MSPIFF

It is in fact time for the Minneapolis Film Festival to dominate my time for three weeks, and drain my wallet.  I have seen four films so far and missed about six that I really wanted to see but conflicted with work or swim class.  I just mapped out the rest of the schedule, but seriously, how does one decide when three to four must-sees are scheduled all at the same time, and many start at 9:30 or 9:45 p.m. mid-week.  It's tough to prioritize. 

Today I got to work ridiculously early so I could trot across the bridge and see "Harmony Lessons, " from Kazakhstan.  I have a soft spot for Kazakh movies- they're often very beautifully shot and the kind of lyrical, highly allegorical type of film I like, and it doesn't hurt that I am usually practice my limited Russian.  Harmony Lessons is more in Kazakh but well-acted, by non-actors including the lead who was discovered in an orphanage, and really provocative.  Reviews on the web do it justice and compare the filmmaker to lots of famous auteurs like Bresson. 

They do not lie.  The film is brutal and not for the squeamish but many-layered and very worth seeing. Here is the trailer, with Russian subtitles, all I could find...  More later on the other films I've seen.

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The internets

The beauty of the Internets these days is that, as many drawbacks as it has, it puts an amazing amount of information at your fingertips that would never get to you in a lifetime b4 web 2.0.

Apparently I massively insulted Johanna Sinisalo, whose works I have read translated into English whenever I could find them and tried my best to describe as freaking brilliant, deeply layered, and wickedly incisive in a review I got asked to do on the fly and got paid a massive $5 for. 

My writing can be opaque and obscure.  It often gets misread.  For my lack of skill in using words to convey what I mean, "Olen pahoillani."

Thanks to FinnishPod101.com for their great language videos.

If the translation of Sinisalo's books is truly distorting, that's sad, but they still come across as freaking brilliant, deeply layered, and wickedly incisive.  I find it hard to believe that the translation is highly problematic because they're such a great read, even in the translation to English. 

In French too.  I had to see, since a diligent search revealed a preference for that translation and that I can confirm with my piece meal polyglot skills despite no solid Finnish friends that would appreciate a perceptive deconstruction of their Finnish masculinity.  Really not that different, from what I can tell, except the French title, Oiseau dr Malheur might be a huge compliment, alluding to Baudelaire's Les Fleurs du Mal.  That book that made 13 bearable for this teen queer, that magnifique ode to the Imp of Perversity.  Or not- it's what popped into my head on seeing the title, thoughts formed by the French canon gleaned through the tutelage of a African American French teacher who studied at the Sorbonne, one of the best teachers I've ever had on all schools of life- professionalism, translation, exactitude in writing, fairness, collegiality, comportment- hands down.  Madame, I hope I do you no wrong here, but yes, I've let my translation skills become shamefully rusty.

In the British to American translation, Birdbrain comes off as deeply feminist and brave as truth-telling.  And Troll: A Love Story/ Not Before Sunset comes off as incredibly queer and witty, even if that was not the intention or effect in the original, in its American English translation.  Seriously, anything I might have done to make anyone *not* read these books or the amazing short story "Dollface" despite all the awards they've won is a heinous disservice, cos this writer is one of the best feminist and SFF writers out there right now, no mistake.  Read her.  Can I be more clear?

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Fire In the Belly

Spring brings everyone out of the woodwork.  We meet our neighbors again.  Go places.  Do things.  Try to catch up, make up for lost time.

Deadlines, headlines, fresh bullsh*t, annexations, power moves, sloppy footwork, out of nowheres, sideswiped, blindsided, sluggish with a hint of snow, allergies, smudges under the eyes, nodding off on the train... It must be April on the way.

People die in April, like they do in early winter.  It becomes a rhythm you get used to, when everyone is dying.  And then it slows, and slows some more, and people are astonished at death again.  But the rhythm's still there.

That makes it a perfect time to read "Fire In the Belly: The Life and Times of David Wojnarowicz," by Cynthia Carr.  580-some pages is daunting, but the man was fascinating, brilliant, and burned fast as hell in the too-short time he had.  His autobiography is the first thing to read, but this bio's got art and stories and a sense of history and moment.  Remember Jesse Helms, the NEA, and FDA, all that ancient history?   Yeah.  Gonna take a while to plow through but I'm not stopping 'til I'm done.

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Speaking of generations

Great crowd scenes up front, as well as concerts:  Stones in the Park 7/1969 and  Some Girls tour, Texas.  The latter reminds me of Foxes, the Jodie Foster Cherie Currie movie...

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Suburbia (1983)

This review of the Penelope Spheeris film "Suburbia," one of the few movies I remember vividly from those misspent teenage years, really nails the 80s for Gen X.  1000misspent hours, indeed. 

Millenials feel they're in a similarly overwhelming dystopia, but those in NYC and SoCal don't realize those cities were like presentday Detroit, no one remembers stagflation and long gas lines, and the looming threat of thermonuclear war that was more real than it now seems, in the era of Red Dawn and Footloose remakes. 

The way WWI, the Depression, WWII, the Cold War, the repressive 50s and McCarthyism, the Vietnam war, and everything else that was era-defining in the past seems either faded or overhyped.  Only in retrospect.  You had to be there, and if you were lucky enough to survive, you remain jaded about all teens and twenty-somethings to come and their sulks and rebellions.  Generational gaps are endlessly funny things. 

I love reading intergenerational discussions on the interwebs of who had it worse and who's more annoying.  The idea that anything changes is so micro-focused.  The glaciers melt, the mountains crumble, and the core belches.  Stars burst into life, fade away and radiate.  One thing I love about 80s punk and new wave was a baseline awareness of this bigger picture peeking through so many songs- Atomic!

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Shaking off the blahs

The Metrodome is now a small section of riser, a pile of rubble, and a bunch of tall cranes against the sky.  The streets are no longer covered in two inches of ice, and the roofs are no longer buried under two feet of snow.  I am trying to pull out of hibernation mode to glimpse my own shadow.

I'm reading Dust Devils on a Quiet Street by Richard Bowes in ebook and The Flamethrowers in book book.  Of course the Bowes is brilliant, and the latter is much more interesting than the other NYTimes list book I just read.  Motorcycles, conceptual art, and Italian leftists- what could go wrong?

Finished Once a Runner by John Parker and, after wading through the purplish prose and laddishness of the beginning, see why it's a runner classic.  The unfocused feel of the first half mirrors the protagonist's mind, and by the end the writing is tight and knifeblade sharp, like a runner in the race of his life.

I really want to read the Tapir book but I put it somewhere in my house where I can't find it.  Scouring the corners is my weekend plan, along with taxes.  And maybe looking at dogs, as well as spectating at flyball dog's tournament if I can fit it in with swim class.

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Questionable Practices

“Without Eileen Gunn, life as we know it would be so du five or six North Americans currently able to write shor near enough.” —Ursula K. Le Guin

Now *that's* a review to envy...

I was excited to be first to get ehands on the ebook from Hennepin County Library, once it came in.  As Le Guin says, Eileen Gunn books are a rare event.  I will probably end up buying this at Wiscon, especially if a friend is working the Small Beer Press table, but a preview is a treat.

So far the first story drew me right in.  It's snowing heavily outside at 7:45 a.m. on this holiday morning.  I'm thankful not to have to shovel, try to commute, and shovel again.  A good book to read is even better.

I saw "Flight," with Denzel doing his Denzel scene chomping thing.  It was ok, but not as good as the Olympic skating, which has been good but not great.  (I missed the pairs team competition, which sounds like it was sizzling.)  Nothing at Sochi has been really riveting, that I caught.  Sort of, "Oh yeah, he got the medal."  Partly, some people, like the long track speed skaters, just make it look too easy.   I realize it's not...

I did get to benefit from having watched a  bunch of skate skiing technique videos on Youtube.  It was more exciting to watch the X-country/Nordic ski races and understand more what they're doing at different points.  V1, V2, etc. 

Same with swimming, I learn best by watching people do it and trying to visualize their technique as I try it.  In swim class, this really Zen swimmer was in a lane nearby showing perfect, relaxed form.  Now I have something to think about to slow down my crawl, so I can breathe properly.  Making slow progress toward being able to swim a sprint triathlon.

Interviews

An interview of  Marijane Meaker (Vin Packer, M.E. Kerr), and one with
Billie Jean King.   They both shed interesting light on lesbian history, on how far we've come, and what still persists.  Nice photo of King at the height of her powers, too.

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Socked with snow

Surprise, that scant inch overnight plus two in the daytime... more like six plus by noon.  Peak at rush hour, of course.  Bring back the below zero.  Oh wait, that happens today too.  Welcome to Minnesota. 

I was listening to a podcaster from Chicago talking about the unusual just below zero temps.  Unfortunately, for us it's below -15 that's been freaking endless.  People's cars start in their garage, they go to work, car sits in outdoor lot, and whammo- it won't start.   Makes for fun times. 

The lightrail is better but understaffed from sick calls and trains get stuck and block other trains from mechanical problems.  Buses, luck be with you, too.  Siberia has it worse, I keep reminding myself...

So, The Virgins was underwhelming, though I did finish it.  Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy was due and I could not get into it again.  I'm bad at rereading light material, and the tech references - digital watch as state of the art- are very dated now. 

I'm trying a new workout schedule, mostly based on the Furman FIRST 3-2 plan for an intermediate 5k.  Interval run, tempo run, long run, and two cross training days.  Biking and swimming, with skiing and snow shoveling to vaguely train towards a sprint triathlon.  But more focused on upping my base running pace a little.  I'm so slow I'm a little off their pace chart...  Hope to get on it.  We'll see.  This first couple weeks is to shake off the cobwebs and see if I can handle the workload.  It's a little easier to get to the gym with no dog clock, so we'll see...

So cold

It's wearing everybody down.  The streets and gas stations were full yesterday with everyone rushing around to get ready for the next plunge well below zero, after only two days of partial- warmer but biting wind- relief.

The CSA farm is still keeping me cooking new things.  For warmth, I roasted carrots, parsnips, and cauliflower with olive oil, garlic and thyme last night and this morning made soy honey pumpkin to go with the chicken I needed to finish.  Beet meze, beet quinoa salad and borscht are all in the fridge with carrot ginger soup.  I still have a celery root, cabbage, and parsnips to eat before the next pickup.  May have to make something for the party of a coworker who is moving to Florida- good timing on her part.

I'm taking swimming classes at the Y to further my triathlon goal and so far it's fun and productive.  The age range is broad and the teacher is skilled but mellow.  My motivation to walk ten blocks to the gym after work to practice is nonexistent, the gym is full of January members, and there's no way I'm running outside at night.  I've managed to do some yoga and Nordic tracking, with running and skiing warmer weekends, but it's the blah season.

The GF got Netflicks and we started watching "Orange Is the New Black," which is surprisingly watchable and addictive.  I tend to dislike many of the shows and movies that get raved about as great lesbian or LGBTQAYaYa treats, but once in a while...

Teen werewolf movie "Jack and Diane" not so much.  Hated the werewolfy interludes, tepid, treacly dyke drama, and gratuitous college rape video scene.  Yeah. 

"Making the Boys," a doco about Boys in the Band, was interesting, with footage I'd never seen of gay Hollywood in the 60s and interviews with a range of people that had informative stuff to say that was not duplicative of the many films made about the Stonewall era.  I hadn't realized how many of the original cast died not long after the movie came out, in the early first waves of the AIDS epidemic.

I'm reading Ancillary Justice by Ann Leckie, which was good enough in the first 50 pages to make me buy it when the library ebook came due.  It just got nominated for a PKDick award and has interesting things about gender and occupations, in a space opera-y setting.  So far the genderfrack aspects seem tacked on and showy, but I'm not that far in.

Also The Lovers, which I read about in the NYT Book Review and am bored with.  I reread After Delores by Sarah Schulman in a new Arsenal Pulp Press edition and enjoyed it and the new preface by her, classic Schulman incisiveness.  I just found two bona fide new lesbian novels that look promising, off the shelf, we'll see.  Have to save them for a reading drought moment...

Actual writing work has been occuring, nothing to write home about but better than the deep freeze of December.  Thoughts stirring again.  A couple of my CW classmates have things coming out- novels and a short story in Asimov's this month for Domenica Phetteplace.  Yay.  The latest installment of the Nightshifted series for Cassie Alexander, although it sounds like it's ending.  Fun reads, especially if you like actual medical knowledge in your supernatural romance...  Inspiring me to get going.