Le Scaphandre et le Papillon

I watched an amazing movie today.

It's a French film, Le Scaphandre et le Papillon, or The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It was a beautiful and haunting story about a successful magazine editor trapped in his own mind by a stroke. It broke my heart to watch the man at first, then stirred me deeply as he overcame his condition (to an extent) and dictated an entire book by blinking out each letter of each word.

The most affecting part was that the film takes its name from a book. That book. The magazine editor, Jean-Dominique Bauby, really lived. He was the editor of the French Elle, and in his early forties, Bauby suffered a terrible stroke that paralyzed every part of his body save one eye. With that eye Bauby spoke to his wife, whom he had abandoned for another woman. He spoke to his children, whom he was unable to touch or feel. He spoke to Claude Mendibil, a secretary-esque assistant to whom Bauby narrated his life "in the diving bell."

The film's cinematography is beautiful and innovative, showing many things through Bauby's one eye. Perhaps most haunting, though, is the liberal use of Bauby's own words, extracted from the memoir. The lyricism of the work is, while not consistent, often astounding:

My diving bell becomes less oppressive, and my mind takes flight like a butterfly. There is so much to do. You can wander off in space or in time, set out for Tierra del Fuego or for King Midas's court.

You can visit the woman you love, slide down beside her and stroke her still-sleeping face. You can build castles in Spain, steal the Golden Fleece, discover Atlantis, realize your childhood dreams and adult ambitions. (The entire first chapter can be viewed here.)

The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is at once life-affirming and heart-breaking--a very hard balance to achieve. There are moments of total despondency peppered with wit and joviality--a truly humanistic film. I left the theater saddened and alive at the same time. And guilty. Guilty for wasting my life and my gifts. I can type these words, or say them to people. Bauby's words are far louder--deafening almost--and he speaks in silence.

Drew's 25 Most Played

Zach and Emily did this, and I'm a procrastinator at my core, so I figured hey, what the hell.

1. "Wine Red" by The Hush Sound
2. "Still Take You Home" by the Arctic Monkeys
3. "How Far We've Come" by Matchbox Twenty
4. "Shake It" by Metro Station
5. "We Intertwined" by The Hush Sound
6. "No World for Tomorrow" by Coheed & Cambria
7. "The Reaping" by Coheed & Cambria
8. "Take Me to the Riot" by Stars
9. "The Hound (Of Blood and Rank)" by Coheed & Cambria
10. "Feathers" by Coheed & Cambria
11. "Gravemakers & Gunslingers" by Coheed & Cambria
12. "Stronger" by Kanye West
13. "Where We Went Wrong" by The Hush Sound
14. "The Start of Something" by Voxtrot
15. "When the Sun Goes Down" by the Arctic Monkeys
16. "Mother Superior" by Coheed & Cambria
17. "A Dark Congregation" by The Hush Sound
18. "Don't Wake Me Up" by The Hush Sound
19. "From the Ritz to the Rubble" by the Arctic Monkeys
20. "The End Complete II: Radio Bye-Bye" by Coheed & Cambria
21. "I'm Ready" by Jack's Mannequin
22. "Mardy Bum" by the Arctic Monkeys
23. "Unplayed Piano" by Damien Rice
24. "The End Complete IV: The Road and the Damned" by Coheed & Cambria
25. "Dogs" by Damien Rice

So, according to this, my top three albums would be (in order):

Coheed & Cambria's Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol. 2: No World For Tomorrow

The Hush Sound's Like Vines

...and the Arctic Monkeys' Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not.

Very interesting. Were I asked, probably only one of those three would have made the list, and it would NOT have been #1. Oh well. iTunes has spoken.

How I Live Now

This last week has been a nightmare. A horrible, horrible nightmare from which I don't think I can wake. On Monday, one of my dearest friends ingested a bottle of Tylenol in an attempt to end her life. My girlfriend and I had a titanic fight on Wednesday. And then, on Friday, my family was blown apart.

I can't really go into specifics, but I left Greek at 9:50 AM and listened to a message from my little sister that nearly made me lose consciousness and/or vomit. I called my mother to notify her of the situation, called my girlfriend for a ride, and practically flew down to Roseburg. I went to be there for my mother, because she was alone. My dad was with my little brother on a ski trip, and she couldn't call them and tell them what had happened. It was too much. So I was there with her as one of her worst fears came into being. I was there with her as a monstrous truth tore asunder what was once a tight-knit family. I was there with her as she came to terms with (in her eyes) the reality that she failed to protect her children.

I can't blame her for it, nor did I try. No one saw this coming. My mother and I sat reeling as we talked with social workers and the police. I did what I could for her. It wasn't much to me, but it meant the world to her.

Now, I'm not particularly religious, but I do believe in God, and I'd like to think that everything happens for a reason. But now I don't know. Every waking moment is like a scream, a shout to the heavens, a prayer for some respite. Everything would be better if only I could know why this happened. I just want to know what I am to be learning from all of these hardships: the fire, the relationship (at times), the sad, lacking realities of the real world. And though my cry for reason resounds in every second of every day, the reply is a whisper, perhaps from a higher power or a voice in my head, stirred into speech to fill the silence: "Hier ist kein Warum." Here is no why.

Thus, the new title, and the new layout. Bubbles are too happy. Too "why". And there is none.

So This is Rock Bottom...

I'm sitting in the middle of one of the biggest buildings on campus,
all alone,
crying my eyes out.
Everyone sees me.
In the thirty seconds I had before meltdown,
I couldn't really think of a good place to hide.
So I'm not hiding at all.
This is the second time in two weeks she's made me cry in public.
And the thought that she won't do it again makes me cry more.

I Don't

know what to do.

Perspective

I am finally realizing that I don't have it as bad as I thought I did.

Also, that some relationships are worse than mine.

But maybe that's because mine's going well.

But this one's really bad.

Why I Hate "Paultards" Pt. 1

A caveat:
I love politics. To those that know me, it should come as no surprise, and to those that do not...well, hang on tight, because a nice, long rant has been a long time in coming.


To anyone not aware, I am a liberal. So please don't use that word as if it's some kind of slander on my character. I support Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama in that order, but only because Obama really hasn't made many tangible plans for his presidency.

But most of all...

I FUCKING HATE RON PAUL AND ALL OF HIS DELUDED LITTLE FUCKHEAD "PAULTARDS"!

I'm dreadfully sorry for the language just then. I promise I'll try and avoid it from here on out. But in my defense...

Earlier this week, some guy whom I've never met invited me to join a Facebook group entitled "Are You Unplugged? Or Are You Ignorant?" Don't bother looking; you won't be able to find any mention of it. It's a secret group, hidden from all but its members. The creator (who shall remain nameless) personally invited most of the people in the group based on comments they had left on discussion boards elsewhere on Facebook. The criteria (according to him): be intelligent. Once we all joined the group, our fearless leader told us of his master plan. He wants to let the group go for a while, discussing things and hopefully coming to solutions on some of the issues. After he thinks enough progress has been made, he wants to make the group public, so that we can educate the whole of Facebook, thereby a large number of the young voting population.

Yeah, I know. He's fucking nuts.

But that's his plan. And I'm along for the ride. At first I thought it was funny, but now...Well, there's something that a lot of the group's members have in common: they support Ron Paul for president.

For a while now, Ron Paul has been the butt of my political jokes. I see signs that say "No taxes! Not ever! Ron Paul!", and I laugh my ass off. Actually, for a long time I had no idea that he was actually running as part of the Republican Party. For a while, I wasn't even aware that he was legitimately running at all.

After joining the group and seeing all of these (supposedly) intelligent people support this man with such zeal, I decided to find out about him for myself. Okay, that's a lie. This is what made me investigate Dr. Paul:

...they [Fox News] will marginalize Paul every step of the way, from what questions they ask him, how much "face" time he receives, and the pundits' spin after the debate. You will see pollsters going out of their way to encourage us to vote for anybody but Ron Paul. Why? Because Ron Paul speaks the truth about not only the USA, but the world. CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] media moguls know that Ron Paul is a huge stumbling block on the road to globalized, one-world government.

It would help to know more about Ron Paul, and I don't want to use this forum to articulate politics when there are other groups that do that, but I must say, for the sake of speaking the truth, Ron Paul is completely honest and has been since the first day he went into office as Congressman. His main platform is concerned with getting all foreign assets (military bases, troops) out of other countries, eliminating Federal Reserve-controlled monetary policy (that is destroying our dollar by the way), and keeping the USA the same USA we know and love.

Fox News, our government, and all of the corporate media hate this message because they are in bed with the CFR global elite who are pushing for the North American Union, a project that would require we give up our national sovereignty (i.e. laws) to another more powerful organization. Hmmm... I wonder who this organization might be... the CFR perhaps...

...I want to offer that if anyone here is interested in seeking truth in politics, I mean the real truth can hurt once you take off the emotional blinders, then start with Ron Paul.

Some of his supporters might be a bit crazy (i.e. angry), but I think they have reason, and Ron Paul by no means deserves the treatement that he is receiving in the mainstream press. He is a peaceful man; I met him in person once (hopefully twice by the end of the night). I believe in this man so much that I would take a bullet for him, seriously. (Bold and italics mine)

That was the start of a discussion board entitled "Truth in Politics". The guy sounded fucking crazy, so I decided (being the vindictive bastard that I am) that I wanted to prove him wrong.

I did. It was fun.

To start, Ron Paul is a Congressman from Texas who has served about ten non-consecutive terms in office. He is also an OB/GYN, who has delivered over 4,000 babies. Don't ask me why that's relevant, I'm just the messenger, and most Paul supporters seem to think that this is important. Paul is notorious for voting against everything he perceives as "unconstitutional," which is, well, almost everything.

To begin with the most recent development in the unfolding saga of the Ron Paul Revolution:

Ron Paul, apparently is a racist. Or at least, a political newsletter bearing his name and often his signature contains numerous racially offensive comments, among other disturbing things. Don't buy it? The New Republic ran an article that can be accessed here, containing scans of the actual newsletters themselves.

Paul denied ever writing the racist comments, or approving them. Which is interesting, because this is not the first time Paul has been asked to respond to these newsletters. The first time, Paul took responsibility, but now, he says he's never seen them before and says he wasn't really editing the publication at the time. Which is perfectly plausible. One problem though: these publications span almost a decade. So is Paul saying that for ten years, he did not read anything in a series of newsletters bearing his name? That none of his friends or co-workers read them? That no one ever said anything to him for TEN YEARS?

Yeah, right.

Unsurprisingly, the Paul supporters have an answer, and I bet you can't guess what it is. A conspiracy theory. The signatures were fake. It's part of a CFR smear campaign, because they're afraid that they'll lose control of the US government.

(For a very candid step-by-step illustration of the self-delusion that Paul supporters use to come to these conclusions, click here.)

...so that is the beginning of what will probably be a multi-volume work. There's so much to say about the guy! (And now that there's something of substance on here, maybe some people will read it.)

A Poem

so thick, the quiet, so strong,
like fog, like a pungent smoke.
so loud, the quiet--
a buzzing nothingness
like they had become.

there were things in that quiet--
shadows, memories,
murmurs in dead tongues,
hollow images,
dead things.

they gnawed at him, those things,
while he was alone,
while he was not alone.
crying out for vengeance,
their Furies tore his skin

his tears, though copious, were of no use.
they were merely water,
no libations for the dead.
and he remembered his myths;
he knew how to get them to go away.

Ta-Da!

So that didn't take half as long as I thought it would. I'm still not sure if I like this look or not, but it's...interesting. Opinions are welcome.