Gathering together the myriad threads...

What a task I've taken on lately! I've been active in dozens of online sites for over ten years but there's never been anywhere to access everything from one place. I'm trying to make that happen now but it's going to take weeks to even approach that goal. I have a lot of links to things of mine at various sites online at my main website (http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~cjatkins/cryptic/welcome.html) but that's something I only sporadically update and it's never been complete. What I'm trying to do is combine links to visual art, poetry, music, video, movie reviews, art discussions, tutorials, and political/social commentary of mine so that people who only know one aspect of my work can see the other stuff easily. We'll see how long it takes. Meanwhile, it means that I have to spend less time on all of the things I do, which is hard. I do so much because I feel a need to do it so that need gets stymied when I don't give myself the time to pursue all my muses. OTOH, it's become more and more of a drag not to be able to easily point to something I've done when people ask me how to find it. It's also a drag to keep recreating the wheel on certain topics. Anyway, I'm sure I'm not the only one with this problem.

Saw about half of Mirrormask last night - will try to finish it today. There is so much gorgeous artwork and some brilliant ideas in that film but the pacing is hard to get into. It seems a little overindulgent - the story isn't keeping up with the creativity of its presentation all the time. When it does, it's fantastic. So, well worth the time and energy to see the rest of it. :)

Finished watching all of the special features on the Aeon Flux: Collector's Edition DVD last night also. I have got to buy this DVD because I want to see the film and all of the features over and over again. I couldn't get into it when it was on MTV but will rewatch it now that I see how many innovative and fascinating ideas were put forth. I needed to come to it through the film because I'm not the audience for animé. I've seen a lot of it over the years but, even when it's brilliant artistically, the stories (or lack of story) don't grab me like they do some people.

That said, there is a lot more animation I like out there now than ten or fifteen years ago. Saw a short film called Ryan the other day which was off the hook brilliant. The animation was totally integral to the storytelling and an homage to another animator (Ryan Larkin). Poignant and meaningful and it made me rethink some issues in my own life to boot. Loved it.