take control of your fragility

I caught a sneak preview of Life Aquatic last night. Presumably, they showed it on campus to create buzz, so this is me creating buzz. It was the Tenenbaum cast on a symbolism blitzkrieg. Not plain old godawful. More like “deep” awful, auteur awful – there was a message, there were metaphors, there were lots of contrived emotions meant to stir sorrow in my heart – but all I could feel was burdened by a movie that was trying to live up to the reputation of a clever director (Wes Anderson). In an attempt to make a movie that was pregnant with meaning, Mr. Anderson may have just shot a blank this time around.

So yes, this is not a movie review blog. Or a “that concert I went to was soooo awesome” blog. So you’ll excuse the occasional paragraph indulgence. The problem is that I can’t really enjoy movies in and of themselves anymore – I spend the duration of any movie I see searching for the right encapsulating, witty phrase even though it’s been years since my last film review. But when I do disparage Hollywood’s finest, I often get asked if I do indeed enjoy any films. Well, I liked Almost Famous, and apparently, I liked 102 Dalmations as well. Probably one of those jollier times in my life.

---

Time for a little solemnity now. With the spontaneous combustion of yet another bridge in my social life here at UCLA, I now have the opportunity to reflect. The criticism had been leveled that folks in LA are fake. I won’t argue with that, but the problem is not that we lie to ourselves to sedate our insecurities. No, no, it’s not us, it’s you. There are simply too many fragile and emotionally underabused people from other states inhabiting this city, and to deal with them, the rest of us are forced to be fake. So, bottom lining it for you, we’re not that fake, you’re just that fragile.

God, I’m just hating on people left and right. Apparently ambush dissage is now my thing. Got some DMX-esque anger in my system, evidently.

---

As half of my life will be spent sizing up people, I am definitely one of those people who strives to glimpse the spine of the books my public transportation neighbors are reading. Crichtons & Grisham readers – well hey, it’s better than being illiterate, right? Pallanhuik, Kundera, and the academic-press-type readers – well they’ve got character, I admire that. Anyhow, I’m not sure what to make of this one. I was at the gym this morning, and this girl had this thick book with a title that I thought read, “How to Take Control of Your Faith.” Ok, that made sense, she was working on finding God at 25, that’s cute. But then I read the spine more carefully. It didn’t say “faith,” but rather “fertility.” Who reads that? At a gym? Is it so serious a matter that it needs to be “taken control of”? What does that say about her? So many unanswered questions, and I’m now in the dark cave with the guy who thinks ob/gyn’s practice love.

I’d say ‘more later’ but I lied yesterday. Mother says I need to work harder instead of blogging. And we're still feeding the delusion that she knows best.