Stirring it up

 Well here it is! Happy ten days into the new year. And though I'm aware the year is rather an arbitrary number, and really, any day is just like the next, the budding of a 'new year' instills in the hearts of the Western world, something nice for a while. Something intrinsically hopeful. Though I wish these feelings would sweep over the nation more than once every cycle around the sun, I'll take what I can get.

Graduation is nigh! It's been a long time coming, but the light at the end of the tunnel! I can see it! I am convinced it will be the spiritual equivalent of the new years of my twenties, if that makes any sense. After my first week of classes this semester, I am acutely aware that this last semester, unfortunately, will not be easy on me. But everything's so close to the end, I'm a little hard-pressed to care.

Coming back to the city after Canmore is always a little disappointing. It's a loud and busy place, where there are more people to ignore you - then you realize it takes an hour and a half by bus to really 'get outside' in the traditional sense. I definitely don't ever want to forget what living in a small town is like.

Something I tried really hard to do this past Christmas was shop for local things in Vancouver (I also tried to say 'happy holidays' to someone instead of 'merry Christmas' and got an overreaction that I was not impressed by - I'm wishing you well for your holidays, whatever they are - I don't have to, you know - I can say, 'thanks for your purchase, don't get your damn knickers in a twist', but please, continue to make mountains out of mole-hills). This ended up being a slightly more expensive, and time-consuming venture - but the return was quite rewarding. At numerous locally-built and maintained shops, people are willing to chat (about literally anything), help you make decisions. I had a nice chat for almost an hour with a woman in a shop on Granville Island who was selling a local designer's clothes. Talked distilleries with a couple of the new ones in town - I think my favourite has to be Odd Society Spirits - I love their labels and I sort of put Cremé de Cassis in everything over the holidays. It made shopping a little more of an adventure. I remember my first year I lived here I did most of my shopping at Metrotown. I do not go there any more. For anything. Ever.

This, in conjunction with a recent brain-bubble, has made me very interested in consumerism as a power, and a choice. And this includes all form of consumerism - what you're eating, watching, buying, and buying into. I was listening to the CBC recently and they were talking about the Weather Channel (a private company) and their website, explaining the sensationalized storms they choose to name  (similar to naming hurricanes) outside of the NOAA's classification system, the cat videos they fill their page view quotas with when there aren't any extreme weather phenomenon to report on or spin into a wild news craze. I consider this akin to those awful morning talk shows (and many other things) I re-experienced while having access to satellite over the holidays. I sit and look at it and think, 'who is putting money into this? Who keeps watching this? How does this crap continue existing?' I am always at a distinct, mind-boggling loss for answers. How does this mindless generation of sub-par, fear mongering, and ultimately ignorant content keep getting bigger, angrier, and more profitable? It's like the overstimulation olympics - who can cram as many little white lies, useless information, and out-of-context sound bites as possible into a news segment about a cat fashion show.

It's extremely easy to make misinformed, or uninformed decisions in a time where everyone is out to get your attention and your dollar. It's exhausting to think of the implications I am purchasing into when I buy a brand of clothing or food. Who or what am I exploiting by buying this product? The lists are usually long and very depressing.

I think maybe it's something we don't think of often enough; consumerism as a power. I've always felt that my own voice in the world wouldn't ever do much - how do you say anything to the people who run the world. It seems the best mode for any exchange of ideas (much to my chagrin) is through the mysterious channels of money. As much as I like consuming fish, I'm well aware of the debacle around wild and farmed fish stocks. I make a decision not to purchase fish products or eat fish, even though it is highly accessible and I like it. It seems a very 'first world' sacrifice - that's because it is. I think because the first world has such vast access to things, people think they have the right to a vast access of things. Maybe 'right' is the wrong word. But ultimately just because you can doesn't mean you should. It's an incredible responsibility, and in a marketplace in which you alone are what determines what is and is not consumed, it takes willpower. And to be honest, I think we all can use a little more of that.

I am in the middle of a disheartening work of non-fiction by Farley Mowat called Sea of Slaughter. He systematically goes through species that have been ruthlessly decimated not out of need but out of greed in North America. I read about a once bountiful ocean, the one that existed some 300 years ago, and I look at what's left. The hollow shell left behind by an over-excited industrial complex. The sense that seems common to me would be to use a natural resource with enough knowledge and foresight to allow it to replenish, and ultimately, live so that the next generation of Homo sapien can also benefit from it. But what seems to happen, again and again (and again) is a resource (in this case, any plant or animal ever to be determined to attract capital) is tapped, hunted until it becomes a valuable commodity, then it is beaten to extinction while being marketed to a higher class of people without a whole lot of forethought. It's all for the dollar. It was just this step-by-step syphoning of every resource into the pockets of tycoons. It still happens - and it will continue to happen because people seem to be able to remove themselves from the global situation if they have enough money. It's just very frustrating. Well not just just. It's huge, hairy, and rather frightening.

Anyways, I could talk myself in circles about this stuff forever. I have a bunch of global identity thoughts I've been mulling about as well. But I'll save those for another time. It's a hard thing to put into coherent sentences because I am aware of all of the things I don't know (which are plenty), and all of the misinformation I have probably consumed about these things. And what's worse is I feel really cheesy talking about it - preaching the helicopter parenting of the 24-hour news cycle, and that we need to save the planet. But come on. The writing has been on the wall for decades. When I talk about these sorts of things, tag lines from Hollywood films always come to mind. Everything has already been said. A thousand times over.

Ultimately, always consume with a conscious. Whether it be the blogs you read, the olives you put in your martini, the illin' kicks you bought online, or the cat videos you endlessly scroll through - it all exists inside your sphere of influence.

Anyways, anyways.

There aren't really any resolutions for me this year. Because I've known for a while what I've got to get done in 2014. The list is long.

I'm revamping my Etsy site this weekend (so keep an eye out) - with some new things! Recent findings have found me to be as broke as ever, and I can't seem to get a job even bagging groceries - so I guess I will just make things out of other things. Want a monster made of felt? Or possibly any other material? I am your lady.

Oh - and all of you in Vancouver - Save the Date: May 17th, 2014 - I am hosting and programming an afternoon of film and video projects (plus the premier of my most recent short film), complete with opportunities to eat, drink, network, and be merry! It's at the infinitely lovely Vancity Theatre, and it will be full of great people and wonderful things. So make sure you're around!

I decided to list some of my favourite things that I can remember discovering in 2013, that you can also absorb into your body of consciousness - I am astounded by what I currently cannot remember, surely there were more things than this - links below!

Things to listen to:

Sword & Sworcery soundtrack 'Ballad of the Space Babies' by Jim Guthrie

Things to read:

The Very Persistent Gappers of Fripp by George Saunders

The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath

An Astronaut's Guide to Life On Earth by Chris Hadfield

Things to view:

Rheanna Toy's short film, NINA, was accepted into the National Screen Institute's online film festival!

Learn about the BEE PROBLEM

Upstream Color

Orange is the New Black

Hannibal

Twenty thirteen.

Happy New Years everyone! I hope the holidays have spoiled you all rotten - and were laden with family, friends and good food. And I hope, for everyone who made them, the new years resolutions are holding up!

The culmination of 2012 took place in Vancouver - my first new years in the city. As 2012 came to and end and 2013 began, the past year begged for some reflections. No large realizations, more... reaffirmations, I think - finding pathways to make myself a stronger, kinder individual - to succeed in what I put my mind to. Pretty standard Auld-Lang-Syne-type stuff.

Resolutions are a rather functional ideology - because they give us this conscious chance to see what we are, what we were and what we want to be. It doesn't necessarily change anything - it's just sort of an internal systems purge, dusting off foggy dreams and memories, maybe wiggling some things around. Sets everything straight again, if only for a little while.

Christmas was good - a long holiday this year, filled with dogs and gingerbread houses and mulled wine. I also got to work with the crew at Café Books over the holidays - which is always superbly prime. Snowshoeing with my folks was tons of fun - though we should have been out doing that more. I got to (finally) read my first John Green book, Looking for Alaska - (which was lovely, I wish I had read it a few years ago), re-read Tolkien's The Hobbit (which made me further rage about the film - which I have so many feels about I don't even know), and got into a volume of Greg Bear's short fiction (I also read a bunch of Kafka, but I don't want to talk about it).

My to-read list this year is monstrous, as is my to-see list. But I am a fan of lists, so this is probably okay. By September of this year, I am going to have two whole other short films shot, one completed, the other going into post. Really got to do that one chin up. Just the one (it's a process). Cooking more and baking more, that's going to be a combo of fun and tough I look forward to. And! Here's a large one - I've got to not wait around for things - there's my big new year's whatever. I can't wait around for occasions, people, miracles, opportunities. Waiting around is for chumps. Gotta go and get it - gotta go get that one chin up. Plus some other stuff.

Most of my education is over, and when it is, I'll be glad to be out. I've got barely a year and a half to make sure I know how to swim. Then it's out to sea with the lot of us.

The sea's a scary place, to be sure. But the second we stop fearing is the second we stop learning, creating and moving forward - and, to layer on the cheese, we stop living.

Life's all about the cheese.

All you poor souls going back to school this week (as one of you, I sympathize) - Have a good semester!

And thus ends my blog post filled with secrets in parenthesis.

Things to keep up with/check out/feast your eyes upon:

Keep up with Rheanna Toy's short film NINA, going into production sooon!

The Rain City Chronicles has a show coming up this month, and I really can't bail on it this time. Tickets are twelve bucks and it's at the Orpheum. There is no excuse to miss hanging out at the Orpheum.

I made a video, because I took my camera out for one day while I was on holidays, and I was going to do something with the footage (damn it).

Snowshoeing in the Bow Valley from Laurel K Brown on Vimeo.

I can see the end of the semester without putting on my glasses!

My brainstorming? All arrows.

It's so near! It's almost December!

This semester has been so creatively tumultuous. And I have learned many, many things about how I work, and how I need to work in order to focus the... blast radius? I don't really know what to call it. But yeah.

Screenwriting was really stressing me out this semester. It's since gotten much better, but for three months it was just dragging. I'd get things down on paper but they wouldn't be... useful, or complete thoughts or anything. I started reviewing books I read in middle and high school to dredge up some feelings/ideas for my grad film. I'm hoping it'll end up being a piece that is both nostalgic for me and an audience. But only time will tell, for that one. My idea of it's purpose seems to change a little bit, every day - so we'll just have to see. Well, today it changed a lot actually. And it felt pretty good. The script's on it's merry way again.

Editing my Fall semester film has been taxing. I've learned a lot going back and seeing what worked and what did not. The entire process, however, is proving quite a challenge. This week I'll be remedying some absent transitions with stop motion animation. I'm hoping it'll give the film more of a whimsical flare, and unite the scenes. I got some great feedback last week regarding my cut, and now it's happily bumbling along.

This semester's lessons have come about in interesting ways, and having mostly to do with what I enjoy doing in the production process, what I still need to learn, and what I simply have no skills in whatsoever. I don't very much enjoy screenwriting. I like writing novels, when I can use prose to weave anything I want. I find screenplays rather restrictive, I suppose, while not being that great at writing them at all. I really enjoy pre-visuals, storyboarding, picking colour pallets, I enjoy set work, being behind the camera. Editing is a task I will give a second chance to only if it's dealing with someone else's footage. Having to stare at mistakes I've made both as a director and a photographer over and over again are exhausting and infinitely frustrating.

In the 'I feel weird about humans' news department, I continue to be confused by most people. Respect is still a weird thing in my books. How it ebbs and flows, not only other people's reflections on myself, but my own judgements on others - and reasons why I make those judgements. It's hard not to endlessly stew over someone not wanting to spend time with you any more, or why they don't talk to you, or want to work with you. It's all very curious stuff. Most of which, I doubt will come clear in my life time. So, I'm going to see how stepping away from stewing about it feels, because it seems to be doing the trick.

I'm glad Vancouver has decided to throw us some nicer days in with the rain. With each year that passes, the rain becomes increasingly bothersome in it's capacity to just... make a not-quite-right day into a horrible one. Laundry day, not so bad. Laundry day when it's pouring rain out, the dickens. Had a lame day in class, forgets umbrella - hellish trip home. But those patches of sunshine have sure been sweet surprises!

I also got an iPhone a few weeks ago. Instagram ftw! I sort of hate it, but I sort of really love it. Want to be instagram buddies? I can definitely see myself just instagraming the business out of Christmas shenanigans this year. Just so you know.

The next ten days will be brimming with tiredness, finding frantic holds in the creative process, knuckling down and learning some science... etc. It's going to be very busy. Screenplays due, cut/sound mix/colour grade to be delivered, so much studying to do. But after my last exam next Sunday, it's Christmas potluck time - then briskly home the next day. It's going to be a fun one this year.

I'm really excited to go home (oh boy, that's in like... less than two weekss) for Christmas. It's going to be an extended holiday, which I am quite grateful for. I need some time away from Vancouver, it and I have had some good times, but really - we get on each other's nerves. I want to go see some animals other than dilapidated pigeons and hoardes of crows.

Things to Check Out -

OUR SCREENING! Thirteen third year student films! On December 6th, that's this coming Thursday. Like Facebook? Check out our event page! It's free, so what could possibly go wrong?

The His Dark Materials series by Philip Pullman. Specifically this edition. I've spent the last few weeks rereading this series and it's just magical and awesome.

Be sure to keep up with production on Rheanna Toy's short film NINA.

The Pacific Cinematheque is having an amazing set of Studio Ghibli films all throughout December! It's the only reason I'll be sad to leave for most of the month! They are absolutely magical films, and I urge you two check one or two or all of them out!

New Years Eve with CANADIAN FRAME(LINES)! I think I'll spend my first New Years in Vancouver with these fine folks! Not familiar with them? Check yourself before you wreck yourself!

Twenty twelve.

Olá ladies and gentlemen! I hope everyone had started off their brand new year with reasonable frabjousness and you've got exciting things ahead. School's started again, and I feel the unmistakable burn of acute disinterest, it'll pass one of these days.

I did some crafts for family and friends this Christmas. I made up some wee cards, which I had tons of fun cutting those tiny snowflakes that you fold and then unfold. They didn't end up really looking like snowflakes at all, you win some and you lose some. I was also lame this Christmas and had to give my Gran and my parents the old 'book of coupons', whose orders are never filled. Ever. I promised both my Gran and my mother a pair of handknitted socks. I have tried knitting socks twice. Both times have almost ended in me trying to gouge my eyes out with knitting needles. It was the easy way out of a no-money Christmas gift. The guilt. Oh the guilt.

I also made my Gran a tiny tree ornament and I made my roomie a shark feltie, with an important message embroidered on it. I got some great functional things for Christmas, including an electric blanket (also known as my new best friend), a nice windbreaker and a power drill. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I am now a twenty-something woman who owns her own damn power tools. Also, steak knives.

The holidays gave me time to mull some things over that required a bit of mulling. I spent a lovely week in Canmore with my parents and aunt, visiting my grandparents' farm on boxing day. After a lacklustre new years eve spent waiting for each member of my family to drop off to sleep before the ball dropped, we packed our bags and caught an early flight to Mexico that new years day.

Asides from a bout of food poisoning, which still is following me around and reminding me of it's presence at inopportune moments, the holidays were great. Time spent with people who enjoy listening to things I have to say and remain supportive of me in my old age. It's always nice to go back home for a stint, takes me away from my own life and puts me right in with another. I did quite a bit of reading - having told myself I couldn't read anything except for textbooks and film writings last semester, I reveled in some good ole science fiction paperbacks. I enjoyed both Hyperion by Dan Simmons and Ringworld by Larry Niven. I also finished, at long last, Film Lighting by Malkiewicz - which was an absolutely fantastic read. A combination of technical references and interviews with professionals. I cracked open Walden, only to have to close it and declare it one of those books I'll save for a 'rainy day', which in all likelihood means I wont pick it up for another three or four years. I'm also in the middle of Professional Film Lighting by Carlson and Carlson - which is a dated book, being about as old as I am, but I'm using it as an intermediate for when I crack open the Set Lighting Technician's Handbook by Box. I also got a fancy subscription to American Cinematographer for Christmas with a load of backissues to delve into. I haven't had a magazine subscription since middle school, and AC is a fantastic read. So I am rather pleased.

Having dropped my economics course for this semester, thank goodness, my class schedule has thinned out considerably. This is quite nice, as it gives me plenty of time to be on sets (I've already spent over 40 hours on set in the past week) and actively seeking a new job. My first screenwriting class last week culminated in a half page of notes and personified bacon, toast and eggs smiling and holding hands. It was a productive day. Needless to say, being back in school hurts a little this semester. It's so blase. This is the tail end of my fourth year in University. It feels sort of like forever. Which is unpleasant.

It's been curious, these past five months or so, I've gone through some strange internal things that have culminated in, what I can only describe as, a bit of a reinvention via insane amounts of stress, worry and doubt. Becoming agonizingly aware of how I function around other people has forced me to recon with the image that I put out to other people and the little slice of non-reputation I seem to have with my peers. It's been curious, but rather enlightening. I've experienced these things very much in stages, first realizing that I never had anything to say because, in my mind, other people's word come before my own. Then I just sort of started ignoring everyone. Now I'm onto the stage of, yes I have things to say, but I am just going to sit here and listen to what you have to say instead of telling you what I think. It's a process, ladies and gentlemen. It's hard to contest with people who can so easily hold their intelligence over your head, and it's hard to see through that jack-assery to the fact that you can, indeed, be intelligent but not arrogant.

Anyways, lots of living and learning going on, as per usual. I haven't been feeling too great this week, so I haven't gotten a whole lot done between that and being on set. But I hope I can level out next week and get some things done. I turn 21 in just over a month, and although I don't think I've changed too much in the past year, I seem to have learned a lot. I'm seeking a bit of shuffling around in my routine, so I'm hoping I can land a new job in the next month or so and get on with things. It feels like I've been stubbornly sitting in a puddle for the past little while. It's nice to realize what I want, and it's nice to know that maybe I'm getting to the point where I feel empowered enough to go out and get it. Again, it's a process.

For Freak Steaks is back up and running - cinematography stuff and junk. Vunderbaar!
I've also gotten a Mubi account, if any of you are into that.

Things, more things, other things

Well, it's October now. September went poof, and I am listening to Christmas carols periodically THREE MONTHS early. No big deal, I've just fallen off my rocker.

Things that have happened in the past while: I've succumbed to student loans, joy of joys. I guess this will keep my mind off money for a little while. Job hunting's been a little difficult here, I've been told numerous times it's because of the economy, but because I don't understand the economy, I just take out my rage by swearing loudly at Craigslist. I think I've killed my ficus by repotting it. It just... dropped all of it's leaves and now it's this tremendously sad skeleton of a plant.  Two of my fish, Leonard and Androcles, turned a year old a couple weeks ago. One of my fish, Julian, died before he made it to a year (sad panda). Starbucks and I have developed a love/hate relationship.

On Wednesday, I had the most super day! I started at the Vancouver Aquarium - where I volunteer! I got to pick up a tortoise, which was all kinds of amazing! I sort of made up excuses to pick them up; like 'Oh, you're standing on a piece of lettuce I need to take out - I GUESS I'LL HAVE TO PICK YOU UP NOW!'. I also saw red tree frog eggs, which, turns out, are the most bizarre colour of seafoam green. I can't wait until they hatch and wee tadpoles emerge! Then I went to spend time in Victory Park downtown before class - soaking up the sun! I had a shifty fellow come up to me and ask me, 'got any weed, darlin'?' which makes me laugh because I look like the biggest square in town. I also had to shift my position every little while, because jerks kept sitting upwind from me and lighting up cigars or doobies. But generally, it was a magnificent couple of hours spent sitting on the grass. THEN I went to my film lab, which is always tremendous. The mysteries of 16mm film, exposure meters and the nature of all things film production are slowly unraveling before me! Anyways, on this particular lab day we were paired up and sent out into the city with a Bolex and a 100 foot roll of 16mm film to shoot whatever we please! We're always told that it's awesome we're shooting on such old cameras - in a digital age it's always a topic of conversation. We also had a weird lady come up to us and give us contraceptives - which was awkward, but Hastings has a weird sort of local colour that I love despite everything.

Favorite things of the week: 

Kunstformen der Natur by Ernst Haeckel

The images in this book are amazing. I have Stumbledupon it a couple of times and have just found it tremendously inspiring. I have always loved naturalist drawings - and these are top notch. Please have a look here for zoomable, gorgeous, full pages of the book. I hope you enjoy them as much as I have!

The new season of The Venture Brothers

Favorite television of the time being:

Breaking Bad and Star Trek: Next Generation. I can't seem to stop watching either of them.  Breaking Bad just breaks my heart. It's such a good show - so emotionally devastating! I feel like I need to either scream or cry into a pillow after watching a couple of episodes. I highly recommend it, two whom in particular, I don't know... but it's about a high school chemistry teacher who turns to cooking meth with a former student to make money so his family can sustain itself after he dies of terminal lung cancer. Yeah, it's an emotional well. Seeing Bryan Cranston NOT being the weird, whimsical dad on Malcom in the Middle is bizarre. I don't like it. But then again, I totally do. Just watch the show.

Via Fuck Yeah TNG

I seriously spent most of yesterday watching Next Generation. Now, this is the science fiction show that my mom always would watch, and I would always find outrageously boring as an eight year old. But the seeds of science fiction fandom were planted (well, in addition to the ritualistic watching of Star Wars on VHS every time I was home sick from school), and I got into Deep Space 9. And now, all things have lead to me watching Next Generation from the very beginning. It's very interesting to see everything in context, as opposed to random walk by's of "Whacha watchin'?" "Engage. Make it so. Those aren't muskets." "Oh. I'm going to go stare at a wall instead."

Favorite Artist of the day!

Shuichi Nakano! Supremely surreal gigantic animals gracing cityscapes! Check it out! I'm a big fan of the humungo fish in the sky!

Via Empty Kingdom

Via Empty Kingdom

Next thing I intend to bake: 

These absolutely amazing looking Rhubarb Oat Muffins from Shared Sugar!! I think I'll make a ton of them before my aunt comes to visit and freeze a bunch, so then my dad can also have some when he comes to visit! SO MANY VISITS.

Via Shared Sugar

Anyways, sorry for the lengthy/link heavy/photo heavy/video heavy post. It's late (early) and I probably should be going to bed (but will instead lie in bed playing gameboy for like... two hours instead). All of my VIFF tickets are purchased, including Cold Weather, The Ugly Duckling, Rubber, Armadillo and R. I was really hoping to see Feathered Cocaine, but it would seem all of the screenings have been canceled. I may try to pick up a screening or two if I have time. Maybe Cold Fish or Psychohydrography. WE SHALL SEE.

Via Fuck Yeah TNG

Hope everyone has a FUNtastic October!

PS. Check out this frigging huge pepper I picked up at the Main Street Vancouver Farmer's Market last week. It blew my damn mind. Then I cooked it into a curry.

PPS. My new, most favorite rhyme: WEIRD BEARD.

Shark Shark!

Yay! It's a hammerhead shark! This little guy is for Mary, who's birthday it is on Saturday and who's christmas present got lost in the mail. I think he's pretty cute. I really like how his eyes turned out!!

Christmas Gifties!

So I thought I'd post a bunch of the Christmas felties I made, at long last. This year I decided to do a theme, after much deliberation, I decided on marine animals. Each ornament came with a card with a little inked sketch of the animal plus a list of facts (from Wikipedia, no less!).

One, unfortunately, seems to have gotten lost in the mail, so I'll be making another one to replace it before long. But most of them turned out pretty fine and I did make a lot of them!! I'll also be posting some gardening pictures a little later on. I do love to garden (well, as much as I can garden in a town house, anyways). And I just landed a job at a local gardening center! Oh happy day!

Enjoy!

Mele Kilikimaka

It's the thing to say, on a bright, Hawaiian Christmas day!

I hope everyone's holidays are proceeding with excellent excellence. I have been doing masses of sewing myself, but wont be uploading anything here until after the holidays. There's a couple examples of holiday things over on DeviantArt , if you're really bent on having a sneak peek.

I've also been baking a little here and there. All I can say, is that these are the best cookies I have ever made, ever. Possibly the best cookies I have also ever eaten. I've made them twice with cadbury white and semi sweet chocolate chunks, and I really can't stop eating them. Tomorrow (or later today), I am embarking on the baking of these for my folks to enjoy over the days leading up to Christmas. I'm pretty stoked about them, except for the cost of the booze.

Anyways, I suppose this is farewell until the new year. Have lots of fun, eat well, get together with old friends and celebrate!!