Eric – Page 24 – RectorSite

Big Food Wins?

If there’s one thing I remember fondly about Tifton, it was the gut-busting preponderance of good BBQ. Like to about killed me (as they say down south).

One can certainly eat well here in France but it’s a different kind of eating down there. I guess here they emphasize really fresh, simply prepared vegetables and then do really creative things with meat. There they give you a pure, simple, huge piece of meat and cook the vegetables to death. Either way, there are some places that make you glad that you have to eat three times a day (or 12 like the subjects of this NYTimes article…).

What a Festival It Was

Ready For Work

Imagine going to 13 movies in 21 days and not seeing a single car chase, or building explode, or a guy jump from the top of a building onto a moving bus. When the lights dimmed and the projector whirred into action, we saw a rolling list of sponsor logos with new age background music, and then the Chinese characters for Perpetual Motion appeared on the screen. No commercials, no Previews of Coming Attractions accompanied by ear splitting sound, no “visit our snack bar in the lobby” please.
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SFiFF xiv: A Prairie Home Companion

A PRAIRIE HOME COMPANION (2006)
USA 103 minutes
Directed by Robert Altman, Written by Garrison Keillor

Cast:
Meryl Streep, Kevin Kline, Virginia Madsen, Tommy Lee Jones, John C. Reilly, Lindsay Lohan, Lily Tomlin, Woody Harrelson, Garrison Keillor

prairie title.jpg

Closing Night. Lily Tomlin and Virginia Madsen were present for a Q&A after.

The movie was just plain fun, unencumbered by much of a story, and the blazing stars that Robert Altman brought along were sufficient to overshadow the sappy, stage hogging Garrison Keillor.

mrating * * * * *
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Spring Chores

(click for larger version)

Spring on our Maine farm also means ‘shearing the sheep,” job I truly dread since it requires hours of my time hunched over a squirming fragrant animal when both of us would rather be elsewhere doing other things. (We used to hire someone to do this for us using the more efficient electric shears, except there are very few professional sheep shearers available these days, and those that do are reluctant to travel and set-up for two or three sheep…) As a result I often put off the job until the black flies begin to appear, which turns an unpleasant job unbearable (these flies, which I promise to describe in detail soon for those unfamiliar, fly in clouds and naturally gravitate to your head and face to land and begin biting… if you don’t inhale them first…). This is one of the biggest reasons we now use cows to mow our fields instead of more sheep.
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Joie de Julep

pre-muddle The Kentucky Derby is a great excuse to enjoy a Mint Julep once a year, especially when I’ve been able to coax a clump of our mint in our hoophouse to grow early enough to include it. It was a beautiful sunny early spring day, and we enjoyed our frosty juleps with our neighbors Liz and James alongside crackers and yogurt cheese mixed with the other herbs from our hoophouse (chives, tarragon, and chive blossoms) watching Barbaro rocket round the final turn for a true stretch run and win.
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SFiFF xiii: Domestic Dramas

DOMESTIC DRAMAS (2005)
Total running time 114 minutes

These narrative shorts convey the humor and tragedy that make up the most common spheres of our existence and the upheaval that results when the things we most desire refuse to come to fruition or are achieved in unexpected ways. [SFiFF Program Guide]
Seven are on the program; I saw five, as I had to leave for work.

domestic title.jpg
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Jardin Potagier

(click diagram for larger version)

Above you will find a diagram of the schematic for our garden. (I made it in AppleWorks and the original file has grid lines that make it easy to pinpoint exactly where each plant should be placed.) The plot is 4m x 9m. The sizes of the circles are based on the (within row) spacing suggested for each plant on its seed packet. Thus, this approximates the amount of space needed for each plant. (The zucchini and Brandywine circles are 90 cm, or about 3′.)
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SFiFF xii: Show and Tell: A Scanner Darkly

SHOW AND TELL: TOMMY PALLOTTA AND A SCANNER DARKLY (2006)

This was a last minute add-on to the Festival, so its not in the Program Guide and I have no cool graphics.

Tommy Pallotta has produced:

1. A Scanner Darkly (2006) (producer)
2. Hell House (2001) (associate producer)
3. Waking Life (2001) (producer)
4. Figures of Speech (2000) (producer)
5. Snack and Drink (2000) (producer)
6. Roadhead (1999) (producer)
7. High Road (1996) (producer)

Tommy Pallotta was here to show clips of his Rotovision (?) animated films leading up to A Scanner Darkly, a Richard Linklater film, to be released this summer, based on a novel by Philip K. Dick .
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SFiFF xi: Swimmers

SWIMMERS (2005)
USA 90 minutes

This film was a bonus during SFiFF for members only on Sunday morning.
The Swimmer was a 1968 movie starring Burt Lancaster and based on a story by John Cheever. Reportedly there is a remake of that in production starring Alec Baldwin. Swimmers bears no relationship to that, whatsoever.

Written and directed by Doug Sadler
Cast:
Cherry Jones [two-time Tony Award-winner] as the Mother
Sarah Paulson as the Niece
Tara Devon Gallagher as the Girl

Maryland Outer Banks

Eleven year-old Girl loves to swim, during a swim meet; her left eardrum pops, requiring surgery that will cost $11,000.
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‘Nuff Said

Nuff Said

The NYTimes FINALLY reports on the best (and non-Administration Approved) routine at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner last weekend, given by guest host Stephen Colbert — they had previously “overlooked” Colbert’s comments (focusing on Bush and his Mini-Me routine) because Colbert caused so much discomfort — the truth hurts no matter who says it (especially if it’s NOT a White House Correspondent who says it, and it hasn’t been run by Karl Rove).

From the article’s description of Colbert’s routine:

“Now I know there’s some polls out there saying this man has a 32-percent approval rating,” Mr. Colbert said a few moments later. “But guys like us, we don’t pay attention to the polls. We know that polls are just a collection of statistics that reflect what people are thinking ‘in reality.’ And reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

That line got a relatively warm laugh, but many others were met with near silence. In one such instance, he criticized reporters for likening Mr. Bush’s recent staff changes to “rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic.” “This administration is not sinking,” Mr. Colbert said; “this administration is soaring. If anything, they are rearranging the deck chairs on the Hindenburg.”

UPDATE 22 MAY 06: The NYTimes is now right on top of this story, today making the point that audio of the Colbert routine is the #1 paid download at iTunes, topping the Red Hot Chili Peppers, Pearl Jam, and even Paul Simon! In addition, the Times points out that their NON-coverage of this routine (as opposed to the Bush sanctioned routine, of which they did chuckle and cover) was probably a mistake. To quote their public editor, Byron Calame, “there should have been ‘a separate story that anticipated the reaction the routine generated and explained its political significance, rather than waiting to capture it after the fact.’ ” Duh.

Author: Eric