random writing notions, and the music that loves them
Okay, following on from the confessions post last Random Friday, I'll admit that I am a total playlist fiend. It's as about obsessive-complusive as I get (barring grammar/spelling issues, but COME ON).
I currently have thirty-one playlists, and two more are under construction (that is the first time I've ever bothered counting them up and I'm a little ! about it, frankly). They follow moods and themes mostly, are very precisely named, and here's the thing: apart from three playlists which are exempt ("high rotation", "moving the muse" and "impala tracks"), I refuse to have any overlap AT ALL. If a song is in one playlist, it ain't turning up in any of the others. Which is an extremely finicky, thorough process that I confess I love to bits. It's therapy. Or possibly indulging in unhealthy obsessions/addictions. Whatever. Details. I even have a list entitled "le sump" wherein dwell all the tracks I just don't know what to do with at the moment. Just waiting for their turn in a real playlist, the poor wittle fings.
(I may have an issue with anthropomorphizing things, too. Only for the humour, though. I SWEAR.)
(Also, the only reason "impala tracks" gets a pass is because it's my SPN playlist, and there's one or two on there that HAVE to be on there and that I absolutely NEED in others. That's it, though. And "high rotation" gets cycled through whenever I feel like it, and cannot exceed one screen-worth of songs. Ie, no scroll-y bar on the side = 39 songs max. "moving the muse" is stuff that tends to make me want to write, like an intensifier of idea and emotion.)
Which was not the point of this post at all, actually, but it's context. I'm actually thinking more right now of things that make you want to write, and I'm pretty sure a lot of us have soundtracks and playlists for that sort of thing. However, that was not my starting point either. I started with this trailer, which has been floating around for what feels like ages, and I have no idea what happened to the movie or if it's been released or what.
This trailer is all kinds of interesting to me.
One, because it doesn't actually make me that interested in watching the movie. So much is suggested, so artfully and with such deft, broad strokes, that I have serious doubts that the movie itself could possibly ever live up to all the things my imagination does with it. I mean, I know making trailers is an entirely separate skillset and endeavour than making the movies, but damn. This is like it's own little contained universe of infinite possibility (which watching the movie will inevitably limit). The very, very best music videos do this, too, but in their case it's a contained universe of a story, and therefore not so fertile. (The second trailer is at the website, here. More epic, more explained, less suggestive. I still like it, but not as much.)
Two, because it makes me want to write.... I just don't know what. I think I'm stuck, because there is so much suggested and implied that is so interesting, and yet they've already told the story they think that is. At this remove, I can't tell if it's all prettiness with pretensions to profundity, or if it really is that meaty and interesting. I don't really want to risk finding out. But I can't in good conscience pick at the frissons of inspiration and disregard context and canon. I just can't. It's this bone-deep commitment to being faithful to what is that I cannot shake. CONUNDRUM.
Three, because I think it captures something of the zeitgeist of our generation and culture. What I love about this trailer and all it suggests is that it offers ALL THE THINGS. History, future, solitude and connection, grand endeavour and intimate detail, real and imaginary, all wrapped up in this sensuality of experience that I can leave at the door when I walk away. I want meaning hinted but never insisted on, so I may experience and feel my way to my own conclusions on the matter, should I actually feel like it. Above all, I want a plethora of human experience and I want it fleeting so I don't ever actually have to dwell in it and deal with any actual consequences.
Which may sound like a condemnation. It is, partially; it is also not. I love our era where we can explore so much and have access to so much, so quickly. I also think that's enabled us to become the biggest commitment-phobes EVAR. In an effort to never have to actually discern true meaning and value amongst all the competing, absolute, excessive truth-claims and ideologies out there, we have taken the initially attractive option of declaring all truth relative and essentially self-determined (which is an absolute claim in itself, but don't get me started on that little snarl).
The problem on a practical level is that meaning exists only in relation to objective absolutes. If you outlaw those, everything is meaningless. (Which is why the Winchesters matter within the story boundaries of their world, because the story boundaries provide absolutes and thus meaning orientation. But when they fall into "our" world, there is no answer to the question what does it all mean? The more interesting question is why there is no question of the assumption that the former is infintely preferable.) Which relegates us to the level of "experience" as the most valuable thing on offer. Seriously, when was the last time you saw something billed as "Brilliantly meaningful!" rather than "An unforgettable cinematic experience!" Everything seems to be pitched as an "experience" nowadays. We've stripped ourselves of everything else by refusing to acknowledge absolutes.
Okay, well, that's a rant, but the whole point is that I am a product of my era and I am completely attracted to this idea of exploration and interaction with a smorgasboard of experience. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's dangerously misleading when it's made the main, and even the only, thing. And I sometimes wonder if I'm attracted to writing that because it doesn't challenge me to deal with meaning ... and why it ultimately only tantalizes me and never demands me to write. PONDER.
I am curious about what props people have for writing, though. Thus, Poll!:
Poll My Muse's Paraphernalia
I currently have thirty-one playlists, and two more are under construction (that is the first time I've ever bothered counting them up and I'm a little ! about it, frankly). They follow moods and themes mostly, are very precisely named, and here's the thing: apart from three playlists which are exempt ("high rotation", "moving the muse" and "impala tracks"), I refuse to have any overlap AT ALL. If a song is in one playlist, it ain't turning up in any of the others. Which is an extremely finicky, thorough process that I confess I love to bits. It's therapy. Or possibly indulging in unhealthy obsessions/addictions. Whatever. Details. I even have a list entitled "le sump" wherein dwell all the tracks I just don't know what to do with at the moment. Just waiting for their turn in a real playlist, the poor wittle fings.
(I may have an issue with anthropomorphizing things, too. Only for the humour, though. I SWEAR.)
(Also, the only reason "impala tracks" gets a pass is because it's my SPN playlist, and there's one or two on there that HAVE to be on there and that I absolutely NEED in others. That's it, though. And "high rotation" gets cycled through whenever I feel like it, and cannot exceed one screen-worth of songs. Ie, no scroll-y bar on the side = 39 songs max. "moving the muse" is stuff that tends to make me want to write, like an intensifier of idea and emotion.)
Which was not the point of this post at all, actually, but it's context. I'm actually thinking more right now of things that make you want to write, and I'm pretty sure a lot of us have soundtracks and playlists for that sort of thing. However, that was not my starting point either. I started with this trailer, which has been floating around for what feels like ages, and I have no idea what happened to the movie or if it's been released or what.
Click to viewThis trailer is all kinds of interesting to me.
One, because it doesn't actually make me that interested in watching the movie. So much is suggested, so artfully and with such deft, broad strokes, that I have serious doubts that the movie itself could possibly ever live up to all the things my imagination does with it. I mean, I know making trailers is an entirely separate skillset and endeavour than making the movies, but damn. This is like it's own little contained universe of infinite possibility (which watching the movie will inevitably limit). The very, very best music videos do this, too, but in their case it's a contained universe of a story, and therefore not so fertile. (The second trailer is at the website, here. More epic, more explained, less suggestive. I still like it, but not as much.)
Two, because it makes me want to write.... I just don't know what. I think I'm stuck, because there is so much suggested and implied that is so interesting, and yet they've already told the story they think that is. At this remove, I can't tell if it's all prettiness with pretensions to profundity, or if it really is that meaty and interesting. I don't really want to risk finding out. But I can't in good conscience pick at the frissons of inspiration and disregard context and canon. I just can't. It's this bone-deep commitment to being faithful to what is that I cannot shake. CONUNDRUM.
Three, because I think it captures something of the zeitgeist of our generation and culture. What I love about this trailer and all it suggests is that it offers ALL THE THINGS. History, future, solitude and connection, grand endeavour and intimate detail, real and imaginary, all wrapped up in this sensuality of experience that I can leave at the door when I walk away. I want meaning hinted but never insisted on, so I may experience and feel my way to my own conclusions on the matter, should I actually feel like it. Above all, I want a plethora of human experience and I want it fleeting so I don't ever actually have to dwell in it and deal with any actual consequences.
Which may sound like a condemnation. It is, partially; it is also not. I love our era where we can explore so much and have access to so much, so quickly. I also think that's enabled us to become the biggest commitment-phobes EVAR. In an effort to never have to actually discern true meaning and value amongst all the competing, absolute, excessive truth-claims and ideologies out there, we have taken the initially attractive option of declaring all truth relative and essentially self-determined (which is an absolute claim in itself, but don't get me started on that little snarl).
The problem on a practical level is that meaning exists only in relation to objective absolutes. If you outlaw those, everything is meaningless. (Which is why the Winchesters matter within the story boundaries of their world, because the story boundaries provide absolutes and thus meaning orientation. But when they fall into "our" world, there is no answer to the question what does it all mean? The more interesting question is why there is no question of the assumption that the former is infintely preferable.) Which relegates us to the level of "experience" as the most valuable thing on offer. Seriously, when was the last time you saw something billed as "Brilliantly meaningful!" rather than "An unforgettable cinematic experience!" Everything seems to be pitched as an "experience" nowadays. We've stripped ourselves of everything else by refusing to acknowledge absolutes.
Okay, well, that's a rant, but the whole point is that I am a product of my era and I am completely attracted to this idea of exploration and interaction with a smorgasboard of experience. I don't think that's a bad thing. I think it's dangerously misleading when it's made the main, and even the only, thing. And I sometimes wonder if I'm attracted to writing that because it doesn't challenge me to deal with meaning ... and why it ultimately only tantalizes me and never demands me to write. PONDER.
I am curious about what props people have for writing, though. Thus, Poll!:
Poll My Muse's Paraphernalia