Video Village

Ig·nor·phins

2007-08-19T16:38:00.000-07:00

(ig nôr' finz) n.pl. 1. A group of chemicals secreted in the brain and nervous system that counteract sadness and annoyance in the face of something you'd rather didn't exist.

...........................................

For the past seven or eight months there has come a time every week when I start to enjoy the time I spend in the kitchen less. I love to cook, but after a couple of days the plate, fork and cup sitting in the sink start to get to me. Then they're joined by a half-empty Tupperware, a frying pan and another cup. The dishes look less lonely, but they're starting to have a smelly, ooky party. After a week or ten days (or thereabouts), we arrive at the fiesta you see above. Things start to infringe on the other, usable, side of the sink. Smells develop nuances heretofore known only to French cheesemakers. There are no clean bowls in the cupboard.

I've hinted about the dirty dishes. I've gotten so fed up that I've done sinkfuls myself. I've even told her, politely, that I feel it's inconvenient to have to wash my own paring knife before I can use it (she prefers to use her own set of knives, but when they're all dirty...) -- plus I know that she dislikes the cockroach problem in this building as much as I do, so surely she agrees that having a clean, dry sink each night is a good thing. To no avail.

I've noticed infuriating subtleties to the way she doesn't do the dishes (and to the way she does them when she finally does) that probably point to an unhealthy fixation on the issue. And it might be worse to have a roommate who has angry, shouting phone conversations all the time, or who always demands a heart-to-heart about how this guy was mean to her and is she a bad person? But I really don't want to dig around in the china slag heap so I can have soup tonight.

If you give a writer a Mad Lib

2007-08-14T14:24:00.000-07:00

"How to Date the Coolest Guy/Girl in School"

It's simple. Turn the closures. Make him/her want lightly to date you. Make sure you're always dressed to divert. Each and every day, wear a snood that you know shows off your Adam's apple to rotund advantage and make your steeple look like a million hemlines. Even if the two of you make meaningful earlobe contact, don't admit it. No hugs or pansies. Just shake his/her femur firmly. And remember, when he/she asks you out, even though a chill may run down your mop and you can't stop your gander from traipsing, just play it furtive. Take a long pause before answering in a very aromatic voice. "I'll have to hurl it over."

Found after a game-themed book release party I organized a few years ago. The last sentences really sum up middle-school love affairs, I think.

For the Birds

2007-04-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

Western Tanager

It all started last Tuesday morning. I was standing at the balcony door a little before 8, contemplating breakfast and other items of consequence, when I noticed a bird in the loquat tree in front of my building. It wasn't a pigeon. It wasn't one of those tiny little sparrows, nor was it a European starling -- and thank Dog for that, cuz those suckers are noisy. It was a smooth, gray-brown bird of medium size with a buff underside and a black Hamburgler mask that sweeps up into a crest behind the head. There were three of them, and the Audubon Society confirmed that they were cedar waxwings.

Cedar Waxwing

They've come browsing through most every day, though they've moved to the tree across the street so I had to break out the binoculars to watch them. This watching is kind of funny -- I see movement among the foliage, I run to the window with the binocs and I watch. I watch them hop from branch to branch, grabbing seeds and grubs. I watch them play. I'm a nosy neighbor, but only to the birds.

American Goldfinch

Now there are about a dozen waxwings that come to the tree every day, which is really cool except they bully the goldfinches and tanagers. Yep, there are bright yellow birds in my neighborhood. I never would have guessed that there are bright birds here. In American cities you see pigeons, gulls, sparrows, maybe a robin or a duck. You don't see school-bus yellow birds with black wings and a black kippah (American goldfinch) or yellow birds with black wings and a bright red hood (western tanager). But I saw them. There must be more! I'd like to see a lazuli bunting, a red crossbill, and an evening grosbeak. And those are just the perching birds. Don't get me started on water birds.

Totals for 2007
----------------
Cedar waxwing: 1 doz.
American goldfinch: 1 pr.
Western tanager: 1
House finch: 1 pr.
American kestrel: 1
Misc warbler: 1 pr.
Misc woodpecker: 1
California quail: 1 doz.

My thoughts exactly.

2007-03-14T07:51:00.000-07:00

My two favorite things in life are libraries and bicycles. They both move
people forward without wasting anything. The perfect day: riding a bike to
the library. -Peter Golkin, museum spokesman (1966- )

Orecchietti con ceci e rapini

2007-02-22T18:10:00.000-08:00

You know those dishes you could eat forever, regardless of whether your stomach rebels or there's even any food left? This is one of them. A provocative medley of pasta, greens, and chickpeas, nearly nude under a veil of garlic-scented olive oil.

Orecchiette con Ceci e Rapini
(aka No Parlo Italiano)

serves 4

1 lb orecchiette (or conchiglie, possibly penne)
1/4 c olive oil, exxxtra virgin
3 large cloves garlic, minced
1/4 t red pepper flakes
1 large bunch broccoli rabe, coarsely chopped,
.........................or 1 large bunch baby mustard greens,
.........................or 1 pound broccoli
1 can chickpeas, drained

Start 6 qts water boiling for the pasta. Cook the pasta al dente while preparing the greens: Heat the olive oil in a large skillet over medium heat, then add the garlic and pepper flakes. In just a moment, when the garlic is translucent, add the greens. Cover and cook until perfectly tender (yes, that's subjective), about 5 minutes.

By now the pasta should be done. Drain it and toss it with the greens. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

(I like to saute with a little less olive oil in the pan, and then add a drizzle of fruity Arbequina olive oil in the serving dish.)

Adapted from the New Joy of Cooking, the one that's perfect except they left out the cocktail recipes and canning guidelines.

Next week, when you make this again, try cannellini beans instead of chickpeas. Or, instead of beans, break one egg per person into the pasta/greens mixture and stir over low heat just until the egg curdles. Or go to Trader Joe's and buy some Tofurkey Italian Sausage (vegetarian!) and slice it and fry it in the olive oil before you add the garlic.

Oh, and you can use fresh spinach as the greens, too.

You have no excuses.

Hahahahaha...oh, wait, I'm scared.

2007-02-09T12:49:00.000-08:00

After six years of dodging the climate issue, the Bush administration is finally having to face it head on. They aren't changing policy -- don't be silly! -- but they are changing rhetoric.

That's from an article in Grist, my favorite free online clearinghouse of environmental news (and puns!), about the Bush administration's recent open letter "clarifying" (re-creating?) its stance on global warming. I guess the publicity generated by the terrifyingly good IPCC report was just too much for the Republicans to keep their heads in the sand without looking like the nepotistic nincompoops they are. And now they're backpedaling like mad. Big business and everyone else have already started to take steps to lower their greenhouse-gas output. Quit lollygagging, White House!

Grist's analysis last week of the IPCC report gives a readable dissection of that big honkin' document. But what about more mainstream news sources? BBC.co.uk and CNN.com cover the report's congressional hearing, but CBSnews.com doesn't. The article at FOXnews.com starts with a summary of the findings,* but then keeps the tired old global warming "debate" going by mentioning a scientist's huffy departure from the Panel. The remainder of the article follows a Republican representative's (Dana Rohrabacher's) response to the report, including his dangerous statement that a graph that shows a one degree increase in average global temperature over the last 150 years "doesn't sound very alarming to me." Now, a rise of 2-3 degrees could raise ocean levels by at least several inches and cause other effects, including severe weather disturbances. Global temperatures have already risen one degree, and this guy's not alarmed? No mention is made of the scientific assessment of environmental consequences vs. degrees of warming. It's just this hick's unqualified remark. Thanks again, Fox, for your fair and balanced look at the news.

Note that the American news webistes list sponsored links above their search results, and the top sponsors are sites like BP.com and willyoujoinus.com, where you can "Join Chevron's forum and voice your opinion on environmental issues." Click here to learn more about oil companies and their obfuscation of climate science.

Sigh. This is all part of my trying to understand how science appears to have become even more hijacked by politicians in recent years. I mean, I know it's been happening since the dawn of science and politicians, but what's with abstinence-only education, creationism, and the lies about climate change all happening right now?

The IPCC is a fairly conservative body; it was convened by the UN and has to incorporate the views of scientists and governments from all over the world. And they're stating that global warming is definitely happening, the chance that it stems entirely from natural causes is less than 5%, and that no matter what we do about emissions now, we're facing centuries of warming temperatures and rising seas. (Imagine what will happen if we continue to do nothing.) Now that Bush's big-business backers are finally demanding emissions caps, maybe the "truth" will suddenly change, and in this case, I think we'll all be the better for it.

But then again, maybe stop-global-warming efforts will be irrelevant, like the International Criminal Court. Go USA!

*Check out the contrast between the top-of-story summaries of the IPCC Congressional hearing articles at CNN.com and FOXnews.com:

CNN:

House Chairman: Officials mislead by "injecting doubt" into climate science
Presidential contenders expound on subject at Senate hearing
Advocacy groups' survey show many scientists subjected to political pressure
Sens. McCain, Obama to express views on global warming at hearing

Fox:

Not enough evidence exists that humans are responsible for global warming, so current laws should not be changed to limit greenhouse gas emissions, critics of a global climate change report told a House panel Thursday.

The attitude taken by the Fox article that catastrophic climate change might not happen, so we shouldn't bother to take any steps against it, is a whole 'nother post.

Things I hate about biking in LA

2007-02-07T16:55:00.000-08:00

1. The air. I often get on my bike as usual, then wish for more air in my smog as I gasp along Fountain Ave. Days like yesterday only serve to remind me that the bliss of cool weather and relatively clean air is about to end and the too-hot, too-sooty summer is imminent.

2. The spiky things. This refers to spiky things on the ground and spiky things in the air. I've never seen so much broken glass on roads anywhere. This might not be as bad as Australia, where I've heard they have thorns the size of nails (not to mention crocodiles, huge spiders and drop bears). But the spiky things in the air really get me. If I even think about heading out sans glasses, I get something in my eye. And most rides, even when I'm wearing my wraparound sunglasses, I get something in my eye anyway. The glasses make me go a lot faster, though, so I don't mind wearing them.

3. The roads. It doesn't rain and then freeze here often, so whence the potholes? The enormous, wheel-eating, almost-to-China-reaching potholes? I get nervous about them when I'm in my car, even. Also: asphalt dunes. I won't ride eastbound on Santa Monica in Hollywood ever again because there are these huge waves of asphalt that crest right where you want to ride. A bike is not a surfboard.

4. The drivers. Everyone in Hollywood comes from somewhere else. Nobody talks about how crazy the drivers are everywhere in the US, it's just LA. What defect do people have that they begin maniacal driving upon moving here? I believe that people hear about the bad drivers here and think they'd better drive defensively. Somehow that winds up meaning 'offensively.'

Many people know how to pass a cyclist (move all the way into the next lane, please) and are considerate, but I've been cut off at least three times in the past couple months. Can you not wait the 3.5 seconds it will take me to zoom by you? Do you really want me bouncing off your door or sliding across your hood? I might dent your fucking Hummer.

5. The lack of dedicated parking. Almost the only place I can think of that has a bike rack is Amoeba Music. Whole Foods has a ginormous parking lot but no bike rack. (Unless it's on the other side of the lot so people don't have to walk around the bikes on the shortest possible route from their car to the door.) I haven't seen a rack at Erewhon -- a hippy market! Ralph's has one, but Trader Joe's doesn't. I guess around here people eat the food but they don't ride the bike. In Seattle, the people who are into eating organic, cruelty-free food are also into not polluting their environment. In LA, the people who are into such food are also interested in conforming to some sort of arbitrary concept of sex appeal that, rather than getting cheap, efficient exercise while running errands, involves sitting around in a 3-ton cage, then going to the gym. I guess cheap and efficient don't trump showing off to other people that you've got a lot of money. Ooh, I just summed up Hollywood!

- # # # -

I guess it's good that I can only come up with 5 hate-able things. It's not that bad here, but it's fun to ridicule the lack of infrastructure and culture supporting one of my favorite activities. I'm a pioneer!

Later: things I love about biking in LA? There's not much specific here, other than it's never too cold to ride. There are some good hills to blow your heart up on, and it's great to see all the houses, gardens, and fruit trees that you miss when flying by at 35 miles an hour.

ETA: Whoops, I mis-impugned Erewhon: they do have a bike rack! And there are never any bikes parked there!

Painting my nails, reading Germaine Greer

2007-01-24T12:19:00.000-08:00

Thus is somewhere in London

Later I'm going to bake muffins. And fool around with some CSS.

Mini-Review: Busaba Thai

2007-01-10T22:12:00.000-08:00

Subtitle: Best Thai in LA

I love this place, and I love savoring and describing food, but I'm feeling a bit terse right now. Hope I can do this restaurant justice.

This is a vegetarian Thai restaurant, it is located near the eastern end of the boutique strip on Melrose in Hollywood, and it is owned and run by Thai women. They serve the only Thai I've had in LA where I found an actual, real slice of lemongrass flavoring my curry. Granted, most of the places I've eaten at are of the cheap late-night-delivery variety, but Busaba has similar prices and is about as fast. And they have panang curry, my favorite.

My stars, the curries. You choose tofu or one of several types of mock meat, and you get a lot of it enfolded in a thick coconut-based sauce spiced with lemongrass, galangal, and all the other things you want in a Thai curry (except, of course, fish sauce, which you shouldn't want anyway because of, y'know, extinction).

Their tom yum soup is a bracing salty broth with the perfect tang of lime filling out the corners. It has now replaced Chinese hot-and-sour soup as my drug of choice for colds and flu, partly because there aren't any veggie Chinese places within three miles of my apartment, and partly because of the lime.

The menu comprises more than just curry and soup. There are several noodle dishes (including pad thai and -- yes! -- lad na), spring rolls, salads, satay, fried rice...and dessert:

Coconut custard. Thai tea ice cream. How about a scoop of coconut ice cream alongside a crispy hot eggroll filled with mashed banana? (And, even better, the ice creams are vegan.)

Busaba Thai
7168 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046
(323) 857-1882

Hello...

2006-12-09T11:06:00.000-08:00

...and thanks to all who participated in NaNoNoBloPoMo.

More updates to come...erm...later. But not too late. I think.

Bibliophage

2006-08-16T17:43:00.000-07:00

Days since acquiring LA Public Library card: 6
Pages read: 1,354
Books checked out: 5
Books checked back in: 5
Books on hold: 7

How did I live here six months without a library card? I love libraries with an irrational love. Actually, it's quite rational to love accessible books (I think so, anyway), but...the library still makes me drool. And feel inadequate because I will never be able to read even a measurable percentage of the books they house. Even if you only count the ones in English. That are still in print. That don't contain the word "petulant".

Must...keep...reading....

What is this, a food blog?

2006-08-02T20:15:00.000-07:00

There I was, out on the balcony, crochet hook stuck behind my ear (I forgot it was there), with a bowl of chickpea curry, a damp cloth, chopsticks and a camera.

"What is the crazy gringa doing?" wondered the neighbors. "But it's magic hour," I protested.

I found this recipe on an arduous expedition through Madhur Jaffrey's "World of the East Vegetarian Cooking." It takes you through Asia without the tertiary fever, shoddy faux-ethnic souvenirs, or cow-induced traffic jams. (Yes, it's that quaint.)

Sweet 'n' Sour Okra with Chickpeas

3/4 pound fresh okra
oil for frying
1 t whole black mustard seeds
8 cloves minced garlic
1 t ground cumin
2 t ground coriander
1/2 t ground turmeric
1/8 t cayenne, or to taste
1 1/2 cups cooked chickpeas, drained (reserve the liquid if you like)
salt to taste (omit if using canned chickpeas)
2 T tamarind paste*
1 T sugar

Wash okra, trim the ends and slice into 1/3-inch rounds.

Heat the oil in a skillet over a medium flame. Add the mustard seeds and wait for them to sizzle. Add the garlic and stir until barely brown. Now add the okra, cumin, coriander, turmeric and cayenne. Fry for about a minute. Add a scant cup water, or the liquid drained from the chickpeas. Cover and simmer on low until okra is almost done -- about 5 minutes. Stir in the chickpeas, salt, tamarind and sugar. Simmer another few minutes until the sauce is reduced to the desired consistency.

Serve over Basmati rice. Drink IPA. Enjoy the sweet, the sour, the perfect marriage of vegetable and legume. (Actually, okra is a fruit. But it still works.)

*Tamarind paste: worth keeping around! A little goes a long way, it lasts forever, and it's delicious stirred into lemonade (1 tsp to 8 oz lemonade or to taste).

Why the hell not?

2006-07-30T21:01:00.000-07:00

El Burrito var. Beanitus Chilinense

Before a dinner party, we all slave over a hot stove, worrying about splattering sauce anglaise on our dinner-party clothes. Will the guests come early? Will the souffle fall? So why not undertake the construction of a dinner-party-worthy meal just for me? No stress; I'll just eat whenever it's finished, and microwave some potstickers if it sucks. Hence was born the Beanito Burrito: homemade refried beans, homemade Spanish rice, homemade guacamole and homemade salsa (both featuring homepicked hot peppers!). On a Trader Joe's tortilla. Sometime soon I'm going to make tortillas too. And the Fat Weasel Ale, also from TJ's, is reasonably tasty (for a beer from TJ's)-- rich but not too heavy, malty with a little bit of a tang.*

Really, if I lived Zen and the art of Cooking, dinner parties would always be like this: Just plan and cook the food as best you can, because whatever happens, happens. If it all comes out beautifully, brag away. But if something goes awry, you make do, and hope your friends like the wine. A lot. And don't notice that the lentils are a little too crunchy.

And then, while browsing Manybooks.net (free books! [Edit: Yeah, e-books. Sometimes I enjoy being nonspecific.]) after dinner, I found this in the Cooking section: The Expedition of the Donner Party and its Tragic Fate, by Eliza Poor Donner Houghton. (Should it be poor Eliza Donner Houghton?)

*So I'm upset about how hard it is to find a good beer at TJ's. I think they have a lot of drinkable wines, but I also want cheap, rich, well-balanced ale. And maybe a good stout too. Everything they have is a lager, or an ale that is way too heavy on something, and without enough of anything else.

Los Feliz, Thursday, 7:42 a.m.

2006-07-27T12:29:00.000-07:00

Our official shooting schedule for July 4

Los Feliz is such a white neighborhood. Everyone here seems well dressed and shiny with success, or the sheen of trying to look successful for everyone else. I can see the Observatory, which connects me to the old Hollywood of the larger-than-life stars much more than my neighborhood in south-east Hollywood does.

I live in a barrio of immigrants, strangers from El Salvador and the Ukraine. Doing what? Owning businesses, cooking food, raising children. They don't care about the hulking stages three blocks away or the manufactured billboards proclaiming the Next Big Thing. They cook something that smells like tacos at 8 a.m. and watch futbol. They wait outside the Home Depot. They park a taxi in the garage when their shift ends.

This makes it easier for me. In a business more "make it or die trying" than most, I would assume I would die trying, and end up living fatalistically. The pressure is on for us young folks trying to break into the industry to convince people that I'm It and you should pick me! pick me! Coming home every day to the yell of children and the scent of menudo reminds me that Hollywood, and the world, is bigger than the biggest hit show. There is more to life than making it here. And right now, at the end of my third week off work, I'm looking hard for that "more."

The upshot to not having a gig right now is not working in the heat. The other side of the coin is, of course, that there's no coin to have another side. People tell me they could never handle the 16-hour days of the film industry, and I tell them it's tough, but you get way more than two weeks' vacation per year. What I don't say is that it's not necessarily vacation, it's Looking For Work.

Confucius say...

2006-07-20T10:40:00.000-07:00

My fortune cookie: "All admire your physical and social appearance."

J: Social appearance? What's that supposed to mean?

Me: Does this conversation make me look fat?

J: IN BED!

Am I What I Eat?

2006-07-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Is it crazy that my new favorite lunch is an everything bagel with cream cheese and kimchi, accompanied by a nice mug of unfiltered apple juice?

Don't get me started on the peanut butter / chutney / smoked Gouda sanwiches of 2002....

6 Lucky Moments in My Life

2006-07-11T17:48:00.000-07:00

The technical term for this is "soft bounce"

So there's this guy named Jonathan Grubb, and he has a blog, and he likes to make entries that are lists of 8 things. I've always liked bullet points and outlines and lists so here I go. I'll do 6 today because it's almost dinner time, and I don't have the skill to manage 8. Yes, I'm too lazy to link. Low blood sugar!

6. Not buying "The Life Aquatic" from the Criterion section at Amoeba, coming back for it later and finding it sold, then discovering a copy for less in the Recent Arrivals section. There are scores of things like this that make up #6 for me; it's the little things that make you feel lucky sometimes.

5. Getting hit by a ricocheting champagne cork at the wrap of my most recent gig. Shaking up a bottle of bubbly and spraying it everywhere is a gesture for luck, so getting hit with the cork must be lucky too. Especially if it doesn't poke your eye out. This just happened, so I don't know what kind of luck I'll get from it.

4. I believe in making your own luck. I'm going to put this list at #4 in hopes that it will make some for me after my car turned out to be even more wrecked than was previously diagnosed (got t-boned by a Jeep while I was in NYC), I fell into video village on set and twisted my ankle and almost ripped out an earring, and I got annoyingly screwed by my health insurance's asinine prescription policies. HealthNet are a bunch of decaying zombie monkeys who fling poo and couldn't type a sonnet if you broadcast the Complete Workes with the BrainWaveControl-o-Tron turned to eleven.

3. Wandering around lost, alone, and drunk in London at 3 a.m., and having nothing worse happen to me than pissing my pants and finally getting back to the hostel to find that they'd given my bed to someone else. (Yes, I know what it's like to have to go that bad.)

2. Getting called to work in NYC last fall. It coincided with my decision to move to LA to start working full time as a scripty, and I met some amazing people, got another job from those connections (almost two, but I fucked one up), and got to list "S16 feature" at the top of my resume. (Which isn't that great, but it's better than what was there before.)

1. Back when we both lived in Seattle, my friend Chris won two free tickets to a Silent Movie Monday. He invited me, and when I took my seat I found an envelope telling me I'd won a free gift basket from Trader Joe's. So Chris lucked out on tickets, and then I lucked out on a big canvas bag full of cookies, wine, cheese, shampoo and mixed nuts. Luck squared!

This is all really me trying to tell myself it's okay that I'm not going to Guatemala.

Did My Momma Raise a Fool?

2006-07-01T21:34:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary,

What would you do if you got a call about a six-week shoot in Guatemala, starting in three weeks, and your passport is expired?

The backstory:

Oct. 2005: I pack up a small suitcase and put my belongings in storage (in Seattle) to work in New York for a month.
Nov. 2005: I arrive in LA and couch surf for two weeks until my stuff arrives.
Dec. 2005: I move into an apartment with my bitter ex-boyfriend, because we can't figure out where else to live. Live in tense squalor for four months because neither of us wants to finish unpacking or even clean up.
Apr. 2006: I pack a small suitcase and go back to New York to work for two months; my stuff is in storage again because I'm going to move into a new apartment when I get back.
June 2006: I come back to my new apartment, and have three days to sort my stuff out before starting on another feature. A short one with a so-so rate.

So then I get a message about a feature being produced out of New York. They need a scripty on a show with a Spanish-speaking crew that will be shooting in Antigua, Guatemala. (I'm not sure if I'm being offered the job straight up, or if I'm a finalist for it.) Sounds like a beautiful city, but I'm sick of living out of a suitcase. It's a slightly higher rate than I usually get offered, but my Spanish is rusty. I don't need the money right now this very instant, but I feel paranoid about turning down any money, especially a few thousand dollars (more than a couple, less than several).

It feels really scary to turn down what may be sure work and be possibly faced with nothing. But to rush around to renew my passport, pack for the tropics (something I've never done), and brush up on my Spanish seems too much to do right now. I want a home to be centered around. But then you're only young once.... I guess the things that are making me hesitate are:

The fact that I'm shy and my Spanish is rusty (will Guatemala be a macho place? Will my short hair, feminist beliefs and slow, foreign speech cause embarrassing moments? I'm easily embarrassed), and
That I've recently made some friends here, for the first time in years really, and want to maximize hanging out time with new exciting people. And they can get me into ComiCon for free.

I guess the biggest thing to remember is that not taking this job doesn't imply no work for the rest of the summer -- something else might come up. And I can hope that this won't be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, because if I stay in this industry I may eventually be offered another job in some exotic country. And possibly for more pay and a better hotel room.

Argh. Whatever I choose, I hope I don't regret it.

Predators: the pirates of space

2006-06-25T19:37:00.000-07:00

The other day at lunch there was much debate over pirates, ninjas, shuriken vs. cannons, drunkenness vs. stealth, whether pirates could teach the Drunken Master a thing or two, and finally, Alien vs. Predator vs. Pirates vs. Ninjas.

And www.axapirate.com, which doesn't seem to be as good as www.askaninja.com.

Personally, I'm a fan of stealth, although there's something to be said for bravado. Both are difficult after twelve hours that began at 4:45 in the morning.

Hiatus

2006-06-15T10:21:00.000-07:00

Well. I'm back from New York. Was it even known that I was gone? I was working on a two-month uber-low-budget feature (that would be a fun phrase to write in German. It would be one mighty word) and living in Queens.

Things I learned:
1) When you get a horrible lung infection, take days off. Otherwise you will GET IT AGAIN after a week when you thought you were better.

2) I love riding the subway. I hate driving a car. Can't I live in LA with the great weather and unbelievable produce but do all my commuting in New York?

3) Vegetarian Dim Sum House, Gobo, Zen Palate, Sapa, Sacred Chow, Vegetarian Paradise II, Pukk, Teany, LifeThyme. Eat at all of these before you die.

4) Smiley's. Perfect for those Paton's/Lion Brand urges you just need to satisfy, but don't want to spend more than $1.50 per skein. (Also: discontinued yarns like...Cotton-Ease and Upcountry.)

5) School Products. Perfect for those 100% cashmere or baby camel/merino blend urges you must satisfy, but don't want to spend more than $4.50 per skein.

Can't complain about the hotter weather here, but I'm moving all my furniture today. I guess that means I can complain, today.

Here's our lovely monitor showing the setting of our film's big scene.

The Difference

2006-04-02T19:37:00.000-07:00

On Thursday night I was driving home along Hollywood Blvd from the WeHo Stitch 'n' Bitch (hi!), musing about freelancing and my impending job in New York. I noticed something that will be familiar to crew on bigger shoots than I work on: a yellow corrugated plastic sign that said:

[name of show]
<-----------

That's how you know where to park, find crafty, etc. On the shows I work on, there aren't enough spare PA's to put up the signs, or enough money to make the signs. They call us and tell us to hang a left at the tree that looks like the Fun Fruits tree.

Then I noticed something else that will be familiar to those who work on more well-endowed shows than I: a Shotmaker! It's a big pickup truck with steel-pipe cages welded all over it. You can tie down a camera to any one of the cages and shoot a moving vehicle from the front, the side, or the rear. These guys were driving down the boulevard with three motorcycle cops in front, and they were shooting back at a black Hummer with two actors in the front. There were two HD cameras in the Shotmaker, with four guys paying attention to them.

Let me describe a strikingly similar moving shot I got last fall: The lead character was being chased down a nighttime street by his landlord. Perfect time to break out the Shotmaker. We had a Ford Windstar. We put up the hatch, the DP hung his legs out the back with the Arri SR3 in his lap, I scrunched in beside him, the gaffer scrunched in the other side with a cup light, and the director hung back over the middle seat. We waited for a break in traffic, pulled onto Manhattan Ave. in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, and shot until too many cars piled up behind us, or we saw cops.

I do want to work on shoots with big toys, with cranes instead of jibs and real pyrotechnics, but I would miss the good ol' just-bungee-it-to-the-skateboard, where's-the-duct-tape days. Power to the people, yo.

No Vacancy.

2006-03-19T22:32:00.000-08:00

My friend B and I are looking for a place together: 2 bedrooms in Hollywood, WeHo or Los Feliz. Doesn't need to be huge, but needs to have bedrooms with closets, decent windowage, and fully functional kitchen 'n' bathroom. And it shouldn't cost an arm and a leg. An arm, fine, but not a leg.

It would appear this is too much to ask.

We were walking around Hollywood in an ever-widening spiral of despair, calling every number listed on every sign outside of every apartment building. Nobody answers, no vacancy, $2100 for 600 square feet. Then a short woman dressed in black steps out of the bushes. "You need apartment, yes? Come, first floor, turn right, I show you apartment." Sounded like she was talking around a mouthful of borscht, but we could tell she really wanted us to see this place. Who are we to argue with Russian stubbornness? And delicious beet soup.

It's a cute little gray house-like building with lots of bushes outside. And then bang! we go in and it's the most perfect apartment I've seen in this city. Shiny pale wood floors, crown moldings, little built-in shelves in the corners of the dining room. Chandeliers. It's airy and bright and...chandeliers. In all the rooms.

She was only asking an arm and a thigh.

But there were two girls already sprawled on the floor, filling in their mothers' maiden names and how they got evicted once but it wasn't their fault. And I really wanted to tell them to move, because that's where I was going to put my spring green divan with the mahogany pedestal table, but I really need my thigh money to get me through these next few months of Building My Network.

Back to Craigslist it is.

Knitting socks cuff-down is a fad horror movie.

2006-03-06T17:05:00.000-08:00

The first pair of socks I knit, I knit toe-up, from no real pattern. I did a figure-8 cast on five times until I got it right, then increased until the proto-sock fit over my toes. Then I knit like the dickens until the larval sock fit over my foot to the point where the top of my foot turns into my shin. Then I turned the heel (3 times was the charm for this feature) as per the Pine Tree Sock recipe. Then I decided said pine tree pattern was too sharp and prickly looking to go with my self-striping Laugh-In Regia Ringel (though I do want to try it in a tweedy fir-in-shadow green or fish-scale gray yarn), so I switched to the Firefighter Sock pattern. Lucky for me my socks were of a multiple-of-3 circumference already, and all was smooth sailing.

Then, rather than get stuck in a deep (TWO sock!!!) rut of toe-up-ness, I figured I'd learn how to knit the other way 'round. (Do they knit clockwise in Australia?)

I am now the Blair Witch. The first two rounds of a sock cuff are a fetishistic tangle of bent twigs, crow's blood and sheep hair. They look nothing like a sock. To be fair, neither do the first couple of rounds of a toe-up toe, which resemble a weirdly yonic god's eye. (Weird because it's a solid object in empty space, rather than the other way around, which seems more like what a yoni should be. Maybe it's a yarn hymen?) But after a few more rounds, the wool-and-bamboo marionette starts to look like a sock. I still think I prefer toe-up.

Next up: an eyelet-and-rib pattern for the Blair Witch sock.

Video Village #1

2006-03-01T13:56:00.000-08:00

This is one version of where I spend most of my time. The not-enough-budget, sorry-we-ran-out-of- craft-service version. Although this shoot wasn't like that at all (except for the budget part). It was only one day, and they had fine crafty and a delicious lunch. We were shooting the shortest ends I've ever seen on a cool old Mitchell camera that is the exact same camera used to shoot Midnight Cowboy, according to the DP, who owns it. That's just about my closest brush with Hollywood fame right there.

I guess this is what a spec commercial is: it's gotta look super shiny, but there's not enough money for the stuff that doesn't show up on camera. Maybe one day, when I grow up, I'll work on a real commercial and earn the oodles of money they're always talking about. I should have gotten into this business through the commercial/industrial side and tried to break into movies. Then I'd be earning lots and lots of money while trying to make my way onto artistically fulfilling jobs, rather than trying for the few low-paying, artistically fulfilling jobs while wishing I knew someone who could get me a job on a commercial.

BUT I finished my first socks, and have started my Jaywalkers in Katia Mississippi in a variegated Cadbury's Mini-egg colorway. Ummm...like the pattern, hate the yarn. It's the kind of cotton that's fiddly, even though it's 40% acrylic, which I equated with 40% ease. Nope. It's got a spiffy sort of matte hand though. Now I have to decide if I rip out my 4 hours of knitting (that's 1.5 inches of sock) and start over smaller or if I forge ahead and give them to someone with bigger legs than I. Or if I find another use for the yarn.

That is so gay

2006-02-22T16:36:00.000-08:00

I don't know what it is about Brokeback Mountain, but it has really found a niche in on-set slang. The two pictures I've worked on most recently have featured strong male/male relationships (best friends in one, brothers in the other). And every time there's a "moment" between the two male characters, somebody mutters "....brokeback mountain.....". Once, the two brothers were hugging, and it was a tearful reunion, and they were hugging for a loooong time but the director wasn't calling cut so we were all waiting until he got what he was looking for, when suddenly our bearded brother with the Middle Eastern accent goes, "What is this, some kind of Brokeback Mountain shit?" and everyone cracks up.

Brokeback Mountain also gets invoked when somebody asks for a man-maker, which is what you call an apple box when you use it to make somebody taller. (An apple box can also become a grip-to-ground connector when you sit on it, and is a knitting-posture-enhancing height.)

I haven't seen Brokeback Mountain. I'm not a fan of Ang Lee, not the Wedding Banquet or the Ice Storm or the Hulk or Crouching Tiger. I appreciate that he works in many different genres, but I'll stick with William Wyler. Or, you know, Anthony Mann. Or lots of other directors who are multi-trick ponies who know how to pace things better and how to use a camera better.

But I guess when there's a sort of lesbian undertone to things, nobody goes "....the children's hour....". Or when somebody embarks on a destructive vendetta, you don't hear "...winchester '73....".

Congratulations...it's a sock!

2006-02-20T14:10:00.000-08:00

2 weeks on set and all I got is this lousy sock. Unfortunately lousy. But the next one will be less lousy, and the one after that may even be lacy. Or a jaywalker.

I would be farther along with this whole sock thang if not for two factors:
1) night exteriors
2) heel/ankle trouble
3) I can't count to 3

It's hard to knit outside at 4 a.m. in February. For one thing, it's dark, 10,000 watt lights notwithstanding. Video village, where I hang out, is usually kept somewhat shaded -- real nice on a hot day, not so nice at night -- for easy viewing of the monitor. And even in LA, it's cold. When you've been sitting still since 1 a.m., it's cold. And your knitting fingers freeze up.

Then there were the long dark nights of the soul (or in this case, ankle) wherein I couldn't get the first couple of rounds of ankle pattern right (you'll laugh when you see it). And this was after five attempts at a short-row heel, so I was feeling understandably angsty about the whole thing. The sock looked like ass, and I still couldn't get it, so the sock was exiled for a few days.

Then my fingers started to itch again, and the DP kept asking me how I was coming on the other four toes, so I picked it up again and began the Firefighter's Sock ankle pattern. This is how you're supposed to do it:
Round 1 - *k1 p1*
Round 2 - *k3 p3*

Easy, unless you can't count to three:
Round 1 - *k1 p1*
Round 2 - *k3, p2, k3, [Wait, there's four stitches left, and I'm only supposed to p3...okay, let's count...yep, there's 12 total on my needles like there should be...CRIKEY, I PURLED TWO!!!] tink, tink, tink, p1, k3*

Sigh. I don't think I'm ready for jaywalkers yet.