9.3.11

Worthless.

Nice tries are worthless.

House M.D., Human Error (2007).


3.3.11

Part of my attention.

I think if your clients want to sit on my shoulders and call themselves tall, they have the right to give it a try - but there's no requirement that I enjoy sitting here listening to people lie. You have part of my attention - you have the minimum amount. The rest of my attention is back at the offices of Facebook, where my colleagues and I are doing things that no one in this room, including and especially your clients, are intellectually or creatively capable of doing. Did I adequately answer your condescending question?

The Social Network (2010), David Fincher.


24.2.11

Live.

Let go of the past and go for the future. Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you imagined.

Henry David Thoreau.

22.2.11

In life.

There were people who had a good time in life. I was beginning to realize I wasn't one of them. 

About a Boy, Nick Hornby.


16.2.11

Extra fast.

They say when you meet the love of your life, time stops, and that's true. What they don't tell you is that when it starts again, it moves extra fast to catch up. 

Big Fish (2003), Tim Burton. 


8.2.11

Stone and steel.

In the absence of your touch, and in the absence of loved ones, I have decided I’m throwing my arms around all of Paris because only stone and steel accept my love.

Throwing my arms around Paris, Morrisey.



7.2.11

Home.

You know that point in your life when you realize the house you grew up in isn't really your home anymore? All of a sudden even though you have some place where you put your shit, that idea of home is gone. You'll see one day when you move out it just sort of happens one day and it's gone. You feel like you can never get it back. It's like you feel homesick for a place that doesn't even exist. Maybe it's like this rite of passage, you know. You won't ever have this feeling again until you create a new idea of home for yourself, you know, for your kids, for the family you start, it's like a cycle or something. I don't know, but I miss the idea of it, you know. Maybe that's all family really is. A group of people that miss the same imaginary place.

Garden State (2004), Zach Braff.

12.1.11

Indifferent.

The most terrifying fact about the universe is not that it is hostile but that it is indifferent. But if we can come to terms with this indifference, then our existence as a species can have genuine meaning. However vast the darkness, we must supply our own light.
 
Stanley Kubrick.

4.12.10

The price you pay.

As your leader, I encourage you from time to time, and always in a respectful manner, to question my logic. If you're unconvinced that a particular plan of action I've decided is the wisest, tell me so, but allow me to convince you and I promise you right here and now, no subject will ever be taboo. Except, of course, the subject that was just under discussion. The price you pay for bringing up either my Chinese or American heritage as a negative is... I collect your fucking head. Just like this fucker here. Now, if any of you sons of bitches got anything else to say, now's the fucking time! 

Kill Bill Vol. 1 (2003), Quentin Tarantino.


2.12.10

Embarrassment.

Have you ever gotten the feeling that you aren't completely embarassed yet, but you glimpse tomorrow's embarrassment? 

Jerry Maguire (1996), Cameron Crowe.

2.11.10

You can get me.

Well you can't get what you want, but you can get me. So let's set up and see, 'cause you are my medicine when you're close to me.

On Melancholy Hill, Gorillaz.


28.10.10

Para reír.

Dicen que para reír no hace falta mirar atrás. Y esta vez, para mí, tienen razón.


La mitad del amor. Andrés Calamaro.

The sacred geometry of chance.

He deals the cards to find the answer, the sacred geometry of chance, the hidden law of probable outcome, the numbers lead a dance.

Shape of my heart, Sting.

3.10.10

Impossible things.

"There is no use trying," said Alice; "one can't believe impossible things." "I dare say you haven't had much practice," said the Queen. "When I was your age, I did it for half an hour every day. Why, sometimes I believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

Lewis Carroll, Through the Looking Glass.

16.9.10

When last call calls.

Backspin on a work table under a bad light, a kiss of the eight ball, a bank off the six. Double bowl on a single throw, three pints in. Picking up a spare on the final frame. Singing on key, off key and losing keys. Steady hands, blurry eyes. Bars, billiards, basements, bacon sandwiches with extra hot sauce. Surviving buzz kills, third wheels, cock blocks and cabs in the rain. Finish lines drawn by dawn. These are the providence of the after hours athletes. When last call calls, don’t answer. The night too is for sport, and they are the champions.

After Hours Athletes. Puma. Droga5.


10.9.10

First instinct.

For whatever reason, my first instinct is to laugh, when someone does something great.

John Mayer, Where The Light Is.






6.9.10

That sticks.

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

Inception (2010), Christopher Nolan. 


3.9.10

When we all fail.

There is a time when we all fail,
some people take it pretty well,
some take it all out on themselves,
some they just take it out on friends.
Everybody plays the game,
and if you don't you're called insane.

I'll try anything once, The Strokes. 

30.8.10

An essential element.

He wonders if words aren't an essential element of sex, if talking isn't finally a more subtle form of touching, and if the images dancing in our heads aren't just as important as the bodies we hold in our arms.

Invisible, Paul Auster.

24.8.10

A spin down the road.

When the spirits are low, when the day appears dark, when work becomes monotonous, when hope hardly seems worth having, just mount a bicycle and go out for a spin down the road, without thought on anything but the ride you are taking.

Arthur Conan Doyle.
 




 

6.8.10

Esa suerte.

Mi madre fue muy imaginativa y con una cierta visión del mundo. No era una gente culta pero era incurablemente romántica y me inició en las novelas de viajes. (…) Mi madre leía mala literatura, no era culta, pero su imaginación me abría otras puertas. Teníamos un juego: “Mirar el cielo y buscar la forma de las nubes e inventar grandes historias.” Esto ocurría en Banfield. Mis amigos no tenían esa suerte. No tenían madres que mirasen las nubes. 

Julio Cortázar.

24.7.10

Support group.

Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called everybody, and they meet at the bar.

George Carlin.



16.7.10

Un momento extraordinario.

El fútbol es uno de los grandes fenómenos del Siglo XX. Lo importante es el gol. El fútbol es un deporte en el que se fracasa sistemáticamente porque el 98% del tiempo no se consigue aquello que se busca. Por eso, la llegada del gol es un momento extraordinario, de explosión absoluta.

Martín Caparrós.

5.7.10

Lived.

Harry Potter, the boy who lived... Come to die.

1.7.10

And not have to feel.

Because sometimes people do actually feel that way. Sometimes your life feels like it's caving in on you. Sometimes people really do feel like they don't exist, like they just want to curl up into a ball, and go into that place between life and death. Saying "I don't want to exist" isn't saying "I want to go die". It's saying "I wish that, for the time being, I could go somewhere and not have to feel". I don't think there's anything wrong with that. And if you don't know how it feels to feel this way, then you have no place to judge anyone who does.

30.6.10

The second mouse.

Two little mice fell in a bucket of cream. The first mouse quickly gave up and drowned. The second mouse, wouldn't quit. He struggled so hard that eventually he churned that cream into butter and crawled out. Gentlemen, as of this moment, I am that second mouse. 

Catch Me If You Can (2002), Steven Spielberg.


She rests at last.

The holy grail 'neath ancient Roslin waits. The blade and chalice guarding o'er her gates. Adorned in masters' loving art, she lies. She rests at last beneath the starry skies.

The Da Vinci Code (2006), Ron Howard. Novel by Dan Brown.

7.6.10

The sweet pitch of its siren.

You see that pack of Virginia killing sticks on the end of the piano? All you need to know about life is retained in those four walls. You will notice that one of your personalities is seduced by the illusions of grandeur - the gold packet of king size with a regal insignia, an attractive implication towards grandeur and wealth, the subtle suggestion that cigarettes are indeed your royal and loyal friends, and that, Pete, is a lie. Your other personality is trying to draw your attention to the flip side of the discussion, written in boring bold black and white, it's a statement that these neat little soldiers of death and in fact trying to kill you and that, Pete, is the truth. Oh, beauty is a beguiling call to death and I'm addicted to the sweet pitch of its siren. That that starts sweet ends bitter, and that which starts bitter ends sweet.That is why you and I love the drugs and that is also why I cannot give that painting back. Now please, pass me a light. 

Rocknrolla (2008), Guy Ritchie.


23.5.10

For twenty nine years.

I wanna hurry home to you, 
put on a slow dumb show for you, and crack you up.
You know I dreamed about you,
for twenty-nine years before I saw you.
You know I dreamed about you,
I missed you for twenty-nine years.

Slow Show, The National.


















O 32.

13.4.10

Fan.

They don't even know what it is to be a fan. Y'know? To truly love some silly little piece of music, or some band, so much that it hurts.

Almost Famous (2000), Cameron Crowe.


6.4.10

We drink.

You don't know how to drink, your whole generation. You drink for the wrong reasons. My generation, we drink because it's good. Because it feels better than unbuttoning your collar. Because we deserve it. We drink because it's what men do.

Mad Men, Season 1, Episode 4.




4.4.10

Like new batteries.

She want's to know if I love her, that's all anyone wants from anyone else, not love itself but the knowledge that love is there, like new batteries in the flashlight in the emergency kit in the hall closet.

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, Jonathan Safran Foer.

31.3.10

Bye.

Bob: Bye.
Charlotte: Bye.
Bob: Bye.

(Bob leaves Charlotte and walks back to his waiting taxi)

Bob:
(to taxi driver) All right.

Lost in Translation (2003), Sofia Coppola.
O cómo decir todo sin decir nada.

19.3.10

It had to mean something.

I was continuing to shrink, to become... what? The infinitesimal? What was I? Still a human being? Or was I the man of the future? If there were other bursts of radiation, other clouds drifting across seas and continents, would other beings follow me into this vast new world? So close — the infinitesimal and the infinite. But suddenly, I knew they were really the two ends of the same concept. The unbelievably small and the unbelievably vast eventually meet — like the closing of a gigantic circle. I looked up, as if somehow I would grasp the heavens. The universe, worlds beyond number, God’s silver tapestry spread across the night. And in that moment, I knew the answer to the riddle of the infinite. I had thought in terms of man’s own limited dimension. I had presumed upon nature. That existence begins and ends in man’s conception, not nature’s. And I felt my body dwindling, melting, becoming nothing. My fears melted away. And in their place came acceptance. All this vast majesty of creation, it had to mean something. And then I meant something, too. Yes, smaller than the smallest, I meant something, too. To God, there is no zero. I still exist!

The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957), Jack Arnold.

6.3.10

Never grow up.

I'm thirty now, you'd think it would be easy to be an adult, but apparently not. Being in a band you always suffer from being on a state of arrested development anyway, I guess. So whatever point you start a band, that's the point you never grow up past, you know. If you're eighteen, which I was when I started, that's pretty much it for life until we stop playing.

Gary Lightbody, Snow Patrol. Live from Abbey Road.



1.3.10

We're all just floating around.

You died on a Saturday morning. And I had you placed here under our tree. And I had that house of your father's bulldozed to the ground. Momma always said dyin' was a part of life. I sure wish it wasn't. Little Forrest, he's doing just fine. About to start school again soon. I make his breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. I make sure he combs his hair and brushes his teeth every day. Teaching him how to play ping-pong. He's really good. We fish a lot. And every night, we read a book. He's so smart, Jenny. You'd be so proud of him. I am. He, uh, wrote a letter, and he says I can't read it. I'm not supposed to, so I'll just leave it here for you. Jenny, I don't know if Momma was right or if, if it's Lieutenant Dan. I don't know if we each have a destiny, or if we're all just floating around accidental-like on a breeze, but I, I think maybe it's both. Maybe both is happening at the same time. I miss you, Jenny. If there's anything you need, I won't be far away.

Forrest Gump (1994), Robert Zemeckis.

28.2.10

Infortunios

El mundo atribuye sus infortunios a las conspiraciones y maquinaciones de grandes malvados. Entiendo que se subestima la estupidez.

Breve diccionario del argentino exquisito, Adolfo Bioy Casares.


25.2.10

Capacity to spit.

This must register on an emotional level...
First, distract target...
Then block his blind jab...
Counter with cross to left cheek...
Discombobulate...
Dazed, will attempt wild haymaker. Weaken right jaw...
Now fracture...
Break cracked ribs...
Heel kick to diaphragm...
In summary: ears ringing, jaw fractured, three ribs cracked, four broken, diaphragm haemmorraging. Physical recovery: six weeks. Full psychological recovery: six months. Capacity to spit at back of head: neutralized.

Sherlock Holmes (2009), Guy Ritchie.

24.2.10

A sickly moment of dark surprise.

It's a curious thing, the death of a loved one. We all know that our time in this world is limited, and that eventually all of us will end up underneath some sheet, never to wake up. And yet it is always a surprise when it happens to someone we know. It is like walking up the stairs to your bedroom in the dark, and thinking there is one more stair than there is. Your foot falls down, through the air, and there is a sickly moment of dark surprise as you try and readjust the way you thought of things.

Horseradish: Bitter Truths You Can't Avoid, Lemony Snicket.

1.2.10

The wonder of the world.

To all our listeners, this is what I have to say - God bless you all. And as for you bastards in charge, don't dream it's over. Years will come, years will go, and politicians will do fuck all to make the world a better place. But all over the world, young men and young women will always dream dreams and put those dreams into song. Nothing important dies tonight, just a few ugly guys on a crappy ship. The only sadness tonight is that, in future years, there'll be so many fantastic songs that it will not be our privilege to play. But, believe you me, they will still be written, they will still be sung and they will be the wonder of the world.

The Boat That Rocked (2009), Richard Curtis.



16.1.10

Money first.

In this country, you gotta make the money first. Then when you get the money, you get the power. Then when you get the power, then you get the women.

Scarface (1983), Brian de Palma.



Life begins.

By 30, you should know:
1. How to fall in love without losing yourself.
2. How you feel about having kids.
3. How to quit a job, break up with a man and confront a friend without ruining the friendship.
4. When to try harder and when to walk away.
5. How to kiss in a way that communicates perfectly what you would and wouldn't like to happen next.
6. The names of: the secretary of state, your great-grandmother and the best tailor in town.
7. How to live alone, even if you don't like to.
8. How to take control of your own birthday.
9. That you can't change the length of your calves, the width of your hips or the nature of your parents.
10. That your childhood may not have been perfect, but it's over.
11. What you would and wouldn't do for money or love.
12. That nobody gets away with smoking, drinking, doing drugs or not flossing for very long.
13. Who you can trust, who you can't and why you shouldn't take it personally.
14. Not to apologize for something that isn't your fault.
15. Why they say life begins at 30.

4.1.10

Pure reflex.

Now before I start there's just a couple of things you have to remember. Number one, you have to remain calm. Right? Number two, you have to show no fear because the sharks, you see, the sharks can sense that fear. Just as easily as they can sense blood. And so it went for me. Just as I knew it would. Just as nature had ordained its jaw wide open, row upon row of these razor sharp teeth glinting underwater like jagged diamonds, its tailfin sweeping back and forth as it surged in for the kill. I swear to God my whole life flashed before my eyes. Really, I had nothing left to offer except for pure reflex. Pure reflex, and mankind's basic drive for survival that somehow shouts, "No, I will not die today!" 

The Beach (2000), Danny Boyle.

Para Chubby, que sacó las fotos y se lo extraña mucho. Gracias por las postales!

22.12.09

Boy meets girl.

This is a story of boy meets girl. The boy, Tom Hansen of Margate, New Jersey, grew up believing that he'd never truly be happy until the day he met the one. This belief stemmed from early exposure to sad British pop music and a total mis-reading of the movie 'The Graduate'. The girl, Summer Finn of Shinnecock, Michigan, did not share this belief. Since the disintegration of her parent's marriage she'd only love two things. The first was her long dark hair. The second was how easily she could cut it off and not feel a thing. Tom meets Summer on January 8th. He knows almost immediately she is who he has been searching for. This is a story of boy meets girl, but you should know upfront, this is not a love story.

(500) Days of Summer (2009), Mark Webb.


17.12.09

Toast.

Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives... and to the 'good life,' whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.

Hunter S. Thompson.


The end of missing.

I like to see people reunited, I like to see people run to each other, I like the kissing and the crying, I like the impatience, the stories that the mouth can’t tell fast enough, the ears that aren’t big enough, the eyes that can’t take in all of the change, I like the hugging, the bringing together, the end of missing someone.

Jonathan Safran Foer.




 

2.12.09

What the hell happened to all of them.

In a way, it was sort of depressing, too, because you kept wondering what the hell would happen to all of them. When they got out of school and college, I mean. You figured most of them would probably marry dopey guys. Guys that always talk about how many miles they get to a gallon in their goddamn cars. Guys that get sore and childish as hell if you beat them at golf, or even just some stupid game like ping-pong. Guys that are very mean. Guys that never read books. Guys that are very boring.

Catcher in the Rye, J. D. Salinger.

4.11.09

The day the world declared in one voice.

In less than an hour, aircraft from here will join others from around the world. And you will be launching the largest aerial battle in the history of mankind. "Mankind." That word should have new meaning for all of us today. We can't be consumed by our petty differences anymore. We will be united in our common interests. Perhaps it's fate that today is the Fourth of July, and you will once again be fighting for our freedom... Not from tyranny, oppression, or persecution... but from annihilation. We are fighting for our right to live. To exist. And should we win the day, the Fourth of July will no longer be known as an American holiday, but as the day the world declared in one voice: "We will not go quietly into the night!" We will not vanish without a fight! We're going to live on! We're going to survive! Today we celebrate our Independence Day!

Independence day (1996), Roland Emmerich
.

I'll talk.

OK! I'll talk! In third grade, I cheated on my history exam. In fourth grade, I stole my uncle Max's toupee and I glued it on my face when I was Moses in my Hebrew School play. In fifth grade, I knocked my sister Edie down the stairs and I blamed it on the dog... When my mom sent me to the summer camp for fat kids and then they served lunch I got nuts and I pigged out and they kicked me out... But the worst thing I ever done - I mixed a pot of fake puke at home and then I went to this movie theater, hid the puke in my jacket, climbed up to the balcony and then, t-t-then, I made a noise like this: hua-hua-hua-huaaaaaaa - and then I dumped it over the side, all over the people in the audience. And then, this was horrible, all the people started getting sick and throwing up all over each other. I never felt so bad in my entire life.

The Goonies (1985), Richard Donner.


Our time.

Don't you realize? The next time you see sky, it'll be over another town. The next time you take a test, it'll be in some other school. Our parents, they want the best of stuff for us. But right now, they got to do what's right for them. Because it's their time. Their time! Up there! Down here, it's our time. It's our time down here. That's all over the second we ride up Troy's bucket.

The Goonies (1985), Richard Donner.