#Thirty one fucking degrees used to be a record. It used to be extraordinary.

[monstersandmaw]

Why is it 31°C in my room at 9.30pm in September, IN FUCKING ENGLAND?!!

[yourghastlycloseness]

yeah the department meeting depressed the hell out of me and convinced me that i’m terribly unfulfilled at work, but also, that maybe all that comes from within and i will carry this sadness in me everywhere i go

because everyone else my age seems to be coping alright, even if they’re not doing excellently

they actually have dreams and strive for healthy human relationships

meanwhile, i can’t seem to reciprocate or reach out, nor do i really want to

maybe this just isn’t the job for me

my colleagues are sweet and competent people, though. honestly, bosses don’t get better than this

one of them gave me a book voucher today haha which i spent immediately on endo’s silence

‘of course it’s jap lit,’ said C

yes, of course lol. i’d actually like to research japanese literature more seriously

i’ve got women court writers from the heian period like sei shonagon and murasaki shikibu on my reading list

//

was watching a ballet dancer break down yuzuru hanyu’s chopin program at pyeongchang. what i didn’t notice before was how hanyu doesn’t quite breathe through his mouth at the end of a performance; he breathes through his nose instead, so he -- and other figure skaters, i assume -- ends every performance with composure and grace and not like the panting monsters most of us are

what makes hanyu so pleasing to watch? the ballet dancer explained that when you put two dancers of equal ability side-by-side, the one with the ‘better face’ will be chosen. ‘better’ could mean more physically attractive. an expressive face with more structure and definition -- something you should be able to see from afar

that reminded of the heavy make-up they used for the actors in drama club

i can’t deny that part of hanyu’s magnetic appeal is how he looks

i should admit, too, that a part of me is so envious that a person can move the way he does. why do i desire to possess everything that is beautiful? 

years ago, my therapist asked me a question that still sticks with me: ‘can you look at beautiful person and not think about wanting that beauty?’

simply put, my answer is no

i see a beautiful person and i want to be them

i don’t care if they’re dirt poor or if they have tragic family backgrounds or if they’re dumb as fuck or if they’ve raped and murdered 20 people

i want beauty and i want it all à la sharpay evans

//

later caught a podcast on suicide by a catholic pastor -- it wasn’t my intention to catch a christian podcast. i was thinking about killing myself again and wanted to hear people talk about suicide without skirting around the subject

i am only 17 minutes in but i am comforted by what the pastor said

he makes two interesting points

i) that we don’t know where a person who commits suicide ends up, but what we do know is that he goes to jesus, and god will make the judgement -- he does away with this idea of immediate and eternal condemnation for the act of suicide

ii) that doctors and clergymen have to work together to help people out of depression and to stop people from committing suicide

but there are points i disagree with

i) the pastor says that suicide can cut short this ‘plan’ that god has for you (it is believed that god has a plan for everyone) -- OK, but what if the plan was for me to precisely end my life at the age of 25, and to make others realize that this isn’t the right thing to do. alternatively, what if i were a homicidal pedophile in the making, where such tendencies would reach its peak in my thirties? coincidentally, i happen to be struggling with depression and ended up taking my own life before i could harm anyone else. what if suicide was the plan after all? it is a possibility to consider.

ii) the pastor argues very firmly that suicide is ‘sin’ for it brings pain to the people around you -- can you honestly say the same about elderly suicides? or about people who have lost all their family? we have to accept that there are people out there who aren’t loved, whose bodies are replaceable (think foxconn, sweatshops)

we don’t have enough information to make a blanket moral judgement that all suicide is sin

//

i won’t call myself a non-believer; i went through a phase of superficial pantheism haha where i saw god as the universe and the universe as god, but i no longer identify too closely with that, partly because i was working hard to fill a spiritual void back then and pantheism was the closest thing i could find to an antidote

christianity, or any institutionalized religion for that matter, has never made sense to me 

simply for this reason: we don’t know if god exists

when we don’t know, we can choose to: 

i) maintain that we don’t know (ie. god may or may not exist) 

ii) assume the positive (ie. god exists) 

iii) assume the negative (ie. god doesn’t exist)

ii) and iii) never made sense to me at all. this has been the main obstacle for me. i actually tried to get into religion between 2014-2015 lol

something else i don’t believe in: judgement before god

maybe i’m not understanding the bible correctly (frankly, i wanted to fall asleep after the first page of genesis), but how can you judge my lived experience when you have never had to live as a mere mortal with no extraordinary destiny or circumstances yourself?

i refuse to be judged by something like that

//

i cook like a sissy

i hold the spatula at an arm’s length away and i approach the pan from a 45 degree angle so that i don’t get hot oil splattering onto my forearm

//

suicide ideas

a few ways i’m thinking of committing suicide right now. i think i mentioned method #1 on my old blog, but not the others. i’m filing them all here for reference. these are what worked:

1. MBS - death of wilim/willim charles

https://www.straitstimes.com/singapore/man-who-fell-from-52nd-floor-of-mbs-probably-committed-suicide-coroner

https://www.asiaone.com/print/News/AsiaOne%2BNews/Crime/Story/A1Story20130516-423065.html

A tourist, whose body was badly severed in the fall from the 52nd floor of the Marina Bay Sands Hotel last June, was likely to have committed suicide, a coroner court heard on Tuesday.

The head and torso of Mr Wilim Charles were found on a 17th floor balcony while his legs were found in the fountain on the ground floor. Other parts of him were scattered about.

In his findings, State Coroner Imran Abdul Hamid noted that Mr Charles had used a deck chair to climb over the 1.1m-tall glass barricade of the balcony, stepped onto the planter's box and fallen to his death. 

He was last seen alive smoking a cigar seated at a desk in the suite by the butler who came to carry Ms Lee's bags down at about 4pm. Casino records showed that although he was a Diamond Reward member, he was not a frequent gambler, having last played on April 14 last year. There was also about $43,000 in cash in the suite.

i like how he died. pretty fancy to be described as being ‘last seen alive smoking a cigar seated at a desk’ and having ‘$43,000 in cash in the suite’. i’m getting noir vibes all around haha

i’m not a fan of body parts being scattered about though. so i might want to bring this down to maybe the 30th-40th floor if i decide to attempt it like he did

2. kushiro coast -- death of wei qiu jie

https://japantoday.com/category/national/Body-found-on-Kushiro-coast-may-be-that-of-missing-Chinese-woman

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/2108965/body-confirmed-be-chinese-tourist-missing-japan

The body of a young woman was discovered along the coastline of Kushiro City, Hokkaido, on Sunday. Police believe the body may be that of Wei Qiu Jie, 26, a Chinese woman who has been missing since July 23.

Around 6 a.m. on Sunday, a man who was kelp fishing along the beach at Katsurakoi, discovered the body that had washed ashore and immediately notified the police, Fuji TV reported. The woman had long hair and was wearing a beige skirt and white blouse, similar to the clothes Wei was wearing when she was last seen.

She had left her hotel in Sapporo on July 22 for the day, leaving some of her luggage behind, but never returned.

Police later discovered she checked into a hotel at Akan Lake, about 300km from Sapporo, the same night she left Sapporo.

Witnesses said she boarded a tour boat at the lake and was last seen on surveillance camera footage at a convenience store in the nearby coastal city of Kushiro on July 23.

i like this one because i’m seeing millais’ ophelia in the water. the painting has been my laptop lock screen wallpaper for years haha

unfortunately, i’m a pretty alright swimmer. i imagine that i’d fight really hard if i tried to drown myself. i’d probably need to weigh myself down with a lot of rocks in my pockets (like virigina woolf) and bind my arms and legs when i go into the water

3. burning coal briquettes in a hotel room -- death of kim jong-hyun

https://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/jonghyun-lead-singer-for-south-korean-boyband-shinee-dies-reports

K-pop group SHINee member Kim Jong Hyun, 27, died on Monday (Dec 18) in an apparent suicide, according to local reports.

Police found him unconscious at 6.10pm Korea time in his own apartment located in Cheongdam-dong, in the upscale Gangnam district, after his sister made a report at 4.42pm saying that her brother seemed suicidal.

The YTN news channel, however, reported that Mr Kim had checked into a serviced residence for two nights.

Mr Kim was taken to a nearby hospital, but eventually died.

Reports suggested he died of cardiac arrest from suspected carbon monoxide poisoning.

He was found to have burned a coal briquette on a frying pan. Charcoal briquettes can cause carbon monoxide poisoning in closed rooms.

i would probably choose a hotel room that comes with a kitchenette in tokyo. i went to seoul alone to get a feel of the city as a resting place, but it didn’t vibe with me as much as tokyo did

4. yellowknife, ingraham trail - death of atsumi yoshikubo

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/atsumi-yoshikubo-wrote-a-suicide-note-before-leaving-japan-1.2825863

Yoshikubo, 45, was a doctor who enjoyed travelling solo. She was reported missing Oct. 27, 2014 by staff at the Explorer Hotel.

Staff at the Explorer Hotel, where she was staying by herself, found all of her luggage in her room three days after she was supposed to have checked out. They called police, who found she'd missed her flight home to Japan on Oct. 26.

At the time, police said she had been last seen walking away from the city toward Highway 4, also called the Ingraham Trail.

Because investigators found only bone fragments, they couldn't determine exactly what caused Yoshikubo's death.

They did find two notes left by Yoshikubo: one, an apparent suicide note for friends and family in Japan; the other, found by searchers with her possessions in the bush in Yellowknife.

"It included... how much she loved the North, how much she loved Yellowknife, how much she loved the aurora," Menard said. "She expressed her wishes about wanting to be buried here."

unfortunately, we don’t know how exactly yoshikubo died. 

but i imagine there are many ways one could die in the woods. starvation, dehydration, hypothermia, bear attack (if i’m going to go down like leo in the revenant, i expect an afterlife oscar)

i imagine it would be nice to die in the north toohttps://www.straitstimes.com/lifestyle/entertainment/jonghyun-lead-singer-for-south-korean-boyband-shinee-dies-reports

//

other suicides cases i’ve read about and will KIV when considering methods: 

kate spade

christine chubbuck

sulli

hara

sylvia plath

krystal aki mizoguchi

daul kim

iris chang

kevin carter

paula goodspeed

keiko fuji

yukiko okada

simone mareuil

hanging is ideal to me. but man, what if i don’t get the knot right lol

[justindoolittle]

The 2017 Oscars

I make no apologies for loving the Oscars, despite how stupid and wrong they often are, as evidenced by the fact that Hitchcock, Kubrick, and PT Anderson don’t have a single award between them. It took until fucking 2007 for Scorsese to get one, for god’s sake. Nevertheless I enjoy the glamour, the Old Hollywood feel, and the utter ridiculousness of it all. It’s a fun night.

Damian Chazelle’s La La Land is almost definitely going to be the story on Sunday. We don’t really know the extent to which it will dominate the lower categories, but Best Picture, Best Director, and a few others look pretty safe.

Chazelle is an immense talent. The guy just turned 32. Whiplash is, in my view, one of the five or ten best American films of the 21st century. He deserves credit for taking all the capital he accumulated from Whiplash and putting it on the line for this kind of passion project – an ode to classic Hollywood musicals, featuring two actors who don’t sing or dance particularly well (sorry). The critical adulation and box office success of La La Land were not assured. It was a risk that obviously paid off beyond what even he could have imagined (Here’s to the ones who dream, etc.).

As achievements in storytelling, La La Land doesn’t stand with either Manchester by the Sea or Moonlight, two extraordinary films that explore what it means to be human in a way rarely seen on the screen. There is a depth of feeling to those films that La La Land obviously wasn’t even attempting to match. Kenneth Lonergan and Barry Jenkins have made masterpieces and it’s unfortunate that, barring a major surprise, neither will be recognized to the degree that they should be. Either film would have owned 2015 but in 2016 they happened to run into this juggernaut (and each other).

Like many others, I saw La La Land only after absorbing months of critical adulation, bordering on ecstasy. It was impossible to suppress expectations. And while I can’t say I was blown away, I wasn’t disappointed, either. I think everything after the first act is really good. For the first thirty minutes or so you’re thinking it’s just going to be this light musical, but eventually the feel of the movie shifts to something a bit darker and more interesting. The story and characters remain thin, but the cinematography is striking, and Stone and Gosling bring undeniable warmth and charisma. It may be the most rewatchable film of the year.

Chazelle took a big swing with this – something we all want from our auteurs. So as much as I believe both Manchester and Moonlight are more deserving, as the kids like to say, I’m not even mad. If I did have a vote, I would probably go with Manchester for Best Picture and Lonergan for Best Director. That’s my movie of the year. But barring something weird happening, Chazelle is taking everything. If it’s a real tidal wave, and La La Land equals or even breaks the record of 11 wins, it will be interesting to see how all of this looks in ten or twenty or fifty years. Is this really a singular film that deserves to be the all-time Oscars champ? Will it actually hold up against the other great American musicals? Ehh. I don’t know.

A few thoughts on the other categories:

Best Supporting Actress The story here is that Viola Davis and her snot got dropped into this category to avoid the Best Actress bloodbath. She has a lot of screentime in Fences, nearly as much as Denzel, and it’s pretty ridiculous for her to be competing in the same category as Michele Williams, who appears in only a few (heart-stopping) scenes in Manchester. I’m not a fan of this kind of playing with categories and I think the Academy should crack down on it. So yes, Viola has the most impressive performance of these five, but Williams’ work in Manchester – as well as Naomie Harris’s in Moonlight – is, or should be, the reason this category exists.

Best Supporting Actor I was glad my guy Michael Shannon was the Nocturnal Animal to get nominated, even after Aaron Taylor Johnson’s inexplicable win at the Globes. Johnson got to ham it up in that movie but I thought Shannon’s performance was ultimately more interesting. Jeff Bridges provided the full Bridges Experience in Hell or High Water but this looks like Mahershala Ali’s night, and rightfully so. Who knew Remy from House of Cards was capable of this? I’m excited to see where his career goes from here. His speech should be one of the highlights of the night.

Best Actress Emma Stone was the heart of La La Land. She acted circles around Gosling in that movie and clearly gave it everything she had. She is always great. I see that she is a heavy favorite to win. All due respect to her, and to the goddess Isabelle Huppert, but I feel like there’s some conspiracy here against Natalie Portman I haven’t been let in on. What she did in Jackie, in my opinion, towers above anything else here. It doesn’t even seem like a close call. I don’t know what’s going on.

Best Actor This race has gotten quite a bit juicier following Denzel’s surprise win at the SAG awards. Word is that past accusations of sexual harrassment may doom Casey Affleck but I think this is probably being overstated? He lost the SAG but he has still dominated awards season. He’s only a slight betting favorite now but I’m still hoping he gets it. Denzel is one of my favorite actors alive but Casey gave the performance of a lifetime in Manchester, portraying grief and suffering in a way that I’m not sure they’ve ever been portrayed on the screen. He deserves this moment.

Best Original Screenplay I loved what Taylor Sheridan and Yorgos Lanthimos did with Hell or High Water and The Lobster, but this is a no-brainer. Kenneth Lonergan is a writer, first and foremost, and the writing in Manchester is stellar. Chazelle taking this may prove to be the biggest injustice of the night.

Best Adapted Screenplay I’m not sure Moonlight’s power is primarily derived from its script, but I’m happy to see Jenkins win here against this field.

Best Cinematography The American Society of Cinematographers went with Lion, which was kind of odd, but I can’t see La La Land being denied here. Nor should it be. The opening sequence, the use of natural L.A. light, the lush colors, the flashy camerawork… no matter where you stand on La La Land, it’s hard to deny that it’s a visual masterpiece.

Best Foreign Language Film Still haven’t gotten to Farhadi’s The Salesman but I’ve seen the others. This has been a strange year for this category. Park Chan-wook’s The Handmaiden was ineligible because it wasn’t Korea’s official selection. Someone should probably be arrested for this. And Paul Verhoeven’s Elle, a dark, intriguing film that earned Isabelle Huppert a nomination for Best Actress, somehow didn’t even make the final cut of potential nominees. Senseless.

Land of Mine, a penetrating Danish film set just after the conclusion of World War II, was one of my favorites of the year. I was glad to see it get nominated. I also loved A Man Called Ove. But this looks like a race between The Salesman and Toni Erdmann, the bizarre, 162-minute German comedy. Farhadi, an Iranian, will not attend the ceremony, in protest of Trump. Politics will almost certainly factor in here.

That’s about it. I loved the Jackie and Moonlight scores but yes, La La Land, okay. City of Stars, best song, fine with me. Months later and I’m still humming that shit.

Oh, also, OJ: Made in America was amazing but that is a miniseries, not a movie, and I’m glad to fight with anyone over this. It’s nearly eight hours long and it was shown on TV in five installments. Stop calling it a movie.

Enjoy the show.