Your Life - a Documentary by Ken Burns... fill in the blank

[Zlatko Waterman]

Dear Doreen:

Other than the fact that my life would have to be directed by Federico Fellini,

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/ ... llini.html


never by someone as organized, rational and coherent as Ken Burns, I'll give your game a shot:


If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, he'd have to include my resolve to be as unlike my father as possible because Dad unfortunately set some pretty bad examples. I would have to insist on the stewardship of my mental and moral health by my mother until about age eleven be included because those traits and qualities she taught me are all that kept me alive during the bad times

When the camera pans over my enormous collection of old science-fiction magazines and novels I bought at the Salvation Army Thrift Store in Anchorage, Alaska, the narrator will talk about fantasy, escape and parental abuse and abandonment. Also mentioned in the inventory of sorrow and mental escape will be the rolls of butcher paper ( my father's most important contribution, in addition to the comic books he occasionally bought me) my father brought home from his shop. Those acres of paper were penciled by me with spacemen, bug-eyed monsters and women with rayguns wearing glass brassieres.

To this day I have never forgotten the most important injunction I learned about drawing: "First, find something you really WANT to draw . . ."

And it will show the audience that I became a (n) actor during that period, with the shape-shifting ability to become anyone and everyone. This made it much easier to become a schoolteacher later when the time came to earn my own living.

During my adolescence when the camera shows the black & white photos from the public swimming pool, athletic fields, baseball diamond and dancing classes it will clearly represent my theatrical phase.

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, it would be entitled "One Hand in the Cobwebs" and the DVDs would be stocked on the shelves of HORROR AND SCI-FI ( see picture above) simply because my life has been an awkward and sometimes painful performance-- punctuated by occasional startling and unintentional successes. And a long series of lucky breaks.

And it fits to distribute it in non-commercial places.


Zlatko

[joel]

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, he'd have to include the Munich fall-back opera house because that's where I celebrated a lonely baby's unknown birthday one lonely December; and he'd have to include Jin-Ok because that's where she celebrated a dream of Korean-American unity in Central Europe's classy baroque winter (perhaps).

When the camera pans over the almost-tomorrow Shenanadoah August twilight, the narrator will talk about my chaste defense of sexual freedom in the gospel; and it will show the audience that I became a virgin grown man during that period; and when the camera shows the black & white photos from my bulemic, dismorphic, post-modeling career, it will clearly represent my Young-Lady-Jungfrau phase.

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, it would be entitled "sometimes (semicolon) rhymes" and the DVDs would be stocked on the shelves of Staples and the odd public library's backroom-of-the-videostore equivalent simply because my life has been a bit too often measured by the rules and a little too dirty now-and-then; and it fits to distribute it in fluorescently lit drop-ceiling places.

[Traveller13]

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, he'd have to include a fraction of a second after I was born. I don't remember that time, of course, but Death came to assist my birth, like all other births I suppose. The figure was human, could've been both sexes and none at the same time for I knew because freshly newborn babbits aren't gifted with very good vision. They sense other things very well, however. Everyone knows that. And what I could sense at the time was that the colorless figure peering down at me wasn't what I would later term to be human. It was like a servant entity, working for me and "others" (I wrote the word "others" between brackets because I didn't realise what this term meant at the time) in a very strange way because in time people forget what they really want. It said stuff to me but also said that I'd very soon forget everything it would and has told me. At the time, I was okay with it. Now, I'm not.

When the camera pans over a corner of my mind's eye, the narrator will talk about how I developped all these grand visions inside it with my imagination, some of them re(oc)curring, dreamscapes developping progressively after each occurence, some fleeting but probably eye-opening if I could have grasped them just for an extra slice of a second, and it will show the audience that I became a person who often uses his imagination to get away from the harsh and brutal problems of the material world, with demanding parents, an environment where I feel that everyone is superior to me in some way, job interviews made for no-one, studies where the teachers use the students and a poor social/love/professional life. Not that it's that big a burden but it has become a bit of a handicap. I think that now I'm about 3 years late, mentally speaking. What's more I have the nasty habit of using those daydreams to fantasise about what life would have been like if those extra years haven't been lost. And so during that period and when the camera shows the black & white photos from situations that have never happened while Elliott Smith plays "Pictures of Me" in the background, it will clearly represent my hopefully teenage-ending phase.

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, it would be entitled "Memoirs of a [...]" or something similar. I haven't decided what I am yet. I hate making up titles. Maybe, if he was kind enough he'd make up something avant-garde like ";" and the DVDs would be stocked on the shelves of some controversial show about the media. I can already see it now: "Can Titles be made only out of punctuation?" "What do you think, Timothy Cavendish, Doctor in Litterature and Medieval Zoology?" "Well, I don't like it. It could be considered as an act of blasphemy not to use words to create something, as even the Holi Bibli states that..." "... But sir, didn't the first title with punctuation in it appear in Spain in 1948?" "Yes, but my point is that words are...", etc.simply because my life has been a very decent life up to now in some respects, but life really depends on who is experiencing it. But there's also this force within me that does things beyond my control, because it works in a plane where control doesn't exist, where all humans are one, and a will to do... something. I don't know what it is yet. But I know I want something. And so the force gathers that will, according to what I expect, and it fits to distribute it in the most unexpected places.


P.S: whoever guesses who Timothy Cavendish really is gets one point. Google searches don't count unless they last at least 15 minutes.

[Andeh]

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life, he'd have to include "my family" because "I grew up worshipping my brother and sister" and "they taught me about bands like Sonic Youth and The Cramps" because "those are cool-ass bands and they didn't want me to fall even further into a sea o' mainstream dorkiness"

When the camera pans over "the globe" the narrator will talk about "many of its countries" and it will show the audience that I became a "traveller as a child" during that period and when the camera shows the black and white photos from "Glen Friedman's F*** You, Heros" it will clearly represent my "not wanting to grow up" phase.

If Ken Burns were to make a documentary of my life it would be entitled "Aw Yeah, You Know it in a Kerouac Stylee" and the DVDs would be stocked on the shelves of "Family Dollar" and "The Victoria and Albert Museum" simply because my life has been a "medley through pauperville" and a "flavor of expat repat many pat ice cream" and it fits to distribute it in " dark, dank imaginarily clove-cig-swirly filled chain store and arty" places.