alexander supertramp

I can't remember reading Perfume. All i can remember is how much i didn't enjoy it. I firmly believe this was because i saw the film before reading its origins. A rookie mistake, as i spent the entire novel contrasting and comparing. It was horribly distracting, so much so that i've avoided both the film and the novel for over a year now, so i can give the book another go. Here's hoping.
And since then i've promised myself i wouldn't watch another adaptation before reading the book.
So far, so good.

Let The Right One In and Into The Wild.
Two films i'd been dying to see. I made myself wait however, until i fulfilled my promise of reading the originals. Neither disappointed.
Let The Right One In has to be one of the most beautiful films i have ever seen. I don't like using the word beautiful, it gets overused and used badly, but in LTROI's case, it's the only word possible. Not what you would expect to be used to describe a vampire film but it is for one about friendship and longing, which is what LTROI is really about. John Ajvide Lindqvist managed to elevate the typical vampire character to a softer, gentler place without robbing the mythic creature of its status in the monster hierarchy. A clever man.
The novel is far more grotesque but again, quietly beautiful. There are things in the novel that especially in today's society would mark it as being abhorrent and the film as a result, i believe, would have been dismissed out of hand, had such things been included - slightly cryptic but it's an important part of the story and i don't want to spoil potential readers. So i'm glad they were left out and the heart of the story was focused on.
All in all, the story is compelling and ridiculously layered with stories you just want to read more and more of as they meld into one. The actors are wonderful, especially the children - it's always amazing to watch someone so young, show the older actors how it's done. Abigail Breslin in Little Miss Sunshine, for example. I want to see Zombieland, yes i do.
I suggest watching and reading it, so my incoherent ramblings make slightly more sense.

On a bad note, lazy americans are remaking LTROI in english. Just read the subtitles for pete's sake!
This moment pretty much sums up Into The Wild for me. A boy so completely in love with nature and freedom, to the exclusion of all else at that moment in time.
I loved this book and i loved this film. I haven't been, 'moved', shall we say, by a film in such a long time, not since i watched Northfork a year or so ago. It's a hard film to watch because it sticks to the truth, embellishments and speculations were of course made because Chris McCandless wasn't there to tell his story himself and Jon Krakauer had to piece it together through the people he met and the journals and photographs he left behind. But i don't think it went off course or made too much of him. The film has been accused of glorifying a boy who they believed was foolish and cared for no one but himself.
I don't think they were paying close enough attention.
This man says it much better than i ever could.

Have you ever wanted to see something so beautiful it brought you to tears?
Well, i think he did, i think he saw something almost every day and i'm really quite jealous.

Up next on the agenda are The Road, Alice In Wonderland, The Time Traveler's Wife and Where The Wild Things Are.
I won't see them until they're on DVD because i am useless =]

watching: somersault

black river killer

These were done whilst i was deciding whether to go back to uni or not. I think the mood i was in shows pretty well.
They do however show that drawing is my number one priority. I get asked a lot how i draw. How i actually physically and mentally manage to translate a real thing into a drawing and i've never been able to answer. I just can. It takes practice though. The development comes through that and then without even knowing why, or how it happened, you're suddenly a better draughtsman.
It's crazy really but a whole lot of fun when you surprise even yourself by how skilled you've gotten.
I
drawing basically.

paramore - playing god

spoonman

I sometimes read over my blog to refresh my memory of the things that have interested me in the past wee while.
I did that today and realised that there is this very noticeable change in the way i was posting.
I became miserable, really.
Artistically, i'm in a bit of a mess and due to that fact, i have deferred from university for a year. Those who know me well, will think this entirely out of character and i guess it is. I've been solely dedicated to getting my honours degree in art for so long that it has basically crushed me. So, i'm going away to be an artist. That sounds silly. I'm going away to be an artist that isn't a slave to the system. And when i return next year to Duncan of Jordanstone to get that roll of paper i'm so desperate for, i'll hopefully have the kind of work i'll be proud to say is mine and no one else's. And most of all, i'll enjoy doing it.

Wish me luck?

soundgarden - the day i tried to live

papaya and satchmo

I've had this song in my head all day.
I've got to make a life-changing decision and i don't know what to do.
Someone take PJ Harvey away from me before i decide to live in a cupboard with my books and music and never come out again.

silversun

Hmm, so, yesterday was matriculation and that took all of two minutes.
Friday is our first meeting as 4th years and in-between the two is finding my studio - which a huge part of me hopes is in the huts so i can retain my hermit-like status - and claiming a space.
I did not feel like a 4th year whilst looking a the 4th year board. Not one little bit.

Also, if anyone has the chance, you should watch A Portrait of Scotland on BBC FOUR, presented and written than no other than Mister Peter Capaldi. It's a brilliant run through of the development of Scottish Art and Capaldi doesn't fail to hold your interest. Being a former Glasgow School of Art student himself and studying alongside no other than Peter Howson, he's able to speak in a perceptive and understandable way. Artists can more than often pick up on things that untrained eyes cannot and that's always nice to witness after the countless, mind-numbingly formulaic, suicidally boring art programmes out there. I wish they'd have shown me stuff like this in lectures. I might have stayed awake more often.

watching: gilmore girls

eli

The Road
This is almost exactly as i imagined.
January 2010.
Not sure i can wait that long.

reading: let the right one in

white mike

Twelve is one of my all-time favourite books and it's being adapted into a film.
Pretty exciting i thought.
That was until i read the cast list and much to my dismay it well and truly blows.
Three of the main parts are being taken on by Chace Crawford of Gossip Girl pretty boy fame, Emma 'i wouldn't have a career if my aunt wasn't famous' Roberts and best of all, best of freakin' all, 50 Cent.
And this is to name but a few of the useless hacks about to obliterate a book i love!

I hate when this happens.

beatles - while my guitar gently weeps