Category: Film

Partay

My dinner partay started off, amusingly, with me calling Mike around 5 and reminding him that we were set for dinner tonight.

After a very long pause (during which I began to worry about him), he sheepishly admitted that he was hanging out with his new squeeze.  I assured him that it was okay and got off the phone shaking my head and laughing.

Suzanne, Paul, Jeff, Keith and I ate, talked, ate some more, watched Bubba-Hotep (Suzanne hadn’t seen it) and played lots of pinball.  Supper consisted of (why, do you ask, do you always put the food in? because my mother eats extremely boring food so this is kinda food schadenfreude) pork chomps and chicken breasts and corn on the barbecue, plus I bought Portuguese buns and made three-cheese buns on the cue.  Recipe follows.  Suzanne brought puréed squash with cinnamon, squash gems (bacon and squash rolled in corn flakes) AND home made carrot cake with scratch made cream cheese icing.  I made a macédoine of vegetables (zucchini, broccoli, lima beans, green beens, carrots and onions, all fresh except the lima beans).

Cheese melts. I took the left over feta, which I had soaked in water rather than brine so it was much less salty, medium cheedar and parmesan, and mixed that all up, then added pepper, basil, parsley and garlic powder, then stuffed the buns, then wrapped each individually and tossed them on the cue.  Keith turned up when there were two left and then devoured them with an eagerness that was truly remarkable.  I know I made the damned things to be eaten; I wasn’t expecting to watch them disappear like soap bubbles.

Speaking of truly remarkable: KEITH DIDN’T GO HOME.  He appeared at my bedroom door, remarked that he had just put down the game controller for Arkham Asylum, and that he’d like breakfast. I told him to help himself to the leftover waffles. (I make waffles pretty much every Saturday morning with the waffle iron Jeff inherited from Granny.)  So he didn’t sleep over, but he didn’t go home.

Anyway, Paul brought the corn, which was yummy, and two pies which we didn’t even touch because the carrot cake was SO amazing (superlative, actually, maybe best ever) so I feel like I hardly had to cook at all. We had much enjoyment of each other – everybody very mellow and low key and comfy.  Suzanne drinks very sparingly, but I thought I would tempt her by picking up some Baja Rosa yesterday, and she had one small glass on the rocks, on the back deck while perusing Jeff’s copy of the Joy of Cooking for yet more squash recipes (her friends keep giving them to her).

From all this is should be obvious that I had a good time.  I think everybody else did too.

Rounding up some unusual suspects

Really thought provoking article about the ‘institution’ of marriage by a gay writer in Seattle.

An 8 minute video about Medicare. For Americans, by Canadians.  Rational, good tempered and funny in spots.

Adolf Hitler doesn’t like Avatar.  The last line slew me. Three minutes or so long.

How come and for why hasn’t this extra solar planet burnt up? I suspect that they aren’t actually seeing what they are looking at properly.

How many dimensions did you say? Assistance in visualizing multiple dimensions.  Brain so hurts.

Do the wave…. the gravity wave.

Human ingredients Tshirt.

It’s unbelievable what people will get messed up over. Personal comment: It may reveal me to be a philistine, but I like Verdana.  I don’t understand the issue.  I just don’t.

Chrissie Hynde told meat eaters in her audience to fuck themselves.  Mike and Jeff and I sat there with hot dogs in our tummies and just looked at each other.  On the other hand, just to prove I’m at least TRYING to see the other person’s point of view, here’s a PETA press release about some of her animal activism.  Hint:  she doesn’t like McDonalds.

The New Miss Universe.  Beautiful, and without a hint of distinction.

The Milky Way has rarely looked so beautiful.

That’s just MEAN. So why did I snicker?

Do it yourself Horrrrorrrr F/X.  Shows Peter Jackson filming Bad Taste.

The difference between a man and a boy is that a man takes pictures of his toys.

“I’m an atheist because I’m efficient.”  Or so you can infer from Bill Gates’ interview excerpts…

Finally, a quiz where it’s easy to get 100%.

Saw District 9 this afternoon

It kicked ass.  It is also rather a guilty pleasure.  But really, worth seeing on the big screen.

Kat, Kashka and Katie, plus Paul and Keith, were here for supper.  Barbecued chicken thighs, garlic bread, broccoli and scratchmade cheese sauce, potatoes or yams.  Strawberry rhubarb pie for dessert.  Katie and her housemates are playing on the Star Trek…. happy sigh.

—original Star Trek theme —

Okay, now that I’ve cognitively set you up for this request, look what came through my inbox just now….

Loki, I know you never sign petitions but this is a MUST.

Hello from two CICLOPS Alliance members and fellow fans of Cassini!

For those of you who may have missed the big news, CICLOPS imaging director Carolyn Porco recently served as a science consultant on this year’s blockbuster feature-length film, Star Trek. In subsequent posts to the CICLOPS message boards (see the comments at http://ciclops.org/view_event.php?id=109), a few of you brought up the idea of petitioning to get Carolyn a cameo spot in the sequel, which is currently in pre-production and will likely release in 2011. In response to those comments, a couple of us put our brains together and decided to draft a real petition! We showed this to Carolyn, and she loved the idea, saying she’d be “honored to wear the Federation uniform.”

To move things along, she graciously agreed to let us send this note to her friends and supporters, fans of Cassini, and all CICLOPS Alliance members as a call to action. You will see that the petition says–and I’m sure you would all agree–that there are many reasons why Carolyn deserves a spot in front of the camera. So I urge you to please get out there and make your voices heard! If we can get 10,000 people to heed our call, I don’t think there’s any way that producer J.J. Abrams (with whom Carolyn worked on the 2009 film) will be able to ignore it!


To sign the petition (and leave a comment, if you like!), simply go to:

http://www.thepetitionsite.com/1/dr-carolyn-porco-deserves-a-star-trek-cameo

and sign up. And be sure to spread the word to everyone and anyone you know!

Thanks in advance for your support.

Let’s make it so!

Maia Weinstock
David Holmes

Sundry and Various

I’ve been feeling quite odd for the last few days, like I’m coming down with something.  I can’t be too wobbly – my appetite is unimpaired.  I am also completely uninterested in work, which is why I’ve been doing things like posting bits of humour I worked on 15 years ago.  I wrote a couple of movie reviews.  Saw Bon Cop Bad Cop last night and LOVED IT… I will definitely watch it again.  Jeff is starting to see the value in borrowing movies from the library 🙂

Leo and Linda are in Newfoundland.  Here’s a pic of him playing with an outdoor chess set.

leoplayingchess

Tom L’s mother passed away yesterday. I light a candle for the journey.

The carpet cleaning man came yesterday and removed the smell of dog from our house.  The sofa and love seat and the carpet in the games room were all cleaned; Granny’s carpet went away to be cleaned (and the underlay got hauled away, thanks be, so we don’t have to cut it up and throw it out) and will be back in ten days or less.  Harry gave a vivid description of how the carpet is first put into an interesting machine which beats it with leather straps.  Insert random BDSM comment here.

Paul and Keith are back tonight tomorrow night; I have to jump on my bike and get over and feed Kira.

Pork chops marinated in pear juice and rosemary and then barbecued, and home made tabbouleh for dinner last night.  Jeff said, “What’s fer puddin?'” after this minor feast, and I nearly snarled at him; then remembered we had a frozen peach and raspberry pie, and that it’s actually cool enough to turn the oven on.  So we finished up with pie.

Furbabies & Gilgamesh

This morning, while Eddie was grumbling the whole time, Eddie and Miss Margot played over the same little  stuffed mouse.  I am trying to train Miss Margot to run along a track (which is interesting, because once she has ‘prey’ in sight she’s indefatigable, like a squat and furry greyhound) and Eddie got into the act.  Then, grumbling still, he walked away.  Twice or three times this morning he’s bopped her on the head.  She never says a thing, just flops on the ground.  She’s 1/3rd his weight, it hardly seems fair.  Gizmo never hisses at or hits her.

Yesterday I wrote another tune.  The recorder was sitting in front of me. I recorded it.  What was so hard about that?  Why have I not done that before?

A zillion years ago Loki told me that the oldest story was the epic of Gilgamesh.  It’s been on my list of things to read since I was a small child.    The most recent reworking of Gilgamesh is by Stephen Mitchell, a noted scholar, writer, translator, and custodian of wisdom literature.  I heard about it when the book was released on the CBC and put it on my list; it seemed that finally the translation, or retelling, worth reading now existed.

Yesterday I went to the library, because the *^%&$$ ICBC finally got off its duff and sent me my address change, without which I would not be able to get an update to my library card.  I did so, and Gilgamesh was waiting for me; that and a number of other fine books and movies.

I highly recommend it.  I wish a really good animation studio would bring it to life; there’s no way you could do it as a live action film, in my view.  What a different world that was, even in the mythic retelling.  To read the flood myth…  a snake stealing the  plant of immortality…. to feel Gilgamesh’s grief when Enkidu dies…. to shake one’s head how the gods cluster round the first offerings after the flood – they are so hungry because their humans are all dead and there’s no one to make offerings …. to smile at the wisdom of the tavernkeeper Shiduri, taking shelter on the roof of her tavern when Gilgamesh shows up, not wanting to be killed by the powerful and crazed-with-grief man…. it was all very beautiful, and very strange.

I have had dreams about Uruk, the city of Gilgamesh.  I just didn’t know that’s what I was dreaming about at the time.

I had a productive and happy day yesterday.  I ran errands on my bicycle, and Jeff and Keith and I watched The Adventures of Robin Hood with Errol Flynn, saw Katie, and Paul briefly, and Mike came over for dinner.  Mike’s kilt came, so I gave it to him and he was VERY happy and immediately donned it. Best gag of the day – BOTH KIDS assumed we were watching Court Jester, because there’s Basil Rathbone in the same sets.  Anybody ever notice how Una O’Connor and Mildred Natwick look awful similar?  I didn’t until yesterday.  And Errol Flynn is among the hottest men who ever lived.

Anyway, if you like costumes, you have to see Robin Hood.  Olivia de Havilland’s gowns are swoonderful.

We watched Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey (the documentary by Sam Dunn, which like his followup Global Metal, was awesome… and SO Canadian) and we celebrated Jeff’s birthday by eating barbecued chicken, and steak, and heart of summer salad with blackberry vinaigrette, and home made garlic bread, and bear claw ice cream.

This morning Jeff walked to 7-11 and they were OUT OF MILK.  Why?  Because their fridges were not able to maintain safe temps for dairy.  Kinda tells you what the last week in the GVRD has been like.  So he went to the other 7-11, which is a bit closer as it turns out, and they had some, and I made Jeff waffles and bacon for brekky.

Here is the recipe for heart of summer salad.

1 mango

1 small purple onion

1 tomato

1 orange pepper

1 red pepper

Cut everything into half inch pieces and drizzle either store bought raspberry dressing or home made blackberry dressing over top.  Take a tablespoon each of Tom’s blackberry jelly and olive oil and three tablespoons of vinegar, add basil, parsley and garlic to taste, then mix well.  If it sounds yummy, it is.

If I was making it in quantity I would likely add half an english cuke and more tomato.

And the real world keeps getting more like a video game

Bruce Sterling pointed to this article.

Yesterday the pinball games came home from Victoria.  They are Xenon and Star Trek.  Xenon needs a lot of work a diode, Star Trek needs a diode is functional.  We’re going to get a brass plaque that says, R John Caspell Memorial Pinball Palace, seeing as how the pinballs will be in his old room.  More furniture came into the house, including my room, so I now am overstuffed with solid wood furniture, just the way I like it.

Chipper, you will remember that Xenon was a game you and Steve B useta play on downstairs from your place on King St.  Colin and Catherine, you will remember the Star Trek game as the game that went to Rhino – the same con where Jeff was Robert Bloch’s gofer.  Ah, the good old days.

Margot keeps trying to be trodden on.

I am contemplating the pile of work I’ve undertaken this year with some sadness. It is, after all, work.  But at least I don’t have to commute.

Watched the 25th Hour. Really, really great film; Spike Lee did an awesome job, and the cast is brilliant.  Lee is SUCH an actor’s director.  If you’re in a Spike Lee movie, you may not like him, but he WILL get a good performance outta you or die trying.  I am considering reviewing it.  My review is up on imdb.com

Hotter than the hubs of Hades.

Yesterday I brought 20 beers home on a bicycle.  Mike, you will be amused to learn that I bought 12 Bud Light Lime, having become addicted to them at your place.  (Mike, knowing that I’m a beer weenie, didn’t expect me to like them.  But Jeff and I both do, as it is lime flavoured beer water, and a damned fine thing on a hot day.)  I only had one bungee cord, so getting it all home was a challenge, but the house is downhill from the beer store, at least.

Song for today is All the Con Men I have Known.  A brilliant tune; it’s the one that gets me the most “That sounds like Joni Mitchell” comments (which frankly I find irritating while understandable) and I personally think the lyrics are among my best.  It’s just not an easy tune, and OF COURSE every goddamned verse has a different tune, because that’s just the way I crawl moaning across the floor.

pr0n night in Canada

In honour of Marilyn Chamber’s  untimely death, I watched Behind the Green Door for the first time last night.

Yanno, that was not a bad movie at all – I have to admit I like the old fashioned stuff way better than the new.  I watched with the sound off while there was any dialogue, and when the dialogue quit I turned the sound up and learned that the soundtrack (yes, I mean the music) is awesome.  Who knew?  Anyway, she will always be my favourite pr0n star, and I hope she lives forever on celluloid.  I could go on at great length about the costume Johnny Keyes is wearing (O…. My….Flying Spaghetti Monster), the variety of body types in the audience (unbelievable, by contemporary standards), and various other things about the film, but the thing that really got me is how damned CHEERFUL it was.  Srsly.

Two films

Diva and Quills.  I loved both of them.  Diva is almost 30 years old and yet deals with some of the more pressing contemporary media issues – fandom, the break between reality and fantasy, copyright and the rights of the artist… all bound up in a really superb, well shot, well acted action movie with one hell of a soundscape.

Quills is a fantasy based on the life of the Marquis de Sade.  It’s not real in any way, but it makes a rather disgusting case for artistic freedom, so I have to like it for that.  The only reason I bugged Jeff into renting it was because it has the guy who plays Bill the Vampire in True Blood as a minor character (Stephen Moyer).  But it also has Kate Winslet, Geoffrey Rush, Joaquin Phoenix, Michael Caine, the ever amazing Patrick Malahide.  Great script, but stagey and unsatisfying from a dramatic point of view.  I just loved it anyway.  Is there anything Geoffrey Rush can’t do?  Joaquin Phoenix is great.

Singing makes me happy and so does Major Kusanagi

So Keith and Paul picked me up from work last night (Keith was driving) and we went back to their place and at pork chomps and salad and oyster mushrooms.  Then Paul and I sang and played for ages.  Honestly, we should put together a set list and then we wouldn’t have those long headscratching moments when we think “What will we sing next?”

Around nine I went home and found Jeff watching Ghost in the Shell Innocence.  Man, in HD on a big screen that movie is drenchingly beautiful.

I have Scottish blood, so I’m allowed to laugh

HRNK!

I fed Katie and Dax last night, at Brentwood because Dax is not 100% with the welcome mat here and Katie didn’t bother telling me until I was committed that Dax was with her, then came home and saw Jeff hauling in a ten kilo bag of flour, which is a good thing, because there was no flour in the house, and we all know what that means.  No waffles. I’m not saying that me continuing to live with Jeff is contingent upon me making waffles at least once a week, but I’d like to not take any chances.

The Luddite resurfaced in my inbox long enough to forward about ten links to educational videos from Vivid Entertainment.   I only watched half of one; I am not sure I want to advertise myself as being someone who needs remedial sex ed.

I highly recommend 101 Reykjavik.

Feeling better

Jerome and Shannon came over last night and GUESS WHAT!!!!

Yeah, well, what news would you expect from a couple who got married last summer.  They are progenizing, and Shannon looks glorious and Jerome looks pleased.  I hope they have a hundred fat children.  No, actually, I hope they do whatever they want and have fun doing it, and that seems to be a) how it’s been and b) the continuing plan.

I fed them spaghetti and they watched The Road to Guantanamo with us.  As we said to each other after we watched … Going to Afghanistan 3 weeks after 9/11 was their first mistake, and it got mistakier from there.

The crowd consisted of Paul (who had to leave for work at 7:30 and thus missed the movie, and brought the bread I made french toast this morning with as there was otherwise no bread in the house), Keith, me, Jeff and the developing duo.

I suppose I should say that after the best part of a year of saying, “Aw, c’MON – where do you get your goofy ideas about movies anyway??? Don’t you trust me?” Jeff talked me into watching Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

Yes, I liked it.  Now, cleaning and tidying and working on Valentine cards and getting read to go to a dinner party tonight.  I’ve been asked to bring my mando.  Yee!

Film and links

Last night I viewed for the first time since I heard about it when I was 11, Carl Dreyer’s Passion of Joan of Arc.  Falconetti was as amazing as advertised, and there were shots and parts of the movie that were brilliant, but the parts that annoyed me were many, so I guess I didn’t watch it reverently enough.  Jeff rented it for me; that man indulges me scandalously.  In the end I was glad I saw it for Antonin Artaud’s performance.  Since I was quite small I’ve had a crush on Artaud, cause I thought and still think he was hotter than a two dollar pistol, even if he was severely crazy.

Don’t click here if you don’t want to find out why it’s a really bad idea to have sex with a raccoon.

Now that you’ve had a laugh at some drunken wacko’s expense, find out why you might feel bad about it.

Movies

So, there are three movies I should mention which have wormed their way in front of me:  Jane Austen Book Club, La Vie en Rose, and Blast from the Past.

Jane Austen Book Club was goodhearted and fun, and there were definitely some good lines in it.  It could also have been entitled “Managing Multiple Fandoms in a Testosterone Reduced World” but that I guess is being too cynical.  I liked it because there was a character in it called Allegra, so every time her mother called for her or a character mentioned her name I’d sorta jerk reflexively.  And she’s a babydyke, just to add to the wonder…. Anyway, nautilus3 recommended it and I finally watched it with Jeff. He likes Emily Blunt (so do I) and there’s a scene where her character Prudie is being a ****ing pain in the ass, and I said, “I’ve been that woman, and Christ she’s annoying” and occasionally Jeff would pause it, waggle his eyebrows and go “That was a classic chickflick moment.”  Definitely a better script than you usually get with these kinds of outings, and the morals are delivered like the bill in a good restaurant, in a leisurely and tactful way.

La Vie en Rose I’m not going to talk about much.  If you like Edith Piaf, see the movie.  It’s great, and the lead performance is nothing short of mesmerizing – I can understand the Oscar nod. One of the best biopics ever, that I’ve seen anyway, possibly nosing out Ray as being the best I’ve ever seen.  And tasteful.  AND THE DUBBED SINGING IS AMAZING.  The lip synch was incredible.

Blast from the Past…. If you like Alicia Silverstone and Brendan Fraser, you’ve probably already seen it.  If you’re looking for a nice little comedy, undemanding, charming and steadily amusing, this will be a good companion.  I must mention the guest spot by Christopher Walken, who was just starting his streak of being in all movies in a supporting role.  I must own to liking Brendan Fraser – he was AWESOME in the first Mummy flick (I haven’t bothered with the others) and I really liked him in George of the Jungle.  He’s a goofy looking guy…  At one point in the movie I burst into tears and sobbed a couple of times.  After the movie I explained what was going on (Brendan did something for Alicia that somebody did for me once, and I lost it) and Jeff just said, “Oh, I just thought you’d gone crazy.”  Thanks, bud.

On another note, have you ever spent a fair amount of time with somebody, on a casual basis – like somebody you eat lunch with – and then one day he comes out and says something that everybody else at the table, including you, finds rather disturbing, and when somebody calls him on it he doesn’t notice?  I had one of those moments yesterday.  Rather than get into details, I’ve decided to turn the spotlight back on myself.  Mocking the afflicted IS NOT A NICE THING TO DO.  I should stop doing it.  I should recognize when I’m doing it.