More on Breaking Bad, this time, the poetics of it: http://blogs.indiewire.com/pressplay/video-essay-gliding-over-all-the-cinematography-of-breaking-bad-season-4

"You have crossed the border from lubricated to morose." Am on a Mad Men binge, and how true, and how often I see that. Just yesterday, in fact. Bade a fond farewell to a good friend who was in town visiting, and caught up with some old friends who I haven't really spent much time with in months. Got corralled and convinced to go to a house party, and proceeded to witness much drinking, which wasn't mine (do I hear the peanut gallery crying out 'bullshit'? It's admittedly rare, but true). As the party came to a close, we continued to A's apartment complex, with four people bundled in the back seat of the car, one of whom was wearing only a pair of gloriously green swimming shorts, a straw hat, and sandals. I think some of the passengers would've preferred that he was more appropriately attired, and I was very glad I was in the front seat.

Anyway the night proceeded with us just talking about nothing significant, sipping whisky, and drunkenly singing 'Bohemian Rhapsody' and 'I Don't Feel Like Dancing', and me getting spun around in my friend's living room, against my will, by a drunk and flaming Finn. The poor guy definitely hit the point of moroseness and sentimentality in the previous evening, and seemed to be somewhat sheepish by the prospect of waking up on the living room floor, somewhat less than fully decked out in apparel, seeing me as I tried to leave quietly. Can't say it was a regular Saturday/Sunday morning for me, but hey, we've all got our moments.

take me back to the start

Just returned from pub quiz, which definitely brought to the fore just how ignorant I am of physics and all things science-related. Am sitting here, listening to my iTunes as it shuffles, into and off the electric, eclectic, immortal coil, while skimming through web articles. I wasn't paying much attention to what was playing, but you know how it is, whenever something familiar plays, you just hum along, or in this case and many others, that one song brought me back to a particular place and time, evoking certain memories. Regardless of whether those thoughts were ostensibly bad or good, I felt kinda ho-hum, thinking of how those songs meant something, or reminded me of someone, evoking a twinge that went beyond memories of times past. Feeling both happy and sad at the same time while thinking of something that happened just makes me that much melancholic, nostalgic for what was, saddened by what is, and contemplating what could've been. But there is nothing that could be done to change what was, and I can only forget about thinking of a present that simply isn't, and just listen to the song and try to enjoy it for what it is.

breaking bad

For the past week, I've been hooked on Breaking Bad. Hooked so bad, like a junkie on speed, coke, whatever it may be, looking for my next hit to bring me back to that feeling of being high, alive, living large. I've watched two and a half seasons in two days, and running on empty. I love the drama, the tension, even, or particularly, during the bottle episodes, where there are no guest stars, it's pretty low budget (or it should be), and it's just the leads going at it, working things out, building up the tension, like 'Fly' or 'Four Days Out'.

But do you know what really gets me? It's the human aspect of it all. The flawed characters trying to maintain dominance of situations far beyond their control. And even when it appears that they have it all under control, and fate has dealt them a good hand, it all goes completely awry. It's like W.W. Jacobs' story of "The Monkey's Paw". Even when it may appear that one has control over one's fate and acts upon it, destiny dictates otherwise. With every action there is a reaction, and with Walter White, and the myriad of characters, but particularly him, what he does brings about a cycle of reactions that he, even in his most scientific mind, cannot even possibly fathom nor anticipate. His expectations, or perhaps even hopes that he would've died, at that self-deigned optimal moment, did not come to fruition, and what he is left with is a directionless drive towards destruction that he set himself on when he decided to produce meth for what he thought was the sake of his family's future without him. However, in the aftermath of a diagnosis that he was in remission, that rendered such a claim unwarranted. What was he now, but a common, albeit sophisticated criminal? All the reasons that he could muster in the wake of his terminal cancer diagnosis appeared to justify his desire to provide for his family, but what now, that he was fine. What is a criminal future, if he had no inkling nor the self-awareness to recognise it as such?

But it is what it is at this point. And the plot will unfold before him, regardless of his best attempts to keep it at bay. He may be intelligent, but he isn't smart enough to realise that certain things are out of his control at this point. But da-yum. This show is da bomb, yo, to paraphrase Jesse. Here we have a character, Walter, born out of light and into darkness, and Jesse, a seemingly hopeless, rough individual, but who is so middle-class, so nice, that all the unhappy, 'evil' things that unfold around him cause him grief beyond what he is able to handle, and for what he is deeply unprepared for. He may want to be a 'badass', but he could never do it, nor even desire it in his subconscious. His desire for love and affection, denied to him by his family, and those around him, other than his aunt, led him to a somewhat misplaced allegiance with Walt, who, subconsciously or otherwise, recognised that he could manipulate Jesse to do what he desired, to make him his own. Walt probably cares for Jesse to some degree, but not to the extent that Jesse seeks or hopes for, and that's what makes it so terribly tragic for Jesse, because at this rate, it is only going to turn out terribly for him.

I have spent too much time and too many paragraphs blahblahblahing about a tv show. I know. I need to get a life. But this is actually a massive tangent that I started on after watching the show, and I wanted to talk about something else. If you haven't noticed, SPOILER ALERT. Ah heck, too fecking late anyway. But you know the part where Hank is treating Marie terribly after his shootout with Tuco's cousins? I related to it. And why? I had a more sensible answer to this, but it's now been pushed back again to the deepest recesses of my mind. But from what I gather, it's because he felt so trapped where he was, and was so deeply unhappy that he lashed out at the most familiar, the most familial, because he knew or expected that that person was not going to turn them away at their darkest hour. He knew that despite whatever he did, she would remain there for him. To the uninitiated, one might think 'wtf is she tolerating it and not telling him to fuck off for treating her that way?' But you know what, it happens, and people stay, regardless of whatever shit erupts around them, for reasons which are unfathomable and uncomprehensible. And perhaps even we, at our darkest moments, would do just the same, so please don't even say that is nigh impossible.

Perhaps I had a point starting out with this, but at this moment, I guess I don't, at least nothing patently discernible. So there. Time for me to say goodnight, and that is all.

Ah, my first post on a blog in a very long while, and I'm afraid this will be little more than me kvetching away like a curmudgeonly old sod, which is pretty accurate a description. Am sitting here at my desk at work, but finding it hard to focus (as always) because I'm being regaled by the delightful sounds of someone eating. And not just that, but chewing with one's mouth open. I love those joyous sounds of you masticating away assiduously, salivary glands working in overdrive, and squishing away on your food. It's like the sound boots makes as they wade through mud and muck. And perhaps it's just that my office is quiet, but come on, if I can hear you eating from across the room and with a number of cupboards in the way, something must be amiss. Some things are better off not being shared, and that would include squishy eating noises.

Moanmoanmoan. Ok, done. Back to work!