Waking Life – Quotes from


Waking Life


Soap Opera Woman: Excuse me.

Wiley: Excuse me.

Soap Opera Woman: Hey. Could we do that again? I know we haven’t met, but I don’t want to be an ant. You know? I mean, it’s like we go through life with our antennas bouncing off one another, continously on ant autopilot, with nothing really human required of us. Stop. Go. Walk here. Drive there. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. “Here’s your change.” “Paper or plastic?’ “Credit or debit?” “You want ketchup with that?” I don’t want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don’t want to give that up. I don’t want to be ant, you know?
…

Man on TV: A single ego is an absurdly narrow vantage from which to view this experience. And where most consider their individual relationship to the universe, I contemplate relationships of my various selves to one another.
…

Kim Krizan: Creation seems to come out of imperfection. It seems to come out of a striving and a frustration and this is where I think language came from. I mean, it came from our desire to transcend our isolation and have some sort of connection with one another. And it had to be easy when it was just simple survival. Like you know, “water.” We came up with a sound for that. Or saber tooth tiger right behind you. We came up with a sound for that. But when it gets really interesting I think is when we use that same system of symbols to communicate all the abstract and intangible things that we’re experiencing. What is like… frustration? Or what is anger or love? When I say love, the sound comes out of my mouth and it hits the other person’s ear, travels through this byzantine conduit in their brain through their memories of love or lack of love, and they register what I’m saying and they say yes, they understand. But how do I know they understand? Because words are inert. They’re just symbols. They’re dead, you know? And so much of our experience is intangible. So much of what we perceive cannot be expressed. It’s unspeakable. And yet you know, when we communicate with one another and we feel that we have connected and we think that we’re understood I think we have a feeling of almost spiritual communion. And that feeling might be transient, but I think it’s what we live for.
…

Boat Car Guy: Man this must be like… parallel universe night. You know that cat that was just in here? Just ran out the door? Well, he comes up to the counter, you know, and I say “What’s the word, turd?” And he lays down this burrito and he kind of looks at me, kind of stares at me and says, “I have but recently returned from the valley of the shadow of death. I’m rapturously breathing in all the odors and essences of life. I’ve been to the brink of total oblivion. I remember and ferment the desire to remember everything.”

Wiley: So, what did you say to that?

Boat Car Guy: Well, I mean, what could I say? I said, “If you’re going to microwave that burrito, I want you to poke holes in the plastic wrapping because they explode. And I’m tired of cleaning up your little burrito doings. You dig me?”

RIP Tina Turner

Tina Turner (born Anna Mae Bullock; November 26, 1939 – May 24, 2023) was an American-born and naturalized Swiss[a] singer, dancer, actress, and author. Widely referred to as the “Queen of Rock ‘n’ Roll“, she rose to prominence as the lead singer of the Ike & Tina Turner Revue before launching a successful career as a solo performer.

Turner began her career with Ike Turner‘s Kings of Rhythm in 1957. Under the name Little Ann, she appeared on her first record, “Boxtop“, in 1958. In 1960, she debuted as Tina Turner with the hit duet single “A Fool in Love“. The duo Ike & Tina Turner became “one of the most formidable live acts in history”.[5] They released hits such as “It’s Gonna Work Out Fine“, “River Deep – Mountain High“, “Proud Mary“, and “Nutbush City Limits“, before disbanding in 1976.

In the 1980s, Turner launched “one of the greatest comebacks in music history”.[6] Her 1984 multi-platinum album Private Dancer contained the hit song “What’s Love Got to Do with It“, which won the Grammy Award for Record of the Year and became her first and only number-one song on the Billboard Hot 100. Aged 44, she was the oldest female solo artist to top the Hot 100.[7] Her chart success continued with “Better Be Good to Me“, “Private Dancer“, “We Don’t Need Another Hero (Thunderdome)“, “Typical Male“, “The Best“, “I Don’t Wanna Fight“, and “GoldenEye“. During her Break Every Rule World Tour in 1988, she set a then–Guinness World Record for the largest paying audience (180,000) for a solo performer.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tina_Turner

Letterboxd – Some Reviews this Week

POPULAR REVIEWS THIS WEEK

Fast X 2023
Written and directed entirely by AI.

Killers of the Flower Moon 2023
colossal.

Beau Is Afraid 2023
Ari Aster, if you read this, please DM me!! I would like to connect you to a prayer line! It is a phone number where anywhere from 4 to 13 menopausal, Afro-Caribbean, Pentecostal women from the church I grew up going to will pray with you and FOR YOU on the phone for however long you need. You just dial in. You don’t even have to speak! There is NO pressure. Let them pray for you! Ari, DM me! Please!!! Let these women lay spiritual hands on you! Contact me ASAP!

The Committee – Addiction and Internal Dialogue

In a new interview with “Rock Of Nations With Dave Kinchen And Shane McEachern”, BUCKCHERRY’s Josh Todd spoke about David Draiman’s recent onstage speech about the “demons” of addiction and depression in which the DISTURBED frontman revealed that, a few months ago, he “almost joined” his late friends Chester Bennington, Chris Cornell and Scott Weiland while battling these demons. Asked if he can relate to Draiman’s mental health challenges, Todd said (as transcribed by BLABBERMOUTH.NET): “Absolutely. I’m an alcoholic. I’ve been clean and sober from drugs and alcohol for 28 years. And although you take away the drugs and alcohol, it’s just a symptom of the problem. The problem is your mind. Between your ears, I’m different than a normal guy walking the street. So because of that — I call it ‘the committee’, and the committee between my ears can be an asset or a liability, for sure. So you have to do a lot of things to manage that and to understand those particular voices in your head that really wanna get you isolated from people and get you to drink and use.

BUCKCHERRY’s JOSH TODD: ‘I’ve Been Clean And Sober From Drugs And Alcohol For 28 Years’

Sad Music, Attraction of

When Joshua Knobe was younger, he knew an indie rock musician who sang sorrowful, “heart-rending things that made people feel terrible,” he recalled recently. At one point he came across a YouTube video, set to her music, that had a suicidal motif. “That was the theme of her music,” he said, adding, “So I had this sense of puzzlement by it, because I also felt like it had this tremendous value.”

This is the paradox of sad music: We generally don’t enjoy being sad in real life, but we do enjoy art that makes us feel that way. Countless scholars since Aristotle have tried to account for it. Maybe we experience a catharsis of negative emotions through music. Maybe there’s an evolutionary advantage in it, or maybe we’re socially conditioned to appreciate our own suffering. Maybe our bodies produce hormones in response to the fragmentary malaise of the music, creating a feeling of consolation.

The Reason People Listen to Sad Songs
It’s not because they make us sad but because they help us feel connected, a new study suggests.
NYTIMES
Oliver Whang

from the comments:

DNALevelC
I’ve always attributed the mood improvement I get when listening to sad songs to some kind of homeopathic response. Like a vaccine, a small dose of sadness immunizes against profound sadness. I find it a powerful effect

Surin S
Melancholy songs are the closest thing to traveling back in time.

David Knight
The whole thing when you are sad is that you feel like you are the only one in the world that feels that way. Hearing sad music shows you that you are not the only one and a good song writer can put a positive spin on the whole thing. The idea that there is someone out there who has empathy for the rotten way you feel is uplifting. I’ve experienced this with multiple genres of music from country, folk, and blues to jazz, classical, baroque and renaissance so it’s not a new idea by any stretch of the imagination. Hurtin’ music has no boundaries.

Sarah
Sad songs do two important things: they put to words feelings one might have been unable to verbalize and they remind us that we are not alone in our sorrow.

Public vs Private Voice – Examples of

Paris Hilton’s voice change
by u/snoo-apple in popculturechat

firstgirlonmars
Me when I worked in customer service

Hedgehogwash
I become approximately 25% more southern whenever I have to call a stranger, I don’t know why.

PrettyPossum420
Same! I also found myself doing it a lot in the service industry. The thickness of the accent would increase in proportion to just how mean the customer was. Particularly nasty customers could get me sounding like Forrest Gump real quick.

PrettyPeaceful
Yes! When I worked in customer service I would go the opposite direction and lower my voice when I talked to older people. Louder and lower was easier for many elderly people with hearing loss. My coworkers would say “you’re using your old person voice.”

parley65
OMG!! When I was a junior in high school one of my friends said something like, “I didn’t know your mom was British!! Why didn’t you tell us?”

I had no idea what the hell was happening. Apparently she was answered the phone with an accent and I had to explain that she was from Georgia and just nuts. She also used to do a soft shoe tap routine for my friends. (No, she couldn’t tap, she just put salt on the floor and faked it). Gosh I miss her.

Thank you kind stranger for reminding me.