Thursday, October 15, 2009
Ten Years of Project Mayhem
It's been ten years...am I still not supposed to talk about it?
Fight Club was released in US theaters on October 15th, 1999. I probably saw it two or three weeks later at the discount second-run Silver Cinemas near Poughkeepsie. I had no interest in the picture based on the advertising which seemed to focus on dudes fighting in a basement. Why would I want to watch a movie about that? Why would anyone?
Thankfully, my friend Joe called me at some point and told me I needed to see this movie. He assured me it wasn't about dudes fighting in a basement but wisely wouldn't tell me what it was actually about. Indeed, in that sense the advertising was actually brilliant in that in gave audiences no clue that Fight Club was actually a radical tale of anti-commercial ism and self-destruction. I've never managed to think of a way to successfully sell this story to people other than the way Joe did it: he told me I should see it and he was right.
I covered some of this in my now-five-year-old essay about meeting Chuck Palahniuk, but the impact Fight Club has had on my life is hard to underestimate. Superficially speaking, it became my favorite movie of all time (a title I think it still retains) and the book managed to draw me into reading as a hobby, something I was never really keen on. Not just Chuck Palahniuk's work either, but books in general and, surprisingly, non-fiction in particular. I still read novels but the ideas put forth in the movie motivated me to read more non-fiction because such books invariably force me to look at the world in a different light, questioning things I assumed were just or normal and making me consider alternative viewpoints.
Then again, I can't say I found myself espousing much of the same philosophy raised in Fight Club even if the movie seemed aimed directly at me. At the time it spoke to me because it was a movie about men who felt purposeless. The line that still sticks with me to this day more than any other is "I'm a thirty year old boy." I remember when I really was just a kid and I looked up at adults and I wondered when I would be a grown-up and know what to say and have a job and a family. When I saw Fight Club I was legally an adult at 22 but I was as lost as I ever had been as a kid. I lived alone in a crappy basement apartment, I had a dead-end job at the post office and my friends and I spent most of our weekends just drinking the time away. Some of them were in college at the time but I was years removed from my resounding academic failure and I had no plans to go back. I was single with absolutely no prospects, no confidence and no clue on how to even approach a woman. I was probably clinically depressed but too stubborn to get help. In every sense of the word, I was a loser.
I'm not going to say Fight Club turned things around for me (I credit my interest in Japan for that) but it definitely reminded me that I wasn't alone. It reminded me that my job, my apartment, my obesity and my loneliness did not define me as a person. I didn't need to feel lost because most people my age (or any age) were no more "complete" than I was. I was beating myself up for not having a girlfriend or a good job that people respected, but people who had those things weren't living problem-free lives, they just had different problems.
In Fight Club men get together and start doing horrible things to each other and society in general, but that wasn't the message I took away from the story. Rather than going out and get into fights, I just started going out for going out's sake. I began spending a lot more time visiting my college friends and meeting new people. I don't think it's a coincidence that less than a year after seeing Fight Club I enrolled in evening classes at The Japan Society in New York. The characters in the movie embraced self-destruction (and destruction in general, frankly) while I began a move towards self-improvement. They found purpose in fighting and retaking control of their lives, I just went for the latter without all the scarring the former would entail. The main character has an unfulfilling job and an unremarkable condo so he throws it all away in a quest to hit bottom - all so he can rebuild himself. I had much less to work with than he did but rather than destroy what I had, I skipped that part and just started fixing what little things I could. Maybe that's why it took me five years to finally quit that terrible job and get back to school.
I suppose there's no straight line to draw between Fight Club and anything it inspired me to do, see or read. All I can really say about it is that it's an excellent movie that I'll never forget. That doesn't make it sound very special but maybe it can't be special to everyone. At the very least, I promise you it's not about dudes fighting in a basement - although that totally happens.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Fight Club was released in US theaters on October 15th, 1999. I probably saw it two or three weeks later at the discount second-run Silver Cinemas near Poughkeepsie. I had no interest in the picture based on the advertising which seemed to focus on dudes fighting in a basement. Why would I want to watch a movie about that? Why would anyone?
Thankfully, my friend Joe called me at some point and told me I needed to see this movie. He assured me it wasn't about dudes fighting in a basement but wisely wouldn't tell me what it was actually about. Indeed, in that sense the advertising was actually brilliant in that in gave audiences no clue that Fight Club was actually a radical tale of anti-commercial ism and self-destruction. I've never managed to think of a way to successfully sell this story to people other than the way Joe did it: he told me I should see it and he was right.
I covered some of this in my now-five-year-old essay about meeting Chuck Palahniuk, but the impact Fight Club has had on my life is hard to underestimate. Superficially speaking, it became my favorite movie of all time (a title I think it still retains) and the book managed to draw me into reading as a hobby, something I was never really keen on. Not just Chuck Palahniuk's work either, but books in general and, surprisingly, non-fiction in particular. I still read novels but the ideas put forth in the movie motivated me to read more non-fiction because such books invariably force me to look at the world in a different light, questioning things I assumed were just or normal and making me consider alternative viewpoints.
Then again, I can't say I found myself espousing much of the same philosophy raised in Fight Club even if the movie seemed aimed directly at me. At the time it spoke to me because it was a movie about men who felt purposeless. The line that still sticks with me to this day more than any other is "I'm a thirty year old boy." I remember when I really was just a kid and I looked up at adults and I wondered when I would be a grown-up and know what to say and have a job and a family. When I saw Fight Club I was legally an adult at 22 but I was as lost as I ever had been as a kid. I lived alone in a crappy basement apartment, I had a dead-end job at the post office and my friends and I spent most of our weekends just drinking the time away. Some of them were in college at the time but I was years removed from my resounding academic failure and I had no plans to go back. I was single with absolutely no prospects, no confidence and no clue on how to even approach a woman. I was probably clinically depressed but too stubborn to get help. In every sense of the word, I was a loser.
I'm not going to say Fight Club turned things around for me (I credit my interest in Japan for that) but it definitely reminded me that I wasn't alone. It reminded me that my job, my apartment, my obesity and my loneliness did not define me as a person. I didn't need to feel lost because most people my age (or any age) were no more "complete" than I was. I was beating myself up for not having a girlfriend or a good job that people respected, but people who had those things weren't living problem-free lives, they just had different problems.
In Fight Club men get together and start doing horrible things to each other and society in general, but that wasn't the message I took away from the story. Rather than going out and get into fights, I just started going out for going out's sake. I began spending a lot more time visiting my college friends and meeting new people. I don't think it's a coincidence that less than a year after seeing Fight Club I enrolled in evening classes at The Japan Society in New York. The characters in the movie embraced self-destruction (and destruction in general, frankly) while I began a move towards self-improvement. They found purpose in fighting and retaking control of their lives, I just went for the latter without all the scarring the former would entail. The main character has an unfulfilling job and an unremarkable condo so he throws it all away in a quest to hit bottom - all so he can rebuild himself. I had much less to work with than he did but rather than destroy what I had, I skipped that part and just started fixing what little things I could. Maybe that's why it took me five years to finally quit that terrible job and get back to school.
I suppose there's no straight line to draw between Fight Club and anything it inspired me to do, see or read. All I can really say about it is that it's an excellent movie that I'll never forget. That doesn't make it sound very special but maybe it can't be special to everyone. At the very least, I promise you it's not about dudes fighting in a basement - although that totally happens.
Labels: anniversary, Fight Club, movies
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Thursday, June 18, 2009
I Am Dan's Sleep Starved Brain
I can't sleep. For someone with a nickname like "feitclub," this is very bad news. I'm not talking to myself (at least, not more than usual) and I haven't started plotting against society or anything, but without any self-help groups to cavalierly drop in on, I'm not sure how to correct this problem.
Oh don't worry! I mean, if I lay down in bed I will eventually fade out, but it takes a very long time and I am routinely waking up earlier and earlier in the morning regardless of when I turn in. Last night I went to bed at 11, tossed and turned for over an hour and then woke up around 4:30. I never fully fell asleep again, although I didn't get out of bed until it was almost 6. This is not enough rest for me, especially considering how much energy and liveliness my job demands.
The potential causes, as I see them, are numerous and overlapping. First and foremost is Mako and the frustratingly-unborn son she's still carrying. After her appointment last Friday and some sudden discomfort on Saturday, I was sure this kid was on the fast track for the birth canal. No such luck; it's now Thursday and she feels no closer to delivery than she did at the start of the month. She'll visit the doctor again tomorrow and we'll see what the the prognosis is, but I suspect this hovering uncertainty is definitely preventing me from drifting off into peaceful sleep since I'm so anxious about Mako's condition. The evidence supporting this theory is the fact that I sleep much better on the weekends when I am at her parents' house lying next to her.
Not helping matters is the ever-increasing temperature in my apartment. Technically speaking, Japan is in the midst of its annual rainy season, but it hasn't rained since last week. Instead, each day has been sunny and warm with a rather uncomfortably high level of humidity. I'm not at the point where I've turned on the A/C or started taking a second shower to cool down, but the bedroom is the stuffiest room in our apartment and the oscillating fan can only do so much to help me relax.
Another recent matter that might be adversely affecting my sleeping habits is my new-found video gaming time. Ever since Mako moved back to her parents' house I've been taking advantage of my audio/visual freedom and firing up the consoles on a nightly basis. For a few weeks, Richard and I were blasting our way through Resident Evil 5, so much so that the only trophy left to earn is the big one: complete the game on Professional Mode where the enemies are faster and nearly all of their attacks are lethal. The steep increase in difficulty has proven to be disheartening because the game is a lot less fun now. We've already played through all these stages multiple times to get this far, so repeated failures and restarts on Professional Mode feel like an extraordinary waste of time.
As a departure of sorts, I've finally forced myself to play BioShock and so far, it's every bit as absorbing as I hoped it would be. Indeed, the tension level is as high as any other video game I've ever played. For all the shambling zombie-like foes I've faced in Resident Evil 5, BioShock is the first game that's scared me in a long time. It's not that the mad residents of Rapture are more threatening than waves of infected Africans, it's their world that is so deeply unsettling to me. The so-called "Splicers" who roam the underwater city of Rapture all look like they were attending a party with the ghosts in the Overlook Hotel. Most of them wear odd-looking masks, which is just creepy, and they talk. A lot. Sometimes they yell at me, sometimes they argue amongst themselves, and some of them just babble and wail to no one in particular. There was a freaky moment at the start of the game where I approached a weeping woman who was fawning over a baby carriage. When I bashed her with my pipe wrench, I looked into the carriage to see what she was talking to: a revolver. That's just plain nuts right there.
Well, you get the idea of what I'm dealing with each night. Between worrying about my wife, sweating through my clothes and plugging myself into some intense virtual worlds, it's been difficult for me to just settle down and go to sleep at 11 or even at midnight. I know I should be doing all I can to sleep now before a crying baby moves in with us, but it's not like I'll be able to play many games when he's here. Either way, I'm going to be drowsy, so I might as well have my fun while I can.
つづく...(Click here to read more)
Oh don't worry! I mean, if I lay down in bed I will eventually fade out, but it takes a very long time and I am routinely waking up earlier and earlier in the morning regardless of when I turn in. Last night I went to bed at 11, tossed and turned for over an hour and then woke up around 4:30. I never fully fell asleep again, although I didn't get out of bed until it was almost 6. This is not enough rest for me, especially considering how much energy and liveliness my job demands.
The potential causes, as I see them, are numerous and overlapping. First and foremost is Mako and the frustratingly-unborn son she's still carrying. After her appointment last Friday and some sudden discomfort on Saturday, I was sure this kid was on the fast track for the birth canal. No such luck; it's now Thursday and she feels no closer to delivery than she did at the start of the month. She'll visit the doctor again tomorrow and we'll see what the the prognosis is, but I suspect this hovering uncertainty is definitely preventing me from drifting off into peaceful sleep since I'm so anxious about Mako's condition. The evidence supporting this theory is the fact that I sleep much better on the weekends when I am at her parents' house lying next to her.
Not helping matters is the ever-increasing temperature in my apartment. Technically speaking, Japan is in the midst of its annual rainy season, but it hasn't rained since last week. Instead, each day has been sunny and warm with a rather uncomfortably high level of humidity. I'm not at the point where I've turned on the A/C or started taking a second shower to cool down, but the bedroom is the stuffiest room in our apartment and the oscillating fan can only do so much to help me relax.
Another recent matter that might be adversely affecting my sleeping habits is my new-found video gaming time. Ever since Mako moved back to her parents' house I've been taking advantage of my audio/visual freedom and firing up the consoles on a nightly basis. For a few weeks, Richard and I were blasting our way through Resident Evil 5, so much so that the only trophy left to earn is the big one: complete the game on Professional Mode where the enemies are faster and nearly all of their attacks are lethal. The steep increase in difficulty has proven to be disheartening because the game is a lot less fun now. We've already played through all these stages multiple times to get this far, so repeated failures and restarts on Professional Mode feel like an extraordinary waste of time.
As a departure of sorts, I've finally forced myself to play BioShock and so far, it's every bit as absorbing as I hoped it would be. Indeed, the tension level is as high as any other video game I've ever played. For all the shambling zombie-like foes I've faced in Resident Evil 5, BioShock is the first game that's scared me in a long time. It's not that the mad residents of Rapture are more threatening than waves of infected Africans, it's their world that is so deeply unsettling to me. The so-called "Splicers" who roam the underwater city of Rapture all look like they were attending a party with the ghosts in the Overlook Hotel. Most of them wear odd-looking masks, which is just creepy, and they talk. A lot. Sometimes they yell at me, sometimes they argue amongst themselves, and some of them just babble and wail to no one in particular. There was a freaky moment at the start of the game where I approached a weeping woman who was fawning over a baby carriage. When I bashed her with my pipe wrench, I looked into the carriage to see what she was talking to: a revolver. That's just plain nuts right there.
Well, you get the idea of what I'm dealing with each night. Between worrying about my wife, sweating through my clothes and plugging myself into some intense virtual worlds, it's been difficult for me to just settle down and go to sleep at 11 or even at midnight. I know I should be doing all I can to sleep now before a crying baby moves in with us, but it's not like I'll be able to play many games when he's here. Either way, I'm going to be drowsy, so I might as well have my fun while I can.
Labels: BioShock, family, Fight Club, pregnancy, Resident Evil, video games
つづく...(Click here to read more)
