Obsession # 1: Asa Butterfield

Note: re: the numbering of the obsessions: The numbering is simply to keep track of the number of obsessions I have listed on here. It does not have anything to do with the chronology of the obsessions, either with respect to my whole career as an obsessive or even their order in the present time. I am prone to regressions, and so, further down the line, there might occur a blog on Harry Potter or Tina Fey. You must, I suppose, conclude that the numbers are solely for my benefit. Any benefit you derive from them is purely coincidental.

How someone can be so distracted and so focused is beyond me. But this is, for all technical purposes, my modus operandi. I tend to shoot off at a tangent and come back, sometimes rather seamlessly, but most times in an erratic irregular-heartbeat-ECG sort of way. What remains when you've husked through all that is the point of interest.

Remember the kid from The Boy in the Striped Pajamas? Remember his soulful eyes? I've always been fascinated by actors who can communicate a lot with their eyes. One simply has to look at Adrien Brody and Matthias Schoenaerts to witness the somewhat abstract quality that lends their eyes such a supreme capacity for pathos. This is not to reduce the actor to his physical givens, because many people have beautiful eyes; few display such pliable transparency. Anyway, I found myself looking into the same eyes some time ago when I was watching Merlin. It escaped me where I'd seen the face before, and I didn't give it much further thought (which, to be honest, is rather uncharacteristic).


Today, I was looking at Hailee Steinfeld, because I'd watched Pitch Perfect 2 on Friday and have been listening to the soundtrack since. I vaguely remembered her being nominated for an Oscar as a child, so I went to check that out. On her list of works, I found Ender's Game, a movie based on a book that is on my reader and which I've been putting off for about a year now. The cast list of the movie is headed by one Asa Butterfield. His list of works shows Hugo and The Boy in the Striped Pajamas. He's also done another movie with Steinfeld called 10, 000 Saints. Further down the line, there it is - Merlin.

The kid has had a pretty fantastic career so far and one can only hope he doesn't go down a child actor drain. It has escaped no one's notice that British child actors fare so much better than Hollywood ones. They thrive, even. Case in point: all of the Harry Potter cast. Anyway, Butterfield (such an English surname) seems like a good egg, who has already worked with the likes of Martin Scorsese, Harrison Ford and Ben Kingsley, and has a propensity to play rather extraordinary characters. Also, he's apparently co-designed the only iPad video game that can be played with your eyes closed. He and his father came up with the idea when he was working on Striped Pajamas (at which point it was only a pen and paper game). With all that, we can only hope he hasn't peaked yet.

Secondary take-aways: Beans on toast.

A Lifelong Condition

The world is a very accepting place, I've come to understand in the past few years of my still rather short life. It's also a rather cruel place, as I'm forced to admit from what I've read of YouTube comments. So, when I say I'm an obsessive, I'm prepared for most eventualities. I must state clearly at the very onset that I do not suffer from OCD or OCPD or any such clinically relevant and, therefore, forgivable conditions. I am merely a person that gets very obsessed with random things at any given point in time. For years, I've tried to be an interesting person, only to discover that I really am not. What I am is a very interested person. There's a note on my school record from a teacher that says I'm "very interested in how things work" - a comment that is almost certainly a generic, typically middle-school teacher sort of thing to say. You see, I was a boring child, but on the plus side, I was seldom a bored one.

In the past, I have tried to cure myself of my obsessiveness, not only because it is rather uncool and I already had a plethora of traits that made me, for all intents and purposes, a loser, but also because of the all-consuming and rather unsettling nature of these obsessions. At any given point, I am so invested in something that it takes over my whole life, influences everything from my mannerisms and my language to my whole world-view. I realized after many failures in the endeavor to rid myself of this rather intrinsic part of me that this is the only way I know to be. I cannot but be this person, and it was tiring and entirely not worth it to try and change. And in any case, I hide it pretty well - unless, that is, you're a close friend, in which case, you've probably been bombarded with information that you do not need or want more times than you care to remember. Thankfully, my posse have, at worst, accepted this about me, and at best, celebrated it.

This blog is a rather odd thing, and will only fully appeal to those who appreciate the random and yet methodical human mind, and how full of awesomeness the world is. It will partly appeal to almost everyone. There will be a select few to whom this will appeal not at all. For them, I have another blog amina-abdurazak.livejournal.com, that is full of mostly serious writing. If that isn't your cup of tea, read a Harry Potter book. If you do not like that, I can only hope and presume that you have the good sense to bugger off.

Some people, I tell ya.