Blue Velvet

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yJsARW_tThk&feature=youtu.be

Wes Anderson and his work:

For this assignment I saw the following movies directed and written by Wes Anderson: Rushmore (1998), The Darjeeling Limited (2007), The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou (2004) and Moonrise Kingdom (2012). It’s pretty clear: these are Wes Anderson movies. There are especially three important similarities between them – family- and love-relationships, complicated (main) characters and stylization. I will spend most of this blog post reflecting over some these themes.

Families and relationships. If anything, this is what keeps most of Anderson’s movies moving forward. In lack of an obvious plot, there are always the dysfunctional (but still relatable) relationships that engage the viewers and challenge our point of view. In Rushmore there is the infatuation that Max Fishcer holds for his teacher Rosemary Cross – in The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou, father tries to get to know his supposed son after decades of separation – and Sam and Suzy runs away together after feeling isolated from everyone else than eachother, in Moonrise Kingdom. The Darjeeling Limited is a little less forward – and some may even say more boring than the abovementioned ones – three brothers set out on a spiritual journey through India and tries to figure out why their mom never attended their fathers funeral. Though the situations that Anderson creates for his characters are a little exaggerated I think we can all somehow relate to the conundrums they go through – either we despise them for the decisions they make or we feel with them. Interesting anyway, and a nice gesture from Anderson; letting us kids with dysfunctional families and failing relationships know that it could be worse. That at least we are not alone in our struggles.

Wes Anderson’s characters are like onions to me – layers of layers with personality that slowly sheds as the movie progresses. Also they can make you cry. There is a strong sense of self-belief and serious in the self in the leading characters, while they most of the time remain emotionless to anything happening around them- resulting in a humorous combination. Especially talented in this is iconic actor Bill Murray, which keeps returning for every movie made by Wes Anderson – even in The Darjeeling Limited we get a glimpse of him, running after the train. In Rushmore he has the role as Max Fischer’s older but good friend, which eventually falls for the same teacher and gets put in a small dilemma. Again, as Steve Zissou, he falls in love with the pregnant Cate Blanchett whom has feelings for his son – again putting him in a little of a dilemma. The son, played by Owen Wilson, is also a character that displays extraordinary little emotion – which makes the whole thing seem kind of surreal. Still, this does not imply that the characters are flat or empty – on the contrary they are not – they are extremely true to themselves, and their state of emotionlessness forces us to look at their actions and decisions rather than their reactions. This again forces us to look at ourselves, because we are the ones having the reactions to the characters actions – maybe we are judgmental and disgusted or maybe we are joyous and intrigued. Aswell; the characters, just like us, are obviously suppressing their emotional turmoil.

Maybe, the most obvious similarity between all of Anderson’s movies (to everyone in the audience) is the aesthetic style and mellow soundtrack. And as a photographer I find this very appealing – however, as a human, I find the message and journey throughout all of WA’s movies more intriguing.

You and The Sims

So I haven’t played many video games throughout my life but the ones I’ve liked I played a lot! I don’t like to destroy and kill – but create and build – so simulations have always been fun to me. The Sims (all of them….), Myst, Pokemon and Harvest Moon are probably the only ones I played over and over again; just ask my dad.. Myst was the only game my grandpa would play and my dad just likes flight simulators and fighting games – but I, whom copied everything they did, spent countless hours on The Sims. Hours spent building virtual houses; creating relationships and families; and basically designing their life. Now I ask myself why – why did I spend so many hours on that? It seems kind of pointless now – and expensive.

However, when we were assigned to read You – a title which by the way I find a little misleading (sounds more like a self-help guide) – I was reminded of The Sims and how much I love(d) playing it.  Still, the book was not as fun as maybe I had hoped and I most of the time I just felt like playing an actual video game (which hasn’t happened for a couple of years now).. it just brought back my urge to build wild buildings and obstacle courses for my sims. And though I hope I never will spend so much time on something so little constructive again; I found out that The Sims actually have given me a lot of things back. I still kind of wish I had spent those hours on making something with my hands instead… but but. I will now tell you what the Sims actually gave me. For one, it gave me English. Two, it rewarded me for my creativity and made me want to do more. Thirdly, it made me consider a career within architecture, game arts or just design in general.

There was two conditions from my dad before he would buy me any The Sims games – that I would limit my time and take breaks with the game, but also that I could only play it in English. The first time I played it was at the age 10 or so and not long after I owned my first one. We have ten years of English education starting from we are 8 – so for two years I already had learnt the basics in English (or I was supposed to). However, what eventually elevated me from the rest of the class in (especially) writing, and reading English, was simply playing The Sims in English. All the things that happen in the Sims are a consequence of you deciding out from a range of options – or not deciding at all. And for every action there is a commando-line that I had to learn and understand – by me trying and failing and remembering that for example “dive” means (most of the time) to jump head first in the water. Over several years and after several editions – I had a pretty broad English vocabulary solely based on The Sims. Which, now that I come to think of it, is kind of ironic since Sims actually speak Simlish, not English.

Anyways; since I became quite advanced in this game I just wanted to get further. I learnt to cheat; make as much money as I wanted or succeed in any career – to design my own wallpaper textures and skin tones (pink with blue dots, anyone?) and hairstyles – create my own pets and plants. Basically, I became creative with the game – it challenged me; I challenged it. Just like in the book You. Still I think playing The Sims would have been so much more fun – if not productive – than reading the book. 

Conceptual Collages: a response to "Medium is a Massage"

Millennial Generation

To start out I would have to define what is my generation… People born from 1980 till around the start of 2000s are considered to be Generation Y – or, the Millennial generation. Through my research I quickly discovered that we theoretically should be a “selfish but still caring, more globalized but also more demanding” generation, actually we just sounded like a much more turbulent generation than any one before. Still, I find comfort in the fact that theories sometimes just turn out to be theories – so then it’s alright. Looking away from these theories though, and more into what we are doing right now; I guess I could name a couple of characteristics for us Y’s.

In comparison to Generation Z, which is the digital generation; we are only semi-digital. We know how to work a Walkman and a computer. We are the first bloggers and twittrers, but still also have the social skills to mingle amongst one another physically. We have the luxury of choosing between analog or digital – and a generation of parents that taught us both. We have a soft spot for the retro and vintage; usually satisfied through online shopping or downloading of indie movies and music.

On the other hand; in comparison to the generation of our parents: we are not growing up with a booming economy. Since 2007, when the relatively global recession hit, there has been an increased awareness of money – individually and in communities. It is uncertain when, and even if, the millennial generation will retire from their careers – which according to “experts” will have consisted of many different jobs. If this is due to our own snobbish attitude or the rapid evolvement of digital technology – we would just have to see, but I don’t think it is necessarily a bad thing.

Besides the internet, which I definitely would consider a “work” that literally gives voice to my generation, I would say the number one literary work representing us is…
Harry Potter! All my friends and me, all read HP, and all grew up at the same time as the characters in the books. When I turned 11 i got my heart broken for the first time – I was not admitted into Hogwarts. Never have I or never will I again, have that experience from literary work. Every year I would wait for a new book to come out – and until I could read English myself, my dad would translate the first books for me. Harry had his ups and downs – fighting evil but also fighting with problems every teenager could relate to. That said, I don’t care much for the movies. It was the experience; of growing up with Harry, Hermione and Ron just how you wanted it to be in your head, which was perfect. As stupid as it sounds (I do have friends, I think.. ) they were my friends and family, and if I ever feel down I can just pick up a book and be happy again.

Girl in (a weird) Landscape

My experience while reading “ Girl in Landscape” was interesting because it did not stay as a constant feeling – for most of the time I really disliked it (but only because of the way it was formulated) but at others it would surprise me and make me want to read more. I’m not at all opposed to the story, and quite enjoyed leaning back and imagining this world that Lethem cleverly created. However I've actually never heard of anything called “coming-of-age” – novels and eventhough it’s a pretty straightforward term; after reading about it, it was still hard for me to understand the concept.
First time I started on the book I tried to listen to the audio version first, but it was very difficult to grasp the storyline with such a loud and annoying “soundtrack”. Consequently I fast gave that up and tried reading the book for real this time– with more success and less annoyance. It’s an okay book – I’d probably give it a 5/6 out of 10 – but if I have one, just one, pet peeve with books it is if the technical part of the writing is bad. The experience of reading a badly written good story (here, Girl in Landscape), is worse than reading a badly written bad story (for example, 50 Shades of Grey), or a good written bad story (like many books). To me at least, the experience is non-enjoyable and reminiscent of literature torture – just because I’m too stubborn to stop reading a book before the finish, and well-read enough to know quickly whether I like a text or not (because I'm not at all implying that I am a good writer).
That said, I have a weakness for voyerism, and Lethem's "Girl in Landscape" is full of it - from beginning to end there is a feeling that the reader is there to observe, just as Pella is observing everyone else all the time - and in return there is a distinct distance between the reader and the characters in the book, and between themselves. It seems like a cold world that they live in - whichever planet they live on.
Something I also noticed is, while I was reading I would switch from imagining night and day because it is so emphasized throughout the whole story and it’s really one of the few things that are new for Pella and not for me – and one of the few things that we have in common from both our worlds. Everytime the narrator introduced something new to the reader – which was all the time basically – like the fishpotatoes or when Pella finds out she can inhabit the housholddeer (or the concept of housholddeer itself), it was extremely interesting.. Still, my pet peeve did not allow me to fully enjoy the experience with Pella and her family. 

The Adventures of TinTin

Cartoons – or more specifically comic-strips, I guess - are the perfect transmedia as it not only mixes drawings with text; making it easy for both adults and kids, but also because earlier in history (and still today) it were displayed in a way that it was easily accessible for everyone of all ranks of society. Newspapers have featured a couple of comic-strips on one permanent page; all over the world and for many, many years.

To me, the nice and appealing thing about comics (I don’t know whether they can actually be called this but I’ll do that for now) are the fact that you can understand it by only looking at the drawings or only reading the text but there is still left out something for the imagination. Onomatopoetikon are used frequently in the cartoons, and you can imagine the noises and voices of the characters yourself – and I guess in a weird, psychological way they become closer to you as a reader. In TinTin in Tibet for example, there was on a number of occasions some different language characters (apart from the Latin alpahbet), which you then had to imagine in your head. However you “audiolize” the sounds will maybe tell you something about yourself. 

TinTin is definitely a favorite of mine as it does not only have one main character – Captain Haddock, Snowy (and Professor Calculus and Thomson & Thompson; but they do not appear in Tibet) are all the main character during one period or another.

Again, and also specifically with me (as I grew up with TinTin), there has to be a conversation about how it crosses many different media - in this case book/newspapers and TV. My personal experience was dominated primarily by the Adventures of TinTin-cartoon on TV – which came out one year before I was born, 1991. Seeing it on TV is obviously a totally different experience than actually reading it –and I was left with very mixed feelings when I saw the TV series over again with the cartoon-novel fresh in mind.  I have to admit the yeti sounded a lot more terrifying on the youtube-video but other than that I cannot say it impressed me a lot. Also TinTin’s voice annoyed me, and the fact that they took out the part where the Captain drinks a bottle of whisky (also the part about Chang having survived on birds and rodents, are replaced with roots and seeds.). On the other hand it was fun seeing the really weird dream involving Pr. Calculus and a number of umbrellas (which I guess in the movie was induced by a heatstroke). Besides they included the very first dreamscene where TinTin dreams about Chang in the planecrash – which in the comic-strip was never showed… TinTin just wakes up shouting “Chang”, and dream is left out to the reader’s imagination.

I’m not sure whether I can do this but, anyway:
here is the link to TinTin in Tibet:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ca7DrzXFlgM

And don’t skip over the intro – the song is kind of nice (or maybe it’s just my nostalgia). 

PS: I've never watched the movie and neither do I want to, so I chose not to talk about it.