The New Boredom

Wow. Throw back to like 2001-2002 when I would sit there and listen to The Lillingtons on repeat, especially this song, for hours upon hours. I would sit there and wonder if someday The Lillingtons would be looked back on as The Ramones of the 90’s.

Nope. As it turns out, they didn’t really have the same impact as The Ramones.

But they sure were fun.

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I don’t know who this is. It looks like Sienna Miller I guess. It’s just a nice photo.

Don Hertzfeldt is this wonderful filmmaker that has carved himself out a little niche in this world making stick figure centered animations that started off silly and have since moved on to taking bigger issues such as human evolution, the grand meaning of existence, the imminence of death, relationships, and the hope of the human heart. Pretty big topics to wrap up in characters often made up of under 20 pencil strokes.

Anyways, The Meaning of Life was this epic film that suggests we are all the same, just going through the motions in this universe, making the same stupid noises over and over, occasionally stopping to look up at the sky and wonder if anyone else is doing the same thing. I saw it in maybe early 2007 and my friend and I just left the theater and didn’t say a word for the entire trip home. Not in an awkward way. We were just put into this place where we were on the same page and we didn’t need to spoil it by saying so. It was really nice.

Then Everything Will Be Okay came out and kicked off the Bill trilogy (or as I am surely unoriginally calling it: the “Bill-ogy”) with a bang. Bill goes through this near death experience and after being sick for who knows how long on his death bed, he suddenly gets better and has to go back to work on Tuesday. The last shot was so damn powerful in its simplicity that I swore to myself that I would do my best to never take a moment like that for granted again. I’m surely failing in that promise to myself but I’m trying to keep it up as best as I can.

Now I Am So Proud Of You is out and it has lifted such a ridiculous weight off my shoulders that I feel like I owe Mr. Hertzfeldt a hand written thank you letter. I explained the movie to a friend of mine recently and she replied with, “That sounds nice. It’s like it takes all the pressure off of living.” Yup. It sure does. It’s the most uplifting existential representation of life that I have ever seen and it made me question an awful lot of what I thought was important in life. A good shuffling of priorities can do your mental well-being some good.

Here are some recent interviews with Don about his work. If you’re a dork like me, please read them.

A couple via the Detroit of the internet, myspace.

And one from AFI fest.

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Last one of these that I have on my computer.

I love the colors.

National Geographic, you kick some serious ass.

Thanks fellow photo dorks for sending me this link right here. If you don’t click on that, you’re missing right the hell out.

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Where did these photos come from? Who took them? They are neat and I want to see more.

Joining the ranks of Feist and Emily Haynes is St. Vincent (Annie Clark). I’ve had a little crush on her for a year and a half or so now but in the last 6 months, I can safely say that she shreds me right apart.

I’m talking swoon-tunes.

Check out this video for Marrow. It’s like if Bjork decided to dance things up.

and look at her just sitting there probably singing some damn song that would melt me like a stick of butter launched into the core of the sun.

Then she goes and talks about old people.

Oh this old dress? Yeah, I got it at a De Stijl garage sale like 10 years ago. Yeah, I guess it’s still pretty cool, huh?

Yeah.

Andrew Bird has a couple of these where he just walks around Paris playing better songs than I could ever dream of and now they have one with St. Vincent. Paris, you lucky dog.

swoon.

Yeah. So. There you have it.

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I should note that the dialog involved in building a giant igloo is pretty much interchangeable with making a porno. As evidenced by my ubiquitous “that’s what she said’s” last night. Refer to artist’s rendering below.

First off all, I call shanangins on you University of Colorado for closing campus yesterday at 2pm and yet opening everything back up today. The whole state is shut down and half of all classes were canceled anyways. Jerks.

Second, whatever. When god gives you lemons, you squeeze the damn hell out of them and make a lemon slushee while you and your friends craft one bitchin-ass snow fort/igloo/command post/4th bedroom for the house. After Steve and I dove head first into another bright idea that we thought wouldn’t take quite all day, we got some more help from Mohawk, Holly-tech, BuhBueller, Armada and the loving support of every person driving down our street, and constructed a 6 or 7 seater igloo in the front yard that is at least as big as my car in total size. I know what you’re saying: “Your car is a tiny piece of shit though?” and yes, but we didn’t make the J-Box by hand with shovels and of the very elements falling from the sky.

It may have taken in excess of 45 man-hours to complete this add-on to the house but dammit, it was worth it.

And even though my back is on fire today, it was a feat to be a part of the only finished igloo project of my life.

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Hey ladies. If you have all three, call me.