In university I have very little to do at the moment, I occasionally have to read handouts and prepare notes for seminars, but that is the only things I have to prepare week in, week out. Although, I am also writing my dissertation, but luckily I have been able to chose a dissertation which revolves around my two favourite subjects.
Films and mass death. Hollywood and World War II.
So far, I have not learned a great deal about the subject, I have learned, but not greatly. Mainly because I owe the library £5 and I don’t want to pay it, so I cannot withdraw any books.
Lately I have been reading a hell-of-a-fucking-lot, more than I have done in any point of my life, although for the first time in my life I don’t have a bedside lamp, which is very irritating. Recently I have read ‘Goodbye, Columbus’ by Phillip Roth, the ‘All my Sons’ manuscript by Arthur Miller, a collection of short stories by Roald Dahl. An interesting trilogy by Paul Auster, aptly named ‘The New York Trilogy’ containing the novels ‘City of Glass’, ‘Ghosts’ and ‘The Locked Room’, more detective novels, my favourite being ‘Farewell, My Lovely’ by Raymond Chandler. A few comic books, mainly Walter Pekar’s American Splendor trilogy and Rob Jackson comics 1. Finally, I have re-read ‘The Rum Diary’ by Hunter S. Thompson and ‘The Outsider’ by Albert Camus.
Film wise, I have not been watching loads lately, feeling a little uninspired, but have still seen one or two interesting movies. Louis Malles ‘Up the Scaffold’ is a really interesting movies, and probably one of the best of the ‘French New Wave’. I was looking to write about the French New Wave for my dissertation, but did not in the end, after further reading it was not possible due to a number of circumstances, mainly being that I do not believe it had a massive impact on politics in France and that it was not actually a ‘movement’ as it had no organisation and they did not work as a ‘movement’.
I may be a little uninspired by some of the movies that I have seen lately, which I am writing reviews about, they are still lurking in my ‘finder’ waiting to be completed. But, due to all my spare time, I have decided to start writing a film, the great ‘Geminted’, it is bloody hilarious, with some cracking lines, like this:
Georgia: You are the least rebellious person I know
Mark: I’ve been rebelling since birth…I had a caesarean
Me and my friends are hoping to make the film over the winter or Easter or Summer holidays, should be bloody good fun. I have also started writing a comic book for fun, I was bored last night listening to Mark Lawrenson and Alan Hanson during Match of the Day, so I began to write a comic strip. The comic strip follows a fictional Michael Palin, in the aftermath of the Life of Brian, and how he becomes secluded and isolated, stalked and hunted by Christians and Left-wingers. It is a comedic-thriller, so if any of the two followers out there can draw, you are invited to draw the comic.
Anyway, must continue with my dissertation now. I am going to start using this as a diary again, as it will be fun to look over the posts in the future.
Free bird, out.
