-Read Disgrace in two days.
Strong. Disturbing. I’m sure it’s already been optioned and will become a movie very soon (which is not necessarily a good thing).

-Saw Les Ordres (subtitled, which meant B. could watch it too).
That movie had made a very strong impression on me when I was a teenager. I know people who were put in jail during the October crisis and it’s amazing to think that this happened in Quebec, not so long ago. I was also amazed to see how I remembered entire lines and shots from the movie, even though I probably only saw it once or twice before.

-Saw House of Sand and Fog.
Since we’ve been deep into this whole “house thing”, B. and I thought we had to see this movie. Overall a good movie, interesting in its shift between the point of views, but needs a tighter structure and less melodrama at the end (Cut that violin, will you? The images and emotions were strong enough.) One thing is for sure: see this movie and you’ll never look at your unopened mail in the same way again.

-Bought a laser printer.
With this new screenwriting thing I’m doing, printing drafts of 120 pages can take forever on an inkjet printer. It can also empty the cartridges very fast. Last time I needed to bring a draft to the producer, I visited 4 printing shops and neither one of them could print the script on the spot. Getting the screenplay to the producer on time turned into a nightmare, so I did a bit of research online, read the advertising brochures that came to my door and picked the HP LaserJet 1012, for 200$ (after rebate, full cartridge included). Installation was no problem at all (even though a lot of people complained about installation problems on epinions and cnet) and the machine is the fastest laser printer I’ve ever used. It’s also cute and tiny, which never hurts, right?

-Ate a lot of old style doughnuts.
Baked by my brother in law, just like my mom used to make them. Heaven with a glass of milk.

-Ate fabulous turkey soup.
Made by Blork, who has been feeding me like a little pig he’s planning on eating for New Year’s day. Maybe I should start to worry…

-Took a walk in beautiful old Boucherville.
Found the house of my dreams, facing the St-Lawrence river (any beautiful river/ocean would do).

-Finally made Mozilla my default browser.
That should make a lot of you happy.

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There’s a very interesting interview with Walter Murch on Apple’s Web site (linked via 2Blowhards). Murch is a famous film editor who was in film school in Los Angeles with Coppola and Lucas and who has been working more recently with director Anthony Minghella. There’s also a great book of conversations between Murch and Michael Ondaatje about the art of editing.

Murch, whose credits include �Apocalypse Now� and �The English Patient,� has a history of pushing tools as vigorously as he pursues the fluid cut. Still, he turned industry heads by choosing to cut �Cold Mountain� � an $80 million picture � on Final Cut Pro and several off-the-shelf Power Mac G4s. To keep it interesting, Murch conducted his experiment halfway across the world in rural Romania, where the film was shot to capture the look and feel of 19th-century North Carolina.

Are new editors missing anything by learning on non-linear editing systems instead of older systems, or is that older editors waxing nostalgic?

The other �missing� advantage to linear editing was the natural integration of repeatedly scanning through rolls of film to get to a shot you wanted. Inevitably, before you ever got there, you found something that was better than what you had in mind. With random access, you immediately get what you want. Which may not be what you need.

I was in film school in San Francisco in 1990 and at the time, digital filmmaking tools weren’t available. I had to learn to cut movies on antique looking machines such as the upright Moviola and the 6-plate Steenbeck. Ah, the magic of the light coming out of 16mm footage viewed through a Steenbeck screen! I remember how surprised I was when our teacher showed us how to make a cut. I couldn’t believe you actually had to cut the movie and splice it back with tape, repeating the same movement from the picture track to the soundtrack. How exciting it was to actually hold the movie in my hands, cut it and put it back together, while checking the cut over and over again to get it right! I had often heard people refer to movies as a craft and it’s exactly how it felt. It was like weaving or even macram� (only the results were more interesting, of course).

A couple of years after I finished the film program, the school built a new Fine Arts building with all the most recent high tech tools available for the students. I felt envious yet I was glad I got to learn film editing the old fashioned way. The “cuts” I’ve done since then, on Premiere or Avid, are just not the same thing as the splices I did in film school.

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I survived… well, WE survived, though my beau shouldn’t try to lift too many of my presents at the same time.

It’s still Christmas in this part of the world, so merry everything to all of you!

Joyeux No�l et joyeuses f�tes � tous! (Je n’arrive pas � trouver quelque chose de plus original ou plus profond � vous souhaiter. J’ai surv�cu � ce No�l, mais la fatigue se fait sentir.)

Bises and best to you all!

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Belup belup belup!
This is my sultry and poultry poem.
Sweet turkey, I come!

For Karl and Steph.

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-10:00am: First overnight guests arrive with their dog. Cat and dog meet. Friends, for now.
-Phone keeps ringing but the oven delivery people still haven’t called.
-1:30pm: Sister and nephews show up for a pre-Christmas visit as you are trying to wrap their presents.
-2:00pm: Get nervous and think the oven will never come.
-2:30pm: New oven arrives. The delivery guys leave it on the floor of the kitchen.
-Phone keeps ringing but the oven installation/technician still hasn’t called back.
-5:00pm: Technician calls. He’s on his way.
-5:30pm: Technician declares that you don’t have the proper “casing” to host the in-wall oven. A carpenter will be necessary. Technician says he won’t install the oven today because it might fall out of the hole and then you could sue him and that wouldn’t be nice, would it? While explaining all of this, technician keeps looking at my visiting brother, because surely the man of the house will understand all of this stuff better, right?
-5:45pm: Seriously consider testing the new oven by putting the head of the technician under the broiler.
-5:50pm: Technician finally comes up with a simple idea and manages to hook up and secure the oven.
-6:00pm: Technician charges you an arm and a leg and wishes you a happy holiday.
-6:05pm: Test the oven. Smoke up the entire kitchen. No panic. It’s normal.

Everything is normal. It’s just the holidays.

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First 2 of our 13 guests arrive Tuesday morning. The house fill be full of people for 3 days (plus a guest dog).

Turkey is bought. Hors-d’oeuvres and side dishes wait their turn in the fridge. To do lists start getting completed.

On Sunday morning, old and annoying in-wall oven sends sparks through the kitchen and dies a spectacular death.

Realize that just about everything you planned for the Christmas Eve meal (traditional qu�b�cois with a twist) has to be baked and won’t fit in the toaster oven.

Wonder what the chances are of finding a stove repairman 2 days before Christmas.

Decide to not spend a dollar on that old oven that drives you crazy. Find comfort in the thought that you will no longer have to yell “DOOR!” as a warning every time you open the amazingly loud oven door.

Go crazy trying to find a store that has in-wall ovens in stock and can deliver for the 23rd.

Salesman makes a promise.

After the new oven is paid for and the installation technician booked, salesman now says the oven might be delivered on the 24th. Maybe late in the day.

Images of cold turkey, raw beets and hungry guests dance in front of your eyes.

Refuse to think of alternate menus and keep thinking of the thawing turkey in the fridge.

Consider becoming a vegetarian again.

Call comes in from the store manager: delivery should happen on the 23rd unless there’s some kind of problem.

Breathe deeply and keep your fingers crossed. Hope nothing will get in the way of the installation.

Listen to your beau who says: “Do you realize that from now on, we will be remembered in that appliance store as the Turkey Emergency Couple?”

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There are two categories of friendship: those in which people are enlivened by each other and those in which people must be enlivened to be with each other: In the first category one clears the decks to be together. In the second one looks for an empty space in the schedule.

From Approaching eye level, by Vivian Gornick.

Traduction approximative:
Il y a deux cat�gories d’amiti�: celle qui nous revitalise et celle pour laquelle on doit d�j� se sentir en forme pour pouvoir en profiter. Pour la premi�re cat�gorie, on annule d’autres rendez-vous pour arriver � se rencontrer. Pour la deuxi�me, on cherche simplement un trou dans son agenda parmi les autres activit�s.

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Au gars qui vient juste de sortir de son auto malgr� les grands vents pour pousser ma Corolla qui patinait sur une plaque de glace, un gros, gros merci! (Je n’ai pas pu le remercier sur place puisqu’il m’a fallu profiter de l’�lan offert pour rouler et lib�rer l’intersection que je bloquais.)

Cher inconnu, puisse un �tranger (ou une belle �trang�re) vous rendre la pareille cet hiver! Je compte d’ailleurs d�panner aussi un inconnu d�s que j’en aurai l’occasion. Je prends soin de mon karma, moi!

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Diep et Jules (que je n’ai jamais rencontr�s mais qui m’ont l’air bien sympathiques), font un voyage de plusieurs mois en Asie: Chine, Tibet, N�pal, Inde, Tha�lande, Cambodge, Vietnam. Ils r�digent leur carnet sur la route, photos � l’appui. � voir, pour le r�ve et l’�vasion…

Et vous connaissez l’effet Lonely Planet? Voici un extrait du carnet Bonheur, etc :

Bangkok, 9 decembre 2003. Nous sommes all�s dans un resto r�put� avoir la meilleure soupe en ville. Sauf que le bui-bui, qui sert la soupe directement sur le trottoir, a augment� les prix par dix fois depuis qu’il est recommand� dans le guide Lonely Planet. Une soupe co�tait plus cher que la chambre d’h�tel! Tant pis pour la soupe! Il y a tellement de bons endroits!

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La deuxi�me version du sc�nario sur lequel je travaille depuis un moment est entre les mains de la productrice depuis une dizaine de jours. Mis � part la conf�rence que je dois pr�parer pour janvier, mes journ�es sont principalement centr�es sur des activit�s domestiques. Je suis allergique aux bo�tes qui tra�nent pendant des mois apr�s le d�m�nagement et comme je m’appr�te � recevoir toute la famille (10 adultes, 3 enfants) pour le r�veillon, je trouve beaucoup � faire autour de la maison. Tous les matins je dis aurevoir � B. qui part prendre le bus pour aller au boulot et je me retrouve seule pour le reste de la journ�e. Pas �tonnant que le chat prenne de plus en plus de place dans mes billets!

Les heures passent, les t�ches se succ�dent et je me surprends � penser � ces femmes d’une autre �poque qui n’occupaient pas d’emploi et qui passaient la journ�e � la maison. Se sentaient-elles isol�es? Il est vrai que le cercle social tournant autour des enfants et de la famille agissait comme une pr�sence constante qui ne se laissait pas oublier. En faisant du repassage de rideaux hier (l’horreur!), il m’est revenu des images du film The Hours, quand le personnage jou� par Julianne Moore �touffe dans son r�le de m�re et de femme au foyer. Que de drames se sont v�cus sous les to�ts des petites r�sidences tranquilles de banlieue!

Je travaille chez moi depuis 2 ans environ et le fait d’�tre seule pendant le jour n’est pas nouveau pour moi. J’appr�cie la solitude. Elle m’est n�cessaire pour �crire, pour penser, pour pr�server mon �quilibre. Pourquoi alors ces images solitaires de femmes au foyer viennent-elles s’immiscer dans mes pens�es?

J’ai l’impression que l’isolement se vit assez diff�remment en ville qu’en banlieue. On peut �tre isol� en ville – de plus en plus de gens vivent en solo – mais l’entassement nous permet de l’oublier. La ville devient vite une compagne, son activit� constante tient lieu de pr�sence. Le bruit des autos et des voisins couvre le silence et vient faire conversation avec nos pens�es. � la longue, la ville ne se fait plus b�quille mais devient plut�t l’�paule d’un ami sur laquelle s’appuyer.

Un de mes auteurs pr�f�r�s d�crit merveilleusement et douloureusement bien ce rapport entre ville et solitude. Dans un livre d’essais intitul� Approaching Eye Level, l’auteure new yorkaise Vivian Gornick raconte:

The day is brilliant: asphalt glimmers, people knife through the crowd, buildings look cut out against a rare blue sky. The sidewalk is mobbed, the sound of traffic deafening. I walk slowly, and people hit against me. Within a mile my pace quickens, my eyes relax, my ears clear out. [...] My shoulders straighten, my stride lengthens. The misery in my chest begins to dissolve out. The city is opening itself to me. I feel myself enfolded in the embrace of the crowded street, its heedless expressiveness the only invitation I need to not feel shut out. [...] Nothing heals me of a sore and angry heart like a walk through the very city I often feel denying me. To see in the street the fifty different ways people struggle to remain human until the very last minute – the variety and inventiveness of survival technique – is to feel the pressure relieved, the overflow draining off. I join the anxiety. I share the condition. I feel in my nerve endings the common refusal to go under. Never am I less alone than alone in the crowded street. Alone, I imagine myself. Alone, I buy time. Me, and everyone I know. Me, and all the New York friends.

Vers quel auteur devrais-je me tourner pour trouver un texte �quivalent concernant la banlieue? Je ne peux penser qu’� John Updike mais sa perspective concerne davantage la solitude dans le couple et il est plut�t d�primant…

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