Bullet In The Face

Is the most ridiculous thing I have ever watched.

I happened to catch it on IFC at work. It's like Quentin Tarantino did a lot of drugs and had a one night stand with the creators of Law and Order who then suggested they do more drugs and create a 6-part miniseries.

Dude just killed someone with dental equipment. The bloodied dentist's screams can be heard outside in the waiting room and one mother turns to her daughter and just says "See, this is what happens when you don't brush your teeth."

I have to appreciate that during this show that, traditionally, would probably only be marketed to men, there was a birth control commercial, which means that at least someone out there thought of the possibility that women might be watching this insane, violent extravaganza.

And of course, it has Eric Roberts in it. Of course.

Sometimes I wonder, because I used to so adamantly make fun of him due to his appearance in the Doctor Who TV movie, if I'm now doomed to be forever stalked by his appearances in things that I watch. It's like when I saw The Dark Knight, and he just suddenly showed up playing Maroni and I was like "Oh god, the quality of this shot has just decreased exponentially!"

In other news, the building I'm working in is definitely haunted. Either that, or there's something wrong with the door. I'm leaning more towards the broken door, since when I lived here three years ago I remember the door being broken and people constantly complaining about it. But then, wouldn't someone have fixed it by now? Maybe it's supposed to be broken. Maybe the broken door somehow protects us, and if it were fixed the entire building would somehow fall into another dimension, dooming everyone inside to forever wander some sort of horrifying nightmare world.

You never know.

As is probably clear, my job is not the most exciting of occupations. I've been keeping myself busy by watching old episodes of the Twilight Zone and reading Dune, further cementing my status as a person who will never be cool. Every once in a while I'll turn on the television in the booth and attempt to find something that isn't the Real Housewives of Somewhere. I've watched a lot of the Science Channel. That show "Dark Matters" is really hilariously interesting. I appreciate the "dark side of science" theme it's got going, and even further appreciate the terrible dramatic reenactments they use to present it.

I'm trying to think of some sort of elegant and creative way to end this post, but I don't really have much else to say. "Life is strange" is about all I can think of, but then, the blog itself is called "The World Is Very Strange". If you hadn't picked up on the whole "life is strange" thing, then you've clearly missed something.

In Which I Am Employed

Today I began my illustrious career as a Residential Safety booth babe. 

My job is very simple. If someone doesn't have a student ID and they want to get into the residence hall, they talk to me, and I swipe them in. I then write them down, and hope they're not here to murder whoever it is they're going in to see. During the day, I imagine this might actually require some work since residence halls do tend to attract quite a lot of people who want get in and visit other people, but of course, I'm not working during the day.

I work from midnight to eight AM, a time slot that actually works very well for me as I'm essentially nocturnal and I get paid more. I'm sitting in a booth with a broken television trying to tell myself that this is less horrifying than working at the hardware store due to having a chair to sit in and the ability to use the internet. No one has asked me to ring out 150 individual sockets yet, so I suppose I should be grateful. 

The booth I was assigned to is in Enterprise Hall, which I lived in during my sophomore year and looks nothing at all like I remember it. They've changed the entryway, the turnstile, the sort of lame half-lounge they had by the front, and replaced the vending machines with brand new leather couches. It's distressing, but in a way, kind of nice. The old Enterprise Hall is where I lived, the new one is where I work. For some reason, I find the distinction important. 

Since it's August and the university is in between summer semesters, the hall isn't currently home to rowdy, drunk college students, but to a high school Christian camp from Texas. Despite their inherent lack of ability to use their swipe cards to get through the damn turnstile, none of them have really caused me any problems. They do seem to have a habit of leaving their keys in their room and locking themselves out, but I'm sure that has more to do with the fact that they're in high school than it does with their love of Jesus. 

I spent most of my shift watching the X-Files on Netflix, but I did have a nice conversation with one of the campers about the weather in Texas at around four thirty in the morning. I mentioned that in the few times I'd ever been to Texas I'd experienced some of the most oppressive weather on the face of the planet, even worse than that time I spent in an Israeli desert, and for the most part, the girl seemed to agree. I asked her about the camp she was participating in, and was pleased that she never once asked me about my own religious beliefs. 

It is now eight AM, and technically speaking, I'm due to be done now. Some water has just dripped onto my head from the ceiling, which is interesting considering this building is fourteen stories high and it's not raining out. I'm left wondering what would happen if Jesus was forced to go through the Enterprise turnstile, and if he would have as much difficulty swiping in as his high school followers seem to. I like to think he'd just walk straight through the wall, but then, I suppose that's why I work at a safety booth and not at a Christian camp. 

All in all, it's been a decent first day. Now if only my relief would show up. 

Thoughts From The Historical Society

Today I'm trying to be my mother.

By which, I mean, I'm working at the Historical Society in her place during open hours as a favor to the  program manager who didn't want to be left alone. I think it's more that she had a meeting at ten and needed someone to handle visitors while she was busy since, from what I've seen, she's certainly more than capable of running things on her own. At the very least, she's definitely more capable than I am.

This isn't the first time I've had to do this. On Saturdays, the museum's only open from 9:30 to noon, so there tends to not be a huge influx of people. On days when my mother is out and I happen to find myself at home, I'm occasionally asked to fill in. It's not excessively difficult since, again, there's usually not a huge amount of people desperately in need of local historical information at ten in the morning on a Saturday. Every once in a while someone will come in and I'll have to explain to them that the curator is out, and that I'm only marginally well versed in the town's history. More often than not, I end up showing them around the building, handing them a business card, and telling them to come back on Tuesday when my mother will be back.

So far, we've only had one person come in, and he literally knew exactly what he was looking for, where to find it, and how to look through it. All I had to do was stand and ask the program manager if he was allowed in the archives, which he was. Other than that, it's mostly just been me, the laptop, and a cup of Starbucks coffee.

Despite my anxiety about not being able to answer any Exeter, New Hampshire based historical inquiries, it's nice to have something to do. My relatively terrible semester ended in mid-May, and I've been sitting at home waiting around for my house in New York to be ready to move into. It's been nice, since I'm given nearly unlimited time with my friends, who I always miss terribly when I'm at school, but apart from hanging out with them, when they're at work or doing summer homework, I have nothing going on, and it's starting to drive me a bit insane. Despite having to wake up far earlier than I usually do, it was nice to, for a moment, feel like I had a job or something other than TV Tropes to get up for.

I've watched an absurd amount of television. I've started at least four projects. I also turned twenty-one in the middle of all this.

Oh yeah, that's right.  I'm twenty-one now. I suppose, as a personal blogger, I should probably discuss this or something. I did start blogging at the age of fourteen, so I'm come somewhat far with this. I used to update a lot more than I do, of course. I blame social media. My friend Alice got me so addicted to Tumblr that I've been using that as a blog more than my actual blog, which is a problem since I keep getting reminded at school that blogging is a good way to get yourself out there in the professional world, especially in the media business. I can't imagine this blog getting me anywhere, but I have had it in one form or another for several years now, so it deserves a lot more love from me than it's been getting.

Plus, I'm sort of at a loss about that whole "moving ahead with your career" thing. I went into film originally because I wanted to take screenwriting classes. I wasn't sure what, exactly, I wanted to do, but I pretty much wrote myself off as being purely a writer within the world of film. If I did pursue film after college, I wasn't expecting to have a desire to be a director, or operate cameras or anything. I just wanted to tell stories. During my sophomore year, which was my first year as a film student, I operated soley under this principle, and paid almost no attention to the technical or visual side of things. I considered myself nothing more than a writer with an interest in film, and never once thought to consider myself a "filmmaker".

This was all fine and dandy, until sometime this year, that all changed. I'm not sure what it was. Maybe it was from hanging around with cameras more, maybe it was from getting the chance to play around in my experimental class, but at some point this year, I found myself falling deeper in love with the medium of film, and with the idea of shooting and directing. I've always had a thing for cameras, and looking back, it sort of makes sense that I'd find myself getting this interested in film, but I was seriously not expecting it. I've always been a movie person, but I never really thought of it as being something I could actually do, it was always just something I was interested in. At some point in the semester that "interest" turned into a genuine desire to actually pursue it, and as exciting as that is, it's also a bit terrifying.

Because now that I've realized this, now that I know for a fact that, yes, I would like to be a filmmaker and actually do something more than just write, I'm more than a bit behind. There are people in this department who know cameras inside and out, who have wanted and dreamed of being directors their entire lives, and compared to them, I'm just starting out. I have so much to learn it's not even funny, and I'm terrified of not being able to catch up.

Of course, this probably all sounds like fairly ordinary twenty-one-year-old thoughts. I have a feeling I'm supposed to be confused, and just starting out. It will be interesting to see how I feel about all of this in five years. Hell, it will be interesting to see where, exactly, I'll be in five years.

For right now, though, I'm sitting in the Historical Society, which is, ironically, the place I shot my last film. I don't know a great deal of local history, but I can probably tell you where to point an HD camera to make the building look dark and disorienting. At the very least, I can tell you what sort of flashlight you should use when shooting the place in the dark, and which victrola records make the best ambiant music.

Glitter Purgatory

So, here's this film I made.

This was my final film for Experimental Film and Video Production this semester. I shot it at the Exeter Historical Society during my spring break, and then spent about a month doing post production stuff. I was reading House of Leaves at the time and I think it kind of shows in the kind of film I decided to make. It was difficult to choreograph, and even more difficult to put together, but I think it paid off. I can't exactly say it's everything I ever wanted it to be and more, but I'm still relatively proud of how it came out.

So yeah, that's my official thing. That film up there? I made that. True story.

At the moment, though, I'm sitting around at my parents' house watching Fish Tank Kings while drugged up on allergy medication, definitely not making a film. I've spent the last three days working backstage at my sister's dance recital, which sounds like fairly easy work but was absolutely not. There were so many little kids running around in sparkly tutus...it was like, glitter purgatory.

I haven't written in forever. I know that. I really need to get myself together and update more, but right now, my brain is just mush. I figured, for some reason, I should at least put something up. I guess drugs will do that to you.

Have a good one,

*Nelly*

A Powerpoint! Yay!

A Powerpoint

View more presentations from NellyOfExeter.

I made this to teach myself and my roommate how to use Slideshare. It was good times. I need coffee so hard right now.

*Nelly*

Live From New Hampshire

With all these people keeping tabs and blogging about the New Hampshire primaries, I feel like, as a native New Hampshire dweller currently sitting here, I should add my own observations.

It's warm as hell.

My high school is being taken over by Mitt Romney supporters.

A giant Ron Paul sign kept me from getting any cellphone service at a creepy convenience store on the side of the road the other night.

And seriously, it's warm as hell. Tonight's low is 22. In January. I know politics, by nature, especially Republican politics, tend to generate a lot of hot air, but this is just ridiculous.

Could it be Ron Paul? The space infront of his abnormally large sign was the only place in Exeter the other night that didn't have service. Even my car had trouble starting...though, that's not really that unusual. But seriously! As soon as I managed to pull away from the sign, my phone had power again! If Ron Paul's sign can do that, imagine what sort of strange, evil, reality warping powers the man himself must possess? He must be the one changing the weather! I knew it had something to do with the primaries! That must be it!

Deep down, beyond that old, conservative, white guy exterior, Ron Paul is, in fact, Slender Man.

DRAMATIC MUSIC!

Or, possibly Cthulhu. One or the other.

MORE DRAMATIC MUSIC!

This, ladies and gentlemen, is what's really going down here in New Hampshire this primary season. Take that as you will.

Doctor Who Meets Sleep Deprivation

I haven't slept much lately. I've slept a bit. I've spent more time trying to sleep than actually sleeping. In other words, I've been awake a lot. And tired. Very, very tired.

So naturally, in my sleep deprived state, I turned to Doctor Who.

I used to do this all the time in high school. I've always had somewhat insomniac tendencies to me, and whenever it got particularly bad, I've noticed, is when I always seem to get back into Doctor Who. I don't know why, it doesn't make much sense, but it seems that the show has become my go to "thing to do when I can't sleep". Granted, even when I'm not experiencing a period of sleeplessness, I still love it. But, there's something about being totally sleep deprived that makes me think "Hey, I should re-watch some Doctor Who."

And so, I did.

On Tumblr recently people have been talking about "things they like that no one else likes." I'm not sure how the topic began, but it seems to have taken the place by storm. I don't usually respond to Tumblr things, because I don't usually write on Tumblr much. I have a blog, it seems somewhat redundant to post long winded things that don't matter in two different places on the internet, so I usually just use Tumblr to reblog pictures I find funny and to read feminist criticisms of DC Comics and Disney movies.

But, of course, because I haven't been sleeping, and because I've been watching so much Doctor Who, it got me thinking. Not really coherently, of course. It's a miracle I can currently string more than one word together as it is. But it got me thinking about things that I like that no one else seems to, or at least, that are fairly conflicted, specifically in Doctor Who. I remember back to when I was massively, unhealthily involved in the Doctor Who fan community, specifically the Outpost Gallifrey forums (which, I believe, have a different name now) where I was constantly reading other peoples' opinions on various episodes, and how I occasionally disagreed, but usually wasn't terribly fussed. I never really spoke much on the forums, I just read. But, with all the debate that went down, and all the controversy over which episode was the greatest piece of speculative fiction ever written, and which was clearly thrown together in the space of an hour, there was one episode that seemed to get it the hardest.

Now, this may have changed. I haven't been on the forums in years, not since before series four. I haven't read any forum posts on the current run of the show, and, to be honest, I don't even know if my account would still work. Maybe there's a new "love it or HATE it" episode that's enraging people, I don't know. But back in high school, when I was knee deep in discussion and fanfiction, the episode that sparked a thousand forum wars was series two's "Love and Monsters"

"Love and Monsters" was an interesting experiment. It was the first of what was to become traditional, one episode per series being "Doctor light" meaning, that it made limited use of the show's primary leads. With the limited screen time of the Doctor and his companion, their actors could be off filming a different episode while simultaneously filming this one, the allowing two episodes to be done at once without overworking the actors. This was done to save money and to get an extra episode out per series.

As with any new idea, the concept of an episode that made limited use of the Doctor was a bit of a gamble, and took some time to perfect. The series three "Doctor light" episode "Blink" is generally considered to be very, very good, and even ended up winning a Hugo award. Series four threw the formula for a bit of a loop and had one episode that was "Doctor light" but "Companion centric" and one that was "Companion light" and "Doctor centric", and both episodes are strong contenders for my favorite new series episode of all time.

But though everyone grew to like the formula, some even looking forward to what they would do with it this time, there was always that controversial first one, "Love and Monsters". Despite being significant, the episode is not commonly remembered fondly. I remember there being a discussion about Russel T. Davies' writing on the forums and someone commenting that they "liked the guy, liked his writing, but there was no excuse for Love and Monsters" People just didn't know what to do with it.

Here's a quick summary: A man named Elton (not the funny sunglasses one) keeps a video blog documenting his encounters with extraterrestrial activities, in particular, the time he came downstairs as a child and saw the Doctor standing in his living room. We follow him as he makes friends, falls in love, runs into monsters, and eventually gets his mystery solved. The entire episode is an examination of the lives of the people the Doctor leaves behind, those whose lives he touches but who never really get the full story.

I adore this episode. I think it's beautiful. While it may not be the epitome of "Sci-Fi" it is a gorgeous example of character writing. Every character is fleshed out and interesting. Every one is clearly separate, and defined. The friends that Elton makes are all people whose lives have been touched by the Doctor in someway, and though initially that is the only reason they meet up and band together, we get to watch as their relationship evolves into legitimate friendship, as their meetings to discuss the Doctor become less about the Doctor, and more about simply being with each other.

The group is a bit of an affectionate parody of Doctor Who fans, people who are quirky and excitable and drawn to this one subject, but who are also generally sweet, normal people with all sorts of talents and interests. The villain of the piece, an alien disguised as a ruthless man called Victor Kennedy, is representative of the small, terrible minority of fans who seem to only exist to suck the fun out of fandom. He shows up, tells them they're not serious enough, and forces them to use their meetings for nothing more than hard work. He takes their passion, which they had been using as an inspiration for art, for writing, and as an outlet for social interaction, and morphs it into serious, hard work.

One of the major complains was that the villain's true form, a cartoonish green creature called the "Absorbaloff" was too ridiculous and stupid, but really, when it comes down to it, the episode wasn't about him. The episode was about the relationships between people and the complete craziness of life, and the fact that he was ridiculous and cartoony only served to make the final outcome more absurd, and because of that, more tragic. A big theme is Elton's loss of control over his life, it's literally crashing down around him, and a lot of that is due to the completely absurd things he finds happening to him. The episode would lose something if the villain was more traditionally intimidating, because, as a viewer, this is what we find normal. There is nothing absurd about a traditionally intimidating villain victimizing someone, the character will find it odd, but the audience will be comfortable and accepting of it. Having a truly ridiculous villain, that not only the character but the audience itself finds absurd, forces the audience to really feel the complete ridiculousness of the character's situation, thus making the absurdity and tragedy of the story even more poignant.

It's kind of like Brecht. But with prosthetic, green monsters.

I particularly love the scene with Rose's mother Jackie. Rose was the Doctor's companion at the time, and was only about my age. Her mother was only ever seen when Rose went home, and though she did get a good deal of character development from those episodes, it is in "Love and Monsters" that we finally get to see her when she's left alone. We see her pain and her worry; the fact that she literally has no idea where her only daughter is, only that she could be anywhere in the most dangerous corners of time and space. We see how devastated she is, and how lonely she, but also how fiercely protective she is of both her daughter and the Doctor.

Her subplot revolves around Victor Kennedy sending Elton to infiltrate her life to get information on Rose. Eventually, Jackie and Elton become good friends, Elton genuinely enjoying spending time with her. She tries to seduce him, at one point, but then admits that she was being stupid and that she was only doing it because she was lonely. Elton realizes then that he is in love with someone else, his friend Ursula, but that he values Jackie as a friend, and offers her a pizza and movie night.

Things seem to be going great, until he returns with the pizza to find a very livid Jackie who has just found a picture of Rose in his jacket pocket. This scene in particular is exceptional. Jackie takes a moment to yell at Elton, pointing out that it's never her, that it hurts to be left behind, and that despite all of this, she will protect her daughter and the Doctor until the ends of the Earth. Her monologue is beautifully written, and very well acted, and it forces you to look at Jackie in a whole new light.

In the end, of course, the Doctor and Rose show up and the monster is defeated. Elton finally gets his mystery solved, and despite having lost everything, manages to find peace. His final line to the camera is, honestly, one of my favorite quotes off all time:

"When you're a kid, they tell you it's all 'grow up. Get a job. Get married. Get a house. Have a kid, and that's it.' But the truth is, the world is so much stranger than that. It's so much darker. And so much madder. And so much better."

Like Jackie defending the Doctor and Rose until the ends of the Earth, I will defend this episode. Yes, it's atypical, yes, it's got some strange, cartoony elements to it, and yes, it's not exactly hard science fiction. But that doesn't stop it from being beautiful. While it's not a bitter deconstruction of everything Doctor Who is, like series four's "Midnight", it is a decidedly different look at the show, it's mythos, and it's fans. I realize a lot of people didn't quite get it, but to those who didn't, maybe you should take another look.

And that, to answer Tumblr, is what I love that everyone else seems to hate. If you haven't seen it, check it out. I'm going to try to get some sleep.

*Nelly*