As you may or may not know, I study film and television at a creative arts college. I have worked on a few productions that were disastrous and some that I’m quite proud of. This is one of those things!
This is the latest production we worked on. We work with a band from the music performance students and turn one of their original songs into a music video!
I was the editor and production designer.
So without further ado, Panachae’s ‘Play With Fire’.
When I don’t know what I feel like listening to, I usually end up going to this song. And the rest of this album. It feels very cinematic, like I’m watching a short film. It’s great.
That’s all. Thank you and goodnight.
I’ve never thought about it before. It’s weird because, often I’m so sure that there’s some kind of Heaven or Nirvana waiting at the end of your life, but I can’t tell if I’m used to expecting that because of how I was taught. Because even more than that, I feel like there’s absolutely nothing after death. Once your heart stops beating and your brain stops functioning, that’s the end of you and your conscious mind as a living being. That you don’t move on by any means – souls going to Heaven or reincarnation, or what have you.
I know this is a bit of a tangent to what I imagine paradise is, but the “paradise” at the end of your life is extremely relevant (and very intriguing). I have mixed thoughts about it. Often I think that when you die, your soul continues to live without your body, and because you don’t have a body, you do not experience any of the five senses – sight, touch, taste, hear, smell – nor do you look like anything. You exist, but in some other kind of way than what we know. It seems like a horrible way to “live” for the rest of eternity, but I imagine it would be much more peaceful, more serene. There’s nothing left to worry about. That is paradise at the end of your life as a human being.
But if the paradise we’re talking about here is more like, “how you imagine the perfect place to live and the perfect way to live”, then this is somewhat how I imagine it:
There is so specific place in mind, as long as it is an open living space (indoors or out, I do not care), with lots of light, and the perfect weather to go out but not have to squint from the sunlight. There is a lot of colour and nature everywhere – flowers blooming, trees that are bright green, long grass swaying in the wind.
What is more important here, in this paradise, is the way of living.
Creativity is more valuable than money. There are no jobs. No 9-5 days. No paying for college degrees to get a job and work for the rest of your life. None of that. There is an endless supply of paint and arts and crafts sort of things. There are no schedules of when you have to do what. You create. You create and you create whatever is on your mind. You do what you want, really.
The point of this paradise is that I think in reality, living a sustainable life often gets in the way of what people really want – what you really want to live for. I’m afraid of my future because I believe all I’ll be concerned about is how I’m going to get a job? How will I make money? Will I make enough to pay rent, food, supplies, petrol, entertainment, etc.? Will I be able to save any of it to splurge on something I actually want to spend my money on? How long do I have to work for? What am I going to do with my money when I’ve retired and I have no energy to spend on things I once wanted to spend it on?
Everyone has their own meaning for their own lives, and I think that the whole school – work – retire – die just doesn’t really let you live your life the way you’re supposed to. So in this world, you don’t have to do any of that “mandatory” stuff in order to live.
You live to actually live. Not just to remain living.
That’s paradise.
When I go through the tiniest of shit in my life, ie right now trying to get through writing this essay – or starting it, I go through every single level of hating myself. It just piles up and then it’s not about an essay anymore. It’s about what the shit I’m doing with my life, why am I like this, is this even what I want to do, I’m not even good at this, I’m gonna fail, I suck at life, I should just give up now.
And then I think about how much easier life was when the only thing you had to worry about was the spelling test on Friday and how I wish I could go back to those days and live like that forever. And then I think, “Well that’s a shitty life. You won’t ever progress in life. There’s no adventure, there’s no nothing. Life is easy but life is boring.” And I come to the conclusion that you have to get through all this shit if you ever want to succeed.
If my dad isn’t Billy Ray Cyrus, nothing will ever be handed to me freely.
So I reluctantly go through whatever I have to go through, whining and complaining the whole time, taking two hour breaks every fifteen minutes, and one all-nighter later, I’m a sleep-deprived zombie. BUT I’m a sleep-deprived zombie with a finished essay. But I never feel any joy out of finishing it. It’s always more of a, “I’m done. I’m going to bed.” There’s just no satisfaction at the end of it.
And as always, I promise never to do that to myself again.
The thing is, when I tell this to people I know, they say they often go through the exact same thing. But do they really? To my extremity?
Is their “all-nighter” actually until 4am instead of 8am?
I’m not saying they suffer any less, I’m saying this illustrates just how bad I really am. I don’t know what is wrong with my mentality, but I always feel this sense of urgency, yet I act as if I have all the time in the world.
My first actual all-nighter (when the sun came up and I had to get ready for school right after completing it) was at the end of year 11. How bad is that? And at the very start of year 11 was when I started finishing assignments at 3am.
I still remember the assignment I was doing, and that moment in the midst of it, when I realised that I don’t have to sleep at 12am; I have about 6 more hours to do this. I have so much time left!
It was comforting at the time, but it screwed me over big time in the long run.
Angela pulls out of movie plans last minute and lies about the reason because she realised she didn’t have money to spare if she was going to the money-hungry Easter show the day after. Oh you socially anxious Angela you!
But stay tuned because coming up after the break, we see Angela sucking nail polish remover through a straw as an attempt to transfer the poisonous liquid to another narrow-necked bottle! Oh Angela, you idiot!
I realised I hadn’t done one of these since last year, since this computer has been so frustratingly slow at everything, that I’ll have to move all my movies and music to another hard drive. :/ So I haven’t really been downloading much music, though the list of songs/artists to download is ever-growing at its usual annoyingly fast pace.
1. “Asleep” The Smiths
2. “Draw A Crowd” Ben Folds Five
3. “My Body” Young The Giant
4. “Two Weeks” Grizzly Bear
5. “Thrift Shop” Macklemore & Ryan Lewis ft. Wanz (Could it be…? I’m reverting back to my old rnb and hip hop ways!)
6. “Changing” The Airborne Toxic Event
7. “Sweater Weather” The Neighbourhood
8. “Olympic Airways” Foals
9. “Know How” Kings Of Convenience
10. “Gravity” Coldplay (Is it just me or does there always seem to be a Coldplay song on every playlist of mine? NO REGRETS!)
11. “NYE” Dinosaur Bones
12. “Home” Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros
13. “Don’t You Give Up On Me” Milo Greene
14. “Bloom” Gypsy & The Cat
15. “I Don’t Mind” Imagine Dragons
16. “Lover, You Should’ve Come Over” Jeff Buckley
17. “Everybody Talks” Neon Trees
18. “Lanterns” Birds Of Tokyo
19. “Home” Philip Philips
20. “The Adventures Of Rain Dance Maggie” Red Hot Chili Peppers
21. “Valentine” The Wombats
I don’t smoke, but a lot of my friends smoke, half of my college smokes, because it’s like a fracking chimney outside the entrance where they all loiter and socialise with other smokers. My dad has been smoking basically all his life, inside the house, even when I was a little kid. It sounds pretty messed up, but sometimes when he would watch TV and smoke downstairs, I would sit next to him and just passive smoke. Because it sometimes smelt really good. And not only that, but I’ve always been fascinated in the way cigarette smoke billows so gracefully into the air and then disappears.
All my eighteen years of life, I’ve never tried a cigarette. But I’ve always been curious. Since a couple of my friends have started smoking recently, my curiosity has been burning more so than ever, and I might even say I’ve been craving cigarettes… If that’s even possible. It’s not a peer pressure thing or a conforming thing – I’m just extremely curious about the whole thing, and if all my years of passive smoking would mean I would enjoy this.
On some level, I feel like I already am a smoker, since I’ve basically been passive smoking all my life, and a lot of the time it actually smells nice to me. I feel like if I ever tried a cigarette, it would be normal for me. Like when you hear those stories of when people first tried one, they choke or cough, etc.
So I did.
My friend jokingly said something about me trying it and I was like, “Actually yeah, can I?”
So she handed me her cigarette, told me to inhale it like a straw, and then breathe out. I blew smoke right in her face (oops – but not really; she does it to me all the time :/) and that was it.
Curiosity finally fed.
I was actually quite disappointed. I was expecting it to smell/taste like how it does when I’m passive smoking and it sometimes smells good. But it just smelt/tasted like an ashtray. I don’t know if that has anything to do with the brand of cigarettes, since I’ve been smelling my dad’s Marlboros all my life. It wasn’t disgusting, but it wasn’t that pleasant either. The smell lingered in my mouth and my throat and my fingers, even from just one drag. So I was pretty thankful I had just bought a drink.
When we were walking back to class, my friend was all, “You actually did really well. You didn’t cough or anything.” She said it like she was impressed.
I’m not sure it’s something to be proud of.
I’m a very observant person in many ways, yet somehow, if I were to show someone around the town that I’ve lived in – all 18 years of my life – I wouldn’t be able to show them much, because I wouldn’t know where anything is. The problem is, I’m a very observant person in the sense that when someone mentions their favourite book as a passing comment, I’d remember that. And there have been times when I see someone jumping the line way up ahead. But I am just about THE worst person at locations and directions. I don’t know my way around anywhere, I don’t know street names, I don’t know what this suburb is next to or whether it is north of x. I don’t know any of those things. Even if I have passed a place a million times, if I went there alone, I’m not sure I’d know where to go. My theory is that I’m very air headed when I go places. When I’m looking outside the car window, yes looking at houses and shops and roads, but I’m not seeing them. My mind is completely elsewhere thinking about other things. I never make mental notes about how we’re turning left after these lights or how this motorway will take us to x.
I’m not sure what brought this on randomly. I think I’m just trying to rationalize why I’m so observant and not, at the same time.
Okay, clearly I take playlists way too seriously sometimes, because I put too much time and effort into this one! I’m not just going to choose my 5 favourite songs or my 5 most played songs (although most of them turned out to be both of these things :/), because I need to make sure I cater to all MY EMOTIONS! (Community reference, yes)
Also I had to make sure there was something catchy, something slow, and something to sing the shit out of. (:
“Love Is No Big Truth” Kings of Convenience
It is my most played song and also I never get sick of hearing it! I literally never skip this song when it comes on shuffle. And that is really saying something. Also, this is considered one of the “catchy” songs, but not in a dancing way. In a cool cat way. Though I know saying “cool cat” defeats its purpose.
“Across The Universe” The Beatles
Because when on a deserted island, you need to remember who the greatest band in history was. That’s not to say that this is my favourite Beatles song; I still can’t decide between this and “Norwegian Wood”, but I think this song sounded more suitable for desert island loneliness. I also think this would make a great lullaby when I’m paranoid of *foes* roaming the island and I would like to sing the shit out of this.
“Peter Pan” Jinja Safari
I may or may not regret this later on in my island life (I told you how real I get when I talk music playlists) because this isn’t a favourite or a most played – it’s more of an every now and then song. Something I’ll always like, but can’t play too much or I’ll get sick of it. But it made the list because when I drink a ton of saltwater and go loony, I can pretend to go on adventures in Neverland like Peter Pan. Also because I always think of an awesome sunny island with hidden treasure boxes and crazy acid trips that make you think you’re a pirate when I listen to this song.
“High and Dry” Radiohead
This can also be a sing-the-shit-out-of song and also I just love this song. If I’m depressed or just exhausted from pretending like I’m from the show “Lost”, I can listen to this and cry all the liquid I should be preserving from my eyeballs.
“Hurts Like Heaven” Coldplay
Of course I had to have Coldplay in here somewhere, because after their concert, they will most likely be my ultimate favourite band forever. Also I hardly get sick of any of their songs. This was the hardest one to choose because I literally had like ten Coldplay songs I wanted to put in here, and “Hurts Like Heaven” wasn’t even one of them. This isn’t one of my favourites from them, but I figured this would be an awesome fun and catchy song that I can dance to all by my lonesome. And this is the song they opened with at their concert, and every time I hear this song, I relive the experience. Their concert was probably my fondest memory to date, and it would be great to remember something positive like that when I’m stuck in a situation where being alive doesn’t seem like a great option.
Other songs that were oh so close:
“Daughters” John Mayer
“Jesus of Suburbia” Green Day (Just because it’s a fucking 9 minute song with like 6 songs in one)
“Talk Show Host” Radiohead
“Warning Sign” Coldplay (Along with many other Coldplay songs, Fix You, Everything’s Not Lost, Amsterdam, Lost!, Politik, Shiver, etc. etc.)
“Zimbabwe” New Navy
“Chin Music For The Unsuspecting Hero” Foster the People (Now that I think about it… This would make a perfect drunken-stumble-with-Jack-Sparrow-rum-and-laughing-at-own-predicament song!
“Yours Forever” Generationals
I love Audrey Tautou, I love Romain Duris and I LOVE Michel Gondry! I absolutely cannot wait to see this film. A Michel Gondry adaptation? I don’t know what to expect!
