Ten Cool Things

1. Sufjan Stevens

Music is a pretty big force in my life. I listen to it a lot, and I listen to a lot of it. It was difficult for me to narrow my music choices down to one or two artists, but there's hardly any artist more important to me than Sufjan Stevens. His music impacts me in the exact ways I would want to impact people with my filmmaking and writing. It's personal, insightful, narrative but still tonal and abstract, and for me, often transcendent. In his lyrics, he delves into topics like concerns about his sexuality, his family, the places he's been, his spirituality, and the stories of others, apparently without worrying about the vulnerability of all of it. His music reaches into emotions in such varied ways, which almost always resonate.

Last summer I drove to Oakland for a weekend solely for his concert. It was completely worth it.

It's impossible for me to capture everything he does in his music in one song, so I ended up just going with one that resonates with me a lot.

2. Wong Kar-wai

Wong Kar-wai is a Cantonese filmmaker. I was first introduced to his films when I watched In The Mood for Love (2000) in my intro to film class at the University of Utah. A friend later showed me Chungking Express (1994). Embarrassingly, those are still his only films that I've seen, but I've seen each of them two or three times. The way he plays with narrative structure, the way he uses cinematography in subtle ways I've never seen before, and the way he allows the story to be carried through the expressions on his characters faces--all these things made me feel that I couldn't just sit back and watch films, but had to try to make my own. His films are beautiful and emotive while still being an intellectual, analytical experience.

3. Kokoro

Kokoro (1914) is a Japanese novel by Natsume Soseki. I actually read it for a high school English class. However, as soon as I began reading, I felt an affinity I had never before felt with a book. I was drawn in and I didn't want to stop reading, in a stronger way than I'd ever felt before. It was an interesting book for that to happen in, because its plot is incredibly simple. It is about a college student who finds himself mysteriously wanting to have a close friendship with a man he meets on vacation. The man, who he calls Sensei, tells him he should keep his distance, but the student is persistent. Sensei slowly becomes something of a mentor to him as he tries, rather abstractly, to figure out what is important to him and what to do with his life. Eventually he receives a letter from Sensei explaining his entire past. The plot is simple. But the language, the tone, the characters, and the way they think about life struck a chord with me. It presented ideas to me that simultaneously felt original and somehow familiar. Its tone and use of character and story actually remind me quite a lot of Ozu's films, which are also some of my biggest inspirations. Perhaps there is some kind of early 20th century Japanese sensibility that resonates a lot with me? In any case, this book is very important to me.

By the way, the title translates to Heart.

4. Educational Youtube Videos

Something very few people know about me is how much I like Youtube videos that do little more than explain something. I'm really drawn to these videos when they're well-made, well-scripted, and insightful. I am drawn to almost any subject matter, which shows considering how many channels of this kind I frequently watch. Some of my favorites include The School of Life (philosophy), ASAP Science (science, obviously), Numberphile (math), Nerdwriter (video essays), Vi Hart (math and... kind of anything), PBS Idea Channel (video essays), Lessons from the Screenplay (...), and TEDed (really anything). I'm interested, at least somewhat, in learning about almost everything. The fact that Youtube has given people a platform to explain what they're passionate about in fun, engaging ways for people of various knowledge levels is really great to me.

I'm not kidding. I eat this stuff up.

5. Love Letter

Love Letter is a card game that I only very recently found out about. It has a lot of its own rules, but once you start playing it, it's incredibly simple. It involves a lot of luck, but also a surprising amount of strategy. It involves several short rounds, so it's almost impossible that you'll win most of the time, but it's also almost impossible that you won't win at least once or twice. It's small (the deck consists of about sixteen cards and can only be played with four players or less), intimate, and lovely. I love card and board games in general and think they're often underappreciated. There are a lot of different ways to do board games well. I think Love Letter is a beautiful example of a game that doesn't do everything, but that does what it does really well.

6. Pokemon

I'm a huge Pokemon fan. I probably wouldn't be if it weren't for my brother and some of my friends, but I'm very grateful that they kept me interested during my tender preteen years. I know more about Pokemon than most people would probably realize is possible. I know all about the various regions in the games, I know all the type matchups (Fighting type is super effective agains Dark type, Fire resists Fairy, etc.), and if someone were to name a random Pokemon, I could probably tell you its one or two highest stats. I love Pokemon for a lot of reasons. Some of them are fairly superficial, such as enjoying the designs and creativity of the creatures in the series. But I think in a lot of ways Pokemon has taught me to value some very important things. It's probably my biggest connection to a fantasy world, which is a wonderful way to exaggerate and learn about things in real life (just think about the impact of Lord of the Rings). I've learned about the friendship, connection, and personal bonds that are formed as people participate in mutual trials by playing the games. I've learned to value differences in personal expression and taste as I've played with friends and disagreed over which Pokemon are best. Pokemon, and the community around it, is very important to me.

Here are some (but not even close to all) of my favorite Pokemon.

7. The Scientific Process

I love science. I think the things we've learned about the universe through the process of hypothesis and experimentation are incredible. We've made unbelievable advancements because of people trying to disprove what we think we know. I love the feeling of solidity it gives me about most things, when so much of life feels unsure. Unlike many fine arts majors, I assume, I really miss studying chemistry. I'm not sure I have a whole lot else to say about it, I just think it's important and I like talking about scientific stuff.

8. Clickhole

Anyone who's friends with me on Facebook should know that nearly everything I share that isn't related to my own life is something from Clickhole. Clickhole is a parody site owned by the creators of The Onion, specifically dedicated to parodying clickbait content (think Buzzfeed). I love lots of comedy, but I think my sense of humor especially tends to lean toward self-referential, postmodern, and critical kinds of stuff. While I think everything deserves to be taken seriously, I also think there is something to be made fun of in literally everything (including everything I do). Somehow, Clickhole captures all of this and shows me things about the way the world works and the way our minds work just... so well.

9. Animal Collective

Like I said, music is a huge part of my life, and I would be remiss if I didn't include at least another artist who is hugely important to me. I only started listening to Animal Collective quite recently. One of their songs, "For Reverend Green," crossed my radar, and it hit me deeply. I had a huge emotional reaction to it and had to pause and collect myself for a few minutes. This rarely happens to me. As I explored their music, I found that their sound is quite unconventional, and it touches on several different areas of the musical spectrum. It's weird, but for me, it's all very expressive and honest. I don't necessarily always understand exactly what their songs are about lyrically, but I think that's often the point. Their music allows you to place your own emotional weight behind it. That's something I love.

10. Faces

I love looking at people's faces. Anyone's face. I love seeing the expression, and really feeling the emotion a person's face reflects at any given time. I think the feeling and knowledge we get from faces is quite unique. In my experience, someone's face can tell me something quite specific--at least on an emotional level. Generally, it's impossible to tell any historical details or specific events from a face, but even without that information we can often get a powerful sense of what they're feeling. Often it's impossible to describe perfectly, but that makes the specific connection even more powerful. I love portraits, and I love closeups. Any moment in film in which we get to see a powerful shot of a character's face is very important to me. Faces, and the emotional expression behind them, is at the core of everything that's most important to me.

These images are from a Tumblr called humanae (humanae.tumblr.com), which focuses on highlighting the true color of our skin, and how really similar we all are in a very physical way. I love their portraits.