The Photo
the info
Dan Carlson
Los Angeles, California

I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. I try not to think too hard about how I want to build my life around talking about other people's creations and not mine. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of a few TV shows ("The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day" for starters), you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings. I guess I was made to be a film critic.
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The Clock
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I ripped off this photo from The Sis, because it's just too good/insane/awe-inspiring not to share.

The mind reels at the slogans they didn't put up:

"Find a partner, form a single-file line, and prepare for an eternity of torment."

"In the event of the apocalypse, crouch under your desks and cover your heads … as if hiding will help."

"Swimming means the buddy system, people. That includes swimming in lakes of hellfire."
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A video that's worth sharing.

[If it doesn't load, try going here first.]
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Today's winner for Headline That Scares Me Beyond Explanation:

"Why I Still Breastfeed My Eight-Year-Old Girl."

I mean ...
...
...
...
... what?
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EXT. NEWSPAPER OFFICE — HOLLYWOOD — DAY

Another beautiful day in sunny Southern California. The blue sky is tinged with gray smog on the horizon.

INT. NEWSPAPER OFFICE — HOLLYWOOD — DAY

The newsroom buzzes with typical late-afternoon activity. A twentysomething hipster with corduroy pants and a fauxhawk, JASON, walks down a row of desks carrying a file folder. He stops at the last desk.

Sitting there is a pasty, tired-looking young man, also mid-twenties: DAN. Dan balances a ham sandwich on his knee and browses the Internet.

JASON
So, what'd you think of the game?

DAN
I liked it.

JASON
What do you mean, you liked it?

DAN
I mean I liked the game. It was good.

JASON
So you're a Steelers fan?

DAN
No, not really.

JASON
No?

DAN
Couldn't name a single player, much less positions, stats, etc.

JASON
So why'd you like the game?

DAN
I don't know, it was a good game.

JASON
Yeah, you said that, except how can you think it's good if you didn't even care who won?

DAN
I don't know. It was just good, is all.

JASON
(beat)
Did you watch the game?

DAN
(instantly)
No.

JASON
Not at all?

DAN
No.

JASON
Highlights? Recaps? SportsCenter?

DAN
No, no, and only in front of men I've just met so they'll think I'm normal.

JASON
So nothing?

DAN
Well, Yahoo had the final score and footage of the commercial with Jessica Simpson, so I feel I got the full effect of the game without having to actually, you know, sit through it.

JASON
Huh.

DAN
Yeah.

JASON
Well …

DAN
Yeah.


Jason stares at the folder in his hands for a moment.

JASON
Well, I should get this over to …

DAN
Yeah.

JASON
But I'll see you later.

DAN
Yeah.


Jason walks away.

[END.]
the post
Questions? Comments? Complaints?

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the quotes

"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael


"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut


"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
— Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04


"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid

current reading
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the wisdom
Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe


Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill


We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton


We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— August Van Zorn


There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way.
— Stephen King



Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
— Ask the Dust, John Fante