Thursday Video Post!

Well, it's been a week since my last post and I still haven't thought up a name for this damn thing. So, please continue to deal with the current/awful title. I've been busy with finals, so I'm also sorry for the lack of blogs. Here's your damn video.







I watched Synecdoche, NY last Friday, alone and at 7am. It's written and directed by Charlie Kauffman, and though I in no way feel like I understood it, I definitely thought it was a beautiful movie. Go see it. I plan on watching it one more time, and then maybe I'll give you my full review.

Choo-Choo

Winter Break is Back!

What I plan on doing this winter break: take photos. Here's picture of my camera, it's HUGE.





In other news, best quote from work tonight: Drunk girl says, "What?! I'm not on the list? But Kelly put me on the list... HE, LIKE, WORKS AT PANERA BREAD! He's like 40! Is there anyone 40 here tonight? Maybe they, like, know him." She was completely serious and very mad at me, eventually some sucker bought her a ticket.

Thursday video post!

I think I'll start posting a video every Thursday (it says I posted this on Wednesday, but in fact it's Thursday, for whatever reason my blog thinks I live in California). I'll come up with a better title than "Thursday video post" later, just deal with it for now.


Beached II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.




Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.




Bathtub II from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

I first saw still images skewed to create an effect of a small scale set a few years ago in a photo magazine called Contact Sheet. These still images struck me immediately, they forced me to question what I was seeing--had I not read the blurb at the beginning of the magazine I would have no doubt thought they were small scale reproductions--and they just simply looked fucking cool. Earlier this year I saw a video in Wholphin Magazine that used the same effect with film. Then I found Keith Loutit's Vimeo site; I'm not sure if he's the guy from the two magazines, but his videos are super cool (he uses a variety of techniques including tilt-shift and time-lapse photography). Personally, I don't think there's much more to these videos than what you see, a refreshing look at normal landscapes, but they are fun to watch.

My favorite is Metal Heart, it brings back memories of being five years old in Michigan and obsessing over monster trucks. Watching them on TV, playing with mini versions of the trucks, and imagining crushing other smaller lesser cars with them. I think I still have some Bigfoot kids books buried deep in my parent's basement.

-Choo-Choo

The Question: What Good Have I Done Today?

(photo by Alec Soth)

My daily schedule is all over the place, but here is an attempt to put my daily routine in words.

My alarm goes off at 6:45, I then press the "snooze" button and sleep for 15 more minutes. I get out of bed, let the dog out, let the dog in, feed the dog. I then, very slowly, get dressed in the living room. I always attempt to make breakfast every morning, but usually as soon as I get started I realize that getting dressed took me twice as long as I had hoped--why do alarm clocks have snooze buttons? If only I could get those fifteen minutes back. I frantically get my things together and head to class. After class, I head home and check my email. I then spend the time between work and class avoiding homework, and wasting time on the internet. People say that TV rots your brain, I don't have cable so the internet will have to do. Between 3pm and 6pm I head to work (work doubles as my social life) and get home around midnight. I avoid my homework for another hour or so, then finally do as little of it as quickly as possible. I get back in bed around 3am, fall asleep pretty easily, and the process starts again.

I should note that weekends are usually used to catch up on sleep.

Not a very interesting routine, and certainly a routine I would someday like to change (why am I writing this blog, when I should be writing a paper about this blog?). If there is one thing obvious in my daily routine, it is that I am the instigator of my own short comings. So much time, so little done.

-Choo Choo

I Change My Clothes in the Living Room

I stumbled upon this blog that posts daily routine's of well-known people (mostly writers). It's aptly titled "Daily Routines." I've only skimmed through it once, but immediately found it very interesting. Here's a pretty good post about a pretty well-known guy:

---
ERNEST HEMINGWAY

INTERVIEWER
Could you say something of this process? When do you work? Do you keep to a strict schedule?

HEMINGWAY
When I am working on a book or story I write every morning as soon after first light as possible. There is no one to disturb you and it is cool or cold and you come to your work and warm as you write. You read what you have written and, as you always stop when you know what is going to happen next, you go on from there. You write until you come to a place where you still have your juice and you know what will happen next and you stop and try to live through until the next day when you hit it again. You have started at six in the morning, say, and may go on until noon or be through before that. When you stop you are as empty, and at the same time never empty but filling, as when you have made love to someone you love. Nothing can hurt you, nothing can happen, nothing means anything until the next day when you do it again. It is the wait until the next day that is hard to get through.

The Paris Review, Issue 18, 1958

---

Check it out, Daily Routines

-Choo-Choo

(Photo by Jan Von Holleben)


(Photo by Jan Von Holleben)

Curving a bullet is it real?

What's the deal with bad movies? Why do they have to be so entertaining?! I've been in a drought of movie watching--I work and go to school full time-- and when I do have a spare two hours I feel obligated to watch something decent, something I can talk about in public without gritting a self-conscious smile, something I can talk to my co-workers about without saying, "No, really! It's totally bad ass!" I don't want the good though. I want the cheese, I want non-stop shit, full throttle obnoxiousness, I want to watch the National Treasures of contemporary cinema. At one point in my life I was proud of my movie snobbishness: my complete collection of Wes Anderson Criterion Collection DVDs and my Sergio Leone Anthology, but those timeless movies are dead to me. Who cares Who Virginia Wolfe Is? Am I right? Is it wrong to watch two sexy stars with superhuman killing abilities make a bullet curve in Wanted? Because damn it, that's something just stupid enough for me to be intrigued by for two hours. I love bad movies and here is my top ten of the genre:

The Shit List
1. Independence Day
2. The Rock
3. Con Air
4. Speed
5. Twister
7. National Treasure
8. The Core
9. Total Recall
10. Pootie Tang

That felt good.

-Choo-Choo

! count: 5
? count: 6

© Maximilian Haidacher

Blah. Blah. Blah.

(Photo by Aaron Ruell)

I'm getting bored with this blog. I'm genuinely interested in my current subject: the significance of text combined with images; but I'm feeling like this blog is becoming more of a chore than an actual place for the thoughts and ideas of Mick. I feel like I should be more selfish, and I've been reading some Ayn Rand, so I ought to be more selfish. Tonight at 2:30 am, just before I take a four hour nap and head to class, I'm shifting from a relatively focused blog to one with no established direction. Goodbye Glorified Monsters: An Anxious Look Into How Text Transforms Images, and welcome Glorified Monsters: The Life and Art of Mick.

Thanks Ayn!

-Choo-Choo

Book Covers

Book covers are an obvious combination of text and images that we see often--some are great, but most are awful. Here are some of my favorites.

Barbara Kruger

Without a doubt, the queen of unashamed text and image integration.

Glorified Monsters

The extraordinary book Where the Wild Things Are was just ten sentences coupled with illustrations. I have a great interest in how text compliments artwork, Glorified Monsters will explore that interest.

Glorified Monsters is just a blog. Written by me, then re-written by me, and read by few. We'll see what happens, thanks for looking.

-Choo Choo