The Filmcake

Yesteday, Sarah wrote movingly about her feelings on watching Stanley Kramer’s On The Beach and what it had to say about life and mortality:

I strongly believe that it is death that gives life meaning. Without the gnawing, ever-present knowledge that one day it will all end, I find it a little harder to truly enjoy life, and a lot easier to take it for granted. I think this is why I like the Impending End of the World scenario so much. It puts everything into perspective. It reminds me to feel everything more deeply. I appreciate Dwight more, and savor the little moments. Same thing with my family. My friends. My dogs. The thought of death forces me to focus on what I love, and to avoid getting worked up about the things that in, the end, really don’t matter all that much. I don’t want to waste a single minute. I want to live my life so that when the end finally comes, I have as few regrets as possible. I want to do, and see, and experience, as much as I can.

I feel the exact same way. Precisely because life has such a finality to it is what makes it so precious and wonderful. So with that floating around in my mind, I read this afternoon in The Oklahoman something that seemed to strangely echo that sentiment. Wayne Coyne described the “Flaming Lips philosophy”:

Maybe it’s proclaiming that there is a kind of cosmic mercy that happens when we feel like, despite our best efforts, we really are defeated. … Happiness can await us despite our worst failures. But it’s a happiness we must create. And since everything we believed in is destroyed, we have to create this happiness out of nothing.

I like that. It’s a psychedelic echo of what Sarah had to say, I think. And consider me a follower of Coyne’s philosophy. There’s a decent playlist of FLips songs that plays in my head whenever I need guidance or inspiration or comfort or any of these.

With that, I can’t wait to finally check out Coyne’s labor of love, Christmas on Mars. It screens at deadCENTER 11:55pm Friday night and 2:00am Saturday morning at the Rocktown Gym. This will mark the third Flaming Lips film I’ve seen first at deadCENTER (The Fearless Freaks & U.F.O.’s at the Zoo, previously).

This entry was posted on Friday, June 6th, 2008 at 3:02 pm and is filed under Okie Film, deadCENTER 2008. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.