Existential (I learned that in 9th grade)

On the train ride home the other night I was once again listening to Henryk Gorecki's Symphony No. 3 (thank you Marianna). His music is freakin' beautiful man. It makes me feel like I'm in a transdimensional train that I have to keep riding until I reach some sort of personal epiphany revealing the true depth of my soul and the other riders each carry a unique message to help me along the way ("I fucked that bitch" or "You're all sinners. You're all gonna die.") except for I finally realize that I'm really already dead and drifting through my own version of the afterlife and oh my god, I'm at 181st street already, I need to get off. I guess it was just the New York subway after all. But that's how that CD makes me feel.

In other great artist news Francois Ozon is now officially one of my favourite (spelled the European way, ooh la la) directors. It seems like every project he works on is fantastic. The things I've seen of his I've either loved or at least very much enjoyed. After watching one of his films yesterday I started wondering if Ozon was gay because the boys in his films are always hot but then I remembered that the women he uses are also hot so maybe he just really likes attractive people. He's pretty good looking himself. They're also all European. I'm just saying.

Failed with an F

A woman just came to my window and asked me where they should go for rehearsals. I was about to ask her what rehearsals she was referring to until I noticed Sting standing behind her. Yes, the artist Sting. There's a benefit tonight at the theater in which Sting and his "beautiful wife" (that's taken directly from an ad I've seen) are performing. Now, I'm not usually one to much care about someone else's fame but come on, Sting? That's pretty great. I calmly informed the woman where she could enter the theater and they promptly left. When they walked out the door I realized I was pretty giddy and that I had also missed an opportunity to do...something. That's probably why I missed it, I couldn't think of anything to do, I still can't. Who was that woman anyway? His beautiful wife? She was indeed pretty.

Books=Love

"You read books to escape from life." This was said to me one day in a semi-accusatory fashion. I was arguing the opinion that many gay men (but this applies to everyone, it's just that we were discussing gay men) constantly go to clubs to relieve their minds from thought, to flee reality. My friend had that quote as a retort. He declared that I used reading as a way to avoid social interaction. That's true. But as I was waiting for the train last night I realized that in a lot of ways books are much better than people. I'm not necessarily avoiding people, I'm just choosing the more interesting of the two options. I've read a lot of books I like and some I think highly enough of to actually own and plan on keeping for the rest of my life. There aren't many people I can say that about. It's not that I dislike people, I like my friends, I like my family, it's just that books often offer so much more than the random human exchange. A good book is a much better friend than some person I might talk to at a bar. A book absorbs you into its world, a world of insight, subtly and profound thought. A world of humor and fantasy. It's all in your hand and you can adapt it to youself. Some people I know will just never understand me, we get along fine but we lack that easy exchange that signifies a lasting friendship. If I'm not interested in a book it goes back on the shelf, no hesitations, people on the other hand don't like it when you just walk away from them. Maybe I'll change my mind when everyone starts wearing dust jackets. Trend setting.