So I got to thinking, listening to the melodies float past me into the Barnegat inlet and I felt inspired. Not to jump up that moment, drive to the nearest guitar world and begin playing, but to remember what drives me. I feel that my inspirations are different than other people. Sure, I have the love of certain athletes or celebrities and want to mimic their life style and emulate them (Andy Roddick or David Grohl), but the small things that inspire are surely different from those around me - I am an "artsy fartsy" film kid after all.
Here are a few things that inspire me:
-Shallow focus. God it's beautiful. Look at that...right there above this. It has the ability to take a boring park bench and turn it into something majestic, rustic. Shallow focus gives that ordinary place for your bottom a story.
-Michel Gondry. I don't know how his mind works and I don't think I could ever understand if someone was able to explain it to me. It fits under that category of "can't be explained" right next to black holes. I want to be able to do half the things he can. P.S. Watch the video and tell me if you can figure out the significance of the images on the screen.
-Color. What a boring world it would be without it. Dull, unattractive and noir. Yuck.
You may not agree with these things, but they help remind me of what I like to do and why I do it. I'm sure you have your own littles vices. Don't you?
Here's more of the story I posted the other day...
The F-117 flows through the sky effortlessly. The bulk of the aircraft is distinguished only as a sleek black absence in the swatch of glittering stars. Someone on the ground may see it, but believe it to be a passing cloud, a bird traveling high in the sky or their eyes playing tricks on them. With a simple blink, one could miss it. The plane’s wing lights glow faintly; not enough to be seen from the Earth.
Morgan sits wedged among the controls in the confining cockpit. He is an comfortable as one can be in an uncomfortable environment. To his right an ipod is velcro’d and jerry-rigged into a socket near his radio. Fleetwood Mac plays through the speakers in the cockpit, droning out the dull roar of the wind as it pushes against the exterior of the plane. In his hands, looking out o place sits the Gameboy. On its screen, Mario flies a small biplane over an Egyptian landscape, floating past hieroglyphics and strange monsters. One of the monsters spreads its arms, shooting fireballs into the sky. Mario is hit. The screen flashes and the plan flickers and disappears. Sighing, Morgan puts the Gameboy back into his pocket and looks out the cockpit window. Stretching before him there is virtually nothing, just stars floating adrift in a sea of blackness. His gaze empties, his face fades into a faraway expression.
****
The sound of the wind blends with the suck and hiss of a respirator unit and the steady beeping of a heartbeat monitor. Lying on a hospital bed is the girl from Morgan’s photos; gaunt, emaciated, and hairless, a stuffed animal besides her holds a heart that reads, “Get Well Soon.” Her eyes are closed; her breathing is erratic and raspy. Tubes seem to sprout from her body, snaking from her arms, nose, and mouth. He skin is translucent. The woman from the photos sits next to the girl, exhausted and utterly distraught. Tears fall from her eyes in great drops, cascading to the floor, splashing on the linoleum. Numb with grief, Morgan stands by the window, looking out at the lights of the city and the cars flowing on a distant freeway.
****
Gazing out the cockpit window, a beeping echoes through the plane. The life in Morgan’s eyes returns, saving him from remaining lost in the awful memory. Stirred by his drifting mind, he clicks off his music and begins flipping numerous switches on the console, one on his right reads, “Antenna retract.” He locates another switch. This one marked, “Exterior lights.” Flipping it off, he flips it on, then off again. The dim lights on the underside of the wings shut off. Now the F-117 is all black shadow. The only light is the extremely faint glow from the interior of Morgan’s cockpit display.
As the aircraft glides through the night sky, Morgan takes in the landscape passing below him; a forgotten war zone. Bleak in the moonscape, the desert looks dead. Sabotaged oil wells belch giant towers of flame as if hell had finally broken through to the surface. Roads are washed with drifting sand. Asphalt lays ruined, tossed across the sand dunes, leaving large holes in the remaining roads. Buildings lay shattered, roofs torn and dismembered. The shells of cars sit burnt, blackened, some still smolder with the remnants of incendiary ammunition or firebombs. Although no visible, Morgan knows ghosts roam the streets below him, searching for their lives and loved ones.
Tearing his gaze from the world below him, Morgan continues his path forward. His legs are now shaking as he approaches his target. In the distance, no more than a mile and a half ahead, he can see the power plant, glowing brightly in the emptiness of the night. Using his display, he can see movement on the ground; workers who are unaware of what is coming their way. Sighing, his hands tighten on the controls of the plane, keeping the crosshairs steady on the target. Looking on the screen again, he sees the workers standing in from of the building. After a moment, he shifts the crosshairs to the side of the building, away from where the tiny figures are moving. Closing his eyes, Morgan pulls the trigger.
Opening his eyes, the missile explodes before it impacts the power stations, making a black splash on the infrared screen in front of him and the sky above the power plant. The detonated missile illuminates the sky over the darkened power station, creating large, stark shadows on the ground, while giving birth to hundreds of smaller bombs, which explode—showering the huge structure with what appear crackling firworks. These smaller explosions, in turn, blossom with streams of carbon-filament ribbons, which float down onto the building. Many of the ribbons land on the wires and in the transformer yard, sparking and fizzling like thousands of electrocuted insects. The air around the station becomes ionized, causing gigantic arcs of electricity to leap and connect. The gigantic arcs of electricity glitter around the station, webbing like a spider, for at least a half-mile in all directions. The web of lightning is trailed by a blanket of darkness spreading out over the surrounding desert, as giant grids of electric lights are extinguished in an ever-spreading series of short-circuits. After a moment, Morgan tears himself away from the surreal sight on the ground and returns to the matter of getting home safely.
To be continued
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