August: Selectively Crispy.

"What is commonest, cheapest, nearest, easiest, is Me,
   Me going in for my chances, spending for vast returns,
   Adorning myself to bestow myself on the first that will take me,
   Not asking the sky to come down to my good will,
   Scattering it freely forever."
                           -Walt Whitman, Song of Myself (14)


I have attained a new personal project. Probably something that will come to reality in the next year or so. But I've gotten pretty stoked on camping. With the success of our second ESL camping trip, plus talking with some amazing people about trips around the Gulf Islands, I've decided to start a collection of one-man camping gear, a touring bike, and some good places to travel to and hunker down for a night or two or three. This last trip has sort of renewed a love for the stars, for bonfires, for picking through rockpools for the most bizarre of sea creatures. A trip to Grandma's Beach on Salt Spring garnered an absolutely amazing array of sea life, just wading up to the knees. Rock crabs, pipe fish, fan worms, baby rock fish (cutest!!), shrimp, brittle stars, star fish, moon jellies and, what I believed to be, a  sort of miscellaneous cnidarian.

I think, a lot of the time, we have a tendency to disregard how attached other people can be to things. Things being... well, anything. Music, movies, moments in time. These iotas of importance in an individuals life. How can one person put down another's love for opera or rap, Leo Tolstoy or George R. R. Martin? I had a really hard time in middle school when in my top ten 'Everything I Will Ever Love Ever' list included things like Lord of the Rings, frogs, writing fantasy novels and science fiction. Lord of the Rings was a turning point, reaffirming filmmaking as my star to shoot for, the first film that I noticed cinematography specifically. I was appalled when people would declare to me that it's lame, or they weren't going to watch it because everyone else has seen it, it's too mainstream. That kind of thing still gets my goat occasionally. Mostly when it comes to film. It's important to keep in mind, the reason our arts scene and culture is so diverse, is that people are individuals - don't knock it til you try it - and it takes all kinds.

I heard about a weird, morally reprehensible thing on CBC the other morning. I guess some kids (and, I guess, parents) have decided it's a good idea for  picked-on youth to get plastic surgery as a means to deter bullying. Now, I'm all for the control of violence and depression in youth - I'm all for giving every kid the ability to stand up for themselves, but this really upset me. It comes back to the "we live in a society that tells us 'don't get raped', instead of 'don't rape'". Here, the message seems to be, 'boys don't like you because you don't have DD breasts? Let's fix that," or, "Don't look like a Hollywood starlett? Being picked on for your (insert any extraneous non-Barbie-like feature here)? We'll fix that right up and make you look like Jocelyn Wildenstein before you've even hit  puberty! Huzzah!" This is a step in the wrong direction for youth. Accepting who you are, and who others are is a much more important (and less invasive) way of dealing with bullying, kids feeling out of place, and building a supportive community in which youth are raised. Kids need to have thicker skins, parents need to be there for when they need support, and as a society, we can't be advocating changing yourself just to 'fit in'. Be yourself, you exist, you're a thing!

I've recently been able to start harvesting some potatoes. Those have come with some hard lessons. My first batch came out small and scarred (but still good), and some web and book research has told me how to avoid those problems. The second hill I dug up was nicer, smooth skinned and more plentiful. I had a bit of an aphid outbreak on my broccoli, but was able to deter them with soap and water treatments, as well as some help from the local ladybug population. I can pull a handful of beans every few days, which is fantastic. I've got a wicked pumpkin well on it's way to being the most show-y thing in my garden. It's about nine inches in diameter and still expanding!

In light of my fifth (yeesh) year at university about to begin, I have started thinking a little more critically about my current and future roles in filmmaking. What kind of films I want to make - and who to make them for (the later, perhaps the most important question of them all). Despite my family egging me on because of my 'youth', I do feel ancient. Every misstep I make feels like a devastating waste of breath - when really, it just takes me down another path; other opportunities, new scenery. I keep getting sucked in to the idea that this industry is incredibly 'cut-throat'. But, the fact of the matter is - it's only cut-throat so long as I play it that way. So long as I believe that every one else will cut me down to get to the top, and I need to do the same - I wont be a happy camper, and I'll be in the wrong state of mind. I think the key for me now is to find a group of people that I really enjoy working with. Filmmaking need not become my ball-and-chain, because I love it - and I always have loved it. Needless to say, I'm rather excited for this next year. I've started picking up a crew member here and there as my script sort of festers at a single page plus a thousand sticky-notes, but y'know... that's how it goes. I'm sure I'll keep that information forthcoming as ideas start forming cohesive bits of narrative. Currently it's colours, character names and snippets of songs. We've got a long way to go yet, but it's going to be great.

Wonderfully enough, I was able to finagle a biology course in with my film courses this fall. Intro to ecology. I'm pretty amped on this for numerous reasons: I love biology, I love animals and behaviors and plants and science. Also, I like having a hard science mixed in with my largely malleable arts courses. While I do appreciate the arts, it's a field of emotion, opinion and the abstract. In a larger sense, there is no right or wrong answer in the arts. The sciences, however, provide me with some much needed concrete-ness. Some fact, some good old fashioned book learning. Quite frankly, it's my grounding in reality, my ground in the importance (or unimportance) of what I do, it's my snap back to the larger picture. Plus! It's a chance to meet some new people. Can't pass up a sweet opportunity like that!

I go on holiday in 17 days. Cannot wait. Yeeeeeeeesh.

I hope everyone had a great, Pride-filled weekend!


Things to chiggity-check:

New (to me) music: Alex Turner, Patrick Wolf

A blog to look at because of reasons.

A refreshing dose of 'get your head out of the sand, here's what feminism actually is all about'.

What's all this about 70mm? A nice explanation of 70mm and it's uses via the Paul Thomas Anderson resource, Cigarettes and Red Vines.

Adorable best friend beasts!

A neat little resource that maps distances. I've been using it to calculate how far I run (not very far) every week. A little more accurate than Google maps. Pretty handy business.


(Hhhhi Nathan)

Summer music. Summer flowers. Summer television. Whatever.

Summer is here, summer is here. So this blog post will be filled with pictures of flowers. Whatever.

Buttercups & Bachelor Buttons

Summer, a time of increased insect traffic in your home, increased beverage consumption when siting outside and increased itchy sunburns. It's a time of summer music, this year it's the Dandy Warhols. I tried out a few others from my middle school days - Green Day (pre-American Idiot), The White Stripes, Blink 182 (oh god, I had forgotten about that video), but none of them have really stuck like they used to. The Dandy's have been playing pretty steady when I'm home. I've found this summer needs a bit more of a robust soundtrack than the combination indie/soft spoken Grizzly Bear sort of stuff that bore me through the rainy winter months.

I finally quit my job last week - which was a difficult, but necessary decision. As much as I really didn't enjoy working there anymore, it still provided a safe little haven where I knew everyone, I was skilled in my skill-less position and a steady paycheque. But really, I just want to get out there and meet people this year, learn new things. I can't do that stuck in the same place, nor can I do that with my perpetual, no exceptions 'better the devil you know' voice of my conscious. I mean really, it's absurd. So away we go!  I am a leaf on the wind. Landed a new job, different service industry, different duties and radically different time schedule. Should be alright for a while, I have a feeling it wont be too prime. But - this summer, I feel, is as much a time to be intrepid as ever. Out we go to experience life in general. I've even got a ladies rugby team all picked out to join once I settle into work.

Violas

A recent daily challenge of mine has been making decent dinner from rice and whatever is left in my house. Solution: super duper stir fry. Base: rice, plus! Leftovers, beans that have been in the freezer forever, egg, spinach, all that business. It turns out not that bad with a bit of olive oil, garlic and sometimes ginger.

And on the note of calling making edible food a 'challenge', I have also been facing tiny other 'challenges' on a daily basis. They're stupid little things, things really not worth telling anyone because they're so... itty bitty and seemingly inconsequential. But knowing how I work in a day to day environment and know how I react to some things (badly), I'm kind of able to make a little list of things to do that I don't usually do that will somehow result in a betterment of person. It goes much like this:

1. Example: after every conversation know what colour the other person's eyes are, or walk around without the protection of a giant bag for a day.
2. ???
3. Profit!

But really. These things just funnel my anxiousness into constructive means. So whatever.

Strawberries!

Transplanting things! First to sprout from my flurry of seeds outdoors was surprisingly pac choi. Closely followed by usual favorites, english breakfast radishes, mescluns and spinach. A few days later, beans and snap peas. On the indoor front, my Brandywine and Sasha's Pride tomatoes just sprouted the other day and are merrily putting up new growth. I recently transplanted peppers, cucumber and canteloupe that were bought as seedlings into larger pots with a healthy dose of Sea Soil Potting Mix. This stuff is gold. Jobe's tomato spikes and a handful of crushed eggshells was mixed in to my fourth garden bed with Sea Soil in preparation for tomato and zuccini transplant today. I've gotta say, in about three or four weeks the garden is gonna be bumpin'.

Anyways, that's what's up. I'm finding that, between my gardening and referring to my tiny animals as 'children', I am sounding rather domestic. Weird.

All the while, I repeat this summer's mantra: "Use your words".



Things to feast your eyes (and whatnot) upon:

   - Maitenance Man is being screened on May 31st at the Pacific Cinematheque, a CineWorks film festival project I gaffed for last month - Back Down the Highway
   - 24 Hour film race, look out for the SFU Film Workshop.
   - Girls - an HBO series in it's first season, I cannot express to you the weird kinds of joy that this show brings me, it's like what Sex and the City should have been, PLUS going through each and every one of my neuroses, making me feel slightly better that someone (however fictional) experiences much of the same. Feeeliiiings.

   - The independent film Choch is available here - read an open letter to supporters by filmmaker Brendan Prost here. Also be sure to check out this interesting independent film distribution phenomenon known as Distrify.

Mustache disguises.

So it's July. Happy July? Yes. Because now that's July, July will be over soon. Kapeesh? It's an uneasy time when I've got my nose to the grindstone, but in such a way that I'm constantly wondering, "what the hell for?" Although I can answer that question rather simply, most days I go unconvinced. Unconvinced of what? I am rather unsure. I am unsure of many things. This paragraph is filled with so much unsureness.

I'm getting extremely stoked on Harry Potter. I'm motoring through the series again, hopefully to have them done by the time I stand in line for a great number of hours to see the final movie at midnight with some friends from work. Yes. Midnight opening for the Deathly Hallows Part II. Once a nerd, always a nerd. I accept this. It's going to be an emotional roller coaster of ending childhoods and sadness and 70% of the characters dying for whatever reason. But at least we'll have each other?

This photograph.

Anyways, we christened the Bat Cave with a good old fashioned house warming this past Wednesday and were happy to see all of the faces that showed up, bearing booze and food. Joel (of the 30 days of videos) came bearing a gift of a Battlestar Galactica themed mug, on which "WHAT THE FRAK" is printed in large, rather angry, red letters. I will now forever loaf around  my house drinking booze from this mug, pretending I am Colonel Tigh. I think most of the evening can be summed up by this photograph and by telling you that I strummed on a green ukelele for a while repeatedly singing, "I like dudes". We're a classy bunch.

I went down to Red Cat Records last month and picked up some sweet, sweet vinyl. I'm a large fan of used vinyl, as it doesn't cost me $50 *coughDaftPunkcough*. But I accept that I am poor and will someday not be. Though I don't rest very easy with that thought. It's more a superficial, polka dot band aid for the sucking chest wound that is the problem of how I'm going to make money for the rest of my life. Anyways, back to records. I bought two marvelous soundtracks - The Muppet Movie as well as When Harry Met Sally (oh, Harry Connick Jr and your sultry, sultry voice). I also picked up a really illin' Bony-M album, which a friend of a friend remarked, "I think my mother had that album," I laughed and told him to listen to Ra Ra Rasputin immediately whilst dancing. I also picked up my favorite U2 album, War. I believe my dad used to have it on cassette tape, back when those were cool. It's absolutely stupendous on vinyl, it's loud and "full of texture" (if that's a thing - it must be a thing) and wonderful.

Moseyed on down to the Vancouver Public Library book sale after class yesterday to see what sort of wonderful, wonderful things I could find. First off, I was blown away by the building it was in. Evidently, I had been skirting around it my entire school year by about two blocks and never even noticed it. It's glorious! I didn't even have much time to marvel at it, as it was raining rather hard, and me being myself, I didn't have an umbrella with me. You'd think I'd learn eventually, as this is Vancouver I live in. The book sale was a little less intense than I had hoped it to be, but with paperbacks coming in at 75¢ a pop, I really, really could not complain. I picked up four National Geographics, a copy of Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain, T. H. White's The Sword in the Stone and two tiny gems, MASH Goes to Texas and MASH Goes to San Fransisco. I also almost picked up a tiny paperback entitled Indiana Jones and the Philosopher's Stone, because it was hilarious. "Harry Potter, we meet again" "Snakes, why'd it have to be snakes?" or some sort of mash-up like that. Who's not very clever with these sorts of things? This guy.

I recently planted a pitcher plant in my frog tank, and am both disgusted and amazed to report half digested cricket carcases in all of the largest pitchers. It's gross, but so so awesome. Here's some photos of my new fish and my old fish. They're doing rather well. The glowlight tetra is Herp and the silvertip tetra is Derp. Derp is doing a lot better than Herp, but hopefully Herp will start putting on some weight soon. My oldest tetra, Miles, is bossy and chubby. My two catfish are boisterous and chubby. The shrimp's a fat kid, who keeps molting because he keeps getting too fat for his shell. I'm so glad everything in this house is so well fed. :|

Finally got around to planting some veggies last week. Hauled a bag of sea soil home and planted up some peppers, tomatoes, basil, sunflowers, peas and pansies. Today I picked up a strawberry plant, tons of bamboo to build trellises from and more pots to fill with this wonderful stuff known as sea soil. My place doesn't have any sort of hose (or any sort of spigot for one), so there's going to be lots of trips up and down stairs with a mop bucket filled with water and fertilizer to keep that garden going strong all summer. I'm hoping we'll get something out of it. I'm going to plant up a bunch of lettuces in a planter perhaps tomorrow. I'd love to expand my gardening habits, but it's hard 1) renting, it's not like I can invest much in this place, seeing as I'm not going to live here for years and years and years. 2) sharing the yard with three other people. I keep daydreaming about being able to have raspberry and blueberry bushes and apple trees and flower patches, but I guess now's  not the time in life. I'm finding it hard to pace myself.

Moving caused some curious, old-time things to surface. I went through some picture books the other day, finding that some were just as old as I was! Puzzle Island, The Butterfly Ball and Rupert were some of my favorites. I also leafed through a copy of The Road Goes Ever On and On: A Song Cycle, which I picked up at a used book store in Canmore some years ago - during my overly obsessed period of life when anything that Tolkien's name graced had to be mine - and had a fit when I realized I may have had, in my hands, a first edition. Unfortunately, after an hour of over exuberant searching, I discovered I had the first American edition, which is still a little valuable, but not straight from London valuable. I actually got some use out of this book my late Great Uncle Brian gave to me on my birthday some years ago called Treasures of the Misty Mountains. It's entire volume is dedicated to the different editions of Tolkien's books and various merchandise that has stemmed off from the series (oh, the things in my library). In fact, it was more useful than anything I found on the internet (books for the win).

Another thing I rediscovered was this box that I has housed many things throughout it's life, jewelry, photos and now is host to gameboy games. It's been plastered with stickers since middle school, but on the bottom is a little piece of signage via my Grandpa, who made the box. I don't know if I ever realized this was on the bottom. Why my childhood self figured it was a good idea to plaster something my Grandpa made me specially with his own two hands with stickers of Pokemon and cycling swag, I don't know. But now it bears this strange new specialness to me. I'm getting far too nostalgic in my old age.

Check this out - the Bat Cave has not one, not two, but four game consoles. We're working on a fifth. That's how much gaming/Netflix watching goes on under this roof. I've discovered how much rage Halo gets out and created a disgusting alter ego for myself in Xbox Live known as "Dinkleberg". This alter ego dresses like they empty lobster traps for a living and are pretty okay with that.

Nesting has been going quite nicely. Organized all of my books last week, which has calmed me down quite a bit. High ceilings have given way to more space to put books on the top of bookshelves, which has just been revolutionary. I've got a pile of Redwall novels, a pile of Harry Potter hardcovers, a stack of graphic novels and some fancy boxed sets sitting where they wont take up space on the actual shelves. Organization and high celilings for the win. Books rule.

Excitement is mounting for August. My only exam arrives on the 10th, which is now going to be followed by a three week hiatus from school, work and Vancouver. I'll be headed to the island to visit my Gran for five days or so, then I'm jetting out West to Canmore for a good, solid visit with my parents, grandparents, friends and puppy dog! We've been planning lots of mini trips to do - the zoo, movies, Lord of the Rings on Blu Ray marathons (yesss), hikes, I think I'll even get a trip up to the Farm! I need a holiday, it's not a very long one, but I suspect I'll return quite refreshed for the fall semester.

Anyways, hope everyone's having an okay time this July. Tomorrow's going to be a great day filled with gardening, sun basking and celebrating Vancouver's 125th downtown with some free concerts. Free is good. I hope you enjoyed my text/photo/youtube embed heavy post.

Make sure you keep an eye on:

The Long Road Home: their Indiegogo campaign made it to a sweet, sweet $10,386! Production will be commencing shortly. Be sure to follow their video blog of the super-journey with filmmakers' Alex Coulson, Adam McKay and Analise Stuart!

Choch: their Indiegogo campaign reached their goal of $1000 and even went a little over! Be sure to keep an eye on when DVDs are going to be released - here's an article in FFWD from this past week, where filmmaker Brendan Prost speculates as to why no one seems to have an interest in coming out to watch independent films.

Some neat things to bewilder and bedazzle your wrinkly brains:

Virtual tour... of MOSCOW. In leiu of Durae and I learning a whole of three words in Russian the other day and vowing that we would learn it proper.

The wondrous Peacock Spider via ABC.

Stumbled across this photographer just yesterday - haven't quite seen anything like it. I recommend checking out his entire gallery! Get ready to get up close and personal to those hairs on the elbows of spiders. Just saying. It's very cool.

Jumping spider- the mustache from Ahmet Ozkan on Vimeo.

Music tidbit of the week:

How to Train your Dragon!

Music by John Powell

I've been doing genetics homework all week listening to this! I don't have any speakers hooked up to my computer at the moment, so I've had the ol' earphones plugged in at all times. I've been finding lyrical music increasingly distracting as I try and decode what this frigging textbook is trying to tell me in the most complex way possible, so I fell back on some orchestrated soundtracks to soothe the soul. It's a wonderful mix of epic, motion picture orchestra, booming bagpipes and rolling drum crescendos, as well as playful Celtic flute pieces and an adorable song by Jonsi. Have a listen, or numerous. If you haven't seen the film yet, please do that too.

A bonus gift for you:

Favorite thing(s) of today, WEDNESDAY!

Please check out the rest of The Star Thrower here, at Agent 44, an art blog by Jake Parker!

I'm currently listening to the soundtrack from Breaking and Entering. I really can't recall where I got this soundtrack from, as I haven't even seen the actual film; but it is a gorgeous, gorgeous soundtrack - I highly recommend it!

In other news, I am packing books into boxes, which is always depressing - but I know next week I will be taking them back out of said boxes and carefully arranging them in my new library in my new nest! I've got a new ceramic frog friend (pictures next post!), some new flowers on my patio (next post, again!) and I have yet to see Toy Story 3, shame on me! It seems summer might (?) be here? It was muggy and hot today, I still can't cool down. Ooee. Time to write a biology paper!