king of pop

in the viz lab is a fridge.  two, actually, but i've never looked in the smaller one, so i can't comment on it.  there are also two microwaves, but this post will make no further mention of them, either.
the fridge is used to store things: food, mostly leftovers from grad students' attempts at saving money by bringing their own lunch or mid-day excursions to freebird's burritos or that gumbo shack.  sometimes there's photo paper in there, too, but it mostly functions as a normal fridge.

during the hot (blazingly hot) fall days of 2010, i thought i had heard or read somewhere on the department website that there were cans of pop available in there for a reasonable 50¢.  but on the few times that i would nervous venture over there to see if i could get something to drink other than the sulfurous a&m water, there would be nothing of the sort in there and i would have to try and think of some reason why i had open the fridge door so that the second years wouldn't wonder why this new kid seemed to have an impulse to open fridge doors.

soon my semester became consumed with animating a little kid and his teddy bear (i still owe you that post, i realized) and the drink fridge's mysteriously absent drinks became less of a concern in my mind.
one day as i was looking in the totally wrong spot on the department wiki for course descriptions in preparation for registration (not that it mattered, since i didn't choose my schedule until sometime in mid-january) i came across a history of the drink fridge.

it began in 2006, maintained by the drink pope.  soon the responsibility was bequeathed upon christine, who did not assume a moniker.  her reign was subsequently followed by a drink gopher, a period of privatization, then a cdo (chief drink officer), and a drink commander-in-chief.
after that, the trail went cold and the fridge had deteriorated into the wasteland of nasty old tupperware containers.

something had to be done and in times of anarchy, a king will inevitably rise to bring order to the chaos and light our darkest hour.  the most recent entry on the drink history speaks of rumors circulating about jeff gustafson rising as the new king of pop.

a few weeks ago i grabbed a friend and, after fhe, met up with him and bought a whole trunk full of pop.  in utah, diet coke and mountain dew would have been the staples.  texas, however, is dr pepper country. still, i grabbed a whole variety and stocked that fridge to the brim.  i then sent out a department email proclaiming my self-coronation and the new world order that was now in effect.
the next morning, i was a hero. (which is good, because a few days later i suggested that the weekly department party be non-alcholic for a night and was nearly lynched.)

i've learned that dr pepper is a pretty popular choice, diet dr pepper isn't as popular as i'd been told, ginger ale was surprisingly popular, and coke and it's associated variants (vanilla coke and cherry coke) are extremely popular.
i'm thinking of grabbing a few boxes of candy bars at sam's club and slapping a 50¢ tag on them, too, because the lab needs chocolate, dang it.
in short, that's the news from the viz lab.
now, back to programming....

(i got on ebay and bought myself a white sequined glove, too)

my box

this is my finished assignment for my digital compositing class.

as a photography assignment, it's pretty lame.  but as you may have noticed, one of those boxes wasn't initially there.  and for a guy who feels pretty lost in photoshop, i'm quite proud of myself that it looks pretty convincing, at least on a first glance.

our first assignment was about matching perspective.  at points, this involved my turkish teacher drawing what looked like humpty-dumpty with a mohawk and antennae on the white board, but i think i got the idea. the most common way to tackle the assignment was to draw a box into a scene with some existing boxes.  not the most amazing cg ever done, but we're babystepping here.

great, i can take pictures pretty well.
from there, determine where the horizon is by drawing lines that diminish into the distance.  this is a main reason why boxes are great to work with: nice clean angles. (obviously, my line went way the heck out there, but i cropped it so it's easier to see)

once you have the horizon line established, you can plot where another box would go.
i'm actually a little fuzzy on the science of it all, but i got it close enough that i think it works (mostly).

with the grid lines in place, color in the box.  i was able to get good color variations according to the lighting conditions without too much work and i was pretty proud of myself.

what i wasn't as proud of was that this took me a couple of hours and pretty much exhausted my photoshop knowledge.  i spent the next few hours of my saturday in frustration trying to use the tools that i had seen better artists teach me this summer and had no luck whatsoever.

as such, this was the embarrassment that i handed in on monday morning, hoping that my teacher wouldn't keep my image up on the board for more than a few seconds.
thankfully, he said that we had until the evening to get out assignments in.  i grabbed a friend and asked for a photoshop crash course per what i had to do right then and there.  the next two hours were actually quite enjoyable as i did what would take a competent person about twenty minutes or less.  but i really like learning photoshop and felt pretty awesome by the end.  (i actually found myself pulling up the image a couple of times later that night, just so i could bask in the glow of my work again.)

here's the scene with some diffused shadow and contact shadow, although i'm still not happy with it.  but if you can't see why, i'm not going to tell you.  i also added some "noise" to my fake box, to make it look more like it belongs in the digital photograph.

like most things, it's the details that make it: some tape on the box, a little bit of dirt and wear (maybe a little too much?), smudge the edges of the box just a bit so it doesn't look too crisp, add a barcode and a label from my favorite company and that's pretty much it.

i really had no idea i was capable of doing that.  i feel pretty cool.

and i want to try more. 

at the library

most of my text conversations with the former 786 are about movies.  things used to be different.  he used to just be called 786 and we'd talk about movies in person.

joel was a library security guard at the byu library and when i wasn't on a project, i would often go there to read or do scripture study, just to get out of the house.  and on days when he was working the front desk, i would inevitably stop and talk with him for... sometimes an hour or so.

five years ago today i was doing just that when from the office behind him came a nice-looking girl in a white shirt with a red ribbon in her hair, as a subtle observance of valentine's day.  she cheerfully came up and quipped with us for a few minutes.  she was smart and witty and i liked her, so i introduced myself.  she laughed with us a little longer then excused herself to head down to the special collections area on the first floor to practice her dancing.

i watched her leave then turned to joel.  i'm not one to just meet a girl and want to start dating her.  generally i like to know girl for a while before i get into something.  but she seemed pretty cool.

"can you give me her phone number?" i asked.

this was how i met the great laurie jayne.

a day or two later, i called her.  she was impressed that i was just leaving a photo shoot (never mind that they were little league shots....)  i was impressed that she was a jazz singer.  we talked on the phone again the next night.  she had a strange fascination with the beatles' "maxwell's silver hammer."  later, i bewilderedly told my sister, "i think i may have met a girl."  

i later found out that, on the day that i met her, she also went back to joel and asked him about me as well.  in an awesomely playful act that would make amelie poulian proud, she blogged a short post entitled, "this one's for you, jeff", waiting for me to find her, then anonymously began posting comments on my blog.  i thought it was awesome.

being ever so literate, she took me to my first jane austen movie at the international cinema.  we started dating.  it turned out that i knew her brother.  her family was cool.  i bought her calvin and hobbes books when she was sick.  she thought i was awesome.  she was bold and brash.  i freaked out because i thought she saw more awesomeness in me than there was.  we kind of broke up.  i tried to talk my fears out with my sister and gave laurie another chance.  then, through a mistaken text that said more than i'd originally intended, we broke up.  it was march 14.  we had known each other for all of one month.

we never had time to get serious, but i surprisingly found myself missing her.

there's a jewel-encrusted coke
can coming up on my left...

for the most part, our lives went their separate ways for a while.  i don't remember how long it was, but many months (a year?) later, we started talking again.  she had recently broken up with a guy that she really, really liked and so we talked some.  i made her a cd.  we went to general conference together.  walking back to my car, we started an impromptu tap dance (until something else caught my eye.)

in an effort for each of us to move on from past relationships, she and i decided to have a burning.  it was beautiful and cathartic and she played her ukelele afterwards.  that summer, she did an internship in new york city, working for a newspaper there.  i made her some mixed cds for her trip then sent her customer evaluation forms regarding them.  while she was away, we occasionally wrote and mailed real letters to each other.
she graduated from byu and moved to arizona, working as the county p.r. person or something.  she was pretty official, at any rate.  she would occasionally come back to provo to visit her multitude of friends and mark and i took her out shooting.
possibly the greatest contribution she gave to my life was that she introduced me to tally hall.  if not for her, none of you would know tally hall.
blessed.

with my sister now married, laurie became my friend that i talked to.  becky got married on a friday.  my best friend jack got married the next day.  as i was waiting for his reception to start, i was feeling very much alone and so called laurie.  she was invaluable.  and she would tell me her adventures of life in a little rural town in arizona.  in the spring of 2008 she told me about a date she went on with a guy who was nice enough but she wasn't really interested, yet he asked her out on a second date.

i think that the next time i talked with her was a few months later, when i figured i would call to congratulate her on her engagement.  her head was so high in the clouds i could hardly call it a conversation.

i don't think i've seen laurie since she's been married, but she's sent me a couple of sublime mixed cds and we've still kept in touch through this wonderful blogging thing.  and we've even written an email to each other now and then.

i've sometimes thought about this odd transiency of friendships, how someone can be such a good friend and yet as the tides of time ebb and flow, some will seem leave our life relatively quickly, without much fanfare or even pain.  so it goes.  but we get to cross paths with some seriously dang people along the way.
this one's for you, laurie.

post number 545

i really don't have much to say this evening.  uncharacteristically, there's really not a lot on my mind and the few things that are i'm not giving much thought to anyway.
it was a busy week with school which is why i didn't post anything.  i attempted to model chloe o'brien for my facial animation class then, around midnight, quipped that she was kind of looking like lord voldemort and realized that if i chose to make the dark lord, i wouldn't have to sculpt a nose.  so i did.  i went to institute and ended up sharing a chair with someone, killed a cockroach in my apartment, and found the pile of Christmas cards i got this year that i had forgotten to open until last night.  i miraculously cleaned off my desk, realized that i could listen to "this american life" on my walks from the rec center to the viz lab (blessed be that podcast...), and had dinner at the cool kids' house tonight.  friday i was so stressed out with a myriad of things that i just left the lab and went out to the middle of a field and photosynthesized for about an hour.  i got some fuzzies and spent some quality time on the phone listening a few nights this week and yesterday pulled out my wacom bamboo.  i am trying to figure how to discipline myself to be spending more time at school and to make that time more effective, because there are moments where i'm wondering if a&m should have stuck to their first choice.  and i had an excuse to wear my red fedora.
in the end, it's just a post.  they can't all be rock stars.

on being quick to observe

a few weeks ago i was in the lab reading a paper on facial parametrics and listening to nine inch nails.  and i was thinking about that.  not about facial parametrics; those are essential a superconcept of blend shapes.  i was thinking about how i was listening to nine inch nails.

for those of you who aren't familiar with them, i associate their/his music with harsh industrial sounds, dark heavy beats, and intense and often harsh and angry lyrics.  it's possible that tim would argue against that, but that's the connotation i have of them.  and i think it's safe to suggest that that is the general conception that comes when you say you're listening to nine inch nails.

the thing is, that wasn't at all what i was listening to.  i wouldn't buy any of those albums.  what i was listening to was ghosts I-IV, an album of instrumental and ambient music that would probably be passable as good sunday music.

but that had me thinking: are there other things in my life that would give a false representation of who i am if known only in part?  yeah, a lot, actually.  showing random interests on my profile, facebook noted that i like "a clockwork orange" and showed a picture of the movie poster.  the fact is that i enjoy the book and have no desire or interest in anyway of watching the movie.  i love the beastie boys; anyone who's been around me in the past year has picked up on that.  but i don't like vulgarities and so i got into them when i realized that amazon also sold their cds in "clean" versions.  and, perhaps most notably, a glance at my movie collection will reveal a wide variety of movies, including some rough ones like watchmen, the wrestler, or babel.  but i have those either in edited dvds or i watch them through my clearplay.  i don't watch R-rated movies and i'm somewhat selective about which pg-13 movies i'll go to as well.

it also got me thinking: are there other things about me and who i am that people falsely think or presume because of making their decision based on incomplete data?  probably.  and that's unfortunate, but i can only do what i can to present myself as honestly as i am.  oddly, i suppose that sometimes honesty can be misinterpreted if people don't think you're being honest, but that's more philosophical than i feel like getting right now.
one of the themes of solaris (either version) is that the people we know are really only what we know about them.  if i am greater or less than what someone knows about me, that is beside the point; "me" to them is solely the compilation of whatever they've gathered about me.  hopefully it's at least partially right.

this could become a post about being careful how we present ourselves, but my thinking caused me to look at it in the other direction: how am i judging the people i meet?

we're quick to say "don't judge" and that is good advice, but whether we saying "judging" or "evaluating" or "forming opinions", we are constantly revising our understanding of who people are as we learn more about them.  that's ok, natural, and necessary.  we cannot know how to interact with a person unless we know things about them, and we will respond to people based on their experiences and personalities.  which is why the revision "judge not unrighteously" is the better way to aim for.
and just as i would want someone to get to know me a little more than just what's on my ipod or my dvd shelves, it's caused to think a bit more as i'm getting to know people around here.

i think this post came out a little "heavier" than i had intended, but what the heck.

the old man and the c

i had the idea to write in my journal as a "jeff on jeff" interview and i think i'm going to do that here, too.

jeff: how is your c programming class coming this year?

jeff: i just handed in my first assignment tonight.

jeff: and?

jeff: and it's about the same as last year: this stuff seems to slide right off me.  nothing seems to stick.  i was usually really good in school and remember seeing other kids in class who just didn't get it.  that's me, now.

jeff: you're the idiot?

jeff: i'm the kid who trying really hard and just not getting it.  like bart simpson in the season premiere of the second season, when he tries really, really hard to pass his test and he still fails.

jeff: (idiot...)

jeff: jerk.

jeff: i know you are but what am i?

jeff: either juvenile or existential.

jeff: cute. anyway, what's the problem with the class?

jeff: i don't know.  like i said, i sit there every class, trying to follow what's going on and it's like the class is in a different language.

jeff: i suppose that, technically, it is a different language...

jeff: yeah, it's occurred to me to pray for the gift of tongues....  what surprises me is how many other people seem to get it.  naturally i'm sure there are some other kids who are confused, too, but a surprising number seem to follow all this mess about structs and pointers and malloc and arrays.

jeff: sounds like you know something.

jeff: i'd hardly call that "knowing something."  i've got some good friends who are very patient and helpful with me, but it's increasingly embarrassing/frustrating when they'll guide me along and then ask, "what would you do next?" and i stare completely blank, not having the foggiest clue as to what comes next.  literally, not an inkling.  they don't give me then answers, and i appreciate that, because i don't want to just pass the class, i want to actually understand this stuff.  it's a 200-level undergrad class for crying out loud....

jeff: dang.  so, what are you doing?  you passed the class last semester, right?

jeff: yeah, and i actually got a better grade than i think i deserved.  i mean, according to the breakdown of the grading scale i earned it, but i don't feel like i know as much as my grade shows.  the teacher was very helpful with me, taking time to meet with me outside of class, but i'm trying this semester to be much more up on everything.  hasn't really worked yet, and it looks like it's only uphill from here.
the flip side to it is that, on those few moments when i do understand how a function works, it's actually really cool.  kind of exciting, actually, like cracking a math problem.

jeff: in a way, it's exactly like cracking a math problem....

jeff: you know, you really aren't any better at this than i am.

jeff: granted.  so, what else is on your mind?

jeff: tons.  but do you mind if we talk somewhere else?

jeff: oh. sure.

what i've been listeing to lately

first, let me say that today i swam the whole length of the pool underwater.  : D
yes, thank you.  i cheered when i surfaced.

a slice of what's hot on my ipod these days:

• broken bells by broken bells
• the king is dead by the decembrists
• volume one by she + him
• the social network soundtrack by trent reznor and atticus ross
• random album title by deadmou5
• the bends by radiohead
• the hazards of love by the decembrists
• computer world by kraftwerk
• the odd couple by gnarls barkley
• volume two by she + him
• 31 fuzzies by kristinco

at the moment, i can't get enough of the social network soundtrack.

eet

yesterday in swimming we practiced underwater swimming.


on my first go, when i just went for it, i got much further than i expected.  almost three quarters the length of the pool.  it was kind of exhilarating and i wanted to try it again, now that i knew what i could do.

once we had all done it once, our teacher then told us to try it again, but this time to take three deep breaths then go for it on the forth.  so i did.  and i was thinking more about my breathing and how much air i had that i barely made it halfway.

"it's all mental," said the marine cadet that i was sharing the lane with.

on my third time, i was determined to do it.  to go all the way.  to focus on looking ahead and just go.  i dove deep.  i thought about my breathing.  was it better to hold my air in my mouth or deeper?  did that make a difference?  what if i swallowed my air?  was that even possible?  i panicked, exhaled a massive amount of air and found myself barely halfway again.

i was quite disappointed with myself.

as i write this, i'm in the lab, drinking homemade hot chocolate and listening to "dog days are over."

five

on my first day of high school i was walking down the hall, looking for my geometry class.  according to my printed schedule, it was in room 203, yet at the end of the hall where the room should have been was room 205.  the sign above the door said "euclidian geometry", further adding to my confusion, as i was just looking for regular geometry.  after rechecking everything a few times over, i decided to take the risk and go into the room.

the room number had been changed to "205" because the teacher, mr. lahlum, had noticed that five appeared quite often in geometry: there were five big theorems, five basic shapes, five ways to prove parallel lines were equal, and so on; enough to fill up both sides of a blue piece of paper, anyway.
and so five became the magic number.  when the local grocery store had "cookie day" and sold chocolate chip cookies for a nickel each, mr. lahlum would buy a large bag and go around the room, asking what your favorite number was.  if you said, "five," you got a cookie.  simple as that.  we even learned how to say it right: you had to put a little flair into it, so that it became "fiiive", as if you were talking to the fonze.  naturally, may fifth (5/5) was a huge party day and the officially-degreed unofficial birthday of euclid, the father of modern geometry.  it was so engrained into us that we took notice whenever we would hear the word "five."

not surprising then, when i noticed that my blog was turning fiiive.

five years ago tonight i posted my first blog post.

well, kind of.  i was really nervous about starting this whole thing and so waited until i had five posts written before i went public with them and actually sent out an email announcing to people that i had a blog up.  it just seemed kind of lame to share your blog with only one post up; like opening a store but having nothing on the shelves except a jar of peanut butter.

i was nervous, too, because i didn't know what to write.  i was inspired by emily, who was writing a blog detailing the adventures of her life at a crazy taiwan-owned company while balancing pregnancy and a husband about to go to dental school and asking for peoples' teeth.  i was a camera assistant, trying to figure out where my life was going and a lot of my posts were just ramblings and randomness, and i soon found that there were people writing that but doing a much better job of it.  ; )

dang.  five years.  that's half a decade.  i like what this has become.  i don't know if i could describe it in any particular way that would distinguish it from any of the other two billion blogs out there except to say that it's mine.  i've gotten better at formulating ideas and paring them down to what they need to be and i've said it before: if i wasn't a writer i'd still be a reader.  i am proud of this darn thing.

according to the archives, i wrote more that first year than any year since.  understandably, as i've been rereading those dusty pages again recently, a lot of it isn't my best, but it would be a shame if that was the best and that it's been a steady decline since.  many of them are devoid of brevity but there are still some gems tossed throughout that i enjoy going back and looking over them.  i've already given a look back at the best and most notable posts on here, although the idea of making a list of my five lamest posts is now kind of tempting.

sheep go to heaven.

yea.

after party

dear future wife::

we had a really good party here tonight.  you would have liked it.
as i was cleaning up, the lights were down low and i had some good music playing.  it was a nice moment and i thought how it would be great to dance with you on the open floor for a bit before going to bed.

so, i hope you're doing well and if i haven't yet, i hope to meet you soon.
because you're missing a lot of really fun things.

love,

-->jeff *

the best movies of the decade

this is evening i had the opportunity to have dinner with a director from the sopranos and all the talk of movies had me thinking about finally getting to this post that i've had floating around for at least six months now (and i need something light to write about tonight).

so, as the first decade of the new millennium wrapped (a year ago), here are my picks for the best movies of 2000-2009.  (besides, the oscar nominations came out a few days ago, joel and i have been texting continuously, and i still don't have a pick for my favorite of 2010.  give me a few months.)

when i made my list, i wrote down the movies that, without question, belonged on this list.  and i came up with nine.

9. hero, directed by zhang yimou, 2002.
when discussion amongst the film students began that zhang yimou was directing a kung fu action movie, we were all puzzled: it sounded completely out of character for one of the world's most powerful dramatic directors who, at that time, had been focusing on intimate stories with non-actors.  with a complete stylistic reversal, he showed himself a master of any genre.  every element of cinema came together to tell an operatic chinese legend.  the man who had been harassed by the chinese government for so many years amazed the world when he directed the opening ceremonies of the beijing olympics in 2008.

8. traffic, directed by steven soderbergh, 2000.
like zhang yimou, soderbergh can move from genre to genre and do it all, but traffic is his masterpiece.  brilliant and bold cinematography is used to keep interwoven story lines distinct, the cast of half a dozen (or more) a-list actors are managed without anyone rising up as a leading star, and the complex issue of drugs across the country is acknowledged to have no easy any answer but still remains hopeless.  and luis guzman holds every scene opposite don cheadle.

7. millions, directed by danny boyle, 2005.
happy, magical, fun, hopeful.  a little boy sees saints.  they talk to him.  they help him do the good deeds that he wants to do but with the limited abilities of an 9-year old.  when he finds a duffle bag full of money, he and his 11-year old brother keep it a secret and so begins a look at the contrast between practicality and altruism.  all with the kinetic jubilance of danny boyle.  rarely has faith and Christianity been so positively portrayed by one of the best working directors today.  i couldn't stop smiling for days after i first saw it.

6. spirited away, directed by hayao miyazaki, 2001.

for those who love animation and children's stories but need a break from idealized disney princesses, meet hayao miyazaki.  spirited away is the story of a young girl, but she isn't the most beautiful or even the most lovable girl you've ever met.  rather, she's probably like most of the 10-year old girls you have met, generally well-behaved but annoyed and whiny at her parents for moving her from her friends and really freaked out when she gets trapped in a mysterious spirit world.  the story is entrenched in japanese myth but no prior knowledge is required to appreciate the story, only openness to new ideas.  i about died when, in the theater, i heard a girl behind me whisper, "this movie is so weird! it doesn't make any sense."  true, japan doesn't explain every aspect the way that we american audiences are used to, but sit back and let your imagination realize how big the world really can be.

5. up in the air, directed by jason reitman, 2009.

i had picked pixar's up as my best movie that year, feeling bad for choosing pixar three years in a row (i have since redacted my choice in 2007 as well), but there was nothing else better.  i hadn't even given much thought to up in the air, expecting a wise look at how corporate america treats their human resources and so was caught completely off-guard when i popped it into my clearplay.

even as a movie about corporate america, it is witty and clever and brilliant without ever being too smart for its own good.  but subtly it slips into being a movie about family, relationships and love, profound without a trace of sap or cliche.  amidst all of the different attitudes about life circulating, the movie willfully acknowledges yes, marriage and family is a headache and nuisance, but there's something about it that still makes it the best way to be.  it's the most pro-marriage and family movie i know of since sunrise (1927).  possibly my favorite screenplay on this list.  i've recommended it to everyone who has a clearplay.  ; )

4. amelie, directed by jean-pierre jeunet, 2001.
what if you said, i'm going to make the happiest, most hopeful, magical, i-do-believe-in-love movie possible?  you'd be a copycat, because it's already been done.  deliriously whimsy, this is nice people doing nice things to each other.  the only villain in the movie (apart from the shopkeeper, but that's a side plot) is amelie's own fear of rejection, and she takes the risk anyway.  maybe it's because i relate to her playful method of games and trinkets in attracting the attention of the one she likes, but this movie makes me not only fall in love every time, but believe in it when i'm all burnt out, if only because it refuses to accept love as being anything less than magical.

3. the lord of the rings, directed by peter jackson, 2001-2003.
what could have been another moderately well-reviewed box office success was revealed to be, what my elitist film professor dean duncan described as, "a near-perfect movie."  not only did it please tolkien purists as well as those who didn't know the difference between an orc and an elf, but it's is excellent film making, character development, and storytelling.  it took me a little while to warm up to "fellowship" (i had just read the book for the first time), but once i realized how wonderful it was, there was a great excitement of knowing that we had two more movies to look forward to.  wizards and warriors were seen as "art" and the academy that normally (and rightly) gives their highest honor to small character dramas made one of their best choices ever and awarded "the return of the king" the best picture of 2003.  this is a timeless trilogy.

2. the royal tenenbaums, directed by wes anderson, 2001.
a few months ago, when i posited the question of what would be my choice if i could only take one movie with me to a desert island, i fumbled for an answer.  this is my answer (this, or maybe the next movie on this list.)  unique, nearly bizarre characters that are believable only because the rest of their world is equally abstract struggle to understand what it means to be a family; a real family, populated with people with real quirks, eccentricities, hopes and hurts.  and the movie says that yes, it is possible.  it hurts and takes some room, but things can get worked out, patched up, and feel better than before.  production design to die for, music that extracts deep feelings from a delightful script, and lines that get funnier and more quotable with each viewing (trust me) all make this one of my most favorite movies ever.
plus, the tent scene in richie's room is one i love so much that i feel guilty talking about it again here.

1. wall-e, directed by andrew stanton, 2008.
if you have any questions about this, you must be new to this blog.

here are the others that, although they didn't bring the same reaction to me as these nine did, were still strong contenders for this list and could very easily be up here without any complaint from me.
these are movies that i love and that prove what a cinematically wonderful decade this was.
they are in no particular order and i regret that i don't have time to annotate even a line about why i love each of them.

• up
• babel
• the new world
• finding nemo
• the wrestler
• adaptation 
• punch drunk love
• lost in translation
• there will be blood
• hot fuzz
• united 93
• little miss sunshine
• a prairie home companion
• o brother where art thou?
• shrek 2

don't get me wrong...

i'm adapting to life here in texas and am looking forward to this semester, academically and awesomenessly, but i still miss times like this....

choose faith

choose faith.  choose a job.  choose a career. choose a family.  choose good entertainment, honesty, individual worth and virtue. choose good health, low cholesterol and dental insurance.  choose living within your means and staying out of debt.  choose a starter home. choose your friends.  choose modest clothing while refusing to look anything less than awesome. choose clean language, soft drinks, and a day of rest. choose diligence and confidence, knowing who you are each morning.  choose standing for what you know is right, holding to prayer, scriptures and hope in the hardest times of your life, refusing to give up because you know things will be better than they ever were.  choose coming to the end of it all, at peace that you have done all that you could, that you lived as best you knew and that you have passed that integrity to the children who will follow after you.  choose your future. choose faith...

the faceblog

i'm taking a facial animation class this semester.  we create and animate a face, complete with synchronized dialogue.  that involves two of the things i like least about computer animation: modeling and animating.  so, why am i taking this class.  1. the digital painting class is already beyond capacity and i'm not sure i'm ready for the "rendering and shading" class (or something like that).  2.  it's taught by fred parke.  who?  he's the guy who, in the early seventies, created the first (ever) computer animated face (at the u of u--the origin of all computer graphics--along side the guy who is now the president of pixar).  my friend compared it to taking C++ programming from the guy who invented the C++ language (that guy also teaches at A&M and my friend did take his class).  i guess the best i can say is that i took "pearl of great price" from joseph fielding mcconkie, although this is more like taking it from his dad.

at any rate, i'm rather excited about this class and our first discussion today was really interesting (i was also sitting on a giant love sac, which i think helped).

as part of the class, we have to keep a blog to track our work and progress over the semester.  so, for those of you interested in whatever the heck i end up doing, you can follow the intricacies of it all on the list of blogs over there.  and for those of you who aren't especially interested, you can continue reading my usual esoteric rantings and tangents here at your leisure.

our first assignment was interesting enough: to give ourselves an idea on just how much a face can stretch and change, we were to spend 15-20 minutes in front a mirror, making all sorts of different faces and observing what happens.  any of you who have spent any time with me or looked through my iphoto library know that this is like assigning me to watch a black and white movie; i'm doing this all the time anyway.
if we wanted, we could take pictures of ourselves.
i tried separating them into exaggerated expressions,

 and smaller, subtle changes.  sometimes, i wouldn't even consciously change my expression but would just change what i was thinking about and try to record the changes.

in class today, we talked about all the great advances in facial animation ("avatar" and "tron: legacy" being two notable ones) and it was noted that this is mostly done in action movies, where the acting is mostly on a large scale.  so far, there hasn't been much (or any, that i'm aware of) done in the small character drama movies.  while clu looked pretty darn good in "tron", they still can't capture the incredibly minute but amazingly powerful performances of something like "the wrestler" or "babel."  and i don't think they ever will.
anyway, it's a cool class and i get to make faces.  bonus.

(if you happen to look up dr. parke on wikipedia, he's not actually 93 years old....)

mind over body

during my sophomore year of high school, i hung out in the journalism lab a lot.  i liked being in extra-curricular things, the seniors thought i was cool (or at least tolerated my antics), and i mostly proof-read articles and occasionally contributed cartoons and illustrations as asked.  one day, my good friend and awesome editor leah asked me to write an article for the paper.
"about why sports are better than academics," she said.
"about wha?  why are you asking me?" i said in befuddlement.
"because no one who actually believes that would be able to write a reasoned argument," she explained.

and so i did.  sarcastic and overbearing, it was a good example of who i was at the time (and i've still got it in my box of high school awesomeness back in minnesota).  a story was relayed to me of a proof-reader who exclaimed, "who is this guy?  the knowledge bowl team is going to beat him up!"  my friends loved it.    and my geometry teacher cornered me in the lunch room (/gymnasium) the day it came out, wondering why i was ragging on euclid.  all in all, i was pleased with myself.

the thing is, there was a distinct line between academics and athletics in my mind.  either you were good at one or the other, but not both.  it just didn't occur to me that people who were smart and liked school could be good at sports or would even want to.  yes, that sounds embarrassingly primitive, but for some reason that was how i saw things.  i wasn't even aware that i harbored this prejudice, it just seemed like a law of nature.  one could point out that my sister was blatant proof that this was a fallacy, but she was still in junior high at that time and i wasn't paying much attention to her.

i suppose it came from my lack of skill and/or interest in sports.  sure, in grade school i did soccer in the fall, basketball in the winter, and baseball in the summer (once for each of those, i think) and never really enjoyed them that i remember.  then, after fifth grade, my mom suggested i go out for the gooseberry park players that summer and that was the end of it all for me.  i had found my calling.  i was an arts kids, especially in the theatre.  add to that school came to me relatively easily and there was simply no room for athletics in my persona.

sometime in college, this prejudice broke.  i really don't remember when or how or even if there was a catalyst.  but i took weight training classes (twice!) and would go out running at nights.  what was especially intriguing about this was how much i enjoyed it.  it was a bit of a labor to get myself out, but once i was lifting or running, it was really a good experience.

and after a semester of classes that required little more than sitting at a computer and clicking a mouse, i've enrolled in two p.e. classes, although here they're under "kinesiology" (sounds more important, i guess?)  i'm taking strength training and swimming.  strangely, though, i still carry with me vestiges of the prejudices that i once espoused.  walking through the facilities, be they the brand-new state-of-the-art rec center or the archaic cold war-era coliseum, i feel like it's blatantly obvious to everyone that i don't belong in this world.  so i do my best to walk cool, to swagger and look like i'm tough.  and i think people generally buy it.

it's still not a part of my life yet, but every little bit makes a difference.  and i like exploring this new world.
plus, i look cool in my swimming goggles, even if i can't see without my glasses.

a rabbi's story

a young man journeys down an endless road in the company of many others.  the road leads across a rocky plain where nothing grows.  the sun's fire burns from morning to evening.  they can't find shade or coolness anywhere.  a harrowing wind stirs up huge dust clouds.  the youth is driven forward by an incomprehensible anxiety and tormented by an unquenchable thirst.  sometimes he asks himself or one of his traveling companions about the goal of their pilgrimage.  but the answer is uncertain and tentative.  he himself has forgotten why he ever set out on his journey.  he's also forgotten his native land and the journey's final destination.

suddenly, one evening he finds himself standing in a forest.  dusk sets in and all is quiet.  perhaps the evening wind sighs through the tall trees.  he stands amazed but also anxious and suspicious.  he's all alone and he discovers his hearing is weak since his ears are inflamed from the merciless light of day.  his mouth and throat and parched from the long pilgrimage.  his lips are cracked, pressed together around curses and harsh words.  so he doesn't hear the ripple of flowing water and doesn't notice its reflection in the dusk.  he stands deaf and blind at the edge of the spring unaware of its existence.  like a sleepwalker he wanders unaware between the sparkling pools.  his blind skill is remarkable, and soon he's back onto the road in the burning, shadowless light.

one night by the camp fire he's seated near an old man who's telling some children about the forests and springs.  the youth recalls what he's been through, but faintly and indistinctly, as in a dream.  he turns to the old man, skeptical yet courteous, and asks, "where does all this water come from?"
"it comes from a mountain whose peak is covered by a mighty cloud."
"what kind of cloud?" the youth asks.
the old man answers, "every man carries within him hopes, fears and longings.  every man shouts out his despair or bears it in his mind.  some pray to a particular god.  others address their cries to the world.  this despair, this hope, this dream over deliverance, all these cries, all these tears are gathered over thousands and thousands of years and condense into an unmeasurable cloud around a high mountain.  out of the cloud rain flows down the mountain, forming the streams and rivers that flow through the great forests.  that's how the springs are formed where you can quench your thirst, wash your badly burnt face, cool your blistered feet.  everybody has at some time heard of the mountain, the cloud and the springs, but most people anxiously remain on the dusty road in the blazing light."

"why do they stay there?" asks the youth in great astonishment.
"i certainly don't know," replies the old man.  "perhaps they've convinced themselves and each other that they'll reach their unknown destination by evening."
"what unknown destination?" asks the young man.
the old man shrugs his shoulders.  "in all probability the destination does not exist.  it's deception or imagination.  i myself am on my way to the forests and the springs.  i was there once when i was young and now i'm trying to find my way back.  it's not easy, let me tell you."

the next morning the youth sets out with the old man to seek the mountain, the cloud, the forests and the rippling springs.

more bad times

nearly a year ago, the great laurie jayne presciently sent me a mixed cd.  the second she has made for me, it successfully holds its goal capturing sabi, the japanese philosophy of finding beauty in the sadness of things.


the last four songs especially are sublime, the first of that finale being a song called "more bad times" by the goofy "presidents of the united states of america."  it is a lovely song, almost unfortunately punctuated by lines of silliness, as the chorus tenderly laments, "i wish there were more bad times to see you through."

one can't help but ponder the delicate sabi quality of that....

at some point during my time as a missionary in japan or after, i remember thinking about the relationships and the closenesses that i had with different companions.  it was those with whom together we fought for something that i became the closest; those that together we worked hard for things, and more often than not it didn't work out, it didn't happen.  we jumped and fell, but we crashed together and could share in that.


those were the companions that i was closest to; they were the ones i was most excited to meet up with again at the next conference or sometime after.  perhaps it was because we were in it together, yet, as i write this, i wonder if it was also because we were willing to take the risk together of doing more, of trying more.  we went for it and we could meet up later and say, "dang, those were rough times but we made it!"


and years ago, when i was thinking about this, i followed the thought to prayer.  that just as i was most excited to see those with whom i had shared the bad times, i would probably much more excited to meet God at the end of my life if i had shared my life with Him.


if, when things were hard and discouraging and most non-triumphant, i prayed and trusted in Him, He would lead and guide me through, and so at that great and last day, it would not be meeting a distant and unknown God, but a Best Friend who was there with me through it all, and we could excitedly embrace in the joy of having made it through together.








during my time away from texas, i was able to see my dearest and bestest friends, those who have been with me for years, who know all about me and like me anyway.  it was seriously dang.

like, seriously.



and as i've been thinking about that and mulling over this post, i've realized that those who make me the happiest, or who bring out the happiest and best parts of me are those with whom i'm most comfortable and willing to share my saddest sides.
it's interesting.



on friday, as i was fighting the unorganized campus bus system in my latest attempt to move the administration along and allow me to register, i found myself again thinking what i have noticed several times over the years: that it is in the peaceful, calm, and happy moments of life that i most lament my singlehoodnesship.








that not having someone with whom to share the good moments of life, be they grand or insignificant, is perhaps the saddest part for me.

i had a mission companion who, in showing the joy of sharing the Gospel, would asking how the person felt when they had a good slice of pie.  "you want to share it with your friends," would be the usual response from the person at the door.  

lights will guide you home... 

i suppose it's the same.  life is a tasty [pecan] pie, but eating it by yourself isn't much fun.  (a better analogy for me would be watching a great movie; while it's fun and enjoyable by yourself, i'd rather have someone else to laugh with and get into it with and discuss it with afterward.)

here's to more bad times and the
accompanying awesomenesses  : )

mostly, i just wanted to write this post as an excuse to put up some pictures, since i'm not really one to post pictures on facebook.
(editor's note: but in this case, we did anyway)