Author: foxtongue

choooocooolaaaaate

Just got this in an e-mail:

In case you haven’t heard, the West Coast Chocolate Festival is back with a list of exciting events that will run from Oct 15-Nov 10. Some of the more popular events to be featured are the Chocolate High Tea; Wines, Liqueurs and Chocolate; Single Malt Scotch and Chocolate; the Cooking with Chocolate seminar at the Pacific Institute of Culinary Arts and the Chocolat ce Soir at Horizons Restaurant with Chef Garrett and Maître Chocolatier Wim Tas of ChocolaTas. Perfect for chocoholics or just a nice night out on the town. More info can be found on the festival website at www.chocolatefestival.ca.

this weekend’s supposed schedule

If you’ve had the good fortune to see any of these, tell us how it was! We’ve got a lot of maybe’s on our list, and a few we’re deciding between, so information’s appreciated.

Friday

5:00 MEET THE FILMMAKERS: TRIMPIN + PETER ESMONDE in conversation with JEAN ROUTHIER Pacific Cinémathèque

9:30 pm Trimpin: The Sound of Invention (A documentary on one of my mother’s friends). "Peter Esmonde and Trimpin–with a sculpture for temporary exhibition in the Vancouver International Film Centre–will be in attendance for our Thanksgiving weekend screenings!" Vancity Theatre

Saturday

12:30 am Kimjongilia Empire Granville 7 Th 5

2:10 pm Splinters Empire Granville 7 Th 6

?? – Salt in Blood Alley

7 pm – Michael’s birthday dinner

9:15 pm Will Not Stop There Empire Granville 7 Th 3 (tentative)

?? – Frank’s birthday movie-night

Sunday

12:20 The Exploding Girl Empire Granville 7 Th 1 (tentative)

1:15 NFB 70th Anniversary Program Pacific Cinémathèque (tentative)

4:00 Canary Pacific Cinémathèque

6:10 Everyone Else Empire Granville 7 Th 3 (tentative)

9:15 Bluebeard Empire Granville 7 Th 2 (tentative)

9:15 Police, Adjective Empire Granville 7 Th 3 (tentative)

Monday

11:30 – Breakfast at Havana’s

1:20 Mother Visa Screening Room
@ Empire Granville Th7

4:20 Nora’s Will Empire Granville 7 Th 2 (tentative)

6:20 North Empire Granville 7 Th 4

8:45 Punching the Clown Empire Granville 7 Th 2 (tentative)

9:15 La Pivellina Empire Granville 7 Th 3 (tentative)

what it comes down to is I really need new reasons to get out of the house

R.I.P. Irving Penn.

–::–


Last Night:

HOME: Yann Arthus-Bertrand makes with the pretty. More appropriate for a younger audience, simplistic and at times heavy handed. If I was less involved with eco-activism, I might have found it educational, but instead the only new things I learned from the film are that Madagascar’s erosion wounds look exactly like gashes in raw meat and elephants look tremendously like bunny rabbits from very high up.

–::–

Boston’s Big Picture: France’s Royal de Luxe street theatre company in Germany, performing “The Berlin Reunion”, part of the celebrations of the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

–::–


I skipped Tuesday’s films, electing instead to stay in, chat with friends on-line and attempt a good soak in the bath. (More fool me, I’d forgotten that I don’t particularly fit in our bath, now even less than before. Having a desk job is turning me into a lump.) Also, just for fun, I administered more surreal panic-the-uninquisitive status updates into Tony‘s “possessed” Facebook account:

  • Tony Jackson (otherwise known as Le Dude) is not giving up kilts, he is giving up cheese. The two words are similar, hence the confusion.
  • Tony Jackson (otherwise known as Le Dude) is going to be a father.
  • Tony Jackson (otherwise known as Le Dude) feels electric, POSSESSED by the JOY of LUCIFER, oh my goodness such an amazing RUSH, now I can WRITE and WRITE and WRITE about HIS glory, HIS splendor, oh yess, I feel like I never have to sleep again yes yes yes yes yes… yes yes yes pills pills pills pills pills pills pills pills
  • Tony Jackson (otherwise known as le dude) wants to know if you’re Dave. Are you Dave? Are you my wife, dave?
  • Tony Jackson (otherwise known as le dude) is bathing in tangy rice pilaf before going to work. Got to wash all that blood off! Hi-Ho!

    • Warning: Contains kinderwhores.

    A nine year old girl in Peru won a television station contest where she got to star in a remake of her favourite music video. Unsurprisingly, she chose a Britney Spears video, Toxic.

    9 year old Toxic

    As a refresher, the original video.
    Behind the Scenes video, (spanish). Backstage video.
    Photos of her at her kinderwhore television job.

    Once you get past the initial shock, as polarizing as stumbling upon a beauty pageants for kids, I think it’s a powerful statement, however unintentional on her part or that of her parents or the people who helped put it together. (Consider how many people must have been involved. Location, make-up, the teeny tiny wardrobe, cameras, post, etc. It’s more than just a few.) A significant number of comments criticize the video and her parents shouting child abuse, exploitation, and paedophilia, but very few have asked why this video appealed to her in the first place, why it’s normal now for children to be worshiping hyper sexualized pop tarts, a much deeper, dirtier manipulation, shameful yet largely ignored. The questions that should be asked are nastier, “since when did we start marketing Sex Sells to those under twelve? Why are teenagers our sex symbols and prostitots now just a matter of course?” Bratz dolls, the Spice Girls.. Remember when little girls in stripper-wear lip syncing to songs about sex was still weird?

    William Strawn put it most concisely, over on my Facebook where I posted it last night, “Is this really sick? Or a reflection of all the little girls who imagine themselves in Britney’s position? Or even just an idea that we have a very vague line in our society where it starts being okay to exploit women, putting them in highly sexuallized roles. Britney was 17 when she started, look how well that all turned out for her.”

    Regretsy, one of the best URLS ever

    Today’s most excellent website: Regretsy, finally providing a home for some of the train wrecks of unfortunate taste available for sale on Etsy.

    Of particular note, for me, are the spray-painted Masturbating dinosaur plaques, “captured right at the point of climax and mounted on a plaque that is ready for hanging on the wall”, and the vulva earring-pendant.. things, “After purchasing, send me a convo describing your vagina: the shape of your inner and outer labia, colors, how much or how little your inner labia extend out from your outer labia, how well hidden your clitoris is, is it heavily hooded, or can you see it fairly easily?”.

    this statement is a lie

    So here’s something fun. Tony left himself logged into Facebook on my computer when he left on Monday, which means I can do anything in there I like. So far, as I am well known to almost exclusively use my evil powers for good, I have only been toying with his status updates. The mischief so far:

  • Tony Jackson is still logged in at Jhayne’s. STILL. (She types, waving to him over in Seattle.)
  • Tony Jackson would like to be referred to from now on as Le Dude.
  • Tony Jackson is rhyming for his brothers on the corner.
  • Tony Jackson (otherwise known as Le Dude) is giving up kilts.

    So far, I am most curious regarding how many hapless bystanders will believe the last one, as it’s truly the most far fetched statement I could realistically make. I could claim Tony is going on a trip to Zambia tomorrow and it would still be more believable than the idea he might abandon his precious man-skirts. So far, I’ve already hooked… two? I’m looking forward to the morning, to check in and update with more silly things.

    • life is too good to know what to do? has this happened before?

    Last night:

    Kamui: The guide claims Kamui is one of the best ninja movies ever made. If the guide, instead, claimed it was one of the most hilarious, it would have been right. So bad it was good, though we all could have done with less of the endless CG ocean and more with the goofy CG chop socky. Also, there is no conceivable reason for there to be that many CG animals in a live-action film. None. Especially in regards to the sharks.

    Breathless: Domestic violence. More domestic violence. Horrible fathers. Blood. Violence. Blood. I should have remembered what it was about instead of thinking I was in for a ninja movie double-bill and skipped on the ticket and just gone home.

    –::–

    So Tony and I have been considering a weekend trip this October for our six month anniversary, which practically falls on Hallowe’en. We’re juggling options back and forth the idea of either attending SteamCon or flying out to Philly for the weekend of Kyle and Trillian’s nuptial party-thing. (Third so-far-facetious option, to hell with everyone, we’re going to Vegas to watch some naughty Cirque Du Soliex and go on the outdoor rollercoaster.) So far, however, we’ve been caught in a loop of pros and cons for each plan.

    It goes a little something like this:

  • SteamCon, which is local, will be stuffed with some of my favourite people, some I never get to see, some I’ve never had a chance to meet, in a setting that shows off just how completely great they truly are. There’s a market full of costume, too, just in time for Hallowe’en, and an art show starring Myke & Beth, and Molly. It is, however, essentially sold out, which makes it a tricky fish to fry. Also, though it will be full of zer pretty, yeas, and I would like to think of Steampunk as an Art Movement more than anything else, it’s essentially people getting together because they adorn themselves with little bits of clock, which I cannot help but feel is somehow akin to a preppy convention, (insert joke about Republican party here), or a giant goth picnic, where the only qualification required is that you wear black.
  • Philadelphia, on the other hand, is not only home to Kyle “freaking” Cassidy and Trillian “freaking” Stars-Cassidy, (and J.R. “365” Blackwell, whose birthday it is today, everyone go give her some warm wishes), it is also somewhere I’ve never been, which makes it intriguing, even though I could not for great heaps of money tell you where it is on a map. However, given that flights to Philly, though they just dropped in price, are still 7-8 hours (with layover included) each way, and that on top of my 8 hours of bus-ride to and from Seattle, it seems like it would be a ludicrous amount of travel to simply attend a house party, no matter how incredible the attendees, and then come right back. Also, we’ve no idea where to stay.

    Me, I feel evenly about both options, though I am beginning to appreciate more and more the third, least realistic option, in which we run away together just us and the world, and spend a glitzy weekend in the falsest city this side of Dubai.

    • in regards to this weekend, to your head in my lap, there is nothing better

    So, films to date:

    The Great Contemporary Art Bubble: Outstanding. Fascinating to see who was willing to say what in regards to arts trading, arts speculation, and rigged auctions. Some of the art was atrocious, but that’s part of the point. Also, there’s great satisfaction in seeing someone stick it so adroitly to Damien Hirst.

    Soundtrack for a Revolution: Five stars. I’ve never seen a better film on the fight for African-American civil rights. I hope for all of our sakes this film gets picked up scholastically. Interesting, too, to watch it in Canada, rather than the US. Also, hot damn, that was a lot of really good music. Extra points to The Roots playing with TV On The Radio.

    Castaway on the Moon: Oh my stars and garters, this was cracking fun. Korea, you win. Forever.

    Forbidden Door: Do not go. Four, possibly five twist endings painfully wrestle across the last ten minutes of the film, awkwardly obliterating any of the good what came before. If you must see it, leave as he sits laughing at dinner and before he bothers with the bloody stupid door.

    Air Doll: Exactly as expected, minus some confusion as to what, precisely, is a sex scene. Korean films are excellent, (apparently Air Doll is Japanese, it’s only the lead who is Korean. My mistake.) the premise gives a certain shine to otherwise shopworn ideas about what is beautiful about living, and that’s about it. Cute, sweet, slightly odd. Rent it with a date. Or don’t.

    The Girl: Related somehow to Let The Right One In, it reminded me of short stories I read when thirteen. Calm, uncanny, yet utterly prosaic. My favourite film so far after Castaway On The Moon.

    Face: We walked out. It started off promising, with a truly excellent bit with singing fashion models in bunny suits and a reindeer trapped in a forest full of mirrors, but there wasn’t anything else worth mentioning, except that our lives were made better by leaving.

    Today

    6:45 – Kamui Visa Screening Room @ Empire Granville Th7 (tentative)

    9:30 – Breathless Visa Screening Room @ Empire Granville Th7 (tentative)

    Tuesday

    7:00 – The September Issue Visa Screening Room @ Empire Granville Th7 (tentative)

    9:30 – Mother Visa Screening Room @ Empire Granville Th7

    Wednesday

    6:30 – Home Visa Screening Room @ Empire Granville Th7

    Thursday

    6:30pm – Cow Empire Granville 7 Th 2 (tentative)

    6:40pm – Canary Empire Granville 7 Th 1 (tentative)

    9:30pm – Bong Joon-Ho & Co: A 25th-birthday Tribute to KAFA Vancity Theatre