thoughts on films

I completed a fair draft of my Splice Magazine article on Shawn Fulton today. I have a feeling I should go back into it and do some changes but they didn't seem immediately apparent and I needed to get it to the editor so he could know how long it is and make space (1900 words, a bit longer than my usual articles). This evening I went to Quentin Tarantino's WWII fantasy "Inglorious Bastards". It was a lot of fun. Hitler was really sweaty, you could not help but hate him. It was set in a world that film is the most important thing in society to the point that filmmakers even write the history. Hmmm, perhaps that's the history we have come to have these days...?

a hard day out

Today we had breakfast at my sisters and say my cousin one last time, then we went to the farm and I did some painting on the inside of the "cottage". William was in an incredibly bad mood all day but in his first calm and happy-ish moment of the day, he shot this video of me.

Of course, at 9:30 when he's supposed to wind down, he was a perfect gentleman again.

changes in the family

Last night Margaret thought that the top fin on our catfish (Kidder) was looking ragged. I didn't think so but today started to believe. I watched for a while and finally started noticing that the orange and black swordtail (not the pregnant one) was being too aggressive. William and I returned her to the store and swapped her for a really pretty guppy. When I was a kid, guppies where what we usually got; they were small and plain and died quickly. They are still small but not plain at all. Until further notice, only the catfish has a name. They are easier to return or lose that way.

restored

Today I finally finished restoring "Daytona: A Happening", a film by Jean Oser that was accidentally cannibalized for found footage sometime last year. Luckily most of the parts were intact. I accidentally destroyed a six inch part in the process and have another six inch part that part that I could not locate a home for. There are a couple other gaps but overall it is there.
Jean Oser was a film editor and a great filmmaker in his own right. He made quite a few short commissioned films in the fifties and sixties (industrials when such things were still pretty cool). He then came to teach at the UofR where he became one of the most influential people in the creation of a film community and film industry in Saskatchewan. The films he made are housed at the Saskatchewan Filmpool and are unlikely to be housed collectively anywhere else in the world. While many of them likely exist in other collections or in the archives of their commissioning companies, no one else has them collected as "Jean Oser" films. This one in particular is a fast paced short about motorcycle racing. Made in the 60s, it is filled with odd bits of slang. At one point the narrator points out that when the race is over, the action hasn't stopped and we see the rider necking with a sexy girl. It was commissioned by the Triumph Motorcycle company.
It was Paul's birthday today: HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAUL. We had pizza and cake. His brother Mike came to town and surprised him half way through supper. Then we went to the opening at the Dunlop. William was doing a number of drawings and had them laid out on the floor. Two people, including one person who is a programmer at another local art gallery, walked by just as he'd finished them and stepped directly on them. What kind of people go to art galleries these days?

New family again!!!

The catfish has been out of sorts the last few days. I think it is a combination of him being overfed and being lonely. We stopped feeding him and today he started being active again, proving this to be in part true (he was always very active when he was hungry then docile after eating). This evening we bought two swordtails and he is much happier and active already. They require warm water, which is something he likes as well, so I also got a heater. Cowtown had one that was much cheaper than the others because it was some random shipment they weren't supposed to get (fell off the back of a tanker from China?), so it was six bucks instead of thirty. The fish cost three dollars each so not a big investment but certainly worth the extra over the 49 cent goldfish if they manage to live more than a month.

Sylvie the cat is also doing great. She is a bit insecure about being apart from us which is fine since that means she doesn't wander far when we let her off her leash. She's still mostly an indoor cat but she likes being outside with us and she climbs the treehouse and goes under the porch and deck (she's only 1/5 the size of the old cat so can go amazing places).

Neg cut

Today I did the neg cut for my film "Grain: Summer - I Can't See the Forest Through My Dreams". What this means is that I cut the film negatives into two rolls with the even shots on one roll and the odd shots on the other roll with appropriate lengths of black leader in between them. The lab needs it this way to make a print. I should be receiving the optical sound track any time now and then I can send it and the negs to another lab and they can make me a print that I can show with a projector. Usually this is done with a specialized hot splicer in a quite sterile environment but since my films recently have had such a wrecked aesthetic (due to all the hand processing) I have been doing the neg cutting myself on any table that I can find enough space on and I've been using a tape splicer instead of a hot splicer because I never did get the hang of those things (lots of stinky glue and if you don't do it right it falls apart later). I've not finished a film like this since my last "Toxic" film (#5 was the last one completed as #6 was done early). I think I finished Toxic in 2004 so it has been five years. This will be the first 16mm film I've completed without the late Rick Doe of Calgary's Local Film Lab since the early nineties. He printed "Doubt" (1997), "Life is Like Lint"(1999), and all 6 "Toxic" films (2002-2004).

writing?

I spent much of today writing, although I admit I became frequently distracted and caught up on little things on the computer like burning back up files and searching for meaningless stuff. William and I finished watching The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy this evening (the BBC television show of course). It's always great. I first saw it when it was pretty much new in the early 80s, either right at the end of high school or in early university. I saw it a few times, and even taped it. I got rid of those vhs tapes a couple of years ago, even though the blanks cost about six or seven bucks back then.

on the clock

This afternoon I met with John Hampton and we looked at the videos he's been editing. We are to preview all four of these shorts next Friday so he needs to whip them into shape. The two he's headed up are really close, we just need to review the other two which are in Mauricio's hands and he's out of town right now, coming back soon I think. William and I watched Harold Lloyd's "Safety Last" this evening. I recorded in a few weeks ago along with a number of other Lloyd films from the same time period and we've been watching them one at a time (they are around an hour each). I skipped a couple others to watch it as he was heavily referenced in the "Back to the Future" films.

Ted Godwin

I don't know how this happens but four months ago Margaret and I missed the Ted Godwin opening at the MacKenzie Art Gallery because of a number of conflicts, first and foremost being the dinner with Chrystene Ells following her defense. We usually go to the MacKenzie about once a month so I had no worries about seeing the show. Well last night I got thinking about modern art and looked to see when the Godwin show ends as I still had not seen it and it closed TODAY. Margaret and I managed to convince William to leave the house and come with us so we all saw it two hours before closing. Pretty good work, glad I saw it.

Shawn Fulton

I met up with Shawn Fulton in a park this afternoon and we recorded over an hour of an interview in preparation for an article I want to write about his really cool super-8 films. William and Sylvie also came. Sylvie climbed a tree very well, limited only by her leash. William bumped his head and cursed the planet for his pain and hoped that we crash into the sun. He really didn't cheer up until we were at grandmas and got some new Lego (Indiana Jones Jungle Cutter). We all went over to Ed/Faith/Marin/Rowan's house and they hosted a bar-b-que and made it a bit of a surprise party for William. We stayed rather late but there's an even louder party next door so it won't be an early night anyways. Sylvie has started being more playful, probably because she is becoming more comfortable here but probably also because she is de-wormed and de-ear-mited. She has some sort of fur covered ball that she goes nuts for.

no space

We spent the better part of this morning at the vet with Sylvie. She weighs 1.4 kg and had more mite infested gunk in her ears than I would have believed possible. She also needed a de-worming pill, ointment in her eyes, and other orifices probed. We were able to test some other cat foods and found some things that she likes (Science Diet is current favorite). She seems to have forgiven us for her hour of hell and is likely able to hear much better now.
I spent the afternoon working on my scores for Modern and trying to prepare notes for my next Splice Magazine article and this evening watching the first two "Back to the Future" movies with William.

First day back to school

Today was William's first day back at school. He started grade 3 with a teacher who is new to the school and is in a grade 3/4 split. In the morning we all walked to school together, including the cat so his friends could see her. We have a leash and harness for the cat so she can go for walks with us. I think she's nervous about the outside so maybe she'll be more of an indoor cat. We got to the school a minute or two after the bell so most kids didn't see her, but we'll try again. William seems to have enjoyed his day.
I had a good meeting with Janine and reviewed the 9 short videos she has made that interconnect as her MFA project. Really starting to work. Strangely, she is pulling farther and farther away from the shockingly violent aspects of the stories and gravitating towards small anactotes.

The cat we got yesterday, Sylvie, is really small. She's apparently 5.5 months old but is not much bigger than a kitten and some people have pointed out that she should be bigger. She won't eat the dry cat food that they were giving her at the Humane Society but is really hungry. I am suspecting that she was surviving on the small amount of wet food they gave each cat as a treat in the morning. She ate a lot of raw beef and chicken today. Last night she slept with, and sometimes on top of, William. She is with him now.

...and MORE family

Here is the new addition to our family: Sylvie, an orange female cat about 5 months old adopted from the Humane Society. She is exploring the house and didn't mind the car ride around town today. She is pretty quiet and purrs a lot. I've left it to William to decide if she is his cat or the family cat.

More family

We went out to the farm this afternoon/evening to have a bar-b-que with Margaret's aunt Dianne and two of her sons, Margaret's cousins Tom (an architecture professor at UofT) and Frank (a musician in Edmonton) and five sons of theirs. William took a while to accept the venture but eventually had fun with water fights and playing a bit on Frank's violin.

no more vacation

I dove back into work today, actually answering all of my email that accumulated over the past couple of weeks! The office was pretty quiet, only Darrell and Andrea were there so I managed to get through things by noon and started trying to write my new Splice article this afternoon. I posted the program notes from my Calgary screening on my other blog for those interested. I took William to get more back to school shoes and we also got him a second pair of Levis. He's into jeans now and when we were in Lethbridge I found him some Levis at Winners so now that's what he wants to wear (just like dad). Downtown is crazy with the AC/DC concert happening this evening. We just drove past the swarms of people heading towards it; more black t-shirts, wrinkles, and grey hair than you can shake a stick at. I'd be so embarrassed to be going to it.

Midnight post script.
It's quiet now. The sound of the AC/DC concert carried very well to our house so we had to close our doors and listen to 1940s radio dramas all evening. I processed 3/4 of my apples into sauce but didn't have the time or energy to properly can them so they sit in a large pot plus some uncanned jars in the frig beside the three pies Margaret made (in case you are wondering; No, we don't have anything else to eat in the house).

what's cooking

I finished the sound editing and mixing for my audio for my new film "Grain: Summer: I Can't See the Forest Through My Dreams" this morning. I'll ship it to Toronto tomorrow to have an optical soundtrack made. I finally tracked down the last place in the country to still make those for 16mm film and I committed myself to making four more films to be finished on film with my Canada Council grant. I will make one of them on 35mm, which won't save me any money but may be slightly less questionable by the labs (very few labs still make prints of 16mm either). It is about 10 minutes long and is about vacations. It will play at the Antimatter Film Festival in Victoria in October.
Yesterday I baked William a cheesecake for his birthday. He asked for coffee flavour! Today he tried out the climbing wall at the science centre: he got up about 30 feet which is about 1/3 of the way. He wants to try again tomorrow.

our cat

I woke up early this morning and started thinking about my cat, wrapped in plastic, frozen in my deep freeze. I couldn't stay in bed thinking about him so I got up, put on some work jeans and runners, and got a shovel. I found a good spot in our garden which wouldn't be disturbed and dug him a good sized hole about 2.5 feet deep, as deep as I could manage. I told Margaret what I was up to and she thought I should consider William in the process. He was up late last night and slept in but once he was up I immediately told him what I was doing. He asked to help so I went out with him and he dug a bit more with me. Meanwhile Margaret had wrapped the cat in a blanket and tucked one of his toy mice with him as well as the goldfish Big Gil and others. William carried him to the hole we'd dug. He'd not gotten much lighter and still must have been 16 pounds. I helped place him in the hole and William insisted on covering him one shovel full at a time with the dirt. We have a stone from the mountains to mark the spot, a stone Margaret will soon paint.
We got this cat in 1996. I'd been working for the tv show "Utopia Cafe" in its final season and a new girl was hired as an intern. She had been traveling and didn't have a place to live so in September she'd been sharing a house with someone else from the show who had a cat. This stray orange cat whom she named "Tony Big Balls" for apparent reasons had been prowling around their back door and she'd taken to feeding it. However, she couldn't take it in since it fought with their resident cat. It was warm so they had no worries. Some of the next details are a bit fuzzy in my memory but for some reason they connected up with a woman who had a personal crusade to help cats and adopted many of them off the street, getting them fixed and having them registered under her own name, regardless of whether or not they had a previous or current owner. Returned in this state, Tony no-longer-big Balls disappeared into the night, returning to their back door after a few days with serious fighting injuries. With no money for a vet, she had no choice but to call the humane society to have him picked up. Her next call was to me since she knew that I had just purchased a house (our possession date was Oct 1). She begged me to go to the humane society and adopt him; the humane society had no tolerance for the cat crusader and her set-cats-free-on-the-streets attitude so Tony was not long for the world. Margaret and I went down and adopted him, renaming him Baron Munchhousen. However, the house was not yet ready to be lived in as we were doing a lot of painting and sanding of floors, things we could not have a cat around for. We housed Baron at Mike Grzesina's apartment for about ten weeks and Mike fed and fed and fed him until he began to take the shape he was known for. At Christmas, when Mike needed to leave town, our hand was forced and we needed to stop our renovations and move in.

Vacation day 12

We got up early and packed the car and were driving away at 9am, saying our goodbyes through my brother-in-law as my sister and niece were both still asleep. Last night I suggested that if we do manage to leave early we'd be able to stop in Drumheller and see the dinosaur museum. William was actually more excited about seeing the five story t-rex again, so that was our first stop. We got lost coming into town and again going from downtown to the museum and again trying to find the highway to connect back to the trans-Canada. In our confusion, we did find the hoodoos and stopped for a minute. Arrival time was about 10pm in Regina.
If you read this daily, you may want to go back 11 days as I just posted all of the vacation posts. I wrote many of them two days ago in Calgary but just saved them unposted until this past hour. Just press "August" on the sidebar to your left of this post and it will allow you to scroll backwards through the month without pressing the "older posts" button. Enjoy.

Vacation day 11

Today was William's Birthday. First thing this morning Margaret presented him with the foam tipped bow and arrow set that he was instantly in love with. She'd picked it up in Penticton before she knew we'd be watching Mythbusters about crossbows. After breakfast, to my surprise, William relented in his daily requests to return home and agreed that it might be nice to stay in Calgary for a day! We were basically ready to get on the road but instead we did some shopping. I picked up the $30 worth of stuff I wanted from IKEA (plus the $55 worth of stuff I hadn't intended on getting, but that's getting off cheap). Sharon took William to Toys R Us and he picked up an Agent's Lego set (she pointed out that he took much longer to choose a slurpee flavour than the Lego). I made peanut chicken, at his request, and as I'd not made a cheesecake (his cake request was "one of dad's cheesecakes") so he settled for Oreo cookies and a movie for desert (we watched "Arctic Tale" on their big screen tv). It was a nice relaxing day.

Vacation day 10

. (image: chocolate frog)

We got the earliest start of the trip today, about 8:45. We picked up some chocolate from the local preservative-free chocolatier as we left town. We made only two stops, one in Revelstoke and another in Banff, and otherwise pushed through to Calgary. Good thing as the passes around Golden are closed at night. In Revelstoke we saw, but didn't tour, the Nickelodeon Museum which could be worthwhile next time through. In Banff we went to the old hot spring pool, the only one I've been to there (I was last there when I was about William's age or a year or two older). My brother in law Paul's birthday was yesterday and there was still ice cream cake that Michelle made left over. We put new candles in it and sang for William; his birthday is tomorrow.

Vacation day 9

William wanted to return home today but we stayed an extra day to go on the authentic steam train ride. However, today is Tuesday and the train only runs Thursday to Monday so we were left to just do some hiking. It seems that the landscape had a message for us: "DON'T WALK ON US"! William stepped on a cactus and when I went to rescue him and pushed a different cactus deep into my ankle. Margaret pulled out the thorns and they ended up pushing into her had. In pain, we limped back to the car, went back to the condo for leftovers. I forgot the AC power cable for the dvd player and Maureen doesn't have a dvd hooked up to her 50" tv until this weekend. We watched an episode of Mythbusters where they built crossbows from paper, ending the day on a high note.

Vacation day 8

(image of our cat from fall 2005)

First thing this morning, William and I went back to the rock wall and he succeeded in climbing all three (he only finished one yesterday and didn't get second chances). This afternoon we went to a vineyard and did a wine tasting (a cool experience but one that could exhaust you if you tried to do all of them here, there are MANY). We picked up from fresh fruit, pulling a peach and some grapes right off of some trees, then went for ice cream. While enjoying our over-sized cones we got a call from Margaret's mother informing us that our cat, Baron Munchhausen/Mr. Guy/Kitty, died last night. He passed in his sleep in his favorite chair. He was my first real pet. We adopted him as a young and rather wild cat back in the fall of 1996 and he moved into our house the same day we did. I'm glad that he went so quietly without any apparent suffering, but I'm very sad we couldn't have been there with him.

Vacation day 7

The beach wasn't busy at all. Maureen thinks that the forest fires, which haven't touched this area, have nonetheless discouraged tourists this year. I built a sand castle then I played Mothra and defended it for quite some time against William who played Godzilla. Eventually we entered the rather cold water. We went to the used book store where William found a couple Animorphs books he didn't have before and I picked up a book about Disney. We went to the Penticton Art Gallery where they had a small but very exciting show of Bob Masse rock poster art which included pencil drawings, colour separations, and finished posters of these quintessential psychedelic art. This evening we went for mini-golf and William climbed the adjoining rock wall.

Vacation day 6

Today we left Creston and went off course a bit to see the house made out of glass embalming fluid bottles near Boswell. Margaret had read about it a couple of years ago and just realized at an information centre that this is where it is. It was cool. He loved the spot by the lake and decided to build there and recycle bottles from his career at the same time. Since we'd come this way, we continued north and took the long (free!) ferry ride over the lake and drove though Nelson where we met Anita Levesque & Bradley Smith at the Oxygen Gallery during their open gallery day in town. We arrived in Penticton at supper time or so and spent a great evening in Maureen's pool.

Vacation day 5

We left Lethbridge today but, as per our pattern, did not get away until nearly lunch. William dined mainly on a bag of almonds. The roads into the mountains were full of maintenance delays and it rained a lot. We stopped at a very nice museum at Frank Slide. However, the event the museum focuses on took only 90 seconds, so the museum was a real case of all form, no substance. We stopped for the night at Creston. We chanced a little motor inn and were very happy. We got the last room. It had three queen sized beds but we got it for the price of a regular room. The outdoor pool was small but was heated and William and I had an hour of fun dueling with pool noodles. We went out to eat and William, still moaning a bit from an almond he'd chewed earlier, suddenly spit out his crown off one of his molars. It was one that had been put in surgically when he was about 3. Not only that, but the tooth had broken away horizontally level with the bottom of the crown. It bled for a minute but then stopped. It was not sensitive to cold or to eating. We put a call in to his dentist, Dr. Kristie White, and she called back to say that a partial root canal had been done to that tooth so if he isn't having pain then to just keep it clean and go on with our holiday!

Vacation day 4

This morning Bob took us to the Birds of Prey park near Lethbridge. We got to pet owls and hawks and saw eagles and a vulture very close up. William has been wearing nothing but his hawk t-shirt throughout this trip so he was pretty pumped. This afternoon we met up with Deric Olsen and his family. Deric has a position at UofLethbridge now teaching film production. William and his daughter get along well and would certainly be close friends if we lived closer together.

Vacation day 3

I got up early this morning and drove Nicole to work. The air mattress isn't giving me the best sleep but the house is quiet so that's nice. We went to Heritage Village again this morning and after lunch went to my sister Sharon's. My nephew Chris is leaving for Europe in a few days so we got to see him one last time before he goes. We drove through the rain to Lethbridge this afternoon, listening to Harry Potter 4 in the car. We are staying with Bob and Brigitta, old friend's of Margaret's parents. Their grandson Nicholas has lots of Lego and a new dog, Jerry, so William had a good time. Before bed the three of us all read different Harry Potter books.

Vacation day 2

We spent the day in Calgary. Margaret bought a family year pass into Heritage Village so we went there and did a few old rides and saw some of the sites. William really loved the school house where he sat at a desk and wrote on the small chalk board. In actuality, I'm counting today as a work day rather than vacation as I am presenting a package of films I curated from the collection at the Calgary Society of Independent Filmmakers. I ran two documentaries on Cannibals. About a dozen to fifteen people were there, relaxing and enjoying the "Sofa-Cinema" and the discussion afterwards ran at least 90 minutes. My niece Nicole came with me and engaged well with everyone. I think she connected with some of them afterwards regarding the comic convention on this coming weekend.

Vacation day 1

Today we drove to Calgary for the beginning of our vacation. We got a late start, about 11 am, so didn't arrive at my sister Maureen's until after supper. Maureen's house is Spartan since she moved all her spare furniture to her new condo in Penticton BC last year so we had to bring an air mattress to sleep on. William is disappointed that we are not in the mountains yet and it took me a long time to cheer him up. In the end it was my Coby mp3/video player that turned the tide as he was able to watch little 2" videos I'd loaded on it. I thought it was broken a few months ago but it seems to have either fixed itself or it was the usb cable I'd been using.

I don't know what I did today.

Painted trim on front window this morning. I don't know what else: the day sort of filled with stuff. I did discover that my ill fated copy mp3 player that I declared broken a few months ago is working inexplicably. I think the problem may have been in the cable I'd been using to connect to the computer. If it wasn't working, then it was getting no data or no power or no neither. Have programmed some films for Tuesday night: here is a censored version of the program notes (so that the titles remain a secret until the night). I'm worried about the health of my cat. For the past few weeks he's been breathing very heavily, even when he's sleeping. He also hasn't been eating as much or as voraciously. He's old.

day with William

Margaret worked all day. Last night William insisted that he wanted to sleep in this morning since he had to get up for his 9 am camp all week. I was concerned that we'd not get Margaret to work or else not have the car but at 8:05 this morning William got up and came to our room. I asked him if he enjoyed sleeping in this morning and he said he did. We had to hit both Superstores to find two more of his favorite shirt (blue long sleeve cotton with image of a bird of prey). I've decided we shouldn't kill ourselves trying to offer him choices all the time but instead let him wear what he wants and multiples of just that. This afternoon Mike and Paul came over; Mike is in town for a cousin's wedding reception. After they left, William and I watched Star Trek 5. Yes, I know it's one of the worst ones, but we enjoyed it well enough watching it together. It was a boy and dad day.

Fridays are not a relief

Today I finished off a bunch of administrative stuff for work before my vacation starts. As I write this I realize I have another important thing to send in regarding booking equipment and materials for my classes, so my weekend will not be work free. I also read through a horror script that an ex-student sent me and fired off a few comments. Feature scripts are difficult to digest quickly, the structure is as important, if not more important, than the individual moments and dialogue. William finished his animal camp at the Science Centre. He fought about going and fought every morning about getting up, but really enjoyed it and has lots of stories. Overall he really enjoys education.

secret programming

Next week I'm presenting films on a cannibal theme in Calgary from the 16mm collection at the CSIF. Today I wrote up my notes for the screening but they prefer not to let the exact titles they will show become public until the event, so I won't publish those notes yet. This afternoon I edited music from my recordings with Jeff Looysen to be used in place of Raoul's music which got lost from the Film Frenzy film from 2008 that has not yet been disseminated to the participants. I think it would be nice to get those out to those people while they are still interested in the Filmpool so to maximize the chances of recruiting them as continuing members.

sweat

Last night I had an amazing dream that I didn't have a headache. However, other dire things were happening to the world. I then woke up to find that the world was fine but that I had a terrible headache that wouldn't go away. Eventually I ended up on the couch with ice on my neck watching Harrold Lloyd films on Turner Classic Movies. Great fun. I watched another one (all silent) with William this evening.
Following up on a promise I made the other day, I spent my morning hauling boxes out of Margaret's mother's crawl space so they can do some renovations down there. Margaret, George, and I had cleaned up that space 18 years ago but since then it has accumulated more and more and more stuff. I carried about 85 loads up to the garage, mostly two boxes at a time, half of the boxes being filled with old German books. I've not sweated that much in a long long time.
This afternoon I helped (or actually I observed) Bernie and his father inspect and start to repair the flatbeds at the university. I really hope we are able to put the belts on properly when we get replacements in.

recording

I recorded music in the studio today. With Jeff Looysen I recorded a new pass for "Modern" as well as the incidental music I need for "Grain" and will also be able to use some of the session potentially to replace the lost music from the Film Frenzy workshop film I made last year. This evening I recorded trumpet for "Modern" with Nigel Taylor. It sure takes some lung power to play continuously for 15 minutes.

more paint

Holiday Monday today: I started painting the borders around the windows. I'll need at least one more full day working to get it done and I need to do that before the painters come to do the upper floor. I think they are supposed to come in early August, but we've not had any word from them in over a month.

Weekend with Carl

Sorry for brevity of last post. I actually had a very busy weekend. Carl Bessai was in town. We went to the farm yesterday and drove all over the place looking for places his father grew up, went to school, and was buried. Carl and each of his three brothers are drawn to return here every few years to retrace their heritage. We were glad to host him and his family. Other than talking family, we talked a fair amount about film. He thinks that Regina should have a film festival (an international feature film festival) to be part of the circuit that includes Montreal, Toronto, Calgary, and Vancouver. He is certainly right, although festivals are renowned for their ability to consume more hours than anyone has to put into them and I'm not in a position to do it myself. Would be cool though. We didn't get out to Moose Jaw but we talked about Sukanen for a while. He referred to the ship in his feature "Emile" which he directed with Ian McKellen a few years ago. Carl was an obvious choice to be an external on Chrystene's "Sisu" thesis but the personal relationship would certainly have got me into hot water. Carl had a last minute change of plans and had to leave town first thing this morning instead of tomorrow. I spent the day re-laying the patio by the garage. We drove by Paul's house and looked at the absence of his garage that was torn down the other day to make way for a new garage.

Carl

Today Margaret's cousin Carl Bessai and his family arrived to stay with us for the weekend. Lots of great conversations about filmmaking and family.

Exhibition

My sister and niece came to town yesterday and this afternoon my niece, William, Margaret and I went to Buffalo Days (the exhibition). William is now getting too old be be interested in the kids rides and we went on some of the big rides, the bumper cars, the Ferris wheel, and so on.He loved the Spaceship 4000, which is a variation of the old spinning chamber where you are against the wall and held there by centrifugal force. Of course we went to the butterfly house where there were 3000 butterflies that would land on you. My mom helped organize it as part of her horticulture society. We also each painted a plaster buffalo to be part of a Saskatchewan Arts Board project.

new stuff that I didn't do

Yesterday Trevor came by and installed our new front door light plus (and this is the big thing) an outlet to plug our Christmas lights into. For almost 13 years we've been running our outdoor lights off of a plug thing screwed into our socket as there are no outdoor outlets for our house. I'd like him to do one for the back as well, but we don't have it planned yet.
Today we picked 5 gallons of Saskatoon berries and 2/4 gallon of perfectly ripe raspberries. Margaret made pies.

software

Last night I fell asleep early, around eleven, but William was still away and Margaret let him snuggle in with me. He relentlessly started climbing on me and I had a dream that I was made of Lego and he was taking parts off me. I kept asking if he was going to put the parts back but he indicated that I didn't need all those extra parts.
This morning I met with the head of computer science this morning and we established a plan for the media lab that we share. It took some back and forth emailing all afternoon to secure the money but it all ended up working out. Nice when that happens.
We went to Night at the Museum 2. It was okay, kept me entertained as long as I stayed in the moment.

Incredible

(Image: William and cousin's on Tom Sukanen's ship)

I am starting to get back on track with my projects. I think it takes the completion of some important tasks for me to start feeling positive about what I'm doing. For example, today I had the music from yesterday under my belt and was able to start laying it out with the picture and suddenly I'm able to imagine finishing the project (Modern) rather than it being another albatross around my neck. As well, I think the long End of Life documentary is a step closer; I reviewed a work in progress today and it is able to go to it's next step (audio correction and sweetening). Next Tuesday we record again and I should also be able to get some incidental music for "Grain" recorded and be able to complete that film. On top of all that, I went out and had a wonderful time with William this evening, walking as he rode his bike. We dropped off William's old Dash (from the Incredibles) jacket for Gavin's son Jack. Jack burst into tears when confronted by me and his dad trying to put a jacket on him; completely inconsolable. I figure Jack must have thought the jacket was to correspond to leaving and that he didn't want to leave, especially with a stranger. Or perhaps he's just not as into the Incredibles as we'd be led to believe.

Modern recording

This afternoon I recorded three tracks of music for my Modern film project. I've deviated from the initial plan of always working with an audience; it has become imperative that I get this done and I DO have access to a great recording studio so why not use it? My first was with visiting audio artist Freida Abtan. We got behind schedule due to our crazed search for the right connectors to get the signals from her computer into my recorder, but once done it was dream. The second was a collaboration between Erin Gee and Freida Abtan with Erin doing physical sounds (voice, bells, xylophone, etc) and Freida sampling from those sounds and live mixing it with her own recordings. The third was with Patrick Johnson; he did vocalizations and "breathing" with a harmonium (looks like an acordian). He was being very Tom Waites or Captain Beefheart like. Great day but very tiring.

more fish death

The two new goldfish, Silvy and Racer, were dead in the tank this morning. William was more upset this time, probably because he saw them and was there when we fished them out. We spent over an hour emptying the tank, cleaning everything, boiling the gravel, and reassembling the whole station. The catfish is still fine although he was pretty freaked out by his container during all this. Margaret went to the pet store and was told that these small goldfish are prone to sudden death and that there was likely nothing much wrong with our tank. Anyway, they do say we should let the tank settle for ten days before we put new goldfish in.Margaret's brother and his daughters headed back to Toronto this afternoon. It finally turned hot today, 31 degrees, so we played with the hose all evening then went inside and watch "Ernest Goes to Africa". My nephew Chris loved Ernest movies when he was 7 or 8. William howled during many scenes too.

eaves troughs

Especially since they are almost unnoticeable, I need to announce the installation of our new eaves troughs. They are in a slightly different brown than the original ones but chosen very carefully so they match the old faded brown existing fascia. They called last night to tell me they had an opening this morning. I accepted then got everything ready for them last night, moving the enclosure on the deck and so on. They were done by 2pm. Now the trough above the deck, which was screwed onto a rotting board, is hung by hangers that are connected directly to the joists and they have a rubber seal so they won't rot the wood underneath anymore. There are covers as well so we never have to clean them.

new members of the household

Today my dad (William's grandpa) took him out for some new fish. To dad's surprise, he got off very cheaply as William really wanted some new small fish. The store carefully fished out the two he wanted with the cost of the pair coming to $1.7 including tax. We took the fish (in their bag) for a walk and some ice cream and then home to join Kidder the catfish in the aquarium.

Big Gil

We all went to Moose Jaw this afternoon and to the Sukanen Village. The kids had a good time running around seeing stuff and bonding. When we got home, Big Gil, William's goldfish who had seemed to be recovering with the new medicine over the past few days, was in trouble. He'd been swimming around a lot but he'd not been eating and he was obviously a bit weak. He had been swimming through the plant a lot, it was basically a spider plant, and sometimes he'd almost get stuck due to his lack of energy in his swimming. Well today when we arrived he appeared to be caught by the intake on the water filter. Perhaps it was only for that moment or perhaps it was longer. When we moved it and he was free, he swam a bit but started spending more time on the bottom. A few hours later I came to see him and he was mostly on his back, breathing only sporadically. I sat and watched him die over the next ten minutes.

Books

(photo: first coat on "cottage" ceiling a few days ago)
My Amazon order arrived today including the dvd of the new Terry Pratchett adaptation, "The Colour of Magic". I also got a couple of Mike Hoolboom books, a few Girl Genius books, "The Sharpest Point"about experimental animation, and the Unofficial Lego Builder's Guide for William. Sometimes I get carried away on Amazon. William went to the farm and played with his cousins all afternoon. I had a Filmpool meeting. The fish is still alive and is swimming around almost as if he was healthy except he's not eating and he's got terrible dark blotches all over him.

Harry Potter

We drove out to Lumsden today to see one last secret garden, a rather amazing hill top place with a great pool and huge deck. I'd love to vacation there for a week. William wiggled his tooth the whole way there and it came out finally. Afterwords we drove in to see the new Harry Potter movie. It wasn't until after it was over that we discovered that William's cousins hadn't seen any of the other films, even though the older one had read six of the books. I liked it. It was a bit scary in parts but the really dark stuff from the book has been removed. I coffeed with Kevin for a while this evening and when I got back I discovered that William's tooth had gone missing. I'd placed it on the table on a folded piece of paper two hours before but it was gone. Margaret wrote a letter to the tooth fairy explaining the situation. I found the tooth on the floor. I guess everyone is a bit frazzled after this weekend.

quick notes on very busy day

Secret garden tour continued today. We went. A good performance by a Winnipeg group took place in Jacqui Shumiatcher's yard. Margaret's brother and his daughters arrived today for a week. I bought new medicine for William's goldfish as I now think it has fin rot. If it survives three days we should start seeing results.

end of week

After a week of working on the "cottage", I have the ceiling painted with two coats, leaving it a light, dusty blue. William enjoyed his "choose your own musical adventure" camp through the University's "Space Camp" program and we had to race back to town for his 1:45 recital today (it was 15 minutes long and featured songs alternating between his violin group and a different cello group). He was behind another kid and I didn't get good video of him, but here he is after the recital (see video below). Now I've got to shop for a violin. It was my dad's birthday today. We went to my sister's for supper.

paint

I painted the ceiling of the "cottage" today. I ran out of the tan mis-tint half way through so had to switch to my abundant blue. I thought it was going to be a darker blue-green but instead it was a light blue so I think Ill put a second coat on the ceiling. My purpose for painting first was so that the dust will be held for when we work on the windows. However, the ceiling will not end up being altered as much so it will be worthwhile to put that second coat on.

Wolfe at the door

The last Rex Stout "Nero Wolfe" book in our collection arrived yesterday. I've now acquired 50 or so of these books for Margaret; it's taken me about three years. This last one, "Triple Jeopardy", has been out of print for a while. The only one I didn't get her was "Corsage", which as a novella that appears to have had only short numbered print runs. The cheapest copy I found on line was $200 and it was apparently adapted into one of his later novels. A few years ago I nearly completed my friend Joanne's Nero Wolfe collection when she gave me a list of 17 she was missing and I found 15 of them. I then lost the list and so no longer know which two she was missing. The tv show they made from these books was fantastic and we were very sad when it was discontinued. It starred Timothy Hutton and Maury Chaykin and the rest of the cast was an ensemble with the same actors playing different roles each week. This way, you could not guess who was the criminal based upon the actor; one week someone might be the killer, the next s/he might be the victim or the witness. Really well acted and designed. It's available on dvd, the library has both seasons although at least on of the season one discs was scratched. When you read the books after seeing a few episodes of the show, you can really hear their voices as you read. These are the only mystery novels I've ever read, having read my first ones about two years ago when I was travelling to Victoria and ran out of other reading materials.

floor

I spent the day cleaning the "cottage" in preparation of painting it. My last hour was spent scraping dirt and old grain out of the grooves in the floorboards. All the day I fretted about the fish and how to break it to William. I ate lots of chocolate and listened to the B-52s with the cd player powered by my solar collector battery. This kept up my spirits. Luckily William had a really good time with his music camp and is excited to return. We broke the news to him after supper, he's always in better control of his emotions after he's eaten. He took it fairly well but was sad and wrote a card to his friend "T" who is the owner of the fish. I watched a few episodes of "Get Smart" with him after supper as well. I bought season 1 last week and he really loves it.

mornings/mournings

Yesterday I was really tired and sore from the heavy Saturday painting so I ended up sleeping in. I finished painting yellow second coat and some touch ups but didn't start on any tope. Took William swimming for a while then collapsed in bed early. Woke up at five to discover that his friend's fish had died. This is a new thing for me as a dad, dealing with dead pets. I though that this fish was the one that had recovered and it was William's fish that is more in danger. It gives me a sinking feeling. William has an all day camp today that he's already on the verge of rebelling against, even though it was his idea. This could be a very bad morning.

feeling yellow

I spent much of the day painting. The weather was cool, under 20 I think, but good for working outside. I'm finished the yellow but for a second coat on part of the back porch. Windows start tomorrow.

Crystal Reaper

I was invited to contribute to an on line zine premiering next month. I had an idea about Lego that I wanted to write about so I did that today. I also needed to restore the Lego Mars Mission MT-61 Crystal Reaper to photograph it for support of the essay (just 700 words). Although the Reaper was mostly together, it still took my two hours to find the missing pieces (many key pieces had been built into other stuff). More info on this zine when it is published.

Reading or Movies?

This morning William finished the 635 page "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire". He started it 24 days ago. This afternoon he watched the fifth movie in preparation for reading the book. He told us this evening that he prefers to read books than watching movies, although he hummed the "Get Smart" theme for about an hour (we watched the first two episodes this evening after supper - it's a rainy day). Paul, Margaret and I watched the first half of "The Spirit" but have left it for tomorrow. It's not as good as the Will Eisner comic but better than Warren Beattie's "Dick Tracy", although there are many similarities.

something to look at

Last night I watched Jean Luc Goddard's "It's My Life". It has a visionary and economic style of cinema that I love. Depressing but great. I'll definately show the opening scene in a class this fall. It has a conversation intercutting between the backs of two people's heads who aren't even looking at each other. Nana Kleinfrankenheim as Anna Karina (Anna Karenina) is so great, even when we can't see her.
This morning I finished painting the north side of the house (the stucco, yellow) before the rain started. It rained the rest of the day.

batman

William and I were watching a bit more of the 1991 "Batman the animated series" tv show today. We're about mid way through the first season and they've really hit their stride. They fashioned it after the Fleischer Brothers' Superman series of the late 1930s and they've really hit it. Not only are is the design there (buildings, clothes, cars, machines) but the actions are now following the classic smooth, calculated style of the Fleischers. I'm hooked.

monday

I met with Janine this morning, looked at three videos she's been working on. Coming along well. Her newest one finally has good form but, for the first time in her history of this documentary project about her turbulent family history, it lacks drama. She'll work it back in.
This afternoon I painted the south side of the house, I like it.
The fish were seeming sicker than usual to me, hiding in the corner with their fins folded in. We got a new siphon which pulls water from the bottom, rattles the gravel around, and basically pulls water out with an emphasis on pulling dirty gunk off the bottom. I had a panic attack a few minutes ago, remembering that the last time I looked at them they were still in the corner and were appearing to be having seizures. I just checked, they have their fins out and actually appear happy. Perhaps they've turned the corner.

Peter Cook

This evening I hung out with my new friend Peter Cook who I've only known for a couple of months but, both fortunately and unfortunately, is moving away tomorrow. He's taken a position in a new institute of Canadian History at McMaster in Hamilton. Good bye and good luck.

more paint

I painted the brick facade on the front of the house this morning. I used a big roller that is supposed to be for rough surfaces. I swear it must have held a pint of paint; my arm got very sore holding it. When I'd finished, I had a bit of paint left in the tray and the roller was fully loaded so I attacked a piece of stucco wall. I did almost the entire wall with what was in that roller, just pushing a bit harder and a bit harder as I progressed (see left side of house - I had no ladder so it doesn't extend to top).
I also laid out a patio by the garage and we lit the new fire pit this evening on top of it.

Transformers 2

William, Ed, Rowan and I went to Transformers 2 tonight. It was long and action packed. There were a few good laughs: one favorite was about transformers coming to earth thousands of years ago and only having the ability to transform into a wheel.

Something fishy

William wonders how can something be "New and improved"? You can improve something that is old but why is something that is new already improved? I concur. If something new already requires improvements, then obviously it was not a well thought out or tested product.

Last night when we got home from fireworks, the goldfish looked very happy; their fins were out and they were swimming around. We re-introduced the sucker fish into the goldfish. Multiple people had assured us that the sucker fish would not have attacked the goldfish and that the likely culprit was the other goldfish. This morning the fish still looked fine by later in the morning the goldfish had resumed their new habit of hiding in the corner. Then at lunch we actually witnessed the sucker fish chasing the goldfish and trying to bite it! We removed him and I took him back to the store. Apparently they are nocturnal and if they get more than 6 hours of light in the day they might start going crazy. We swapped him for a very cute little catfish that William has named "Kidder". The fish are significantly more happy and relaxed now. In this video, shot just a few minutes ago, the catfish seems to be sleeping but he was very lively earlier - sniffing around the bottom like an excited puppy. You can see the the damage to the larger fish's tail (Big Gil).

Canada Day

This morning we worried about the fish. The two goldfish were sitting on the bottom, pushing their heads into the corner. We'd separated out the suckerfish but I was worried he would starve in his small container. The master feeds store was open at eleven so William and I went there and bought the medicine for "ich", the disease that causes their spots, as well as some high protein food and some new water conditioner. We dosed him and then went out to Regina Beach to spend the day with Jerry Ann, Steve, Linda, Shawn, Jake, and Cohen. We had a great time. We picked up a few algae covered rocks from the lake for the fish. I forgot to bring my camera. Home again and after a quick nap, we re-embarked to the park, picking up Paul on the way, and watched some very good fireworks. The fish are now back in the same aquarium and seem to be doing well, swimming and doing normal fish stuff.