Little Trains, Deep Thoughts
This is Finish Your Monsters, a weekly blogletter about the creative process. I'm sharing adventures in art and life as well as setting CLIFFHANGER goals for myself, so--
DID I MAKE MY GOAL?
Big picture, I’m working away on the post-production of our horror film, Dead Media. I’m editing the film in chronological order. Last week, I committed to the goal of editing up to minute 60 of the film.
I made it to minute 53. So not quite to the goal. I edited 11 minutes this week not counting my apparently unbreakable habit of fussing with previous scenes every time I open Premiere Pro.
The blog is out a day late because I couldn’t bear to NOT finish the scene I’ve been working on. Yesterday I edited for 8 hours and completed 90 seconds of new screen time.
Is this the week I will figure out how much time it actually takes me to edit? Or will I set another unreasonable, hard to reach goal? Let’s find out together!
ADVENTURES OF THE WEEK--
This week was mostly about attempting to find moments of calm.
I’m enjoying working on the film so much, but I’m also struggling to find enough hours in the day to move it along as fast as I want to. And fighting a plethora of emotions about the state of the nation—fury, light fury, sadness, deep sadness, bouts of fragile hope, and whatever is the right emotional word for “we told you all of this would happen.”
I got a nice break in the middle of the week. My wife was at a dance rehearsal so I made myself a martini and listened to the new Lady Gaga album, Mayhem. I normally listen to new music on headphones or in the background while I’m working. I can’t remember the last time I sat down and did nothing but listen to a new album by an artist I love. Possibly 2007?
Anyway, it’s a dense, dynamic, dance record with themes of gothic horror. Lots of banging tracks about witches and beasts and heartbreak. It’s like if you could dance to the 1935 film, Bride of Frankenstein.
The rumors are true: MUSIC CAN MAKE YOU FEEL BETTER
Since that whole music being good thing turned out to be true, I figured why not look into these rumors about NATURE?
Sara and I spent a chunk of Saturday afternoon at Descanso Gardens. It’s a favorite spot of ours. If you’ve never been, it’s a very large, curated nature preserve/park. We wandered the grounds. I literally touched grass.
I managed to take about 8000 deep breaths and truly calm down. But then I got very excited again because Descanso has a new installation: A MODEL TRAIN THING!
Seriously, look at this TRAIN THING.
I do not know the correct noun for this beautiful monstrosity. There are multiple tracks running low and high, supported by twisting and gnarled branches. The trains weave through hollows in giant trees. And my favorite thing is that the trains rumble through a surreal tour of the United States—passing wooden sculptures of iconic real world lighthouses, roadside ephemera, and restaurants.
My favorite was the wooden sculpture of the famous Spoonbridge & Cherry sculpture that lives in The Minneapolis Sculpture Garden.
Because I am myself and I enjoy asking why, I spent a long time watching the trains chug by and wondering why it made me so happy.
A truly great train journey is a fantastic mix of comfort and adventure. You’re seated, literally at rest, taken out of the demands of your normal routine. But you’re also going somewhere, zipping along at amazing speeds. Comfort and adventure at the exact same time. (I realize this is romanticizing the reality of modern rail travel in America, but that’s what the display is harkening back to.)
And seeing the Spoon & Cherry, an icon of my hometown Minneapolis, at one of my favorite spots in my current hometown was great. But I loved seeing all the other icons—a gnome statue in Iowa, a Boll Weevil Monument in Alabama, Dinosaur Park in South Dakota, and about a dozen lonely brooding lighthouses. I wanted to see them all, in person, for real.
I think the feeling I was reacting to so strongly was connection. The United States is a vast, complicated land. This display was an image of the land being connected. Trains, full of people, buzzing between icons. The icons are unique and absurd, but all these places are connected by having their own unique and absurd icons. Our similarity is connection, but so is our diversity.
Obviously, it is not a connected time. Forces of selfish malice want to eradicate connection and diversity. But they can’t. They’ll do a lot of damage and cause a lot of pointless, unjust pain as they try. But they can’t erase fundamental truths. Our connection and our diversity are baked into the reality of our world. It’s in our Dinosaur Parks and our model train displays and Randy’s Donuts. It’s in our lighthouses. All of our different, weird, lonely lighthouses, gazing out to the sea and hoping to bring other souls safely to the shore.
Also, Descanso has a squirrel that’s as obsessively pensive as I am. So that was nice, too.
LIGHT PLUGS—
VOTE FORWARD! The letter writing campaign to encourage voters to actually, you know, vote is BACK. They’ve got a campaign to write to voters in Wisconsin about the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court election. Full details on how to write letters here!
The Nightmare Adorable! I wrote and directed this explicitly political short horror film back in 2023. It’s on YouTube now and getting more views will help with the eventual promotion of Dead Media. You can watch here!
Speaking of Dead Media, We’ve got a fiscal sponsorship with the great Minnesota organization Film North. They can accept one-time donations that will go directly toward finishing the film: SCORE, VFX, COLOR GRADING, etc. It’s like a Kickstarter where the rewards are A) a tax deduction and B) helping us make the film.
For full info, please check out the page for the upcoming horror film, DEAD MEDIA!
Or if you have any questions about supporting the film, feel free to reach out to me personally!
MY GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
Early next week is Sara’s birthday so we’re taking a short trip out of town. This demands I’m even more realistic about my goals this week. So I’m going to reset my goal from last week and try to make it this time. So my goal for next week is to edit up to minute 60 of the film.
YOUR GOAL FOR THE WEEK--
I would absolutely LOVE to hear what you're working on this week in the comments below. What's your goal? How can I help you literally finish your monsters?
A LITTLE SKETCH--
This week I was inspired to make my own lonely lighthouse, staring out at the sea during a turbulent storm. If you’d like to do a quick sketch for me to share on the blogletter, feel free to email me a jpg at joseph at jokingenvelope dot com.) I hope you all enjoy your unique and beautiful lighthouses this week.
Oh! That model railway sounds amazing! I love watching model trains, as it can be very relaxing. When I take the local commuter train ((Metra)) into Chicago, I have to try not to fall asleep because the ride it’s just so relaxing. It’s even worse on the way home because I’m worried I’ll miss my stop if I fall asleep. There is a railway museum about 25-35 minutes from my house and they run some of the trains on certain weekends. My favorite is the Nebraska Zephyr because of the lounge car in the back. Would love to sit in the dining car if they ever have it open. I do enjoy riding the other trains as well, and I do feel that sense of sleepiness riding the trains; just the motion of them moving on the tracks and the sound the wheels make running along the rails. There is a botanical garden in the Chicago land area that I went to many years ago with my dad. There was a model train section of the garden and we watched the trains for who knows how long. My dad was even buying model railroad magazines in hopes of putting one in his yard; sadly it didn’t happen, but he did have a train running along the floor in the basement.
That sounds amazing! I have too many competing hobbies and interests, but I'd love a model train in the basement!
This week's goal is a scary one for me--contacting all of my beta readers to ask them how they're coming along with the novel. I don't like bothering people, so it's going to take a bit out of me.
I understand! I find it difficult to ping back and forth between "head down, working on creative stuff alone" to "head up, engaging with other people." Best of luck!