On the Sunday of the film fest, we went to three movies.
We started with a double feature: The last seder, by Marc Kornblatt, and Off the Menu: Asian American, by Grace Lee. Both were good – Lee’s was a little more wide-ranging. She went to Texas, where she visited the sushi king of Texas, a Chinese-American family who make tofu and turn it into tamales and other products, and then headed to Wisconsin, to the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, where six people were shot in 2012, by a crazy person, who then shot himself. Kornblatt visited his aging parents in New York.
Then we went to Worlds of Tomorrow, a set of short animated films (list as .pdf if the fest website goes away), that took its name from one of the films, Don Hertzfeldt‘s World of Tomorrow. I think I liked the clay-mation French film, La Buche de Noel, the best.
Still from the Christmas log
Mark took off for Illinois after the shorts. I was going to walk around the square, and get coffee at Colectivo, but all of a sudden there was cold rain, so I went to Ian’s and got a slice of potato pizza instead. And texted with John about his research paper.
My last film of the day was White God. Summed up in a sentence, “Music hath charms to calm the savage beast.” Mostly, the dogs were better actors then the people – the relationship between the teenage girl and her dad played out stilted – and only the really bad people got their throats ripped out.
In between movies on Sunday, I made my entry for the Edible Books Fest, the repose from Mistress Masham’s Repose, made out of salt and flour playdough. I think I could have done better if I wasn’t so rushed, additional proof that over-busyness kills creativity. You could drop off your book entry at UW Memorial Library any time between 8:00 & 11:00 AM. I had the repose on its own tray, and the cake base on another, extra icing, spatulas, and, most critically toothpicks. I got a 15 minute parking spot, and went in and tooth-picked everything together, and made it to work by 9:00.
I worked and had meetings all day, arriving at the book fest in time to view all the books, hear the winners announced, and eat a piece of grocery store sheet cake that I really regretted. Way too sweet frosting, tasteless cake. We didn’t get to hear the winners until after an oddly long interview with one of the invited judges, who is working on a PhD in food science studying ice cream, but was also a participant in the Amazing Race – which is what the interview was all about. Ah, librarians and pop culture – you could tell it was a library audience, because even though it was a little weird – I mean, it was the edible book fest, so why was it the Amazing Race interview? – everyone sat politely and listened quietly. I, of course, didn’t win anything, yet again.
I came home, ate a sandwich, and went to volunteer at the film fest. I had kind of a late shift, 7:00 to 10:00. Everything went smoothly. I tried to do a little grocery shopping after, but Sentry was really picked over on a Monday night that late. I bought a decent looking inorganic apple, and a box of greens, but couldn’t get eggs or bananas.
On Tuesday, I had a late class at 8:00, so no film fest – I made this spinach matzoh pie to try to use up leftover matzoh from passover. Worked pretty well – the casserole used up the opened box, but I still have two unopened boxes, because somehow I went nuts and bought three boxes.
And, even though I am writing this on Saturday, from a digital library conference in Indianapolis, this only brings us up to Tuesday – and my film fest went though Wednesday. To be continued …
