The "Blah" Films

I've only been interviewed once on camera, back in my first year as Midnight Mania Programmer for the Worldwide Short Film Festival. You'll never see it, because I choked so bad it was virtually unusable. FALLEN ART was a film I programmed that year, and is still amongst my favourite short films. It's a stunning Polish animation by a guy named Tomek Baginski- beautiful, surreal, totally weird. It reminds me of the old war propaganda reels in front of the talkies, in the early days of cinema; how we parade men in uniform on the screen as noble, but what they do in war, and what they die for is less so.. but we're content to soak in the drama and applaude it anyway. Throw in a little klezmer et voila.




Another favourite is IDENT, a film by Aardman Animations, the folks behind Wallace and Gromit and Creature Comforts. IDENT is decidedly more cynical and dark in nature. I remember being so amazed that so much could be expressed through nonsense-dialogue, like "blah" became my new favourite word. It might be a little dated, but it is such a human film... it's got such sad clown appeal.

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... introduction

how do people start these things?

ok. by way of introduction, I will now list off various idiosyncrasies I had as a kid, and/or things that I inexplicably still hold true to this day:

  • I always had to wait until the toilet stopped tinkling before I brushed my teeth, for fear that the water pipes would get mixed up and I would accidentally be brushing with pee water
  • I refused to call anyone on the hour or the half hour, because I didn't want anyone to think I had waited until exactly 9-0-0 to call them. Later, I tried not to call anyone on the :15s and :45s either. Still later, any minute that directly touched any of the untouchables were also out, lest someone's clock be set a minute ahead or behind mine. Calling people became a tricky and cautious exercise. As you can see, I spent a lot of time thinking about this....
  • I used to think that my parents had planted a one-way mirror in the bathroom and were actually spying on me during my long long hours in there. This thought would usually occur to me while I noticed that I was talking to myself, and would make me stop in mid-sentence and look self-consciously in the mirror
  • In high school, i took lots of naps. I would always sleep with my keys in my pockets. Not because it was comfortable, but almost specificaly because it was not. I was always about 5 degrees away from absolute comfort, being able to drift off into unconsciousness. and I think I planned it that way
  • If you are waiting for a bus or a streetcar and one passes in the opposite direction, this means that either a) your bus or streetcar will arrive very soon b) your bus or streetcar has just passed you, and you're in for a long wait
  • If you know what you want to do, you should do it. If you know what you are afraid to do, you should do that too
  • I like this idea that we are more truthful when we use language abstractly. That, by being inexact we are actually saying more, or at least saying it more truthfully. communication through metaphor. I don't like getting to the point. I think running around it is way more interesting.

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