Like feathers separating in the wind after impact. To many thoughts to categorize. I wonder how crooked my fingers will be when I am 70… if I live that long.
Thom, I think about you when I get sad. I think about how sad I was the day you passed. How defeated I was after everything that had happened. After the college had let you go I thought for sure you’d move back to Florida and get a job at FSU, publish your stories, and continue to spread the good news about life around to others. I didn’t expect to read in the paper that you had died at your parents in a fire.
To think you had expired in flame, most likely by smoke inhalation, just made me sick. I’m not sure you ever knew how powerful you were. I don’t think you knew what sort of opinions people had of you. When I think of the ideal of Christ that was taught to me as child you are one of the humans I knew that exemplified that. When you answered my questions I could see you formulating fluid and understandable responses.
I used to believe in everything. At this point in my life I can’t really see anything worth believing in other than my family. Its just not worth the effort. I guess one thing I do believe in is that you helped me grow up a bit. Your pensive suggestions, your furrowed brow, the sweat that collected there, and the intense nervous energy that spilled out when you bobbed your leg up and down… all of your actions seemed so… spot on. Like you were the only human who understood what everything was all about… especially how we all lie to ourselves daily.
You made me truly believe that I was a writer and that it was more than OK to aspire to be one. You gave people who would never have thought about it the nerve to write. It made me want to do the same thing.
Now I am far from ever being a creative writing professor. The economy tanked after your passing. Everyone who was jobless went into graduate school. It was impossible to find a MA or MFA program that was interested. I simply gave up. It was the wrong decision but necessary.
In the years you’ve missed much has happened. I’ve gotten married. I have a two and half year old step-son who I deem my own and wish I had full custody of. I also have a 3 week old son. They are all I live for now. Then if you had told me I’d be married with children now I’d tell you that was insane. Now I can’t think of living any other way.
I don’t think you knew how much you meant to us.
Sadness to me now is just a reflection of what I felt that day. When we realized you had passed, Kendon and I were floored. I remember making a mental decision to drink as much George Dickel whiskey as I could. Now that I think about it I need to write a short story about it. I gave myself alcohol poisoning that night. I drank and drank until I literally could not remember anything. We had built a fire up on the mountain. I lost everything during that time as well: my phone, my pocket knife, and my wallet. I threw my guts up for about 12 hours the next day.
For everything that you missed I still hope to write some kind of novel and dedicate it to you. Hopefully I can. Hope is just so dry sometimes.
![yelyahwilliams:
shauncey:
thejoshlovell:
sleepysenses:
suicideblonde:
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS Fits Perfectly into Quentin Tarantino’s Movie Universe and Influences the Entire Filmography
By now, most Quentin Tarantino fans are aware of the connections interlaced throughout all of his films. John Travolta’s Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction is the brother of Michael Madsen’s Vic Vega in Reservoir Dogs, Harvey Keitel’s Mr. White worked with Alabama from True Romance, the plot basis for Kill Bill is described as the synopsis for a TV series in Pulp Fiction, etc.
Now the epiphany that Eli Roth’s character of Donny Donowitz aka “The Bear Jew” in Inglourious Basterds is the father of the movie producer Lee Donowitz in True Romance has inspired a truly mind-blowing theory that the rest of the films (chronologically speaking) in Tarantino’s filmography take place in a world where [Inglorious Basterds spoiler] World War II came to an end when Adolf Hitler was brutally murdered in a movie theater by the Basterds.
This initial connection was brought up in an article on Cracked, but a poster on Reddit (via David Chen’s Twitter) has more eloquently summed up what this means for Tarantino’s movieverse:
As it turns out, Donny Donowitz, ‘The Bear Jew’, is the father of movie producer Lee Donowitz from True Romance – which means that, in Tarantino’s universe, everybody grew up learning about how a bunch of commando Jews machine gunned Hitler to death in a burning movie theater, as opposed to quietly killing himself in a bunker. Because World War 2 ended in a movie theater, everybody lends greater significance to pop culture, hence why seemingly everybody has Abed-level knowledge of movies and TV. Likewise, because America won World War 2 in one concentrated act of hyperviolent slaughter, Americans as a whole are more desensitized to that sort of thing. Hence why Butch is unfazed by killing two people, Mr. White and Mr. Pink take a pragmatic approach to killing in their line of work, Esmerelda the cab driver is obsessed with death, etc. You can extrapolate this further when you realize that Tarantino’s movies are technically two universes – he’s gone on record as saying that Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn take place in a ‘movie movie universe’; that is, they’re movies that characters from the Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs, True Romance, and Death Proof universe would go to see in theaters. (Kill Bill, after all, is basically Fox Force Five, right on down to Mia Wallace playing the title role.) What immediately springs to mind about Kill Bill and From Dusk ‘Til Dawn? That they’re crazy violent, even by Tarantino standards. These are the movies produced in a world where America’s crowning victory was locking a bunch of people in a movie theater and blowing it to bits – and keep in mind, Lee Donowitz, son of one of the people on the suicide mission to kill Hitler, is a very successful movie producer. Basically, it turns every Tarantino movie into alternate reality sci fi. I love it so hard.
fuckkk.
This is pretty awesome.
Wow.
My mind hurts. This is crazy.](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_m4uw9gSZmJ1qz9qooo1_500.jpg)
