Monday would've been a good day to come to class stoned

Here's post number one in the attempt at "daily practice." The question is how will this change my writing--will it affect the style? What I say? I think it will condense my thoughts into smaller segments. So far, it's been natural for me to update once-twice per week. These posts tended to run a bit on the longer side and expressed opinions on a broad range of topics. Tonight, I'll start with what I thought about the films screened in class on Monday.

To be honest, I didn't enjoy this week's series nearly as much as other weeks. There has been films/videos that I've really taken something away from, and there where those I wasn't too impressed with all that much. This week was mostly the latter. i did enjoy Renato Umali's "I Learn Something New Everything Single Day." It was interesting to watch his changing emotions and try to read the underlying journal entry. He put together pieces of his personal histories about every day thoughts. It was unpretentious, interesting, and often times, amusing to read the next frame's musings.

Su Friedrich's "Gently Down the Stream" was a spastic journey through dreams illustrated by shaky, hand-written text and fluttering frames on images. Robert Breer's "Fist Fight" was single images in quick succession fusing into motion. Both of these pieces contained flashing, chaotic texts and images and hard-to-discern content, bombarding the viewer with colors and images. From my notes regarding these two pieces: "I feel like I should've been on hallucinogenic drugs to enjoy these films." Friedrich's work was dark and macabre, attempting to piece together the pandemonium resulting from the dream world beneath our consciousness. This concept seems like a good idea in theory, but really isn't as interesting as one would think in execution. I was bored, confused, and had a headache from the rapid movement of the frames. Breer's film had the same feel and texture, except without a potentially interesting concept. He used considerations of taste and timing, but again, it gave me a headache.

A few quick pieces we watched were Cory Arcangel's "Date Diaries," an awesomely geeky concept, but tiresome to watch for ridiculously long periods of time, Leighton Pierce's "Thursday," Bruce Baillie's "All My Life," and Fred Worden's "Every Day Bad Dream." I enjoyed Baillie's simplistic and energetic imagery related to household activities. I enjoyed this film the same way I enjoyed Nathaniel Dorskey's "Variations."

TOMORROW: Reflections on discussion, and thoughts on my upcoming Film 222 projects...