Slacker

So my friend, Sally, had her book launch on Monday (Love Object by Sally Cooper -- Go. Buy. Knowing Sally, I'm sure it's wonderful but I haven't had time to read it yet).

Sally, Diane and I met in a creative writing class at York University, and stuck together as a writing group for several years. Lot's of other people came and went through the group, but I think the three of us were the core of the group. Diane had her first book launch last year, and now Sally's had hers. I'm the slacker in the group.

Truth is, I don't think I've had any good inspiration for a book-length project. And my writing hasn't been going very far recently. I haven't been published in years.

Coincidence

Last weekend, as I frequently do, I watched some movies.

I recently purchased a copy of My Dinner With Andre, which I've never seen before. And I rented Vanilla Sky just because the trailers seemed interesting. I was hugely surprised by Vanilla Sky, which was... quite a bit different than I expected. Not hugely reflective, but there was stuff about dreams that I found interesting. About sleepwalking through life.

In some ways, I was reminded of Waking Life where the idea of dreaming is the key concept in the film. The first lines of Vanilla Sky are, I believe, "Open your eyes."

And then there's My Dinner With Andre, in which Andre talks about us all being robots, and going through life as if we've turned off our capacity to live. And this reminds me so much of the "I don't want to be an ant" sequence from Waking Life it's all a bit surreal.

"I don't want to be an ant, ya know? It's like we go through life bouncing off each other, continuously on ant autopilot with nothing human required of us: 'stop', 'go', 'walk here', 'drive there'. All action basically for survival. All communication simply to keep this ant colony buzzing along in an efficient, polite manner. 'Here's your change.' 'Paper or plastic?' 'Credit or debit?' 'You want ketchup with that?' I don't want a straw. I want real human moments. I want to see you. I want you to see me. I don't want to give that up. I don't want to be an ant y'know?"

Of course, as I usually do, I start seeing A Pattern. All these movies talking about not really being alive. In My Dinner With Andre, Wally says, "You seem constantly to be finding a significance in these things that to me are just facts." And I guess I'm like that a lot, too. It's one of the ways I'm hugely flaky.