Sleep is for the Weak and Unworsnzzzzzzzz
It's been a busy week, between the first seven days of SIFF and (for Memorial Day weekend) Folklife. I've been doing OK with posting capsule reviews on Facebook's Flixster, but LJ's fallen by the wayside. It's the old story: I get grand plans for a clever write-up on the opening night gala that I want to do right, but there's never quite time, and suddenly the queue of LJ entries gets too deep to dig out.
Of course, I haven't always been making enough time for things like dinner, or sleep, and the latter has particularly been catching up with me. The five films (the first of which starts at midnight) and Short Film Award Party this coming Sunday aren't going to do anything to help the sleep dep either. So, tonight I made an executive decision: sometimes you hit the wall, and sometimes the wall hits you. Two films on my list tonight, and neither is really on the "absolutely can't miss" shortlist, so I'm home with a pizza and maybe some real sleep before rolling into the weekend instead.
And maybe a few updates. We'll start slightly out of order with a "first, I'm OK" that I just found out should have gone out Saturday night or Sunday, depending on how busy your news was (it seems I haven't been making time for local news, either).
Northwest Folklife is one of our two big music festivals at Seattle Center (the park around the Space Needle), the other being Bumbershoot, which caps the other end of Summer over the Labor Day weekend. Of the two, Folklife tends to be the less-structured, "hippier" festival. I didn't go to any of the programmed performances, but just wandered about soaking up the buskers, drum circles and funnel cake vendors, which is what a lot of people are doing even if they aren't just taking the most scenic route between several Lower Queen Anne SIFF venues.
Apparently, while I was up on Capital Hill (i.e. the other side of town) someone in an argument near the drum tent tried to pistol whip someone else and the gun went off, hitting three people (no life-threatening injuries, I'm very relieved to report). That's inspired a few "magic bullet theory" comments, but if you've ever tried to thread your way through the crowds at Folklife, the only wonder is that more people weren't injured. This is the first serious violence to occur at Folklife in its 37 years. The photo in the news article captures a lot of the disconnect - as the shooter is being hauled off, there's someone in a brightly-colored costume watching, shocked. That's resulted in intense amusement for a lot of the younger Intarwebs crowd, but "unselfconsciously whimsical" is a big part of the festival, and a lot of people are worried about how this shooting will change that.
(Oh, and lest anyone jump to conclusions about how the Left Coast Surrender Monkeys would react, especially at a festival that's more patchouli and prairie shirt than slam dancing, the gunman didn't get away because four bystanders tackled a guy who already fired a gun once as he ran past, instead of just fleeing.)
So, I do have my "suggested donation" buttons for all four days of Folklife, but my past week has really been SIFF, starting with Battle in Seattle a week ago Thursday night and running through eight more features, nine shorts, and four documentaries that I've seen just so far.
As I said earlier, I've been trying to dash off quick reviews through Flixster, but not all of the titles are in their system (or even in IMDB) yet. Some of the ones that weren't, last time I checked:
One thing that hasn't been eating nearly as much time is Warcraft. After slightly over a year as guild master for my merry band, and with SIFF looming, I passed the torch on. There are a lot of open issues, and I wouldn't have minded seeing them through before stepping down in order to provide some continuity, but I knew SIFF was going to eat time that someone needed to spend shepherding several issues in-game, and I also knew the guy I'd tapped as successor has already been putting a lot of work into things and would hit the ground running. It's all rather relaxing.
Well, if I'm going to try and get some real sleep tonight, I need to go do so. I have renewed hopes to get smaller chunks written up, more often, although that may require setting aside some sort of "regular LJ time" over lunch or something in order to keep from vanishing.
Of course, I haven't always been making enough time for things like dinner, or sleep, and the latter has particularly been catching up with me. The five films (the first of which starts at midnight) and Short Film Award Party this coming Sunday aren't going to do anything to help the sleep dep either. So, tonight I made an executive decision: sometimes you hit the wall, and sometimes the wall hits you. Two films on my list tonight, and neither is really on the "absolutely can't miss" shortlist, so I'm home with a pizza and maybe some real sleep before rolling into the weekend instead.
And maybe a few updates. We'll start slightly out of order with a "first, I'm OK" that I just found out should have gone out Saturday night or Sunday, depending on how busy your news was (it seems I haven't been making time for local news, either).
Northwest Folklife is one of our two big music festivals at Seattle Center (the park around the Space Needle), the other being Bumbershoot, which caps the other end of Summer over the Labor Day weekend. Of the two, Folklife tends to be the less-structured, "hippier" festival. I didn't go to any of the programmed performances, but just wandered about soaking up the buskers, drum circles and funnel cake vendors, which is what a lot of people are doing even if they aren't just taking the most scenic route between several Lower Queen Anne SIFF venues.
Apparently, while I was up on Capital Hill (i.e. the other side of town) someone in an argument near the drum tent tried to pistol whip someone else and the gun went off, hitting three people (no life-threatening injuries, I'm very relieved to report). That's inspired a few "magic bullet theory" comments, but if you've ever tried to thread your way through the crowds at Folklife, the only wonder is that more people weren't injured. This is the first serious violence to occur at Folklife in its 37 years. The photo in the news article captures a lot of the disconnect - as the shooter is being hauled off, there's someone in a brightly-colored costume watching, shocked. That's resulted in intense amusement for a lot of the younger Intarwebs crowd, but "unselfconsciously whimsical" is a big part of the festival, and a lot of people are worried about how this shooting will change that.
(Oh, and lest anyone jump to conclusions about how the Left Coast Surrender Monkeys would react, especially at a festival that's more patchouli and prairie shirt than slam dancing, the gunman didn't get away because four bystanders tackled a guy who already fired a gun once as he ran past, instead of just fleeing.)
So, I do have my "suggested donation" buttons for all four days of Folklife, but my past week has really been SIFF, starting with Battle in Seattle a week ago Thursday night and running through eight more features, nine shorts, and four documentaries that I've seen just so far.
As I said earlier, I've been trying to dash off quick reviews through Flixster, but not all of the titles are in their system (or even in IMDB) yet. Some of the ones that weren't, last time I checked:
- Hair: Let the Sunshine In - IMDB lists it as a "TV" title, which was my reaction to it, even if it did make the festival. Lots of self-congratulation from surviving members of the original cast and crew, a great deal of suggestion that we need that spirit now more than ever in the age of Bush, a few token references to some of the problems or disagreements that came up during the original runs, and a suspicious number of carefully-constructed shots of a 2007 revival cast make it sound suspiciously like a made-for-TV promo reel for a 40th Anniversary run.
- The Wrecking Crew - fun, if maybe a bit overlong, documentary about the session musicians that provided backup (and, in some cases, all of the studio instrumentals) for a staggering number of 60s classics. One of the most interesting messages was how much of it was, especially at the start, not being too proud to show up - being willing to do it when other studio musicians were saying "no, I'm a jazz musician" long enough, early enough, that when the labels ask who is used to working together, can knock it out under studio production pressures without a ton of rehersal, and have the chops to improvise hooks and licks when the charts aren't rocking, they know you are better at it and more reliable than some of the bands themselves.
- Secret Festival Week One - OK, maybe that's not really the IMDB entry. It has one, but if I told you I'd have to kill you. Which is a shame, because if you aren't a Secret Festival member, you missed a very good film. The Secret Festival can sometimes be uneven - it still has three more Sundays to be uneven this year - but week one, I think, justified the series price for me already.
- A Wink and a Smile - this whole evening was great fun, as a package. It was the world premiere for the film, a documentary about the Seattle burlesque performance community constructed around ten women of various backgrounds going through a "Burlesque 101" class run by local professional Miss Indigo Blue - and as far as I could tell, the entire Seattle Burlesque community turned out in support. The evening started with several of the professional dancers "go-go dancing" in front of the curtain, and finished up with a Q&A with the filmmaker, the instructor, and all ten of the students. True story, touching on only some of the support she got from the community: a documentary about dance performance is going to have a ton of music, between classes and shots of performances, all of which requires the filmmaker to chase down and in many cases find money she doesn't have for clearances. So, local burlesque band Orchestra L'Pow knocked out over ten original compositions in a month so she could have cleared music for the film without paying a small fortune. Another true story, touching on the joys of being Beth Barrett, SIFF Programming Manager - the filmmaker only turned in the final edit to SIFF three days before the Wednesday premiere (which was, umm, somewhat after the start of the festival - and well after the catalog went to press, of course).
.jpg){kind=link}
One thing that hasn't been eating nearly as much time is Warcraft. After slightly over a year as guild master for my merry band, and with SIFF looming, I passed the torch on. There are a lot of open issues, and I wouldn't have minded seeing them through before stepping down in order to provide some continuity, but I knew SIFF was going to eat time that someone needed to spend shepherding several issues in-game, and I also knew the guy I'd tapped as successor has already been putting a lot of work into things and would hit the ground running. It's all rather relaxing.
Well, if I'm going to try and get some real sleep tonight, I need to go do so. I have renewed hopes to get smaller chunks written up, more often, although that may require setting aside some sort of "regular LJ time" over lunch or something in order to keep from vanishing.