Save me, Sabrina fair, you're the only one who can.
Hmm, what have I been up to?
- Traveling: Though it's just been to home and to visit friends, I've been on the road quite a bit. Two weeks ago I went up to San Jose for the weekend to visit my friend Matt and his fiancee Sophia. That was quite nice as I hadn't seen them in a while, and there was much to celebrate since they had just gotten engaged. (Oh no, I'm already getting that old, aren't I?) We had fantastic Mexican food and a delicious cajun spicy shrimp dish that Matt cooked himself and which I desperately need the recipe for. In addition we spent some time in San Francisco, rode a subway whence I was shocked the signs were all in English, and encountered an eight-tier mall complex with an amazing digital map. I was a day late home because of the weather, and two days later I had to fly out again for Las Vegas and Thanksgiving. Dinner was good this year; it was just me, Schuyler, Chase, and my mom, so there was quite a bit of food to go around. Organic turkey was delicious, as was the stuffing, and the candied yam/marshmallow casserole we rescued from the towering inferno it became inside the oven. While I was there I caught up with high school friends, saw Beowulf which was good, and got to spend time cheering up my sick dog. All in all it was a very fun Thanksgiving and relaxing too, which leads me to my next point...
- Work: Has been incredibly busy, but I find I'm liking it. It's really not a chore as long as I throw myself into my work and adjust to this hectic pace. Since it's my first "real job" I enjoy what I'm working on and putting effort into my day to day work feels good. I don't kid myself that I've reached anywhere near Nico's level of workaholic-itude yet (new word, not quite sure about the i preceding the "tude") but for a boy who's always been afraid of hard work, it's refreshing to be enjoying it.
- Japanese Dramas: I've shifted modes again, and am off of anime for a while and onto J-Dramas again. New surprise - Bambino. This series follows a young boy named Ban, an amateur chef from Hatake who travels to Tokyo to work in a top-tier Italian restaurant on his college break, and finds it immensely more challenging and rewarding than he could have dreamed. The series gets bonus points for dealing with relationships and emotions realistically, avoiding cliches, and generally being fantastically written. Plus it's about cooking, and I think kitchen drama is enthralling to watch. (The show really does a great job of having the perfect pacing and camerawork to show the intense and hectic pace of working in a professional kitchen.)
- Film: Aside from Beowulf, I've resolved to up my cinematic tastes. I've been getting into Michael Haneke, and The Seventh Continent was a revelation. After reading a Harper's article on his films I decided to watch them chronologically and The Seventh Continent was his first. Set and filmed in the late eighties, it depicts the true story of an Austrian family with a normal, happy life who decides to destroy their house and belongings before all committing suicide. The story is told through some masterful camerawork that shows the mundane routine of everyday life as isolated moments which become unique as they are consistently blasted at us without an injection of plot or perspective. I don't mean to say that there is no plot, what I mean is these images are presented to us plain and simply, and gradually build up throughout the film to portray a gilded cage of consumption and routine that the family has to break out from by the most extreme of methods. This is all Haneke's conjecture, as the family left little evidence to the reason behind their suicide. I took these isolated shots to be a beautiful way of drawing the viewer into the film as a character. The close-ups of hands reaching for toothbrushes, shopping, cooking felt as natural as my own physical perspective in my life. It was so engrossing that I actually felt a distancing at the eventual appearance of the characters' faces on screen. It was a very shocking effect, and one that proves Haneke had immense talent from the very start of his career.
- Food: Green tea is still delicious, as is a bowl of pasta after a long day's work, or the occasional salad. Still struggling to stop myself from eating out so much.
- Music: I've been bathed in a wealth of music recently, as Evan can attest to, and some recent gems have been: Cassette Boy, Pelican, Calexico, and Electric Light Orchestra. Hmm, reminds me I need to go check Daytrotter...
Farewell!
