Jamie Antonisse

Tomorrow, a post about Transperator (featuring the lost music track, Level 2). But today, I am too tired for uploading, so I thought I'd post this instead.

Negativism

Technically, as it has no self-professing followers, Negativism can not be considered a religion. It is by some reckonings, however, the most widely held belief system on the planet.

I think it was over at Julian Bleecker's IMD blog that I first saw the question, "why do I blog this?" asked and answered (second entry down, near the bottom). As questions go, it seems to me to be a rare but amazingly valid one. Why? Why am I putting this online, instead of in a shoebox, a journal, a trash can? It is a question that, if answered properly, might lead to a more reflective understanding of one's relationship to internet culture, and potentially of the way one relates to people in general.

That's the theory anyway. In practice, I did not start blogging regularly until I learned to ignore this question entirely.

Because of a certain program that keeps crashing over and over again (I'm looking at you, Torque Game Builder) I didn't think I'd be able to pull off the full long-winded Pretentious Tuesday entry. But after thinking a bit more about Bioshock, and being roundly kicked in the butt by Max and Diana, I found myself with a Tuesdayriffic theory about the place of violence in the medium. Bear with me... or not, in which case I'll talk to you laters.

I just made a terrible discovery: 6:30 is After Sunset today. The dark half of the year is on its way.

I found this hand-scribbled on a notecard beneath my bed. I vaguely remember writing it months ago at 2 AM, imagining it thought and written by a man with a permanent-fixture cancer stick dangling from his lip and a suit that had been on his back so long it no longer smelled of B.O. A real fucked up gentleman with the following on his mind:

"Fear... fear isn't so bad. Fear keeps me going. But as I grow older I fear less and less... it's all familiar, all too comfortable. It's just the one fear in there now, eating its own tail, the fear that's come to dominate me: the fear that I'm not afraid of anything anymore and that I never will be again. It's a stale fear, there's no comfort or rush in it. It eats at me, all the time: "I'm not afraid of ANYTHING anymore." And I hold onto that sentiment, because in the back of my mind I know: fear is LIFE. And when I accept that I've mastered it, when I give up worrying on how easy it all is, when I decide that it's Okay, then my little life will be over."

Happy Tuesday.

To whom it may concern,

It has come to my attention that there are some among many who do not see the academic and/or artistic value in certain cinematic works that may or may not have been demonstrably and irrefutably displayed on this viewing space.

This, my friends, is homework. The semester thus far has been a sharp left turn... first I had to write my own obituary (it took me a week), then I had to list all the things I regretted missing out on as a kid (D.C. hardcore, teenage sex, etc), and now this, an analysis of the things we carry. I am getting (more importantly, EARNING) an MFA in Wistfulness.

I started recounting the BagHead incident, my epic experience with Herb Yang's thesis Kingpin prototype, early last fall. I don't think I've posted anything about it here since October. One side of me wanted to leave it at "Part Three", teetering just short of a conclusion, like the end of the Sopranos but without the comforting darkness. David Chase would have liked it that way.

But this isn't HBO, this isn't even television, this is a different beast entirely. It's likely I could've left the BagHead story unfinished and no one would've noticed... but the moral of the tale has kept me invested on a personal level in getting this sucker done. So, for the faithful who remember and the curious who will read anyway, here is the Punchline of the BagHead Chronicles, late but intact.