Weblog 9

January 16, 2006~ 5:15am


Watched the most compelling film on Saturday night--"Grizzly Man"-- by German director Werner Herzog. It's a documentary with a haunting original score that plays over the original footage of self-styled ecologist and 'gentle warrior' Timothy Treadwell, who lived 13 summers among the Alaskan grizzly bears until 2003, when he and a female companion were killed and eaten by the bears they lived among.

Oh, I know this sounds like a fairly depressing, even ugly tale, but it is in fact exultant, mystical and touching. Herzog's gentle, Germanic voice sews it all together with the calm and respect of a higher intelligence trying to understand the inner-workings of an alien, but completely captivating species. Treadwell spent life before his summers with the bears, a terribly broken individual who had battled alcoholism as well as the despair of a failed film career. When he arrived in Alaska he discovered a power beyond himself as translated through the grizzlys who allowed him not only to heal, but to transcend in a kind of mad holiness that was both delusional and redeeming. The fact that he was eventually killed and eaten by his 'gods' was in itself, a horrifying but pure sanctification for him.

Delusional to the end, he persisted in an absolute faith that he'd connected to the bears to such an extent that they would not harm him; that they lived in a wild but reachable world for those brave enough to approach and to love them, and he died in that belief. We are able to watch Timothy's growing paranoia toward the world beyond his Alaskan sanctuary and to hear his rants, in which he was convinced he was protecting those predators, whose terrifyingly simple world of blind instinct and hunger were the truth of their grizzly essence that Timothy failed to grasp. And while his fantasies ultimately brought about his own horrific death, they were the same childlike beliefs that afforded him an oddly touching rapture to the last.

This is first and foremost a very spiritual film, in which Herzog studies Treadwell with the same delicate, probing interest that Treadwell had in pursuing his bears: an awed reverence for something beyond simple comprehension. Meanwhile, the viewer gets to study all three subjects: the bears, the doomed Treadwell, and the director himself, as he presents- as virgin territory- an Alaskan wilderness in which there is salvation, but at the greatest cost. "Grizzly Man" is a remarkable, haunting film, and I recommend it to anyone who is drawn to the offbeat but beautiful world of those who see beyond and into the hidden realm of an altered reality.


January 16, 2006~ 8:15pm
Another 'nothing to show' day. Lord, I'm bogged down by weariness since January began; I feel as though my fizz is fizzled out. (I hate to think it's something as boring as "seasonal effective disorder"-- oh, please God...don't let me be as predictable as THAT!) It used to be I relished my aloneness and my privacy because there always seemed to be things to fill it. All I managed this evening was some studying up via 'googling' on how to try and control the damn 'smooth scroll' action of my mouse since the last Firefox update. LOL...no shit...that's it!

I could write, but there's no commenters. And now that I'm back in a room again, I've grown used to the sound of human voices reacting to lines, for good or ill- or at least kidding around, but it's been hollow as a drum in there. I'm about ready to crawl back into my den again and do without any of it. Better to have no possibility of contact and reach some sort of meditative trance state, than to stand around a room with nobody dancin'.

Trouble is, I'm spoiled. There are plenty of rooms....but they're full of bullshit about 'construction' and 'tense agreement' and too many gerunds-- and 'and's' and 'so's, and so on; I don't have the patience for that, and I frankly find it boring. What I'm hanging around for is perking up, stimulation, entertainment, exhilaration, laughter, tears..... meaning. Crap on on that jiveass junk, that's for knitters and fretters and driers of flowers for their controllable, dull, staid arrangements; I'm in it for the life, fercripesakes.

So.........only thing to do is head upstairs with my book, and wake to another lousy day tomorrow. Sometimes, that's the way it goes--no fireworks, only duds.


January 20, 2006 8:10pm
A week's slipped past almost, and here we are nearly at the end of January. This strange one with March and April weather-- spring restlessness, not winter quiet hibernation with the idea of home a respite from the cold world outside.

Restlessness-- that's what I feel, with streaks of hysterical mania that blink on and off during the day- then plunges into dark water; I have no idea what causes either swing. I have a sense of encroaching disaster at times- a floating, mild anxiety. I have a sense that the best has passed me by--and even at that, it was pretty much a bust. lol...

Oh well......watching a Lincoln 3 hour special tomorrow. There's a fella suffered from pronounced melancholia- and look at all he got done before he said, "Tally Ho"- there may be hope for me yet. I think my problem is partially that I think I ought to be 'partnered' in some way- but in the next 60 seconds I realize I don't want that at all. It's these two metaphorical left feet--they tend to walk me around in circles, never knowing what I want or which course will make me happy longest...and oh, I fear I'll never know for sure-

There'll be these circular ruts my whole life long, with spurts of mad creativity and joy, and then the icy plunges.

Better wear a wet suit.



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