These exercises in form
Also prove that
These exercises in communication
Yield fruitless trees
The difficulties of focusing
On one, 1, I, i, _,  ,

Tree

These meanings you were supposed to see

Yet the uniform winters run long, _____________,
Bare branches lethargically scratch the sky
And when the milky bladder explodes, !,
Snow falls down, ↓, ▼
Little flakes of paradox
Unable to believe in absolute certainty
At a loss to speak without it

Every once in a while people stumble across an idea that means something to them, that they have a 'vision' for and spend months to years developing it only to find out that another group of people had the same idea and developed it themselves. I find this fascinating, as you can really see how just one idea can be construed in a bunch of ways and still work off the same empirical facts. The following are cases in point:

Capote (2005) and Infamous (2006)
(click on the links to see the trailers)

Both of these movies chronicle Truman Capote's time researching for the novel he wrote 'In Cold Blood' about a family being murdered in Kansas.

I have only seen Capote, but from reading reviews and watching the trailer, it seems that Infamous takes more of a focus on homosexuality as well as making it an ensemble piece with numerous A-actors instead of Capote where you had 3 dynamite actors (Phillip Seymour Hoffman who won the Academy Award for it, Catherine Keener and Chris Cooper). Not many knew about Infamous, with Oscar talk directed towards Capote...and Oscar talk is often needed for small, indie style films.   

No Strings Attached (2010) and Friends with Benefits (2011)

Yes, sex with a friend, how daring.

I haven't seen either of these movies, but judging by the trailers, it seems Friends with Benefits might be the better of the two. That movie seems to have a self awareness, rather than a denial, that 'sex with friends' could ultimately backfire, which to me is an intelligent concession. The latter also seems to focus less on the 'novelty of it all'; like how could a woman just want sex of all things?...which is good. I also think Timberlake is a better actor than Kutcher.

Which begs the question if a similar movie is release close to the time of another but is better than its processor does anybody actually see it?

Fail-safe (October 1964) and Dr. Strangelove (January 1964)

I can't speak for the 60's but I can say that both Lumet (who directed Fail-safe) and Kubrick (who directed Dr. Strangelove) are both gifted directors. These movies both have similar artwork, black and white, misdirection from Mission Command and a possible nuclear catastrophe. The major difference is one played it straight (Fail-Safe) and the other didn't (Dr. Strangelove).

In an interview for Dr. Strangelove Stanely Kubrick reportedly told Columbia Pictures (responsible for both pictures) to release his film first. Fail-Safe was release later and didn't perform as well at the box office. Dr. Strangelove gets my nod, mostly for one of the best endings ever for a movie...plus I haven't seen Fail-Safe.

Are there any other instances that YOU can think of 'overlap' in the past for movies, books or other media?

HesaidhehadbeenreadingtheBiblealotrecently,Hesaidthatareahasbeenkillin'peoplesinceGodknowswhen,Literally,
andthattheworldwasn'tgoingtoendnotinhisgenerationpersay,
butitwascominganditcouldhappeninbetweenthespaceswenormallygivetothosearoundus

For those of you not in the know, Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style is short book of 99 short stories done in 99 different styles. There is no ‘master’ story, if I were to use the ‘narrative’ version it would read (pg.43):

One day at about midday in the Parc Monceau district, on the back platform of a more or less full S bus (now No. 84), I observed a person with a very long neck who was wearing a felt hat which had a plaited cord around it instead a ribbon. This individual suddenly addressed the man standing next to him, accusing him of purposely treading on his toes every time any passenger got on or off. However, he quickly abandoned the dispute and threw himself on to a seat which had become vacant.

Two hours later I saw him in front of the gare Saint-Lazare engaged in earnest conversation with a friend who was advising him to reduce the space between the lapels of his overcoat by getting a competent tailor to raise the top button.’

One of my favorites by is one titled ‘Logical Analysis’ which reads (pg. 60):

Bus.
Platform.
Bus Platform. That’s the place.
Midday.
About.
About Midday. That’s the time.
Passengers.
Quarrel.
A Passenger’s Quarrel. That’s the action.
Young Man.
Hat. Long thin neck.
A young man with a hat and plaited cord round it. That’s the chief character.
Person.
A Person.
A Person. That’s the second character.
Me.
Me.
Me. That’s the third character, narrator.
Words.
Words.
Words. That’s what was said.
Seat vacant.
Seat taken.
A seat that was vacant and then taken. That’s the result.
The gare Saint-Lazare
An hour later.
A friend.
A button.
Another phrase heard. That’s the conclusion.
Logical conclusion. 

I laugh every time I read that.  Another one that I enjoyed that at times reminds me of myself is on pg. 104 titled ‘Awkward’:

I’m not used to writing. I dunno. I’d quite like to write a tragedy or a sonnet or an ode, but there’s the rules. They put me off. They weren’t made for amateurs. All of this is already pretty badly written. Oh well. At any rate, I saw something today that I would like to set down in writing. Set down in writing doesn’t seem all that marvelous to me. It’s probably one of those ready-made expressions which are objected by the readers who read for the publishers who are looking for originality which they seem to think is necessary in the manuscripts which the publishers publish when they’ve been read by the readers who object to ready-made expressions like “to set down in writing” which all the same is what I should like to do about something I saw today even though I am only an amateur who is put of by rules of the tragedy the sonnet or the ode because I am not used to writing. Hell, I don’t know how I did it, but here I am right back at the beginning again. I’ll never get to the end. So what. Let’s take the bull by the horns. Another platitude. And anyway there was nothing of the bull about that chap. Huh, that’s not bad. If I were to write: let’s take the fancy-pants by the plait of his felt hat which hat is conjugated with a long neck, that might well be original. That might well get me in with the gentleman at the French Academy, the Café Flore and the Librairie Gallimard. Why shouldn’t I make progress after all. It’s by writing you become a writesmith. That’s a good one. Have to keep a sense of proportion, though. The chap on the bus platform had lost his when he started to swear at the man next to him claiming that the latter had trod on his toes every time he squeezed himself up to let passengers get on or off. All the more so as after he’d protested in this fashion he went off quickly enough to sit down as soon as he spotted a free seat inside as if he was afraid of getting hit. Hm, I’ve got through half my story already. Wonder how I did it. Writing’s really quite pleasant. But there’s still the most difficult part left. The part where you need the most know-how. The transition. All the more so as there isn’t any transition. I’d rather stop here. 

After reading one thing I was struck by was the sense of humor in the styles Raymond chose to employ. Also, the word play is interesting, one entry titled ‘Anagrams’ where each word is ‘jumbled’ or an entry called ‘Polypotes’ where the same word ‘taxpayer’ is used for every subject. Suffice to say, I love this book, I think it is a genius piece of work that every writer should read at least once, it makes a person more self-aware of their style/voice by seeing others.

Haiku
glasses perched
on youth's nose
lucky

Limerick
Here lies Nelson the Great
with all the platitude of a Saint
No, he isn't dead, just faint
Just takin' a break
Just surveying the landscape

Short Story
The office was a mess. Papers had scattered every where and now were resting upon the floor, along with Styrofoam cups, bubble wrap, paperclips and pens. The corporate lunch had subsided and the office workers walked slowly and cautiously noticing the bubble wrap, the paperclips, the pieces of paper that seemed to have swear words on every other sheet. One of the employees stopped at a trail of clothing that seemed to dead end into the 'break room'. Nelson had always talked about ridding 'watercooler' talk, one day, he said, one day. No one quite thought he would do it in such style.

And a Sestina
I don't want to do a sestina, it is my birthday and I can cry if I want to...

Life can be dwindled down to certainty
It cleaves in two
Leading to tragedy and regret
Fortune and love

Take comfort in that
And retreat from it
When you can

Six Feet Under is essentially a melodrama about a family owned funeral home. What makes it a good melodrama as opposed to a bad one is the characters are incredibly fleshed out. They are incredibly believable even when they are doing classically ‘immoral’ things (cheating on a wife/propositioning a prostitute) that are fueled by anxiety, grief and loss. One of the main characters, David (played by Michael C. Hall), is a homosexual and the show does what I think is the best exploration into the psyche of the struggles a homosexual faces without becoming preachy. Nate, his brother (played by Peter Krause), is struggling with possibility of having to work in the family business. Nate is the character I most related to, full of emotion and always trying to do what is right despite never being fully able. Though to be honest there are things in each character I could see parts of me, Clair (the sister of Nate/David) and her art career; Ruth (the mother) and her trying to get on with her life while growing old.

Six Feet Under, to me, is like the novel One Hundred Years of Solitude, both use magic realism and both deal in death and life…they both stretch the timeline and grasp at things bigger than themselves. For the show, the magic realism has to do with the characters carrying on with 'imaginary' versions of people in their life, living and dead. At first it can come off a little hokey, but as one accustoms to the show, it can be quite heartbreaking and give credence to the saying: People live on inside you. Quite possibly because of this, I have cried more times in past couple weeks than I have in all the twenty eight years in my life. The series has fundamentally changed a part of me and possibly made me a little more morose and a little more appreciative of life.

What I am trying to write seems so shallow and unfocused compared to it...what I am doing seems so shallow. The last episode of this series, which aired in 2005 is one of the best television episodes I have seen. If in my art, I can come close to expressing that depth of emotion in the last ten minutes of the show then I can rest happily. And by rest, I mean in death.

Soft light on your perch
Your leg akimbo
One last stand
Molly the kitty cat

I have this theory that old age creeps on a person because they aren't reminded enough that it is a regular occurrence. The better medical practice/health awareness gets, the more of an increase in longevity, the more death becomes a foreign object. Until we get reminders or you wake up one day and decide to 'seize the day' and then you try seizing the day. Every reminder I give myself gets forgotten, I wrote this originally on July, 5th, 2003, and I cleaned it up to add clarity...
________________
"On the way home from Indianapolis this morning, it was raining, very hard, so hard that the cornfields were flooding and sometimes so badly that the water was crossing the road. I am driving behind this car and we hadn't crossed any water on the roads yet. I had just been to a fireworks show and then spent the rest of the night partying, so my mind tends to wander, I was thinking about having to deal with the constraints of home versus being at college...my speedometer reads 60 m.p.h, I am behind this car. I started running through my recent list of crushes and I lost sight of the car in front of me, I squint only to see a wave of water hit my windshield, and water running shoot up the sides of my truck, I had hit a mini-lake in the middle of the road, where water had crossed. I looked back down at my speedometer and it read 45 m.p.h and then I looked up to see it was clear again. My palms were sweating, my face felt red and I took a big gulp of oxygen. There were a couple more of these but I took them much slower and knew they were coming. I could of hydroplaned into a ditch or tree or something...it is good to be alive..."

"Interstellar burst, I am back to save the universe"
-Radiohead, Airbag
_________________________________________

I wrote this almost eight years ago, I would have just turned 20 six months prior. I was still incredibly lonely and looking for my first love. Just a young punk.

I don't really think I am dying, I think I am living, and I don't feel death deep enough to kick myself into believing that the minutes matter. That death happens all the time.