this year's trip to p-town was better than last year's. i actually got not one, but two chances to get sunburn which were taken advantage of, as a result i have a rather dramatic tan line on my thighs where i waited too long to take off my shorts while reading from dead to worse on the beach. only played tennis once, and it was a short attempt because while the sun was warm most of the week, the wind was harsh. oh and i actually got in the pool. just for a few minutes, and i found that i'm so unaccustomed to swimming - its been about two years i think - that i actually experienced an unexpected but mild panic when i went under. we went downtown thursday afternoon, and while there were some old shops that were closed, there were a few new ones too. not to mention a new trend in jewelry.

they're made from real butterfly wings. i saw some at a shop called sparks, they had a pair of earrings that were an iridescent blue. they were about $80, as you can see in the picture those are around the same price. the necklace was probably like $200, since its pretty much a whole damn butterfly.


i want them. its kind of creepy, yes, but at least they're prettier than fish scales, and i like those too.
so after about two months of it sitting in the netflix envelope, i finally brought myself to watch martyrs, which i had heard about through rich from fourfour. i was a tad disappointed in myself - many of the die hard fans of this movie say that it's best to watch when you know as little about it as possible, going in a virgin as the director said in his introduction. but they also said it was one of the most horrifying movies ever made, and i am bad with the horror movies as much as i love them, so i needed to be sure. so i spoiled myself by reading rich's post about it in full, and even though he had to tell the whole story to properly discuss it, i was effectively convinced that i needed to see it. and now seemed like an appropriate time for it. i've been reading a slew of vampire books, i've started reading j.g. ballard's crash, which the david cronenberg movie was based off of. sick and disturbing things seems to be the kick that i'm on, so i figured it was as a good a time as any.
and honestly, the gore and violence is not what effects you about martyrs, though it does make you want to dig your nails into your own skin to stop it from crawling. see, the reason why the ring had such a nasty effect on me was because it was so unnervingly scary but had no substance. its like being beaten and left out in the rain for no reason. but with martyrs, everything had meaning, every bit of blood spatter and gore and violence had weight behind it. there was nothing gratuitous about it, everything had a purpose. it is for torture porn what funny games was for family siege suspense thrillers, except while funny games made its point by taking away reason, martyrs does it by laying it on thick. and that's what's so disgusting, that's what makes you angry. and its what i'm looking for in my movies, especially horror. i was freaked out enough that i had a really hard time sleeping the night after but i didn't regret watching it at all - hell, i watched parts of it over again, though i restrained myself because i didn't want a repeat of that night. when i watched funny games, i was disturbed while watching but it went out of my mind as soon as it was over. that's a consequence of making a self-reflexive film (or meta, as the cool kids are calling it now), you point out what you're doing and it takes the viewer out of the film. but martyrs is all about dragging you in and keeping you there, making you understand what it is to be a victim in the first part of the film where you are dunked headfirst into a girl's severely damaged brain, and then what it is to be a martyr (as its defined in this story, which is not the typical use of the word, otherwise i wouldn't like this movie nearly as much) through the girl that tries to save her. in so many horror and torture porn films, the violence is purely for the viewer's benefit - they come up with creative and bizarre ways to fuck people up physically for your entertainment, to keep you guessing as to how far they're going to take it. this film doesn't try to do that, its not about getting your blood thirsty rocks off, its out to show you what it really takes to completely ruin someone, which as it turns out is not a hell of a lot. but it makes you understand the despair that it induces, its both in the moment, in that it spares you none of the graphic details, and in the aftermath at once. i don't know, its one of those movie's i really feel like i have nothing to say that the movie doesn't already (imagine what i'd think if i really had gone into a virgin). so if you feel like you can handle it, don't read anything else about it, just download it or put it at the top of your netflix queue right now.
and not surprisingly, i've managed to combine this input into my obsession with andre and the southern vampire mysteries. i really wish i could stop fixating on characters so much, i want to be one of those fantasy writer's that come up with elaborate worlds and stories where the characters are an afterthought - the kind of stuff that i actually hate reading, its a shame so many dragon's bait fanfic writer's are like that, but i guess that's why they write more than me. its so much easier to get a story on paper when you actually have a plot, as opposed to my situation where i have people in my head with all their motivations and angst but nothing for them to do. all i know is i want to play around with some combination of andre and
draykonis' lorcan scamander (or is it malakai now?) and a girl with mylene jampanoi's eyes and who rides a motorcycle. witness indeed.
they're made from real butterfly wings. i saw some at a shop called sparks, they had a pair of earrings that were an iridescent blue. they were about $80, as you can see in the picture those are around the same price. the necklace was probably like $200, since its pretty much a whole damn butterfly.
i want them. its kind of creepy, yes, but at least they're prettier than fish scales, and i like those too.
so after about two months of it sitting in the netflix envelope, i finally brought myself to watch martyrs, which i had heard about through rich from fourfour. i was a tad disappointed in myself - many of the die hard fans of this movie say that it's best to watch when you know as little about it as possible, going in a virgin as the director said in his introduction. but they also said it was one of the most horrifying movies ever made, and i am bad with the horror movies as much as i love them, so i needed to be sure. so i spoiled myself by reading rich's post about it in full, and even though he had to tell the whole story to properly discuss it, i was effectively convinced that i needed to see it. and now seemed like an appropriate time for it. i've been reading a slew of vampire books, i've started reading j.g. ballard's crash, which the david cronenberg movie was based off of. sick and disturbing things seems to be the kick that i'm on, so i figured it was as a good a time as any.
and honestly, the gore and violence is not what effects you about martyrs, though it does make you want to dig your nails into your own skin to stop it from crawling. see, the reason why the ring had such a nasty effect on me was because it was so unnervingly scary but had no substance. its like being beaten and left out in the rain for no reason. but with martyrs, everything had meaning, every bit of blood spatter and gore and violence had weight behind it. there was nothing gratuitous about it, everything had a purpose. it is for torture porn what funny games was for family siege suspense thrillers, except while funny games made its point by taking away reason, martyrs does it by laying it on thick. and that's what's so disgusting, that's what makes you angry. and its what i'm looking for in my movies, especially horror. i was freaked out enough that i had a really hard time sleeping the night after but i didn't regret watching it at all - hell, i watched parts of it over again, though i restrained myself because i didn't want a repeat of that night. when i watched funny games, i was disturbed while watching but it went out of my mind as soon as it was over. that's a consequence of making a self-reflexive film (or meta, as the cool kids are calling it now), you point out what you're doing and it takes the viewer out of the film. but martyrs is all about dragging you in and keeping you there, making you understand what it is to be a victim in the first part of the film where you are dunked headfirst into a girl's severely damaged brain, and then what it is to be a martyr (as its defined in this story, which is not the typical use of the word, otherwise i wouldn't like this movie nearly as much) through the girl that tries to save her. in so many horror and torture porn films, the violence is purely for the viewer's benefit - they come up with creative and bizarre ways to fuck people up physically for your entertainment, to keep you guessing as to how far they're going to take it. this film doesn't try to do that, its not about getting your blood thirsty rocks off, its out to show you what it really takes to completely ruin someone, which as it turns out is not a hell of a lot. but it makes you understand the despair that it induces, its both in the moment, in that it spares you none of the graphic details, and in the aftermath at once. i don't know, its one of those movie's i really feel like i have nothing to say that the movie doesn't already (imagine what i'd think if i really had gone into a virgin). so if you feel like you can handle it, don't read anything else about it, just download it or put it at the top of your netflix queue right now.
and not surprisingly, i've managed to combine this input into my obsession with andre and the southern vampire mysteries. i really wish i could stop fixating on characters so much, i want to be one of those fantasy writer's that come up with elaborate worlds and stories where the characters are an afterthought - the kind of stuff that i actually hate reading, its a shame so many dragon's bait fanfic writer's are like that, but i guess that's why they write more than me. its so much easier to get a story on paper when you actually have a plot, as opposed to my situation where i have people in my head with all their motivations and angst but nothing for them to do. all i know is i want to play around with some combination of andre and
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