As and Bs

More reading of Jane Espenson's blog, more thinking about Keeping Faith... the days, how they do bleed into one another.

That said. For a while I've been thinking about entering this contest, which is for Dollhouse essays, the best of which will be judged by Jane herself. I've been brainstorming since they announced it, but today I finally figured out what the hell it is I want to say-- stemming from a realization I had a few weeks back when I thought about how DeWitt would make an awesome captain of the Enterprise. I won't tell you anything else, because it is a contest, after all; if I a) don't get it in on time, or b) am not among the winners when they announce in April (a veritable lifetime away), then I'll post it here. I think it will turn out really well with some aggressive editing and a bit more research, even if it is a tad exoteric.

In the process of writing the first draft, I went downstairs to tell my mom about it-- because she knows a little about Dollhouse and a lot about Star Trek and I figured it would amuse her. In doing so, however, I ended up drawn into a conversation with my grandmother about why Dollhouse is an important show and how come it's a shame they canceled it, what "dystopia" means (though it shocks me she'd never heard the word before, as she's an extremely intelligent woman), and the importance of smart entertainment. That questions of philosophy are valid no matter what medium they're presented in, and why that's why I'm so keen on getting into the industry myself, and making a product that a) I can be proud of, but mostly b) that I myself would want to consume. We ended up talking about what a Kindle is and why it was a scandal when they removed 1984 from the system without warning anyone, and how irony is awesome, and it just... it's having conversations like that that make me confident in my recent career choices. I'll catch myself in the middle of a sentence, deeply analyzing something, or making connections to other sources, and I think-- "oh, damn. I actually know my shit. I sound smart." But that's not why I keep doing it, y'know? I talk about this stuff because I'm passionate for it. Which makes for a very nice cycle.

In unrelated news, I've also been listening to Next to Normal a lot (yay, youtube.) It's a brilliant show; while I don't plan on doing this often, in the spirit of a perfect punctum I want to share one of the songs with you-- again, if you don't want spoilers, you probably shouldn't listen:



Oh, man. When Gabe comes in with that first "catch me, I'm falling?" That's a punctum. A sudden rightness. It's not much about the line itself, though it is catchy-- it's all about its placement within the song, and thematically within the show. Out of context, it's unremarkable-- but in context, it makes you gasp at how perfect it is. Definitely my favorite moment of the show.

Catch me, I'm falling-- faster than anyone should.

I'm TIRED. Can't we just be Death Eaters?

Things I did today:

• Got an Amazon package that included Five Seasons of Angel, which I proceeded to begin to read.
• Signed up on http://www.wreckamovie.com/thelegendofzelda, which you should do if you know Bre Melvin or are interested in amateur filmmaking or like Zelda or, preferably, all three.
• Reread Jane Espenson's blog some more (http://www.janeespenson.com/) for Keeping Faith inspiration, and because it's awesome. You should read that no matter what you like.
• Got a callback for Lena's Final Battle musical, which is tremendously exciting and a little intimidating.
  

Things I did not do today:

• Read Dune, which I'm supposed to have done before I go back to school. But Dune is boring and endlessly complicated. So.
• Find an ending for Hitchhiker's, which I should also do before I go back to school. See above.
  

I fear this is tremendously boring to you all. Which is why I've never kept a diary-- I'm boring to me, too. Unlike Hayley (or Sarah Vowell or Maureen Johnson or any number of other people) I'm not incredibly skilled at the art of anecdotal non-fiction. So you'll have to bear with me. (Bare with me? No. That's probably something quite different.)

My dad shaved his beard this morning. It's the first time he hasn't had facial hair since his wedding, and it's incredibly disconcerting. He looks like a stranger.

(Isn't your life so enriched by knowing that?)

Urrgff. Blogging is HARD.

In which I try my hand at daily blogging.

Hi, kids!

Now, don't get too excited. We all know I can be a terrible liar when it comes to blogs. But I think I may try and update this thing like a normal person for once... just to see what it's like.

So, what have I been up to in the past, oh... six months or however long it's been?

Well. I watched Angel for the first time and it became one of my favorite things, ever. I was elected director of the BORG play-- we're going to do selections from the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy radio plays, and I'm cutting them now. I've read a few books.

But two or three days ago, I figured out how to turn Keeping Faith from the novel that's always been a part of my soul into the movie in my head and my heart and my hands. Which is amazing and feels like fate and I just...

I've never thought that I had the ability to write a full novel. I think in terms of characters, and not in terms of plots-- I've never been the kind of person who can start a story from a premise.

But film, I think, provides a fantastic cure for that: the clear-cut three-act structure. One valuable thing I learned from taking Screenplay with a rule-abiding Hollywood school writer at the same time as I took American Independent film is that... I hate independent film. I don't like experiments, I don't like vagueness, I don't like surreality. I like clean setup and payoff, and snarky banter, and happy endings.

Perhaps you're less surprised by this revelation than I was.

In any case. Keeping Faith, close as it was to me, has always been about my deep knowledge and love for Faith and David as characters... I've never really had a plot to go with them. I know certain circumstances of their lives, but events alone do not a plot make.

But thank you Syd Field, thank you Marc Weinberg, thank you Joseph Campbell-- I have a beginning and an end, now, and they came to me when I was least looking for them. I haven't even thought about Faith or David in months. So all I need is a middle and a few thousand dollars, and the movie's practically done already.

Oh, yeah, that's something that's... happening. This story is my baby. And I'll be damned if it never gets produced. I'm too much of a crazy control freak about them not to write/direct/cast the thing myself, so I guess it doesn't matter how little regard I have for traditional indie film: looks like I'm gonna be a part of it. It will take me years, but... this feels right. I can't not do it.

And hey. There are plenty of people who make three-act indies that subscribe to formulas. I'm not breaking new ground here. Just look at Imagine Me & You.

No, seriously. Go look at it. It's a good movie.

So... how'd I do? Crazy and random enough for you? I can't imagine why you'd want a daily dose of this, but it promises to be interesting, if nothing else.

An Introduction and A Spiel About Faith

Okay, so a few words on this blog and why it’s called what it’s called, before I get on with the actual post (which might not be terribly exciting.)

As an English-major-to-be at Brandeis, there’s a pre-requisite course I had to take entitled “Introduction to Literary Method.” Being rather cocky when it comes to all things Literate, I was fairly certain that this course would be a complete waste of my time, and do nothing but reiterate the boring points and stupid poems I’d already talked to death in AP Brit Lit at PHS.

Well, I was wrong.

At first, I only gave credit to the course for introducing me to the people who have become my closest friends on campus. Even if Lit Method had turned out to be the garbage class I assumed I was in for, it would have been worth it to meet Talia, Ben and Chef.

And yet.

When writing my final paper for this class, which I handed in yesterday, it slowly dawned on me that… I actually learned a hell of a lot. And not just in an acquiring-knowledge kind of sense, but in an acquiring-knowledge-about-myself kind of a sense. I found that “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” is actually one of the best poems I’ve ever read, and not a disgusting pile of pretentious drivel, and more importantly? I finally found the words to phrase a concept that has shaped my understanding of literature for years.

We read a poem by Wallace Stevens entitled “Of Modern Poetry.” The poem itself still isn’t my favorite, but he discusses how a poem must bend over backwards, be everything to everyone- stage, actor, and audience. He writes that that actor must be
“A metaphysician in the dark, twanging
An instrument, twanging a wiry string that gives
Sounds passing through sudden rightnesses, wholly
Containing the mind, below which it cannot descend,
Beyond which it has no will to rise.”

I cannot get over the truth and power of those words. Everyone has a favorite line of a poem, favorite scene of a story, favorite bridge in a song. And it’s not just that it’s human nature to latch on to certain things; it’s… a deeply personal experience. Certain words, certain phrases, simply speak to us—resonate on a level that sometimes we ourselves can’t fully comprehend.

I grooved on that idea for ages, and was naturally thrilled when I got to see it come into play yet again in that same English class. We studied Camera Lucida, a book on photography theory by Roland Barthes. According to Barthes, every photo contains two elements—a studium and a punctum. The studium comprises the work as a whole; what the photographer (or author, or artist) is trying to convey, and how they choose to convey it. The studium is the kind of thing you write papers about in high school.

And the punctum is, largely, an accident. The punctum is a small detail that captures your interest—it enthralls you, “wounds you,” as Barthes would say, and greatly informs your entire reading of the piece. In other words, the punctum would be a “sudden rightness.”

So this blog is largely going to be about that—my experiences writing and reading, what influences me and what makes me cringe. A place for me to discuss what I love and why I love it.

And now on to the post I was going to write in the first place:

For about two years, I have been developing a novel that is very close to my heart—the kind of endeavor Hayley has referred to as “the infinite writing project of my soul,” which I could not agree with more. Entitled Keeping Faith, it revolves entirely around the relationship (and occasionally non-relationship) of two best friends: Faith Caldwell and David Goldstein.

These two characters have come a long way since I first met them in the winter of early 2007, just as I have come a long way as a writer. Initially very little more than a “Dharma and Greg” rip off (come on, you remember that show, right?), the two of them have grown into very distinct personalities.

I’m not going to lie. David is still very much like a male version of me: a worrier, a compulsive do-gooder, responsible and sarcastic. But in the years I’ve known him, he’s deteriorated; his moral core has gone off-center, just as Faith—whom I originally conceptualized as a complete wild child—daily becomes easier to anticipate and read, more open with herself and with me.

And slowly, I’m starting to discover why that is.

Of course, there’s the obvious reason: I’m, slowly but surely, becoming better at what I do. I’m taking baby steps towards a reasonable facsimile of reality in my prose every day. But the evolution of David and Faith, I have come to realize, has everything to do with me and my own relationship with my own faith.

You’ll forgive me if my thoughts get a little disjointed here: the epiphany I’m trying to convey to you now was first reached during a very deep, very religious and ultimately, quite personal conversation with Sarah Keeler at 4 in the morning.

My faith is my core. And not faith as in simply “blind belief;” faith is more than that. To me, faith is an unshakable conviction in the overall okayness of the universe. Knowing that things happen for a reason: not saying that we are rudderless puppets of Fate, but that we are put on this earth to learn and grow, and pain is just as big a part of that as joy. Knowing that everything we experience is an opportunity we are meant to grasp, and a lesson that we have to learn.

My faith is my core. There is pretty much nothing anyone could do or say that could make me lose my certainty. But what I’ve come to realize? David doesn’t have that. And that’s the big discrepancy between us—where the mirror reflecting me back on myself bends like a fun house, twisting him away from me and turning him into his own person.

David doesn’t have an internal faith. …but he does have Faith. And she acts as his ballast and compass just as surely as he does for her: not as a voice of reason, as he so often must be for others, but as a voice of profound empathy.

(Like I said: the bloggity bit was kind of boring.)

I’m not going to make any promises as to the frequency or substantiality of posts here; that’s only gotten me into trouble in the past. But for now… I’m excited, and I hope to see you soon.