Sunday mutterings

[Note: I'm at home with dial-up; haven't checked all these links yet. You clicks your mouse, you takes your chances.]

[But why is livejournal turning links to youtube into "livejournal.com/preview...." links that are then broken? WTF?? Okay, I went to tinyurl to get around that, but I'm quite annoyed. This site is in serious trouble, and they just see dollar signs.]

Friday night at film fest was a good one. Lots of good animation; few duds. The epic short The History of America stands out---great to look at, and quite funny-smart, mashing up history and pop culture into the tale of the Cowboys vs. the Astronauts. The studio (outta KCMO) is MK12, who turn out to be the folks who did those cool overlay graphics (or see the clip on youtube) in Stranger Than Fiction. They're funny, posting unflattering lines from unimpressed reviewers in the presentation style usually used for the glowing. Including "and whatnot" in their content blurb. I might buy their promo floaty pen.

I also liked IV.7 (Annoyingly Small Mix) (the big screen probably helped) and For the Love of God. And Bill Plympton's talk was good. His screenings included "Fan and the Flower" (a love story that, yeah, I fell for) and "Shut Eye Hotel" (clips of those two here), and the video for Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song." (Weird Al, Plympton assures us, encourages downloading.)


Gotta run to the library but might catch some of that Memphis vs. Texas game, if it's on regular TV. I picked Memphis, but I could win 50 bucks either way, as long as Kansas takes it all. If I'm studyin' it right, barring the Jayhawks winning three in a row, I can only win if Davidson goes all the way, beating Memphis in the final. So pretty much I'm rooting for ol' KU, again. Cross-state rivals, but, as I was saying the other day, when I'm out here in the diaspora, I root for KU.


Saw (I think) the rest of the first season of "Tell Me You Love Me," which MAB at work recommended to scrawlspace. I saw somewhere someone calling it "dreadful," and I can't disagree. Still I've watched these several episodes. Even though I have four episodes of "The L Word" on deck. In the last episode the therapist at the heart of the show (such as the show has a heart) tells one couple about how someone told her and her husband something like it takes courage to be happy. And then that idea comes back a few minutes later when her freshly-published book (Bed Dread) arrives, and it's referenced in her dedication. (The show has a way of hitting us over the head with the same thing more than once, as well as of going out of its way---with a self-congratulatory feel, I think---to signal us, really kinda laughably loudly, what's going on emotionally with its characters.)

I sorta hate that the mostly lousy show thus suggests an idea that resonates with me like I'm a big-ass tuning fork. I mean that idea that we have some volition regarding how happy we will be. Decide to be. Want to be. Contentment has its ugly sides, and sure can include, and encourage, lies. But not to embrace it at all, not to encourage it, can be to choose---to encourage---misery. And misery does plenty well without extra help.

To encourage: to cause (something) to be in one's heart. "Courage," like I like to note, is from the Middle English corage, which is from the Old French, equiv. to cuer, which is from the Latin cor. So there's a lot of heart in courage. Courage is all heart.


But me, I can talk nice & all, yet I may be a cad. I may be going to be being a boar. I suspect myself of pending unkindness. Head it off at the pass? Rise to the occasion? Maybe. Maybe not. In the thing I'm thinking of, I've got my hands full-to-fumbling with my own side of the street.

"Hell, I dunno," I said today. And then said it again. And you know what? She feels the same way.

Sunday mutterings

[Note: I'm at home with dial-up; haven't checked all these links yet. You clicks your mouse, you takes your chances.]

[But why is livejournal turning links to youtube into "livejournal.com/preview...." links that are then broken? WTF?? Okay, I went to tinyurl to get around that, but I'm quite annoyed. This site is in serious trouble, and they just see dollar signs.]

Friday night at film fest was a good one. Lots of good animation; few duds. The epic short The History of America stands out---great to look at, and quite funny-smart, mashing up history and pop culture into the tale of the Cowboys vs. the Astronauts. The studio (outta KCMO) is MK12, who turn out to be the folks who did those cool overlay graphics (or see the clip on youtube) in Stranger Than Fiction. They're funny, posting unflattering lines from unimpressed reviewers in the presentation style usually used for the glowing. Including "and whatnot" in their content blurb. I might buy their promo floaty pen.

I also liked IV.7 (Annoyingly Small Mix) (the big screen probably helped) and For the Love of God. And Bill Plympton's talk was good. His screenings included "Fan and the Flower" (a love story that, yeah, I fell for) and "Shut Eye Hotel" (clips of those two here), and the video for Weird Al's "Don't Download This Song." (Weird Al, Plympton assures us, encourages downloading.)


Gotta run to the library but might catch some of that Memphis vs. Texas game, if it's on regular TV. I picked Memphis, but I could win 50 bucks either way, as long as Kansas takes it all. If I'm studyin' it right, barring the Jayhawks winning three in a row, I can only win if Davidson goes all the way, beating Memphis in the final. So pretty much I'm rooting for ol' KU, again. Cross-state rivals, but, as I was saying the other day, when I'm out here in the diaspora, I root for KU.


Saw (I think) the rest of the first season of "Tell Me You Love Me," which MAB at work recommended to scrawlspace. I saw somewhere someone calling it "dreadful," and I can't disagree. Still I've watched these several episodes. Even though I have four episodes of "The L Word" on deck. In the last episode the therapist at the heart of the show (such as the show has a heart) tells one couple about how someone told her and her husband something like it takes courage to be happy. And then that idea comes back a few minutes later when her freshly-published book (Bed Dread) arrives, and it's referenced in her dedication. (The show has a way of hitting us over the head with the same thing more than once, as well as of going out of its way---with a self-congratulatory feel, I think---to signal us, really kinda laughably loudly, what's going on emotionally with its characters.)

I sorta hate that the mostly lousy show thus suggests an idea that resonates with me like I'm a big-ass tuning fork. I mean that idea that we have some volition regarding how happy we will be. Decide to be. Want to be. Contentment has its ugly sides, and sure can include, and encourage, lies. But not to embrace it at all, not to encourage it, can be to choose---to encourage---misery. And misery does plenty well without extra help.

To encourage: to cause (something) to be in one's heart. "Courage," like I like to note, is from the Middle English corage, which is from the Old French, equiv. to cuer, which is from the Latin cor. So there's a lot of heart in courage. Courage is all heart.


But me, I can talk nice & all, yet I may be a cad. I may be going to be being a boar. I suspect myself of pending unkindness. Head it off at the pass? Rise to the occasion? Maybe. Maybe not. In the thing I'm thinking of, I've got my hands full-to-fumbling with my own side of the street.

"Hell, I dunno," I said today. And then said it again. And you know what? She feels the same way.