placeholder so that i come back and write more about what i've been doing.


How to Survive a Plague

The Intouchables

Under African Skies

Bel Ami

Six Million and One first and so far only true dud of the festival. should have been a walkout.

Love Free or Die

Countdown

Sacrifice

Tatsumi

i'm busy watching movies. it makes me pretty damn happy.

(written between a wrenching doc about Act Up and a blockbuster French comedy. i can't help but grin at that.)

Legends of Valhalla: Thor
surprise 3D! a sweet but not exceptional animated take on Thor's origin story. i liked it well enough, but the animation was generic and so were the jokes.

American Addict
is this year's Food Inc. passionate advocates are here to get you angry about prescription drugs in the US. they're right, you should be angry. it's all talking heads and will play well on tv or a computer.

High Ground
follows a group of disabled US vets as they climb Lobuche. compelling stories, great storytelling, and a nice mix of interviews, combat footage, and the mountain expedition. great discussion afterwards with one of the subjects plus the director and producers. well worth watching.

My Brother the Devil
one of my favorites so far, about Egyptian immigrant brothers in London. it takes what should be a formulaic gang story and tweaks it enough to be fresh and compelling. excellent acting from the young cast, and great chemistry in the romance. one of the things that impressed me is that one of the antagonists has an arc and inner life that is shown without him having any scenes of his own and barely any lines. showings are over - if this gets a comeback in the last week it's worth seeing.

good logistical changes this year: run previews, do announcements and seat latecomers while the projectionist resets, run film; lots of action at the Uptown which is easy to access from home and work

the jury-is-out logistical changes this year: scanning a barcode on passholders' badges (SLOW) the Queue card system (pro: reduces congestion in tiny lobbies, makes a fairer distribution of desirable seats; con: punishes back to back viewers with a spot at the end of the line, confuses the hell out of returning passholders)

My Sucky Teen Romance
a charming ultra-low-budget comedy/horror film where a new vampire hides out at a science fiction convention. i don't know who pissed in Paul Constant's cheerios, but i've definitely seen lower production values, worse acting,and truly painful scripts at SIFF (especially from made-in-Seattle films, *sigh*). anyway, i knew what i was in for when i went (shoestring budget, very young writer-director) and i thought it was good for what it was, especially the knowing depictions of the con experience. bonus for some snappy tunes from Austin indie bands.

Trishna
a loose adaptation of Tess of the d'Ubervilles set in modern India. notable for the time spent in Rajasthan, since i never think of India as a place with deserts. beautiful and interesting sights, solid acting, slick inclusion of song and dance without having the leads break into said song and dance. i enjoyed it but left feeling like i was too culturally illiterate to fully comprehend the characters' motivations. there's some stuff going on with class and communication that made no sense to my American brain, but i could see that it was perfectly logical to the characters. this is one of those films i enjoy for the peek into how other people live.

Polisse
i almost didn't stay out for this one, but it turned out to be the gem of the day. the film follows a Paris Child Protection Unit. it's basically a season's worth of cop tv show done in two hours - a series of slices of life on the job with an ensemble cast. lots of squicky content, but lots of great character moments and quite a few laughs. highly recommended if you like a good cop show.

i was humming along and did too many repeats on the current interesting knitting project and need to undo about eight rows in order to have enough yarn left to finish properly. i am close to changing balls on the current boring knitting project and may run out of yarn before i get home to pick up another ball. (no links because i am behind on taking pictures for Ravelry. i need to figure out where i put my tripod, because no one should have to deal with me micromanaging them until i like the angle and exposure.)

SIFF starts today! (i don't count the galas-since they're not included in my pass they might as well not exist.) this time in May is also when Seattle wakes up and starts having all of the everything happen at the same time. so i'll easily see a dozen movies this weekend, but i won't be doing the LYS tour, or going to any parties, or hopping a bus to the Sounders away game in Vancouver.

i saw The Pitmen Painters at ACT on Wednesday, thanks to e_bourne. (i've seen several shows there but this was my first in the upstairs, with the arena stage. the community theatre of my youth was an arena, and my college mainstage was a thrust, so i have a soft spot for them.) nice play, solid cast and production design, and a really interesting topic. it was good, but it could have been excellent. alas, the experience was marred by directoral sledgehammer at the close of each act. for me any art about art is masturbation; if i have to be a voyeur i want a crack in the closet door, not the donkey show.

C's brother didn't complete his bachelor's degree in time for the graduation ceremony at the end of his fourth year of college. he still walked with his class, and there were gifts and hoopla.

i didn't attend, because i thought the whole thing was insulting to everyone who earned a diploma. C and i both graduated on time with double majors. what did our ceremonies mean, if you could get all the recognition without actually finishing?

* * *

around fifteen years later*, i know that it didn't actually take anything away from C, or from me. my achievements have not been undone.

tangentially, this brings me to Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is. i've been watching response to it. on the one hand is the "yay, a metaphor that avoids that now-loaded word 'privilege' and maybe we can have a nice talk!" on the other is "noooooooo, winning on Easy Mode doesn't really count! therefore i can't be on Easy Mode, and you are insulting me by implying that i am!" with bonus "let me explain to you about how i'm not really on Easy Mode!" and a side of "talking about Hardcore mode is causing Hardcore mode!"

Character Class and The Game of Life digs into class more, and does a nice job of looking at the economic advantages and disadvantages of equality.

so far, this is my favorite response about being a good user on Easy Mode:
You may feel that you have been kicked out of Goodness Town! But you were never actually there, because Goodness Town doesn't exist.
Instead, what has happened is that while traveling along Goodness Road, you have encountered some cowshit.






*i still think C's parents made the wrong choice in celebrating when it was convenient instead of when it was deserved.

i just realized that this post is angsting over a quote from this interview.

the Long Shot shoot day is smack in the middle of SIFF. i don't think that i can pile any more into early June, so i have a little sad about that.

hey, photo-taking friends, you should do Long Shot. it's a very cool thing and PCNW is an amazing resource for photographers and fans of photography.

now that it has been consistently warm outside, C has a new tuque. because i have a special talent for reaching for the luxury item, its fiber content is alpaca, silk, kid mohair, and lambswool. pretty colors! so soft! handwash only! may lose shape over time!



the designer has asked to use it as an example on the pattern page. (this is because i am the first person to finish the hat, since the pattern is relatively new. i did not magically make the best hat ever after last making one hat 20 years ago.)

C reads me a bit from The Hobbit every night while i knit. it seems to have become a new ritual (at least until we're out of Hobbitses). it's much clearer to me now why the Hobbit was so appealing to me as a child...Tolkien is telling a story with similar scope to LotR, but he doesn't bother to show all the interminable details.

i finally added pictures to my Ravelry account. i need to get out my tripod the next time i'm in one of these. i also need to find time to shoot in daylight. getting the colors true is difficult otherwise. (inner photography student is bitchy about variations in color temperature, but she is the enemy of done.)


the current wip is two colors and i'm using this as the contrast. i cheated and wound it to the section i wanted. i'm about eight rows deep and getting to the green bits. i think it's going to work as planned...

this week, i bought my first television. no, really. up to this point, every tv in my life was a gift or a hand-me-down from someone else's upgrade. we brought it home and i did a quick and dirty xbox setup for C's online game night before running off to tame e_bourne's electronics. i've always thought of her tv as being monumentally huge. it turns out our new one is only an inch smaller. whoa.

this marks the retirement of the VCR. its life in the last few years was about taking in the cable and splitting off the audio signal, which is no longer necessary.

last night i got most of the wiring done. i need some longer audio cables, which may become an excuse to go to optical or coax for some of the components. and i'm still troubleshooting the region-free DVD player. (per the manual, if i can't get it to talk to the tv, i should change the settings. which, yunno, can only be accessed through display on the tv...) anyway, games work, tv works, Region 1 DVDs work. that will do for a little while.

quilting is unforgiving at most stages. if you miscut fabric you can certainly reuse it in another project, but not in this one. get a seam allowance too wide or too narrow at the piecing stage, and the top won't come together. block pieces have to go in a certain order. there are right sides and wrong sides to fabric, points and patterns to match. one can unsew, but i can say from grim experience that you can only poke a row of holes in something so many times before you destroy it. then there are issues other than the fabric itself...your sharp blade won't ever be sharp again if you find a forgotten pin with it.

so for me at least, it takes laser focus. steady hands. the ability to plan several steps into the future and hold that in my head. and i haven't been able to do that for months. i've ruined a few things. i'm not an absolute perfectionist, and i learn best from making mistakes. but damn, i hate destroying materials and tools.

in some ways this applies to painting models and baking as well. plus i have a love/hate relationship with baking since i'm healthier when i don't eat baked goods. while experimenting with sugar-free and lower carbohydrate materials is interesting, it also comes with a high cost (the best sugar substitute IMO is erythritol...$.52 an ounce vs $.38 a POUND for granulated sugar) and failure rate.

i've been feeling lost without being able to quilt. i've lost track of when it was that i last Made A Thing (my attempted handmade Yule gifts were scrapped due to design flaws, learning to use a drop spindle was just sad, my last batch of baked goods both tasted bad and had a lousy texture).

i learned to knit as a teenager. (i took classes because my mother knew that attempting to teach me herself would lead to fighting.) but i never finished many projects because it was so damn boring.

* * *

i was knitting in the hallway at Norwescon this weekend while waiting to get into a panel, sitting beside a woman probably twenty years my senior who was making tiny lace hexagons at lighting speed. after she inquired about my project, i mentioned that i stopped knitting previously because it was boring. to which she replied "and now you knit because it's boring". yes.

a couple weeks ago i was buying yarn to take to PA for my mother. and i desperately needed a thing to do with my hands, a thing i could do on the plane when my kindle was supposed to be turned off, and in the hospital. that's when i realized that i should just get some yarn i'd like to look at and knit a scarf and it's not like i needed to do anything with the product. and so i made a ribbed scarf on the trip, and it was a sort of thumb-sucking. no thinking, just meditative motion. make a mistake, pull it out. the yarn is unharmed, it's safe to try again. after the scarf, i made a shawl. and i knew by the time i had started on the final edging that it was too small (because of course i didn't use the size of yarn or needles that the pattern called for) and there were mistakes i wouldn't tolerate that had made it past various attempts to fix them. i finished it off anyway to practice the lacy edge and the cast off. then i frogged the entire thing. i'm starting over with new gauge math and more experience.

i look like a bandwagoner, but whatever. i've decided to stop giving a shit and enjoy the only creative thing i seem to be able to do right now.

this was a good Norwescon. i didn't do all the socializing with friends that i would have liked, but i did manage a lot of hugs and cheeful waves.

highlights:

• best room yet: view corner room in the tower complete with a couch and coffee table.


• a NASA meatball sticker is now covering up the "TOSHIBA" on my netbook. sticker courtesy Bridget Landry.


• Mary Robinette Kowal's one-woman shadow puppet show.


• buying a lovely brass Seal of Rassilon pin that i can wear with business or formal wear.


• the miracle berry tasting, AKA i drank a shot of vinegar and it was delicious.


• finally making it to the Scotch tasting party (thanks, jackwilliambell).


• my request for the dance on Saturday totally got played in the midnight block of songs.

lowlights:

• got to see the Sounders game in the bar, but it was an awkward 0-0 tie


• never running into miss_swamp + failing to see solcita's concert


• unknitting


• feeling absences

overall i managed to stay well-fed and well-rested, and this trip really felt like a little vacation. i came home refreshed instead of exhausted.

i said to my mother today that i've reached a milestone: this is where my friends stop dying in accidents and start dying from natural causes. perhaps the next one is that it will stop being unexpected and too soon.

* * *

and here i am, with my hands coiled like claws over the keyboard, and my every attempt to compose brings more tears.

enough about me. read some markbourne today, and remember him.

his film blog
his fiction

still waiting. probably shouldn't be listening to OK GO.

i was crafting a long post about this, but here's the short version: we're getting a dog, any day now. we've wanted a dog for 15 years, and the planets have finally aligned.

we're as close to ready as we're probably going to get, and we're just waiting for a clean bill of health before we bring her home. waiting for her cold to clear up was supposed to help us get organized for her arrival, since this all slammed together faster than anticipated. and it worked, except for the part where i am taut with anticipation and full of anxiety about everything that could possibly stop this from really really happening.

C described a tulle skirt we got for his niece as "spun from Chinese children's tears".

why is it that female fantasy authors seem to have a penchant for physical abuse of their characters?

taken from our balcony this evening. so much for sticking to black and white this week. (although i do have a b&w shot or two of it, it makes me sad that i don't have a fancy enough camera for monochrome filters.)