Vivor and Squirks settling into the new vibe.
Beginning on the day of March 11th, 2011, a singular event unfolded in movie theaters throughout the United States of America: a highly anticipated military science fiction film was projected onscreen.
Or was it?
The reports of this vary, from an utter waste of time to a steaming pile of horseshit to even the most undeveloped great story idea ever produced. We do know that something happened, as too many people witnessed the event to dispute that fact. But what really happened?
The newspaper reports from Monday morning the 14th vary wildly. The Daily Breeze in Los Angeles’ South Bay said that civilian witnesses had compared the experience to watching a monkey play a video game, and that the game had been programmed by retards. Yet there was no immediate confirmation of this from Regal Cinemas nor AMC Theaters. As The Los Angeles Times headlines blared: “Battle: LA Opens Nationwide”, and “World Invasion: Battle Los Angeles Set to Demolish Box Office Records”, the ArcLight Hollywood reported a viewing of the “film” at their flagship facility on Sunset Boulevard. By the end of the “opening” weekend, the only thing that could be put together was that by approximately 9:55 PM Pacific Standard time on Sunday the 13th, millions of civilians that showed up to various Southern California theater locations had experienced extraordinary multi-sensory discomfort for up to eight minutes, with many unassuming souls enduring an entire hour and fifty-six minutes of emotionally irrelevant visual and sonic torture.
The curious thing was that no such film remotely resembling the marketing materials for “Battle: Los Angeles” had been seen in the city, and not a single penny of the on-average $11.50 price of admission was compensated by even a half a moment of anything of redeeming value. In fact, the only entertainment was caused by the handheld devices and wi-fi ordinance by which attendees posted Facebook status updates and checked their email in a 40-mile arc from Santa Monica to Long Beach.
Since March 11th, some have proffered that this collective hallucination was caused by an extraterrestrial need to be entertained, with many regarding the phenomenon as a logical result of the billboards depicting surfers off the Southern California coast waiting for waves as UFO thingies attacked what vaguely resembled what could only be described as some generally specific region of the Los Angeles Area. These accounts are probably the result of boredom, confusion, low intelligence quotients, and the finely honed skill of consuming when told to do so.
If there was something out there, it certainly remains unidentified, and according to some reports, these “viewings” are not like anything known to us at this time. But, as has been noted, the eyewitnesses themselves do not know what they have seen, and some witnesses, although sure, still have never had their accounts verified.
Jace Daniel Albao is an artist, drummer, and writer residing in Los Angeles. He enjoys watching movies worth watching and telling stories worth telling, and has recently written a novel and screenplay called Under Angels.
(via Art of the Title)
Full film and television listing:
Intolerance
Phantom of the Opera
King Kong
Modern Times
My Man Godfrey
Make Way For Tomorrow
Citizen Kane
The Maltese Falcon
Gun Crazy
The Treasure of the Sierra Madre
Lady in the Lake
Fallen Angel
The Thing
Singing in the Rain
The Man with the Golden Arm
Anatomy of a Murder
Psycho
North by Northwest
Vertigo
Grand Prix
To Kill A Mockingbird
Dr. No
The Pink Panther
Goldfinger
Dr. Strangelove
Bullitt
Barbarella
Soylent Green
Mean Streets
Star Wars
Saturday Night Fever
Superman
Alien
Raging Bull
The Terminator
Brazil
The Untouchables
Do The Right Thing
Forrest Gump
The Naked Gun
Cape Fear
Reservoir Dogs
Delicatessen
Natural Born Killers
Freaked
Se7en
The Island of Dr. Moreau
Mimic
Donnie Brasco
Mission Impossible
Dawn of the Dead
Fight Club
Catch Me If You Can
Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events
The Fall
Casino Royale
Six Feet Under
Carnivale
Dexter
Mad Men
Iron Man
Juno
The Kingdom
Wall•E
Sherlock Holmes
Up In The Air
Zombieland
Scott Pilgrim vs the World
Buried
Robin Hood
Machete
The Social Network
Enter The Void
Small world. Just got a photo from Josh Stecker at SXSW in Austin TX. He’s attending SMITH Magazine‘s panel entitled ‘How to Create an Internet Phenomenon for Peanuts‘. The overhead projector shows a couple photos from the Six-Word Memoirs book release party in NYC, February 2008.
I lost Kona nine days ago, March 4, 2011. I’ve been dreading the day Mag Perrier shows up to claim my girl for so long that you’d think I’d be ready, but I suppose one never really is. This past week and a half has been a very personal one for me. Quiet, dark, cold, reflective. My normal reaction to this type of depression is to take the dogs out, so I’m currently needing to make a few adjustments. Takes effort.
Anybody who knows me knows what Kona meant to me, but I don’t think even those closest to me truly understand the extent of our connection. It wasn’t a typical man-dog relationship. It was extreme, particularly in the beginning. I worked at home from 1999-2006, and she was there at my feet the whole time. Literally, at my bare feet, under my desk. All day.
I’ve been way up into my head all week thinking about Kona’s final years, her final months, her final days, her final moments, her final breath. On that Friday afternoon, holding her face in my hands as she exhaled for the last time against my throat, I remember calculating how long she’d been breathing. Kona had been breathing since before:
— Google
— The Matrix
— Office Space
— The Sixth Sense
— The Phantom Menace
— Columbine
— Y2K and the dotcom crash
— President Clinton
— 9/11
— webmail, blogs, texting
— jaced.com
That’s a long time.
I got Kona just after I turned 30, and she walked by my side through some long tunnels. She watched me learn Flash. She was with me when I bought my house. She watched me write stories. She filled voids during the worst times of my life, through loss, through loneliness, through divorce. She got me through my thirties. I could never have gotten to 40 without her. Kona was my angel.
I should pause to point out that Kona did live long enough to see me break through it all. She went out knowing I’m happy. And that makes me happy. In a bizarrely correct way, she chose to leave on March 4. March forth. As if it was her message to me to keep going. Reminding me that my life isn’t over yet. There are still things to do. March forth. Keep going.
I’ve been memorializing Kona since 1999. And judging from the size of my photo archives, I’m probably not done. For this particular blog post, I’ve chosen a batch of shots from this past December 2, 2010. Last Fall provided me with some unexpected downtime that turned out to be a blessing in disguise, including dozens of autumn sunsets and priceless mid-day walks with Kona and Vive that would have otherwise never been realized. Vive and I are very lucky to have been able to squeeze in a few extra quality hangs with Kony in her final season.
I remember this December 2 day very well. It was a Thursday, chilly. We hit the fields up behind Wayfarers Chapel, a spot Kona and I had in our heavy rotation long before Vive came into our lives. It was just the three of us that day, a piece of Heaven if there ever was such a thing, and the dogs were both being very cooperative with the camera. [click to continue…]
