What hath science wrought.

Opening shot: sand gusts through the streets of a long-deserted Mediterranean town. The camera pans past abandoned stucco buildings, overgrown with weeds.

Text: They Thought It Was Over

Camera continues to pan, as music begins to fade in. It is tinny, as though played through an old radio. A gust of sand completely obscures the camera’s view, and clears to reveal a shot centered on a small stucco building, door hanging off the hinges, part of the roof fallen in. The camera zooms.

Text: But Some Memories Never Fade

Music becomes recognizable: “As Time Goes By”, a oldies-style instrumental rendition. Camera zooms through doorway; a crackling radio stands on a table across the room, illuminated by light shining through the doorway.

Text: And Some Wounds

Zoom in on radio, music crescendoes accordingly. A silhouette of a man wearing a fedora falls across the radio.

Text: Never Heal

Silhouette raises gun, fires. Radio sparks. Cut to black as music ceases.

Fade in: timpani sounds once, extreme close up of a man’s mouth, chewing a toothpick.

Mouth: Play it, Sam.

Brief shot of Samuel L. Jackson cocking a shotgun, fade to black.

Another timpani; Bruce Willis and Robert Downey, Jr. walk slowly toward camera, putting sunglasses on.

Bruce Willis: Louis – [an enormous explosion in the background] – I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

The timpani begin to accelerate, heightening the excitement. Robert Downey, Jr. stands atop a ruined building, shouting to a courtyard full of dehumanized faceless soldiers.

Robert Downey, Jr.: [sneering] Round up the usual suspects!

Brief shots, now, one timpani per: Samuel L. Jackson, dual-wielding shotguns, in the smoking ruins of a building, turns to face the camera as it zooms; Robert Downey, Jr., face contorted with hatred, standing in the rain, turns to face the camera as it zooms; Angelina Jolie, wearing a kevlar corset and holding a katana, steps toward the camera and poses as it zooms; Bruce Willis, wearing a fedora and an overcoat, turns only his head toward the camera as it zooms down the length of the bar; Christopher Lee, above a machine torso and behind a mostly metal face, stands and glowers down at the camera. Silence.

Bruce Willis steps onscreen, looking down at the camera, pistol in hand. Points pistol at camera.

Bruce Willis: [sardonically] Here’s looking at you, kid. [Fires. Cut to black.]

Text: Return

Text: To

Text: Casablanca

Bruce Willis crouches behind the bar, reloading his pistol. Fragments of glass fall to the floor around him.

Bruce Willis: Of all the gin joints, in all the towns, in all the world – [slams clip into pistol] – she walks into mine.

He turns to fire over the bar. Cut to view across bar. He fires into the camera.

Text: In Theaters June 6

The title of this blogpost is blogpost.

Eschewing juvenile styles and outgrown beliefs we move forward. Also I'm sick of looking at that last blogpost.

I feel like this is me actually starting this blog, so I'll introduce it and me. I am a second-year at the University of Chicago. I'm undeclared as yet, was going to be an English major, but then I decided to write a BA on Novalis which means I'm going to be a Comparative Lit major or something like that. Which means I need to teach myself German over the summer. Which is intense.

Grew up young-earth creationist in Arkansas. I don't recommend it. Kicked around charismatic evangelical Christianity for a long time, until I realized that none of it had ever made sense to me, and that I'd manufactured all the warm fuzzy Jesus feelings. So now I'm an atheist, and that, my friends, has simplified my life wonderfully. Guess I'll talk about that more later.

I am surrounded by exceptional people, to whom I talk about (lately) literature, ethics, and philosophy of science. I'm in charge of the fiction selections for one of the literature magazines on campus (it's called euphony and it's actually pretty legit. I think I've got a book review of Umberto Eco somewhere on that site.)

As for this blog, it's about music, literature, film, and so forth. Used to have theology instead of film, but you understand why that changed. My music tastes are omnivorous and ever-expanding, but I plan to review Of Montreal's Hissing Fauna Are You The Destroyer? and Demon Days by Gorillaz in future blogposts. Maybe Air's Moon Safari as well. Oh and Steven Wilson's Insurgentes. Lots of stuff, is my point. In terms of genres, classic rock, progressive rock, progressive metal, eighties synthpop, eighties punk, folk rock, and pretentious indie bullshit cover it pretty well.

As far as literature goes, I'm weirdly limited to mostly 20th-century novels, but a lot of those (GK Chesterton, Italo Calvino, Hemingway, James Joyce, Nabokov, Umberto Eco is a good list). Theoretically, I like sci-fi. In practice, usually not so much. I care less about fantasy, but therefore have lower standards for it and so probably enjoy most of it more? I tend to dislike most poetry not written by TS Eliot, and almost nothing before 1900.

Film is much more haphazard. Pretty sure Blade Runner is the greatest movie ever, with maybe Pan's Labyrinth in second place. Visuals are important - plots can be vague and still work, but a beautiful detailed world makes a lot of films great.

The rest is pretty much whatever I feel like. Perhaps this will include me talking about coming out to one's (fundamentalist evangelical Christian) family as an atheist. Perhaps it will include good conversations I have with exceptional people. Who knows? The possibilities are Literally Endless.