Two Funerals
The ground was frozen long before December so the body was cremated, not that they had planned otherwise, and few among them had never been to a cremation before. Setsuna was one of the few who was new to the experience. Though she knew the body would not be buried, in her movies she only ever saw the black-clad crowd weeping solemnly over a hole in the dirt, sometimes in a rainy grey setting, but sometimes on a warm lush day with smiling faces of contented friends and family. Some quirky person would say an uninvited but overwhelmingly moving piece in remembrance. Movies can teach you a lot, for sure. How to look pretty while crying. But it’s a lot different, trying to embody what you’ve learned. Setsuna did not think her family looked pretty when they cried, but maybe it was because the long hallway with the furnace at the end of it wasn’t exactly a pretty graveyard. Maybe there were different rules to be followed in this place.
Setsuna herself didn’t cry. She stood stiffly and eyed her relatives, looking at the cracks in their skin as their faces contorted or stayed stoic. Uncles and aunts and cousins. Her older siblings, home for the weekend’s solemn events, and her parents. Even her brother and sister were visibly upset. Her father had his arm around her mother’s shoulders. After seeing the body for the final time, the coffin was closed and slid into the chamber. The family was moved into a separate room during the hour or so it took for the process to finish. During this time, prayers were said, but Setsuna didn’t hear them. Hushed, she started to ask one of the directors different questions about the process, and if she could watch at all, but her father hissed at her to stop being creepy.
Snow Many Movies
The season is upon us, all of this years greatest snowboarding films have been released just in time to get us all pumped up for the upcoming season. Over the past three weeks I’ve seen two snowboard movie premieres in Winnipeg. One of which was of Peep Show’s Winter Wars. Now I know I’ve blogged about this before but I’d like to touch on this topic again because I saw that it won best lo-fi movie award on ESPN Action Sports. See Here.
After reading this article on the ESPN action sport website and talking with a few people I found out that without proper funding Peep Show might not continue in the future.
This makes sense considering the way that snowboarding films get their budgets are through sponsorship by companies whose riders represent their merchandise in their films. Without sponsorship the film can’t make any money.
Last night I finally sat down an watched Art of Flight the latest, biggest highly anticipated snowboard movie of this year. I was completely blown away. The shots weren’t anything like I’ve seen in a snowboard movie before and of course the back country riding was something almost all snowboarders will only experience in their wildest dreams.
But, going back to this ESPN article and what it made me realize was that I connected on so many more levels with Winter Wars than I did with Art of Flight. Don’t get me wrong I adore both, but I know that I can relate so much more with Winter Wars.
Meeting some of the riders from Peep Show and being able to email the filmers made what I’m doing seem less like a dream and more like a reality. I may never be able to 360 frontside a rail into on-coming traffic, but I feel like maybe I can film some of my friends doing that one day.
Watching both movies makes it feel like I’m dreaming of winter that seems so far in the future, but because of Peep Show it makes it feel a lot more real. I sincerely hope that the industry is able to support such an inspiring crew of girls. As the ESPN article put it “The best thing about this movie, however, is some little girl somewhere is going to see it and think, “I can do that,” and when she does it, she’s going to do it better,” and that’s what it’s all about.
Listen
What’s that thing is SUPPOSE to say is Winter Wars - Wutang
Idk why it doesn’t.
but this song reminds me of Math class for some reason.
Khorshid
i’ve been operating under the assumption that god is dead and that we are the disciples it chose to take its place, and there is no corpse for us to find and bury, it passed on in the night while we sat in rows of chairs and deliberated over the sins of man. man knows in his heart that god is dead but is too frightened of what that might mean and instead prefers to carry on as if a ghost can judge the living. at one time i might have cared if god was watching— i remember peering over my glasses (long after i stopped needing them) in the hopes that maybe i would catch a glimpse of the thing i’d given my heart to, that allegedly gave a bit of its heart to me. i was brought to this place swaddled in gold and purple and told i was something special, but that was no news to me. i’d always been told that, back when i played in the reeds of rivers whose names i’ve forgotten, back when my reflection in the water began to dim and suddenly i was blind, and, just as suddenly, i began to see past the small village and into the expanses of a universe i didn’t know existed. i couldn’t put it into words. although i could see and feel the millions of possibilities before me, worlds beyond what my mind could handle, i look back now and i can’t remember the faces of those who raised me, or if i was raised at all. sometimes i see shadows of myself walking paths i surely must have taken once, or will, and so i know that i was young. i never feared aging until i saw what i used to be. time meant nothing to me. time was another rule i could bend to my liking.
i’ve been operating under the assumption that god is dead and that i, like many others, will rise to power in its stead, because we were adopted by it long ago for this very purpose. why else would we be here? why else would we have been drawn to this place from wherever it was we came, if not to wear its crown when that moment arrived? but i don’t think anyone is ready to admit that god is gone and that we are as alone as we always were. even if god stared down at us i know i’ve never heard its voice and have only obeyed my own laws. if someone can hear it calling out to them then they are lost in a place i refuse to enter. but maybe i am deaf here, maybe god is alive and well and i’m the one who’s lost and looking for answers in my own echos. i’ve seen the white void when i escape from the fortress corridors but it is more a tomb than anything else. if something was there, it shed its skin and left for more hospitable hosts. took with it my faith and now i feel the frigid past sneaking up, and, more dangerous, the future. everything has always been the present. my existence feasts on every moment, i am reborn with every second, i’ve never heard the ticks of a clock and so i am immortal. but my hair has greyed and i have bags under my eyes that i don’t recognise. i am scared and in my fear i’ve lashed out, i’ve drawn things close to me that i shouldn’t have touched, i have appointed certain individuals to live my life for me. i hoped it would have been enough.
i’ve been operating under the assumption that god is dead and that with my seemingly-inevitable ascension to almighty i might bring in those i took under my wing to become new leaders while we rot, and so the cycle would go on until i pass without a parting word. but this ashen place does not cradle its occupants. there is no room for new gods here, we have stood by while angels come and go in their daring attempts to live like mortals but always we were too pious to admit our hypocrisies and so we survived. (the knife was in his hand but my grip drove the blade while i looked away.) but there is nothing left to say now, no apologies. we will die in these halls while our armies defend an empty citadel, unaware we’ve taken our leave. some of us will go out clinging to our old roles, protesting in angry shrieks, and some of us will suffocate and, breathlessly, cross our arms over our chests and wait for the end. orphaned, i will sit on the throne and look down at a system i climbed with ease. i was always the prince in robes of gold and purple but at the end of days that won’t save me because there won’t be anyone to call my name, the admiral will be gone by then and his successors will have driven their swords into the bodies of rebels who already know what it is we’ve tried to deny.
i was the first to see the light and my punishment is to watch it persist without me. the war will continue as it always has, and, at long last, i’ll eclipse the setting sun. when next it rises, it will rise alone.
