Tuesday, June 30, 2009
On Commitment, Clutter and Comfort
Monday, June 29, 2009
Car Ride Through the Grand Staircase
Beautiful Riding, and lots of it
In the morning we drove a couple miles back up the road to Kiva’s Koffeehouse. The shop sits overlooking the staircase and serves coffee starting at 8:30. What better way to kick start the day? On the way back down to the starting point we filmed a quick video of the area that we hope to enjoy (check the newest entry). I taped Dave’s ankle, which he’d been resting and icing, and it felt good.
Dave and I at the top of the nameless 9,600 foot summit.
Today was another long day. The first 23 miles were all up hill and culminated in a 9,600 peak. From the top it was 18 miles downhill into Torrey where we broke for snacks. After some ice cream that was a little too good, our bikes were back on the road and we started pedaling. Caineville, our next stop, was 30 miles away. I was ready to put my head down and just do the work, but the Capitol Reef National Park had other plans.
As our descent from the mountain continued we plunged into the massive stone structures of the Capitol Reef National Park. Our route mirrored the Fremont River which cuts in and out of massive stone structures. Some were over 1,000 feet in height. As I zoomed along the road these monuments reminded me of massive medieval fortresses. The cast off boulders that littered the base of each looked like the remnants of a past era. Unfit for the majesty of the plateau, the boulders were thrown down, yet even in their lowliness they added a certain mystique to the overwhelming awe of the mountain from which it had fallen.
We reached Caineville around 6:15. The funny thing about Caineville is that is actually has nothing in it. With no place to sleep we were forced to move on to the next town, Hanksville, 19 miles up the road. This time there were no sites to draw my attention away from the task at hand; I put my head down, shut off my brain, and rolled into Hanksville around 7.
It’s now the late evening and we are all exhausted. Fortunately, tomorrow is only a 50 mile ride (thanks to the 19 miles we cut out from Caineville to Hanksville). We’ll be at the Hite Recreation Area next to Lake Powell for two days. The rest day is much needed, and will hopefully be filled with hiking, swimming, and kayaking. But now it’s time for a shower (we’ve been without showers for three days and smell pretty gross) and a good night’s sleep. Thanks for reading!
Not Our Greatest Day...until the end!
The following day was not the best of the ride. Seven miles in Dave and I pulled over into a rest stop. Dave’s Achilles heel was hurting him a lot and had been getting progressively worse over the past four days. We concluded that rest was the best option so a phone call to Lauren brought the Sprinter to Dave and I continued on alone. The next 8 miles were pretty tough. There was a steady grade and my legs hadn’t quite recovered from the climb out of Cedar City. Eight miles in though I managed to generate some good foot speed, shifted up gears, and hit a groove all the way to the 7,777 foot summit. The rest of the 20 miles to our first meeting point were downhill or relatively flat and I cruised.
After a quick break, Lauren decided to join me on the second leg of the trip. It was supposed to be a 31-miler with a 1,500 gradual gain, so we felt pretty good for the first 8 miles. All of a sudden, we turned a corner and saw a winding road as steep as anything I’d climbed before. 1 mile (and a lot of time) later, we reached the top and rolled on down into Escalante.
Just to throw another loop into our plans, everything in Escalante was closed. With no place to stay I jumped back on my bike and started to pedal the 14 miles to the next nearest campground, a little station next to the Escalante River. This turned out to be one of the few bright spots in an otherwise dim day.
A small climb brought us to the an overlook of the Grand Staircase National Monument. In the 1880’s the geoligist Captain Clarence E Dutton referred to the region as “a grand staircase of sequential cliffs and terraces” and the name stuck. It is an impressive sight to behold. Mountains, valleys, canyons, cliffs, and plains all blend together making it difficult to distinguish one from the other. The colors- greens, oranges, and reds- can’t be found anywhere else in the world. After whipping my bike, probably a little too fast (sorry Mom!), around the downhill corners into the canyon I met the Sprinter at the campground.
The campground, as aforementioned, is next to the Escalante River. The river gently flows in and out of the red rock which surrounds in. Dave, Lauren, and I happily jumped in and followed the water upstream. It was a refreshing end to a long day and all our spirits were raised.
The Big Climb: Cedar City to Panguitch
The invitation was very welcome. Since mapping out the trip, Dave and I referred to this mountain as “THE BIG CLIMB”. Starting around 6,000 feet, the road follows Cedar Canyon for 17 miles or so and climbs all the way up to 9,900. On our elevation charts it was a daunting figure indeed.
We got to the shop, pumped our tires, and headed over to the group gathered by the door. Waiting for us were three members of the Color Country Cycling Club: Tim, whom we’d met at the shop, Craig, and Chanda. After introductions were made we hit the road and started the climb.
To make a long story short, it was a long, difficult climb. Tim’s computer registered the grade at 16% at one point (it felt like 45% in my legs!). But what a view! About 2 miles from the top there was an overlook of Zion National Park which boasts a marvelous canyon. I glanced over my shoulder as I passed, but didn’t stop; Craig had made a big push a couple miles back and I was, unsuccessfully, trying to catch him.
At the top we gathered for some photos (Craig was long gone by this point so we have no photographic documentation on him….what a climber!). Here’s one of me, Chanda, and Tim.
Dave and I strolled about the upper edges of the canyon for 30 minutes or so before continuing onward. Thankfully, our stop was only 30 miles away, and all downhill! We coasted into Panguitch around 1:00 PM. Little did we know that serendipity would have us pass through this town of little more than 1,000 on the biggest night of the year.
Panguitch hosts an annual hot air balloon show and it so happened that it was to take place the very evening we were there. Main St. was shut down and massive balloons were brought in. As the light faded over the western hills the operators unleashed their propane tanks into the balloons, whose lights reflected off the buildings on the street. They were, essentially, gigantic lanterns providing light for the town.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
weapons of paradigm (raptor attack conclusion)
i'd narrowly avoided the pack of the primordial feather's long promised revenge. they sent a pack of raptors (scientifically known as dromaeosaurids) called the crimson talons to try and do, uh i'm not actually sure what they were going to do to me to think of it. they never said, but i'm pretty sure it was going to be something really bad in any case!
they would have gotten away with it too, if it hadn't been for the intervention of lance the lambeosaur. he bravely took on 10 raptors single handed, and somehow won!?!
that was the amazing part. i've known many duckbilled dinosaurs, but none of them were anywhere near brave enough to take on a raptor.... that alone a whole pack of them. more to the point none a single one of these hadrosaurs would have had the combat abilities to defeat them.
lance had not only somehow been able to predict the pack's tactics, but he'd known the exact combat moves (most which i'd never seen a duckbill do before!) to take them out...
at the same time the battle had taken its toll on lance. after today's altercation i now had a pretty good idea why lance was covered in scars. the wounds he'd had just received were no doubt going to leave some nice new ones on his flanks.
that was if lance survived them that was... some of the slashes he'd received from the raptors were really bad. especially the ones on his right flank and neck, where valor velociraptor had attacked him. from all of the wounds lance was losing a lot of blood.
lance's injuries effected him so much that he had doubled over, and was leaning against the garbage dumpsters of the tyrrell's loading bay, with his tail draped over top of a parked truck. he looked like he was in trouble.
as lance had just saved my hide, i stayed behind to try and help (possibly save his) as best i could. however looking at the huge wounded hadrosaur before me i was a little clueless on how i could help him. most of the cuts themselves were as long or longer then my whole body...
as i stood helplessly surveying the lacerations to his hide, lance looked up at me suddenly. "i've had worse," he stated matter of fact.
"what?" i replied in surprise. the shock of seeing all that blood caused my tiny brain to work even worse then usual. the part that worried me though, was the blood wasn't upsetting or grossing me out, like it would the average human... no it was tapping into something deep within my predatory instincts. it almost excited me...
"you look concerned," lance answered, unaware of my involuntary imagining him as dinner. "i've had far worse injuries inflicted on me by your kind, i assure you. dromaeosaurs while enthusiastic, only tend to tear up the skin, unlike carcharodontosaurs. they cut right through to the muscle. though you tyrannosaurids are the worse. i do like my bones in one piece after a tussle." he stated, almost absent mindedly (the blood loss?), and chuckled.
"are you going to be alright?" i feebly asked.
"most certainly," he said as he shift. "again these are just flesh wounds. they should stop bleeding in a few minutes. so long as i don't move too much."
the smell of his blood was intoxicating, and i found i was salivating against my will. i needed to get my mind on something, and not let my t-rex nature dictate my actions. "why did you help me?" i found myself directly blurting out. it was a little more blunt then i'd intended, but the simply act of speaking was a little hard in face of what the blood was doing to me.
lance turned his damaged head towards me. "normally i'd take offense to someone asking me that. having saved your life and all," he grumpily replied. "however in your case, i guess i can see why that needs to be asked."
he groaned due to the strain of turning his neck, but carried on. "i didn't believe your story of not joining the pack. not one bit, till today."
"it made much more sense that the primordials would want an agent who appeared to not be one of their own, and operate freely among the rest of us vivuses. a runt like you would be perfect candidate for not raising suspicions or worries from any of us," i took offense to lance calling me a runt, but let him carry on. "however the instant the crimson talons showed up to kill you," so they did mean to end my life! "it became clear you couldn't have been a primordial agent. the talons are their more elite assassins."
okay i knew that my cousin larry, and his coelurosaur only club the pack, were pretty ticked off at me for not joining. i didn't realize it was that much of an affront to them though...
why would i be a threat i wondered... i hadn't done anything to the pack lately, other then stumble into that albertosaur who worked in the musuem, and i hadn't done anything to him (rather vice a versa!).
well think of the devil, and it should appear. no sooner had i recalled that encounter with the albertosaur (which had started with me smelling it) did i start to think i was getting a whiff of it upwind. i hate it when i'm right.apparently some of the raptors had found their comrade, and informed him of the wounded hadrosaur they weren't able to finish off, who was likely sitting in the parking lot waiting to be finished off. the dromaeosaurs may not have been fully up to the task (not that they didn't give it their best mind you!), but a fully grown tyrannosaurid surely should have been. especially considering how damaged lance was!
lance veered around just in time for the albertosaur to bellow his hunting cry. "stay behind me!" lance ordered, and he shifted his weight clearly with the intent of fighting off the attacking coelurosaur.i have no doubt in my mind, lance would have taken on the albertosaur, but i was skeptical of his chances... granted based on his comments, it sounded like lance had duelled with a tyrannosaurid before. however with his wounds i didn't like his chances.
however just as the albertosaur was about to charge, a new battle call was issued from behind him. hearing it lance relaxed back into his nursing position.
the albertosaur turned in startled surprise, and as well he should have. both me and him, as tyrannosaurids were born with knowledge of that battle cry deep within our animal being. it was the call of our age long foes... the ceratopsians!
the albertosaur suddenly evaded away from me and lance, and charging into view at full speed came sternberg the styracosaur. i was totally dumbfounded!
i probably shouldn't have been surprised, mind you. i'd met sternberg when i came across lance being here in drumheller a little while ago. i just hadn't connected that the two of them as being one unit... though considering how they'd both gone all confrontational together i probably should have...
though he didn't have lance's elegance, sternberg certainly was showing he was more then a match for this poor lone albertosaur. despite the fact the albertosaur no doubt would have killed me given the chance, i suddenly felt kind of sorry for him.
based on his panicked retreat, i got the distinct impression he'd never known anything but being a tourist attraction in a museum his whole life. never once had he faced a real threat like our ancestors would have. females seemed to dominate the primordial feathers (almost all the raptors who attacked us today were girls), and this poor bull was assigned this task not due to confidence, but rather desperation.
well as quickly as he'd shown up, our intruding albertosaur had fled not wanting to get anywhere near the business end of sternberg...
despite the threat of the tyrannosaurid being gone, sternberg took up a very central location in the parking lot, standing alert and ready for action. he was acting as a sentry against anymore pack surprises. the raptors (or any other primordial "agents" for that matter) almost certainly would have to pass sternberg if they wanted to get to me or lance.
adding to his guard like stance a few minutes later he suddenly trumpeted "perimeter secure!"
i thought it was all a little silly, until a minute later professor paradigm walked into view. he marched straight up to sternberg, and the two of them appeared to be reviewing what had just taken place. i was to far to overhear them exactly.
lance suddenly lifted himself up, and started to limp over to paradigm and sternberg.
the professor... i should have known (well to be honest with sternberg's appearance, i was starting to suspect). the rumoured head of the top secret palaeo-central showing up on the heels of two kung fu theropod killing plant eaters wasn't much of a surprise at this point really. yet it wasn't exactly normal either.
lance's connection to the professor i already knew. the lambeosaur was paradigm's assistant and some even claimed bodyguard. i could certainly see how he'd make a good bodyguard, if indeed this were true! what sternberg had to do with them i had no idea. paradigm certainly couldn't have needed two saurian assistant/bodyguards...
i followed lance partially as i couldn't think of what else to do, and also to be honest i didn't feel particularly safe standing by myself at the moment..."lance, lance," the professor scolded out loud upon seeing the fresh new wounds on the duckbill. "we'll have to stitch some of those."
"if you must, sir," lance grimaced through the clear pain that was walking. "i can endure them though if it is too much trouble."
the professor dismissed this tough guy modesty. "i've spent too much time and effort training you, to risk scar tissue ruining your battle performance. we'll get to that right away. first situation report."
lance proceeded to, in a very formal almost military fashion tell paradigm the majority of the raptor ordeal (minus the chase inside the tyrrell itself, which lance obviously didn't participate in). the whole time the professor ignored my presence completely.
sternberg seemed to weigh the news outloud, by repeating. "the crimson talons, i wish i'd been here. i've been wanting to meet them in battle."
"i'm wishing you had been too," lance groaned, the walk over had clearly inflamed his wounds. "what kept you?"
"i was on the other side of midland when i heard your call," sternberg defended himself. so that was why lance had started the battle with that unearthly battle cry, he was trying to summon backup... "you try getting here faster!"
paradigm seemed uninterested in the two herbivores discussing not helping each other out. "what were the crimson talons after? their appearance here is a completely unexpected development," he seemed really unhappy about learning of the raptor's presence in drumheller.
well if i'd gone unnoticed before, suddenly all eyes were on me when lance turned to me. "i don't know, but it seems to have been to do with the tyrannosaur.""is this true?" paradigm almost sounded like he was accusing me of something.
a million and one thoughts went through my head, more then half of them involved running from the scary trio as fast as my juvenile tyrannosaur legs would take me. "i didn't do..." i started to try and deny that i'd done anything... till it hit me!
yes i hadn't actively done anything to the pack, but i had inadvertently stumbled on SOMEONE doing something wrong in drumheller! while doing my fieldwork around drumheller, i'd found a number of illegal dig sites where someone had poached fossils. i'd also discovered a break in into the geology collections of the musuem's.
the professor knew much of this of course, he'd told me off for sticking my snout into it (even though i'd accidentally found all of these things... i hadn't actively gone looking for them!). however i now had a very strong suspicion who was behind it...
the pack of the primordial feather!
"indeed?" paradigm retorted. "while i shall investigate that possibility," he said in a very unconvining lie. i couldn't tell if he didn't believe my theory or didn't want me to know i was right. "however in the meantime, can you not think of any other possible reason the pack would not want you here at the museum?"
"no," i answered honestly.
the professor pondered for a good solid minute. "it doesn't make sense," paradigm said in disbelief. he clearly was used to having things figured out. "we didn't capture any of the raptors for interrogation?"
"negative," lance answered.
"i could try to track one down," sternberg offered. "their scent is still pretty fresh."
"no!" paradigm cut off that train of thought. "we've already announced our presence enough. i don't want to provoke a full on confrontation, or worse have them take whatever operation they are up to and go completely underground with it."
upon hearing paradigm mention "our presence" i couldn't help but think out loud. "palaeo-central?"
despite the fact his face was covered by his large breathing apperatious and his sunglasses (visor i'd almost say) i could tell the professor was glaring at me. he calmed himself down, and in a surprisingly civil tone of voice. "my dear traumador, must you always bring up this imaginary palaeo-central of yours," i wasn't buying his line. not after what i'd just been through, seen, and now heard!
"if its imaginary, then why do you hang out with two kung fu battling dinosaurs?" i questioned... which is a little cheeky on my part i realized immediately after asking it.
"well as you just noted it would be lance and sternberg who are up to unusual activities, not me," paradigm countered. "i myself am simply a scientist who specialized in you living vivus dinosaurs. i am right now responding to a medical emergancy, that frankly no one else here is qualified to assist with." yeah right i thought! paradigm had just a moment ago complained to lance about all the training he'd had to give the lambeosaur... so far the only skills i'd seen lance use that he would have needed to be taught were his fighting ones!
sternberg stepped it. "lance and my own actions are our own, tyrannosaur. we're tired of the constant intimidation and threats from theropods like you. rather then watch anymore of our kind be bullied we've decided to take action, and are forming a special, shall we say, task force."
"what?" i asked somewhat shocked. the thought of herbivore dinosaurs defending themselves in an organized manner was strange to image. yet it made sense. especially given what i'd just seen lance do, and what sternberg could potentially do. as well as the flip side of the pack's crimson talons.
then i had another thought. if there was just an anti-theropod plant eater task force, could it be lance and sternberg that people were mistaking to be a bigger organization like palaeo-central? i guess i could see that. so far i'd seen lance, and sternberg to a lesser extent do some pretty amazing things. paradigm just seemed to here in town, and apart from showing up at the geology collection he hadn't done much.
yet i still believed palaeo-central was real, and that paradigm had a connection to it. he himself had connected himself to lance's training. a 'task force' of trained combat ready dinosaurs would be a very useful asset for an organization dedicated to protecting fossils and the science of palaeontology.
paradigm then suddenly warned me. "based on what this happened i suggest you actually listen to me this time, and lay low while you are still in town. i don't believe either lance or sternberg can afford the time to protect you again," he stated matter of fact. "as for you're poacher quarries i assure you, someone will get to the bottom of them," he then leaned in with a bit of menace. "which means i don't expect any further involvement by yourself with either the pack or these poachings. voluntary or involuntary. do i make myself clear?!?"
adding to paradigm's ambigious threat both lance and sternberg shifted in imposing manners towards me (which despite lance's injuries was scary... i'd now seen what he could do when he meant business!). reluctantly i agreed.
"good boy," paradigm said. "now you enjoy the rest of your visit, but i expect to not have to speak with you again... for your sake!"
i took that as my cue to leave, as paradigm turned his attention to check over lance and his battle damage. as i was still a little jumpy from both the raptor attack and now my second drumheller confrontation with paradigm, i ran to the front entrance of the museum.
wandering the crowded galleries i felt safe. there were plenty of eyes who'd see anything dodgey targeting me. with this sense of security i could think about what had just happened.
the pack of the primordial feather had just tried to kill me, and now clearly not just for not joining their little club. no i'd stumbled onto something they were doing, and it scared them. the only thing it could be was the poached quarries.
however i didn't know why they were digging, or for what... i wasn't going to be able to find out without ticking off paradigm. who frankly seemed all the more scary, now that i knew he potentially had a "task force" of killer ornithischians he could sick on me.
yet paradigm didn't seem to believe me that the pack was involved. worse yet he didn't seem all that concerned about the poaching. just whether i was involved with it or not...
more to the point, the pack wasn't coming after paradigm about their poaching. they were coming after me!
as i came to the end of the galleries i decided, despite promising paradigm i won't, i was going to find out what the pack were digging up, and more to the point show the professor i didn't need him watching out for me!
the hunt for the poachers begins!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Some Old Photos
Here we are at the Oval just before kicking of the ride. We barely knew what we were getting ourselves into.... and we love it!
Welcome to Utah!
Michael Jackson
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Happy Summer Vacation!
Happy Summer Vacation to all you kids! So what have you got planned for the summer? Sleeping in late, swimming, camping, going to Sea Breeze or Darien Lake? Don't forget about us! We have a lot of free, fun activities planned for kids of all ages; reading clubs, activity days, movie mornings, prizes, etc. You can find all the details here. Stop in at the library and register for the programs of your choice.
Be sure to join us Monday afternoon at 1pm for our Kick-Off program, "Happy Music for Happy Kids" featuring musician Mike Kornrich.
Hope to see you soon!
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
May Movies, Or 3½ Seasons of The Wire
I'm calling May my "free" month. I had my second foot surgery, was out of work for weeks, was out of the movie theater for just as long, and upon my return from Milan early in the month, I was glued to DVD after DVD of The Wire. I was tempted to start beating myself up again for not seeing very many movies, but then, sparing myself from the abuse, I remembered: I watched over 35 episodes of The Wire in their place.The late HBO series is one of my favorites for its slate of engaging characters, for the landscape in and around the city of Baltimore, for its narrative symmetry, sharp visual aesthetic, and of course, its devotion to real social and political issues. There is Frank Sobotka, above, from season two, clinging to that can like it's the last piece of his life as a Baltimore stevedore. He is one of my favorite characters in the whole series, and it should be said, it's hard to pick a favorite of anything in this show: everything is just so good. But the standout characters are the ones that makes us feel the most ambivalence towards them. Frank Sobotka could be downright cruel, was a corrupt leader, but as the story goes on, we see him as a simple pawn in a much larger societal game. For all of his initially perceived power, he is himself powerless, as the climax and denouement so tragically spell out in this season. As season three began Frank Sobotka, the ever-lasting working man, is practically forgotten. Maybe not forgotten so much as laid to rest in one of the many sedimentary layers of Baltimore life.
Funny, by season two I was entrenched beyond escape from The Wire. It was like I had been watching forever, but there were still three whole seasons of stories and character trials to go! I really powered through, faster than I did with any TV show before. The crew from Entourage came along at a good clip, but they bored me with their surface endeavors and base motivations, and I never did venture past season four's finale. Lo and behold, great things happen when a great show falls onto your platter: you forget all about your social life. It's a fair and enjoyable sacrifice, and one I'm tempted to revisit again for old times' sake. Yeah, I got sentimental about it. I didn't cry. I try to save my tears for the stories themselves these days. It's best not to waste them on the fact that a series is over, like some weird modern postpartum affliction or something.
With The Wire, the power of the show lies in the details: the change of the opening credit montage and the new rendition of the theme song with each successive season; multiple lead characters overlapping each other with separate actions or lines of dialogue in a single shot; subtle notes on serious social issues like gentrification, articulated with a simple cut linking two scenes from the interior of a real estate showing (where wealthier prospects scope the home) to the exterior (where a couple of blue collar workers exit in economic defeat); and most exciting of all, the use of real figures from Baltimore--from police department officials to former drug runners. These characters are wonderfully integrated for an added, unspoken layer of verisimilitude, which reaches its spooky apex in seasons four and five with Marlo's sidekick Snoop (Felicia Pearson). Now she's an actress I want to know more about. She gives a simply amazing performance that paralyzes you with fear.
That's where I'll end my talk of The Wire for now. Let's move on the the May movie list!
La Notte - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Friday, May 8, 2009
Mmm. With this, I almost conclude Antonioni's trilogy of films on modern malaise. La Notte, the second in the series was too academic for me to truly enjoy. I'd be in brighter spirits by the end of the final film, L'eclisse (see below), which is mesmerizing.Pursued - (1947) - DVD
Seen: Sunday, May 10, 2009
Random movies sometimes fall into my queue and this, Raoul Walsh's Pursued (1947), is one of them. It's a little noirish, mostly a western, and all Robert Mitchum as a grown adopted son who marries his own sister. They're not related by blood, of course, but isn't there something odd about these kinds of romantic setups? Anything odd about that because they only seem to happen in the movies? And I am sorry to be so curt, but Pursued was an otherwise unremarkable movie. In times like these I end up pondering how society would react to a woman and her adoptive brother getting hitched rather than the movie itself. In any event, I have a tender place in my heart for Robert Mitchum, and I considered this a warm-up for the next Mitchum flick in my queue...The Night of the Hunter - (1955) - DVD
Seen: Thursday, May 14, 2009
Now there's my Mitchum! Here's a little write-up I posted on Scarlett Cinema.Spring in a Small Town - (1948) - DVD
Seen: Saturday, May 16, 2009
There was some talk at GreenCine about Fei Mu's Spring in a Small Town awhile back. Figuring I was already overdue to see it, I did. It's a wonderful meditation on love and unrealized emotions, or at least of those emotions that creep up on you later when life makes them too complicated to deal with simply.L'eclisse - (1962) - DVD
Seen: Wednesday, May 20, 2009
Alain! Just look at him. Look at him! It is fair to adore Monica Vitti, too, I'll concede, but Alain Delon is breaking my heart these days. Watching him in Antonioni's final film in the L'Avventura/La Notte/L'eclisse series, well, that breaks it. This is bordering on obsession now. I can't take my eyes of him as it is--no matter what the movie--but you place him in this lovely, dreamy Roman landscape filled with floating emotions of love and lust and the sense that they are all so tenuous, brittle really, and could scatter into nothingness with a lazy turn of a street corner? Forget it. I'm mesmerized. Can I call in sick for that? "Hi boss, I'm at home in a dreamy daze about modern Rome and an irrational affection for an actor who is more than forty years my senior. I don't think I can come in today." Think it will work? Damn, me neither. I Could Never Be Your Woman - (2007) - DVD
Seen: Friday, May 22, 2009
Robert Cashill at the Between Productions blog (also at Cineaste mag) tipped me off to this minor piece of Amy Heckerling filmmaking, that perhaps gets that title via self-fulfilling prophecy: is it a minor movie because it doesn't have the wit of a Clueless (1995) or a Fast Times at Ridgemont High (1982), or because it recieved absolutely no marketing and went straight to DVD? I'll offer it's a bit of both, leaning towards the no-marketing line of thought. It's a cute and clever story in the way Clueless is--lots of throwaway lines, quirky character traits, and um, Paul Rudd's dreamy set of baby-blues. It also features a fantastic soundtrack (80s music fans will swoon. Read: The Psychedelic Furs!), which Heckerling never seems to skrimp on. It's poppy and bright and colorful, and as Cashill points out, Michelle Pfieffer gives a surprisingly rich comic performance. Check it out.Win or Lose: A Summer Camp Story - (2009) - DVD
Seen: Monday, May 25, 2009
Newbie director Louis Lapat made a really good movie. He contacted me out of the blue offering up a screener copy in return for a review. Well, the review is written, but not yet up. I've got plans for it once his movie makes its debut on PBS later this year. Until then, it is safely stowed on my hard drive. I recommend you contact your local PBS station and request that his film be shown. Programming is tricky, and not always the same from city to city. So if you're ever going to get a chance to see this, give them a ring and say, "Hey, I want to see Louis Lapat's Win or Lose!" It's a neat little documentary feature about a Wisconsin summer camp for boys who duel it out for championship trophies from the (in)famous "Collegiate Week." The 'Week is when teams of very nonathletic boys soldier up for a series of competitive sporting events and brace themselves for a lot of testosterone-fueled yelling from their coaches. It's practically the essence of of "male" movie (you won't find many women lingering in the shots), but it reconciles all of that rough-and-tumble hostility with sweet character profiles, clever animation vignettes, and a tender hearted voice over narration from the filmmaker himself.
The Girlfriend Experience - (2009) - Film
Seen: Tuesday, May 26, 2009
I enjoyed this for my time in the theater, but somehow as the days of have passed since, my affection has worn off. Perhaps I'll articulate it better later. Suffice it to say for now that it never really hurts to watch a non-Hollywood Soderbergh film, even if it doesn't pan out as a personal favorite. The shots are so damn beautiful!
Plunging into Praise
Monday, June 22, 2009
Mild and green and squeaky clean
The world she wants to live in
She's gonna dream out loud
She's gonna dream out loud"