Dispatches, thoughts, and miscellanea from writer Jon Konrath

Col. Kurtz, old journals

I stayed up late (a subjective term these days) last night and watched Apocalypse Now. It’s been a while, and I felt a need to go up the river with Col. Kurtz myself. You know it’s a weird night when you’re thinking more about the mission and the river than the helicopters and explosions. The movie really hit the spot.

I read a bunch of old journals from the end of 1995, trying to find out when I named my second book, Rumored to Exist. It’s always odd to read old stuff, but it’s even stranger to find thick, deep, intellectual writing in a time when I thought I was just dicking around and spending too much money. 1995 now feels like a different era to me, and all of my old struggles and exclamations made it an interesting read.

I swore against it, but I feel another trip to Indiana coming on. I think it might be the same deal as last year, but it depends on money. I feel a need to shoot a lot more video of Bloomington this time. It’ll be nice to travel with a MiniDisc, too. A MiniDisc, a GameBoy, a camcorder, a cellphone – I think RoboCop hauled around less gear.

I’m going to go eat pizza in a second, and then go to the movies with my team at work, so I better split.

06/09/98 19:47

We went to see The Truman Show today. It was okay. It’s hard to say it’s a great movie, because then it puts you right in the demographic of the pathetic people they satirize. I don’t know if that’s a hidden joke, or a way of business. It wasn’t the kind of movie I’d pay to see, but it wasn’t as unbearable as being forces to paying to see a Julia Roberts movie with one of your friend’s recent ex-girlfriends, or watching Threesome with your mom. (both happened – don’t ask).

Actually, the whole premise of the movie was too similar to the excellent and overlooked Dark City, which did the whole city-you-can’t-escape thing, except with this whole scifi/noir thing which was the best cinematography I’ve seen in a while. It flaked out toward the end, though.

Someone should make a self-balancing washer. The basket would have water chambers around the perimeter and in the hub, and it would fill the ones opposite the imbalance. Maybe there’s an easier way – IU didn’t have an engineering program. I wish they did – I would’ve tried to get in some classes, maybe learn how to blow up bridges or do cool things with liquid hydrogen.

It’s time to work on the book.