"In the face of the obscene, explicit malice of the jungle, which lacks only dinosaurs as punctuation, I feel like a half-finished, poorly expressed sentence in a cheap novel."

~Werner Herzog~

Subordinate & Flaw

Set me free, set me free
I want to be free
please please set me free.

I want to see,
to see how few and far in between.
The blood the blood,
on your hands is so clean.
Untouched on silver frames of snow.
And my aching body did sweat the moss.

Let me be let me be,
let me grow. Never let go.
Let me lay my body against your river
and then turn, I be your stranger.
No talk, won't speak
of all these secrets they'll smell on me.

A flower a flower
I'll be wasted hour.
All this sand all this sand
flows straight through my hand
I am I am
less than human.

Paris, 2008

I wish there was some way of explaining this feeling.

My hands are shaking
my mind has heard the crushing
of one thousand yearning vessels in my blood.

They're trying to change me
deranged but unoffered whispers
from behind me.
If I scrape out my eyes
they will never find me.

Never know me.
Feel me.
Hear me.
I scream.

This ardor binds to a distant world
maybe the next
maybe illusion.
Confusion
of what a soul means against
all of you.

Arch my back,
carry my head
and nail my feet down.

For what I am afraid
is not a place of tears.
Or of isolation--now I dream.
but of the binding invisible fortress
and my wrists...
these ropes....
this chair.

Being what part
of the greater whole
and finding that whole
wants no part of being.

These scraped knees
red with iodine
and the temporary cuts
but the bruises that remind.

Of what I fear
tell by this
unconquerable mind.

Dreaming Alive

This is how I vanish.
block it all away until the cracks in the walls just fade
and I am floating so far away.
swimming in oceans deeper than our lives
to touch them would distract them.
We're aching flowers on a whim and closing within.
In the center I hear the violins
if only you were there holding them
if only I could break free of them.
but when I let the light in,
we're standing within our endless hearts
beating amongst their stained valleys
but it is peace.
A piece, of the world at large
and we'll carry them in our arms
to hand them to you,
here in my cerulean hue.
Entangle our bodies and take them like fruit
dream in your sweet far away dreams
someday, I wish...
we'd freed those hearts in our hands
and sail down our flooded streams
because we've let go of our frozen dams
where we are, at last, awake in our dreams.

The Art of the Film Score

It may be no secret to some that film scores are sort of a secret obsession of mine. When films were silent, the score was important in the dramatics of the players as to the feeling of the audience. Although, silent films tend to be a bit on the creeping end of boredom for most, they're interesting to watch from a cultural standpoint, especially if one focuses on the efforts of Germany's early film industry which, with no knowledge of the French/American sideshow captures, instead focused on the more serious ground of film. Film did not begin producing truly remarkable scores until about the mid-1920's Russia and from there began to progress, facing some declines in between now and then but altogether remaining pretty unremarkable until about the early 1990's when score composers began to focus more on innovations in music.

The most notable from the early 1990's without a doubt would be Schindler's List, composed by John Williams, one of my personal favorites when it comes to score composition. In conjunction with the violinist Itzhak Perlman, one of the most well known film scores as well as violin solos was produced. Schindler's List is already a heart-wrenching social realist film by Spielberg that truly delivers the message Spielberg had intended. To compose a piece of music that holds the fear, sadness, and altogether morbid state of the time puts John Williams, the first of the composers on my list of great film scores, somewhere near the top. Personally, I've always looked at Schindler's List as one of the most important films ever made.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLK5OWU2YGw

The first film to ever draw my attention to the soundtrack would without a doubt be Gladiator, a compilation of Hans Zimmer and Lisa Gerrard. I can never forget sitting in the theater with my dad when I was nine being completely thrilled by just the music alone so that when my dad asked me how the movie was all I could reply with was, "The music was amazing," or something like that. The next day he bought the soundtrack for me and I can remember listening to it for two weeks straight. I was so happy. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHAvjaHtlMA -My favorite part. To this very day.

Later, films would develop dramatic soundtracks mirroring that of Romantic Era composition, with their lack of restraint and their wonderful feeling, some films even borrow from this era, most commonly used is "Flight of the Valkyries" a very daring Wagner composition for the time. Films such as The Fountain http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihF_aXi-Huk and Requiem for a Dream exemplify these dramatic compositions both by Clint Mansell. Perhaps, however when there is a mix of the original classics such as in Dario Marionelli's composition for V for Vendetta, where Tchaikovsky is used in between percussion at the very opening of the film, introducing the nature of the soon-to-be-announced character, V. Some of the more dramatic soundtracks seem to be repeated as time progresses, John Murphy's "The Surface of the Sun" for the movie Sunshine was recycled in Kick-Ass, completely abandoning the original feeling and creating a new feeling showing the true versatility within these modern compositions.

Moving into even more innovative works of modern composition, film scores have become for many movies, enjoyable just as they are, without pictures to amplify the feeling of the music. For Memoirs of a Geisha John Williams collaborated with the extremely talented modern cellist Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman to create a beautiful work that combines classical composition with Japanese traditionalism. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yT1-Uo5eUJk James Newton Howard examines colonial American instruments combined with classical composition in The Village. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyUwUW-lRjY

Dario Marianelli is a score composer that reached further into individual composition, putting forth music that was more personal and innovative in creative material used in both Atonement http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_wN9hSdIKw and Pride and Prejudice http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQgnEvQX3eM (A very beautiful composition by itself in its entirety). Marianelli's piano pieces are remarkably beautiful and, again, enjoyable just on their own. However, as far as relation to the film and conveying the emotion portrayed on the screen as well as putting forth a truly spirited piece of music, James Horner's composition for All The King's Men (also one of my all-time favorite films) is a perfectly delivered work (in my opinion of course). http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Irs5cJ-Ph-8

There are many films that I did not mention such as Inception, Pan's Labyrinth, The Illusionist, and The Curious Case of Benjamin Button which are all exceptional soundtracks. It's just that I could probably write about this all day and I doubt anybody is really going to read this post anyway. On a side note, I did not mention Danny Elfman because, although a fantastic composer, proven to me by Good Will Hunting, I feel he is too limited with Tim Burton. The magical realism theme is catchy and mystical, but is turning rather cliche in my opinion. The Nightmare Before Christmas is noteworthy for Danny Elfman's actual singing participation as well as Big Fish for sort-of kind-of branching out of that eerie lullaby music Tim Burton enjoys so much. But most of the films listed in this paragraph supersede the music composed within them, albeit they would be nothing without the score, the story lines are very intricate and beautiful, so the soundtracks (some nominated/winners of Academy Awards) get pushed to the background.

In short, I really enjoy soundtracks.

Frankenstein

"How dangerous is the acquirement of knowledge and how much happier that man is who believes his native town to be the world, than he who aspires to be greater than his nature will allow.
[...]
When falsehood can look so like the truth, who can assure themselves of certain happiness?
[...]
If our impulses were confined to hunger, thirst, and desire, we might be nearly free; but now we are moved by every wind that blows and a chance word or scene that that word may convey to us.
[...]
Even broken in spirit as he is, no one can feel more deeply than he does the beauties of nature. The starry sky, the sea, and every sight afforded by these wonderful regions, seems still to have the power of elevating his soul from Earth. Such a man has a double existence: he may suffer misery, and be overwhelmed by disappointments; yet, when he has retired into himself, he will be like a celestial spirit that has a halo around him, within whose circle no grief or folly ventures."

~Mary Shelley~

While We All Fade (a work in progress)

"How is it you believe to know the world, Antoine?"

"Because I created it. I am like that God you said, only I am the painter. I know her imperfections. I know where her sands crawl and her trees yawn. I know where her rivers open and her flowers blush. My divinity is simple in that it is nothing. I am everything. I am in this painting and as it feels.... heavy. I am stolen in this great sadness for I cannot fix her withering sleeves. They close at the edges and we are encased in glass. Do you know of Heinrich Heine? 'Lovely as a flower' but it hurts him. I know that. I am this world and the one looking in and we're all lost in it. There is no way out. What they see in us, never seems to change. For ages, we remain."