My Road Trip Adventure, Part III: New Mexico

This is part three in a series about my travels on Route 66 (and beyond) in July 2012. See Part I here & Part II here.

This part covers Albuquerque, New Mexico, to Shamrock, Texas.

"The Americans have found the healing of God in a variety of things, the most pleasant of which is probably automobile drives." - William Saroyan

We motored on through the vast desert, past old hand painted billboards & great red rocks, the sky an ever-changing constellation of clouds. 

At the cinema: Mud

I saw Mud absolutely ages ago, and I've had bits of this review written and sitting in my drafts for so long that it's out on dvd now, whoops. For some reason I had a difficult time expressing my feelings about this movie; when I reopened this post I found a bunch of half finished sentences and partial paragraphs and ramblings about the setting and Ellis and the Mississippi River. I think I came back to it a few times and then just gave up. The thing is, I really liked this film, and the things I liked about it are hard to put into words. So much of what I liked has to do with the feeling of it all. There was just a certain quiet authenticity to the characters and the rural Arkansas setting and the way they interacted and shaped each other. It just felt so true to the midwest I've experienced, in all its faults and beauty, and I like--no, love--that. There's something so comforting and beautiful and free about the wide open spaces of middle America, and they really do have a particular feeling to them, and if you want to know what that feeling is, watch Mud. (Or Jeff Nichol's previous film, Take Shelter.)

Okay, now that I've got that out of the way, I want to talk about my other favorite thing about this movie, which are the two kids. In a nutshell, Mud is about these two kids who happen upon a fugitive named Mud, and decide to help him reunite with his girlfriend. First there's Ellis, the more strong-willed and passionate, and then there's Neckbone, who is, as the woman sitting next to me said many times throughout the film, the 'smart one.'

Ellis is an old soul, a staunch believer in True Love and doing the right thing. He yearns for the day when he'll fall in love, which he seems to think will render all his problems obsolete. He's a kid who will rush a man twice his size when he sees him hit a woman, and will risk everything to reunite a stranger with his true love because if he didn't, he'd be turning his back on love as a concept. He feels that by helping Mud reunite with Juniper, he's proving to himself that real love exists, and that someday he'll have it too. He also says things like, "I ain't no townie!" when faced with the prospect of moving away from his beloved houseboat on the Mississippi River, which is rad and only makes me love him more.

Neckbone, on the other hand, is less trusting and more wary of abstract concepts like True Love; he deals in logic, in things he can see and touch. He would just as soon not involve himself in Mud's problems--as a kid who's lost both his parents and lives with his well-meaning but clueless uncle, he knows how to take care of himself and figures others can do the same. He saves both Ellis and Mud on more than one occasion, proving they could benefit from taking their heads out of the clouds every once in a while.

But these kids, different as they are, need each other; Ellis needs Neckbone's grounding, his ability to look past his feelings and take care of the present, while Neckbone needs Ellis's wild abandon, his willingness to follow his heart no matter the consequences. I thought their relationship was completely perfect and really quite beautiful. And I can't help but have this weird crush on Ellis as a person, and if he was ten years older I think I would ask him to marry me.

That's all.

How long can they last?

ALICE: Somebody screamed

ROCKY: That was you, Alice.

Let's make a mixtape for Will Graham

you'll need:

one photo of Will Graham, printed off the internet (or from your personal collection)
a thick piece of paper (I used scrapbook paper)
a piece of vellum paper
Mod Podge
paint, color of your choice
glue stick
paintbrush
scissors
pencil
red thread + needle

Start by carefully trimming around Will until he's all alone. :( Then place him in the center of your paper and trace out a 5x5" square around him. Give Will a lil' kiss on the forehead, whisper that everything will be okay, and then paste him down with the glue stick. No need to be excessive here, this is just to keep him in place for the Mod Podge.



Add your title (bad handwriting is optional). Get creative with some paint if you want. When the paint dries, apply a thin layer of Mod Podge over the entire square.



Once the Mod Podge is dry, cut out the square and use it to trace & cut out an identical square of vellum paper. Get out your needle and thread. Sandwich your papers together and start stitching, starting from a top corner and threading to the opposite side and then back again.



Don't worry about it looking nice, in fact, the more haphazard, the better. Just stop every now and then to make sure your cd will still fit inside, and that it won't slip out of any of the sides (except for the top, of course).



Now you have a home for your Will Graham mixtape, which if you haven't already made, you should do so now. Or you can peruse the 90+ Will Graham themed mixes on 8tracks, which includes my own:

{bad dreams} 

1. Demons - Chelsea Wolfe

2. Prospectors Arrive - Jonny Greenwood

3. Well of Misery - Nick Cave

4. Friend - Susanna and the Magical Orchestra

5. To the Forests, Toward the Sea - Chelsea Wolfe

6. The Heart Harmonicon - Colleen

7. This Much I Know - Lissie

8. Wake - The Antlers

Oahu In November

Last November my family and I took a trip to Oahu, and I wanted to share some of it with you.

We stayed in Kailua, a town on the east side of the island, about forty minutes from Honolulu. It's surrounded by lush green mountains, the tops of which were constantly disappearing behind mist. It was grey most of the time, but still pleasant out, the winds warm and comforting. We spent time at Kailua Beach, where the water is turquoise and children trade sleds and snow for body boards and sand. We drove up to the Pali Lookout, which had sweeping views of Kailua and Kāneʻohe, and the ocean beyond.

We spent a day in Honolulu, with its high rises and tourists and ABC Stores on every corner. We had malasadas, Portuguese donuts filled with coconut cream, so delicious and warm and fluffy. I tried my first and last Mai Tai, a rum & Curacao & lime cocktail, made popular in the 50's and 60's as a kind of kitsch Polynesian drink. We people watched on Waikiki Beach, and decided we were happy to be staying outside the city.

We drove along the Kamehameha Highway, winding around the edge of the island, till the people thinned out and the landscapes become more wild and natural. We stumbled across the Vans World Cup of Surfing (a day too early) at Sunset Beach, where the glassy waves reached toward the sky. We stopped at Mokule'ia Beach, where they filmed the LOST pilot, and watched sea turtles poke their heads out of the surf.





At the Dole Plantation we ate pineapple soft serve topped with more pineapple and felt content. In Haleiwa, a cheap souvenir was bought in order to spend the required $10 to use a credit card.



On our last night we experienced the most magical sunset, right in our own backyard. It looked as if the mountains themselves were aglow. We departed early the next morning, our bags full of little trinkets and souvenirs, sad to say goodbye but knowing we'd return some day.

A hui kaua, Oahu.

Oahu on Dwellable

At the cinema: The Place Beyond the Pines

I should tell you that I am a major baby when it comes to movies, and will cry at most things. For example: you know that scene in Spider-Man 2 where the people on the subway car carry Spider-Man over their heads after he passes out and then promise not to tell anyone who he is? Tears. On my face. SPIDER-MAN 2 MADE ME CRY. Me = baby. I guess I'm just extra sensitive? I don't know, I also think I kind of like crying at the movies, even though whenever I feel tears coming on I always bite my lip and mumble, don't cry, stop it, stop crying, this is fake, and then proceed to to snot-cry anyway. But I do always feel better when I walk out into the world afterward. I mean, I don't have much to cry about in my real life, and a good cry can be therapeutic, you know?

So, with that said, The Place Beyond the Pines is a really therapeutic film.

I think I cried continuously for the first forty-five minutes? Haha, just kidding, that would be weird. But I definitely cried a lot during the first forty-five, aka the Ryan Gosling section. This film is loosely in three parts, telling the story of two men (Ryan Gosling and Bradley Cooper) and their sons (Dane DeHaan and Emory Cohen). Gosling is a motorcycle punk who starts robbing banks to provide for his son, and Cooper is the cop that apprehends him. We then see how the aftermath of those events impact their teenaged sons years later. Of the three sections, Gosling's is by the far the best, the most compelling and emotional. Everything about it was perfect, and I know it's working really well when I'm not just crying because something is sad, but because it's happy (with an undercurrent of doomed, however...). I'm thinking of the scene where Gosling's character (named Handsome Luke by the way), feeds his year-old son ice cream for the first time, and when Eva Mendes cries during the family photo. Ugh--don't look at me, I'm a mess!!

Even though there were moments in this film that truly touched me, I did feel it was perhaps overly ambitious; it attempted to deal with many complex themes (fatherhood being the most prevalent) but couldn't quite make a fully formed statement about any of them. And while Ryan Gosling's section was great, the following two were lacking in comparison. At first I really enjoyed Bradley Cooper's section, but then he did something that just didn't make sense to me, and not in a how could he do that?! kind of way, just in I guess I don't understand this character at all kind of way. And I felt that the final section missed the mark to bring the story full circle and truly say something about fatherhood, or sons, or the consequences of our actions, or whatever.

All that being said, this film still stayed with me for days afterward, due to the parts that were working, and the beautiful photography, and wonderful soundtrack. And also Ryan Gosling and Dane DeHaan, who are both the best.

Little Things, III

How I've been spending my week...

drinking chocolate chili chai tea

One of my pen pals sent me a sampler of chocolate chili chai from David's Tea because she's amazing. I love chai tea, but I prefer getting it from a cafe in latte form, because I love the creaminess of it that way. If I make it at home, it usually just turns out disappointing (unless I make it from scratch). However, this chai was really quite delicious! And such a funny coincidence, because I recently got a big order from David's...

going a bit mad on the David's Tea website

Ah, now I'm set for months! I got eight different kinds of tea, including 'Movie Night' (green tea with maple and apples), 'Love Tea #7' (black tea, dark chocolate, strawberries, rose), and 'Amaretto' (lapacho, almond, apricot, orange, rose), among others. I wish I could try every kind they offer, because they all sounds so delicious!

getting a job!

I've been looking for a while, hoping to find something that allowed me to use my writing skills and maybe even be a bit creative, and I finally found something! It's for a local clothing shop, writing for their fashion blog and filling online orders and such (the photo above is from my cubicle...glam-O-russ, ain't it?). It's very very nice to see money going into my bank account, and not just out!

reading The Diviners by Libba Bray

I read the Gemma Doyle trilogy by Libba Bray a few years ago, and liked it a lot, but I kind of forgot about her so I didn't realize she had released this book months ago, otherwise I would have read it right away. I mean, it almost couldn't be more within my interests unless I had written it myself: set in 1920's New York, characters with supernatural abilities, an adventurous heroine, numerous mentions of Rudy Valentino... I'm trying not to read it too fast, because I don't want it to end! At least it's book one of a trilogy, so I have something to look forward to. I think I'll do a proper book review once I've finished it!

having too many feelings about fictional characters

Which isn't anything new, really. One problem I have as a writer (and perpetual dreamer) is that I'm always obsessed with someone who doesn't exist, either of my own creation or not. A lot of people might think this isn't a healthy thing, but I say pfffft to them. I'm currently obsessed with Boyd Crowder from the television show Justified. I just love everything about him; the way he dresses (pocket watches and waistcoats!), talks (never has a Southern accent sounded so lovely to my ears), and even the way he walks...gah, just everything. He's perfect.

What have you been up to?