Monday, July 27, 2009

purpose.

Okay, I have an idea. Maybe not brilliant, definitely not novel, and probably not original. But here it is.

I've been looking for a purpose for this summer. It's my last true summer with the connotations of freedom, laziness, lack of schooling. As of this time next year, I'll be paying off the mountain of student loans I've accumulated and working some sort of yet-unidentified position.

So why am I not revelling in it? I feel like my summer is slipping from my grasp, that it is completely not memorable in the least. If I were to title it, as I so often attempt, it would be: "The Summer of Harry Potter (well, three weeks in which I read all of the books)." "The Summer when I Watched my Roommate Plan her Wedding." "The Summer of Avoiding Writing." "The Summer of Watching the Food Network." Not distinguished.

But I've always loved Paul Newman, ever since Junior year English class (story for another time). And lately, I've been renting some of his flicks that I haven't seen. I've become more and more entrenched in the PL Newman world, as evidenced by my Facebook statuses. At the same time, I've been reading creative nonfiction about people doing silly projects like living the commands of the Bible for one year, or reading the Encyclopaedia Brittanica straight through.

Then it hit me:

Why don't I spend the rest of my summer watching every movie of Paul Newman's?

According to the source of all movie wisdom, the Internet Movie Database (imdb.com), Paul has about 65 movies to his filmography. Though my life is dull and quiet, I'm not sure that I could fit 65 movies into the next 5 weeks. So I'm not sticking it just onto this summer. It'll be more of a yearly goal, maybe before 2009 is done. Or maybe a lifetime goal. Luckily for me (and I can't believe I'm saying this, what a jerk), he's dead so he won't be adding to his filmography.

I'm sure I'm not the first to have done it. I just thought it'd be fun to have a purpose, regardless of the meaninglessness of it. Hey, this woman named Julie decided to cook through Julia Child's cookbook, blog about it, and it got made into a movie. Not that I think anyone would want to make a movie about watching movies, unless of course, my life starts following the movies I'm watching, in which case, I think Paul Newman is stalking me from beyond the grave; that would make a good movie. But of course, I would only want PL to play himself, difficult to be sure at this junction.

I thought I needed some parameters. Here they are, as they stand: I'll start with just the films and skip the TV appearances. It doesn't matter how big the part. Some movies are more obscure, so I'll have to search for them; luckily, I have two different libraries at my disposal.

So that's the plan. I'll watch, blog, and just have a general good time with my buddy, Paul.
Let's see what'll come of it.

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