I will always love you as sung by Dolly Parton

James Deavin from the series The Games We Play

No mames

Desiree Holman, Masks (Conduits of Fantasy) 1

The Online

Brendan Lott, Oil on Canvas
What Are My Motives, Are They Selfless Enough,
Are They Righteous, Righteous Enough?

It is day two of the online of my documentary in what we estimate to be a 6-day painstakingly tedious process of color correction and tweaking of shots to a price tag of you-don't-even-want-to-know. Let's just say, had we not needed to go through this process in order to deliver our film back to the people who helped pay for it, I would be the owner of fairly new, fuel-efficient compact car.

So here we are, waiting to hear the results of who got into Sundance cuz we are pretty sure we didn't, filing our rejection letters as fast as we are sending out applications, and making everyone in the film look better than they actually did–or at least, better than how my camera captured them. I get to catch up on crossword puzzles and emails, while sitting in a dark room all day, wondering about what might happen next. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I am looking forward to attending a few festivals, like maybe those in Italy, France or Hawaii. You know, the kind that offer air travel, hotels, and happy hours. It's not the primary nor even close to the tertiary reason I got myself into this kind of mess (making films, that is), but I could use a little reward for all the energy spent right about now. I mean, it hasn't even played to an audience of more than 2 yet.

But back to reality. I suppose I should sign up for that loan deferment again. At least I made it a couple years this time. I've postponed looking for a new place to live til after the holidays, and I have a couple editing jobs in line through December. I keep thinking now would be the time to write that Great American Screenplay that's been cluttering up my desktop for a few years, but I can't seem to bear to open it to see where I left of.

All that to say, it's not a bad time for me. And if you know anything about me, you should know that I always sound more negative than I really feel. I generally like this time of year. I am not as stressed as I usually am. I don't have everything riding on the success of the film anymore. And the BF and I have been getting along, in our small, small space, despite the fact that we have both been working from home together. And for the record, while I was the one who whose brilliant idea was to rent the abysmally art school-y Fur, he was the one who paid for both of us to see The Mist. Haven't heard of it? Yeah, exactly.

The ice film done-ith!

Camille Seaman, Tabular Iceberg, East Greenland 2006

Well, almost-ith.

For the last seven weeks I have been about ice. Call me the Snow Queen, call me Snow White, just don't call me Ishmael. I came on to the ice film as an editor a year after shooting in Norway completed, and a week after someone else finished assembling the scenes. Not a bad way to start a documentary and a real treat–after having just edited a film that took two years in post and probably logged in at about 350 hours of tape–to be on a film where the estimate for completion topped out at a mere 6 weeks. Of course, turns out they underestimated, but it wasn't like, by a year or anything. No, that would just be the underestimate on my own film.

So two films are done-ith and I am out-of-a-job-ith. There are a couple weeks left tidying up things here and there. Maybe a week or two of paid work, but that's it. And while I do get to enter a whole new phase with the distribution of my own film–one that means the rejection letters will be piling up faster than I can burn them–the time has arrived for me to move on. Just not yet sure to what.

My Master Plan had been to be spending this year traveling from art residency to art residency, amidst a flurry of film festival travel, oh, but if it weren't for those pesky rejection letters! Plan B offered the option to start teaching again and putting that degree to some use, but here we are mid November with the academic year well into motion. Plan C, well, we are coming up with Plan C right as we speak. One hopes one doesn't have to go to Plan: No Way in Hell, and start editing for television again.

My boyfriend's advice is to just spend less money. But I've got a dog to feed and house. And PPO health care with exorbitant rates and even higher deductibles. And a student loan the size of a median house in Manhattan. And. And. And. Just when I thought I had the time to finally start going to therapy again.

So here's to something new. Something wild. Something blue.

Ice, Ice Baby

photo of ice guitar, lit on fire from the ice music documentary I am currently editing. Only the strings and the head and tuning pegs weren't ice. Click to enlarge.

And they said it couldn't be done.

Why Loaf Man is not a good screen name...

list via to-do list

...but Mario Plimp is.

As I sit here and write this, I am checking off my own list of notes from the first rough cut screening of the ice music documentary I am editing. Note to self: try to do notes before too much time elapses as aforementioned list usually scrawled in completely unintelligible writing.

Tiny tumbleweeds

Laura Nix, Abandoned Car, from the Accidentally Kansas series via Amy Stein

My birthday is almost here. I will be 37. If you add those numbers together that equals ten. A nice even number. I hope this year is more even than odd.

P.S. I am not going to Amsterdam.

The Good, the Bad, and the Blue

Melanie Pullen, Blue (Water Series)

The Good:

My birthday is coming up. My boyfriend is coming down. And I was invited to Amsterdam. I haven't been to Europe since I was underaged.

The Bad:

Despite our best efforts, my boyfriend's son has decided to go through with his enlistment. Even though he is Native American, Mexican, Arabic and Columbian. Even though it looks like the Marines are coming back with more injuries than anyone else in the Armed Forces. Even though I am pretty sure he knows that the war in Iraq (and soon to be Iran) is not only a losing one, but quite questionable morally. And even though we offered him a place to stay and about a bizillion alternatives.

It's hard to imagine what he might be thinking...but then again, it's not hard at all. I know, having lived on the Rez for the past number of years, that he probably took one look around and saw how little opportunities there were available to him. I know that he thinks it will save him from the Meth addiction that runs so rampant in that community. I know that he desperately wants to become a man: in the eyes of his family, his girlfriend, the greater culture. I know that it became important to him not to drop out of his enlistment, like he dropped out of going to college. But it breaks my heart even to understand it a little. I mean, he only graduated from high school a few months ago.

Welcome to America.

The Blue:

I don't know what more to say here. I think I've covered the blue already. I remain optimistic about the year–after all, I finished a film, I fell in love, I found a dog. But, for the people around me it hasn't been that kind of a break out year. A friend, father and husband killed himself. My film partner is separating from her husband after 20 years. Same film partner's brother is dying from a long history of drug addiction despite the short span (36 years) of his life.

I wish I had more to offer today. Something funny or at least mildly amusing. But I guess none of it is really good nor bad. And it doesn't always make me blue.

It's just life.

And I carry it with me. Just like my boyfriend's son. Just like you.

The Iceman Cometh

Justin Quinnell's In-Mouth Pinhole Photography

I've been in the process of moving over my old blog to this one-one painstaking entry at a time. The writing used to be so much better! Jeesh. Lo siento. It used to be up a little higher on ye ol' priority list. But for whatever reason I persist over here. Only now with a much lower readership (thanks for the comments Mom!)

But today just consider yourself lucky. I am sick and under deadline and yet I still manage to squeak in a post. For you? It's the least I can do. The weather back home is horrendous. The leak in our roof is still not fixed and the dog snores loud as ever. It's great to be back! Too bad I have to leave again on Sunday!

In other major news we are adopting a son! Technically, he's 18, but that doesn't mean he as any other place to call home. Actually, it's not really as adoption, since technically speaking the adoptee is my boyfriend's son. But it's pretty new to all of us involved. I shouldn't be joking. I should really stop kidding now, because it would really piss my boyfriend off if I made light of this situation.

It turns out, he had enlisted in the Marines (the son, not the boyfriend) and so my boyfriend begged him to come stay with us instead. I mean, what would you do right? Let the poor kid get his leg shot off, just because he didn't get it together to go to college? You would do the same, no matter how small the apartment, no matter how tight the funds, no matter how tenuous the relationship, no matter, no matter, I mean right?

Well, we'll see. For now the son is staying at Grandma's until I leave this weekend to go back south to finish up the ice film. And for the record, the son–while a bit overwhelmed and a lot undermotivated–is a sweet, charming young man–not unlike his father. I handed him Junot Diaz' The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao which he devoured in two days and which made me feel pretty right on considering that I had just met him. We pulled out some 20 more books for him to graze and I am eager to hear the reports back.

So here's to our wondrous new lives, with all the surprises they may bring: to the son, that he may not join the military; to the father, that he may get to know his son; to me, that I may survive with all wits intact; and to all us, that our dreams not be deferred too much longer.

To leave you with a quote which I was hoping would tidily wrap all things up from headline to finish line, but which only further exemplifies the enigma that is life (and this post):

What's it matter if the truth is that their favoring breeze has the stink of nickel whiskey on its breath, and their sea is a growler of lager and ale, and their ships are long since looted and scuttled and sunk on the bottom? To hell with the truth! As the history of the world proves, the truth has no bearing on anything. It's irrelevant and immaterial, as the lawyers say. The lie of a pipe dream is what gives life to the whole misbegotten mad lot of us, drunk or sober.

-Eugene Ionesco, The Iceman Cometh

Tell me

Alessandra Sanguinetti, The Adventures of Guille and Belinda and the Enigmatic Meaning of their Dreams

Has it really been 3 weeks already? My time is about up here in this sunny town. I ate lots of Pinkberry, I saw a few films, a made plans to co-write screenplays, I drank coffee, I did yoga, I ran through the park, I saw one show, I watched bad television.

And, oh yeah, I worked my ass off. But now the holiday is over. I go back home, I finish up the film (and you thought it was done!), I look for more work, I apply to festivals. The cycle continues.

But while I was here I enjoyed completely not being in charge. Tell me what to do! Please! I look forward to stumbling on a new project.

But not anytime soon.

This about sums things up

photo by Eliot Shepard

Trees and gum.

I can't say much more at the moment. Think about blowing a bubble. Or accidentally swallowing your gum. That's where I am right now. Somewhere in between those two places. I wish I could say more, but I'd just be complaining.

The evenings are long when you can't sleep. And lonely when you are 400 miles from home.

Short history of the earth

Kim Keever, from Short History of the Earth

Ironically, I am here in the city where the sun gazes down on it's inhabitants cheerfully 365 days of the year to edit a film about ice. It's odd to be back in a place that changes so little. Buried in a stuffy little edit room, scouring through snowy vistas of alpine ski-resorts, shots of blocks of ice gathered from hundreds-year old glaciers, and people bundled up in fancy Gortex parkas, there was a moment yesterday where I actually felt a chill. And then I stood up, realized I hadn't put the fan on all day, and that my pants wet with sweat were sticking to my chair.

I know. Gross.

But that's not all. Besides being sunny, this town has an enormous capacity for consumption. Last night under the full moon and the warm Santa Anas, I walked with my friend, the struggling writer who lives with his family, through a part of town that while being quite lovely and walkable was nothing more than an elongated mall. Shops and shops lined this promenade, all of which remained open til nearly ten. Walking beyond the shops, the blocks than stretched into rows and rows of restaurants, large and windowed, waiters standing by to greet the guests that would never come. Did these places ever fill up? So much space! So little occupancy! I felt sad for all of us: for the businesses that couldn't fill their seats, for the customers who–judging by the amount of restaurants open for business, had never had to cook a meal–and for me, realizing that we as a society would never be cured of this kind of relentless consumption.

I know, I know. Speak for yourself. We aren't all like that all the time. Most of us can't afford to be. And I myself was there for a dining experience with a friend whom I hadn't seem in a while at a small inconspicuous bistro where the corkage was cheap, and his uncle supplied the wine.

And I know, I know, that same city where I live has the exact same problems. I just know the right places to avoid that don't remind me quite as blatantly of my consumerism, visit only the areas I feel comfortable in, all the while trying to support the local Mom and Pops. But I guess I am saying that it makes me sad to find myself caught up in the same mindset (I have a wedding to attend this weekend and had to shop for a dress, than shoes to go with a dress, than underwear to wear with the dress, a small bag to go with the dress). It makes me sad that this if often the easiest thing to do. To buy thoughtlessly, wherever the cheapest shit is available, no matter the unfair labor practices behind the manufacturing, the toxins released into the environment, or the lead-in-the-paint of the actual on-the-shelf object.

And it makes me sad looking around at all these shops and restaurants, at all the people out for the evening enjoying themselves through purchase, that once we behave like this, and once we have taken it all for granted, we will never be able to act differently.

View of artist's studio set-up

400 miles from home in a place that I used to call home

Nathan Baker, Pot from the Rupture series via Amy Stein

Today, on the on-again, off-again early Fall rain, I drove four hundred miles south to the home of my family. For three weeks I will be living under the same roof as my parents (!), working as an editor (no longer a director), and most importantly, not working on my film which is supposedly done. I can barely admit it to myself, but the fact of the matter is that I am mostly depressed about the film, and I am not quite sure if it is because I think it could be better (there really is nothing more painful than sitting behind a sound mixer for hours on end, becoming inured to your own film as it's images flash repeatedly at varying intervals in front of your eyes and questioning every edit decision along the way) or if it is more of a post-partum blues kind of thing where the pain of letting go rivals the confusion of not knowing who I am anymore if I am not working on the film (something I have been doing for six years now).

You'd think there'd be some joy buried in here somewhere, and I keep waiting for it to hit me, some relief, some thing. But all I can manage right now is wavering between reviewing the credits yet again (gotta make sure I remember every one!), fucking around with the font size of my subtitles, chewing my nails over the score (which is actually the one thing I can't control since I am not much of a musician), and feeling like it may in fact, really be just, well, done, and even if it's not great, at least, it's all over.

I think the troops will rally here, and when I say the troops, I am really referring to me, myself and I. I am really, really looking forward to–at least, on a theoretical level–not being in control of every little thing, not having to look at my film every day, and diving into something new. I am also looking forward to establishing some new routines in my life, like writing regularly (as opposed to guiltily or desperately squeezing it in), making shorter, smaller and more introspective pieces, walking around and exploring the familiar yet always re purposed terrain of my crazy home town, hanging out with the good friends I never get to hang out with down here, and getting back to at least one of those things that are supposed to be good for you like yoga, or biking or whatever the hell it is, that'll put me back in touch with my neglected post-production corpse of a body.

There. Not very exciting. Not yet. But changing. And like the Phoenix from the ashes, or at least, the larva from the cocoon, we are hoping something new will happen here.

Negotiations, permutations and undulations

Jonathan Gitelson, from the Dream Job series

The boyfriend and I negotiate everything from the moment we wake up to the hazy fog of our slumber. A morning ritual might go something like this:

It's your turn to make the coffee. I made it yesterday. I did the dishes. I bought the groceries. I'll make us dinner...

While the evenings' plays out more like an Abbot and Costello routine:

Did you take the dog out? I didn't take the dog out. But you said you would take the dog out. Yeah, but the dog didn't seem to need to be taken out. Can you take the dog out now? I can't take the dog out now....

And so it goes. Future deals are bartered, past ones invoked and present ones renegotiated. Each has to feel like the other is engaged in some kind of compromise, or all bets are off. It's an art at which we are becoming highly skilled, a habit to which we are now accustomed and just an oddly practical way of being in a relationship. No matter if it's returning the DVD to Blockbuster, which side of the bed to sleep on, or at what time and in what way we should be having sex, the negotiations are deliberate, quite often fervent, and most importantly, necessary to the health and well-being of our relationship.

Although romance has not been high on our list of accomplishments thus far, there are more important ways–my boyfriend likes to inform me–in which one can prove oneself. After all, when we are diapered and forgetful, wheel chaired and cataract'd, when no one else will want to hang around, romance and it's illusions will be useless. Dependability–with a concise set of instructions–will be much more helpful.

I like that my boyfriend challenges me on my ingrained, and un-feminist notions, but why must they be so hard to shake? And if I can't train my dog - nor my boyfriend - to bring me flowers and chocolate–ok, in my case it would be more like potted cacti and well, yes, still chocolate–will someone advise me who I can train?

Burbujas de Amor

Jill Greenberg, Untitled #5

My boyfriend likes to sing in the shower. In English or in Spanish, it doesn't matter. He has this uncanny ability to remember the lyrics to songs after only hearing them once or twice. He's always telling me I should learn Spanish by listening to the music. But I have a hard enough time even understanding the words when sung in English.

This morning he was singing Burbujas de Amor, a song by Juan Luis Guerra that was wildly popular in every country where there was a sizable Spanish-speaking contingency around 1991. I was in Mexico at the time and I don't know if the song was written for the self-titled movie or if the movie came out as a result of the huge success of the song (and the same question came up in a recent dinner conversation about Against All Odds), but the basic translation is bubbles of love.

Guerra, known for reinvigorating the Dominican bachata-and there my musicology promptly ends, go to Sound Taste for the real scoop-became a crossover hit, went on to limn songs of protest before converting to Christianity and completing (or ending, depending on how you look at it) his career with albums of devotion.

Anyway, I suggest you download it. Although, the instrumentation sounds a little cheesy now, it's definitely a sing-and-dance-a-long. And not a bad way to learn a certain kind of ingenious double entendre in Spanish. Or for those in the know, a revisit of a classic that will no doubt take you back instantly. I mean, there wasn't a baptism, grocery store, or bus ride wherein that song wasn't played.

I wish I were a fish, so I could poke my nose into your fish tank and blow bubbles of love wherever you want … a fish, so I could adorn your waist with seashells and spend the whole night buried in your wetness.

The reason why

stencils from the Wooster Collective

It's day one of my sound mix and I decided today was the day that my film totally sucks. What was I thinking! And who chose that composer? Egads.

Sigh.

Yesterday, I thought it was great. I thought it was the balls (OK, I don't even know if that's supposed to be a good thing!) And now I am questioning every decision I ever made on it. At least I can be sure the font that I chose looks pretty good...I think.

Oh, hell.

It's the constant internal dialogue. The needling perfectionism on one hand and the desire to just fucking be done with it on the other. I have been telling my boyfriend that I have been done now for months now, but it never seems to end. There is always another creative decision to be made lurking on the horizon. I mean, when, I ask, when do I stop having to agonize over every little persnickety detail??

And when will the benefits start to outweigh the gut-wrenching pain of making something from my own two hands?

Ways of seeing

click to enlarge, Chris Jordan, Prison Uniforms, 2007
10x23 feet in six vertical panels

Depicts 2.3 million folded prison uniforms, equal to the number of Americans incarcerated in 2005.

It was this time a year ago I found myself in Ucross, Wyoming luxuriating as an artist for two whole weeks. It seems like so little time now, but back then, it was two hard-earned weeks that felt like I had worked all my life towards. To be fed three square meals a day without shopping, cooking or cleaning up! To have not just a room with a view, but my own studio complete with saw horses, spot lights and enormous blank walls–repainted, I was told, after every artist left no matter if they were a graffiti artist or an artist of the loom. And most importantly, to have someone out there validate me as an artist worthy of hanging out with other artists and allowed to spend my day art making no matter what the results!

Ah yes, it was another time indeed. And though I promised myself that within the year I would, no doubt, be invited to attend another such residency, the reality is that I have been rejected three or four times. Turns out, they are rather hard to get into...

So here we are, lamenting the fact that I don't get to roam around the dusty plains, camera in tow, cowboy hat firmly on head, tooling around a rusty bicycle, searching for anything that makes me open my eyes. If I were to be honest, it's the seeing I miss most. Having spent the better part of the year since then either holed up behind the computer, hurriedly walking the dog twice a day, or negotiating the peaks and valleys of a new relationship, it is an exercise to which I greatly look forward. Focusing for one year on a singular goal, makes one tunneled-vision to say the least. It's about time I take some time to start absorbing once again, for, as John Berger would say, we only see what we look at. To look is an act of choice, obviously one critical for anyone who even dreams of calling herself an artist.

And I choose.

Detail at actual size:

What's not to love?

Corey Arnold, from Bering Sea Crabbing

My God, has it really been almost three weeks since I've written anything? Judging by the date of my last post, I have to assume Yes! Partly I've been busy. I mean like ass-glued-to-the-work-bench, sleeping-for-days-in-my-contacts, too-weary-to-even-run-for-breakfast/lunch/dinner busy. And partly, I've managed to piss off my family (again!) by writing something needlessly cavalier just for a cheap and most unlikely laugh.

So, insert deep breath here, to my sister who came up to visit with her family–kids and all–for probably only the third or fourth time in her own life and definitely the first time in their lives, I apologize. It was a pleasure to watch my nephew, scared and excited, delicately hand over the doggie gift he'd been holding onto for over four hundred miles, it was my honor to escort the gang through our city's exemplary children's museum of science–perhaps even redefining the "human scare response" exhibit–and it was with great sadness I left them standing at a long line waiting for a ride on our city's famous public transport (editor's note: Casey has perhaps taken some poetic license here).

I totally appreciated the visit and the only excuse I have, is that sometimes I totally suck. The girl who learns not to put her foot in her mouth is a girl I hope to one day meet.

Why come?

Adam Fuss, Untitled, image from pinhole camera

We survived the wedding. We survived the in-town guests. Hell, we even survived the 70's. But let's get down to brass tacks here: the film is done! No wait, it's not really done! I may cut it down to an hour. I may cut it down to 75 minutes. But technically it's reached the length it's supposed to be and that time is 86:40.

I still have to work with the composer, which means I have to let go of my temp track, which is a lot harder than I ever imagined. How do I let go? One song at a time I suppose. But I am sure the composer is sick of me saying, can you make it sound a little more like this? Something akin to giving line readings to an actor I imagine.

There are still a few more shots I need to, well, shoot. And then there's that spot about 50 minutes in where time seems to stand still, and that's not in a good way. Plus, there's the fact that we still don't have a title. OK! Not so done! But feeling done-ish. And ready to let the editor go.

The good news is that I am finding ways to squeeze in smaller moments that I really missed, but couldn't place anywhere. Like when one schoolgirl talking to another says: puberty, I don't know whats that anyways and later, when that same schoolgirl talks about her boyfriend, explains, almost wistfully: we give each other pencils. I have fallen in love with the action in the background, the things no one would ever catch upon first viewing, and I find myself spontaneously repeating the film's lines throughout the day: c'mon slow children! polyester...100% and that is so a lie! We find ways to amuse ourselves. We find ways to let go. We find ways to ignore the following question:

How will we define ourselves when this is all done?

Away from home

Jona Frank, Siobahn, Girl Scout, CA

A packed bag! An airplane trip! A family wedding to attend with my parents! OK, scratch the exclamation point on that last one. While I am happy to get out of town for the weekend, and happier still to be typing this up at my long lost friend's house while she breast feeds the baby, I do have to admit that I am not looking forward to another family wedding. Another family wedding where the bride and groom are at least a decade younger than me, another family wedding where I have to attend stag whether it's because I'm single...or well, because in the eyes of my family not being married means technically I am still single. And another family wedding where, in lieu of attending with a date, a partner, or hell even alone, I am tagging along with my parents. On the up side, at least I know that means I will be leaving early.

In other news, I have big plans for this short weekend in the city of my birth. There are palm trees to stand beneath, traffic to sit in, and star sightings to miss–and I'm not talking about those to be found in the ursa minor. Wish me luck! I'll have my screenplay in hand and a sharpened pencil for my free personality test.