I always go backwards when I back up

[rinue]

Friday:

The boar's head fest, a biannual renfair-ish dinner and signing of songs in the 1860s medieval-revival church to celebrate the Epiphany. Mom costumed fully a third of attendees, and was approached by another third about commissioning costumes for next time. I wore a very heavy white velvet dress with several feet of train, and a very tall veiled two-pointed hat.

Despite this, REL, Ciro, and I snuck into the basement to investigate the secret passage hidden behind the boiler; you have to squeeze through a tangle of pipes, and then there's a rock staircase hewn into the wall that leads up to a door, which leads to a long dark hall with fans. That's as far as we went this time, due to costumes and lack of flashlights.

Saturday:

I have a head cold again, or I suppose a chest cold, since I am coughing up teaspoons of yellow phlegm.

We hung out with REL's friend Joe and saw True Grit. Given the cold and the fact that I hadn't managed to sleep for a couple of nights, I wasn't able to have thoughts or feelings about anything, and was restricted to admiring the film's accomplishments on a technical level (including dispassionate appraisals of performances and writing). I'll have to watch it again when I'm more cognizant, since I couldn't tell whether I had any emotional connection to the film. In the meantime, I'm willing to give the Coens the benefit of the doubt. They've earned it. As always, a pleasure to revisit the photographic eye of Roger Deakins

Beautiful midlength gray cashmere gloves from Val arrived.

I picked up some overtime on CSPAN, which means I was on deck for coverage the Rep. Giffords shooting. My mom's name is Gabby.

Comments

[oddment]

I didn't hear about that til late in the evening, and thought of you and whether you'd be captioning, and whether you'd be okay. It seemed like a more unfounded worry at the time.

I have such a terrible skills-admiring-based crush on Roger Deakins, which I now feel completely justified in because you have mentioned him. I mean I admire his work.

[rinue]

I wouldn't normally be captioning that day, so it was a bit odd. Covering it wasn't that difficult, in that everyone making speeches was respectful and on the same page. It did mean a lot of research. It felt more strange than sad, partly on purpose because it's important enough that I think I need to caption it as accurately as I am capable of doing (to be distinguished from as accurately as I am required to do) and don't have room to have feelings about it when I need to be concentrating.

Deakins is probably my favorite cinematographer, and just a baseline cool guy. Always funny and nice and educational in interviews, and the forum on his website is great. He answers questions and posts his lighting setups and just generally is generous about sharing knowledge with other cinematographers and aspiring cinematographers. He's sort of a cinematographer's cinematographer.

It was great a couple of years ago when he was nominated for an Oscar for both The Assasination of Jesse James etc. and No Country for Old Men, so that we could all stand around and try to decide which one was shot more impressively by him. It of course split the vote, and There Will Be Blood (also good) won. Deakins has the most cinematography noms without a win (8) of anybody alive.