Canaan Bound

Farewell

2006-09-03T08:59:00.000-04:00

Alissa and I are getting married on Tuesday in a private ceremony with our families and the wedding party here at her parents' house. She'll be able to go barefoot in the grass like she always dreamed and I'll be all dapper in my new suit. We'll still honeymoon in Cape Cod for a few days since we have the place and then return here to be with Debbie and Sean. The bank is good and gives her two weeks bereavement leave; I'm just glad we can be here for them.

Marriage aside, although inextricably linked with it, this is also the close of a chapter in my life. I started this blog as I was graduating from Emerson two years ago. Now soon to be married to an avid blogger, we're big dorks and combined blogs last week; we're now the coolest superhero crime-fighting duo around (sorry Dave). So you can read about all our adventures on our new site tomandalissa.com

Tomorrow is Today

2006-08-16T16:37:00.000-04:00

The film I boom operated on last summer at the Jersey shore is amazingly taking off in the festival circuit! Tomorrow is Today had it's world premiere this past weekend at the Rhode Island International Film Festival; nominated for Best Feature and Best Cinematography, it went on to win the Directorial Discovery Award!

The film is also featured in broadcast magazine Studio Daily for its use of HDV technology and post-production pipeline. On August 25th it'll go to the TriMedia Festival in Fort Collins, Colorado, followed by three screenings at the Montreal World Film Festival.

Congratulations Frederic and company!

eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

2006-05-21T23:22:00.000-04:00

Star Wars Deleted Scene

2006-05-19T10:05:00.000-04:00

Just to show you how much George Lucas can't direct. The man doesn't know what he wants, and that's a requisite of being a director. He literally stands there after each take and says, "That was good. Let's do it again." No explanation, no guiding the actors. He just waits until he sees what he likes, even if it takes sixty takes to get there. I loved American Graffiti, but for a director of "such note" Lucas is an amateur.

The Da Vinci Code in Brief

2006-05-17T01:14:00.000-04:00

We could hash this out at length, but instead I'm just going to post two great quotes I read tonight before passing out after another 15-hour day of catering. Joshua Taylor put it succinctly, "The book that everyone owns and no one has read becomes the movie that everyone is excited about and can’t tell you why."

And Joe Utichi explains, "Perhaps an interesting side-piece to those already fanatical about the book, but ultimately a lifeless adaptation that reveals the flaws of its source. So Dark, the Con of Dan Brown."

Opposites - Richard Wilbur

2006-05-15T23:51:00.000-04:00

From a book of his children's poems:

12
What is the opposite of two?
A lonely me, a lonely you.

13
What is the opposite of doe?
The answer's buck, as you should know.
A buck is dough, you say? Well, well,
Clearly you don't know how to spell.
Moreover, get this through your head:
The current slang for dough is bread.

16
What is the opposite of actor?
The answer's very simple: tractor.
I said that just because it rhymes,
As lazy poets do at times.

However, to be more exact,
An actor's one who likes to act
King Lear in some unlikely plot,
Pretending to be what he's not.

The opposite of actor, friend,
Is someone who does not pretend,
But is himself, like you and me.
I'm Romeo. Who might you be?

Lazy Muncie

2006-04-25T23:22:00.000-04:00

You probably saw SNL's Lazy Sunday and possibly even the West Coast response. But what you may have missed, and it's definitely bliss (sorry, just trying a little rap myself), is Lazy Muncie.

Missing the Poleys

2006-04-18T00:24:00.000-04:00

My mentor Jode and his family (the Poleys) moved to Nebraska last week (I'm still not sure exactly why) and I miss them a lot. About a decade ago, Jode felt God calling them to work in New Jersey, so he picked up his family from Fresno, California and moved clear across the country without a job or even a place to live (I'm starting to see a theme here).

I spent my last couple years of high school hanging out in Starbucks with him, discussing intellectual history, doing inductive/manuscript Bible study, and going over the films I was making then. Eventually it turned less formal and I started spending more time with the whole family (his wife Jen + their six kids!), hanging out, wrestling the boys, playing Settlers of Catan. The Poleys know something few realize, that the greatest impact a person can have is in the lives of individuals.

They spent years hanging out with a punk kid from New Jersey (actually there were two others he mentored as well; all good friends of mine) and the affect is obvious. I wouldn't be who I am apart from the time Jode invested in me.

The affect is also obvious in his children, who were homeschooled and are all brilliant. Listen to this bit his oldest, Cori, wrote on her blog:

I don’t have to be the best at everything. I don’t have to do anything better than my friends. I don’t have to be the smartest. I can just be whatever I am, which I haven’t discovered yet. I think I'll let God handle that making me what I am thing. Because trying that on my own really screwed things up-all my life.

That's something I desperately need to learn myself. Funny, how the things people struggle with are not all that different from each other, despite age, race, economic background or whatever. Anyway. Cori's also an amazing poet worth reading when you get a chance.

All that's to say, I miss you guys.

Dying to Live

2006-04-15T01:15:00.000-04:00

Courage is almost a contradiction in terms. It means a strong desire to live taking the form of a readiness to die. 'He that loses his life, the same shall save it,' is not a piece of mysticism for saints and heroes. It is a piece of everyday advice for sailors or mountaineers. It might be printed in an Alpine guide or a drill book. This paradox is the whole principle of courage; even quite earthly or quite brutal courage. A man cut off by the sea may save his life if he will risk it on the precipice. He can only get away from death by continually stepping within an inch of it. A soldier surrounded by enemies, if he is to cut his way out, needs to combine a strong desire for living with a strange carelessness about dying. He must not merely cling to life, for then he will be a coward, and will not escape. He must not merely wait for death, for then he will be a suicide, and will not escape. He must seek life in a spirit of furious indifference to it; he must desire life like water and yet drink death like wine... — G.K. Chesterton, Orthodoxy

The Onion Magazine

2006-04-06T00:04:00.000-04:00

Hey, I'd subscribe with great headlines like this...

(via Jeffrey Overstreet)

Eleven by Sandra Cisneros

2006-03-29T11:44:00.000-05:00

This is one of my favorite short stories of all time. I love how she captures the voice of this young girl and helps us remember what it was like to be that age.

What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven, and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one. And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t. You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. And you don’t feel eleven at all. You feel like you’re still ten. And you are—underneath the year that makes you eleven...

Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wooden dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one. That’s how being eleven years old is.

Definitely worth five minutes of your time to click over and read. Go on. Step back and remember.

Books to Read in 2006

2006-03-26T21:08:00.000-05:00

Modern Fiction
Middlesex
Dakota
Housekeeping
Gilead
Master and Commander
Wise Blood
Who Will Run the Frog Hospital
An American Tragedy
Love in the Ruins
Never Let Me Go
The Quiet American
Birds of America
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek
Emily Ever After
Summerland

C.S. Lewis & H.G. Wells
Out of the Silent Planet
Perelandra
That Hideous Strength
Till We Have Faces
A Grief Observed
The Invisible Man
The Time Machine
The Island of Dr. Moreau
War of the Worlds

Poetry
Art of the Lathe
Interrogations at Noon
Self-Portrait as Jerry Quarry
Collected Poems of Tomas Transtromer
Above the River: The Complete Poems of James Wright
selected poems of e.e. cummings

Theology, Religion, and Worldviews
Total Truth
Reforming Marriage
Escape from Reason
imagine
Standing for Christ in a Modern Babylon
How to Study Your Bible
What is Reformed Theology
The Cost of Discipleship

Writing and Film
Hitchcock's Notebooks
Screenwriter's on Screenwriting
Directing Actors
Thinking in Pictures
Film Scheduling
The Elements of Style
The Writing Life
Mystery and Manners

Theater & Screenplays
Caryl Churchill, vol. 2
Angels in America
Rosencrantz & Guildenstern are Dead

Graphic Novels
V for Vendetta
Batman: Year One

The Quality Woes of Digital Photography

2006-03-24T21:01:00.000-05:00

I'm officially fed up with digital technology and the quest for quality control. Alissa got a new digital camera last week, the Canon Powershot 620, 7.1 megapixels, 4x optical zoom (The equivalent of a 28-135mm lens), and in a point-and-shoot that's sweet. We took it up to Albany for Alissa's Dad's birthday (Happy Birthday Steve!) and I shot up a storm.

I didn't bring my film camera and that's a big step for me, the move to digital has taken a long time, but I finally thought the megapixels were high enough now to make good quality prints, so I made the switch; I could even review the pictures I had just taken, shoot another shot if need be, then manipulate them in photoshop later, upload them to flickr to share with the world, and then order prints from Target to pickup later the same day. The problem is, the more creative control you have the more you realize how little you actually have and even that much you have to fight to maintain. Hence the tale I now tell...

Film cameras generally shoot onto a 35mm celluloid strip (measuring diagonally across the frame). That's a 2:3 ratio resulting in your standard 4" x 6" prints. The sensor on a digital camera, however is at a 3:4 ratio, which means you get 4" x 5.33" prints. Either you have to crop the top or bottom to get your 2:3 ratio or you print them smaller, at which point I ask you—where am I going to find a frame for a 4" x 5.33" picture?

Also I spent the last two days color correcting all of the photos we took last week so we could upload them to Flickr for her parents to make prints from. As I compared prints Alissa had previously made through Target to their digital counterpart, however, not only were they often cropped a millimeter or two here and there haphazardly, but they were often darker than displayed on the screen, so all of the precise work I had done was for naught. If I wanted the pictures to render properly, I would need to adjust the brightness of Alissa's monitor to match the pictures she had already printed and then redo all the color corrections.

It seems like I'm in a lose-lose situation. I like the quality of the pictures by and large (they certainly make great desktops), but if I can't get them to a print format without all these compromises I'm starting to wonder if the technology doesn't still have a few kinks they need to work out before I'm willing to fully make the switch.

Words by Dana Gioia

2006-03-22T10:54:00.000-05:00

We looked Dana Gioia's poem Words today at our IAM Wednesday morning gathering and it continues to be my favorite of his. I even got to read it aloud to the group; it's always a joy to share something you love with friends who've never encountered it before.

Words

The world does not need words. It articulates itself
in sunlight, leaves, and shadows. The stones on the path
are no less real for lying uncatalogued and uncounted.
The fluent leaves speak only the dialect of pure being.
The kiss is still fully itself though no words were spoken.

And one word transforms it into something less or other—
illicit, chaste, perfunctory, conjugal, covert.
Even calling it a kiss betrays the fluster of hands
glancing the skin or gripping a shoulder, the slow
arching of neck or knee, the silent touching of tongues.

Yet the stones remain less real to those who cannot
name them, or read the mute syllables graven in silica.
To see a red stone is less than seeing it as jasper—
metamorphic quartz, cousin to the flint the Kiowa
carved as arrowheads. To name is to know and remember.

The sunlight needs no praise piercing the rainclouds,
painting the rocks and leaves with light, then dissolving
each lucent droplet back into the clouds that engendered it.
The daylight needs no praise, and so we praise it always—
greater than ourselves and all the airy words we summon.

Valentine - By Carol Ann Duffy

2006-02-11T17:03:00.000-05:00

Not a red rose or a satin heart.

I give you an onion.
It is a moon wrapped in brown paper.
It promises light
like the careful undressing of love.

Here.
It will blind you with tears
like a lover.
It will make your reflection
a wobbling photo of grief.

I am trying to be truthful.

Not a cute card or kissogram.

I give you an onion.
Its fierce kiss will stay on your lips,
possessive and faithful
as we are,
for as long as we are.

Take it.
Its platinum loops shrink to a wedding ring,
if you like.
Lethal.
Its scent will cling to your fingers,
cling to your knife.

Favorite Children's Books

2006-02-05T23:10:00.000-05:00

I've been babysitting a lot lately for Owen (18 months) and Clio (6 months). We've been reading together quite a bit (they're gonna grow up to be incredibly smart!) and so I thought I'd share some of my favorite books for the wee ones:

1. If You Give a Pig a Pancake
2. Caps for Sale
3. The Very Hungry Caterpillar
4. Chugga-chugga Choo-choo
5. and everything by Sandra Boynton,
especially Moo, Baa, La La La!

Photographers Sean Kernan and David Sacks

2006-01-31T22:29:00.000-05:00

If I ever need a portrait done for press materials or a book jacket I want Sean Kernan to take it. I was sitting at Joe writing last week and noticed one of his photographs in the magazine of the man sitting next to me; I was so struck by the image, his strong use of shadow and the depth of expression he'd been able to capture, that I actually asked the man for the photographer's name in case it was listed along with the article. Extraordinary work.

I also love David Sack's brilliant use of color and his wider, strong-lined compositions. They give an entirely different feel, more like what I'll want someday for our family portraits.

My Favorite Films of 2005

2006-01-24T15:43:00.000-05:00

From this year:
1. Me and You and Everyone We Know
2. Crash
3. Nobody Knows
4. The Constant Gardener
5. Junebug
6. A History of Violence
7. Wallace and Grommit: Curse of the Were-Rabbit
8. Match Point
9. Batman Begins
10. Last Days
11. Capote
12. The Beat That My Heart Skipped
13. Cinderella Man
14. Proof
15. The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants

And some oldies:
1. Trois couleurs
2. Maborosi
3. The Girl from Paris
4. The Barbarian Invasions
5. The Story of Weeping Camel
6. I Heart Huckabees
7. Badlands
8. Heat
9. The Fog of War
10. Boys Don't Cry
11. Return of the Secaucus 7
12. Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter...and Spring
13. The Company
14. Mansfield Park
15. 24 Hour Party People
16. Millions

Meditations on Filmmaking

2006-01-20T21:10:00.000-05:00

As I work on my current script, these two quotes by Jeffrey Overstreet have been kicking around in my head:

More than any other art, [film] mirrors our experience in time and space. Reflecting our world back to us, it gives us the opportunity to reflect and revisit moments, slowly drawing back the veil.

and again,

For the big studios, the future of film is in digital effects, franchises, comic-book adaptations, and big-budget remakes with expensive celebrities. It's in pornography masquerading as art — indulgent in sex, but also in violence, political agendas, and religious sermonizing — appeasing whatever appetite consumers bring. Audiences will continue to make successful works of art a rare exception, because they tend to chase after what they want rather than what they need.

I'm not sure what to do with them, but there they are. You can read the rest of his article "Through a Screen Darkly" in Image Journal #42.

My 2005 Reading List - A Life in Books

2006-01-10T21:48:00.000-05:00

Looking back on this list, I'm actually surprised by how few things I read this year, the number of books I started and failed to finish, and how many of them just plain frustrated me. I can remember where I was and what I was doing when I read them and I realize: this was a tiring year. A lot of "bridges under the water" (inside joke) and I'm glad it's over.

Even this joyous fall has been bittersweet as friends move away and, finally having entered the working world, we ponder the uncertain future of our careers. I don't need a fresh start. I just need some sleep.

The good news, however, is my girl keeps me pressing on. She's an encouragement and a joy. "Come on everybody, stand up and sing one more hallelujah."

So this morning I stopped by the Chatham Bookseller and bought 10 books for $12. Alissa told me the other day her greatest frustration is how little time she's had to read lately and I'd have to agree (it may seem like I have more time for this than her, but she clocks almost a hundred pages an hour, which still puts her well ahead), so we're going to make reading a priority in the months to come and hopefully by this time next year I'll have a happier list to post, one I can look back on and remember all the memories that surrounded reading it, most likely snuggled on the couch together, and smile.

So here's the terrible list of what I read this year:
On the Road - Jack Kerouac
Burning Chrome - William Gibson
The Essential Neruda - Pablo Neruda
The Epistle to the Hebrews - F.F. Bruce
Midnight's Children - Salman Rushdie
Maus: A Survivor's Tale - Art Spiegelman
Doing Life - Howard Zehr
The Kite Runner - Khaled Hosseini
Newjack: Guarding Sing Sing - Ted Conover
Image Journal #44
Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner
When We Were Orphans - Kazuo Ishiguro
Me Talk Pretty One Day - David Sedaris
The Spoken Word Revolution - Mark Eleveld
Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
Watchmen - Alan Moore
The Virgin of Bennington - Kathleen Norris
A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius - Dave Eggers

And books I only read part of (for multiple reasons):
The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner
Birds of America: Stories - Lorrie Moore
All Along - Cori Poley
Hopscotch - Julio Cortazar
Ulysses - James Joyce
Squee's Wonderful Big Giant Book of Unspeakable Horrors - Jhonen Vasquez
On Acting - Sanford Meisner
Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard

And from that, here are the Absolute Must Reads:
1. Pilgrim at Tinker Creek - Annie Dillard
2. Pattern Recognition - William Gibson
3. The Essential Neruda - Pablo Neruda
4. The Virgin of Bennington - Kathleen Norris
5. On the Road - Jack Kerouac
6. Absalom, Absalom! - William Faulkner

For My Girl . . .

2006-01-05T22:22:00.000-05:00

Kind of did this on a whim.

I Make No Resolutions

2006-01-01T21:44:00.000-05:00

In a great moment of random, Angela walked up to me tonight and asked, "Can I pull your ears?"

I also had my first New Years kiss.
This bodes to be the best year of my life.

Our Ever Meaningful Conversations

2005-12-03T01:04:00.000-05:00

After listening to us banter over breakfast last week, Alissa's Mom said, "You guys must have a lot of fun talking together." Well actually, yes we do. Here's a little sample for the record, though it might have been funnier then than it is here in writing:

                   Tom
         Christina Applegate's kind of a funny 
         name.  You know, if Steve Jobs married 
         Bill Gates, they'd have a daughter and 
         name her Applegate.


                   Alissa
         If Steve Jobs married Bill Gates, they 
         couldn't have a daughter.

                   Tom
         Technology always prevails!

Based on a true story

2005-11-27T20:39:00.000-05:00

And there was Alissa and there was Tom —
after one month. And God saw that it was good.

Narnia Trailer

2005-10-25T01:22:00.000-04:00

I'd seen a couple of these and wasn't impressed, but then Aslan spoke.