Late Night

As you can surmise by the time of this blog, it's late. And I'm awake. I had tried sleeping around 11 PM, but woke up around 1:30 AM and talked to my housemate, Dave, who had just come back from dinner with his family. His brother is heading to California for grad work, so he won't see him so regularly. I suspect, with a family as close as his, it must be disconcerting that two of his brothers have now moved from the area, although his sister has moved back.

I decided to check Dave's blog to see what's what. He's been unofficially hosting movie night at school. Both Dave and I have relatively obscure tastes in film. This sometimes posed a problem with Dami, who loved to watch movies with her friends, but honestly would prefer simple entertainment to the stuff Dave and I like to watch. She seemed to follow the Indian mentality, which is also the popular American mentaility, that movies should be entertaining. You should like the characters. You should enjoy the plot. That kind of thing.

She never quite understood that there are some movies that don't have a strong plot, that intend to convey a feeling, more than tell a story. For example, much of Wong Kar-Wai's plot is about alienation, failure to communicate, as well as being an exercise in Hong Kong cool, and bright colors, and langourous bodies, with wafts of smoke. He paints as seductive and luxurious a film as any director working. Yet, those seeking a simple story line, that has a beginning, middle, and end are likely to be disappointed.

There are even limits to what Dave will enjoy. For example, he nearly fell asleep as Tropical Malady. I admit, it's quite slow, and I didn't particularly enjoy the experience while it unfolded. But I thought it was still worth watching. It's good news that Apichat Weerasethakul is not the only Thai director that's getting some international recognition. There's a director named Wisit Sasanatieng who's directed Citizen Dog . Mike D'Angelo compares him to Jeunet, presumably because he has a similar visual style to the man who brought the world Amelie. I suspect this film is likely to be more entertaining than Tropical Malady.

I recently read Mike's review of The Wayward Cloud by Tsai Ming-Liang. I've only seen one of his films, What Time Is It There?, which is about a man who dies, and how his son, who inherits the watch, ends up selling his watch to a Taiwanese actress bound for Paris. The way that these three seem to mourn, if that's the right word, for this man's death is a study in emotional despair. Both the son and the actress seem to wander around aimlessly, while the wife of the man starts to act irrationally, and tries to pleasure herself, presumably in his memory? The title of the film comes from the odd act that the son does, which is to change all the clocks he can to Paris time, where the actress is, almost as if giving away his father's watch was giving away his soul, and that this is some way to reclaim it.

Tsai connects these three and their reaction to the man's death in a very peculiar fashion, and watching it, you're struck by thinking "This is so strange", and yet, there's something compelling about watching something so difficult to grasp. This is not, in my opinion, the same kind of strangeness one feels in Tropical Malady.

The Wayward Cloud has these same actors in the film, and serves as a loose sequel to What Time Is It There?. Admittedly, Tsai, like Woody Allen, likes using the same actors over and over, and so it unifies his films by reusing these actors. This time, the son, who sold watches in What Time Is It There? is now working as a porn actor. There's also a drought in Taiwan. This film apparently comments on porn, and yet, has musical numbers that break up the unusual ongoings of the film. Asian cinema, which was considered huge in the 90s still seems just as vibrant today as ever. Tsai is a challenging director for the average filmgoer, much more so than Wong Kar-Wai, but still has enough odd touches to keep it compelling.

Mike also gave a favorable review to Lee Myung-Se's Duelist. Lee is much more in the mold of John Woo, and is therefore much easier to like. Kinesthetics and action seem to be his stock-in-trade. I've only seen one of his films, Nowhere To Hide. Like other Korean films, it seems to be grittier than the Hong Kong equivalent. Even the cool characters have a rougher side than the daintily cool Wong Kar-wai types.

The last two weeks, I've found that Dave and I have been growing increasingly distant. Part of that is that I'm a bit busier at work, so I've stayed longer at work. By the time I'm back, sometimes I just want to sleep. Part of it is that we just don't plan things together anymore. We never planned that much per se, but I might say, do you want to head to the gym, and he'd say sure, then we'd get pizza for dinner. Or I'd attend the movie nights that Dave seems to be in charge of.

Lately, due to work, I've not attended these movie nights. They've gone on without me. I could have maybe made last night's movie, but decided to eat with Jaime instead. The thought of sitting two hours to watch a film was not that intriguing last night. I just wanted to eat. Jaime didn't seem to care one way or another about movie night, so he came to dinner. It didn't hurt that I was treating.

When Jeremy used to host movie nights, there would be votes for what to watch. Invariably, you'd get some combination of geek friendly films like War Games, or some well-known classics like Chinatown. You'd never get a film like The Wind Will Carry Us by Abbas Kiarostami. Intriguingly enough, the ECE folks also hosted their own movie night, but whoever was in charge of that was a fan of films, though certainly, even their choices veered to films that could be enjoyed by many.

For example, if you wanted to pick a few films that anyone could watch, you'd show March of the Penguins, or Grizzly Man, or Amelie to name an older film. With Dave hosting the films, some have been hit and miss. Some people have liked. Some people have not. Dave seems to fret whenever people don't like the movies, even if, in reality, people probably only enjoy about half the movies they watch. The more of a cineaste you are, the wider the range of movies you'll watch and can potentially enjoy. The average filmgoer often likes a narrow range of movies, such as action or comedy.

Dave also been concerned that he doesn't meet enough people, doesn't make enough friends, and yet his personality is quite different from Jaime, who, by contrast does meet people. I've found that people who get along well with others have the ability to make you feel like you're important. I remember this guy from Cornell named Sandy, who was from Indonesia, and studying electrical engineering. Sandy took tons of courses, and so often spent one class trying to catch up with another class. He'd lean on his friends to get him notes he'd missed, because he was invariably studying for exam in another course, even as he tried to sit and pay peripheral attention to class.

Sandy was reasonably popular. He liked to talk to lots of people. He was almost always in a rush to one thing or another. Yet, occasionally, he'd say hi and want to do something with you. Hey, he'd say, let's go get pizza. I'd stare around and think, "who me?".

Jaime is similar. Jaime really wants to make others happy. He says funny things, and invariably, he'll find something positive to say about you. From time to time, he'll want to do things with you. Dinner, go to the gym, run, something. He's at least aware that to be with friends requires some degree of doing things together.

Dave, by nature, is more introverted. He's not likely to call a friend up and ask if they want to do something. Instead, he'll email out folks to see if they want to see a movie. Doing things in groups takes more planning, but is safer. What may seem awkward with one person, can be diffused with a group. Say, you know you like a girl. You don't exactly want her to know it. So, instead, you arrange to have a group to do things. This generally makes it a little more fun for everyone. It lessens the burden of the person setting it up to be entertaining, although the rewards are somewhat less.

Dave's unlikely to call up someone to ask them to go out for lunch or dinner, unless it's more formally a date, or unless it's part of a group outing. It's just difficult for him to do this.

Dave and Dami, although they got along quite well, are opposites in the way they deal with people. Dami is very outgoing, but she is also needy. If you want to make Dami suffer, take away her phone, and make her live by herself for a week. By the end of the week, she'll be screaming and sobbing. She literally needs others to survive. On the other hand, Dave would do just fine by himself. He's not as extreme, as say, Vasile, who never seems to go out with friends or go out and do anything, but I suspect Dave's not that dissimilar. At least Dave knows his tendency to be by himself (or his family) is a shortcoming and tries to do something about it.

On the one hand, Dami can't imagine not talking to friends on the phone every day. On the other,Dave finds it challenging to pick up the phone to call anyone for any reason except logistics. To be fair, even Jaime can't stand interacting with people on the phone. In that sense, it's a guy thing to avoid using the phone to keep up with friends.

Ultimately, I realize that part of the reason Dave and I did things together was because of Dami, even though I've actually known Dave (and vice versa) longer than I've known Dami (by a few years at that). Part of the reason is that Dave likes Dami. I don't mean likes likes as in girlfriend, but he enjoys her company (or did, since she's moved away) and since Dami often wanted to hang out in a group of several people, invariably, I'd be there too. Dave would simply rather hang out with women than men. He doesn't mind that hanging out with women might mean hanging out with other guys (interestingly enough, the men that used to hang out with Dami, who she REALLY had no interest in, now hang out with another girl).

I had recalled hearing a story about Rob, who apparently does quite well with women, where he recommended using pickup lines with men as well as women. Now, this isn't to say that Rob is bi, at least, not that I know of. However, picking up women is not all about being overtly trying to hit on a woman. It's about creating interesting conversation, showing an interest in the other person, and by interest, I mean, what the person is about, what their hobbies are, what their views on this or that are. You can do this as much with a guy as a girl.

Now I don't see Rob that much, nor do I talk to him that much, but everytime he's around, he greets me by name (for a while, I had no idea that he even knew my name), and tries to be friendly. That's impressive. Most people don't do that.

This isn't Dave's personality. He's not likely to go up to Jaime and say, "Yo Spacarooni, what is up, MY MAN!", probably as much to preserve self-dignity as anything, but also because that's just not how he greets people. He's more likely to talk about something he's read about than to engage a person in who they are, and even when he does try to engage people, it can come across as awkward, because he's relatively inexperienced talking to people in this manner. There's a tradeoff between asking questions, and interjecting anecdotes, and I'm not sure whether he's there yet or not. To his credit, he's trying.

Once in a while, I chat with someone In Australia, who also seems to spend a great deal of time cooped up at home, when he'd rather be out meeting women. He complains that women don't like him. I suggested that he take acting classes. Acting is all about trying to inhabit the personality of someone else. Once you practice being other people, it's easier to break out of the shell of shyness. It's mostly because people are trying to be honest with themselves and be true to themselves that they end up being unable to do the things they want. To tell someone to pretend to be someone else is difficult, because it feels like so much of a lie. Yet, if you do it, you are attempting to see the world as they see it, even as it's filtered through your perception of them.

Hmm, all this blogging hasn't helped me get to sleep. So, I better stop. We'll see if Dave reads this entry. =).