The Agony of Artists.

It's rather dreadful to consider that the weekend is almost over, and so is the month of July in 4 days...although that bit isn't quite so dreadful as it is nearly surprising. It's remarkable to note that time goes by so incredibly swiftly, especially if one is constantly busy and stimulated as opposed to just sitting around and doing nothing, or merely entertaining oneself. So at last today I finished reviewing the edits for Book II of my trilogy and sent it off to the publisher; now we shall see what happens next. It's taken me a whole lot longer to get to this point then I thought it would have, but at last I have made it. Thank God. Now I just have to begin working on Book III and get that underway, which will be difficult with graduate school on the horizon. I also wrote an essay for graduate school today as well and sent that over; apparently it's to test my ability to write and articulate thoughts in the written format. Hopefully my skills as an academic writer haven't waned since I really last used them back in 2008, but it was an easy 500 word essay, so I should be alright, unless they're ridiculously picky. So I decided to take two jumps back in time; one was to visit the era of Michelangelo when he was paining the Sistine Chapel, and the second was to watch a film from 1965 called The Agony and the Ecstasy starring Rex Harrison and Charlton Heston. Basically it is story about the relationship that Pope Julius II and Michelangelo had while the famed artist was paining the Sistine Chapel ceiling. I remember stumbling across film many, many months ago and always wanting to watch it; well I finally got my opportunity. It has the longest and most boring introduction before getting to the actual film, but after seeing the performances by Rex Harrison as Pope Julius II and Charlton Heston as Michelangelo, it was definitely worth it. There's something about older films that I find highly enjoyable. You see, they didn't have all of the fancy computer, special effects like we do now, and thus they had to be creative and inventive to find ways to blow audiences away. This was done of course through fine acting, fine writing, and stunning visual cinematography and set design. It was also interesting to see a little bit of the history surrounding 2 large historical individuals. Not necessarily a masterful epic like Becket but it was good enough; I think I would watch it again sometime in the future, but I would definitely skip the boring intro, which was more like a documentary than part of a dramatic film. Well here's to the final days of July. Good night and good luck everyone.
The Agony and the Ecstasy trailer
John Williams discussing scoring Star Wars VII