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Dan Carlson
Houston, Texas

I'm a twentysomething white male with ambitions to be a professional film critic and generally spend my days getting paid to watch movies and write about it. A compulsive reader and stubborn cineaste, I take an often contrary stance to my more fundamentalist peers and upbringing by celebrating the pursuit of the good, and the Good, in life, love, art and film. If you watched enough episodes of certain TV shows — for starters, "The Hungry and the Hunted," "The Cut Man Cometh," "The Body," "The Zeppo," "Waiting in the Wings," "Out of Gas," "April Is the Cruelest Month," "20 Hours in America," "Colonial Day," "An Echolls Family Christmas," "Look Who's Stalking," "The Garage Door," "Charlie Gets Crippled," "Wind Sprints," and "Corner Boys" — you would understand me completely, and you'd also realize that much of my worldview and philosophical insights are heavily influenced by fictional works/programs, and many of the good things I've said in my life are just a regurgitation of someone else's imaginings, or at any rate a heartfelt attempt to interpret them. I guess I was made to be a film critic.

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September 28, 2008

Plus He Probably Smells Good: An Online Transcript

By Dan Carlson

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Sis: welp
me: yep
i like obama so much i wanna name my kid barack
Sis: :)
i bet there will be kids named barack starting soon
me: i bet if you say the name barack 3 times a pony appears and takes you on a ride in the sky
Sis: ooh ooh ooh
try it!
me: i can't type right now, MY PONY JUST ARRIVED
Sis: OH WOW I'M SO JEALOUS
me: i bet if you whisper barack's name to a tree it sprouts fruit
Sis: haha
if you sing barack's name facing the sky, will it rain?
me: it'll rain gumdrops!
Sis: wow!
me: if you say barack's name in the shower it gets rid of any lime or mildew stains
Sis: if you write barack's name on a slip of paper and leave it under your pillow at night, you'll wake up 5 years younger
me: i have to try that!
if you get a puppy and name it barack, it will never die
Sis: [changes bama's name to barack]
if you chant barack's name while taking 10 steps backward, then jump in the air and yell "change!," a genie will appear to grant you three wishes.
me: if you think barack's name underwater, you can hold your breath for up to an hour
Sis: if you stare at your reflection in the mirror, without blinking, and repeat barack's name five times, your eyesight will correct itself
me: if you say barack's name while doing laundry, all your stains come right out
... basically, barack's name is possessed of many talismanic qualities
Sis: it appears that way

[The Sis and I have also spoken about related matters.]

Comments: 1

if you say barack's name while brushing your teeth you'll never get cavities.

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Random Quotes

Words of Wisdom

"The critic is the only independent source of information. The rest is advertising."
— Pauline Kael

"Film lovers are sick people."
— Francois Truffaut

"I hope I strike a blow for chubby bald men everywhere. I hope they rise like an army."
Paul Giamatti, quoted in the Los Angeles Times, 12/14/04

"Let others praise ancient times, I am glad I was born in these."
— Ovid

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Things to Know

Remembering speechlessly we seek the great forgotten language, the lost lane-end into heaven, a stone, a leaf, an unfound door. Where? When?

O lost, and by the wind grieved, ghost, come back again.
— Look Homeward, Angel, Thomas Wolfe

Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservatives.
— John Stuart Mill

We are all under the same mental calamity; we have all forgotten our names. We have all forgotten what we really are. All that we call common sense and rationality and practicality and positivism only means that for certain dead levels of our life we forget that we have forgotten. All that we call spirit and art and ecstasy only means that for one awful instant we remember that we forget.
— G.K. Chesterton

We were, for the briefest of moments, something greater than the sum of our uncertain parts; we were youth itself, in all its painful glory and sharp joy.
— Me, Fall 2003

There is a time in the lives of most writers when they are vulnerable, when the vivid dreams and ambitions of childhood seem to pale in the harsh sunlight of what we call the real world. In short, there's a time when things can go either way.
— Stephen King

Los Angeles, give me some of you! Los Angeles come to me the way I came to you, my feet over your streets, you pretty town I loved you so much, you sad flower in the sand, you pretty town.
Ask the Dust, John Fante