Fleeting Obsessions with Cate Blanchett

Even more things. There are a couple of more abstract things I'd like to talk about, but I'm feeling somewhat reluctant to discuss them right now, and the facts must be recorded. So:

The dread summer heat of Baltimore has set in. It's virtually impossible to step outside the apartment, or even outside my air-conditioned room, while there is still sunlight. That's the downside of living in a classy 70-year-old brick building: the lack of central air conditioning renders half the apartment inhospitable for most of the day.

Work on Summermix 2008 has commenced, prompted by repeated requests (from Jessica). It's got a few of the same artists from last year's Mix for Summer, and a few that I wouldn't even have considered for that mix; there's even an Animal Collective song on it. There's a lot more acoustic guitar on it than on...well, pretty much any other mix I've ever made. It will be a collection of warm, uplifting songs, some grandiose and some intimate, apropos to my version of summer, which is fairly languorous.

Yesterday I torrented and watched Heaven, directed by Tom Tykwer. Tykwer also directed two of my long-time favorite movies: Run Lola Run and The Princess and the Warrior. These are two films which, for me, carry a lot of hope and faith (which is important--because, let's face it, I can be pretty neatly described as "an atheist trying to craft his own religion") in the power of intertwined events to save (from what? Explicate later, if ever) not only oneself but those around. They are sappy films, to a large extent, but sappy in an elegant, transcendent way. So is Heaven, really, and though the script was not written by Tykwer but Krzystofs Kieslowski and Piesiewicz, two writers whom, though they are famous, I know very little about (I'm quite a Philistine when it comes to film), in many ways it seems like an alternate interpretation of the other two films. Heaven is a slow, warm film, completely fitting for these slow, warm days. It's beautiful in a way that makes me suspect it takes place in some kind of idealistic parallel reality (perhaps the titular heaven) where murderers are repentant and sympathetic, love precludes professional obligation, bad guys get theirs halfway through the story, leaving fugitive lovers time enough to flee to and drift through a timeless golden Italian countryside, and finally ascend beyond all physical limits in a shower of gunfire that sounds about as threatening as a sprinkle of pebbles, seemingly into paradise itself. (And that was the whole plot right there, yes, but that doesn't detract from the impact of the film.) What can I say--I have buttons and they can be pretty readily pushed.

Melissa may be coming to visit, and maybe sooner rather than later. Maybe as soon as the Big Art Show this coming weekend. It's strange to think we've only really hung out three times. We get along well, but I'm not sure how much of it is due to her being excessively impressed at me having a college degree and knowing about musical events--I can't seem to properly express that neither of these things means that much, in the end (especially the latter). Though she was the first person to beat me at Scrabulous (Nick's about the become the second, though I beat him the first time by almost 300 points so it's only fair), so maybe that is a good sign, I don't know. There's more to say about this, but I don't feel like doing it right now (see first line of entry). Maybe I will cover it tomorrow.