n: vb: the spice of imagination
In an effort to fundraise for a short trip to Calgary the first week of December, I’ve begun selling digital prints on commission for ten dollars each. Want one?
So, in return for ten dollars, I take a photo and send it as a file large enough to be printed.
Examples:
found via sheppardzo_14
A screw fell out of my glasses, which is leaving me the most helpless panicked thing I can actually be. I’m two points away from being legally blind without these things. I can’t leave the house without them and no matter how thoroughly I looked for the screw, it seems to be gone. Also, of course, if it FELL OUT, then the threads are too worn for me to actually put it back in with any certainty.
Ah well, I’ve found some copper wire in the back of a drawer, a really DIFFICULT thing to do when you’re blind, by the by, and now I think I can twist it through enough to keep the arm on safely enough for me to move around. Like, to an optometrist’s office, so I may stop feeling like I need to cry. Sheesh. So, yes, I called in at 7:30 trying to keep the I AM FREAKING OUT as much out of my voice as possible to say that “I will be late, I do not know when I will make it, if at all. kthnx call me” and so far they haven’t, though I was meant to be there at 8 a.m.
(I am taking a moment to try write this out as a way to steady my hands for this damned tiny fragile wire. Not that I can see the damned screen. Or the keyboard. Or more than two inches in front of my face.)
And now it’s 8:45. AND I AM MISSING OUT ON AN AWESOME DAY AT WORK.
BOO.
edit: 9:20 – wire snapped. more panic. breathing deep. trying again.
That 1 Guy‘s next batch of tour dates:
November 24, 2007 – Huntsville, AL – Crossroads
November 25, 2007 – Lafayette, LA – The Renaissance Cafe
November 26, 2007 – Jackson, MS – Hal n Mals
November 28, 2007 – New Orleans, LA – The Parish
November 29, 2007 – Houston, TX – TBA
November 30, 2007 – Austin, TX- Stubb’s Bar-B-Q
Radios crackling, the building today is full of film crew. Some ballet movie, something sweet, charming, and meant to be New York. I know I’ll never watch it, ever want to watch it. I can forsee a future where it’s the in-flight movie, it’s an option on the pay-per-view in some cut-rate hotel. Right now, it’s merely an annoyance. Classes are all cancelled, people are shouting at me over the phone. Not my fault. Not anything to do with me at all, but that’s why they put me here, at this desk, so that strangers may have someone to shout at who will calm them down, repeat the same phrases over and over in a mellow, soothing voice, until, like small startled animals, they will begin to trust me and so agree to go peacefully away.
The highlight of my work day so far has been a giant sheet of bubble-wrap I stole from a PA and systematically destroyed, pop pop pop, with Michael Elliot.
Tomorrow and Friday I’ll be on set, the ghost of a dead bride laughing in a Hallowe’en parade. I’m looking forward to it. There are ninjas involved and a traditional Japanese wedding. My guess is that my scene will be both complicated and incredibly simple. Classic chase scene. Someone running, (a ninja in this case), being chased, and up ahead! a spooky parade! They dart in, lose themselves in the costumed crowd. The cameras follow the pursuer, fish-eye up to stilt-walkers and spin past grinning skull-faces. The pursuing woman, she follows, is lost, ah-hah! Sees the ninja! Grabs him, tears off the mask! But – just a costumed Hallowe’enie out for some fun. She stands, finally, undone, still in the middle of the busy street. Defeated. Mask in hand. Alone.
Joss Whedon on the writer’s strike:
My son is almost five. He is just beginning to understand what I do as a concept. If I drove a construction crane he’d have understood it at birth. And he’d probably think I was King of all the Lands in my fine yellow crane. But writing – especially writing a movie or show, where people other than the writer are all saying things that they’re clearly (to an unschooled mind) making up right then – is something to get your head around.
And as work? Well, in the first place, it IS fun. When it’s going well, it’s the most fun I can imagine having. (Tim Minear might dispute that.) And when it’s not going well, it’s often not going well in the company of a bunch of funny, thoughtful people. So how is that work? You got no muscles to show for it (yes, the brain is a muscle, but if you show it to people it’s usually because part of your skull has been torn off and that doesn’t impress the ladies – unless the ladies are ZOMBIES! Where did this paragraph go?) Writing is enjoyable and ephemeral. And it’s hard work.
Katie made an interesting request of her flist today that I’m going to ask all of you, How Many Of You Have Flickr?
“If you do, I want to know! Post a link to your stream with your latest greatest photo.”
Lung asks Claire, “How many people have you slept with?” and suddenly we’re all counting on fingers, measuring numbers, months, morality. I’m there to pick up a copy of the Senior’s Living Magazine that Lung and I have an article in – my first bit of glossy-paper local hard-copy. Vancouver’s 50+ Active Lifestyle magazine. There’s a steel haired woman jogging on the cover, sunglasses, IRONMAN t-shirt, and yellow text declaring someone’s else “Artist. Author. Actor.”. It looks very much like the sort of thing you might find for free between the pages of a community newspaper. We’re on page 30, messily rambling about Lung’s travels.
Though it’s interesting to see my name in print, especially with his, reading it over is a little painful. Lung gave me a rough draft so dirty certain passages were completely incoherent and I only spent about an hour cleaning it up before we sent it in and went for dinner. Flipping through to the other articles, however, I found we fit right in. Absolutely everyone in the entire magazine abuses punctuation and laughs vindictively at grammar. “You, have to Love It” kind of stuff. It makes for easy reading, if odd, as if the writers of Dick and Jane had copy-edited every page. It’s almost soothing, which, it occurs to me, might be the point.
25 unexpectedly useful websites
100 ways to save the environment
110 resources for creative minds.
As of today, I have a new roommate for December. Her name is Karen, we don’t know each other particularly well, but she seems like an incredibly nice young woman. (We went to highschool together. Bizarre, that). Very much one of us, she goes to BarCamps, SFU, and has a passion for engineering transit. She’s even got a livejournal. Vancouver’s rental situation has moved past ridiculous into outright obscene, so it’s a relief to have found someone without having to resort to the vague social terror that is Craigslist For Rent ad.
Another thing checked off the list today – finding a place to stay in Calgary the first week of December. Sean, (yes, someone else with an lj), a comp-sci, pure math guy that Dominique and Rowan introduced me to a few years ago, has volunteered his spare room! Yes! An exclamation mark! Somehow, in spite of the mini-catastrophes plaguing this trip, things are coming together. Now to find a way to get there. Pity there’s no easy way to put a transmission back into a van…
