LOVE.

★ ★ ★ ★ ☆

Love (2015) by Gaspar Noe is, once again, one of the director’s reinvention of what film can do. Like Enter the Void, the narration uses blinks in order to shift through different scenes except this time, we are external, we see everything happening as internal dialogue occurs in our anti-hero as he deals with the meaning of love between two women. The film is self aware in that it knows its own themes and that Gaspar Noe himself is cameos in dialogue to the point where it could be autobiographical.

I saw the film in 3D which does something that almost mocks 3D films in that it makes what feels real more real than it already is to the point where, if you were to take a step back and tell yourself that it is a film, the 3D seems silly, but when lost in the long sex takes, passionate and dirty, it feels real in the most beautiful way.

As you go through the film, you wonder, how much sympathy can you give our anti-hero after realizing all the stupid mistakes he’s committed? How much sympathy do you have for his arrogant American-ness and terrible delivery of lines?

A cross between Simon Killer and Blue is the Warmest Color, with surprise cameos from Petra Collins, you have yet another film experience that Noe cleverly delivers.

THE FOUR LOVES.

The Four Loves by C. S. Lewis is a book everyone in their lifetime should read (once when you’re young and once when you’re old). Lewis explores the four different kinds of love, affection, friendship, eros, and charity. It is a Christian book so the talk of God does get a little overwhelming (for people who aren’t of that vicinity), but a fantastic read nonetheless. I learned a lot. Recommended~

Welcome Back.

I was sitting by the coffee shop window just outside the station and I saw you, only a glimpse, but it was a wholesome sight.

It has been too long since we’ve seen each other. You left with such a bitter goodbye and I left with tender silence. After you left, nights were longer, colder, and completely unbearable. I missed our long phone calls, our constant text messages, our hand-written letters we mailed to one another because we wanted to be old fashioned. I missed our weekend nights, the ones where you held me in chairs, in cars, in restaurants, in bed. I missed all of your company. But I burned all of that.

I had to light a chimney fire in place of your warmth. And with it, I burnt all our words, some I don’t even know I can believe or understand. It was all incoherent, chicken scratches. I burnt all the memories, all the photos, every single one of them, hoping to burn your image out of my own mind. It helped a little.

And there you are, with the goofy smile you always smiled with, in a circle of your buddies, ones you just met at your college orientation, ready to begin something forward, hopefully positive and exciting.

I can vaguely remember your voice. Funny I can only remember your laughter with pure clarity. Maybe because I heard it too many times over and fell in love with it. But there you are. There you are.

You’re laughing, but I cannot hear you. I use my memory to make your laughter audible. It’s not the same, but it’s all I have left. I feel I should be sad, sad that what we had was lost. I burnt it in a fire and I don’t even know what you did with our past, but I’m glad. I’m really glad just to see you smile again, see you laugh again, just seeing you, even from a distance.

All of it makes me smile; a smile so harsh to pull me away from my unfinished coffee and walk back home listening to the looping echoes of your laughter in my head and heart.

Summerford Confession

Dear Lolita,

 

It is the name I have given to you, a beautiful stranger. But I don’t think I see you the same as Nabokov sees pretty young women. I’ve watched you for sometime. You start off most evenings with a cup of coffee which you bring into the bookstore and run off to the second floor, to a corner with a high table, rummaging through a collection of Vonnegut’s novels. It’s a nice spot that overlooks rows of books and rows of people. You don’t read much. Your eyes always stray off from the pages to the people, the people reading, the people looking, the people doing people things. Except talking. They rarely talk. There exists a peace in the silence that blankets the store, a peace that might become unsettling. You go mad if you haven’t been disturbed by a human voice in a long time, believe me. Looking at these people, I wonder if you speak for them, inventing conversations for people talking to themselves or to other people. I do the same. It would be nice if the two of us could create scripts for all of them, conjuring made-up dialogues for strangers.

You started Vonnegut’s collection at the beginning of February. It’s the end of April, the beginning of May. There is never a wrong time to read Vonnegut, which I love. He speaks to readers as if he knows what they’re feeling, he sympathizes, and carries on with a story that neither nurtures nor worsens your emotions. I would go over there to speak with you about all his books, but I’m afraid something more might happen. Something always does. I might use words I don’t mean and pull you into bed. We’d enjoy a one-night stand and we would never see each other again. It’s happened countless times before. I’m guilty and shamed. But with you, for you, and for myself, I’ve tamed and kept a distance, only my mind and eyes in the works of kissing you, caressing you, entering you, pressing my naked body to yours. To hear you moan and feel you curl through warm hazel eyes, through the scent of your dirty-blonde hair.

I’m not a pedophile. I’m not a rapist. I’m merely a lonely man in a world I see as peopled. Everyone with everyone, everything with everything, a harmony I am not a piece off, perhaps because I’m an extra or that I don’t fit anywhere of this earthly puzzle. I cannot settle. It scares me. To be ball and chained to a woman for the rest of my life, unable to love anybody else, terrifies me. I cannot love one woman and one woman only. I need a plethora, a feast. I have an appetite that is always hungry and growing.

It’s my terrible nature not to stop imagining such sexual wonders. I am man. I am animal. And I can’t help it. Of all women, I admit this to you. I’m not sure why. Perhaps it was time I talk to somebody about my problem. And what better way than to cast it to you, a stranger, to bite the line and be lured into a hellhole of mine. I’m not so sure as to how you’d help me, but admitting all of this to anybody would be a first good step.

Lolita, beautiful stranger, this is the closest thing I will ever get to meeting you besides the fantasies and the spying. I hope you will forgive me. I hope you will not see me as a monster so much as other women have. Do not be like other women, Lolita. You aren’t like the others for I have not felt the smooth of your lips like a poet’s pencil and paper, eternally romantic. So, I ask of you one thing, the last thing, to hear of my criminal mind and to forgive me. Physically, mentally, and spiritually forgive me. Otherwise, I will have to pretend you have forgiven me, a white lie that comforts too little. And with that, I should be able to get by and by, through and through, until I am cremated, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

 

With love and squalor,

 

Joshua “Josh” Summerford

(this was written a while back. i wrote it after i finished Lolita)

corny.

I wish I could kiss you, but I can’t. We agreed we wouldn’t do anything like that even if it were something miniscule. But can we just break the rules just once? I remember way back when this kid told me that rules are meant to be broken, and I just want to follow through with that right now. That’s one of the reasons why we should kiss. A terrible reason, but a reason worth a shot. I guess the next biggest reason is because I love you. Love you like you’re my best friend, like I could bawl in front of you with all the dribbles of snot and tears running down my face without having to worry about hiding any of it with my sleeves or tissues, or fart and piss a little in my pants and not have to worry about being embarrassed. Love you like that. I love you like that, like I could do anything with you, dance with you like Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers, act with you like James Dean and Marilyn Monroe. With you, the world is ours and ours to keep. And now I’m getting absolutely corny so I’ll stop, but it’s true. And I want that kiss more than anything from you and only you.”

After that spiel, I wanted to pull her in for a kiss right then and there, but I couldn’t. It was wrong. So I just hugger her.

“I guess that works too,” she muffles into my shirt.

And it was fine. The hug was just fine. I didn’t need that kiss she was talking about. In fact, I didn’t even need that hug. Just being here with her was just fine. Just fine.

“And it was all I ever wanted, an entire embrace warm enough to kindle the coals of the hearth of my heart. You weren’t a boyfriend or a long lost cousin, but a friend, a true friend, one that has always stuck to my side, but one I would never though I would receive a hug from. Your hands on my back, you squeezed my shoulders, I didn’t know of your intentions, but you said it. You said, ‘I’m always here for you, you know that, right? Even when your boyfriend can’t help you or you run off and get married and your husband can’t help you, I’ll always be here.’ You smiled and I smiled and I added a stupid joke, ‘Always be here? On this train?’ You laughed and I laughed and the tears that were running down my face were not of sadness but of happiness. And everything was alright. Everything was alright.”

(via http://www.flickr.com/photos/bartf/)

W E E K E N D.

 

Weekend was…real. We have a character uncomfortable with his skin and sexuality until he spends a weekend with a guy he has a one night stand with, a weekend that’ll resonate throughout the rest of their lives. Acting was great, the cinematography was pretty indie (which gives it that real feel!) And the script wasn’t anything special though it did have its moments. What I really liked about the film was that it was brutally honest and the characters were very willing to accept the inevitable. Even from the very start. An unconventional love story, a gay romance worth watching. It’s like the homosexual version of Like Crazy.

ONE DAY.

 

One Day by David Nicholls was…an absolutely wonderful read! Dexter and Emma’s love story in a span of twenty years that is told annually, one day, each year, the day they met. I loved the writing and the humor and the precious little things they go through, happy and sad, a good balance of both. The characters were wonderful and the story was great (till the end I think..which I thought was a bit out of nowhere). A great, fast-paced read.

I Got the Joke.

Jenny sat deep in a chair, a heavy blanket over her shoulders. In her hands was a cup of warm tea. She kept the tea close to her body.

I wanted to give her some of my clothes to keep warm. She was only wearing this peach-colored tank top and these baby-blue short shorts. She looked cute in them, but I didn’t want her to get sick or anything.

“Could I just-” she stopped herself. I couldn’t tell if she was upset or not. She seemed too calm to be upset. Maybe not calm. Maybe tired. “I just need some time to myself.”

“Yeah. Sure.” I said. I left my apartment and climbed down the stairs to the outside. It was early morning. The clouds were gray and the traffic quiet. Much like normal mornings. My phone rang.

“How’s Jenny?”Logan asked.

“She looks better than what happened last night.”

“Did you fuck her?”

“It’s not like that, man,” I told him. I wasn’t angry or annoyed that he asked that. I told him I could never have intercourse with her. I told him it felt wrong and that it’d stain the perfect image I had of her. She’d lose her beauty or heart or whatever. He said something about a cum stain because I said stain.

“You’re so poetic. It’s kinda hot.”

I was flattered. I’m actually quite flattered if either sex can find me attractive, humans and animals. Like my aunt’s dog that always humps my leg whenever I come to visit. Hell, I’d be flattered if a worm peeped out from the earth to tell me I looked sexy.

“Have you forgotten that I’m straight?” I told him.

“Have you forgotten that I told you to get bent?”

“Well, not now. Maybe later,” I told him. I didn’t want to disappoint so I gave him a bit of false hope. Then I said goodbye and hung up because I didn’t really feel like talking anymore. False hope.

That’s what I was about to do. In a couple of minutes, I was going to go back to my apartment and have a sit with Jenny and we’d talk about what happened last night and what caused it and we’d talk for hours and hours. I’d listen, but at the same time, I might be too distracted thinking up something nice and encouraging and optimistic to say. And it’d make me a moronic asshole because the two of us knew that things wouldn’t get better or brighter or whatever. We’d agree that things will be better with fake smiles and gleaming eyes and then turn our heads around and go back to sulking. And when something bad happens again, we’d say the same sort of bullshit all over again. It’s this depressing labyrinth of a cycle. I wanted a way out of it for her. So I did what I’ve always wanted to do for all the years I’ve known her.

When she finished explaining everything, her eyes baggy, her hair a mess, her face red and damp, I pulled her in close to me and kissed her and we stayed like that for a minute or two, not breathing.

She would always half-joke that she didn’t want to breathe anymore, and now, she didn’t have to. And I didn’t have to. I got the joke.

WHEN HARRY MET SALLY.

 

When Harry Met Sally has…easily become one of my top favorite movies! Harry and Sally go way back, but they hated each other then because Harry said men and women could never be friends…a couple of years later, through meet ups and break ups and marriages and divorces…they found something to agree upon. Smart, funny, and touching, it was a fantastic romantic comedy that reminded me much like Woody Allen’s Annie Hall. It’s a movie I’d go back to and, like I said, has become a favorite. A film for everyone.