Todd Terwilliger » exposition

God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen

Todd — Fri, 19 Mar 2010 16:00:54 +0000

I was sitting in a small church in Black Rock, Dundalk, Ireland, staring down at a hymn sheet. It was Christmas Eve and I was looking intently at the lyrics to “God Rest Ye Merry, Gentlemen”.

I’m sure I’d looked at the lyrics before (it was always one of my favorite hymns) but, just now, it struck me that I’d always read it as “God Rest Ye, Merry Gentlemen” which was wrong but that’s what I’d always remembered and though I ought to have been following the rest of the lyric and letting nothing me dismay, I was, in fact, deeply dismayed, since I’d just found out a short time before that a friend of mine had passed away.

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Post tags: christmas eve, death, friends, god rest ye merry gentlemen, ireland, online, saint patricks day

That Long and Long-Winded Road

Todd — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 18:46:41 +0000

I’m sitting here, drinking a cup of Gold Kili instant Chocolate Latte which, frankly, tastes in the neighborhood of chocolate but nothing near a latte, and I’m wondering about this impromptu seven month hiatus I’ve found myself on. There must be a reason, right? Some deep movement in my emotional, sub-conscious tectonic core? No… At least, I don’t think so. That’s the short answer. I have longer answers, of course.

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Post tags: 2wkfilms, film, galactus, tumblr, twitter, welcome back kotter

On Night’s Plutonian Shore

Todd — Tue, 09 Jun 2009 17:01:14 +0000

I was halfway across the Brooklyn Bridge when the rain came down in earnest. It slashed down in horizontal slices that rendered my umbrella mostly impotent. Only a full-body parka or a diving bell had any hope of keeping me dry and I had neither on hand. The Manhattan skyline was dissolving in low-hanging murk. The Statue of Liberty was an old gray lady lost in a fog. It was only natural that my mind wandered, as my body plowed through the wet, towards darker, if slightly drier, climes.

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Post tags: air france flight 447, brooklyn bridge, david carradine, manhattan, michael hutchins, statue of liberty

Dear Diarrhy

Todd — Thu, 28 May 2009 20:27:26 +0000

I’ve come to a decision. I do not like the term, “blogger”. I don’t know what, exactly, a “weblog” is but I don’t like it. Okay, I know what a weblog is as a practical matter but what is it, really? I’m not logging webs or webbing logs. I’m not keeping a log of the web nor keeping a web of a log. I’ve seen logs, loafs, bars, and loads, and my interest in them is, at best, tangential. The only webs I’m interested in are the spun-out lairs of the spiders in my bathroom and what interest I had in those I have already expressed. No, whatever currency the term “weblog” had with me is spent. I must define myself elsewhere.

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Post tags: blog, blogger, diarist, diary of anne frank, hack, journalist, scrivener, shelley winters, spiders, weblog

Walkabout

Todd — Wed, 27 May 2009 20:11:56 +0000

For the past few weeks, I’ve exchanged my morning subway ride to work with a walking commute. Even though the time spent in transit has not changed overmuch (on average walking takes me ten to twenty minutes longer), the experience is a completely different animal. Without having to worry about practical matters such as jockeying for subway car position or perfecting proper platform placement for an incoming train, my mind can wander to more esoteric planes, asking questions like, for example, why is that woman screaming in the middle of the street?

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Post tags: brooklyn bridge, city hall, manhattan bridge, subway, tribeca

A Whisper from the Dark

Todd — Mon, 13 Apr 2009 16:28:31 +0000

Things have been quiet lately around here, the sort of eerie quiet that inspires tales of death or, in my case, extreme apathy. However, in this particular case, nothing could be further from the truth. In fact, things are slogging steadily ahead here at Terwilliger HQ. Like Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory after Slugworth’s betrayal, the gates are closed but the chimneys, productively and, perhaps, ominously, are still billowing with a hidden feverish activity.

First things first. I haven’t talked about it in a long while but the short film I wrote and my sister directed, The Power of Freedom, will be heading to the Cannes Film Festival. We’ll both be tagging along with it, more or less- her more, me less. Last week she cut the trailer for it:

Feel free to watch it (and rate it!) directly on Vimeo and YouTube.

As part of this Sherman’s march to Cannes, I’m trying to put together a little podcast roundtable about the fest. My sister has been once already. This will be my first of hopefully many trips.

To that end, I have been busy as a beaver trying to write a full-length script to take with me. As I hope to sell this little gem, I can’t share too much about it now save that I think I’ve got a pretty good premise (I really like it anyway) but I’ve got a LOT of work to do between now and the festival to whip it into shape.

In totally unrelated news, I just saw a trailer for Valhalla Rising, a Mads Mikkelsen powered Viking movie. It looks good. Then again, Severed Ways looked good and we all know how that turned out. Hope springs eternal.

Technorati Tags: cannes 2009, mads mikkelsen, severed ways, the power of freedom, vikings, willy wonka

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Post tags: cannes 2009, mads mikkelsen, severed ways, the power of freedom, vikings, willy wonka

The Death of Good Manners in the Internet Age

Todd — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 04:04:35 +0000

I’ve been stewing on this for the better part of the week: a girl I know de-friended (un-friended?) me on Facebook. That didn’t bother me at all. What bothered me was the total lack of decorum in the whole affair. Hallowed laws of etiquette had been infringed at my expense. That was a crime I could not abide.

First, let me rewind the tape. There is, in this world, the tiniest percentage of people over whom I have a disturbing power: I am given a mainline into their very psyche, direct access to their cerebral cortex. For whatever reason (I don’t pretend to know), the smallest things I say (or don’t say), do (or don’t do), take on a monstrous life in their tortured cerebellums.

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I Need a Drink

Todd — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 20:35:11 +0000

I love drinking and smoking. Wait, let me rephrase that: I love the act of drinking and smoking, the affectations, the culture, the pomp and circumstance that festoon the physical process of smoking and drinking. Of course, I don’t actually drink or smoke so I can only pine at these sacred ceremonies from afar, like Moses looking down onto the land of milk and honey he can never have.

What I find so attractive about these habits is that they are life props, fetish acts that can be endlessly molded and accessorized to match your lifestyle or the lifestyle you secretly (or not so secretly) desire. This is something you can’t do swilling soda or, worse, water. There are only two statements you can make drinking water or soda at a bar: you’re either a recovering (or not so much) alcoholic or you’re an undercover cop and/or religious zealot. Neither one of those archetypes is particularly desirable, at least not by me, at least not now.

Because I cannot take advantage of myriad possibilities around nicotine and alcohol, I can only look to my friends to live the capital-ell Life that I cannot. Mostly, they’re coming up short. Very short.

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Post tags: grapes of wrath, moses, scotch, whiskey, wine

Talking Strategery

Todd — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 16:50:46 +0000

I have formally titled my web strategy to this point as Operation Confusing Freedom. Informally, my tactics can best be described as two page-views and a cloud of dust. I don’t really mind, much. Let’s face it, I’m not selling anything, besides myself, and if I’m not flying off the shelves, it’s not effecting my bottom-line. I do this because I want to and that hasn’t changed. If anything, I want to do more.

In this case, more means doing a podcast. I love writing. I love writing but there are times at which my mind is driven to express itself verbally. If I try to translate this verbal torrent into written words, something sometimes gets lost in the transition. Whether I can’t quite translate the feverish intensity of my feeling or some other more or less ineffable auditory quality I’m not sure but sometimes something is just lost. I have the technology. I have the capability. I can make this happen. I will make this happen. I’m just not sure when.

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Post tags: craigslist, operation confusing freedom, podcast

Enter Ye Through the Black Gates

Todd — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 00:20:08 +0000

I don’t talk much about where I spend my days beyond that I am somewhere doing something. It will, for the moment at least, remain nameless. I will say however that it has gained a reputation over the past few months on par with the Death Star, minus the planet-busting capabilities but with the same budgetary concerns. I say all of this to prepare you for what I could not have been prepared to see this morning.

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Post tags: bothan spies, death star, ginsu knife, mouth of sauron, one ring, orc, robert deniro, ronin