the groundhog day project

Today's title is, at once, total bullshit, and profoundly true. I quoted a line from bell hooks regarding "love" tonight in my presentation on queer theory. Love, she says, involves "care, affection, recognition, respect, commitment, and trust, as well as honest and open communication" (1999, p. 5). Key to the profound truth above is all of these things. Love, the romantic, shallow stuff we see in most films--that isn't so interesting. But, if there's recognition and respect, you've got something. If there's commitment and trust, you could keep it. Or leave it behind and move on because maybe nonmonogamy is the way you want to go. Just looking for... And, I don't want to suggest that it can't be love and be temporary, that it can't be love and be left behind in the short term. Mother Culture tells us to seek out the long term, but research-- No, screw research for the moment. As they start singing "With a Little Help from My F...

There's nothing you can do that can't be done Nothing you can sing that can't be sung Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game It's easy Nothing you can make that can't be made No one you can save that can't be saved Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time It's easy ... Nothing you can know that isn't known Nothing you can see that isn't shown Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be It's easy Today I watched Love Actually (2003), The Fountain (2006), and now Groundhog Day (1993). The obvious link between these three would be "the total agony of being in love" (in the words of Sam in Love Actually ), but I think it's bigger than that. Taken together, I think these films twist the notion of love right into the notion of being human. Love or the pursuit of it, then, becomes the human condition. And, it doesn't have to be romantic love, though that is obviously the ...