A healthy foot has so much potential to bear pain, that it’s scary to be aware of a complete absence of pain, when it is healthy. This goes for all body parts, internal and external. Lurking in the lossy midtones of paranoid conciousness is that “stages of man” poster from the elementary school’s biology room that depicts a conga line of one homosapien painted incrementally along his lifeline. Politely, the right crop of the poster comes before the corpse and decay stages, but the imagination extends it over Einstein’s zany mugshot to places where logic and science clash with the utter inability to imagine the world without oneself. A one-camera movie with the one camera removed is simply no longer a movie. Ask the audience in the darkened theatre, and they will tell you, there is no movie. Will they be angry? Will they yell “start the movie! We don’t have all day!”? This crowd in our heads, will they just leave? Where will they go? Don’t they now have all day? Stay! I’m sure we’ll get this camera fixed! The movie will start again shortly! Won’t it? Hello?
75 Comments :
Perhaps we could tide them over with popcorn and soda?
haha what?! wow.
Oh the intensity! I often think about this on long car rides, and it gives me the heebie-jeebies.
cogito ergo sum.
we are too busy to sit around all day and wait for something that may or may not ever come. for one thing we could be working on important projects that decide whether or not a person graduates from high school but do we/i? no. I'd rather sit at my little portal to the rest of the known universe and hit the refresh button in hopes that something new will come up. will it? i don't know yet but when i do, maybe then I'll write a meaningless paper on how i spent the last 18 months of my life. what does this have to do with your original post? I'm not sure if it correlates at all really but it seemed like the thing to say at the time.
Well, if the one camera was removed from the movie, it's doubtful that there would still be an audience waiting for the cameraless movie to come on screen. However, if they were, it's the mere existence of the majority of people under 30, waiting for the movie of their life to come on screen so they can see the happy ending. Sitting and waiting for the movie to start, especially when the movie may not start at all, is one of the most unproductive things we can do, and yet the majority of us do it anyway.
I, for one, am just sitting at the computer, waiting for the sneak peek at the movie. That way I can decide if it's good enough to see or not.
Oh Shawn. You underestimate the level of the crowd's hostility. For a time, the movie placates, but by the closing scenes the crowd's inevitably gone sour.
"That was shit!" whispers the 12-year-old critic to his little sister, and he starts a wave.
The murmur that ripples through the crowd is marked with an undeniable finality (though the projectionist stares straight ahead and says not a word). It doesn't take much to set them off- the scene that follows is not altogether unexpected.
Someone trips. A shove is delivered. A piercing shriek, a dirty look, a hair pull, a balled fist, a bruised face. The room is off.
The credits are rolling now, but the duel taking place on the theater floor means the peaceful piano ballad so painstakingly selected to leave an applaud-worthy last impression goes entirely unnoticed.
Leave? Nay, to leave implies choice. The crowd has no choice. The end of the movie spells the end of them. With no defense against plot resolution, the crowd makes a collective resolve: They will go down in style.
You're voicing my deepest fears, you know.
P.S. Geographically speaking, you're so so so so close to where I am now, and even closer to where I was for most of the day. I couldn't go. It's driving me nuts.
At least if the movie never starts, the ending never happens, one cannot exist without the other and [almost] everyone secretly wants [and rarely gets] a fairytale ending. If two movies were made about your life; one an independent documentary, made of interviews with people who know you and footage from your actual life and one a hollywood bio-pic with huge stars as you and all your acquaintances that is VERY loosely based on actual events: which one would you watch? We are not designed to care or ever notice anything in the present because anticipation and hindsight are almost always better [at least in our heads]. I have no clue where I am going with this, so I will stop.
I've wondered the same thing...
But not really the way you put it.
I'm not one for telling others those thoughts because no one else would get them.
Except, I suppose, you and you're crazy mind. Which interests me so.
Makes me all the more excited to see you April 15th. =^D
Anyways!
I think the audience will sit there... rioting... until they realize all of that will lead them to no where. Then they'll sit there... and begin to decay as we all will. Haha... I suppose they decompose. =^]
And I would like to say to Dear Marlee... I love your name. =^] And, I'd totally see the documentary of my life... I think hearing what others have to say about me is the most interesting thing in the world. Or what others say about others. It's better than the fantasy version of my life.
And I'd go see the documentary version of a lot of people's life. Fantasy and reality both interest me but I perfer to see other's reality compared to my own instead of fantasy which I have little chance to reach. =^] Just thought I'd share that I'd watch a documentary on Shawn's life with much more enthusiasm than a fantasy version. =^]
It is 2 AM here and storming... I'm a nervous wreck... I'm so sorry this was so long. =^]
Your** (not you're... can't believe I missed that major mistake >.<)
I paid $8.50 for my movie ticket and I am not leaving until I see that movie.
You know what?
I paid absolutely nothing to see a Yankee In The Chip Shop video and I'm not gonna stop checking back on Oxen's page, youtube, or yahoo music until I get it... =^P
I imagine it will be like that lull in the theater after you've just watched a movie that has a profound effect on you- Magnolia, for instance- when some of the audience has just had their guts torn out and stomped on and need to collect themselves before making their way down the aisle littered with stale popcorn and the empty packages of Junior mints and the rest of the audience are unsure whether sufficient time has passed and it's okay to clap and walk out of the theater.
I imagine it might be different under unexpected circumstances. You know, like when theaters still used film and the projectionist lost track of the cigarette burns and the film runs out right in the middle of the story, leaving the audience with an empty white screen and an unfulfilled feeling.
Hey, you know what would be great though? If the Matches cover of More Than A Feeling played during the end credits. Fantastic I tell you.
Shawn,
A peabrain at 1:11am searching over these words cannot truely convey them. So I ask you:
A dream? Or a metafictional idealism of a world without you brought on by the endlessly daunting days of touring?
Next stop: Canada.
-Doll
as I very recently learned,the inhabitants of Trafalmadore would infact see every one of us as a centipede with all the different size legs presented on mentioned poster, this could make the issue of waiting for a film more like a moment to see the road to how you found yourself in that dimly lit room and how, presumably, you will walk out of it. So, unless the yelling of "start the movie" were your first words as well as your last, the movie is already playing, you're just not looking at the screen.
i imagine its the same feeling when you never see shawn harris after the show in detroit last night? i somewhat had that feeling.
Then they should have known far better than to hoist themselves toward a movie! The best ones not only entertain, but will proceed to stay with you. Coaxing you to feel organs twist in ways you didn't know existed, long after lights are off in the theater.
...and walking from here, up San Pablo, bent around Ashby, ending in Berkeley, in pirate boots was a bad idea for feet. But, it was my bad idea!
you sir are on crack... and in response to what anonymous said if you put me i a theater where there is no movie you can probably get me to sit there for months as long as you provide a steady stream of free red vines and popcorn, maybe a soda every now and then. also i'd probably go home every now and then to shower and eat food not made of flavored sugar and/or corn but i'd always come back, why because i got nothing eles on my agenda and because eventually i would see some movie at some point in that theater... i like candy that is what i'm trying to say.
movie? - no, its a film!
This one camera(less) film may be mistaken for some post modern experimental European cinema and merely to save face and give the impression of being all artsy, bohemian and knowledgeable about that sort of thing the audience would stay and marvel this new modern masterpiece. Nobody would riot or complain because to do so would be folly in the 'artsy' world. Instead, they would debate over genre: can it be called stylistic, perhaps it is neo-neo-noir? So immersed in their artsy shenanigans, not even one will realise they have be diddled. Such is life.
L
I've got all day.
is this a metaphor for the band D :
In all honesty, I read your post over five times repeatedly, and still could not comprehend your main point.. as I do on most of your posts come to think of it.
But ultimately, it always makes me think.. and thinking is good, I think.
:)
w-o-w i havent been on in ages.
Undoubtedly people would be angry. But there would always be that one depressed lonely middle-aged guy in the crowd who came by himself listening to everyone's protests of "we dont have all day!", and sadly thinking, "you know what? i DO have all day." He hangs his head looking sad mulling over how crap his life is. At this point the camera focuses in on his face, then slowly zooms out showing the rest of the cinema in a furious state about to start a riot but no one notices poor old Gary.
Pfft.. Thats a movie in itself.
Ooh i forgot to mention how much i love the new album. clouds crash and from 24c are my favourites. My dad likes yankee in a chip shop and sings it in the car, its mildly horrifying.
...I'd notice poor old Gary...
I mean... I would go and hug him. Cheer him up. Loneliness is not fun and I don't find arguing much fun either. So I'd avoid arguing and I'd just go to fixing his loneliness. =^]
By the way, I don't think you should compare the abscence of pain in your feet a "healthy" state. You could probably drive a nail into my foot after a rehearsal and I wouldn't feel it. And I don't believe that's healthy.
But please, if you're going to be making budget-cuts on your single camera man, make the last scene really good.
-D
hey!
as i type i am uploading some awesome pictures of you guys from the criminal records in-store onto my flickr...
www.flickr.com/photos/htrollope
everything that happened in toronto was amazing...and thank you so much for playing acoustic afterwards. and the $2.35.
i'll be seeing you in buffalo on the 27th. be ready.
How many people will get pissed off from one simple sentence?
I didn't read any of the long thought out responses.
I highly doubt any attempts at such genius will amuse me. And I'm not gonna lie, I was a bit worried when this blog started off about feet. I'm glad you progressed so seamlessly.
you should seriously write a book, i would love to read it!
Your words make me think, Shawn.
I like that.
There are not enough people out there that will really make me sit and think.
So, thanks.
While other may find fault in the people waiting to see the movie that may never start, I think I would be one of those people; I would be one to sit there and wait, without saying a word, for the movie to start. If we don't have the patience to wait for what we wish to see, how can we expect to ever see anything good. So what if that day was a waste! Hopefully they will have many more days to spend doing whatever they may wish. After all, most of us waste our time sitting, watching, waiting mindlessly, and for what do we wait? No I would much rather waste my time waiting for what could be a life changing movie to start, then to sit alone at home waiting for something I know not of to happen.
At least this way you're not alone, and can share gummy bears with your friends.
It depends on what you believe to be part of the 'after life'.
Is the movie a double feature? Does it have an alternate ending that only appears after the credits roll by? What about some silly joke at the very end?
I'd say it was a vhs. You're at home, and the remote is somewhere in the depths of your couch. Somewhere sunken in with change and maybe some rotten skittles. That is, if the latter does in fact decay and become putrid. Living in modern America, you are clearly too engorged in what you are watching to find it. Why make any extra movements?
Who needs to fast forward anyway? You'll miss the spider web in the corner or that particular smell that only wafts outside during the early mornings of the spring. Is that even still around, since no one is bothered to stop for a minute? I digress. Since you can't fast forward, there is no way to see the ending before it happens. There is no way to rewind. The people can leave, but aren't they, as we are, curious to see the end? To see if there are bloopers after the credits? Of course they are! So, no, they won't leave, unless they're assholes or they are oblivious.
I'm frightened by death.
In the end, there is no answer; to each their own opinion on the matter (which is obvious by the long explanation posts following your own).
Stop sleeping through movies, you'll miss the good parts!
But, for who's to say they've been diddled at all? A variety of life's best moments occur in a darkened room, you know.
Or perhaps we're merely optimistic.
Idealists if you will. Reverting to days before you were aware. When you paid your $2(0) dollars, admired the vintage posters strewn across halls, and followed luminescent floors to your place sat amongst dust covered seats. In waiting your eyes fall upon the space where once child loved candy fell (probably at the climax) during the film, only to be ignored, until they are peacefully, rightfully united in the closing credits. Or opening, depending on how your mind's machinery works.
Have you ever tried the veg. Einstein bagel sandwhich thing at Einstein's? so yummy.....
That anonymous with the really long comment ending in that they are afraid of death...
(I've always wanted to ask this question to someone I've never actually met)
Why do you fear death?
Death has a mystery to fear, yes, but it has no pain. You feel pain before you die. Once you die, it goes away. Or, so I believe. Then, you find out the answer to the mystery. Is there a Heaven? A Hell? A limbo? Is anyone let into one or are there guidelines? Does religion really decide where you go? Who is correct? Is there anything? Maybe we just become spirits to roam this world forever. Maybe we become soil for the beatiful trees on this planet.
So, why fear death?
I fear pain. Sure, I do not want to die, but I know I must some day so I do not fear it.
...that question lasted much longer than it was supposed too...
I think I do, because I don't know what happens after. Don't get me wrong, I love surprises, and not knowing things doesn't bother me. But I am scared of not existing. Of just blacking out and having nothing more to experience. It just boggles my mind (for lack of better wording) that we can just ... stop. The mind is such an intricate object, and so is one's being. I don't want it to just cease. I can't explain it I guess, seeing as that did not do much. Maybe after some much needed sleep, I will try to re-evaluate my fear. haha
I just answered assuming you were referring to me, whereas you very well may not have been.
Why would death be painful (assuming that death is not a product of some painful event- car accident, electrocution, exsanguination, getting crushed by falling masonry, childbirth)?
poster above me, that seems like a very valid reason to fear death. I try to think of it this way: You fear death because it means you won't exist, but when you're dead you don't really realize you don't exist and life is over (not in the Bruce Willis Sixth Sense way, in the I-have-no-conscious-thoughts because -my-brain-has- ceased- functioning way) so you won't mind not existing! So there's really nothing to fear.
fear of the unknown?
I was asking anyone that was willing to answer.
And I figure any form of death would be painful at least a little. Even just a little pinch then BAM dead.
But I suppose those are very good reasons to fear death. Thanks for explaining a little more as to why someone would fear death.
When I ask someone I've met like face to face, they freak out and are all "YOU WANT TO DIE?!? YOU DON'T FEAR DEATH?!? WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU???" and that is rather annoying.
wow people are irrational sometimes. why would someone freak out about that?
ive actually been thinking a lot about death recently (that sounds terrible in writing but its more of a curiosity than anything else). they say we fear what we don't understand. well i guess that's true because i don't understand death and i certainly fear it.
it also involves what i have done with what life i was given. how would people think of me after i was gone and how many people would remember and for how long? this just sounds selfish. i dont really know.
the most important thing is having the knowledge that you will die.
I know everyone says 'yeah, i know i'm gonna die, duh, everyone dies.'
But it's good to go beyond that and be perfectly fine with the fact that nothing is permanent.
they would keep waiting, afraid to miss something.
trust me, i had an eerily similar experince over this past weekend. most won't leave the theater unless they're told.
i think i get it.
Shawn, I love you. End of story.
please don't let this be a metaphor of the band
This post has been removed by the author.
This post has been removed by the author.
Shawn,
Is there any way at all I would be able to get my hands on a photo-pass for your show in Buffalo on the 27th?
Starting to question the afterlife, huh? I'm not sure if it's what happens after that scares me, I'm more concerned with the here and now. I think about what will happen to the people I leave behind more that what will happen to myself. I don't fear death, I've dealt with it since I was born. My father died before I really knew who he was, so it was always something that I was very aware of. I think that we are taught of a fantasy afterlife where our spirit is born again in a heavenly state, where we are finally "free". Some believe in reincarnation, some believe that when we die, that's it. In the end I don't really think any of that matters. We all choose our own fate, in life and in death.
Who knows maybe our entire world only exists in our heads. I have a friend that believes in solipsism. Maybe our perception is the only thing that really does exist. When we die, our whole world dies with us.
that's got to be one of the worst feelings in the world, coming fully aware to the fact your life is a one-camera movie. and that your camera will soon run out of batteries.
funny that you should post this, i just felt this last week.
let's make the best of it. let other people run re-runs of the salvaged hidden reels our cameras took so that we won't be forgotten.
heaven forbid we be forgotten.
In Response to: (pope) benemegan,
Heaven forbid we be forgotten, yes. However, many do not fully realize that the memories that have been passed down via actual footage through one-camera movies (ironic) or other manners (Ann Frank's diary) do not describe how the person was themselves. We remember people based on what they did, not on who they were. The only people who knew who the direct person was, were friends, acquaintances, relatives, and even enemies. Those who had never met them during their waking life had not known who they were as a person.
Ann Frank, for example, could have been the must jealous sonofabitch to walk this work, for as much as we know. However, in her diary she is frightened by the Nazi's, therefore showing a different (not necessarily true) side to her. [nothing against Ann Frank]
Just keep that in mind. When we are dead, eventually we will be forgotten like the billions before us.
Not to be morbid,
Emahlee
Hey Shawn, If you can remember back to when you played nottingham, you guys were kind enough to let me play the end of Audio Blood. I managed to find 2 vids on youtube of this great event. Thanks again, hope tour is good.
matt
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yzx2DU7QEq0
+
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoL07xWN1HA
Hello, sir,
I have reason to question you (or at least a site you are associated with) and hope that you will take a moment out of your day to give a simple reply.
After waiting for the internet to process the click of a link for what seemed like days, I came to your OXEN site with a bit of sorrow.
Why is it that despite the foreshadowing greatness of the glimpse of "Yankee In a Chip Shop" and the misleading title of "(March 2008)" I have yet to see this masterpiece? It is now past the March Madness month, and I have been patiently awaiting the next contribution to art from The Matches.
I understand potential delays due to drugged eyes from lack of sleep. These eyes may help edit the video to perfection; however, my eyes and ears have been straining to come in any contact with news regarding this new single.
Please enlighten me with the true due date!
Thank you,
Emahlee
Awwww you let someone play with you during Audio Blood? I thas always been a dream of mine to get on stage and sing along with them. For my luck, I'd be to chicken to speak... but still! It's a dream I will eventually reach... I hope...
ANYWAYS-
Yes. I check Youtube, Yahoo, Oxen, and Myspace for the video daily.
i decided that if you take away the only camera filming the movie then the only solution is a live preformance [which i don't think i spelt that word right... oh well too tired to check spelling]yeah there needs to be a performance in order to get the artist's voice out and don't worry if it will take long as i've said i like candy so i'll be there waiting for the show to go on..... hey currently i'm at the bottom! meaning that most likely no one is reading this, in the words of one of my favorite teachers "whoot whoot people whoot whoot"
Dear Matches,
I'm currently in an NYU sculpture class and i'm finishing a project based on one of the songs off of the new album. The assignment was to create a sculpture inspired by your favorite song. I chose to do a painted wooden piece on the lyrics to "Clouds Crash" because it reminded me of the Raffy songs i listened to as a child and i wanted to incorporate child-like doodles... the likes of which could be seen in pop-up storybooks. Anyway... the scupture is going to be finished by thursday, April 10th and critiqued friday the 11th. We're placing our scuptures in the vicinity of our East Village art building at Stuyvesant Place - a crossroad at East 9th and 3rd street. I found it funny that you guys will be doing a concert on the same day (i know because i tried to get tickets... congrats on selling out lol)It would be amazing if you guys could stop by and take a look and/or critique it. I'm really excited because this is the best piece i've done for the class so far.
Thanks for the inspiration,
Annie
haha what raffie song reminded you of clouds crash? or was it just overall?
I used to love him as a kid
I get that some people think a crowd waiting for their movie would get hostile, but I'm trying to imagine my reaction and I definitely wouldn't. Maybe it's that whole crowd mentality thing. On my own, I think I would just be disappointed and then start thinking about what else I can do with the 2 hours I just got back. $8.75 for 2 hours of unexpected freedom from the 2 hours of freedom I thought I was already in? I don't really know how I feel about that deal.
That my dear Sir is a very impressive barrage of eclectic imagery, gathered in a some what confused story telling fashion, to express one feeling I think I’ve seen in quite some time, then again the smallest of things do tent to be the hardest to convey.
The world is full of so many "what ifs" accompanied, more often than not, with doom and the gloom of all the dark and stormy nights riding it’s coat tails, we sometimes forget to breathe. Not till we're drowning in ifs, so many ifs that all the little dots from the “i’s” come out of our nostrils and we choke. Seems only then we try and cough them all out. Finally when they are out of our insides and brushed from out outsides can we remember, if’s are really nothing, but right now is happening with every new breath and we almost missed it.
poegrl has left me slightly depressed... because the now depresses me more than it should because then I think of what I'd rather be doing now which I can not do because it would involve doing something I am not capable to do...
Annie has left me wondering what her sculpture looks like... I bet it is cute and pretty...
You, Shawn, have left me wondering what the new video will be like... I bet it's amazing...
AND
...I'm just a mess full of wonderment.
...Clouds Crash reminds me of Somewhere Over The Rainbow from The Wizard of Oz... Did anyone else get that feel? ...I liked it. =^]
sólo hablan inglés bien y me llega plenamente su página web en español o cualquier otra lengua porque google es el mejor!
Yo sólo hablan español bien y que puedo obtener su sitio web en español o cualquier otra lengua porque google es el mejor!
Me gusta mucho su música y es increíble que yo pueda leer tus pensamientos en español
Sé que usted no entiende lo que estoy diciendo, pero te amo!
isorry the wrote more than once
no cant take off the other one i mess up the first one
whoa...i understood a lot of that spanish. i guess i should give my spanish teacher more credit...not much more...she doesnt deserve that.
super cool!
"haha what raffie song reminded you of clouds crash? or was it just overall?
I used to love him as a kid"
It was pretty much overall.I even went to a raffy concert when i was 4 and i randomly saw footage of my four year old self on a "Raffy's Greatest Hits" commercial. haha.
The sculpture is in front of the Barney Building on Stuyvesant by E3rd and 9th. It is possibly the best thing I've ever made in my entire life lol. I'm so proud. I'm taking pictures of it later so i could show it off to all my friends on DeviantArt.
The Matches definitely got me an A on this project.
we all come face to face with some internal matter of the sort sooner or later.
don't fret, things will be better..
..so i'm guessing eryn smith's future $10 movie never really played out?.. she really isn't so bitchin' after all, eh?
beetle in the box.
the world doesnt exist without yourself because the entire world is yourself.
I think this is where reincarnation chimes in with a showing of planet of the apes.
Blah. My Sculpture.
http://whatssername.deviantart.com/art/Clouds-Crash-82851464
http://whatssername.deviantart.com/art/Clouds-Crash-82851464
oops... and here's the full link.