blanks it just supremely sucks when you know you're being lied to. i love it when i catch people who think they're fucking good lairs.

no, this doesn't apply to all you who know me.

on another hand, my colleague and poet friend got published again! yay! :-) i'm happy for her. here is her work.

i'd also just come back from movie night: we saw crash. beautiful flick. love the way they started the story somewhere in the first middle, like a rope tied in a circle - they started somewhere a third of the way around. love how it is absolutely true, like that old computer game called jezzball or the more elegant, karma, good or bad. and because the entire universe but me has seen the flick, i was influenced to look for "hope" - because stark through the flick's realism, it's there:

the hope that emerges after you reach your limits and just end up tired and trying to do the good thing for those you can reach.

the hope that comes from the innocence of childhood.

the hope that comes from a steady stream of busy nothings - until you hit a spectacular car crash somehow.

the hope that comes from tradition and folklore and superstition - all those angels and legends are true.

the hope that's immediately available, even if you have to pay service for it.

the hope that just happens to be. dorri prolly knew the bullets were blanks as she was the one who loaded the gun. she could have gotten them replaced. but she prolly knew her dad would regret successfully using the gun.

there is all this hope - so many types of hope - because crashes are ubiquitous and unwelcome, unwelcome every time.

key line: "i am angry all the time, and i don't know why." (jean) why won't her friend listen to her? why didn't jean's friend recognize a rare moment of clarity in her, after a decade of friendship? why didn't she realize jean isn't accustomed to handling this clarity?

key line: "it's the sense of touch. in any real city, you walk, you know? you brush past people, people bump into you. in LA, nobody touches you. we're always behind this metal and glass. i think we miss that touch so much, that we crash into each other, just so we can feel something." (graham) he can be talking about any city. or chicago at night, ahaha.

my film prof earlier this semester mentioned an academic paper about how people's behavior has changed since the invention of plumbing. before indoor plumbing, people dealt with their own excrement privately, in their own ways. the paper speculates whether humans have lost something primal by our hiding, even from ourselves, our most private acts.

my classmate muttered, "ya, but i'd like to keep it that way."

it got me wondering whether that might be the reason why reality shows and contests and blogs are selling madly nowadays. we don't know our own weaknesses, so we look at others' and see if we can relate. or worse, copy.

when i first moved to the u.s., i learned a new psychology concept: the idea of personal space, of "bubbles." i told friends in manila that the bubbles here are much, much larger and more impenetrable, you're not even allowed to joke about it. ahaha.

of course, it is now after sept. 11, so the bubbles may have shrunk. or, as shown in this movie, punctured and burst altogether, and with that, you then wonder if it's been like that all along, regardless of sept. 11. or, as i'm writing right now long after college, my perception of the bubbles of other people has changed.

a couple other specific points of hope: graham's brother peter killed by officer hanson, who's always trying to do the right thing. his mother mistakes that peter, not graham, brought her groceries. "you've become too busy for us," she said, accepting that graham is incapable of such kindness to her. maybe now that peter is gone, and assuming graham doesn't change toward her, she'll recognize how much he cares for her.

the video business salivated upon by a newly-arrived asian boy. the video industry might provide entertainment, diversion and livelihood to keep him away from greater evils. for example, he and his friends can engage in film piracy to earn money to support their life there in LA.

irony is the home of all hope in this film. graham's LA is every city formed when two roads cross. sometimes firearms aimed at each other are mere blanks, sometimes they're real and kill. sometimes the blanks in people's lives help you realize who your real friends are. sometimes the things they said about controlling your destiny will actually have to wait; all springboards to making dreams come true are messy. "crash" closes with stereophonics' "maybe tomorrow":

I look around at a beautiful life
Been the upperside of down
Been the inside of out
But we breathe
We breathe

I wanna breeze and an open mind
I wanna swim in the ocean
Wanna take my time for me
All me

So maybe tomorrow
I'll find my way home  ¶ 8/14/2005 01:48:00 AM