frankenjournal's monster

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Or, the morning’s “I wasn't getting anywhere on MainFicThing and needed something to do with my hands so why not maim and mangle expensive journal covers” project:

Assembled from the pieces of notebook covers abandoned and discarded over the years, Frankenjournal’s Monster came alive from a leather travel journal cover (that was great for when I used cheaper pens and didn't worry about them falling to the ground) and added the pen holder from my Coal Creek mini notebook / wallet (thanks to leather screws from a broken leather leash my grandfather had made for one of our earlier and departed dogchildren) plus the elastic from my previous journal to make a cover tie. Notebooks are, as ever, Baron Fig Confidant.

Use my CW&T Pen Type C for quick notes (the Lamy 2000 is, fortunately, quite snug in its perch; the leather has yet to expand enough to allow for that balance between quick jot and security), blood sugar readings, etc. Binder clip for loose index cards and thinks/things I want to keep loose and on my person.

RDRII revisited: oatcake addiction and the cult of Dutch

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Started a replay of RED DEAD II the other night: planning to take my time, do my thing, enjoy myself and explore the world more (and take time out to go play other things so I don't feel like my GamePass subscription is a waste though right now it is because there is NOTHING I feel like playing on there; GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY being the last great thing I played) than I did in my first playthrough three-four years ago (can't believe it's been that long – feels like the game came out yesterday). Will probably regularly or regularly probably record impressions here as I make my way through.

Impressions, so far:

  • Been listening to both psychologist, cult deprogrammer, and former cult member Stephen Hassan's podcast, THE INFLUENCE CONTINUUM (after hearing him on Tristan Harris's YOUR UNDIVIDED ATTENTION) and A LITTLE BIT CULTY, hosted by two former members of that cult on THE VOW, the one that got whatshername from SMALLVILLE thrown in jail and damn, is Dutch a believeable cult leader: fascinating to see it through that lens this time.

  • The snowstorm / mountain levels in the prologue are stunning, staggeringly so (so much so that it's got me using adverbs). Also, I've become engrossed by how my footprints appear in the mud and fill with water in the streets of Valentine.

  • I am, as I was in my first play-through, addicted to oatcakes. My horse is too.

  • I lost my hat robbing that Valentine Doctor's side business (I died but completed the robbery before I died and now it's locked behind those steel doors) and now I can't get the thing back. I need a key. Or dynamite.

  • I'm still in YAKUZA mode when it comes to gaming fisticuffs. I want Arthur to move like Kiryu, using the same button combinations. Doesn't work that way here. No dragon spirit for Arthur Morgan – only a facefull of bloody mud in the streets of Valentine.

  • I want Arthur's journaling habits, the drawing, etc.

Will add more impressions as they arise..

l3 finale, finally

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Her apartment has been empty for a week, the keys have been turned in, the "assets secured," and last evening I watched the Garbage Guy chuck the mattress and box springs ("they're dead, wrapped in plastic") into his truck and winced when the box springs fell out from about 10 feet above and gouged a scar in my yard but that's ok scars give it, the yard, character.

Considered going out to ask if I could help him but then THE CLAW came out of the side of the truck and he got both of those things in the back of the truck – though the box springs still stood out over the side so Garbage Guy disappeared and then emerged on top of the truck in a remarkable display of some Houdini/Gandalf shit to arrange everything and smash it in.

I waited until he drove away and exhaled and lifted the heavy stone and wheeled the empty back.

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“For I have turned aside from much that I knew, and have given up much that went before. What will not bring me, more certainly than before, to where I am is of no use to me. I have stepped out of the clearing into the woods. I have thrown away my lantern and I can see the dark.”

– Wendell Berry, “A Native Hill”

VIVRE SA VIE (1962)

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My Godard frenzy continues: BREATHLESS, ALPHAVILLE, and now, VIVRE SA VIE; seems to be this year's iteration of my "why didnt I dive into their oeuvre sooner oh right I didnt have Criterion Channel until the once-in-a-century plague" Bergman frenzy of 20-21, another year of making up for that lost time when I was too young and stupid to fall in love with their work when I was too young and stupid to fall in love with their work.

Immediate impressions: feels like a spiritual successor to BREATHLESS, from female POV, though Belmondo was an ass from the start (not that Karina wasn't of a similar lacking at her start either – though whereas Belmondo's tale felt like Godard channeling Hammett, Karina's brought to mind a Godard-channeling of Edith Wharton, particularly Lily Barton from HOUSE OF MIRTH, and its relentless heartbreak throughout), down to the brutality of the end.

Godard's work rewards rapt attention to the little details, to the little fuck yous to film form throughout: the artistry of how he makes them work together nothing short of amazing.

Planning to continue writing these little things after each Criterion viewing and after each viewing of something non-Criterion worth writing about. Rebuild those review chops a bit or, at the very least, record a legible version of my impressions to the ether.

Have to continue on with the Varda frenzy too.

Written and directed by Jean Luc Godard; starring Anna Karina, Sady Rebot, and Andre S. Labarthe. Released 20 September 1962. Currently available on Criterion Channel.

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"Then he began to write something about charity; but what he wrote on the paper one day, he did not see the next; for this happens to every one there when he commits any thing to paper for the external man only, and not at the same time for the internal, this from compulsion and not from freedom; it is obliterated of itself."

– Jorge Luis Borges, "A Theologian in Death"

links/20220525

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notetaking enthusiasms, concluded

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(previously…)

Just a brief note to signal the conclusion of my grand experiment. Won't call this falling flat on my face – not at all – nor will I deny the truth of every bit of my previous plaudits of the change to index carding. But what I will tell you is that I returned this morning to my notebook and journal because, no matter how brilliant the card method was - and it was brilliant and it will continue to be utilized - the notebook, imperfect as it is, felt like home - a much-needed anchor in the swirling vortex of life and etc.

And lo, I scribble on.