so i saw The Pianist yesterday afternoon - and pronounced it "PEE-anist" instead of "pee-AN-ist"..and i'm still mad at roman polanski for making us do things like that. there are so many unnecessary grievances.

the pianist was great..not as unfeeling as some reviews have said, though he is a strange protagonist, there's something you don't like about him, but not as much as i'd expected. frank was right in saying it "showed more" than movies like schindler's list..i think it might have..i liked how it showed the little moments of jewish life even before they were moved into the ghetto. i still think everytime i think of the holocaust if they'd taken a civil disobedience approach like gandhi and just refused to do what the germans wanted..their sheer number would've changed everything, many would've died but not nearly so many, yes? but what an impossible thing to ask of someone..we are followers at our core, it's so hard to take a stand. the pianist tells a beautiful story, adrien brody is, as always, very wonderful, i am very attracted to him..though it's hard to tell he had lost 30 lbs..he is always skinny and the starving moments have him with much unkempt facial hair and big baggy clothes, so you can't tell..i question if it's a hoax, or if it was necessary if it's true. the music is beautiful. go see it.

my existentialism class requires a huge 10-12 page paper due by the end of the semester and we're turning in our paper topics today, which i suddenly remembered at 1am last night..but i have a good one: i want to discuss nietzsche's views that christian morality is against nature...and this i could easily ramble on for 10 pages about, and of course it is summarized very nicely in a few of nietzsche's chapters and this is something i've even been thinking a lot about lately, so i'm actually kind of looking forward to delving into this. this is what i've been thinking: as much as i love the teachings of gandhi and, to some extent, jesus, there is something about nonviolence at all costs that is against human nature...i say i would be willing to die rather than kill someone else, but i'm sure in a moment of sheer terror with someone rushing towards me with intent to harm me, if i had a gun at my side, i would not hesitate to pick it up and shoot them, hopefully in a place that would not kill them. and what of situations where someone you love is at risk? i don't think gandhi ever had the lives of his wife or children at stake, having to choose between their lives and his ideals.. what a terrible decision.
and then there's the side of me that doesn't want to destroy all the evil in the world, that knows that evil is necessary to balance with the good and that life should just be taken all in that way and appreciated.. and yet we strive to eliminate the evil in ourselves? we try to smother out things like hate and revenge and envy and pride, when these things are all very much in our nature to do..so is it right to do that? well i'll be getting into that, won't i? i like these questions.

"s": i read a little of your blog, and i'm going to find time to go back and read more.. i realize now that my mistake on your gender was silly..i only read some things from june 2002, wanted to start at the beginning, so i'm not sure if you're married or not.. i'll comment there later on all that. and what do you mean you were on my first blog?

i am resolved with frank's engagement.. (axel, btw, frank is engaged to girlfriend of 3 or 4 months, lauren)...they're not planning anything until may 2005 and they of course have no immediate desire for children and if something's going to go wrong with them it will probably happen before 2005, and if not, maybe they're meant to be together and that's just fine. still though, someone is going to need to tell him, if this is all going to happen, at some point before it does happen, that the lot of you do not like lauren.. unless you feel like you're getting used to her slowly. but i think that needs to be addressed, tell me what you think alan.

and oh my the florida film festival is next week, which i don't understand because it's usually over the summer but i guess they're looking for better weather..which is smart..but it's just a horrible time for me financially. every damn movie is $8 and i want to see like 15 movies.. well that's not going to happen, hopefully i can get in at least 3 or 4. the one big must-see-for-me: a documentary on the life of jeff buckley...oh my g o d.. i freaked out when i saw this, i'm so excited. i wish alan and jenn could come and see it with me but they don't live here and it's playing on a saturday afternoon, the 21st weekend, but the showtime that's probably best for me is next monday night...and that doesn't work for other people. so many of the films don't come out on video later either..i hate that. i'm still waiting on seven and a match. so there's that.

i'm rereading the sirens of titan, finally..i'm about to launch back into one of the most serene feelings in the universe..i can't wait. here's a cute little review of it by a random guy found over at amazon.com:
"When I read or reread Vonnegut, I often wish to weep: someone so wise, so funny, so irreverant yet reverant, so eloquent, managed to write fifteen to twenty wonderful works after surviving the bombing of Dresden. Hoorah!

SIRENS OF TITANS is startlingly mature for a novel written in 1959 (...). The insights about life and reality which one finds all the way through TIMEQUAKE already are fully developed here.

What insights? The ones obvious to those with ears to hear: that life is governed by accidents rather than the will of divinity; that the concept of "hell" is hideous and wrong; that humans are capable both of great kindness and great depravity; that irony seems to rule the universe with an iron fist; that despite the pains and hardships of life, there still is an astonishing richness of beauty, of wonder, and much to laugh heartily about. When one finds these last three, one might do best by paraphrasing the words of Vonnegut's dad: "If this isn't nice, what is?"

The novel's plot is, as with all classic Vonnegut novels, remarkably serpentine, ingenious, pyrotechnic, comic, and irrelevant. The core of the book is the worldview--but one cannot understand the worldview without experiencing the plot. Form equals content. A neat trick!"

it's calling you, alan..it's calling you...listen to the sirens...