Power of Deception

I finally watched The Village last night even after hearing several mixed opinions about it. I didn't know what to expect since I avoided hearing or reading any reviews about it. Since "The Sixth Sense" I've always enjoyed M. Night Shyamalan's movies because of his plot twists and the use of fear to create in depth character studies on human conscience, religion, and cultural beliefs. I didn't want anyone to spoil this for me before I got to the theater. Was I disappointed like everyone else? At first I was, but after giving the movie more thought I realize that Shyamalan is a writing genius.

SKIP THIS PARAGRAPH IF YOU DON'T WANT TO KNOW ABOUT THE MOVIE! The movie is centered on a community created by a set of "elders" who have family members that were victims of crimes in modern society. The group created the village to protect their own from the so called ills of society and created the myths of "those we don't speak of" so that the other villagers would be afraid to venture out into the woods and discover the real world. So with that being the main twist of the story, I know most people are saying "That's it?!". I think that the plot works and gets it's point across if you watch it with an open mind and if you see the parallelism between what Shyamalan made his characters do and what he makes the audience feel. A great key to this was how the film was marketed. The film was marketed as a horror movie and before the projector starts rolling you already feel some sense of fear. The trailers never give much information on what the villagers "don't speak of" so we are conditioned to be afraid and in the end we find out that its all just a great love story. The "elders" in the movie use the power of fear and deception to control the minds of the other villagers and Shyamalan uses the same with the audience. Everything that we are made to believe is not exactly as it appears; Everything that we create as a solution will eventually replicate the things we run away from. In The Village, Shyamalan created a community where crime shouldn't exist but eventually does, and he created a story where audiences are not supposed to be afraid but we are.

See it for yourself.

Old Stuff

I wrote the following poems over seven years ago when I believed that Snoop Dogg was the real game spitter but Lord Byron type lines made girls melt. This is not a declaration of love and I’m not trying to get myself in trouble. The real magic of these poems is not in the cheese ball lyrics but the hidden vertical message in caps created by the first letter or word of each line. Did they melt? Yes. Where are they now? I don’t know. Anyway…

I hate to use real names, so this is dedicated to all the DM’s and CU’s that I’ve crossed paths with. (Somehow, in the poems you'll find their names anyway. I guess it doesn't matter since this was such a long time ago and anything these poems meant then mean nothing more than a memory now.) Fasten your seatbelts; this is one cheesy ride.

* * * * *

Devotion
Empathy
Blissfulness and
Blessedness
I give not to be forsaken
Every gift meant to be taken

Merriment
Openheartedness
Romance and
Emotion
Not to be mistaken
On what cannot be retaken

ONE heartbeat left unbroken
FOUR ever betoken
THREE words I have spoken

* * * * *

C loudy are my solitary days
H azy is my morning sun
A nd the sunset wears a grey disguise
R eminiscent of dark summer rain
I don’t know what to feel or say
Z ealous, obliged, or innocent
A nd I sit here all alone
U nderstanding love not heaven sent
S ince the day you walked away
A nd left me lost in cloudy days
N ow I live inside the cold
A nd waiting for truth to be told

I mages of us laughing in the rain
M imics the sun that hides my pain
I nside your hand you hold my smile
S o yet another tear to cry
S haken by fears of losing you
Y anks the sun out of my sky
O r will I walk out of the rain
U nderneath your sky that’s warm and dry

Light Speed, Music and New Toys

Work is, was, and will always be hell if you work with the guy that I do, but I've been getting free lunches from my sluggish co-worker so I guess his laziness gives me something in return. He's been coming to work late and calms everyone down by saying, "You know the routine, I come in late, so to make it up to everyone we'll all eat a good lunch.". Okay, but after eating free grease and making up for his slow ass, I get tired at the end of the day. This guy really needs to pick up the pace. There's a force field between his monitor and eyes that slows down the speed of light. Whatever he reads off his computer takes 10 seconds to reach his eyeballs, and another 10 seconds for the information to travel to his brain, and an extra 20 seconds for his brain to send a command to his index finger controlling the left click on his mouse.

I've got a little project going on. I found some of my old cassette tapes (what are cassettes? oh yeah...) and after months of searching online for the actual CDs to replace them, I decided to import them into my computer and burn them on discs. The majority are Filipino artists that I listened to during college but after months of searching and e-mailing customer service departments of Philippine online stores to have someone find what I'm looking for, I gave up. They all give me the same typical Filipino reply when something is out of print or no longer made. "Phased out sir.".

This project has made me dig back into the Philippine music CDs that I do own. I miss the acoustic sound that is a great diversion from hearing the annoying "Yaaaay...!" coming out of Lil' Jon's mouth every 10 minutes on the radio. I even tried downloading more and did find a few songs that I forgot about. (Yes guys at the RIAA, I do download music like everyone else that owns a computer and internet. Now get the guys that sell bootlegs on the sidewalk!). Some of this stuff is actually really good. One of my favorite albums is from this band called Sugar Hiccup. They weren't that popular but they released one cool CD. They have the shoegazer / dreampop sound backed by a vocalist that sounds like the girl from the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. Cool shiznit! Right now I'm listening to this song "One and Only You" from Parokya ni Edgar. I heard these guys before so out of curiousity I downloaded and listened to it for the first time last night and now I can't stop playing it. I remember these guys playing funky Tagalog songs when I was in college but this song I found is frickin' awesome. The thing that I love about Filipino music is the lyrics. They always say how life really is even if it sounds absurd, funny or cheesy. Anyway...

Ahem....ahem.... Being the hardworker that I am, I won the Apple Airport Express kit from a company contest. It's pretty cool, let's me wirelessly connect my iTunes library to the home stereo. I also found a program that let's me control iTunes from my cell phone. Pretty cool stuff if you want to play DJ while you chill with a beer in your backyard and are too lazy to stand up to change the track. The guy that I work with needs this for everything in his life.