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We all know that Hollywood sometimes doesn’t produce the most original films, however, watching this documentary takes it to a whole new level.

Alejandro Jodorowsky, known for his comics such as “The Incal”, is a man who assembled great artistic talents such as Moebius, Orson Welles, and Salvador Dali to create the cinematic version of Frank Herbert’s “Dune”. This group of artists, which he calls his “Spiritual Warriors”, was gathered almost on a dime. For the most part, it was Jodorowsky’s passion for the project that got them to commit – a passion that can be seen throughout the film making the fact that this movie was never made all the more saddening.

Quite possibly the most ridiculous element of this snubbing is the fact that multiple ideas from the concept work and storyboard of this unmade film were scattered across Hollywood, resurfacing in well-known projects such as Star Wars and Alien.

For instance, the training scene with Luke Skywalker is ripped off a panel from the storyboard of Jodorowsky’s Dune and the Xenomorph from Alien was created by one of the artists working beneath Jodorowsky.

The Dune project later was passed on to David Lynch, we all know how that went.

I wish someone would at least take all this work and make an animation at least. But for now, I am glad that Jodorowsky decided to take his creative genius over to the world of comic books.

3D movies have sort of become the joke of the cinematic world. They are a clear economic tool that the company uses as a way to sell their tickets at a much higher price. The thing is, though, that 3D effects could be used to enhance the experience of a movie. It would be very easy to make the necessary changes in order to make this a true artistic form of expression. It has happened with other media and we can see examples of 3D’s powerful work today.

Let’s start off with some history. If we look at past examples, we can see that innovations like 3D can be very successful as an artistic medium. Film is a great example of this. It first started as a sideshow at carnivals, just for shallow entertainment. It remained that way until someone decided to make art out of it. We can also look to television as another example of this. Nobody thought that television would be anything more than a passing fad, but now we see that is clearly much more than that. We are currently in the middle of the second Golden Age of television and looks like it is only getting better from here.

We should try and make 3D have the same effects as television and movies. It’s a relatively new technology and we should learn to use it correctly. It could be a great tool for building atmosphere, a new way to present comedy, and a creative approach to producing scare. If we, as an audience start demanding this use of 3D, then I think we would all have a better time at the movies. It’s not like it has never been tested before either. This approach has worked in other films. Look at Avatar. While it may not be the best movie ever made, but its use of 3D is stunning. It created an amazing world that seemed real and tangible. We should start working towards. I want 3D to be art and I think a lot of people would agree with me.

Whenever someone refers me to a musician of any genre that they find “good,” I’m always hesitant to accept that what qualifies as “good” to them will be the same for me. Really, there are so many ways to connect with music and so many ways to judge it. Eminem for example can be perceived as a god of rap talent or as perpetuating the misogynistic theme of violence against women. When I first started expanding my appreciation of rap, I asked my friends what they liked about artists like 2Pac and Biggie because they didn’t quite fit into my understanding at the time of what constituted “good” rap. To me, good rap meant fast rap. Speed equated to talent, but I quickly found in these artists that a good understanding of rhythm and lyricism (both political and comedic) can often create a more profound effect than speed alone. I also realized that though Tech N9ne’s “Caribou Lou” was a great song to crank up and roll your windows down to, its lyrics contribute no substance whatsoever to the song. At the end of the day I was listening to a rapper list the recipe for a mixed drink over a really cool beat.

While different ways of evaluating value of music can open up many avenues for appreciating artistic talent, every person has their own taste and expectations. Something that has always been a crucial factor to me is lyricism. The more poetic and complex the lyrics, the more I get sucked in. I know I’ve talked about Marina and the Diamonds in the past, who began writing poetry and transferred her talents to songwriting and music production, but another master of lyric composition and one of my personal favorites is the band Say Anything. Judging solely from their sound, they fall right into the category of teen angst punk music. However, looking closely at the lyrics complicates their image by showing the band’s appreciation for poetry and profound understanding of the power of language. As a writer, I deeply admire the sentences they construct because many of them hit me on both an emotional and an intellectual level.

For example, from the song “Yellow Cat Slash Red Cat” off of their 2004 album …Is A Real Boy, lead singer Max Bemis spits the words rhythmically, almost as if to poetic meter:

Again, I watch my cousin Greg watch MTV inside his home.
He makes fun of the Hip-hop videos from the couch he rides alone.
Snug in the cushion of his cackling he forgets his looming doubts.
He has relied on this for years; you will not yank the carpet out.

The complexity of his sentence structures along with the obscured themes hidden deep beneath contemporary imagery emphasizes the complexity of adolescence and what it might really mean to be an “angsty teen.” By turning what could be crude or cliched imagery into poetics, he shows that this isn’t just some rant, rather it is a deeply thought out reflection on the grittier parts of life and how everyday scenarios (like an encounter between two cats or watching MTV) can factor into these issues that people think they understand.

Off of the same album (my personal favorite of their body of work), the song “The Futile” offers the same sort of combination of complicated language mingling with the raw emotion of the instrumentals and Bemis’ voice. In the opening of the song he starts:

Shit!
Nothing makes sense, so I won’t think about it. I’ll go with the ignorance.
Eat, sleep, fuck and flee; in four words, that’s me.
I am full of indifference.

I don’t want to clutter this post with direct quotation, but I think the lyrics often speak for themselves, reaching each listener on their own level of personal experience with the feelings that they are wrestling with throughout the song. The climactic moment of the song arguably comes to a head at a suicidal moment, though he never explicitly says he’s going to kill himself in explicit terms:

I’m eating rat poison for dinner.
Pull the cord from the phone. I am dining alone,
Tonight, rat poison for dinner.
Pull the cord from the phone. I am dining alone,
So goodnight.

Something about his use of totally non poetic words in these truly telling metaphorical and imagistic ways gives listeners a way of really rethinking and grappling with their own personal sense of these complex emotions. Everyone has felt anger, angst, frustration, maybe even suicidal at a point in their lives, but these tired and worn out adjectives are given fresh meaning by the syntactical feats of Say Anything. “So goodnight” can say so many other things than can a straightforward suicidal goodbye. Here, language is taking on the huge task of representing an arguably cliched theme for this genre of music and making it both personal and relatable at the same time.

This just scratches the surface of all of the things I love about this band. The way they use instrumentals to accompany these lyrics adds to the overall effect in a way that reading these lyrics on the web cannot convey.  At the end of the day, whatever way in which music speaks to you, finding ways of articulating and sharing this sense of “good” can open up a world of opportunities for others and yourself to experience music in a new way.

I have never been good at saying no. Whether it has been to a second helping of chocolate cake or to a role in a “low commitment” show, I always end up end up feigning remorse and replying with a resounding yes. My capacity for always saying yes has given me numerous exceptional opportunities but it has also resulted in 18 credit semesters while working 2 jobs, performing in 5 shows and 1 full length film. Somehow, with all the craziness of my schedule, I managed 8 hours of sleep (almost) every night and the illusion of a social life.

Lots of people think I am crazy for doing as much as I do, but every now and then, I meet someone who gets it. Someone who isn’t just impressed by my time management skills but understands that my quest to become a true Renaissance woman has a greater purpose than simply a check mark on my list of life goals. Last night I met one of those people.

Yesterday night I had a coaching (musical rehearsal with pianist trained to work in a collaborative role) with an extremely respected and experienced pianist to prepare for a concert that I am singing in tonight. As we worked, we came upon the subject of musicality and expression, and how so many young singers lack a connection to the text or the ability to express that connection, obscuring the true beauty of the piece with a pretty melodic line that holds no meaning for them or the audience.

Her frustration with the modern student of classical music was this: that we all too often fall into this little black box where Beethoven is king, our loyalty to our teacher is unquestionable and we never bother to look outside our classical world to see and experience things “that won’t help our careers”. What she said the students don’t realize is that those things that don’t directly help or hurt their career colors who they are as a person and as a musician; that the difference between someone who sings a pretty melodic line and someone who connects with the audience are the experiences that they have had outside that little black box. So perhaps my experience in an oil refinery or pageants won’t be my stepping stone to the MET, but they color who I am and the music that I make every day which is enough to keep me saying yes to each and every opportunity.