nathan chow:

three different passages by my film professor Ray Carney in his book “Why Art Matters”:

“Life is mysterious, but its mysteries are entirely different from the mystifications in L.A. Confidential, Blood Simple, Blue Velvet, or Psycho. Their mysteries are shallow. They can be cleared up with a few words of explanation. Their puzzlements are trivial—matters of fact and event, of who did what to whom. Make a film about real mysteries, mysteries that don’t involve facts but feelings—like the mystery of who we are, the mystery of why we do hurtful things to ourselves and others, the mystery of why the effects of our actions can be so different from our intentions, the mystery of why we can never see ourselves as others see us.”

“Slasher pictures are too tame. Emotional violence is far worse than physical. Casual remarks cut more deeply than Freddy Kruger’s blades. The masks we wear are scarier than Jason’s—and don’t come off. The irrationality of our doubts and despairs is more frightening than any monster’s rampage.”

“Never forget that to be an artist is, above everything else, to be a truth-teller, one of the few left in a culture seized in a death-grip by media-induced fictions and journalistic cliches. You speak secrets no one else dares to whisper. You exist to share your most private feelings and personal observations with others. They are where truth lies. Don’t be afraid of being too personal, too private. Your most secret fears, your private doubts and uncertainties are everyone’s.”

sunday 2/17:

dinner with sarah, kayla, and kayla’s sister briana. kayla: “nathan, you write everything in your blog.”

and that’s why right now i will tell the world that my fly was open during that whole dinner – and no one told me! people, please.. do me a favor and stare at my crotch more often. you need to tell me about these things!

thursday 2/21:

for the BU admissions overnight program, i hosted jon, a prospective student. after dinner, we went to the GSU to watch a freak talent show, but it was cancelled. we played ping-pong and pool until some random girls asked if we wanted to play “mafia” with their group of friends. i’ve never played it before, but it was a pretty interesting role-playing game.. and i met some cool people.

saturday 2/23:

dinner with giselle, josh, arjun, a (yes, A is his name..), sara p., stef, and fernando.

i was planning on watching the opera “the magic flute” put on by CFA tonight, but it was packed. my friends maria and betsy got in on the waitlist but had to sit in the handicapped section. giselle and i were turned away and decided to watch stage troupe’s “the wind in the willows.” we had a nice walk and talk from the huntington theater to the agganis theater. i like it when people prefer walking to places. the play was funny, and i saw michael from last semester’s acting class in it. (well, he was sorta in the class..)

sunday 2/24:

kelly and i saw the play “waiting for godot” directed by david gram, our teacher. i especially liked lucky’s character, played by sam perry.

i went to the oscars party at the GSU’s BU central with sarah. my predictions for winners this year were waaay off. i had only 13 out of the 24 categories correct. two years ago and the year before that, i had 19 and 20 correct and was once ranked 3rd nationally on oscar.com’s prediction contest.

i saw marisa on my walk back from the GSU. we talked about semi-colons all the way to the hojo!

tuesday 2/12:

lunch with carolyn. we brainstormed ideas on how to stop people from having sex. i have no idea why. it was very random. maybe because it was lunch with carolyn. yeah, when maria and betsy joined our table later, they were pretty confused.

wednesday 2/13:

i went to BU’s Redstone Film Festival, sponsored by sumner redstone, the CEO of viacom. i sat with chang, isabella, sandy s., and her friend rachel. pigeon-kicker andrea and non-pigeon-kicker emily were nearby too.

the 6 short films selected for tonight’s screening were very diverse. i wanted my screenwriting TA jenny alexander’s documentary “detained” to win, but it came in second place. first place went to alex scigliano’s “fratelli breaks,” which i thought was by far the best in technical achievement but whose content and story were on the weak side. congratulations to all winners and finalists anyway.

thursday 2/14:

happy valentine’s day!

mmm.. desserts from Finale in the dining halls. my friend aziz and i have an inside joke with one of the myles dining hall managers about blue food. aziz’s favorite color is blue, so he wanted more blue food. last semester, i helped him ask the manager for it. ever since, every time we saw the manager, we’d jokingly ask if anything served that day was blue. so today when they finally had blueberries that went with the fancy desserts, the manager purposely put a crapload on my plate before giving me the actual dessert.

after dinner, kayla and i went up to sarah’s room. we distracted her from studying. or was it the other way around? she showed us funny photos and videos. afterwards, i told kayla to put on her coat..

friday 2/15:

dinner with miguel, sarah, kayla, marisa, amy, ed, and vivian was quite entertaining. we even talked about “arthur” the tv show!!

saturday 2/16:

karan from high school came to visit me for 10 minutes “biz” (that was his way of saying “because” in 7th grade) he was in boston for harvard’s model UN conference.