I have been reading. I curl up with my Scribner Anthology of Short Fiction. The stories are very good; Brokeback Mountain has always been my favourite. I flip through the book, find stories at random, eat and drink them. I suspect there are happy stories in the Scribner Anthology, but the ones I read are all sad.
Today was pretty awesome! Everything that was supposed to happen (mostly) did, there were no (significant) hiccups, and I feel a (huge) sense of accomplishment!
The last day we worked on the viddy was Thursday. Da and Jim were there, and we got all of the Judge and some of the Sheriff. Today, bright and early, we gathered to shoot the whole thing! I got up just about as Jim left his house, about an hour north of me. I wanted to have something sweet to reward everyone for helping me, so! Time to get the muffins into the oven! Jim arrived just about when they were done, though he said he wasn’t hungry. Hmph.
Pieka and her Person arrive a bit after one, and we began. I had a ‘shooting script’ (my notes scribbled over a printout of the lyrics) that we worked from. We went outside, inside, in the laundry room…all over! Luckily, there were a lot of fortuitous locations right in or around my apartment building, with a bit of camera trickery.
I didn’t quite manage to make a laundry room look like an interrogation room, but we managed our best for all that.
Pieka’s boy, M., was a real trooper! Especially as – it turned out – he had ear infections in both ears. Poor lad. We shot about half the song, and everything that I needed both the Protagonist and the Sheriff for. M. was in too much ear-pain by then to continue, so we gave him medicine and sent him off, planning to resume and wrap-up shooting tomorrow. I’m a little nervous/sad to not just be done, especially as that leaves me all of (oh dear) two days for editing, but ah well! He left with all the mini-muffins, which he said would comfort him muchly in his discomfort.
Jim went home soon after, and I sent to spraypainting my own outfit, which was not pleasant to breathe around! He will go and hang out with his Motorcycle Club, and next week we have a date to go with another friend to see Metropolis on the big screen. Eeee.
Below are some photos of my excellent ‘dramatic re-enactment’ actors, in their outfits for the viddy.
Mother’s day is tomorrow! The day when all of us remember those fantastic, horrifying, treacherous, baffling and unconditionally loving beasts we call our mums. Many people like to observe this day, many also like to send their mater a small gift or keepsake, to show appreciation for that whole birthin’ and raisin’ bit. Sadly, I hear a lot of my friends getting a bit baffled about what gift to send! Being the helpful sort of cat I am, I am sharing with you all this HANDY DANDY FLOWCHART that should help you figure out what to send your mum for this lovely holiday.
Let me know how it works out for you!
Key to the ‘twitter pics’ riddle: the first two words are a homophone of a portmanteau. I thought it a good riddle with a chewy caramel heart in the middle that says ‘i love you’.
You know how…when things you’re really really looking forward to don’t work out because of some stupid little mix-up?
How it just ruins your whole day?
Then not only are you sad because of the thing not working out, but also how stupid the whole situation is, and then ALSO because you aren’t having a good day anymore?
It’s like that.
“What is the greatest evil?” he asked her one night, an hour before grey dawn. She pressed her lips tight, her black eyes inspected him.
“To murder love.” she answered, voice even.
“Heaven take me.” He moaned, face against his leather gloves. “I have done so. You have touched my sin; just so.”
Avialle stood, golden chain clinking delicately on the stones behind her. She threaded her long, thin fingers into his hair, noting with muted shock the deep vein of jealousy that flared up at his words.
“You’ll spend every drop of your years trying to touch half of mine.” she said, to comfort him.
I haven’t actually done CSA personally yet, mostly because of circumstance. However, I can attest personally to how valuable it is to small farmers. Because it’s supporting them directly, the whimsy of the market is circumvented. That means that taxation, subsidies (a wholly fucked system), middlemen, and in short, The Man can’t fuck with what they’re getting from you. Also, The Man can’t fuck with what you’re getting from them If you taste chemicals in your cabbage, you can talk to the person who grew it. The other reason I really stand behind CSA is a more ephemeral one, but it’s one I think someone needs to speak on. Maybe this is too ‘hippy shit’ and all, but shit, times are fucking tough for small farms nowadays. I know this too keenly because it’s an issue my family is facing right now, though going organic did help a bit. I keep thinking that people supporting initiatives like CSA, people going out to *meet* farmers and say hullo to them, people actually connecting to the folk who grow their food can only help our culture get a bit healthier in the way it thinks about food. On an immediate level, it makes the people who are sinking every speck of sweat and money and hope effort they have into keeping the farm going feel just a bit more supported and valued, and that’s important. I think that’s really, really important. …actually, maybe this should have been a blog post instead of some soapboxing on your blog. Sorry, Chuck.
I really seriously SERIOUSLY fucking hate it when someone has to put the word positive in as a modifier or as a qualitative statement when speaking about a Black Woman. I hate it even more when it’s applied to me.I suggested to this new find of mine (@weebeastie on twitter) that it might be telling to start using ‘positive White person’ all the time and see what happens, and that got me remembering something from Uni. I had a professor that was so steeped in Politically Correct language that I really don’t even think he realised what he was doing sometimes, or how strange he sounded,: tying himself into verbal knots, working in all the with the latest nomenclatures that had gotten their fifteen-minute stamp of approval. Listening to him speak was like watching a contortionist, one that constantly modified every pose in case it deemed too suggestive. One wondered, in the end, how he didn’t end up too tangled to talk about anything at all. The wordsmith in me trumps the liberal (sorry, ‘Person of Left-leaning’) and no matter how well-meaning, non-intuitive phrasing jars my ears. I agree most with Francine Fialkoff, when she said: “Ultimately, however, we hope we use language that is more sensitive without enforcing strident political correctness or orthodoxy”. Being subversive lickle me - I can’t help it, really! - I started monkeying his speech, adding my own cheeky bent to it. I started calling myself a ‘person of Brunetteness’, or sometimes ‘Differently Interested’. I started adding ‘As a woman,’ or ‘as a student’ or ‘as an eccentric’ as a qualifer…into almost every sentence, no matter how mundane. Granted, some might say that this was a lickle bit immature, and they’re not entirely wrong. It was, however, my reaction to what seemed to me more a trembling reaction to guilt and apprehension than a true eagerness to use progressive speech, and I guess that just irked me on some deep level. I’d like to somehow have debate on political correctness in speech and its place in the post-ironic world, but many have offered much more well researched and considered essays - not to mention I’d likely only trip over my tongue. Did you read something that struck a chord with you?
This is one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in a while. It sums up a philosphy I’ve long had but never really managed to put into words, nevermind a gorgeous little film.
I.
Soldiers understood.
Deck crew, CIC, sometimes even pilots just didn’t get it. But a (fellow) soldier always understood how it was after an engagement. The adrenaline out of control, spurring an insanity of need, tension, desperation…
Lt. M.Z. Denov (Senior grade) had a Marine she saw. He wasn’t the prettiest to look at. Certainly not the smartest. But he frakked so hard it hurt and isn’t that what mattered?
II.
“Whore” he grunted one night, his callused fingers pressing bruises into her hips. She stiffened.
“Don’t call me that.” a pause. The truth was that his little burbles of vitriol were charming. ”Somethin’ else.” she finally demanded. Call me something else.
He lifted his head, thumping it on the top of her rack ”What dirty name y’want?” What a good dog, she thought, he didn’t miss a beat this time. Den let her head fall back and her fingers dig into his back.
“Petty Officer, First Class.”
This is about Denov, (mine!) and her little romps aboard Battlestar Whatever. Way to go practically asking your best firned to lead you on, Den. Way to go being all in denial about your part in some military-grade Evilitry, Den. God, you’re so lame! *sigh*
One thing you need to know about Denov is that she’s basically Payne. Without the whole painslut bit. Which is pretty much the core part of Payne, so that doesn’t make sense, but there you are.
There is a story behind the last bit, but I’m not going to tell you.
—-
They never talk about these little…Denov wasn’t even sure what to call them. It always started with Ambrosia and moved to stock-room moonshine and ended with Rosie’s face pressed against her neck and Rosie’s hips rocking against her wrist and her heart feeling like it was about to thump itself right through the hull of her shuddering chest. Quick, drunken, fumbled, silent.
There were no words. Not before, during, or after. They never said a word, that would make it real.