Hyperbole.

I just finished watching Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. It was beautiful. (And not just because of Kirsten Dunst, although that helps.) At the end, the two meet again and realize that they know what will happen. They know all the things they will come to feel toward one another. They know they’re star-crossed, because it’s already happened. But what does it matter? It’s what they want, what they need. They live it over again.

I agree with that philosophy. I believe the process justifies the end. If the interim period is bliss, then it was worth it even if it all burns away in the end. We do what we need. It’s life, and it makes getting through better. And there are the memories that I wouldn’t trade for the world…I can think of far too many of them right now. The end not being some stereotypical “success” doesn’t scare me.

What scares me is that in the movie, there’s always another chance. And in life, the cycle runs out.

Why I Hate Twilight

This post is a departure for me. It’s an “essay” — I use the term loosely — not a set of lyrics. It’s a review of a book I haven’t finished (I’m just now at the part where Bella finds out Edward is — *spoiler alert* — a vampire; I doubt I’ll ever finish it) and a movie I haven’t seen. It’s choppy, opinionated, profane, pissed-off and personal, as opposed to…I guess, “objective reviews.” But hey, it’s that kind of night, and I want to get something off my chest I talked about with Carson last night.

I really hate Twilight.

I think it’s pretty nearly accurate to say that the Twilight series (is that what it’s properly called?) is currently the biggest entertainment powerhouse in America. The movie that opened yesterday (I think) will probably gross hundreds of millions of dollars this weekend alone. The books have sold twenty million copies in the states. I haven’t boarded an airplane in three months without seeing someone carrying one of the books. And that’s like four airplanes. So yeah. In case you’ve been living under a very large rock, this proves it: Twilight is huge.

It’s also a piss-poor book, from what I’ve seen. The characters, outside of the two you’ve heard of and maybe two or three others, are all totally disposable. The narrator dismisses them offhand and attributes to them a range of emotions and behavior patterns that doesn’t quite measure up to the mature autonomy of most cattle. Her friends and parents are all total wastes of type.