I was so sad to hear this morning that Elliot Smith has committed suicide.
La Spin introduced me to his songs while we were doing our year at AIM. We spent a good deal of time pondering what exactly his lyrics were about, this song in particular, intrigued us. Is the narrator singing in a club? Has he spotted an ex girlfriend, who is now married to an arsehole? Or is it the ex on the stage singing? And who is "the girl that he takes around town"? Is it the same girl that he's "married to now"?
Scott McCloud has linked to an animation by Chris Hill, called Geeks in Love. The narrative is good and quite engaging, but when I watched it last night something about it struck me as a little odd. I watched it again this morning and realised what it was. It uses animation in an unusual way - and is more a live action piece than an animation. The animator must have spent an extrodinary amount of time doing the replacement animation for the lip sync sequences, but I can't quite see why they bothered. Why not animate the scenes being described by the narrator instead?
When the camera does cut away from the talking head shot, the scenes are shown as stills, with the occasional pan up or down. Perhaps I'm being overly critical, but it seems like a waste to use a medium that allows you to do anything to create something that could have easily been done as a live action piece.
Recent Topics of Conversation held by Petite and Me
1. Is it wrong to have foods that taste like one thing but are shaped like another? For example, lollies shaped like hamburgers.
2. Is the concept of "chocolate flavoured jelly" a bad one? Answer: yes.
3. If you were designing your own robot what would be its most important features? (We decided that it would not speak, but communicate through electronic noises, it would not be humanoid, but rather your classic "box-on-a-box" shaped robot. Most importantly, it would not have the ability to gain knowledge. It would perform small, annoying domestic tasks (like going and getting your washing out of the washing machine and hanging it up) and could possibly have a small microwave in its chest. It could, if you so desired, follow you around while you did your shopping and hold your bags for you. It could wait in queues during arts festivals.)
4. If there was a sudden volcano and you were turned into a lava statue, what would be the worst way to be preserved for for all eternity? (also known as "the Pompei question."
It started off with a five car pile up, right in front of me. I was crossing Dandenong Road and the woman standing next to me at the lights hailed a taxi. The taxi stopped right where it was - in the right hand lane of traffic. The car immediately behind it braked and avoided hitting the cab, but the four cars behind it then crashed into each other's rears. The unscathed taxi collected its passenger and took off. I stood holding my two bags of groceries, the bok choy peering out over the top, unsure of what to do. The five drivers got out and started exchanging numbers, so I decided it was ok to go.
It was beautiful on Saturday, if a little windy, but La Spin and I still managed to do some work on the Trop Fest animation in the afternoon. But I decided that I needed to go out in the evening and accompanied La Spin to a free Melbourne Arts festival performance (Incognita). Afterwards, we sat outside and drank champagne with R and W. We started discussing wishes.
"The thing about wishes" I said "Is that you have to phrase them correctly. If there's one thing I've learnt from fairy tales it's that there's no margin for error with the wording."
"Is that right?"
"I can't stress it enough. In fact, it's probably best to get a lawyer to draft your wishes and them just carry them around in case the opportunity arises. Otherwise you end up with a sausage stuck to your nose."
It is windy. Something has flown into La Spin's eye and it is watering.
R said "I know someone that happened to. A friend of mine wished for a beautiful boy to be sent to her, one that was interested in the environment, who liked the same sorts of things as her, who was funny.?"
"So what happened?"
"Well, he arrived, but she forgot to mention in the wish that he had to be in love with her."
"Oh no!"
"Exactly. It was terrible. He wasn't remotely attracted to her."
"This is why you need to work out your wishes properly." I say. I'm getting excited and am gesticulating wildly. "People think it's easy to make wishes, but it's not." I swing my hand out and knock La Spin's champagne glass into her lap. La Spin is now weeping from one eye and has a damp sticky skirt.
It's probably time to go.
And on Sunday I sat dutifully at my desk and wrote my draft. If anyone would like to read it, let me know and I'll email it to you.
