RED: a spoiler-free review

This is not a deep film. It is silly every chance it gets. But the entire cast is eminently watchable while being silly.

Although, if you think John Malkovich has gone overboard with wackiness lately, then you might object. And conversely, there are not quite enough opportunities for Rebecca Pidgeon to be silly.

Though having Rebecca Pidgeon at all is very good for the film; verily, any film would be improved by the presence of Rebecca Pidgeon. I think, for example, that she would be a top candidate for that little cameo in The Hangover 2 that is garnering so much controversy.

Could that be the next Tumblr meme, like Selleck Waterfall Sandwich? Rebecca Pidgeon Replaces Mel Gibson?

Why haven't you mentioned Helen Mirren yet, you say? Because I hardly need to. Helen Mirren as a CIA assassin is so good as an idea that it almost doesn't need to be realized; and you might think, watching it, "gosh, wouldn't it be great if there was another Prime Suspect series?" But she is great; and so is Brian Cox.

The plot barely makes sense, when it unravels, though I suppose all it needed to do was give Our Venerable Heroes something to do. I expect a little better of Warren Ellis.

On reflection, though, I think that the only plot I would really have been satisfied with would have allowed for a romance between John Malkovich and Rebecca Pidgeon.

Further adventures in gluten-free baking

I didn't really have much interest in gluten-free baking when I first got my celiac diagnosis. Too fiddly, too expensive; and just the thought of bread made me feel a little ill.

Fast-forward 7 months: I went to London, found lots of GF products, came home disgruntled that the US had so few in comparison. And then the new Gluten-Free Girl and the Chef cookbook came out.

So far, I've made the baked eggs, the waffles, and the chocolate peanut-butter brownies. The waffles didn't turn out well; but I think that has more to do with my unfamiliarity with waffles than anything else. Tonight, I made the pizza crust, which is in the book as a cracker recipe.

I wonder if the scale I got recently* is a little off, because the book shows both grams and cups, and the volume of my measurements looked like it was more than it ought to be. But hey, all in proportion, right? And the upshot was that I had enough for this and for this.

The pizza is topped with a caramelized onion and shallot, a sliced Arkansas Black apple, an Apple-Chardonnay sausage from Trader Joe's, and some grated Gouda. Turned out deliciously, though next time, I want to find a more traditionally savory sausage (my choices were sweet apple, apple-chardonnay, and jalapeno.

I was really pleased with the crackers, maybe because I was able to roll them thin enough that they really do feel like crackers, not just thin bread. Mind you, I kept them in the oven for about 18 minutes -- first 10, then 5, then 1, 1, 1. That's a little longer than the recipe suggests, but it's fine if you keep a close eye on them.

A lot of the rosemary that I'd pressed in fell off when I broke the crackers, so I need to press harder next time (I was a bit nervous, never having made crackers before.) Next time, though, I'm going to make tomato-basil-garlic.

* I can hardly believe I've waited this long to get a scale. It's not that it's more precise for recipes, though it is - it's that it's so much easier than fiddling around with measuring cups. Do you know how many powdered, dry ingredients I've spilled while trying to level them out with a knife? Too many. Now I put a plastic container on the scale, zero it out, and dump things in gently until I get to the right amount. So. Much. Faster.

Note to self, re: teaching

1. When you see that the professor teaching the primary lecture course with which your writing course is linked has assigned hefty chunks of Marx and Rousseau with one day of lecture for each, be afraid. Be very afraid. And be prepared to do triage.

THATCampPNW 2010 post-mortem

Last year, when I was swamped, and overwhelmed, and exhausted (and right about to get really ill with what I now know is celiac disease), I went to an unconference in Pullman, called THATCamp.

Or, actually, THATCampPNW. It was amazing. I met great people, got new ideas, and felt more energized than I often do at traditional conferences. This year, my colleague Jentery Sayers and I coordinated a second THATCampPNW, and as chaotic as it felt at times, it seems to have been a success. Here's what I learned. Or at least, part of it. I think it would take more than one blogpost to cover it all.

1. Don't miss the opening session: "The opening session is the most interesting one," said Jentery, a few minutes before ours started; and whether or not he was right, what I found is that it's the most important one, in terms of learning about other people's interests. I felt as though the session titles were vague and abstract; if they'd appeared as paper titles, I'd have called them bland. That's part of the point of an unconference, I suppose -- no energy needlessly expended on cute wit -- but I never did feel like I entirely caught up on the conversation.

2. Hire someone to hold down the fort (if you're the coordinator). We didn't think about this in advance, which is a little dim of us, considering that our base was in the Simpson Center for the Humanities; a really nice space -- but one that can't be left unattended. The two sessions I did make it to on the first day were dictated by their location, i.e., where I could be and still be easily accessible/keep an eye on things. And they were good, but it's not really the THATCamp experience I had imagined I'd have.

3. Don't assume that everyone coming is tech- and THATCamp-savvy. Sure, many, perhaps most of them may be using smartphones with map capabilities, and may know how the THATCamp format works. In our case, though, we had a mix; and while I'd thought of the map issue, what we hadn't provided was a half-page "Welcome to THATCamp! This is how things work" sheet. It was telling, then, that at our wrap-up session, one of the comments was "I didn't really realize that if I proposed a session topic, I should be ready to serve as facilitator, and ready to start the conversation." Not that facilitating is always necessary; in fact, being willing to get out of the way and avoid authoritative pontificating is vital. But being aware of both possibilities is the main point.

4. Assume that things will go wrong. In our case, it was a catering snafu, and probably pretty mild, though certainly a pain. But it didn't interfere with THATCampPNW's success in itself, so, on the whole? Win. Refreshments were good, and there were plenty of them.

5. Colleagues are awesome. This would never have happened without Jentery Sayers, who is far more advanced at networking and being social than I am.


There are a few things I'm still thinking about. We had several adds and drops in the final week. (Luckily, we had a waitlist, so there was no danger of attendance being noticeably sparse.) Even so, I'd say that about 20% of our attendees didn't show. Since we'd planned on having 90 people, this wasn't a big deal -- having 70 was plenty; and in fact, I think it was better than having 90.
But I'm struck by the fact that probably half of the people who were determining Sunday's sessions didn't actually attend them. Is there a better way of setting them up? I'd like to think so.

Finally, and I'll end with this for now, having a wrap-up session (as we did) is good, but I wonder whether we could do more for continuing conversations later on. Does the main THATCampPNW site need a Missed Connections post for people to comment on? Maybe, because one of the things I kept hearing was that people wanted to have conversations that were shortened or simply didn't happen due to time constraints. I know that the document created during the wrap-up session will be posted, and I know at least one BootCamp instructor planning to post an online version of her session. We ended this year with an offer to host THATCampPNW 2011 at WSU Vancouver, and I think that's a positive achievement -- a level of certainty that we didn't have last autumn at Pullman. It's good to know that even if conversations were cut off, we have a place where they can be restarted.

Catfish (a meandering review)

After I saw Catfish today, I wondered why I'd been so intrigued, and after a moment, I remembered that I had heard a short NPR story on it, teasing the "riveting" final 40 minutes, the amazing twist ending. Darn you, NPR, for making me believe you when you say something is riveting. Often, you're right -- but not every time.

This morning, videochatting with my partner, I mentioned that I might see Catfish, and I think I said something like "it's a documentary about a relationship on Facebook, it has some sort of twist, and I'm curious about the storytelling." He passed me this article in response. From his perspective, I'm experienced at Facebook -- I have 269 virtual friends, and I'm on it most every day. I thought, later that morning, of trying to explain that I don't feel like I'm part of the classic FB crowd; I had to be told what it meant to "poke" someone, and never used any of the numerous actions with anyone without great irony. From poking came SuperPoke, which, if I recall, had a write-your-own custom poke option; and so in my peak superpoking period, I threw Helen Vendler at several friends. (Much better than throwing sheep, and I promise you, I would never throw Helen Vendler at anyone who wouldn't appreciate her.) Later, the same friends and I discovered that the "teabag your friend" option corresponded to the teabagging entry in the Urban Dictionary, and we were equal parts titillated and horrified.

"Look at me," I wanted to say to my partner; "even I exhibit fogeyesque horror at the things kids do these days."

But I didn't have time to write him, because after getting back from the farmer's market, I had to rush downtown to play a sexy secret agent for a company that does corporate teambuilding games.

I got to my assigned spot, planted myself at the bar, and explained to the bartender what I would be doing for the next couple of hours. He was amused. So was the couple who were sitting a couple of places away, who were equally intrigued by my English accent. I didn't really want to break character, or explain why I have the accent, or anything, so when they asked where I was from, I just shrugged, and said "Oh, I'm from London -- but I've lived here most of my life. Where are you from?"

And they said they were from Montana, which, of course, they said, I wouldn't know. (Why would a Londoner know about Montana?)

But I did. And I told them how I had been close friends with a girl who lived in Great Falls, and her family. They were incredulous. "But we were from Great Falls before we moved out here! What did you say her name was?"

I hadn't said. And Great Falls is a swarming metropolis compared to many cities in Montana. Wait, what am I saying? There aren't even that many cities IN Montana. But of course, this nice couple who I'd just casually sat next to at a bar knew my friend's family; were still close to her aunt and uncle.

They thought it was amazing and hilarious. (So did I.) But if they call up C's family, and try to tell her that they met C's childhood friend from England, I imagine they'll get some strange reactions.

I put three teams through their paces. They had to use their best pick-up lines to get my phone number. When they were pitiful, I mocked them; when they stepped it up and started pretending with energy, I rewarded them with higher points. Along the way, they bought me a couple of glasses of wine. A nice afternoon. And I got done just in time to scurry up the street to catch the 15:00 showing of Catfish.

So, Catfish. Spoilers here, at Wikipedia; and more obliquely here, at an article critiquing the film. Spoilers here, too, I suppose, but I'll give you a few carriage returns in case you want to look away.

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Still here?

Catfish is about a woman who lied on the internet. To an extreme extent, I suppose, because creating 15 Facebook profiles is ambitiously imaginative.

People have been lying on the internet since long before Facebook. I had a brush with an elaborate internet liar in my first couple years of college, through an early shipper fandom group for Picard and Crusher on ST:TNG. I've read stories about others. Uncovering one is as strange as the first time you reached into a pond and scooped up a cluster of frog eggs; felt slime where there ought to be water, and perhaps saw the small black tadpole bodies beginning to wriggle their way out.

But frog eggs are everywhere, and so are internet liars. The Schulmans and Joost act as though Facebook have suddenly made these deceptions possible, as though it's some sort of grand advance allowing so much more intimacy than before, and the chance to be intimate with strangers. Clearly, they're too young to have ever been active in Usenet groups.

As the film ended, people were murmuring about how sad Angela was, and how bizarre, and how nice Nev Schulman was, and all I could think of was "Jeebus, folks, haven't you ever desperately wanted to be someone else? Or imagined what it would be like to be someone different?" I couldn't help thinking about how easy it is to slip in and out of different facets of my personality in Seattle. If I want to be a sexy Brit for an afternoon, and get paid to sit in a bar and heckle teams, I can. And there are much easier ways of indulging in feeling like a different sort of person: usually, it's as simple as going to a different neighborhood. It's much easier to do than in small rural towns like Ishpeming, MI. For three upwardly mobile guys in NYC to not get that? I guess it's not surprising, but I still found them sad; the filmmakers as much as the family.

At the end of the day, then, I guess I am old in internet years, if old means that I know that people will go to a lot of trouble to find ways to love and be loved.

"You've changed. You're daring. You're different in the woods."

Into the Woods was the musical that made me like rap music -- well, made me receptive to it -- and was also the musical that introduced me to Stephen Sondheim. I brought home the soundtrack from the library because it was a musical, and it was about fairy tales, and really, that in itself was enough.

I think I was 12. 13? There was an awful lot that I didn't pick up; I knew that it was different from Rodgers & Hammerstein, but if you'd asked me how, I'm not sure that I would have been able to say anything more than that it sounded completely different in terms of rhythm, melody, and harmony. Now I can think back to some of the more saccharine R&H numbers (Surrey With the Fringe On Top, anyone?) and Andrew Lloyd Webber's cloying Puccini imitations, and think, with horror, that were it not for Sondheim, musicals would have become intolerable.

This isn't to say that Sondheim can do no wrong. I think that Sweeney Todd is amazing; so well-crafted that I dare you to find a single word or note that's superfluous. But what makes Sondheim great is that he could set insecurity, annoyance, and ennui to music -- and that's probably also his greatest weakness. I remembered feeling, when I finally got to see the video of the original Broadway cast, that the second act was less tight than the first one; that the stories just get sort of mushed together. Getting thrown together by chance rather than by choice is part of the point, I know, but it felt sloppy, too.

I didn't know that Into the Woods was playing in London, let alone at an outdoor stage in a wooded grove in Regent's Park, until I went to the Sondheim prom, and people were talking about it; and lo, when I went got home most of the good seats were gone, but I scored one in the fourth row center section.

The set is quite elaborate: three levels of platforms stretching across the stage; each tall enough to stand on, and ladders and stairs running between them. Rapunzel's tower at the center, in the back. And trees all around. The costumes were rather Tim Burtonesque, but it worked. The Witch seemed to be midway through a transformation into a tree (which meant that she had creepily root-like figures), but midway, turned into Louise Brooks (with more of a mod-Victorian outfit than flapper look, though). She really did own the part, and I did not find myself making Peters comparisons (aside from being aware of slightly different rhythms in her opening number, and this only goes to show how many times I've listened to that track over the years).

I thought that the whole cast was outstanding, though. You need a strong Witch, and a strong Baker's Wife especially, and you'd better have an interesting Red Riding-Hood, if you're not going to just skate through. This production had each of those things, but I was equally aware of the chemistry between the Baker's Wife and the Baker, and the parallel (but not identical) sexual awakenings of Red and Jack, and how much this show is about the ways that parents and children can and do wound each other as much as it's about sex.

There's one innovation that this production does that works particularly well: the Narrator, traditionally played by a Bettelheimesque man in a suit, becomes a child, probably 10-12, who has run away from home, into the woods, with a sleeping bag, a lunchbox, and a small backpack of toys who become representations of the various figures. This adaptation is so effective that I wonder that no one has thought of it before. Or maybe they have?

In short, sure, it's not the razor-sharp libretto of Sweeney Todd, but with a strong cast, the stories echo each other, rather than merely repeating. And the setting, in which the story deepens and darkens as the sun drops down out of the horizon, really couldn't be improved. In the second act, dusk had fallen, but the whole sky was an eerily washed-out orange, and the trees were lit with blue lights, which made them appear to have an ashy-grey patina; and it was a perfect accompaniment for the darkness of what takes place. Just as the Baker and the Old Man begin to reconcile, the orange had faded away, and the lightest of rain showers (delicate as lace) fell for a few minutes, only to ease away in the very last song, and in time for the curtain call.

If you miss a beat, just find another.

Do I really have 25 posts on this blog?

I suppose I might. And yet I keep on letting it sink into oblivion, but once again, I'm going to try to pull it out.

This summer, I'm in London -- I've been here for 40 days; and I have about 35 left. I'm balancing between work on a research grant, dissertation work, spending time with my partner, and seeing wonderful art, theatre, and music. So far, this is what I've learned, or seen:

* Enron, Lucy Prebble's semi-musical about selling ideas and corporate collapse, only failed on Broadway because its satirical portrayals of corporate culture pale in comparison to the way that members of that corporate culture satirize themselves every day.

* The Tempest is a very hard play to do well when you are being traditionalist, as the Sam Mendes production at the Old Vic is. Christian Camargo's Ariel is intriguing enough, but the rest was such a lifeless fidelity to the script that I found myself genuinely fascinating by the lighting design.

* On the other hand, the same cast presented a stunningly good As You Like It, such that I forgot entirely that I was watching a play at all. And I think they are to be commended all the more for inhabiting the script so thoroughly while remaining so traditional.

* The V & A Small Spaces exhibit is as wonderful as you would expect it to be. I climbed in Ratatosk, thought that I could probably sleep very comfortably in the In-between architecture, and of course, climbed up through the space that has gotten the most attention, Rintala Eggertsson Architects' Ark, the "flat made entirely out of bookshelves." It's not really a flat, as there is hardly room to sleep anywhere, but it is a fascinating and restful space. Most fascinating, to me, anyways, was the fact that though it was chock full of books of all sorts, my eyes kept landing on books that were familiar to me, that I might have on my bookshelf. This could not have been simply a question of recognizing the spines, as many of the editions were not ones that I owned or had seen before. When I first entered, I spotted several Henning Mankell novels, and later on, found Marguerite Yourcenar, Harper Lee, John Betjeman, James Herriot, and Jean M. Auel. I even spotted a paperback edition of Harriet Walter's memoir, Other People's Shoes. I don't know if other people have the same experience, but it would be interesting to know if they did.