a bag of chocolate chips

i had a dinner appointment this afternoon and was a little late leaving for it. coming out my front door, i saw my neighbor coming back to her door [roughly six inches from mine]. she said hi and asked if i happened to have any chocolate chips. there have been a few times in the past when they have come by, inquiring to borrow an egg or an onion or some other food that single guys don't have much. but this time, well, we might have chocolate chips. i rummaged through the 'cooking ingredient cupboard' and found a partial bag of swirled chocolate chips and a brand new bag of western family chocolate chips.
may i say, i was thoroughly happy about this.
i proudly offered her the choices, and as she took the bag, she recommended that the 'macy's' brand chips were better [and usually cheaper] than the western family variety.
i was quite glad that i had dawdled around, walking out my door at that exact moment.

and yes, i thought that 'western family' was the macy's brand--i'll have to look into this.

wallet-floaties on a friday night.

my roommate comes home from work yesterday and says that a friend of a guy he works with [or something like that] is going flying tonight and invited him to come along and that if i wanted to come, he would give him a call and see if it was alright. as much as i wanted to hang around the house and tweak pictures in iphoto, this sounded like a much better way to go. so we grabbed our cameras and headed down to the spanish fork airport [no, i didn't know there was one either].

many years ago for a scout activity, we got to go flying in some little cessna, which was roughly the same size as my honda civic, and that's what i was expecting for the friday night flight.
no. this thing wasn't a tiny airplane; it was a teeny tiny airplane. imagine two chairs at the marriott center [or any arena seats] inside of a lightweight metal peapod with wings. like that. and a cool little windshield dome that encloses over you like a star wars fighter.
after several safety tests and checks and a briefing on how to exit the plane should we have a 'problem', mark hopped in while i snapped a bunch of pictures for him, playing with shutter speeds and the rotation of the propellor [roughly 1/250 is best; 1/4000 makes it look like it's not even moving].
i hung out on the ground, texting on my phone and calling friends while they flew up around timpanogos and around american fork canyon.
after what seemed about half an hour [i later learned that it was closer to a full hour], they landed and it was my turn to hop in. i put on the headphones [for talking in a noisy cockpit] and gave some goofy smiles to mark's camera as we taxied out to the runway. in a little 'mork from ork' podplane, you hop off the ground pretty quickly, and before long we were flying off into a beautiful sunset toward mt nebo. at times as we flew toward the snow-covered mountains in the setting sun, it looked very much like the opening shots of 'the two towers'.
we had been out for a little bit when he said, 'it's your plane; you're the pilot.'
wha?
i tenderly took the stick and moved it a little--yes, i was controlling this plane.
lest there be any question, this was nothing like playing 'top gun' on my old nintendo. yes, i knew that the play wasn't really sitting on anything, but had this weird feeling that if i turned too far to the left or right that we would fall over... pull back, and the plane noses up. i push forward, and the plane dives; i assure you, i barely pushed--propelling us toward the ground was not something i was ready to try yet. all death-potential aside, this was really quite cool.
we looped around nebo, where some gusts of turbulant wind bobbed us around enough to make me grab the window [i don't much like turbulance even in big planes], and as we were flying over the land at magic hour, i had to try something. i reached back and pulled out my [light, thin] wallet and set it on the dashboard in front of us and asked if we could do something i had heard about; i knew the physics of it, but physics is best seen in practicality, not theory. i asked if we could climb and then do a nose dive, and he agreed.
the plane went up and we got pressed back into our cushy seats, and then we turned and faced the ground. i felt myself float out of my seat [by the way, i was grateful for my seatbelt], and my wallet did an excellent impression of the 'blue danube waltz' scene from '2001'.
yes, it was awesome.
yes, we did it three times.
yes, i was happy there was a safety net behind the seats; otherwise, the tools would have ended up in our laps.

grinning from ear to ear, we headed back to the airport, very much enjoying the tranquil night scene of lights below us.
before heading home, mark and i stopped at his house and helped him move a piano--certainly a fair price for a good game of wallet-floaties.

yes, em, i am alive

i started work on 'high school musical 2' a few weeks ago, put in an 80 hour week [plus 45 minutes of travel each way for six days], overlapped that with my brother coming to visit for spring break, where upon we went snowboarding, got sunburned, learned to jump my board, watched akira kurosawa's 'ikiru', spent a night in vegas, ate sushi and creme brule, only saw the bellagio fountain show once, joined tim in awe as he went through 'tekken tag' in the arcade all on one credit, learned the the excalibur hotel does actually have some rather nice rooms [in tower 2, not tower 1], got some severe blisters on my feet and no longer like my steve maddens, beat both of them at a very competitive battle in 'super mario kart' at the mgm grand arcade [go team toad!], made two new fans of 'in and out burger'--animal style is the best, played mah-jong as my friends amusedly watched at how similar my brother and i are, and made it to the airport in record time this morning.

em, i also got you card, and am, as always, appreciative and amazed.

closing walls and ticking clocks

it's 12:45 and i'm leaving the studio, walking across the street to the parking lot with the grain silos in it and generally feeling pretty good. i got here at 9:15 this morning, but i don't really mind the 15 hour day. perhaps part of it is because we've got a good crew and stage work is pretty easy. but i really don't mind having a 45 minute drive home and a call at 10:00 a.m. tomorrow. working on 'beyond' last year was much harder--granted, doing 'splits' until 1 a.m. in temperatures reaching the teens didn't help, that's for sure [the series never did air, and it was supposed to be one of fox's big five]. but i think it's got a lot more to do with attitude and expectation. and maybe acceptance.
a few weeks ago, my cool roommate mark made an insightful observation as we were watching 'the office'. he pointed out that unreal expectations lead to disappointment. as i've thought about that since then, i am surprised at the depth of that. in the show, michael has such high expectations that they are never met and so he is continually disappointed, upset, and frustrated. now, there is also a fault in setting one's expectations too low, but that's not for here.
at the end of last year, i hadn't worked as often as i would have liked, and so told myself that this year i would take everything i could; that i would go for it, regardless of the cost [within reason, of course]. and so i don't mind that tonight i had to miss a reportedly very fun fhe and the weekly '24'. tomorrow i am going to miss hosting our weekly 'classic movie' night, and i will probably miss institute on thursday. but these are the sacrifices i accepted to taking when i took this job, and therefore they are manageable.

on a separate but related issue, there is a position open for a nice girl to welcome me home with a tender and appreciative embrace at the end of the day; applications are now being accepted.

always look on the bright side of life

i came home from work, feeling tired but fine, and within minutes the toilet was overflowing.
as i stood balancing on my toes and the counter, i wondered a) why did this have to happen now, and b) how did we clean these kinds of messes when i was a lad?

but now the bathroom floor is cleaner than it's been in a while [and dry], and it really needed it. i've got a cold one in the fridge and a load of damp old towels in the wash.

my choices

late last night i made my oscar picks for cnn's 'inside the envelope' game, hoping that this year i might win that home theater system. mostly, though, i just like making my choices. i like list--they're something to discuss and debate.
so here's what i think:

best film editing- 'babel'- i loved the movie, and its ability to interweave four stories was just as impressive as the way the four were cut within themselves. if not 'babel', my second choice would be scorsese's perennial editor, thelma schoonmaker. 'the departed' was also expertly done as it carried so many layers and told them clearly.

best cinematography- 'the prestige'- five great dp's were up but wall pfister's work was the only one i'd seen and it looked good. i would have voted for 'babel', had it been nominated.

best adapted screenplay- 'the departed'- great story adapted from hong kong's 'internal affairs'. a plot with sub-plots, fake good guys and fake bad guys [and then some], it's a good movie. also, can 'borat' really be considered a script?

best original screenplay- 'little miss sunshine'- i don't think this will get best picture but people love it enough that they want to honor it somehow, and the 'little sundance that could' [and did] did so because of it's script. this is where it will be recognized.

*this is a year in which all four acting categories seemed to be locked. that being said, i think there is a danger in being a 'sure winner' as soon as the nominations are announced; as many of these actors have been gathering awards all year, i think the tide begins to turn as people start to rethink their choices. i only chose one of the four 'certainties.'

best supporting actress- rinko kikuchi for 'babel'- jennifer hudson is the crowd favorite from 'dreamgirls', and she may very well win. kikuchi seems to be second most talked about, and i chose her because i really liked her, though i will be a little surprised [albeit pleasantly] if the academy aslo picks her.

best supporting actor- alan arkin for 'little miss sunshine'- i initially marked eddie murphy in my entertainment weekly list, as he is the other 'sure on' favorite. but arkin has been gaining steam, and 'norbit' has not helped murphy in the eyes of the actors [or anyone else].

best actress- hellen mirren for 'the queen'- yes, she will win it. she has won everything else and there seems to be no one to stop her. and i think she deserves it. she was excellent in as elizabeth II.

best actor- peter o'toole for 'venus'- scorsese has lost five times; o'toole has lost seven. even when his quintessential movie, 'lawrence of arabia' swept the oscars in 1961, the eponymous star lost to gregory peck in 'to kill a mockingbird' [not that anyone could have beaten that]. forrest whitaker is the odds on favorite for 'the last king of scotland', but he has won every other acting award on the planet for that, and there seems to be just enough sentiment around that people would like to see o'toole win that it might actually happen. might.

best director- martin scorsese for 'the departed'- i want him to get his oscar as much as anyone does, but i want him to deserve it; he did not deserve it for 'the aviator' [i'll let you know what i think of 'gangs of new york' later this week]; he did deserve it 17 years ago for 'goodfellas' but lost it. now is his time again, and i think everyone is aware of it. the sixth time is the charm, and the gold will taste sweet.

best picture- 'babel'- i've said so much about it, you know how i feel. there are no headrunners here, though 'the departed' and 'babel' seem to be just a little more talked about. if any of the other three that i have seen win instead, i will be happy for them; they are all very different movies with different stories behind them, and it will be a noteworthy accomplishment for whichever wins. but 'babel' is the best movie of the year. it deserves to be 'best picture', too.

--i do like that itunes has the nominated shorts up for sale; i've never seen more than one or two, but they are interesting, especially considering the directors tell a story in a short amount of time.

--what is the difference between 'sound mixing' and 'sound editing' and what should i look for indetermining my choice for best work?

how to have a fun saturday night

1. get a good group of friends.
2. go sledding. getting there when the sun is up is preferable, but certainly not requisite. similarly, one need not dress warmly, though it will increase the amount of snow infiltrating warm areas and numbs the fingertips quickly.
3. enjoy hot chocolate in a warm home. photo albums, correct-tasting cocoa mixes, and wendy's dollar menues are optional.
4. watch 'the office'.
5. laugh.
6. play mah-jong.
7. repeat steps 4-6 as desired.

good pictures #3

the departed- i have seen 10 of martin scorsese's 22 directed features listed in the moviehound guide, and this is his best work since 'goodfellas' [my vote for his masterpiece]. 'the departed' is not only a very good gangster movie, it is one of the most talked about of the five nominees for this year's very wild card best picture.
scorsese does gangsters better than any other director in cinema history, and after the disappointing 'aviator', it's nice to see he's still as good as ever. dicaprio, one of the best in the new generation of actors, is up for an oscar from 'blood diamond', but his work here as the very undercover cop is strong. balance him with the evil jack nicholson [improving and having a good time of it], the corrupt matt damon, fast-talking and cynical mark wahlberg, and martin sheen as the closest thing to a moral center and you've got a heck of a cast. and a fair amount of blood.
after 'babel's global story, i felt that the best 'the departed' could be is a really good gangster movie. actually, it's a really, really good gangster movie. 'goodfellas' was fun to watch. it has a strong moral at it's core, but he told it in a very enjoyable way. 'the aviator' lacked any sort of fun. it's time to enjoy the movies again. new york italians have been replaced by boston irish, but after the 17-minute set up for the movie, the opening titles rolled as the camera floated through the running stories to and the rolling stones blared--i couldn't help but think, 'it's fun when a scorsese movie gets going.'
'goodfellas' was an insider's story of the mob, the ups and the downs. i get the feeling that some of the guys in costello's group could tell the same story. this time, though, we're not on the inside, but caught in the middle, with just enough knowledge about each side to be excited and still nervous. there's a mole in the gang, but also a mole in the police. that alone is an interesting formula, and when it's thrown around and mixed in different scenarios, you get a good story. at times it can be just confusing, remembering who's lying to who about what and who does know something, but just enough that you can still keep it straight and enjoy the challenge of a layered plot.
along with the moving camera, scorsese's auteur trademark's are integrated music and violence, and both come through here. music is constantly starting and stopping with the action and drama, ranging from classical opera to the irish punk of the dropkick murphys' 'i'm shipping up to boston', the signature song of the movie. holding more testosterone than the great lounge songs of 'goodfellas', the music can be as tough as the gangsters.
no one really does violence like martin scorsese. his shots, the staging and style, all carry the indelible mark of the artist--nothing carries scorsese's signature more clearly that the way he shows the sudden burst of rage between thugs. perhaps it's because he does not glorify it. it is intriguing to the story, but it's never a brawl or shoot out you want to be involved in. when leo attacks a pair of goons in a diner, we cringe. gun fights feel dangerous, because here the bullets actually seem to pierce and kill people, not just knock them down [and extra nod goes to the sound designers for the subtle effects, too].

it's a good story, told by one of the masters at full force. scorsese described it as his 'b-movie', and perhap it is, in genre. in skill, it is an a-movie all the way. editing and cinematography do what they should do, remain invisible in telling the director's story, yet there are moment where both elements step forward like a jazz soloist, to have some fun and show us what they can do. everything works here. if you like scorsese, like gangster movies, this is about as good as it gets.
---even better than i expected---

the best picture battle here is between 'babel' and 'the departed'--they are the two strongest movies out. but a 'little miss sunshine' has a good chance, too. or maybe 'the queen'. and i haven't even seen 'letters from iwo jima'. it's going to be fun to watch the awards.
who do i want to win? and who do i think should win? 'babel', no questions.
who do i think will win? no idea.

good pictures #2

babel- of the three nominated movies that i have seen, and knowing what i do know about the two that i haven't seen ['the departed' and 'letters from iwo jima'], 'babel' is going to be the movie to beat this year. it has every attribute of not only a great movie, but a 'best picture' as well. every technical aspect is so finely tuned it is invisible, making us forget almost immediately that we are watching any sort of pre-fabricated creation. everything looks completely authentic, from the deserted wastelands of morocco to the high-rise apartment of downtown tokyo, and the floating handheld camera captures the moments so immediately that even when we break from the screen and remember that this is a movie, it's almost impossible to imagine that there could be a crew of any size standing outside the field of view; there is no one but us, peering to look because everything is so intriguing.

the movie looks as if there were no lights used anywhere. the huts seem to be lit only with the gray light coming though the windows; at night, the dessert has absolutely no light bet the bright headlights of the car--there are no 12K lights giving even a slight 'ambient moonlight'; helicopters flying over cities, the japanese metropolis, everything looks completely natural. but not in the way a 'dogma 95' movie looks, where no lights were ever used, but the way the world looks to our natural eyes. we almost never notice the lighting around us, as our eyes naturally adjust and recalculate the way we balance light and dark. the movie was shot by rodrigo prieto, one of the prominent dp's of the new generation, and his work here is some of the best i have seen in any movie. no, it is not the beautiful masterwork of a conrad hall movie, nor the impressionistic style of 'punch drunk love'; it is the most realistic and natural lighting i know of, in that he makes the camera see the world the way a human eye does.

'babel' has been compared to 'crash', last year's best picture about colliding stories of racism in los angeles. and it is, but as i was admiring the elusive naturalism of 'babel's cinematography, i compared it to 'traffic' [which is either more realistic or more stylized, depending on how you want to look at it]. the structure of the movie is also akin to soderbergh's masterpiece, in that the storylines are connecting, but not intersecting. ideed, the japanese connection is not even discovered until partway through the movie, and it is barely attached. but that is not the point. even brad pitt's story and that of his children are independant enough that the familial ties are necessary only to justify having the stories in one movie.
like 'traffic', the stories play simultaneously in the movie, intercutting from one to the other, often leaving one just as a moment of crisis or tension strikes [particularly in morocco]. while this is a great skill of editing, the cutting within the stories is particularly strong. i loved the painful craziness of the ultra-modern dance club mixed with pills, where shots jumped so erratically that i became disoriented myself. at different points as the stories progress, there are montage moments where the sound fades and music carries the scene, when words are spoken but not heard, because we don't need to hear them; the scene does not become pastoral, but ponderous, giving us a break from the aural to think about what is happening. we do not need to hear to know the universality of human experiences.

just as the technical aspects of 'babel' are flawless, the artistry of the movie is profound, showing so much without telling us anything about what we should think. there are no 'stars' in this movie; it is a true ensamble piece. brad pitt is the most prominent face of them all, but does stands out no further than the dvd title menu. the movie follows the events of three or four groups of people struggling to live their basic lives. communication barriers and misunderstandings arise all around them as the natural result of an increasingly small world wher people are paradoxically pushed closer together and isolated. brad pitt and cate blanchet battle for literal live over death, while rinko kikuchi, as a deaf tokyo teen, pounds against her personal walls, both physio- and pyschological, to live life. her character is unquestionably flawed, by her own choices and compounded with choices of those around her, yet it is impossible not to sympathize with her agony and frustration as she lowers her standards further and further in desperated attempts to have connect with another person. anyone.
what is the plot of the movie? i'm not sure. if i thought on that for a while, i could give you descriptions of what happens with each story, but that would not entice you to see the movie. nor should it. while we were on the edge of our seats for the fates of the characters, the resolutions at the end are only enough to let you leave the movie, but not its questions. it is about communication, what aspects are cultural, geographic, and specific, and how much of what we do, say and think are universal. apart from that, what it's about it what you take from it.
---much, much better than i expected---

i have not yet see 'the departed' or 'letters from iwo jima', and it seems that scorsese may be giving the biggest competition. i am a fan of scorsese, but even if 'the departed' is everything i've heard, at best it will be a really good gangster movie [brad pitt turned down a role in that to do this]. 'babel' is bigger than that; it reaches beyond boston, beyond the mexican-american border, around the world and back again.
this is the best movie of 2006.

good pictures #1

the queen- 'the queen' will not win best picture. there are several reasons why, but none of them have to do with the quality of the movie. and hellen mirren will most likely win for best actress. being nominated for the crowning award is prize enough for this movie, because this an excellent movie and the oscar attention brought it to the box office top ten for a few weeks, giving it the audience it deserves.
'the queen' gives us a very inside look at the upper eschelons of england during the spring of 1997, from the landslide election of tony blair through the death and funeral of princess di in september. what we take from movies is partly dependant on what we bring; i knew almost nothing about the prime minister, the royal family, and the controversy of diana's funeral. and so that is what i got out of it.
the royal family was not particularly fond of the princess, but they did not know how much she meant to not only the britains but also so much of the world. after the tragic car crash, there is a great cry from the public that the royal family should show respect and care for 'the people's princess', a term coined by blair that created a ripple with the monarchy. and so much of the film is the delicate game of balancing progression with tradition: diana was no longer a part of the family, and so they are under no obligation to do anything, but to the public, she was the last vestige of humanity that they saw in the traditional royalty. caught between this is the new and inexperienced prime minister, confused at how he can mediate the parties. the story seems to elevate blair almost to infallibility, portraying him as the rescuing hero, and perhaps he was. i do not know, but there is nothing to suggest that unreasonable adaptive changes were made.
while this does not sound like the most gripping plot [it shouldn't, because it isn't], the movies interest comes from the intimate and real look at the royal family. helen mirren's queen is a real person, not a stoic relic left over from elizabeth I of centuries before. what is fascinating is what the queen does do. she is not chauffeurred everywhere, kept from the sun by a parade of servant. no, she drives her own hum-v [the original, not the yuppee brand] through the back woods, and when she gets stuck in a river, she hops into the water pulls out her cell phone to call for assistance only after checking things for herself. this is the queen.
the crown does rest heavily, and she weighs what she is obligated to do with what her pseudo-subjects demand, while the prime minister's wife talks of abolishment. and, in a quiet but insightful scene as she and philip pass by the ocean of flowers and tokens left for diana, the queen begins to understand how the people see her and how they see the late princess. with that, a shift of patterns and tradition begin; it will take adaptation, but there is room for the queen of england in the twenty-first century.
---about what i expected---

*i do not think that 'the queen' will win best picture for three reasons. first, it is a 'small' movie, following the actions of a small and exclusive group, with no epic feeling or grand power [yes, there are exceptions, most notably 'driving miss daisy']. second, it is about the politics of the queen of england the prime minister. it is interesting and enlightening, but does not engage the heart and souls of the predominantly american academy. and third, in the globalizing and socio-cultural-political environment of the current world, pondering the meaning of tradition vs. progression falls to become a minor issue.
now, i am not listing any of these as faults of the movie. rather, this is the playing field and i do not think now is the time for a movie like this.
on the other hand, the academy may say, 'heck, it was a nice movie' and it will win.

little miss sunshine- the big movie at sundance last year is a best picture nominee this year--in america, anyone from anywhere can make it if they get a lucky break. and 'sunshine' deserves it. at the core is a sweet little girl who dreams enough to follow but not enough to obsess over it day and night. and that sweetness and charm become the heart of the movie. surrounding her, of course, is a family. eccentric? or are they rather common now? 'dysfunctional' is an easy classification, but i like steve carell's comment that he 'never thought it was about a dysfunctional family, because to me they seemed functional. ...once they get together and start traveling, they work like a well-oiled machine.' i like that.
olive is too young to have any serious issues yet, but her loving family [no sarcasm there] has plenty of quirks. and a bright yellow vw bus that can only start in third gear, so they have to park it on a hill or push start it, and hills aren't too common. and it loses a door.
it is not a grand movie, but is big enough for a family, with no space for a definite lead role. steve carell is probably the most recognized name at the moment, and shows his acting range in playing a suicidal gay uncle and not michael scott. he is not a charicature, nor would most people ever think him gay were it not mentioned in the storyline. alan arkin's grandpa is another example: he has a foul-mouth and does drugs [with reasons, skewed though they be] but also sincerely loves olive as truly as any grandparent, and certainly seems to spend as much time with her as anyone. even the depressed teenage son who has taken a vow of silence has multiple facets, redeemed best in a deceptively simple and tender scene showing the power of love unfeigned.
'little miss sunshine' is a comedy, but it is not a laugh-a-minute slapstick, nor is it a wes anderson style story where things get funnier with each viewing [although it may be; it's hard to tell sometimes]. it tells a story about a family with several funny incidents. as the eponymous pageant is reached, i realized that not only did i not know what olive's performance routine was, none of the family seemed to. along the journey, i thought about how the movie could end: she wins, or she doesn't. neither seemed to work, and the movie was well aware of this and picked the wise third choice. it was outrageous and fit everything we knew about each and every character. i do not doubt that each person would have done precisely what they did in reality, and the results solidified the movie as being about family. there is no saccarine taste; it is honest, sincere, true.
---better than i expected---

maps and legends

one of my friends stopped by today to show a map she had a made. in her free time, she has developed a whole world, full of characters and their histories. she once showed me a drawing, filled with probably thirty distinct people, and was able to tell me about each of them in such a way that hinted at there being so much more she was holding back. today she brought by a large map of their world.

it was her perfect world, she said, as she pointed out the mountains, valleys, grasslands and deserts, forests, rivers, frozens tundras, floating islands and barren ashlands; a place where people had adventures. she asked if i had a 'perfect world', and i said yes, presuming that i had imagined something like that in junior high [jon, can you sustantiate this in any way?], but i couldn't provide any descriptions of my perfect world when inquired. she then said that she wasn't quite sure what 'perfect' meant, citing a moment when she had accidentally knocked over a glass of water and wondering if Jesus ever did something like that.

as i thought about the concept of perfection, i continued to look at her fabricated 'perfect'
world. it was not all monotonous. there was variety, high places and low places, warm and cold. there were even safe places and lands that were forboding. indeed, to have adventure, an environment of struggle, danger, and the unknown must be present. and this was a perfect world.

now, her world was not fully thought out to the point of flawlessness, and there are many philosophical theories on the definition of perfection, but when she sat out to create her perfect world, it was not one of a continental grassland or beach, where everyone walked barefoot or the temperature was always a sunny 78 degrees.
the world i live in, geographically, socially, and personally, has mountains and gullies, hot climates and cold regions, cities of peaceful security and shadowlands of struggle and hardship.
what would you want a perfect world to be like?

55

six months ago we were playing four square and a friend asked how old i was turning. i told him i was 27 and he ponderously said, 'wow, halfway to 54'. i liked the way that sounded, and have described my age as such ever since. and so, now that i am 27.5, i decided to throw a 'halfway to 55' birthday party--'transformers: the movie' and apple beer. it's my party and i'll do what i want.
i promoted it, told all of my old skool friends and new church friends, and when the night rolled around, it was me, my roommate, and three girls. mark and erin bought me a balloon and a colander [i can't tell you how happy that made me; any sort of pasta-related cooking has been a nightmare around here], and one of the girls bought me a bag of presents, including a toy gun that comes with aviator glasses.

'transformers: the movie' isn't a very good movie. actually, considering it's a big screen jump of an 80's cartoon that was created solely to sell toys, it's pretty good.
but most girls don't appreciate the boyish joy of watching optimus prime battle megatron, of seeing unicron bring life to galvatron, or experiencing the autobot matrix lighting 'our darkest hour, 'til all are one'.
but i tried, and i did cheer by myself.
captain amazing, i wish you could have been there.

and yet, things picked up. ssa called to say that she had made me lime bars [which carries a story itself], another group of friends came, and even adding numbers alone helped the festivities. but having just one more person who truly, madly, deeply appreciated this movie for the nostaligic camp greatness that it and its soundtrack held made everything so much more fun.
jess even showed up, and despite there being no people from her circle of friends there, it was great to see her and we had a nice but short conversation together.

i am halfway to the big five-five, hot rod did rise up and become rodimus prime, and i've still got two bottles of apple beer in the fridge.

nothing personal...

happy valentine's day
may it be red and sparkley

that's me in the corner...

mark and i got spotlighted at ward prayer tonight. [we were interviewed at seperate locations orginally] it went down something like this:

Q: if you were an ice cream flavor, what would you be and why?
M: stawberry, because i like it.
J: elder's quorum president's bash. i'm sure it would be chocolate.

Q: do you speak english?
M: [not asked the question]
J: minnesotan.

Q: favorite cartoon character?
M: jeff gustafson, because he makes me laugh.
J: milhouse, from the simpsons--he reminds me of me.

Q: favorite movie?
M: ocean's 11--it's good
J: the lion king--it's perfect, funny, i can sing along [and dance along] and it has good truths of being a better person.

Q: brothers and sisters?
M: youngest of 7, five girls and two boys.
J: one brother and one sister; i'm the oldest.

Q: if you had to be locked in one place forever, where would it be and why?
M: in my lover's arms.
J: in a spaceship with a nice girl, because i like nice girls and we could explore the stars.

Q: where are you from and what are you doing?
M: from cedar city, vernal, orem, and provo, studying construction management.
J: from minnesota, learning to play the accordion.

Q: favorite cereal?
M: peanut butter cap'n crunch.
J: depends on the day-- indulgent: marshmallow matey's, sober: cinnemon toast crunch, ambitious: honey bunches of oats.

Q: favorite holiday?
M: my birthday.
J: Christmas--it's the most wondeful time of the year and minnesota has wonderful blizzards.

Q: if you could meet anyone, who would you meet and why?
M: adam--he's the father of all living.
J: adam--he could answer any of my questions.

Q: should guys open doors for girls?
M: it should always happen.
J: very pro- opening doors. getting into the car can sometimes be tricky, but after 27 years, i've figured out how to do it.

Q: who is your hero and why?
M: bishop johnson.
J: bruce r. mcconkie, because he preached with power and authority
conan o'brien, because he makes me laugh and is respectful to all of his guests
my sister, because she's one of the most amazing people i've met and knows all about me and likes me anyway

Q: something people may be surprised to know about you?
M: i used to be a cheerleader in high school.
J: i sleep with a stuffed animal.

1

since i been gone:

becky and i went to washington d.c. and philadelphia, where she interviewed for grad schools while i saw many cultured things, including the very cool jefferson memorial, ran the steps at the philadelphia museum, and enjoyed a cheesesteak with emily [who inspired me a year ago to start writing this thing] and got meet her very cool new little boy and talk with her husband, who's really a great guy; saw the barenaked ladies from the second row and loved every minute of it, standing next to beej and his wife [almost two years ago to the day, we were in the same place cheering for r.e.m.]; enjoyed one of the most delicious thankgiving feasts ever with my sister and kirk and his wife; went on a very fast trip down to burbank then up to boise and back to slc all in two days for a rather weird little documentary, but learned that southwest airlines doesn't have assigned seating but does have the friendlist attendants i have ever met; surprisingly had the funding pulled for the movie i had spent the last two months producing and worked through the mess that followed; was let down with 'the pursuit of happyness' but really enjoyed 'rocky 6'; enjoyed a brown Christmas in minnesota [the first in 50 years] where i got hooked on 'mah jong' and had an absolute blast playing tennis on my brother's wii; got digital canon rebel; watched 'primer' and 'shrek 2' and was again reminded how amazingly awesome both of those movies are; took a trip to the mall of america and finally visited the hard rock cafe in minneapolis; indulged in a bit of my childhood and bought a 3rd printing of 'teenage mutant ninja turtles' #1 off of ebay; and even got to go to a moorhead spuds hockey game [and they whalloped the other guys];

trying to 'save up' old postings isn't really the best way to do things. so now you're all caught up.

in one year, i wrote 164 posts; a little less than one every two days, and never more than one per day. and some of those were actually kind of interesting.
thank you for reading.
comments are always apprecaited.
here's to another year, and hopefully 200 posts [or at least one in each month!]

one more thing i swore i'd never enjoy

as far back as i can remember, i've never liked country music. i'm not entirely sure where that notion came from, but by sixth grade i was sure country was about the worst music ever. no, i had never really listened to it, but i didn't like it.
in recent years, i've met some nice and charming ladies, midwest farmer's daughters, and even my current roommate, who have helped me to see that country music could actually be kind of fun.

over the past few months, my sister has been spending time with a nice boy who is a very good country dancer. they go out on saturday nights and have a wonderful time, and a few weeks ago invited me to go with them. it was really an unfortunate experience on my part, as i got there in a rather sour mood and after learning some basic steps, did not feel like dancing. it wasn't one of my brighter moments.
but i wanted to go back and try it again, when i was in better spirits.

becky said she and her nice boy would make dinner, i called a nice girl and she was excited, and suddenly i had a rad saturday evening planned. looking at my closet that afternoon, i knew the cowboy hat was a must, but instead of a 'country' shirt [which i don't even own], i had a thought. i called kristin and said but two words: 'shiny shirt'.

well, not only can she sing along in the car, her wardrobe came through in spades. her shiny shirt gave mine a run for the money, and her mom and i got a bit of a fashion show highlighting the other amazing thift store finds she has.

becky and her nice boy have been dancing for a while, so they gave us a quick lesson on the country cha-cha or something: we watched a 'how to country dance' video and ended up dancing into the wall without learning much anyway.
but no worries, they give lessons at the center if you get there early [admission is less, too].
i did musical theatre for five years in school and was pretty good at singing, but usually ended up in the back for the dance numbers [my brother has fared much better at dancing on stage]. college wasn't much better for me: i took social dance and passed the tests only because my partners would often quietly count the tempo for me; tap dance was really rather fun, but i also got my worst grade at byu there.
the lessons given at the... what kind of a place was this, anyway? ...community center? ...were very helpful, and by the end, kristin and i were looking pretty good--we could even do a couple of dips.

yes, we danced the night away.
we hung around becky and brady [he's a nice boy], because i easily forget steps, moves, and anything related to dancing, and he was happy remind me what i learned fifteen minutes before. there were times when i would look over and see him throwing my sister around in seemingly-precarious fashion, yet she always landed safe and sound. ...which is not to say that i always did the same; i was dancing with becky for her to show me something new and accidentally dropped her on her back. hooray for tough sisters.
had you come that night and seen us, you'd have thought we'd been coming there for weeks--it's easy to learn and a blast when you do. kristin is one of those hyper-social people who knows at least five people wherever she goes, and we got to give her friends a couple of pointers. that was a confidence booster.
being out there on the dance floor with my sister was a rad little experience. as close as we are, we don't do a whole lot of active social outings together, particularly in the dating scene. seeing her out there, dancing it up and getting thrown around, laughing and line dancing [by the way, this wasn't your easy-to-do byu line dance], was something we'd never really done before and was a blast.
and i want to go back.

of dumplings and curry

in the summer of 2003, i went up to preston idaho and worked on a goofy little movie called 'napoleon dynamite'.
in the summer of 2004, 'napoleon dynamite' was the crazy surprise hit of the summer and i'm sometimes in bafflement even to this day.
in the summer of 2005, a lot of the 'nappy d' crowd got together in the beautiful [and rainy] forests of oregon to make a movie called 'the sasquatch dumpling gang'.
in the winter of 2006, 'sdg' played at the slamdance film festival in park city, but i didn't find out until it was too late. i heard mixed reviews about it.
in the winter of 2007, 'sdg' played at the lds film festival in orem, ut, and i saw it.
it was better than i feared it would be.

in the middle of december of last year [i.e. last month], we had a reunion of film friends from byu, and i had a fun chat with stacey snider. we decided we should get together sometime and do whatever people do when they get together. on this particular evening, that included a movie staring a guy who is now a mac and a some bigfoot poo. we then added thai food and a game of mah-jong, for good measure.

it's always an interesting experience, seeing a movie that you worked on, because we shot it out of order and context, the actors are the same guys you have dinner with, and all those names in the credits are your friends.
i liked the parts of the script that i had read, and i thought i could see where they were going with the script; it was very much akin to 'nappy d', but if anyone was allowed to follow that, this group was. but i felt that the casting for 'gavin', the lead kid, was inaccurate; instead of an awkward kid with glasses and a crew cut, they got a teen hearthrob. i'd never heard of him, but kohl, my friend and hotel roommate, told me that if you google his name, you get a lot of sites devoted to him. i have no reason to doubt that, as everywhere we went, groups of teenage girls would gather, just hoping to get a glimpse of jeremy sumpter. this casting decision yielded different results than what i, as the camera loader, invisioned for the movie. couple that with the difficulties we had in meeting our daily schedules and i was feeling worried for this script that held potential.

it's a fine movie. it won't sweep the nation by storm, but i think it could do well in theaters and make its money back. the 'rashomon' structure works nicely, showing different branches of the story develop, and so adding dimension to the movie. justin long, now famous as the 'mac', was a joy to watch on set, and that charisma holds on the screen. he plays a 30-year old white trash neighbor, and balances the line dividing character and caricature with ease. his energy and enthusiasm carry the movie.
i was surprised at the other character that stood out to me: sophie. in a movie of six main characters, five guys play distinct varieties of nerds, freaks, and geeks. yet sophie, 'the girl', manages to avoid any exageration or hyperbole, and instead deveops a nice girl who we believe is real; she is not the drop-dead attractive girl who likes the nerds only because the script tells her to, nor is she bland and one-dimensional. delicately played by addie land, she fits like a welcome breath of fresh air amidst all the skewed boys around her. she was quiet on set, but stood out on screen without being distracting.
somehow, the whole thing worked. despite being contrary to my presupositions, gavin's character fit into the fictional world of clackanomah, oregon, although it may be that the world fit around gavin.

the provo-orem area is ripe with thai places, but my personal favorite is the thai ruby, just south of byu. and while i am trying to branch out and try new things, i really couldn't see any reason to not get the green cury yet again. and the conversation was as exhuberant as the food, if food can be called exhuberant; stacey and i told stories of world travel, swapped elephant stories, and discussed the structural and thematic elements of 'the office'.

comfortably full, as thai food often does to one, we went back to the house and i taught the peoples how to play the ancient chinese game of mah-jong. i really do love this game, and, after a few rounds and a little help translating the chinese characters, i had a made three more fans who could differentiate between a 'chow' and a 'pung'.

a few 'office' psa's and we called it a pretty awesome night.

the hard rock fridate

orlando, new york, philadelphia, seoul, osaka, bangkok, minneapolis; it sounds like a collection of 'global underground' cds. i've been to hard rock cafes all over, but never to the slc. so what a better way to throw down the new year's dating gauntlet, right? i called a nice girl and she agreed to go on a date with me, and when i found out that there was an organ-accompanied showing of buster keaton's 'go west' at 'the organ loft' in salt lake, well, that finalized the requirements for a wonderful night. [incidentally, this was the same girl who went to see keaton's 'college' with me a few months ago; but she was very happy to go--hooray for cultured people].

racing north on I-15, we sang along to countless random songs, and all the while i was impressed with kristin's knowledge of music that i thought was obscure. i've said it before, if you can sing along with me, you are a step above the crowd. mark and erin were in the back, not singing along. but they're 'dating', so i don't know what official couples do.
despite having the address for the venue, i had a hard time finding the place ['the organ loft' is a little tiny building that is tucked away on a small street and looks like a non-descript bar from the outside], so we were a few minutes late. walking in, we saw a room like a small community center with chairs set up on the floor. and, since we were ten minutes late, we pulled up some chairs in the back, putting us far enough under the second floor mezzanine that we could only see the screen by slouching in our chairs similar to that of a very bored seventh-grader. then, to add confusingness to it all, up on the screen was not buster keaton but charlie chaplin. now, i know chaplin is the more famous of the three great silent comedians [can you even name the third?], but in the general concensus of cinephiles, keaton is the master. and i most certainly agree with that.

i suspected that maybe this was just a short we were watching, and after it had gone on long enough that i began to wonder otherwise, it ended, and they introduced the night's feature, buster keaton's 'go west'.
seeing any buster keaton movie with a live accompaniment is a treat, but this was the weakest of all that i have seen. the plot followed the standard structure of the down and out but lovable hero trying his darnedest to fit into a culture not his own, all in a effort to win the girl; nearly every movie of his is the same, tried and true, and beloved by the fans. what was missing, however, was the unbelievable physicality that leaves us not just amazed that he did it, but that he survived the fall, train, bull, house collapse, bridge collapse, car collision, etc.

the slchrc, apart from being a little tricky to find, was the emptiest i have seen just about any hard rock cafe. this proved advantageous as the evening went on.

our waitress was hip and told us about the coolest memorabilia to be found throughout the establishment, the ok go 'treadmill' video played, much to our pleasure, and the food was quite good. when the girls were asking for take-home boxes, the restaurant had cleared out enough that we were told we could stand on the tables to take pictures if we'd like [and i was quite happy that my sister had agreed to loan me her camera]. so we did. we stood on tables. and chairs. kristin and erin were dressed almost identically, so we got a picture of that. mark and i posed as best we could in front of the wall of 'kiss' artifacts. we saw madonna's pointy-braziere thing. kristin and i made muppet faces. we got our cool waitress to join us for a picture in front of a bust of elton john. and then danced in the booth. kristin is a much better dancer than i. at least, she can keep a straight face longer than me.

the evening ended with the four of us back at our place, sharing favorite videos off youtube, including the charlie brown Christmas special set to outkast's 'hey ya', live performances by k.t. tunstall, the white stripes' 'denial twist', and the family guy's parody of a-ha's classic 'take on me' video.

some nights, you just can't go wrong.

on 'kill bill'

a few days ago, alyssa left a comment on 'all these things that i've seen part II'. it was quite interesting, and my reply got so long that i decided to put it up front, instead of buried in the archives.
so there you go.

Alyssa Rock said...
This comment is deeply buried in your blog so I doubt you'll ever see it, but I just wanted to offer my empathy on Kill Bill. I had to watch both Kill Bills for my "Intro to Graduate Study" class at the University of Kansas. My prof thought it was a brilliant example of post-modernism. And yes I agree with him that they're quite brilliant from a post-modern perspective. For one, they're so packed full of references to popular culture and Asian camp that it would take many, many days to annotate all of the other films that Tarantino references in this one. And yes, Kill Bill 2 is much better than 1 in my opinion.

That being said, I strongly regret having seen them. I watched them unedited and they were pretty difficult to stomach. It's being required to watch films like that which made me leave my PhD program. I don't mind violence if it has some sort of transcendant purpose. But Kill Bill just felt *so* post-modern it was just self-indulgent. Anyhow... thought I would offer some validation for ya.
3:59 PM


-->jeff * said...
first off, i do browse older postings to see what comments do get left. of course, i can't help but wonder if you'll see this reply....

tarantino is perhaps the film critic's poster child for the post-modern film of the last 20 years ['annie hall' is a great example of inter-textuality from 30 years ago, by the way], and i think he has become overly conscious of that trait, though perhaps not to the self-destructive extent that shaymalan did with his own style.
talking with darl larson shortly after the movie came out [and long before i had seen it], he commented on the massive amounts of nods and homages to the kung fu movies and obscure asian films [and i'm sure darl has seen more of them than anyone else i know, even dean].

yet referencing your vast personal knowledge of film does not make your movie a masterpiece. perhaps if i could recognize what godzilla movie that sunrise shot was from i might get a few of the movie's winks and nudges. i've read before, in reference to adaptations [particularly comic book to movie adaptations] that a movie should stand on it's own; if i have to have read a fair amount of the 'fantastic four' canon to appreciate the movie, then the movie cannot stand on it's own and is therefore not a good adaptation.

all that being said, i don't think that knowing those references would make me appreciate the movie more [knowing that uma's yellow jumpsuit is a nod to bruce lee hasn't done a lot for me], although if i had seen hundreds of kung fu movies, i would most likely have developed a taste for it and therefore enjoy the movie more on the basis of a love for the genre.

i do not think, however, that the majority of movie-goers did not like the movie because they recognized motiffs from 'tokyo showdown.' rather, i think they reveled in the obscene amounts of gore. as several friends told me, 'yeah, but it's so over the top it's hardly even real'. perhaps, but if a movie is finding its strength on absurd shock, that's not much a of movie, even if it is 'done well'.

now, there is the argument that perhaps the film maker was making a commentary on how extreme violence has become in our society [i've heard that a few times in regard to 'natural born killers']. ok, though i again would be surprised if even 'most' of the audience left thinking that society was too violent and that they needed to make a change [if that were their train of thought, they probably wouldn't buy the dvd when it came out].
so then the argument becomes a kind of 'caveat emptor', placing the responsibility on the viewer, saying that we, as viewers, need to be educated and aware of what we watch, not sitting back for a rollercoaster, but keeping our minds awake and considering what the director is saying.
and if the intended audience was for darl or dean, i would concede to that.
but it's not. tarantino is a film maker for the masses [although the bergman/renoir crowd likes him, too; the circles are not mutually exclusive], and that carries responsibility [no, he is not the culprit, just the topic at the moment]. true, guns can be used well with responsibility, but that does not mean they should be given to the careless or the youthful.

i didn't think 'kill bill vol.1' was a very good movie, and that it gleaned its power from extreme shock violence. surprisingly to even me, i quite enjoyed 'vol.2'. but that's for another post.
4:09 PM

wake up (it's 2007)

Christmas is really my thing.
new year's, not so much.
i don't have anything against it, but i'm not one who looks forward to the party and all that jazz.
however, i have made a couple of changes that make me cooler for the new year.

first and foremost, i now have a gmail account, after repeated insistance by my sister that i sign up so that we can chat on g-chat.
i've been feeling the need for a new email address for a while, anyway; when i got back from my mission six years ago, signing up with yahoo as 'macavity_0' seemed pretty cool--a nice reference to t.s. elliot.
but now, well, it seems a little sophomoric, not to mention confusing on a couple of levels. so i often give out 'goose@byu.net', which ends up in my yahoo account anyway.

the chance to get a new account was a fresh idea--and becky pointed out that it's cool to just use your name with a gmail account anyway. i was planning on just doing 'jg@gmail' and leaving it at that.

after several rejected tries, i was beginning to wish i had signed up with google a few years ago, when they were still new-ish, and there were still choices available.
'jg@gmail' was too short.
so was 'goose@gmail'--it has to be at least six characters.
'jeffgustafson', 'jeff.gustafson', 'jeffreygustafson', 'jeffrey.gustafson', 'j.gustafson', 'jeffreyg', 'jeffrey.g'--all were taken. ....and i really liked that last one.

but, like most e-mail services, gmail offers you possible suggestions based on your crushed hopes. for example, 'gustajeff' was available.
but my favorites were 'gustafsonmeister' and 'gustanator'.
now, i've always held google in the image that they were 'cool', leading the e-world pack.
and i think that still stands, which makes the '-meister' and '-nator' suffixes so baffling; those were barely cool in 1992 anyway....

after much frustration [and giving up once, until i got another sisterly-invite to gmail], i finally came upon a name that i liked and was actually not taken:

'gustafson' isn't as difficult to spell as a polish name, but it's always been a little frustrating to give, because i usually have to spell it out for someone and then tell them how to say it [but without any great stories like 'bytheway']. after over two decades of this, i finally realized the perfect trick to pronouncing my surname:
'it's like a 'gust of wind', but a 'gust of sun'.
that works like a charm.

and so that's what i chose: gustofsun@gmail.


i've also been introduced to the quintessential chinese pastime, mah jong. reportedly quite popular with old jewish women, i'm adding myself to the ranks. friends of mine bought identical sets for one another for Christmas, and after having me and becky over to play, i was hooked. they offered to sell me their extra set on an installment plan [$5 down already], so i now have my own very nice mah jong set [complete with very poorly translated instructions]. i know the rules well enough to play a game, although we find ourself wondering about certain aspects everytime we play. so we make up our own rules and press on.

if you're interested in learning to play, stop by my house sometime. i'll be happy to teach you.

maybe i should have chosen itslikeagustofwindbutagustofsun@gmail.