Away We Go

I don't know how I missed Away We Go. Looking forward to it already. 2009 feels like a great movie year.

American Suburb X

Speaking of treasure troves, American Suburb X, also by Doug Rickard (of earlier mentioned American Family X), is a curious collection of essays, interviews and photos. It's mostly photography, but not always. As evidenced by this reprint of an interview with my favorite painter, Edward Hopper. Not surprising, I have hunch Hopper is the great-granddaddy of all color photographers.

Anyway, the site is so dense, it will take me many idle days to get through the whole thing. Very daunting, but I suppose it will be very worth it if it's filled with things like these:

Narrative/essay for Todd Hido's Ohio.
Reprint of a Philip-Lorca diCorcia interview for his series, Hustlers.
Reprint of an essay on William Eggleston.

The joy.

creative juices

Spike Jonze and his band of merry persons have been blogging about all the lovely things that influenced them as they were making the potentially awesome film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

Of course it's got a pretty cool collection of production photos and videos. But the best things are the random things. Like this post about Paperhouse, a movie that is permanently seared in my memory because I was scared shitless watching it at my cousin's house during one of those endless summers in the late 80's. There is also a collection of photos from Mike Tyson's abandoned mansion. Very cool.

fanboy

Unlike most fans who got to watch the series, I learned my Trek via the novels. This guy in my high school, Ericson Chua, pushed Star Trek (and Tom Clancy) on me. And pretty soon, I was hooked. I was into Classic and The Next Gen, and bought and devoured every novel I could get from National Bookstore Greenhills. A lot of the books weren't great, but there are gems in there. And regardless of style or technique, a kid couldn't ask for more than space myths about friendship, life and destiny.

And then I found out everything I knew wasn't canon. The books weren't kosher. I was out of sync with the TV series and the movies. So in 1995, I got myself the Star Trek Chronology by Michael and Denise Okuda. It summarized all episodes from Classic to TNG Season 5, provided graphic timelines, included the alternates, explained stardates and all that awesome shit. It was all indexed and cross-referenced. It was a great way get on track and figure everything out.

Anyway, watching this new Star Trek got me missing my old books. They sit on my top shelf gathering dust. But I'm thankful I kept them all, and with this awesome reboot, everything seems so fresh and great again. It's a good feeling, and I know it sounds incredibly funny, but I feel a certain amount of hope and joy.

PS: I haven't heard from Ericson in awhile. I hear he went on to work for Canon Japan, either designing or writing code for the CCD that's inside my professional digital camera. That or NASA. I forget.

today

To recount: I had my favorite spaghetti and pan-fried chicken for lunch. I had a frappuccino and didn't care. I saw an awesome movie about something that meant a lot to me as a kid. Seeing it restarted in such a well-crafted, enjoyable manner made me feel a little bit more alive. It was truly Art and Heart. Then I had a nice dinner in the company of people I sincerely like.

Days like these don't come very often anymore, as I get older. I just want to remember today. It was a good day.