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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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« Review: Taking Woodstock |Main| Review: 9 »

September 1, 2009

On The Road Again; or, I Gotta Go See About A Girl; or, Homeward Bound

By Dan Carlson

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(Photo by Tracy Manford via Flickr)

This blog will be on pause for a few days, though to be honest, given the slower posting schedule I seem to have set for myself, a pause might not be noticeable. But while previous unplanned breaks were usually the result of a lack of work or content, this one comes as I load up what possessions I've decided to keep and drive the 1,559 miles from Los Angeles to Houston. It's a one-way trip. I'd never planned on living in Houston, but I guess that's why it makes sense; most plans have a way of fixing themselves, and this is where the current is carrying me, if I can mix two bad metaphors in one sentence. (Hi, potential employers!)

I've completely loved my time in L.A., and wouldn't trade the people or experiences for anything, but it's time to go and see what life has to offer in another place. In the words of John Hughes, "I haven't disappeared. I'm standing right here. I'm just not in Los Angeles." It's a big world.

See you when I get there.


Comments: 11

Jen

Happy trails! Have a safe trip. :)

Sep 1, 2009 4:05 AM

Weck

Dan Carlson, come on down!

p.s. Your girlfriend is a dope photographer.

Sep 1, 2009 8:06 AM

Joe Moore

good luck to ya man

Sep 1, 2009 8:09 AM

torrie

You won't regret it. She's the real deal.

Sep 1, 2009 10:20 AM

Jen Mathis

We're waiting for you! :D

Sep 1, 2009 10:24 AM

Tracy

I'm completely stupid in love with you :)

(I can say that here, right?) :P

Sep 1, 2009 2:24 PM

Nathan

I hope you'll find Texas agreeable. Speaking as one who left and has returned, I kind of like it here.

Sep 1, 2009 2:54 PM

the other Tracey Ann

(Hi, potential employers!) - Bwahahaha!

When you arrive you will have to start using the word "fixing" properly. You even spelled it wrong. You wrote "most plans have a way of fixing themselves". Round here we say, "Darlin' I'm fixin' to leave for work. You better be fixin' to give me a kiss".

I hope you see the difference.

Peace, Love & Light

Sep 2, 2009 10:47 AM

Allison

So tonight, at the RiverOaks theater, Melora Hardin and hubs are doing a meet-and-greet after the screening of her directorial debut, You. It starts at 7pm for $10, and it seems like something you would enjoy. The event, I mean, not the movie. You will probably hate the movie.

Sep 3, 2009 8:11 AM

Jason Armstrong

Great post! Welcome to Texas! Yee-haw! :)

Sep 4, 2009 4:35 PM

Teresa

The food is good and cheap in H-town. Can't really argue on you leaving LA, since my life has been fantastic since i left for London.

Sep 14, 2009 7:52 AM

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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