I watched Spike Lee's 25th Hour again last night and it really has influenced my mood today.

Melancholy is such an interesting, subtle and complex emotion: It's nowhere near happiness and optimism, yet it's a stretch away from sadness and desolation. It's a really fascinating interplay of the two with bits of hope, regret, introspection and resignation thrown in.

In my old age, I've become totally vulnerable to songs, paintings, movies, written works, etc. doing this sort of thing to me.

Does art do that to any of you? What does?

Thinking about the old days... innocence, no bills, I felt so free

I don't know what melancholy means, but music and film and art can make me emotional.

Melancholia to me is kinda like being hit with a sudden bout of existentialism. You suddenly try to ponder your place in the universe and you realise just what a small speck you are in the great scheme of things. When I get these fits, I don't get SAD...but I get very reflective. I'll rehash old regrets, ponder my progress through this life and be awed by how time marches on.

What art puts me in those moods? Let's see...

Books: The Catcher in the Rye, anything by Hubert Selby Jr, anything by John O'Brien

Movies: TONS of films do this to me, but here are my Top 10 (not in order): Last Tango in Paris; Paris, Texas; American Beauty; A.I.; Wild Strawberries; Bad Lieutenant; The Trial (the Kyle MacLachlan version); The Sweet Hereafter; Leaving Las Vegas; Magnolia

Music: David Bowie--Low
Nick Cave--Let Love In
Daniel Johnston--Songs of Pain
Peter Murphy--Dust
Chris Isaak--Forever Blue
Lou Reed--Berlin
Pink Floyd--The Wall (the ULTIMATE existentialist album)

CAMILLE4U said:

mel·an·chol·y (noun)
1.Sadness or depression of the spirits; gloom: “There is melancholy in the wind and sorrow in the grass” (Charles Kuralt).
2. Pensive reflection or contemplation.
3. Archaic.
a. Black bile.
b. An emotional state characterized by sullenness and outbreaks of violent anger, believed to arise from black bile.

This is the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language's definition. My thought is closest to #2

some times you walk in to an old house and it's like your whole youth goes by in a flash ! Just because of the smell...like a crack in the matrix !! (and the cat walked by !)

After a chick gives me a blowjob I'm blue

DudeDrops said:

You've got great taste.

Lammastide said:

Oh yes. Sometimes I feel this way. I don't think a film has ever made me feel this way though!

i spent the weekend helping my mom paint the cabin and felt melancholy on the way home because it was a good time and i don't see her enough and i know she's getting on in years too. .

jn2 said:

WHY?

Music big time.

25th hour was a good flick, not great but good. It's a n accurate description of the NYC area around the time just following 9/11. I like how it fits with the story, rebuilding, dealing with those emotions. It at times feels like two separate films though. Edward Norton was fantastic as usual.

Now enough of the Film review. What makes me Melancholy? Just about everything I have 2 speeds melancholy and hyper as all shit. That's just my personality

This does...



Also, certain songs and musical compositions can make me feel intensly melancholy...silence while driving a long distance can as well (altho not everytime...sometimes the silence can be very peaceful and serene)...

I've wanted to see 25th Hour...maybe I will next week...

geography

What a beautiful thread ~ but Lamasstide ~ if you want to see someone who is really old ~ well, that's me!

Melancholy


The changing of the Seasons ~ although I love them all I get especially quiet and reflective when Summer leaves ~ that first day that you can smell Fall on the wind leaves me in the deepest melancholy state.. The dying of things, no swimming in the lake Huron for several months, the passing of time. Even though it is part of the Universal Code it makes me infinitely sad and hermit like.


Prince ~ Power Fantastic and Last December are just two, Joni Mitchell, David Sylvian, Van Morrison, Bjork singing Gloomy Sunday and many other songs by her, Sigur Ros, two songs by an artist named Stay Frightened ~ Still and The Hermit, Dead Can Dance ~ especially the video for The Carnival Is Over, two David Bowie songs I recently heard at opposite ends of the age perspective ~ many many others.

The ending of my long mariage, the inevitable aging process, knowing menopause will occur, regrets about things I wanted to do but didn't.

I love this powerful emotion. It brings such introspective reflection and can create great resovle for change and strength of the Spirit

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this was drawn by a child

some crazy badness is going on




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[This message was edited Tue Jul 29 20:42:13 PDT 2003 by youngsoulrebel]

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i also desperately miss my soul mate



distance has been no object
and every second spent with you has been mad fun
i cant wait to spend more time with you

iridescence you are mad fine

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Going 4 a good dump and ending up with a 'vote 4 Tony Blair'.

JDINTERACTIVE said:

You funny bastard.