Sellophane

A pinball.
A shiny, white one.
A pinball that has lost all conceptions of space, time and life as it hurtled hurriedly from one corner of the table to another. From the moment he was launched into this table by the indulgent flick of someone's wrist to right now, he lost all semblance of control.

As he speeds from one beer-stained component of this table to another, scoring points for someone. Like a phantom trapped in someone else's mind.

He enter canals that stink with darkness. He exits them hurriedly, only to be welcomed by a series of glowing lights that stare at me silently. He is unceremoniously paddled upwards when he came too close to the edge by the same indulgent wrist that flicked him in there in the first place.

Who is he scoring these points for? A phantom, in maybe his own mind?

He wonders what's behind those flipper-flappers? Maybe another table, maybe a new beginning. Maybe a plastic circle, maybe a fullstop.

No title.

7. Uma Thurman - Kill Bill

It was probably the name and the length of the movie (just about two hours) that made me chose it as today's evening movie. I wasn't really expecting to be mindfucked considering that the same guy's made the highly strange Hellboy and the even stranger Blade Series. Don't get me wrong though, I loved Blade and Hellboy though a little excessively red was good fun. I just didn't expect a movie by Del Toro to rivet me and blow me apart systematically and alternatively.



What a movie though, it had everything in place, starting from the haunting melody in the beginning that slowly infused itself into the story to the amazing camera work as one scene merged into other. What I really liked however was the beautiful and flawless intermingling of the counter-realist and the Gothic with the stark and often violent reality of a brewing civil war. The movie is viewed through the point of view of a child which makes the over all viewing of the movie that much more mind-boggling.

Alongside an accurate and realistic depiction of the Spanish Civil War there is also the haunting fairy tale that serves as the backbone of this sublime movie. An opening prologue tells one of Princess Moanna, daughter to the king of the underworld. The princess became curious about the world above and fled to the surface, where the brightness of the sun blotted out her memories. Princess Moanna eventually became lost and died, causing turmoil in her kingdom. However, the king always believed that her spirit would one day return, even if reincarnated in the form of another.


Of course, the pleasure principal of Pan's Labyrinth is not different from it's predecessors...Magic. (Think: Lord of the Rings, Wizard of Oz, Prince of Baghdad, Conan the Barbarian, Lost Horizon) But it is the startling juxtaposition of the world of imagination with reality that makes this movie (for lack of better words) so fucking brilliant!

Stylistically perfect, the costumes and the make-up was brilliant. For once the "pale man" a monster who consumed human children while tempting them with a sumptuous feast seems, well a monster. Nothing excessive or digressive about him. Even the Faun(Who by the way is not the greek god Pan. Pan can't be pan without his flute now can he?)

A movie that explores a child's (Importantly, a girl child; Recalls: 'I was invisible to you because I am a woman') vehement desire to escape the cruel world, filled with violence and selfish interest that she barely understands.

We can all relate to this now can't we, at least I can. A door in the wall, traced with a blue, rubbed out piece of chalk, that would take me to the chamber of my dreams.

Facts and Figures

Directed by Guillermo del Toro
Produced by Alfonso Cuarón, Guillermo del Toro
Written by Guillermo del Toro
Starring Ivana Baquero, Doug Jones, Sergi López, Maribel Verdú
Music by Javier Navarrete
Cinematography Guillermo Navarro
Editing by Bernat Vilaplana

Awards

The National Society Film Critics for Best Picture
Academy Awards for Achievements in Cinematography, Makeup, and Art Direction
BAFTA awards for Best Foreign Language Film, Costume Design, and Makeup and Hair.
Goya Awards(the Spanish equivalent of the Academy Awards) the film won in many categories including Best Cinematography, Editing, Make Up & Hairstyles, New Actress for Ivana Baquero, Original Screenplay, Sound, and Special Effects.
At Mexico's Ariel Awards, "Labyrinth" won in 9 categories, including Best Movie and Best Director. The film was also nominated for a number of other awards such as Best Foreign Film at the Academy Awards and the Golden Globes.

http://www.panslabyrinth.com/
Oh, and thank you wikipedia

Hanedin Thinks: 4 1/2 Stars.

Imagine waking up all alone.

The soft linen sheet crawl onto the underside of your hands as their lingering touch awakens you. Plastered walls, plastered ceilings and a thousand plastered thoughts crash onto you as you realize it's morning.

Imagine waking up alone?
You watch as a few misplaced rays of the sun nestle into various crannies of your room. You watch as a certain adventurous shaft of light cause dappled shadows on the bed and it's occupants.

Imagine waking up alone?
Imagine waking up alone, and all you want to do is bleed, just so that you know you are alive. "yeah you bleed just to know you are alive", goo goo dolls was it?

But even if you bleed, what good does it do? You are still alone, alone in spite of the girl whose soft, periodic respiration establishes a strange harmony in your head.

You can hold her in your arms, delve and dissolve in the memories of the night before when she bit onto your shoulders in the midst of fragmented happiness. Did you bleed then?

Imagine waking up all alone?
What did you say,
you don't need to?


::Unfragmented, unrefined, crass crap, I agree, just need to get it out of my system::

If A+B=3
And B+C=d
Then he said that he will love her
Promises were soaked in the shadow of a blur
But what if B+C=E?

Messed up limerick, wouldn't you say?

This would read:

If A plus B equals 3
And B plus C equals d
Then he said that he will love her
Promises were soaked in the shadow of a blur
But what if B plus C equaled E?

Now I want to write limericks, good fun. Thanks aaki.

Somethings happened to me, probably exams. So won't blog. I know my faithful audience would probably be extremely sad but it's okay.

Exams around the corner, people leaving, the fact that I don't really care. Sickness. Hypocrisy. Decadence. Hard Times meets modern times did I say? Sufi Music, philosophies, not really important. How heavy is your wallet though? Heavy enough?
Frustration.

INSANE BUTTERFLY

Butterflies float in my head
Jagged wings, bleeding rainbow
Breakfast with cheese spread
Butterflies and a severed elbow.
Insane
Pain
Jigsaw pieces scattered on the floor
Spilled tea flows up my my nostril
Smash me against the wall, implore
Bullets in my eyes, please hold still
Demented
Dented
Strangle me with guitar strings
Look for the right chord
My coronach, will you sing for me
Will you pin the butterfly on the board
Torment
Vent
Cage me, Kill me, Die
Can you do it?
Who's Insane? Me? Lie
Can you do it?
Insane
Slain...

It's boredom, No Eric Clapton doesn't help. No amount of tears showered in, out or around heaven are going to help me. So I am just going to go with the flow...

Favorite Movie Poster: Silence of The Lambs



Favorite Music Album Covers:

The Who- Who's Next



Led Zeppelin- Physical Graffiti



Alice Cooper- Zipper Catches Skin



But If I had to Chose One...

Led Zeppelin- Houses of the Holy



Sigh, bored now.
The Corrs cover of Everybody Hurts.

I am tired.
But then I am sure you are too,
what exactly are you looking for here?
Yes you, over there,
with your crown of expensive cigarette stubs
Reading assimilated poetry in a morbid asylum
What exactly are you hoping to find here?
No, I know this doesn't rhyme
And I know, this doesn't really quallify as a 'poem'
But then does it really matter
These half-choked out sentences
in the midst of red pills and blue pills.
Do they really matter?
What if you die tommorow?
What then, eh!
How many people are going to weep
over their great, insatiable loss?
Is that what a poem is?
A bunch of rhyming lines
shoved into each other,
dripping with carefully specified crimson blood
and exceptionally salty tears?
I didn't mean to write a poem
And I don't know how to stop
Guess I might not want to stop,
Think of this as a roller-coaster ride
that refuses to dips itself into a pool of crimson blood
or the daffodils of broken, torn and lacerated relationships,
What was it that floyd said 'And silence that speaks so much louder that words'
Well it's over now isn't it

Reference to Floyd, Last Stanza in the song by Pink Floyd- Sorrow.
'There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night
And there's dust in my eyes, that blinds my sight
And silence that speaks so much louder than words,
Of promises broken'

TODD
A sweaty-toothed madman with a stare
that pounds my brain.

KEATING
Oh, that's excellent. Now, give him
action. Make him do something.

TODD
H-His hands reach out and choke me.

KEATING
That's it. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Keating removes his hands from Todd but Todd keeps his eyes
closed.

TODD
And, and all the time he's mumbling.

KEATING
What's he mumbling?

TODD
M-Mumbling, "Truth. Truth is like, like
a blanket that always leaves your feet
cold."

The students begin to laugh and Todd opens his eyes. Keating
quickly gestures for him to close them again.

KEATING
Forget them, forget them. Stay with the
blanket. Tell me about that blanket.

TODD
Y-Y-Y-You push it, stretch it, it'll
never be enough. You kick at it, beat
it, it'll never cover any of us. From
the moment we enter crying to the moment
we leave dying, it will just cover your
face as you wail and cry and scream.

Todd opens his eyes. The class is silent. Then they begin to clap
and cheer.

KEATING
(whispering to Todd)
Don't you forget this.

TODD
A sweaty-toothed madman with a stare
that pounds my brain.

KEATING
Oh, that's excellent. Now, give him
action. Make him do something.

TODD
H-His hands reach out and choke me.

KEATING
That's it. Wonderful. Wonderful.

Keating removes his hands from Todd but Todd keeps his eyes
closed.

TODD
And, and all the time he's mumbling.

KEATING
What's he mumbling?

TODD
M-Mumbling, "Truth. Truth is like, like
a blanket that always leaves your feet
cold."

The students begin to laugh and Todd opens his eyes. Keating
quickly gestures for him to close them again.

KEATING
Forget them, forget them. Stay with the
blanket. Tell me about that blanket.

TODD
Y-Y-Y-You push it, stretch it, it'll
never be enough. You kick at it, beat
it, it'll never cover any of us. From
the moment we enter crying to the moment
we leave dying, it will just cover your
face as you wail and cry and scream.

Todd opens his eyes. The class is silent. Then they begin to clap
and cheer.

KEATING
(whispering to Todd)
Don't you forget this.

Dear Diary

I haven't written anything in a really long time. The words seem to have rusted in my veins. Any attempt to write anything seems so futile that I stop before even commencing. I wish I had something grave and interesting to write about. However I seem to be wasting my life by somehow just rotating in concentric circles and hence never quite touching the center.

What am I really doing with my life?

After achieving the mythical 80-something in the monstrous boards I have now been admitted into one of the reputed colleges of the city. The need to question and understand the dynamics of one's own self had never occurred to me. Everyday I meet so many people. Everyday I talk to so many people. And everyday I blur them into the edges of my memories.

When was the last time I met myself?

How do you frame the question whose answer in turn would and in all probability has already defined you? How do you chose the right phrases for such a question? How do you take the thoughts that spring from the crevices of your mind and twist them enough to fit them into the framework of dots, sentences and question marks?

I know the question lies embedded somewhere in my mind like a fossilized dream that refuses to reveal its identity. I try to string random phrases together but the daunting task of scratching letters onto the caustic white paper seems too much of an effort.

Dear diary...today was just another day. Nothing of importance really happened.


Image: Hot Chick with tattoo, found it on the net.

  KEATING
"Oh Captain, My Captain" who knows where
that comes from?

Todd looks up as if he knows the answer, but says nothing. Spaz blows his
nose a little too close to Meeks for his liking.

  KEATING
Not a clue? It's from a poem by Walt
Whitman about Mr. Abraham Lincoln. Now in
this class you can call me Mr. Keating. Or,
if you're slightly more daring, Oh Captain,
My Captain.

The students laugh slightly.

  KEATING
Now let me dispel a few rumors so they
don't fester into facts. Yes, I too
attended Hell-ton and survived. And no,
at that time I was not the mental giant
you see before you. I was the intellectual
equivalent of a ninety-eight pound
weakling. I would go to the beach and
people would kick copies of Byron in my
face.

The boys laugh once again, while Cameron, obviously trying to write all
this down, looks around confusedly. Keating looks down at papers in his
hand.

  KEATING
Now, Mr… Pitts. That's a rather
unfortunate name. Mr. Pitts, where are
you?

Pitts raises his hand while everyone around him snickers.

  KEATING
Mr. Pitts, would you open your hymnal to page 542 and read the first
stanza of the poem you find there?

  PITTS
"To the virgins, to make much of time"?

  KEATING
Yes, that's the one. Somewhat appropriate,
isn't it.

  PITTS
"Gather ye rosebuds while ye may, old
time is still a flying, and this same
flower that smiles today, tomorrow will
be dying."

  KEATING
Thank you Mr. Pitts. "Gather ye rosebuds
while ye may." The Latin term for that
sentiment is Carpe Diem. Now who knows
what that means?

Meeks immediately puts his hand up.

  MEEKS
Carpe Diem. That's "seize the day."

  KEATING
Very good, Mr.-

  MEEKS
Meeks.

  KEATING
Meeks. Another unusual name. Seize the
day. Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.
Why does the writer use these lines?

  CHARLIE
Because he's in a hurry.

  KEATING
No, ding!

Keating slams his hand down on an imaginary buzzer.

  KEATING
Thank you for playing anyway. Because we
are food for worms lads. Because, believe
it or not, each and every one of us in
this room is one day going to stop
breathing, turn cold, and die.

Keating turns towards the trophy cases, filled with trophies, footballs,
and team pictures.

  KEATING
Now I would like you to step forward over
here and peruse some of the faces from
the past. You've walked past them many
times. I don't think you've really looked
at them.

The students slowly gather round the cases and Keating moves behind them.

  KEATING
They're not that different from you, are
they? Same haircuts. Full of hormones,
just like you. Invincible, just like you
feel. The world is their oyster. They
believe they're destined for great things,
just like many of you. Their eyes are full
of hope, just like you. Did they wait until
it was too late to make from their lives
even one iota of what they were capable?
Because you see gentlmen, these boys are
now fertilizing daffodils. But if you listen
real close, you can hear them whisper their
legacy to you. Go on, lean in.

The boys lean in and Keating hovers over Cameron's shoulder.

  KEATING
     (whispering in a gruff voice)
Carpe.

Cameron looks over his shoulder with an aggravated expression on his face.

  KEATING
Hear it?
     (whispering again)
Carpe. Carpe Diem. Seize the day boys,
make your lives extraordinary.

The boys stare at the faces in the cabinet in silence.

----

Hanedin falls of the roller-coaster.
Sky Diving.
Fallen.

Nature's first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf's a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost