Typically people do this in December, so people can read it during their downtime for the holidays, so they know what new shit to buy for X-mas, but I'm only getting around to it now. This is the best media I experienced during the year of our lord, 2012. The year the world didn't end.
Nebraska - Bruce Springsteen
The Branch Will Not Break, Shall We Gather at the River - James Wright
Travellers on the lost highway. Makes me think Springsteen should've never had a band. He should've made weird little tapes like this. The songs move slower, so they have more impact. They're not overwhelmed by the bravado of the band. The characters are alone, so the sound should be sparse. It reminded me of James Wright's poems. Poems of an abandoned landscape, an abandoned people, aimless, lost in a cold wind and a grey sky. Springsteen is an actor in every song. He's a serial killer, a highway patrolman, everybody's on the run. They don't know where they're headed. Probably nowhere. The glockenspiel makes it cosmic. It brings the stars, so high over our dirty, hard earth, and the delirious stupor of a living death. These characters have been pushed beyond hope, into the grace of helplessness, the same grace that one might experience as they fall after they've jumped from the ledge. They're almost like kids again in that they're not in control of their lives, at the mercy of some massive, unknown authority. They are beginning to enter the abyss. They've reverted to the cocoon of hypnotism. They've gone into a void, not heaven, but a few different kinds of hells. They will soon find out some answers to the mysteries. They are living in the night, the dark sky closing in, the same kind of dreaminess that one feels in the jaws of a leopard. The brain is releasing the dreamy narcotics to soften the bite of death.
Run With the Hunted - A Charles Bukowski Reader
This is an excellent retrospective of the man's work, culled from the span of his career and assembled into something of an autobiography. I'm not wild about the guy's poetry, but his prose is brave, and he's able to write about the darker impulses of man and granting us an understanding of them, rather than villifying or alienating us from them.
Adbusters - Issues 2009-Present
http://mentholmountains.blogspot.com/ - David Berman
I've always been a little bit reluctant/cheap to give an ear to anyone close to my age because of what I saw as a lack of sincerity or perhaps politcal conscience, but David Berman kind of eased me liking something resembling a more contemporary, "hipster" artist. He's something of an anomaly, an accessible and popular modern poet, and his music is clever and funny, although sonically it leaves a little bit to be desired. Now he's chosen blogging as a platform, collecting poems, articles, videos, songs all charged at renovating our modern mass consumer society and the cultural imperialism it wages on our consciousness, perhaps the rectify the sins of his father, who is a successful lobbyist in Washington for seemingly all of our worst habits and industries.
As for Adbusters, I was visiting my cousin a few weeks ago in Evergreen Park, Illinois, a suburb on the South Side of Chicago where the Unibomber's from, and noticed a copy of Adbusters in his bathroom. I'd never read it before, but heard a little about it at OWS. He saw me looking through it and came in with a whole stack of them, every issue from the last three years. It being Chicago in January, we had a lot of time downtime indoors, which I spent reading every issue he had, cover to cover. He came in a few days later and said, "You doing okay in here, Kazcinski?"
Birthday Letters - Ted Hughes
I was sitting
Youth away in an office near Slough,
Morning and evening between Slough and Holborn,
Hoarding wage to fund a leap to freedom
And the other side of the earth -- a free-fall
To strip my chrysalis off me in the slipstream.
The Cruise - Bennett Miller, starring Timothy "Speed" Levitch
David Attenborough Documentaries -
These should be our biology classes in high school. I don't know how this guy gets his footage, but he's one of the greatest filmmakers in the world. Netflix has helped me discover a new love for documentaries. These movies show that the world outside of man, the world of nature, is beautiful and imaginative far behind any artistic capability we have. Watching these movies is a good way to gain a new consideration for the natural world, which is now being fatally overlooked, occupying little space in anyone's consciousness.
Shakespeare Behind Bars -
The greatest film adaptation of Shakespeare. Watch it on Netflix. An Othello monologue performed by a man doing life for killing his wife is as authentic emotionally as it gets. It's hard to picture, but Shakespeare writes about real people. These murders, rapes, betrayals, maneuvers, amputations, androgenies, these are real events, not fictions.
"Walking" - Henry David Thoreau
The Songlines, In Patagonia, On the Black Hill - Bruce Chatwin
"I have met with but one or two persons in the course of my life who understood the art of walking". These guys are one or two. Werner Herzog is another.
Diaries of Anais Nin, Vol. 3 1939-1944
Wandering - Herman Hesse
"By Blue Ontario's Shores", "When Lilac's Last in the Dooryard Bloom'd" - Walt Whitman
The Civil War - Ken Burns
I was taken by the eloquence and strength of even the young soldiers during this war. In this movie, we see the beginnings of modern warfare, and the horror evoked by it in those who were the first to witness what was being unleashed. You can feel the dignity of the whole world unraveling, and death taking over.
Black Coffee Blues - Henry Rollins
The funniest shit I've read in a long time. Rollins is the greatest. Here's an interesting website that argues that Bob Dylan's more recent albums have borrowed heavily from Rollins' books.
Residencia a la Tierra - Pablo Neruda
The Stepfathers set at the Del Close Marathon at the UCB Theatre, NYC.
Hello Lazer at the Magnet Theatre, NYC.
One of the advantages and beauties of improv is that it's theatre stripped to its most essential, and Hello Lazer performs with the logic of the dream. Probably my favorite improv group. The Stepfathers one word suggestion was "Rewind", and about 2/3s of the way through a funny set about a gang of saxophone players, Bailiff school, Chris Gethard steps out and says "and now we're going to rewind to the beginning of our set" and they proceed to perform the whole thing exactly as it happened IN REVERSE. We were all lucky to be there that night.
Truth in Comedy, Art by Committee - Del Close, Charna Halpern, Kim "Howard Johnson
Impro - Keith Johnstone
Mastery - George Burr Leonard
The War of Art - Steven Pressfield
Buck - Cindy Meehl
These books helped me a lot this year. The principles of Improv aren't just helpful to would-be improvisers, they're a pretty solid foundation for living well. Steven Pressfield's audio books are pretty hilarious, as he sounds like a grizzled survivor of "The War of Art". Impro by Keith Johnstone is a spooky, magic assessment of modern society and how to re-animate our spontanaiety and humanity.
The Random House Book of Twentieth Century French Poetry - Edited by Paul Auster
It's all there. Auster's introduction is stellar. I discovered Apollinaire, Artaud, Francis Ponge through this book.
"What People Say About Paris" - Kenneth Koch
People also say these things about NYC.
"The Exstacie" - John Donne
Duino Elegies - Rilke
Maybe my favorite poems.
They Live - John Carpenter starring "Rowdy" Roddy Piper
The prophets Carpenter and Piper. The scene where they bulldoze the encampment is exactly what happened in Zuccotti Park.
Encounters at the End of the World - Werner Herzog
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Movies. Show all posts
28 April 2009
27 April 2009
The Girlwatcher
This is a short video, followed by the story which it was based on.
I’m in love with this girl. She doesn’t really like me. I mean, she thinks I’m nice and everything, she’s cordial, and I would like to believe that someday, if I played my cards absolutely impeccably, she would let me quietly hump her in my own pathetic little way, but I know that she doesn’t lie in bed at night with the sheets all snaked and clinched between her knees and ache for me like I do for her. I do open mic every Wednesday at the coffee house where she works. There’s usually a bunch of people there but I’m sure that even though I’m wearing sunglasses cause I’m nervous she has to know I’m singing directly to her. I have conversations with her whenever I can invite the courage, conversations that swelter in my body all week like lava, conversations where my words erupt and spill over.
She started working at the coffee shop after my ex and I had broken up, so I don’t think she would have made the connection. My ex is a vindictive bitch. She’s bisexual, which was nice when we were together, got a little menage action every once in a while, but it’s not nice anymore. I only mention it because I’m out the other day and I see her walking down the street hand in hand with this new girl that I’m in love with, the coffee shop girl.
I didn’t really understand what was going on at first so I sort of started following them a little bit, on the other side of the street about 50, 100 yards back. I know that sounds creepy, but it was harmless. It’s not like I'm OJ, like I wanted to kill anybody or anything. It hurt my feelings to see them together. I can’t help that I’m in love. I’m a jealous guy, I’ll admit that, but what’s wrong with caring about somebody? People always make you feel bad for caring. It’s bullshit.
I tried to be sneaky at first, pressing my back to the brick walls and peeking around and springing to the next doorway or crevice between buildings, but I stopped giving a shit. I didn’t care if anyone noticed me in the middle of a busy downtown sidewalk looking through binoculars (I like to go birdwatching in the park every once in a while). I watched them swinging their linked hands back and forth. They would stop and press their faces up to the window of a boutique and then go in and I would go into the store across the street and watch through the front window and they would come out licking ice cream cones or carrying a little trinket they had bought. I didn’t pretend to be reading a magazine in the convenience store or to be looking at the leather masks and ball gags in the sex shop. More than one proprietor forced me out of his store. Homeless people came up on the street and asked me for change, asked me what I was looking at. I ignored them too. I couldn’t see anything but the two girls I had most recently been in love with.
We ended up at my ex’s apartment on the third floor of a bulding where I lived with her for ten months. We used to wake up in the morning and spread the curtains and make love right in the bay window overlooking the trees. We broke up two months before the lease was up. It was a bad break up. I fooled around with this bartender chick and the ex threw all my stuff out into the street just like in the movies.
I jumped in the dumpster in the alley across the way and watched as my ex and the coffee house chick walked up the steps to the porch with the swing in the back. I could smell the rust and beer and rotten food as I watched my ex-pin the new girl up against the wall with a kiss. What I began to feel I had never felt before, this rage like a hot stove. I felt like I could have swung a whale by its tail up through the goddamn panoramic third floor fuckin’ bay window. I felt like I could’ve drilled through a mountain like John Henry. I felt like I could’ve brought down the columns of the world and busted through the sky with my fist as it tumbled down on top of everything. The ex took the new girl by the hand and they went inside.
I started humming the mantra my Tai Chi teacher taught me. I climbed up into a tree to see into her window but it was Springtime and there were too many leaves. I swung down from a branch and dropped to the sidewalk. I circled the building but at no angle could I see into the apartment. I went up to the porch and waited for a few minutes to see if one of my old neighbors would come out, or maybe Yanni the Super, but no one came out. I'd had to climb up the fire escape a few times when I forgot my key, but it was a real bitch and I only did it after I'd tried everything else. As I sat there, I began to get the idea that maybe they wanted me to come after them. Women don't want timid guys. They want cavemen. They want guys to drag them by their hair into the cave and have their way with them. All I had to do was climb the fire escape and go right in the window, which I could see from the street was open (we had an air conditioner but the ex would never let me turn it on. Too expensive). The girls would be shocked at first and try to cover their nakedness, but then they’d see how right it was. We’d all fall in love, the new girl with me, me with the new girl, the ex and me, me and the ex, the ex and the new girl, the new girl and the ex. When something is meant to be, you can’t fight it and the three of us were meant to be; We were meant to be a triumvirate of passion, a trifecta of lust, the holy trinity of sex.
I jumped up and grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder. This was always the hardest part; catching the ladder probably eight or ten feet off the ground like a basketball rim and pulling all of your weight up with your arms, legs thrashing like a hanged man’s. Though I go to the dojo twice a week it was a pain in the ass pulling myself up that ladder. I braced my forearms against the bars below my hands for leverage and lifted my foot so high to get it on the ladder that I nearly ripped open my sack. I pushed my self up by my foot and after placing my other foot on the ladder it was easy to climb up onto the first platform of the escape. I rubbed my forearms, which throbbed as if they were about split like wishbones, and waited for minute to catch my breath before I quietly went up the mesh iron steps.
When I got to the third floor I paused against the wall next to the open window. I watched, through the thin curtain flowing in the window, my ex take off the coffee shop girl’s tank top. They were not five feet away from me and I could hear their breath, their lips sucking at each other and parting with a pluck and plunging back together again. I was enjoying the show and didn’t want to interrupt too soon, and I knelt down so my face would be level with theirs. I felt almost like I was a part of it. It was weird, my heart was being broken and pieced back together all at once. I really believed that I could love them both, that they would both love me. I wouldn’t be jealous of my ex. If she were some douche bag getting with the coffee shop girl I might want to shatter his face with a sledgehammer, but the new girl had somehow rekindled my love for my ex. She would heal over our pain like a splint over a broken bone, and we would fuse together stronger than we were before.
I put my leg through the window and set it down quietly on the hardwood floor beside the bed. I ducked beneath the window frame and snuck through. I lifted my other leg and, as I was putting it through I accidentally knocked out the wooden slate that was holding the window up and it dropped down on my shin.
The two girls jumped apart. My ex’s face tightened savagely.
“Charles?” she said, “What the fuck?”
I clambered to pry my leg out from the window. I realized that the new girl probably didn’t know what was going on and I might be able to save face with her. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, “I thought this was the fourth floor. Terribly sorry.”
I freed my leg and went out the window as my ex bitched me out. I climbed up the fire escape to the fourth floor and my ex poked her head out and yelled up at me.
“Jesus Christ, Charles. You’re a fucking creep,” she said. “Come down from there.”
I knocked on the window of the fourth floor apartment, hoping that they might let me in, but no one answered.
“I’m calling the cops,” the ex said and disappeared back into the apartment. I meekly climbed down the ladder back to the third floor and, seeing that my ex was on the phone and the coffee house girl was on the bed, I thought I might have time to explain things and peeked my head in the window.
“Window’s locked,” I said, indicating “my” apartment upstairs. “Hey, you work at the Midnight Cafe, don’t you?”
She nodded. My ex saw that I was talking to her and threw a blue high heeled shoe at me. I blocked it with my elbow and offered a quick apology to the new girl.
“Hey look, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude or anything. I live upstairs.” The ex slammed the phone down and came after me. I ducked out the window and the ex yelled things at me as I scurried down the fire escape and down the alley behind the house.
The best thing I ever heard about love my 8 year old brother told me. “Mary likes me,” he said. “How do you know that?” I asked. “She laughs at me and when I look at her she smiles,” he said. Now, I know that that’s one hundred percent true, but it never really works out that way for me.
I’m in love with this girl. She doesn’t really like me. I mean, she thinks I’m nice and everything, she’s cordial, and I would like to believe that someday, if I played my cards absolutely impeccably, she would let me quietly hump her in my own pathetic little way, but I know that she doesn’t lie in bed at night with the sheets all snaked and clinched between her knees and ache for me like I do for her. I do open mic every Wednesday at the coffee house where she works. There’s usually a bunch of people there but I’m sure that even though I’m wearing sunglasses cause I’m nervous she has to know I’m singing directly to her. I have conversations with her whenever I can invite the courage, conversations that swelter in my body all week like lava, conversations where my words erupt and spill over.
She started working at the coffee shop after my ex and I had broken up, so I don’t think she would have made the connection. My ex is a vindictive bitch. She’s bisexual, which was nice when we were together, got a little menage action every once in a while, but it’s not nice anymore. I only mention it because I’m out the other day and I see her walking down the street hand in hand with this new girl that I’m in love with, the coffee shop girl.
I didn’t really understand what was going on at first so I sort of started following them a little bit, on the other side of the street about 50, 100 yards back. I know that sounds creepy, but it was harmless. It’s not like I'm OJ, like I wanted to kill anybody or anything. It hurt my feelings to see them together. I can’t help that I’m in love. I’m a jealous guy, I’ll admit that, but what’s wrong with caring about somebody? People always make you feel bad for caring. It’s bullshit.
I tried to be sneaky at first, pressing my back to the brick walls and peeking around and springing to the next doorway or crevice between buildings, but I stopped giving a shit. I didn’t care if anyone noticed me in the middle of a busy downtown sidewalk looking through binoculars (I like to go birdwatching in the park every once in a while). I watched them swinging their linked hands back and forth. They would stop and press their faces up to the window of a boutique and then go in and I would go into the store across the street and watch through the front window and they would come out licking ice cream cones or carrying a little trinket they had bought. I didn’t pretend to be reading a magazine in the convenience store or to be looking at the leather masks and ball gags in the sex shop. More than one proprietor forced me out of his store. Homeless people came up on the street and asked me for change, asked me what I was looking at. I ignored them too. I couldn’t see anything but the two girls I had most recently been in love with.
We ended up at my ex’s apartment on the third floor of a bulding where I lived with her for ten months. We used to wake up in the morning and spread the curtains and make love right in the bay window overlooking the trees. We broke up two months before the lease was up. It was a bad break up. I fooled around with this bartender chick and the ex threw all my stuff out into the street just like in the movies.
I jumped in the dumpster in the alley across the way and watched as my ex and the coffee house chick walked up the steps to the porch with the swing in the back. I could smell the rust and beer and rotten food as I watched my ex-pin the new girl up against the wall with a kiss. What I began to feel I had never felt before, this rage like a hot stove. I felt like I could have swung a whale by its tail up through the goddamn panoramic third floor fuckin’ bay window. I felt like I could’ve drilled through a mountain like John Henry. I felt like I could’ve brought down the columns of the world and busted through the sky with my fist as it tumbled down on top of everything. The ex took the new girl by the hand and they went inside.
I started humming the mantra my Tai Chi teacher taught me. I climbed up into a tree to see into her window but it was Springtime and there were too many leaves. I swung down from a branch and dropped to the sidewalk. I circled the building but at no angle could I see into the apartment. I went up to the porch and waited for a few minutes to see if one of my old neighbors would come out, or maybe Yanni the Super, but no one came out. I'd had to climb up the fire escape a few times when I forgot my key, but it was a real bitch and I only did it after I'd tried everything else. As I sat there, I began to get the idea that maybe they wanted me to come after them. Women don't want timid guys. They want cavemen. They want guys to drag them by their hair into the cave and have their way with them. All I had to do was climb the fire escape and go right in the window, which I could see from the street was open (we had an air conditioner but the ex would never let me turn it on. Too expensive). The girls would be shocked at first and try to cover their nakedness, but then they’d see how right it was. We’d all fall in love, the new girl with me, me with the new girl, the ex and me, me and the ex, the ex and the new girl, the new girl and the ex. When something is meant to be, you can’t fight it and the three of us were meant to be; We were meant to be a triumvirate of passion, a trifecta of lust, the holy trinity of sex.
I jumped up and grabbed the bottom rung of the ladder. This was always the hardest part; catching the ladder probably eight or ten feet off the ground like a basketball rim and pulling all of your weight up with your arms, legs thrashing like a hanged man’s. Though I go to the dojo twice a week it was a pain in the ass pulling myself up that ladder. I braced my forearms against the bars below my hands for leverage and lifted my foot so high to get it on the ladder that I nearly ripped open my sack. I pushed my self up by my foot and after placing my other foot on the ladder it was easy to climb up onto the first platform of the escape. I rubbed my forearms, which throbbed as if they were about split like wishbones, and waited for minute to catch my breath before I quietly went up the mesh iron steps.
When I got to the third floor I paused against the wall next to the open window. I watched, through the thin curtain flowing in the window, my ex take off the coffee shop girl’s tank top. They were not five feet away from me and I could hear their breath, their lips sucking at each other and parting with a pluck and plunging back together again. I was enjoying the show and didn’t want to interrupt too soon, and I knelt down so my face would be level with theirs. I felt almost like I was a part of it. It was weird, my heart was being broken and pieced back together all at once. I really believed that I could love them both, that they would both love me. I wouldn’t be jealous of my ex. If she were some douche bag getting with the coffee shop girl I might want to shatter his face with a sledgehammer, but the new girl had somehow rekindled my love for my ex. She would heal over our pain like a splint over a broken bone, and we would fuse together stronger than we were before.
I put my leg through the window and set it down quietly on the hardwood floor beside the bed. I ducked beneath the window frame and snuck through. I lifted my other leg and, as I was putting it through I accidentally knocked out the wooden slate that was holding the window up and it dropped down on my shin.
The two girls jumped apart. My ex’s face tightened savagely.
“Charles?” she said, “What the fuck?”
I clambered to pry my leg out from the window. I realized that the new girl probably didn’t know what was going on and I might be able to save face with her. “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, “I thought this was the fourth floor. Terribly sorry.”
I freed my leg and went out the window as my ex bitched me out. I climbed up the fire escape to the fourth floor and my ex poked her head out and yelled up at me.
“Jesus Christ, Charles. You’re a fucking creep,” she said. “Come down from there.”
I knocked on the window of the fourth floor apartment, hoping that they might let me in, but no one answered.
“I’m calling the cops,” the ex said and disappeared back into the apartment. I meekly climbed down the ladder back to the third floor and, seeing that my ex was on the phone and the coffee house girl was on the bed, I thought I might have time to explain things and peeked my head in the window.
“Window’s locked,” I said, indicating “my” apartment upstairs. “Hey, you work at the Midnight Cafe, don’t you?”
She nodded. My ex saw that I was talking to her and threw a blue high heeled shoe at me. I blocked it with my elbow and offered a quick apology to the new girl.
“Hey look, I’m really sorry, I didn’t mean to intrude or anything. I live upstairs.” The ex slammed the phone down and came after me. I ducked out the window and the ex yelled things at me as I scurried down the fire escape and down the alley behind the house.
The best thing I ever heard about love my 8 year old brother told me. “Mary likes me,” he said. “How do you know that?” I asked. “She laughs at me and when I look at her she smiles,” he said. Now, I know that that’s one hundred percent true, but it never really works out that way for me.
Some Thoughts on Making Movies From an Amateur
"Julia"
I've made a number of short films and videos as a kind of apprenticeship. I've heard a from the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino that their first movies were bad, and how they wouldn't want anyone to see them now. I figured that if their first movies were bad, then mine probably would be too, so I might as well just make them and get them out of the way.
I wrote dozens, maybe even hundreds, of pages of scripts in high school classes. My friend Chip and I wrote a Vietnam War movie featuring Prometheus, the man who stole fire from the Gods. I saw "The 400 Blows" and wrote a semi-autobiographical New Wave coming of age drama. I didn't have a good video camera or a computer, so I never really made a movie until I was 19 years old (save the improvised, unfinished "The Magic Baseball" which I've yet to upload to youtube). After I saw the movie "Adaptation" I got the book "Story" by Robert McKee. Later I read David Mamet's "On Directing Film" and "The 3 Uses of the Knife" and took screenwriting classes, and I feel these books shaped my writing in a very kind of sitcom-y style, which I have only recently figured out how to escape.
McKee recommends planning your story out on note cards before attempting to write your screenplay. Each scene gets a note card and you write the beats on it. I would argue that it is nearly impossible to write this way (at least for me). It's like asking a river to flow in reverse. It causes you to think too rationally. It introduces the critical impulse before the creative has had a chance to express itself. Joseph Campbell speaks of how Pegasus, or poetry, was born out of Medusa's severed head. One must remove the critical agent, the "head", before one's creativity can take off. How can one write if one is sitting around thinking of little bits of information to put on note cards? It is only after one dives into a situation, a scene, after one's hand is moving freely, writing, that the intricacies, the details, the life comes into a scene. You travel into the layers of a thing. If you sit around thinking, and not writing, you remain on the surface. I would advise a screenwriter to visualize everything, to see the movie in your head and write what is seen and not worry about three act structure or story beats or any of that. It is a natural human tendency to structure things dramatically. The most satisfying course a basketball game can take is to have one's home team suffer early on and have to make a comeback which climaxes with a three-pointer made "at the buzzer." A story, if you work at it hard enough, will find it's structure as water finds it's level. Part of the problem with movies today is that we have internalized the form as audience members so completely, and that writers obey it so slavishly, that it has become predictable. After the premise, the conflict has been set up by the end of the first act (ten to fifteen pages, or minutes, in), the movie rarely spirals out of it's own constructed ethos into the unpredictable. The hero is guaranteed to have a third act break were he or she loses everything, only to surge against the antagonist at the end and either acheive their goal or be denied. The writer should be following the story where it wants to take him, he shouldn't be forcing the story to take the course of some prefabricated structure or form. A movie should unfurl like a flower, rooted in one place, but free to grow wherever the sun leads it.
Writing is a voyage into the unknown, and if one has the guts to throw oneself off the cliff without note cards stories have a way of solving themselves. The seemingly invented, inconsequential details of the thing lead to the resolution. The way things are written now, every detail must add up to the sum of the film, must lead in some way to the climax. Movies are slim, efficient emotional machines calculated to evoke a particular emotional reaction from the viewer. Hollywood achieves this with great success every few years. Think of how you felt at the end of "The Usual Suspects." The machine of that film was so finely calibrated that it triggered the surprise, the thrill in all of us. Many Hollywood movies are aiming at this kind of reaction. This is not the only way to make a movie, however. Jimmy Stewart told a story of how, late in his career, a man came up to him on a film set somewhere in the country, Colorado or someplace, and asked him, "You Stewart?" He said Yeah. The guy said, "You read a poem in a movie once. That was good." The man didn't remember the story, the context, only the scene, the moment, but that is enough. Movies should be curious. The dance contest in "Pulp Fiction" has little to do with the plot, but it is a joyous, memorable sequence. Movies should be concerned with creating these kind of moments and images. Movies needn't be roller coasters where every rail and board, where every line of dialogue and shot is building, building, building towards the climax. They should be works of art encompassing the totality of man's existence, great and small. They should be paintings, poems, songs, novels, plays, operas all rolled into one. They should have a little fat on their bones.
The tough thing about movies is expressing things only through pictures and dialogue. Too many people think writing dialogue is writing movies. It isn't. It's writing radio plays. It's writing sitcoms. People end up writing 12 characters that all speak in the same "witty", "urbane" voice. It's verbal ping pong. This is why so many sitcoms have cute eight year old girls who talk like middle aged comedy writers. Writers are crafting situations and peopling them with faceless vessels for their own jokes. It isn't even just sitcoms. Aaron Sorkin is an example of a well-respected writer who's characters are essentially mouthpieces for one voice. The characters parry and joust, swipe at each other as they walk down hallways. The walks give the illusion of movement, of action, but nothing is really happening. In order to escape this, a writer must not create from a place where two characters are speaking to each other in the darkness. He must instead imagine in vibrant life the totality of a situation, as if he were writing a novel and record that. Nabokov said something about how he never thinks in words, he thinks in images. He just uses words to communicate the images to others. This is what a screenwriter must do, communicate the image to the director, actors, the artisans on the set.
Advice from one who has read McKee, Mamet, taken screenwriting classes: Don't read these books. Don't read any books. The only way to learn how to make movies is to make movies. Solve the problems on a one to one basis. Do not try to follow any rules. Every film has a number of difficulties that will arise, and you must face each of these as they come. They are what making a film is about. If you don't like arguing with an actor over a line reading, if you don't like filming outside in freezing temperatures, if you don't like waiting around while they set up lights for 3 hours, don't make films. Go do something easy, something predictable, like work in an office.
Mamet says that there is no such thing as character, only action, lines on a page, but this is a very dangerous thing for a writer or filmmaker to hear. Of course, plays and movies, the dramatic arts, are about action, but if one writes or acts believing "There is no such thing as character," one will have a tough time creating anything specific or original. People, characters handle situations differently. An elephant walks differently from a mouse. Zorro would handle the kidnapping of his daughter differently than Uncle Buck might. The characters must be specific, unique. If Hamlet were nothing but a plot line, a neutral, blank entity's desire and obstacles, there would be nothing of interest in it. Hamlet is what makes Hamlet intersting. Just because a character has a "goal", an "objective" doesn't mean we're going to care if he or she achieves it. The objective is only interesting insofar as we can relate to it, as we can sympathize or respect the character who is after it. We wouldn't care one way or the other if John McClane saved those imaginary people in Nakatomi Tower if he were just some regular guy, but John McClane is funny and badass and that's why we want to see Hans Gruber eat it. John McClane is an interesting character and a good guy and this is why we want him to be able to make it home for Christmas. If John McClane had no individuality, if he weren't a smartass, if he weren't a character, we wouldn't give two shits if he lived or died. "The Big Lebowski" is a movie where, essentially, the plot is laughable, yet it is endlessly watchable due to the hilarious eccentricities of the characters.
One of the things that is frustrating about making films is that, the way things are done nowadays, you have to make a film three times. Once, when you imagine and write it, again when you shoot it, and finally when you edit it. A fully realized and carefully planned screenplay is like a grocery list. You set out for the store to gather specific ingredients which later you will put into the pot and stir and cook into a film. The mechanization of the process, the equipment that Hollywood has taught us is "required": trucks full of lights, set pieces, costumes etc. bring the creative process to a crawl, and allow little room for interference or the spirit of invention. Any kind of unpredictability on a set leads to problems. Orson Welles said a director is one who "presides over accidents." Francis Ford Coppola said a director is "Ringmaster of a circus that is inventing itself." And yet most films try to fortify themselves against the unpredictable, against accident, the unforseen. If it rains, if a certain prop or costume can't be obtained, the whole scene could be ruined. I would much rather make a film with vague notions, where the story arises during the process like an island from a mist. I would rather start out with a treatment, an outline, improvise the shooting, and craft the story in the editing, and this is what I'm doing with the film I'm making right now, a story about a Greek gypsy living in New York. It's also sort of what I did with my short "Julia" (seen above), which is on Youtube, a video I did for my Gothic literature class, and probably the best thing I've yet done.
Anyway, you can check out my shorts here. They're pretty mediocre overall, but there are some fairly beautiful images here and there. I am fine with this, because I've figured out how to work, and I will make better films in the future.
I've made a number of short films and videos as a kind of apprenticeship. I've heard a from the likes of Jim Jarmusch and Quentin Tarantino that their first movies were bad, and how they wouldn't want anyone to see them now. I figured that if their first movies were bad, then mine probably would be too, so I might as well just make them and get them out of the way.
I wrote dozens, maybe even hundreds, of pages of scripts in high school classes. My friend Chip and I wrote a Vietnam War movie featuring Prometheus, the man who stole fire from the Gods. I saw "The 400 Blows" and wrote a semi-autobiographical New Wave coming of age drama. I didn't have a good video camera or a computer, so I never really made a movie until I was 19 years old (save the improvised, unfinished "The Magic Baseball" which I've yet to upload to youtube). After I saw the movie "Adaptation" I got the book "Story" by Robert McKee. Later I read David Mamet's "On Directing Film" and "The 3 Uses of the Knife" and took screenwriting classes, and I feel these books shaped my writing in a very kind of sitcom-y style, which I have only recently figured out how to escape.
McKee recommends planning your story out on note cards before attempting to write your screenplay. Each scene gets a note card and you write the beats on it. I would argue that it is nearly impossible to write this way (at least for me). It's like asking a river to flow in reverse. It causes you to think too rationally. It introduces the critical impulse before the creative has had a chance to express itself. Joseph Campbell speaks of how Pegasus, or poetry, was born out of Medusa's severed head. One must remove the critical agent, the "head", before one's creativity can take off. How can one write if one is sitting around thinking of little bits of information to put on note cards? It is only after one dives into a situation, a scene, after one's hand is moving freely, writing, that the intricacies, the details, the life comes into a scene. You travel into the layers of a thing. If you sit around thinking, and not writing, you remain on the surface. I would advise a screenwriter to visualize everything, to see the movie in your head and write what is seen and not worry about three act structure or story beats or any of that. It is a natural human tendency to structure things dramatically. The most satisfying course a basketball game can take is to have one's home team suffer early on and have to make a comeback which climaxes with a three-pointer made "at the buzzer." A story, if you work at it hard enough, will find it's structure as water finds it's level. Part of the problem with movies today is that we have internalized the form as audience members so completely, and that writers obey it so slavishly, that it has become predictable. After the premise, the conflict has been set up by the end of the first act (ten to fifteen pages, or minutes, in), the movie rarely spirals out of it's own constructed ethos into the unpredictable. The hero is guaranteed to have a third act break were he or she loses everything, only to surge against the antagonist at the end and either acheive their goal or be denied. The writer should be following the story where it wants to take him, he shouldn't be forcing the story to take the course of some prefabricated structure or form. A movie should unfurl like a flower, rooted in one place, but free to grow wherever the sun leads it.
Writing is a voyage into the unknown, and if one has the guts to throw oneself off the cliff without note cards stories have a way of solving themselves. The seemingly invented, inconsequential details of the thing lead to the resolution. The way things are written now, every detail must add up to the sum of the film, must lead in some way to the climax. Movies are slim, efficient emotional machines calculated to evoke a particular emotional reaction from the viewer. Hollywood achieves this with great success every few years. Think of how you felt at the end of "The Usual Suspects." The machine of that film was so finely calibrated that it triggered the surprise, the thrill in all of us. Many Hollywood movies are aiming at this kind of reaction. This is not the only way to make a movie, however. Jimmy Stewart told a story of how, late in his career, a man came up to him on a film set somewhere in the country, Colorado or someplace, and asked him, "You Stewart?" He said Yeah. The guy said, "You read a poem in a movie once. That was good." The man didn't remember the story, the context, only the scene, the moment, but that is enough. Movies should be curious. The dance contest in "Pulp Fiction" has little to do with the plot, but it is a joyous, memorable sequence. Movies should be concerned with creating these kind of moments and images. Movies needn't be roller coasters where every rail and board, where every line of dialogue and shot is building, building, building towards the climax. They should be works of art encompassing the totality of man's existence, great and small. They should be paintings, poems, songs, novels, plays, operas all rolled into one. They should have a little fat on their bones.
The tough thing about movies is expressing things only through pictures and dialogue. Too many people think writing dialogue is writing movies. It isn't. It's writing radio plays. It's writing sitcoms. People end up writing 12 characters that all speak in the same "witty", "urbane" voice. It's verbal ping pong. This is why so many sitcoms have cute eight year old girls who talk like middle aged comedy writers. Writers are crafting situations and peopling them with faceless vessels for their own jokes. It isn't even just sitcoms. Aaron Sorkin is an example of a well-respected writer who's characters are essentially mouthpieces for one voice. The characters parry and joust, swipe at each other as they walk down hallways. The walks give the illusion of movement, of action, but nothing is really happening. In order to escape this, a writer must not create from a place where two characters are speaking to each other in the darkness. He must instead imagine in vibrant life the totality of a situation, as if he were writing a novel and record that. Nabokov said something about how he never thinks in words, he thinks in images. He just uses words to communicate the images to others. This is what a screenwriter must do, communicate the image to the director, actors, the artisans on the set.
Advice from one who has read McKee, Mamet, taken screenwriting classes: Don't read these books. Don't read any books. The only way to learn how to make movies is to make movies. Solve the problems on a one to one basis. Do not try to follow any rules. Every film has a number of difficulties that will arise, and you must face each of these as they come. They are what making a film is about. If you don't like arguing with an actor over a line reading, if you don't like filming outside in freezing temperatures, if you don't like waiting around while they set up lights for 3 hours, don't make films. Go do something easy, something predictable, like work in an office.
Mamet says that there is no such thing as character, only action, lines on a page, but this is a very dangerous thing for a writer or filmmaker to hear. Of course, plays and movies, the dramatic arts, are about action, but if one writes or acts believing "There is no such thing as character," one will have a tough time creating anything specific or original. People, characters handle situations differently. An elephant walks differently from a mouse. Zorro would handle the kidnapping of his daughter differently than Uncle Buck might. The characters must be specific, unique. If Hamlet were nothing but a plot line, a neutral, blank entity's desire and obstacles, there would be nothing of interest in it. Hamlet is what makes Hamlet intersting. Just because a character has a "goal", an "objective" doesn't mean we're going to care if he or she achieves it. The objective is only interesting insofar as we can relate to it, as we can sympathize or respect the character who is after it. We wouldn't care one way or the other if John McClane saved those imaginary people in Nakatomi Tower if he were just some regular guy, but John McClane is funny and badass and that's why we want to see Hans Gruber eat it. John McClane is an interesting character and a good guy and this is why we want him to be able to make it home for Christmas. If John McClane had no individuality, if he weren't a smartass, if he weren't a character, we wouldn't give two shits if he lived or died. "The Big Lebowski" is a movie where, essentially, the plot is laughable, yet it is endlessly watchable due to the hilarious eccentricities of the characters.
One of the things that is frustrating about making films is that, the way things are done nowadays, you have to make a film three times. Once, when you imagine and write it, again when you shoot it, and finally when you edit it. A fully realized and carefully planned screenplay is like a grocery list. You set out for the store to gather specific ingredients which later you will put into the pot and stir and cook into a film. The mechanization of the process, the equipment that Hollywood has taught us is "required": trucks full of lights, set pieces, costumes etc. bring the creative process to a crawl, and allow little room for interference or the spirit of invention. Any kind of unpredictability on a set leads to problems. Orson Welles said a director is one who "presides over accidents." Francis Ford Coppola said a director is "Ringmaster of a circus that is inventing itself." And yet most films try to fortify themselves against the unpredictable, against accident, the unforseen. If it rains, if a certain prop or costume can't be obtained, the whole scene could be ruined. I would much rather make a film with vague notions, where the story arises during the process like an island from a mist. I would rather start out with a treatment, an outline, improvise the shooting, and craft the story in the editing, and this is what I'm doing with the film I'm making right now, a story about a Greek gypsy living in New York. It's also sort of what I did with my short "Julia" (seen above), which is on Youtube, a video I did for my Gothic literature class, and probably the best thing I've yet done.
Anyway, you can check out my shorts here. They're pretty mediocre overall, but there are some fairly beautiful images here and there. I am fine with this, because I've figured out how to work, and I will make better films in the future.
17 April 2009
Mack Sennett
Mack had this huge office on stilts right in the center of his lot so he could watch over all the production on the stages like a goddamned prison warden watching over his yard. The stages were all open-air in those days, no ceilings, to let the natural sunlight in, so Mack could see everything. He was especially keen on keeping an eye on Mabel, make sure she wasn't carousing with that week's leading man. He liked to watch the Bathing Beauties of course too.
Mack had a big reputation. Everybody started with Mack: Fatty, Chaplin, Mabel, all the greats.
Murray, my manager at the time, gets the idea in his head that he ain't gonna let Mack Sennett, the King of Comedy, push him around. We're in the elevator up to Mack's office and Murray leans over to me and says, "Don't you worry about a thing. We ain't gonna let some porkbarrel get you for a nickel less than you're worth. The thing about these Hollywood guys is you gotta grab'em by the balls."
I knew Murray was gonna embarrass me. I could smell it. Instead I just told myself the same rubbish people always tell themselves when they're trying to make it easy for themselves. "Murray's been around for a long time. He bought me a train ticket all the way out to Hollywood. He's making ten percent. He wants me to succeed." I shoulda trusted my instinct. I shoulda stopped the goddamn elevator right then and there and booted his ass out. Always trust your instincts. That's why God put'em there.
So we get up there and the doors open and Sennett is sitting behind this desk with a bib tied around his neck eating the biggest steak I've ever seen in my life. Looks like he cut down a redwood tree, carved a desk out of it, slaughtered a bull and cooked the whole ass. He stands up to greet us and, aside from being big in the business, he was physically one of the largest men I've ever seen in my life. Every one of his pictures had some big, black-eyed bastard chasin' the little hero around, the Heavy they call him. Well, Mack was twice is big as any of those guys. He's got two feet on me, easy. He puts his arm around my shoulder, says "Hey kid lemme show you something." He walks me over and points to the Bathing Beauties down laying around the pool in the sun. He says "See them girls? I keep'em on set full-time. Pay'em twenty-five a week. Think they're gonna be stars. See the kid cranking that camera at'em? There ain't even film in that camera." Then he laughs like a buncha bowling pins clobberin' about and goes back to his steak.
That's when Murray went to work. Murray marches right up and starts banging his fist on Sennett's desk. Sennett looks up, a little confused, not mad or anything, just curious why this guy's banging his fist on his desk. Then Murray does something I'll never forget so long as I live. Most damn fool thing I ever saw. Murray takes Sennett's plate and throws it across the room against the wall like it's a goddamn banana creme pie. Then he looks Sennett right in the eye and goes "Fuck you, you fat fuck."
Mack had a look on his face like he just about shit. Murray was a good manager, or had been up to that point. He knew how to talk to the Circuit owners, theatrical agents. Mack wasn't one of those city guys. He was from the forest somewhere in Canada. He was a lumberjack. He was Paul Bunyan.
Murray points at me and says, "Sign this kid right now or kiss your studio goodbye cause he's gonna be the hottest star there ever was and Metro and United Artists already offered us three thou a piece."
I had no idea what to do. I was just a dumb kid. I stood there, nodding my head, flaring my nostrils, trying to look tough even though I knew goddamn well we didn't talk to Metro and UA wouldn't even let us on the lot.
Mack, real calmly, takes off his bib, puts it on his desk, stands up, looks over at me, sizes me up. I turned away. I couldn't watch. I looked down at the Bathing Beauties. They were so gosh darn pretty down there dangling their toes in the pool. The water looked so cool and blue.
"This the Irish kid?" Mack says. Murray says yeah.
"I'll give him seventy-five a week to play stock. We'll see where it goes from there." And he sits down like that's the final offer. No negotiations, nothing.
Well, I'll tell you, that sounded pretty good to me. I'd been making fifty a week doing eight shows, six cities, and that was before travel expenses. I was lookin' around at all the palm trees and the Bathing Beauties, thinking, yeah this is the place for me. I felt like I was in some Arabian Palace or something, like Sennett was the Sultan with his harem and all that. I shoulda spoke up. I shoulda said something.
Murray leans over Sennett, gets right up nose to nose with Sennett and laughs, once, as hard as he can right in his face.
HA.
He turns around and walks past me right out the door. Doesn't even say anything. Like an idiot, I follow him to the elevator but right before I get on I hear this great, booming voice call out.
"Boy," he says. I turn around.
"Yes, Mr. Sennett?" I says.
"I seen your act," he says, "It's one of the best."
"Thanks Mr. Sennett."
And that was it. I got on the elevator and the doors closed and I looked over at Murray, with his nose sticking up in the air like it was the goddamn cherry on top of the Sundae. He was saying something about how this was ultimately the best thing for my career, but I wasn't listening. I just had this feeling like maybe one of my dreams had passed right in front of me.
Mack Sennett was the King. He was prestige. Everybody started out wearing those bobby hats and badges, swingin' those billy clubs and bumblin' and chasin' each other around the screen.
I got a job making my own two-reelers at King Studios for $125 a week. Sure, I was starring in my own two-reelers, but who ever heard of King Studios?
05 January 2009
Jigs Brown Remembers...
Mickey. I used to play euchre with Mickey and William Demarest on the lot at Fox and he would never shut the fuck up about all the tail he was getting. Ava Gardner. Mickey Rooney was married to Ava Gardner. That tells you everything you need to know about this world we live in. Ava Gardner, he'd say, tastes just like Sweet Potato Pie. Then he'd talk about how Olivier called him the greatest American actor and we'd say you know, Mick, he was being sarcastic. Olivier is the kinda guy who won't let anybody near a stage whose half as good as him. He'd never give a straight compliment, there's always gotta be a little poison in it.
Lousy partner Mickey was. He'd go alone and end up with two tricks. Mick, I'd say, what the Hell'd you go alone for? He'd say he thought he could make it.
He thought he was pretty hot molasses in those days but boy the world sure beat him back down to size, didn't it? He hasn't made a picture worth a hoot in 20 years. If he ever did.
Ugly man. Short. Bulbous. Just goes to show you in this business you never know whose got the dream stuff. Lotta great looking, talented people never make it outta the background and here's Mickey, little turd with stringy hair, a marquee name. It's a mysterious business.
Lousy partner Mickey was. He'd go alone and end up with two tricks. Mick, I'd say, what the Hell'd you go alone for? He'd say he thought he could make it.
He thought he was pretty hot molasses in those days but boy the world sure beat him back down to size, didn't it? He hasn't made a picture worth a hoot in 20 years. If he ever did.
Ugly man. Short. Bulbous. Just goes to show you in this business you never know whose got the dream stuff. Lotta great looking, talented people never make it outta the background and here's Mickey, little turd with stringy hair, a marquee name. It's a mysterious business.
07 October 2008
Ticket Stubs
He knew his childhood was over when he took the ticket stubs out of his wallet and buried them in a drawer underneath love letters and birthday and baseball cards and all the other artifacts of youth. The stubs represented a little under a decade of movie going experience, from Toy Story 2 to Superbad. He'd even transferred them with all his other important pieces of identification from the orange velcro wallet he bought at the Grand Canyon when he was ten to the leather one he got his junior year of high school. Now he needed room for condoms, so the stubs had to go...
Whenever he was bored at work or waiting at the bus stop with nothing to read he would take them out and look through them. He had shuffled them all out of chronological order, but they were conveniently dated and priced and titled and would bring him back instantly to the night (or sometimes afternoon) he saw the movie. He couldn't believe how cheap the movies used to be, or how expensive they'd become. There were tickets that he only bought so he could sneak into other films, R rated films that he and his 12 year old friends had to be protected from. There were movies he saw with girls whose bobby pins were lost under the table next to his bed, musicals and fairy tales. Movies he saw with friends he'd lost touch with, movies about war and loneliness and guys trying to get laid. In high school he and some of those friends had a contest to find out who could be first to see a movie in each of the 24 theaters at the local multiplex. He'd bought tickets to some really awful movies but Charlie Larson still beat him. There were stubs for independent films, for retrospectives, for blockbusters and flops. Stubs from the dollar movies, the drive-in, the multiplex, the drafthouse, the art house and the grand old vaudeville house downtown.
The ticket is a beautiful thing, a symbol of a journey, of transportation emotional and physical. You buy a ticket for a concert, a game, a train ride. You go up to the guy in the glass booth with the microphone and he talks to you through a little speaker. Even though he's two feet away he sounds like he's Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, or maybe, more appropriately, Darth Vader. You slip him the money and he slips you the ticket. You take it 100 feet or so and the usher tears it and puts half in a little box. You keep half and they keep half. You share. They tell you were to go and you walk past all the posters, considering them, checking them for the faces or names of actors or directors or writers you trust, who have proved themselves to you, who have given you some feeling that you wanted. They all live in the same place. Los Angeles: The Angels. There is something angelic about the people up there, the way they drift over your head in that dusty beam of light and pour all over the screen, giant and incandescent. People like Brando and Bogart and Hepburn (both of them). Stars. That's really what they are. We all want to laugh and cry and be scared and thrilled and believe in triumph and accept suffering and they teach us how to do this.
After he found a seat he always was careful to put the stub in his wallet. He didn't know why anyone would throw them away. Once you threw them away, the memory would start to vanish. To him the stubs were a catalog of mythic and emotional experience. One reminded him of the time he sat next to two old people who made out all the way from coming attractions to end credits. Another the time an usher caught him and his friends in The Hills Have Eyes when they'd bought tickets to A Prairie Home Companion.
They give the stubs back for a reason.
But it wasn't practical for him to keep them anymore so he put them in his dresser drawer and when he left home for college he dumped the drawer into a box and put it in his parent's attic with the rest of the archive of his youth. He might come back when he bought a house of his own or when his parents died and find the stubs next to the golden souvenir box he got at his senior prom. He might open the box and find his date's corsage, rotten but still fragrant. He might sift through the ticket stubs and remember the movies and the girls and the friends of his adolescence and feel the nostalgia blow through his soul like an autumn breeze.
Whenever he was bored at work or waiting at the bus stop with nothing to read he would take them out and look through them. He had shuffled them all out of chronological order, but they were conveniently dated and priced and titled and would bring him back instantly to the night (or sometimes afternoon) he saw the movie. He couldn't believe how cheap the movies used to be, or how expensive they'd become. There were tickets that he only bought so he could sneak into other films, R rated films that he and his 12 year old friends had to be protected from. There were movies he saw with girls whose bobby pins were lost under the table next to his bed, musicals and fairy tales. Movies he saw with friends he'd lost touch with, movies about war and loneliness and guys trying to get laid. In high school he and some of those friends had a contest to find out who could be first to see a movie in each of the 24 theaters at the local multiplex. He'd bought tickets to some really awful movies but Charlie Larson still beat him. There were stubs for independent films, for retrospectives, for blockbusters and flops. Stubs from the dollar movies, the drive-in, the multiplex, the drafthouse, the art house and the grand old vaudeville house downtown.
The ticket is a beautiful thing, a symbol of a journey, of transportation emotional and physical. You buy a ticket for a concert, a game, a train ride. You go up to the guy in the glass booth with the microphone and he talks to you through a little speaker. Even though he's two feet away he sounds like he's Neil Armstrong landing on the moon, or maybe, more appropriately, Darth Vader. You slip him the money and he slips you the ticket. You take it 100 feet or so and the usher tears it and puts half in a little box. You keep half and they keep half. You share. They tell you were to go and you walk past all the posters, considering them, checking them for the faces or names of actors or directors or writers you trust, who have proved themselves to you, who have given you some feeling that you wanted. They all live in the same place. Los Angeles: The Angels. There is something angelic about the people up there, the way they drift over your head in that dusty beam of light and pour all over the screen, giant and incandescent. People like Brando and Bogart and Hepburn (both of them). Stars. That's really what they are. We all want to laugh and cry and be scared and thrilled and believe in triumph and accept suffering and they teach us how to do this.
After he found a seat he always was careful to put the stub in his wallet. He didn't know why anyone would throw them away. Once you threw them away, the memory would start to vanish. To him the stubs were a catalog of mythic and emotional experience. One reminded him of the time he sat next to two old people who made out all the way from coming attractions to end credits. Another the time an usher caught him and his friends in The Hills Have Eyes when they'd bought tickets to A Prairie Home Companion.
They give the stubs back for a reason.
But it wasn't practical for him to keep them anymore so he put them in his dresser drawer and when he left home for college he dumped the drawer into a box and put it in his parent's attic with the rest of the archive of his youth. He might come back when he bought a house of his own or when his parents died and find the stubs next to the golden souvenir box he got at his senior prom. He might open the box and find his date's corsage, rotten but still fragrant. He might sift through the ticket stubs and remember the movies and the girls and the friends of his adolescence and feel the nostalgia blow through his soul like an autumn breeze.
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