Culture night was less of a surprise this time since I had made reservations.
When I go see my friends' plays - especially in small venues where you can't hide - I always prepare a line to say after the performance in case I found it awful. ("You made me dream" Françoise Sagan would have said to Jeanne Moreau after a play where she fell asleep.)
Awakened my typewriter for a new adventure. Had to follow through on my threats and add the exclamation point by hand. Totally worth it.
Following the Los Angeles Screenplay Awards, my feature-length screenplay The Stagemaster has just advanced to the quarterfinals of the 2024 ScriptLab Screenplay Contest!
There's something for scientists as well as beatniks. The common theme: reality isn't what you think. Let's dive in.
Originally, it's a soundtrack of a video installation by Pipilotti Rist, a cover of Wicked Game. Despite (or thanks to) its strangeness, I find myself listening to it regularly:
Keeping a journal boils down to one single activity for me: describing the obstacle.
What's blocking me right now? What's preventing me from being free, happy, and creative at this moment? What hidden snare is hindering the next step?
Two aspects are crucial:
New surprise cultural evening (SCE, new acronym).
I discovered that the café I regularly visit, called "The Cellar" (la Cave Café) has... a cellar. Where poetry is read on Monday evenings. Lots of people, mostly English speakers. Poems, songs, stand-up, "anything goes." Great atmosphere.
My feature film screenplay "The Stagemaster" set in England (yes, it's in English!) made it to the quarter-finals of the Los Angeles Screenplay Awards. Not bad for a Frenchie :)
I don't go there often, but every time I do, I emerge transformed.
I never read the information: the author, the artistic approach, the family traumas that led them to make ceramics on cows, I couldn't care less. I disconnect my brain.
I quite liked the original, and once again, no one bothered to notify me of this new version that you all know and that I only discovered this afternoon on the beach:
I was about to write an exciting article about the psychological component of effort based on my experience with the rowing machine at the gym: some days, It's a breeze; other days, on the same machine set at the same level, it feels like it weighs a ton.
After film photography and paper lists, we continue the regression towards Mad Men, which will be followed, hopefully this year, by a very analog film project that I will talk about soon.
I unexpectedly went to the theater last night and saw "Contre-Temps" by Samuel Sené. Fantastic!
Two films about feminism and coming of age, where the first thirty minutes made me wonder, "Are they really going to make an entire movie out of this?"
For Barbie, the answer was "unfortunately, yes."
You could say I'm rediscovering America. Maybe.
But after understanding how a song can simply be a "timing" of lyrics thanks to Leonard Cohen, I'm discovering how design is sometimes just a "spacing" of words.
It might sound like a New Year's resolution, but it's not at all. It's the culmination of a rebellion I've been brewing for a while.
Last year, quietly and without fanfare, I (almost) abandoned Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and the like. My concerns with social networks were manifold:
During this holiday season, a song that celebrates love. (Not the possessive and sentimental love of American romantic comedies, but the pure and immediate love of Eastern wisdom.)
Mingyur Rinpoche encapsulates in a beautiful quote what I've been pondering for some time, namely that the reason for acting is often more important than the action itself:
I also did some color (Ektar) but meh. I'm in my black and white phase with a heavy grain. Click on the photos to see them in full size.
