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Eric Atwood



Last Updated: 5/11/2009

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City: Kansas City
State: MISSOURI
Country: US

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October 16, 2008 - Thursday 

Category: Games
5:13 PM 
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February 2, 2008 - Saturday 

Category: Art and Photography
David Mamet - On Film Directing
Countercultural Architecture and Dramatic Structure:

"I was a student in the turbulent sixties in Vermont at a countercultural college. In that time and place, there flourished something called a school of Countercultural Architecture. Some people back then thought that traditional architecture had been too stifling, and so they designed a built a lot of counterculture buildings. These buildings proved unlivable. Their design didn't being with the idea of the building's purpose; it began with the idea of how the architect "felt."
As those architects looked at their counterculture buildings over the years, they may have reflected that there's a reason for traditional design. There's a reason that doors are place in a certain way, there's a reason that sills are made in a certain way.
All those countercultural builds may have expressed the intention of the architect, but they didn't serve the purpose of the inhabitants. They all either fell down or are falling down or should be torn down. They're a blot on the landscape and they don't age gracefully and every passing year underscores the jejune folly of those countercultural architects.
I live in a house that is two hundred years old. It was built with an axe, by hand, and without nails. Barring some sort of man-made catastrophe, it will be standing in another two hundred years. It was built with an understanding of , and a respect for, wood, weather, and human domestic requirements.
It's very difficult to shore up something that has been done badly. You'd better do your planning up front, when you have the time. It's like working with glue. When it sets, you've used up your time. When it's almost set, you then have to make quick decisions under pressure. If you design a chair correctly, you can put all the time into designing it correctly and assemble it at your leisure. In fact, the ancient chairmakers - which is to say chairmakers up until about the turn of the century - used to make their chairs without glue because they correctly understood not only the nature of joints but the nature of woods. They knew which wood would shrink and which would expand with age, so that these woods, when correctly combined, would make the chair stronger over time."


I was talking to a friend of mine, LH, about this a few nights ago. When you start making any sort of art the first impulse is for self-expression, but it has to grow out of that, it can't be the end. This was my last thought on the subject... "I was thinking more about what we were talking about last night, in regard to drama and audience, and the word that came into my mind was 'responsibility' which I think exists on many levels: to your audience, to your characters, to yourself."
Currently reading:
On Directing Film
By David Mamet
Release date: 01 January, 1992
4:22 AM 
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October 15, 2007 - Monday 
I've been pushing forward for the past two years, since my first daughter was born. It's time to look back. Becoming a parent, moving out into the world more, making a film after 3 years of silence. It's always a process moving back and forth. This time it's back.

I've got a stack of notebooks of 10 years of writing. Where this will lead me...

"The end of all our exploration will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time." -Churchill
6:02 AM 
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October 7, 2007 - Sunday 
Mars is beautiful tonight. Like an old friend who expects nothing from me. From here the city lights look like Mars, thousands of them. 50 years ago it would have been Venus, blue-white. That's the difference between sodium and carbon.
7:06 AM 
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September 14, 2007 - Friday 
I don't know where things have taken me. I am a day away from a finished new short film. I watched Nostalghia a few nights ago and it completely leveled me. If anyone knows, please tell me.
3:52 AM 
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September 1, 2007 - Saturday 

Current mood:  exhausted
Just finished editing a new short film, Help Your Self.  It's been a long road but good. More to come so stay tuned.

If anyone would like to see a preview, drop me a line.
Currently listening:
The Stranger
By Billy Joel
Release date: 20 October, 1998
9:24 PM 
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May 9, 2007 - Wednesday 
The Way of Chuang Tzu by Thomas Merton is one of my favorite books. I have a pocket copy that sits on my desk next to a pocket copy of The Art of Worldly Wisdom by Balthasar Gracian. The Woodcarver is one of the best things I have ever read about the act of creation and art.

The Woodcarver

Khing, the master carver, made a bell stand
Of precious wood. When it was finished,
All who saw it were astounded. They said it must be
The work of spirits.
The price of Lu said to the master carver:
"What is your secret?"

Khing replied: "I am only a workman:
I have no secret. There is only this:
When I began to think about the work you commanded
I guarded my spirit, did not expend it
On trifles, that were not to the point.
I fasted in order to set
My heart at rest.

After three days fasting,
I had forgotten gain and success.
After five days
I had forgotten praise or criticism.
After seven days
I had forgotten my body
With all its limbs.

"By this time all thought of your Highness
And of the court had faded away.
All that might distract me from the work
Had vanished.
I was collected in the single thought
Of the bell stand.

"Then I went to the forest
To see the trees in their own natural state.
When the right tree appeared before my eyes,
The bell stand also appeared in it, clearly, beyond doubt.
All I had to do what put forth my hand
And begin.

"If I had not met this particular tree
There would have been
No bell stand at all.

"What happened?
My own collected thought
Encountered the hidden potential in the wood;
From this live encounter came the work
Which you ascribe to the spirits."

[xix. 10.]
Currently reading:
Way of Chuang Tzu (New Directions Paperbook)
By Thomas Merton
Release date: June, 1969
6:46 AM 
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May 6, 2007 - Sunday 

I think I am slowly losing my mind.

Last night I went for a run in my neighborhood. It was slightly drizzling. I started out walking. U2's All That You Can't Leave Behind was playing. By the end of the Beautiful Day I was running and the rain was coming down. By the time Elevation opened it was a hard rain and I was drenched. The smell of the rain on the pavement was intoxicating. I continued for another two miles. With every step I was less aware of myself. By the end I was completely drenched, spent, and without a thought in the world.

I spend entirely too much of my time immersed in my thoughts, but sometimes the world opens up. I have too few boundaries. The edges blur between all the aspects of my life. Art, Work, Family, Friends, Spirituality. It is difficult to keep things in line. What to leave in, what to leave out.

Tonight my thoughts were as convoluted as they get. I had to get out. The weather has been incredibly windy with rain showers coming and going. I spent twenty minutes soaking my head. Then I climbed to the highest place I could and sat there in the wind. I am afraid of heights and was slightly overcome by fear, which was strangely enough suddenly overcome by complete calm. The feeling of fear of physical danger was tremendously comforting. I wrapped my legs around the branches, let my hands go, and closed my eyes.

I disappeared.

Currently listening:
All That You Can't Leave Behind
By U2
Release date: 31 October, 2000
3:26 PM 
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