lost at sea

As I sit here, listening to the rain fall lightly on the quiet streets, I find myself lost once again.

I lose myself more often than one might think, but it's something I've grown accustomed to over the years. It usually happens during periods of personal difficulty and stress, or when I get so absorbed in the tide of worldly affairs that I get swept out to sea. This time, I think it's a bit of both.

In seeking to define myself and my place in the world, I've been ripped from the shore of self-knowledge and swept out into the sea of existential dread. And in the midst of my ever present mortality, I struggle to find something to cling to.

But where is there a refuge to be found? My heart itself is a sea of contradictions that storms with the winds of emotional fury. Anger. Sadness. I want to rage against the world and cry out of compassion at the same time. Idealism. Hatred. I want to right all the world's wrongs and I want destroy everything. Terror. Desperately gasping for air as I find myself being pulled under by currents stronger than I can endure.

What is it that I'm so afraid of? What more is there to lose than one's self? Why do I bother screaming at the world to save me when I know that it wouldn't even if it could? What is it that I'm looking for?

Maybe I'm not really looking for anything. Maybe there's nothing to find. Maybe it's in the search itself that I simply find some semblance of comfort.

mind-blowing films

Over at Icrontic, they kicked off their "theme of the week" series by asking people to highlight the movies that blew their mind. As usual, I was late to the party. But it got me thinking, What are the films that have made a lasting impression on me?

Honestly, there are so many great films out that have blown me away I could never name them all, but right off the top of my head I can think of at least two films by Ingmar Bergman that have had a major impact on me: Det sjunde inseglet (The Seventh Seal) and Nattvardsgästerna (Winter Lights).

They're probably too slow for most people, but there's something deeply contemplative and existential about them that really draws me in. That, and I think they're both examples of great filmmaking. For me, atmosphere and story are everything, and Bergman was a master storyteller.

Other honourable mentions include Bom yeoreum gaeul gyeoul geurigo bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter... and Spring), Dellamorte Dellamore (Cemetery Man), Kontroll and Pi.

I'd also have to say that most of the animated films I've seen in the past ten years have been mind-blowing in various ways.

Anything by Studio Ghibli, for example, is simply great. Whether it's a cute and lighthearted retelling of Hans Christian Andersen's story "The Little Mermaid" (Gake no Ue no Ponyo) or a powerful and heartbreaking portrayal of 1945 wartime Japan (Hotaru no Haka), I've yet to see one of their films that hasn't impressed me.

And, of course, there are companies like Laika, Pixar, etc., who are also putting out some great material. It's a seriously underrated genre, in my opinion.

marble hornets: innovative storytelling in the digital age

I'm a bit of a latecomer to the whole Marble Hornets phenomenon, but better late than never. I got sucked in by a friend of mine last Saturday when I stopped by to hang out and have a couple of beers. We were waiting for a couple of more people to show up when he asked if I'd seen it. I said no, and since we had some time to kill, he started playing entries beginning with the introduction.

For anyone not familiar with Marble Hornets, it's a YouTube video series that seems to be inspired by the Slender Man urban legend started on The SomethingAwful Forums. The videos are uploaded by a man named Jay, who, at the beginning, takes them from tapes that were originally shot three years ago — mostly by his friend, Alex — during the filming of a student film Alex was making called "Marble Hornets." The tapes are in random order, and Jay sets out to systematically watch them all in order document some of the strange events and anomalies that occur after he realizes there's more going on than just the making of a student film. Later on, Jay begins to upload some of his own videos as well.

To be honest, I wasn't all that impressed at first. The entries were short (most of them less than a couple of minutes long), and I didn't quite get what was going on until a few entries in, but I quickly became immersed in the story once I started to piece together what was happening.

The series is fairly unique. I can only describe is an interactive, low-budget paranormal mystery that's supported by a large online community dedicated to solving it. People piece together the time line, uncover hidden messages and decode various puzzles that are found in the videos themselves, as well as in the strange and unnerving video responses left by a mysterious figure known only by their YouTube username, "totheark." What really intrigues me about the series, however, is the way the story evolves — especially with the introduction of totheark — and how the viewer is able to interact with the story and other viewers via social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.

I didn't really find it all that scary while I was watching it, but it definitely creeped me out as I soon discovered on my way home. I left my friend's house at around 1:30am. It was dark and drizzling. As I was walking home, I kept thinking that I heard someone behind me, although nobody was there whenever I turned to look. If that wasn't bad enough, the lights surrounding a nearby school started to buzz and flicker eerily as I was walking by. I kept glancing around half expecting to see the Slender Man standing in the distance. I'll admit it, I started walking a lot faster.

So if you're into horror and you've got some time to kill one night, I suggest checking Marble Hornets out.

(A version of this post also appears as an article on Icrontic Life.)