Settler words&music in S'ólh Téméxw, (leanpub.com/upsun) living where privilege meets precarity in MST country. she/her/they———– Novels: Midnite Moving Co., Upsun; Sweep Off Those Waves coming soon, Hair Sinister after that. —Restore All Indigenous Lands!
There was a comedian (male) who remarked that men have only four emotions. Horny, angry, hungry and tired. I heard this and thought…. Hm. There’s one missing. Where’s busy?
Second Season of Deadwood Disk 4.
The company Xmas party is on November 24th.
Today I will book the vacation.
Squirrel Spider Hybrid. Very creepy photoshop – don’t look if you don’t dig spiders.
A buddy said, “I used to do scaffolding. One of my customers paid his stucco workers half in cash and half in cocaine. They worked like demons, man!” Welcome to the Vancouver construction industry.
Deadwood has stolen my heart and p*ssed on it. Keith Carradine interviews David Milch and it’s one of the most interesting and entertaining special features bits I’ve seen since Keira Knightley screamed “Oh, the horr-id filth-ay mon-kay!” in the Pirates of the Caribbean cast commentary. Repeatedly. Like, every time the mon-kay showed his ugly mug.
Work quote of the day. “I know I suck; I just wish I was better at it.”
Last night I watched some more Deadwood, which has bounced to the top of my addictions list. How serious is it? I’m OUT OF BEER. I have been for multiple days. One scene between Seth (Tim Olyphant) and Alma (the radiant Molly Parker) I pulled a Dru on about fifteen times. The first five times, I just watched Molly. The second five times I just watched Tim. Then I noticed that the light was completely screwed up (when the camera was hard by Molly, there was no natural light except what was reflecting off buildings, and when the camera was hard by Tim, there was tons of natural light) so I watched the scene about another five times to try to figure out if it was a continuity error or whether it was deliberate. I came to the conclusion that it was a continuity error, but it worked with the scene so they left it. Then when I got to the end of the disk I watched again, because it has to be one of the best scenes ever in terms of dialogue and reaction shots. It’s subtle, well scripted, adult and funny as hell.
The guy who plays Swearingen is a Machiavellian menace / Disney sappiness combo that continues to astound. He gets multiple lines in every show that most actors would kill to get once, and when he gets the Gimp to fetch him a new brush to get the bloodstains off the floor I sat with my mouth hanging open, trying to figure what the hell would motivate him to do something so demeaning. When I figured out his motivation I left my jaw to dangle.
Pulling a Dru, by the way, is from the second season of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Dru watches somebody get fried and she says, “Do it AGAIN! Do it AGAIN!” in a particularly childlike way.
Time to get going on the day.
I’ve had 123 views on the Tapioca Song. I actually ran into Dances with Sheep in the parking lot the other morning and he said, “I was humming it in the car” and I said, “Yeah, try being the poor woman who wrote it.” Because when I get the Tapioca Song stuck in my head, it’s because I’m working out a mass arrangement for Chor Leoni. Grandiose…. Foolish…. and entirely unpreventable.
This TV show is beloved by some and loathed by others. I am definitely one of the fans, now that I’ve seen the first four episodes of the first season. Tim Olyphant is cuter than a bug’s ear, in stark contrast to nearly everybody else in the show (okay, Molly Parker, the pride of the lower mainland). Keith Carradine, who has a major part in the first 4 episodes as Wild Bill Hickock, before he’s shot (kudos for the director to not panning over his hand, the now legendary aces and eights) is absolutely brill; his voice alone is amazing and he bites off two word lines to splendid effect.
I am now going to watch the rest of the show, which has passed into history. I told mOm not to bother. The violence, unbelievably foul language (like, from ME, a comment about foul language), the rampant sex and drug use…. yeah, she’s going to stick with Fred Astaire….
mOm, in yet another demonstration of her supernatural cheerfulness, commented last night that if she does go on chemo (it is at this point by no means certain), she will look on it as an opportunity to lose weight. May we all profit from her example.
Watched Blackhawk Down, The Machinist, a little Robot Chicken, (scroll down on link for pirate humour) and nothing else because we actually did work yesterday. Now it’s the crack of noon and I’m finally out of bed. What gives? I was in bed by 10 last night!!? Maybe I’m lying awake in bed for hours thinking dark thoughts. Dark thoughts which I cannot commit to my blog, lest they be used in turn to commit me. Sorry, the paranoia is lying deep, and deep, upon me right now. It’s hard to watch a movie like The Machinist and not go to a dark place afterwards. And this was the movie that Joe at work has been bugging me to watch since the day he started! Now I’ll have to watch it again.
I know it’s really really sick, but Christian Bale at 121 pounds is the hottest thing evah. I normally don’t go for extremememes in male shapeliness, but the idea of (ed.: Cut that shiat out, right now!). Aherm. Yes. So to recap. Skinny Christian Bale equals teh hotness. That is all.
One more cup of this extremely fine coffee, and it’s back to the dejunking.
So all together, film fans!!! If you ever see me use this expression – “Masterpiece of Narrative Subversion“ please know that I mean this movie makes no $#%$ing sense. I mean, I enjoyed Aqua Teen Hunger Force because it contains one of the most hilarious appeals to the audience I’ve ever viewed (warning, screener), but otherwise the movie’s a cataclysm of pointlessness. On the other hand, part of refining one’s taste is being exposed to oddball stuff once in a while, which this definitely was. Any movie which was quite popular and yet has no plot synopsis on imdb…. Warning Will Robinson, indeed, kids. I enjoyed it, but more along the cultural artifact lines, There were some very snappy one liners.
Much more enjoyable – the three episodes of Venture Brothers, which is a hipper than thou Jonny Quest. The Scooby Doo parody was pure evil. I heart Brock Samson, voiced by clean green actor Patrick Warburton.
Add pizza and beer to a date which included the foregoing and I had a very pleasant evening. After my ride home (and thank god, it was POURING bloody rain), I dreamed that somebody I’ve wanted to have sex with for about ten years jumped on me, and I said, “Jeez, I’d love to, but we can’t because of ” here insert extremely rational, sane, non-dreamlike reason. Then we put our clothes back on. I’m consoling myself that at least I got to see him naked. GRRRRRR. This thing inside my skull that wants me to be a better person is now in my dreams as well!!!! I demand a neuronal recount.
Much thanks to Cousin Gerald, who found this piclink for me. I entitle it “Luckier than the Average Bear”.
And now for something completely different….
I am typing this while simultaneously killing myself laughing and streaming tears. This comes very close to being the funniest thing I’ve ever seen on the internet. If I ever get suicidal again, play me this video.
This movie is so amazing, and so crappy, and so simultaneously. Err. I will watch it again in a couple of days just to make sure that it’s still weird.
I’ll probably never find out what happened, but 30 hours of downtime was a bit much, and I’ll be looking for a local host. I’ve been posting to my secret free blog instead. I’ve been having a jam-packed vacation; this is the best time off I’ve had since my flying visit to Toronto in February, and DEFinitely more productive. Now if I could just get going on my projects… ;).
I am surfing less internet and watching more movies. I think this is an improvement. I have now seen Zou Zou and Red Shoes in the last 24 hours; next up is King of Jazz.
Tonight I did something I very rarely do. I watched a movie, by myself, all the way through.
I watched Just Like Heaven, with Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, and I have to say I enjoyed it. I told a friend on the phone, “If you’re a straight guy, you should only watch this movie if you think it will give you better odds of getting laid. Otherwise, you should dodge this movie like a bad karate chop.”
My god, I watched a date movie all the way through and liked it. I’ll be wearing a tinfoil hat before this phase of my life is through, she opined gloomily.
Briefest, Keith. I was watching a parkour video at the same time and didn’t tell him.
Next, me auld mither. Much earflapping commiserating plotting etc.
Next, the dear lass Peggy, returned with smiles from visiting NFLD. And and and – sailing! Tom in a sailboat for the first time in 40 years. Experiencing vicarious happiness!!! I’ll see them at church on Sunday with Tammy, if everything goes as skedded.
Then, Brother Jerome, to toast in words his anticipated and upcoming nuptials with the stunning and practical (ah, such a wonderful combination in a life partner) Shannon.
Briefly, Mike, “I have gift for you = and Tammy is coming so don’t be a stranger!”
Then Elly, who is going to Toronto to visit her boys next month! And fine, strapping lads they are, too, full of creative vim and energy.
Then, daughter Katie. I owe her money, how did that happen?
Now the smell of the chicken wings I cooked is getting quite assertive, so I’m gonna have sweet potato and chicken wings.
MMMMM.
Coffee & Cigarettes & Donnie Darko & Night on Earth.
After Ghost Dog we figured Time for a Jim Jarmusch Festival. Woo Hoo!
Donnie Darko SCARED ME. Worse than a zombie flick. Every time that ****ing rabbit showed up, I’d be cowering on one end of the sofa looking through my fingers. What the heck is wrong with me that a really bad rabbit costume and cheesy f/x could freak me out? Am I channeling Anya? What’s happening to me?? Afterwards, Jeff said, “Well, did Jacob’s Ladder scare you?” and I said HELL YA. “Oh.”
Has anybody noticed that Drew Barrymore doesn’t look like she belongs to this century, or the previous one? She’s beautiful, and she can act, but she doesn’t really belong in these parts.
Coffee and Cigarettes was interesting and uneven, just like the reviewers said. I enjoyed the ongoing Ghost Dog references. There were particular segments I enjoyed, including Iggy Pop trying to be ingratiating with Tom Waits. Parts of it were a very aesthetically arranged and choreographed kick in the goolies to the whole contemporary notion of celebrity. To slide between “I am your fan” “You are my fan” “I think you are trying to sponge off me” “No, you’re trying to sponge off me!” “Do you like me as a person?” “Do you like me as an artist?” “Why isn’t your stuff on the jukebox if this is your favorite hangout?” “Well your stuff isn’t on the playlist either!” “Look, somebody recognized me and didn’t recognize you!” “Look, I’m talking to somebody you want to talk to!”… without losing the humanity of folks involved – that was artistic, and troubling too. I watched as friendships would blossom and die in the production and interpretation of a single word.
I think ego to art is like the sun to the earth. The right amount makes a flowering; too little makes ice; or rotten mould; too much a desert.
Night on Earth, while having the same sort of episodic structure as Coffee and Cigarettes, was a lot more satisfying movie. The drunken Finns at the end are classic. Roberto Benigni talking a prelate to death is pretty funny too; his character’s description of a sheep he was once in love made me gasp with laughter.
This morning mOm came over and she and Jeff pulled weeds; I wandered around Jeff’s garden taking pictures, including what looks to be an entertaining one of Eddie sticking his head out through a hole in the side screen. Getting pictures of Gizmo is harder; he never bloody well sits still long enough.
So to breakfast, and then to lunch at the parents’, then a flying visit to Esquimalt, then home.
Ah, yesss…
So, last night my boss, may he be praised and venerated, gave me a lift to Scott Road Station, which was the only thing which allowed me to arrive in Victoria at a decent time. Then I immediately cracked open beer and watched 28 Days. I had heard a great deal about this movie from one of my beloved coworkers, a guy who only gets animated when he’s talking about what happened to him before he turned 18 and movies. Anyway, I really liked the movie, except the parts where I had to put my head into my own armpit, and Cillian Murphy is one neotenous looking dude. If you want a scary, unstoppable image stuck into your skullfat… picture him and Bjork having babies. Zar.
There are so many brilliant moments in 28 Days that it’s hard to line them all out. I know I won’t buy it, but I will definitely watch it again. Script, cinematography, casting, MUSIC, editing, all great. Plot holes like a screen door in a submarine (just like Patricia told me when it was first released), but o well. You don’t want zombie movies to be too realistic, that’s part of their charm. They are fairy tales for adults where, even though things turn out badly, you’re still alive at the end.
And so to bed, where I holed up with Sarah Dunant’s In The Company of the Courtesan that’s bopping around the best-seller lists lately. As a Dunnetteer, I have to read this stuff. Well, it’s set in Venice in 1527 – 1528, during and after the sack of Rome by the combined German/Spanish forces.
The Romans, like the feckless duckwits that they were at the time, all riddled with corruption and internal factions and lacking army, intelligent leadership and anything like planning, shot the leader of the incoming army dead in the first moments of the battle. You know how leaderless armies who haven’t been paid in weeks react when they have an undefended, unimaginably wealthy city in prospect, and when half the incoming army is motivated by intense hatred of the tenants’ religion – Papism…. Yeah, it was not pretty, and a lot of folks got put to the sword. First thing that happens to Our Heroine – an intelligent and energetic young woman – is having her hair cut off with violence by the army’s Calvinist campfollowers. Way to spend a Sunday. The story is recounted by her dwarven servant and in the voice of the omniscient author, alternating. (I’m sorry, it’s just that I don’t get to say dwarven servant in public very often).
Woke up and lay in bed and read some more until 9:30ish, when I stirred my stumps and by our unspoken agreement cooked a somewhat low key repast. The coffee was amazing. I had three cups.
Then we went through the PILE, and there’s always a bloody pile around here, of Films in Prospect. I picked Ghost Dog out because it was a Jarmusch film – I find him consistently interesting and watchable – and settled in with the movie from the first frame. Forest Whitaker was mesmerizing. Once again, script, music, casting, all uniformly excellent, and I closely followed the excerpts from the Way of the Samurai, which I now wish to read. This is a buy and hold, in my opinion.
Then to phone my mother and tell her, “I’m having TOO MUCH FUN. See you whenever.” You can do this when you are 48. Then a shower, and a walk perhaps, and then a renewed attack on the dreaded pile of celluloid.
There are explosions coming from the living room. What is that man blowing up now? (later) No harm done, he’s just flying an ME 2somethingerother in the leaden skies over a European city. And blowing pixels up.