Fin de semana.

Cuando lo único que hay que hacer estando juntos es manejar de arriba abajo por el segundo piso del periférico y disfrutar del atardecer, se que fue un buen fin de semana.

Until Morning Comes

Still standing in the dark,
never made it far
never really tried
take it all away tonight.

these tears haven’t run dry
my soul is split and very tired
this spirit is enough
we’ll wait till morning comes .

Invictus

De William Ernest Henley:

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

Strict Care, STRICT JOY

Somewhere between this world and the next (or past?) I developed a keen fondness of all things Irish, including gray skies and rain. I believe it is only the Irish who can truly turn a lyric on its head, like making Frank Sinatra's "My Way" an apology instead of a boastful toast.

A few Irish things to check out:

Guinness
U2's Achtung Baby
The Cranberries' Everybody Else is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
The movie The Commitments
The movie Once
The Frames & The Swell Season

Irish Poet James Stephens sums this up;

To-day i felt as poor O'Brien did
When, turning from all else that was not his,
He took himself to that which was his own
— He took him to his verse — for other all he had not,
And (tho' man will crave and seek)
Another all than this he did not need

So, pen in hand he tried to tell the whole tale of his woe
In rhyming; lodge the full weight of his grief in versing: and so did:
Then — when his poem had been conned and cared,
And all put in that should not be left out — did he not find and with astonishment,

That grief had been translated, or was come
Other and better than it first looked to be:
And that this happened, because all things transfer
From what they seem to what they truly are
When they are innocently brooded on
— And, so, The poet makes grief beauti-ful

"Behold me now, with my back to the wall,
Playing music to empty pockets!"
So, Raferty, tuning a blind mans plight,
Could sing the cark of misery away:
And know, in blindness and in poverty,
That woe was not of him, nor kind to him.

And Egan Rahilly begins a verse —
"My heart is broken, and my mind is sad ..."
'Twas surely true when he began his song,
And was less true when he had finished it:
— Be sure, his heart was buoyant, and his grief
Drummed and trumpeted as grief was sung!

For, as he meditated misery
And cared it into song — Strict Care, Strict Joy!
Caring for grief he cared his grief away:
And those sad songs, tho' woe be all the theme,
Do not make us grieve who read them now —
Because the poet makes grief beautiful.

And I, myself, conning a lonely heart
— Full lonely 'twas, and 'tis as lonely now
Turned me, by proper, to my natural,
And, now too long her vagrant, wooed my muse:
Then to her — let us look more close to these,
And, seeing, know; and, knowing, be at ease.

Seeing the sky o'ercast, and that the rain had
Plashed the window, and would plash again:
Seeing the summer lost, and the winter nigh:
Seeing inapt, and sad, and fallen from good:
Seeing how will was weak, and wish o'erbearing:
Seeing inconstant, seeing timidity:
Seeing too small, too poor in this and yon:
Seeing life, daily, grow more difficult:
Seeing all that moves away — moving away
... And that all seeing is a blind-mans treat,
And that all getting is a beggars dole,
And that all having is bankruptcy ...

All these, sad all! I told to my good friend,
Told Raferty, O'Brien, Rahilly,
Told rain, and frosted blossom, and the summer gone,
Told poets dead, and captains dead, and kings!
— And we cared naught that these were mournful things,
For, caring them, we made them beautiful.

James Stephens 1882 – 1950

A day in the life.

A lot of people in Mexico City got a taste of what it's like to be a freelance CG Artist (a.k.a. work from home). I figured I finally stumbled upon my second entry, a day in my life....

8.30 am Wake up, look at the time. Feel good about not having to commute to work.
8.31 am Go back to sleep.
9.15 am Wake up again.
9.20 am Breakfast.
9.30 am Get to work on time. Check Pitchfork.com
10.30 am 1st Coffee Break. Blip a couple of tracks on blip.fm
11.30 am Get back to work.
12.00 pm Brunch.
1.00 pm Reply Emails. Check Facebook notifications.
1.30 pm Little bit more work. Check wired.com
2.30 pm Get out of PJs, lunch.
3.30 pm NAP.
4.30 pm Back to work. More Facebook notifications.
5.30 pm Afternoon Coffee Break
6.30 pm End of labors.
6.31 pm Beat the traffic back home.
6.32 pm Whatever's on TV.
7.30 pm Dinner.
8.30 pm Primetime.
10.30 pm Night Cap.
11.30 pm Go to Bed.

It's good to be king.

New Beginnings and Synecdoche, NY.

I'm gonna give this another go, and try to be an actual blogger. I started out once but just wrote a single entry. So Maybe this time around I'll get a couple more entries in before I get bored.

I recently watched Charlie Kaufman's Synecdoche, NY. I must admit I had to watch it twice before more of the theme, and what actually happens in the movie got through to me. It's a beautiful surreal mess of death and how we are all hurdling towards it. It's out now on DVD after a very limited theatrical release last year.

Here's the trailer:




Here you'll find a very good interview with Kaufman from Creative Screenwriting.