The Once and Future Miss Teen USA

The crisis is over. No worries. Time heals and this too shall pass and all that.

Have you seen the girl who's really dumb? I don't mean that in a negative way. I mean it in a "wow, I'm really sorry that this is all over TV and the internet. Good luck being 17" kind of way. To be fair, plenty of people would have had the same answer or worse. And besides, it's not like things on the internet stay around more than a few days.

She came in fourth.

Work kind of sucks right now. Or I suck. I had a headache all day yesterday until I took some medicine in the evening. But then this morning (6am rocks) it came back and it was the exact same headache. Only now it was worse and I wanted to vomit. I don't think it was a migraine because you're supposed to see spots of light with those. Maybe that will be tomorrow.

Independence Day is on. Welcome to Earf.

Seven Sentences

Let's forget about that last post. It has nothing to do with you.

Everything to do with me. This is my blog, right? I'm not sure what I'm saying here. I'm sort of... delayed. Remember that DJ Unkle video with Thom Yorke where the guy is getting hit by all the cars? You can watch it now. I either feel like that guy or that song.

I'm sitting here wondering where the rest of me is. My hands are moving across the keys but the words are coming from far off, by ansible. I am a ghost and I am haunting my own head by remote control. It will take some time to get back. But you can't get back time. You can't get back things once you let them out. They're gone, in the ether, to be absorbed or rejected by everything around you. I'm trying to call home by ansible. Is this thing on? Traveling across time and space. Wasted time for empty space.

I know I'm not making sense. I'm not trying to. It's a tactic we all use to say how we feel without anyone knowing what we're talking about. We're protecting ourselves from the publicity that is a blog. I'm being ambiguous because I want there to be space between myself and my feelings and you knowing what my feelings are, so that I am existing in an impenetrable shell.

The walls of Jericho fell in seven days. Mine fell in seven sentences.
Someone find the nearest fallout shelter.

Bitterness

When you really work hard at something and want to show it off, people end up asking why you weren't busy doing something else.

And then they wonder why I don't keep in touch.
It was nice to see everyone I got to see this weekend. This isn't directed at anyone who actually bothers to read this.

The Gears of History

On the train today I started reading over this guy's shoulder. He was reading a really long article from the Times called The Politics of God. It's really interesting, and while I haven't finished it, it got me thinking about a lot of things. But first, here's a quote:

At first, this modern political theology expressed a seemingly enlightened outlook and was welcomed by those who wished liberal democracy well. But in the aftermath of the First World War it took an apocalyptic turn, and “new men” eager to embrace the future began generating theological justifications for the most repugnant — and godless — ideologies of the age, Nazism and Communism.

Yeah, good stuff. He talks about how we have a different view as Westerners and I started thinking about Manifest Destiny, the idea during the 1800s that it was our God-given duty as white Americans to conquer the Western US and convert the heathens within. It seems similar to the rhetoric we hear from Iran or Al Qaeda.
I also started thinking about a really great book I've only listened to a bit, Guns, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He takes a panoramic look at history and anthropology to try and discover why Europe overtook the rest of the world while Africa rots. He's insightful enough to inspect all the science and possibilities for why we are where we are. It's a great book. And I'll read it soon.

This had nothing to do with me, except for the part where I read over someone's shoulder on the train, which is actually quite rude.

Screenwriting Blogs

This blog needs some serious work. I've got a few friends who are not yet added to the links and I want to start adding some other cool links I've found. I'll start now. And by now I mean soon.

Thanks to a friend and an article in the New York Times, I've discovered two pretty cool screenwriting blogs. (An interesting aside: Screenwriting isn't a recognized word in the blogger spellcheck. Neither is spellcheck.) The first, from a smart lady who worked on Angel, and Firefly, among others, is currently Co-Executive Producer of Battlestar Galactica. Her name is Jane Espenson, and other than the difficulty of getting her name right, she tells you what she had for lunch in each post.
The second is a guy named John August, who has to his name movies such as Go, Big Fish, Charlie's Angels, and an interesting upcoming movie called The Nines. They both seem very interesting and knowledgeable in screenwriting matters. Beyond that, they also take the time to offer helpful advice, which is perhaps the only way people who want to be screenwriters can learn how to be screenwriters without the difficulty of Hollywood reality first.

I've started showing my script to people. It feels pretty good actually. But I only have two (maybe three) copies, so sharing is difficult, especially when many of these people live outside of Chicago. I'm beginning to consider emailing PDF files to those who request it. The problem is both losing control of my work (in the sense that I can't get it back from them) and the difference of reading something on a screen, which in my opinion is without flavor. But economics might force my hand, because each copy runs about...$7? Enough that I don't want to make too many, especially when I'm still finding errors and changes will still be made.

I'm heading home tomorrow. It's been a nice trip but I'm sunburned and have go to back to work so that I can be my own special part of the economy.