Angles and Intersections

There is no reason for this post other than that I like the way these pictures look.

We're getting close to finalizing our 18 person movie cast. (I don't know how we get into these situations) We just picked up a 'Danny' character. He's the nerdy 40 year old cousin that lives at home. An Oldsmobile enthusiast that drinks the wine he makes from a kit the day after he bottles it. We're filming at the Lovitt Restaurant, a wonderful old farm house with a big porch, in Colville. The owner/chef Danny character, who lives above the restaurant with his wife (who does everything other than chef) and 15 month old daughter, will also be catering the cast and crew meals with creations from local and organic ingredients. I should remember, but I don't, that 30 years ago he and I played sharecroppers in a local production.

I just returned from the Post Office, (the front door is NEVER locked) where the first grade's crayoned winter scenes are scotch taped to the windows. Mostly evergreens and snowmen with legs.

Done.

Eggs, A Table And Siding

It was so so so easy to write a car scene into our film. Such a perfect opening sequence. Easy. Now, how would someone film something like that? Where is the camera person? On the hood of the car? And how would you hear the people inside talking when the camera person is on the hood of the car? I wonder if you could use mirrors for something somehow? Well. Looks like we're renting a flatbed truck and putting a car on it, tethering the camera person (Vince) somewhere in front of the car. and having the driver (Kathy) drive the flatbed truck with the car on it back and forth over the same 1000 yard section of road over and over again, shooting with different exposures and angles. The actors will be mic'd. Then, the camera person will get into the driver seat and shoot the passenger while she is saying her lines with the person you think is in the driver's seat, but is actually sitting in the back seat saying his lines and then the actors switch and Vin films the driver from the passenger seat, while the flatbed truck driver is driving back and forth along the same 1000 yards of road. When that's done, Vince will get into the cherry picker that is positioned over the road and the car will drive back and forth under it while Vin is shooting. THEN there are the shots from the airplane that I'm secretly hoping we don't have time for. Vince thinks the car scene will end up being the easiest scene to shoot. I don't like the sound of that.

Today was big. The stove (isn't it just the cutest little stove?) that was sitting in the middle of the kitchen NOT hooked up for a month is now sitting in the middle of the kitchen hooked up, which is much better and as soon as Vince figures out how to reconnect the wire he accidently cut through behind the stove, we can move it into place. The inaugural homemade pizza was delicious although it was tough deciding where to eat it....in the living room while watching a movie? or at the not-done but usable new table (not blurry in real life) while sitting on the new chairs that came today? I decided to eat one piece at the table on a new chair and another piece on the couch in front of the movie. Oh, before I forget....never get white upholstered furniture, (as if you didn't already know that) unless you only wear pajamas.*

Ryan Kiss, one of the 200 people in Metaline Falls, made our table frame. His dad Steve milled the two 18 inch cedar planks that rest on top from a tree that was leaning on a house in town. We still have to finish the top but in the meantime we can use it as another horizontal surface for piling stuff. Ryan also made the kitchen sink base, kitchen shelf tower, entry bench and as soon as he's done painting the John Deere skidder with a de-limber and boom grapple for which we were somehow bumped, he's going to make us some bookcases.

We have movie night at our house every Saturday night. We've only had one so far. In attendance was Joe (my 30 year friend that harvested the porch beam) and his wife Trish who brought us eggs from their chickens that are so pretty I don't want to eat them. And Chris who brought a Harvey Wallbanger cake and a pile of 30 year old photos documenting him, Joe and me planting trees in a clear cut. Thirty years ago Chris and I traveled together (felt our way around) in New Zealand for months and we laughed everyday all day.

I could check and see if I already told you about our home theater but since I can walk faster than our internet, I'll just assume I have. (8 speaker surround...sound familiar?) Anyway. It doesn't matter where you are in the house, the screen will be too close and the sound will be too loud. I say we should have bought a smaller screen. Vince says we should have built a bigger house.

We're getting exercise again. Yaaayyy. It all started about 2 weeks ago. All we had to do is decide that being 8 pm and 20 degrees wasn't a good enough reason to be inside at home like everyone else. We bought our $272 dollar season pass (like the 700 other season pass holders at Nelson Nordic) and 3 oz. headlamps that are as bright as a car headlight and last for 4 hours on the medium setting. My season pass picture looks like a little old lady and Vince's looks like a thug. The night loop is flat and lit. Part of the area outside the lit loop is open enough that most of the time we can ski under the moon and stars without our lights. We're both satisfied with around an hour. We did a 1 lap ~4 minute race last Thursday. 2-up starts. Vin and I started together. I jumped the gun on purpose. Entry fee was a donation so we asked if they wanted money or ski wax since we brought a million years worth of wax with us. They said they'd rather have wax. Later we saw the poster for the race that said it was a fund-raiser for Haiti?

Look. Siding. I know you're thinking...."how will they keep it from rusting?". We're not the only building in Metaline Falls covered in rusted corrugated metal but I'm pretty sure we're the only one's that think it looks cool.


*in our defense, the white upholstery was the only choice we had so we're not crazy.

It's all GOOD LIFE

The sign on the door read "We will be closed for Christmas this Friday, Dec. 25" and that's when I realized that we wouldn't be sending out cards on time again this year. I knew Christmas was coming up pretty soon but I thought I had another week. If we were going to visit Dad in Arizona for Christmas, I'd better make a few phone calls. The only two seats USAirways had available were first class on Christmas day. I bought them Christmas Eve.

Merry Christmas.

Dad's 'house' sits among 1,200 other houses that look exactly like his. Each 300 square foot unit rests five feet from the its neighbor. The name of the resort is 'Good LIfe'. It was sixty degrees and sunny. The locals were freezing in their parkas but I was hot. For 2 !/2 days we hiked in the desert, walked Rocky (Dad's dog), played computer card games, walked Rocky, watched TV, and walked Rocky. Shopping was everywhere. I'm supposed to hate shopping but after being able to get my Mac fixed 5 minutes from Good LIfe, I've had to re-think my dogma. I know I'd probably get sick of having everything I need a short bike ride away but after 6 months in Metaline Falls and the nearest 2 x 4 being 60 miles down the road, maybe not.

The morning we flew back to Washington, I was sitting in one of the resort hot tubs. The residents taking the water aerobics class in the pool next to me were bouncing up and down while singing 'I've Been Working On The Railroad' and 'Let Me Call You Sweetheart.' It was 'Let Me Call You Sweetheart' that was looping in my head like a nightmare the rest of the day.


Holiday Photos...
DC Auto and Secondhand, Metaline Falls' newest retailer, offered gift wrapping for the holidays.

The lone Christmas wreath spanning the town's Main Street broke in half around Thanksgiving and never got fixed.

Elves in lieu of a manger scene.

Rest assured that Max has a good home when we can't bring him with us. He lives with Drew and Katie when we're in school etc. He still likes us better, we think?

Vince loves the scarf (so do I) I got from my brother Dale's family...(Brenda, Tashauna and Dale).


Non-photo news...
Vin just finished installing the home theatre system. Seven speaker surround with a Panasonic pt-ae4000 HD projector (whatever) and a 120 inch screen. It doubles as a stereo...with really good sound. Glen Gould's piano and humming is in here with us right now. OK, with that all done, maybe we'll hook up the water.

POOF...a roof

It all started way back in August and then we waited for 10 degree weather to finish it like we usually do.

ROOF RECAP
Looking up from my chair by the wood-stove I see,

• 4" x 12" structurally rated local doug fir beams on 4' centers
covered by
• 2" x 6" local ponderosa pine 'v' groove decking

and if I had x-ray vision, I would be able to see

• 5/8" plywood glued and screwed
covered by a
• 2" x 8" local spruce framework on 16" centers
with 6 " of high density foam in between yielding a whooping R45
and then
• 5/8" plywood
wait, we're not done until after the
• ice and water shield
and finally, weighing in at 2000 pounds...20 gauge
• 7/8 x 2" cold rolled corrugated steel

So. It's not just a roof...it a ROOF

Make sure you notice BC's Lone Mountain in the background (actually BC shares it with Vin and me).
Our sweet little summer house (tent) is sits demurely in one of the photos too.

House, School, Nelson etc.

House.

Without looking, I'm guessing it's about 80 degrees in the house right now. Guess I was wrong in thinking that burning softwood wouldn't work. Regardless of being covered in a mid-summer sweat, I'm sitting a foot from our new wood-stove (it's a Scan 60 if that means anything) at an angle from which I can fully admire our new metal sculpture of a stairway. The whole house is like one big art installation. I'm not sure I would try to build a house in an unfamiliar location ("What do you mean the nearest concrete contractor is 75 miles away?") while going to school in a different country ever again. A good thing is that the to-do list that pretty much filled a notebook this summer fits on a post it note these days. (wow. those are some blurry photos)

You know how to make a really big room seem like a really small room? Fill it with slip-covered Pottery Barn furniture. A room that was big enough to have thrown a frisbee with Max yesterday (if Max would ever catch a frisbee) is, today, a room for just sitting.


School.

I finally did finish transcribing the dialog for my 5 minute documentary. Forty-one single spaced pages of 12 pt type. 19,834 words and beating Vince, the distant second place finisher over 11,000 words. Piece of Cake, my finished film, probably won't be a Netflix choice anytime soon but I should be be an inspiration to anyone facing a problem they consider unsolvable. I've retained (at least to date) the skills to make a film (with credits that 'roll' at the end like a real movie) and I don't think I've ever been prouder of myself. But even with that, I'm not sure I'm proud enough of myself to go through the process again. It's a good thing that movie making isn't my passion because it certainly isn't my calling.

I hated taking the tests but found that as long as I take the test within 5 minutes of walking into the room, don't talk to anyone, don't let anyone talk to me and avoid all eye contact, that I can get the information sitting on top of my brain onto the paper before it leaks out onto the floor.

With the semester over, I can honestly say that out of the 10 classmates (ages 17-53) I had, not one of them drove my crazy. Seems like there would have been at least one that I wished would never show up for class but there wasn't. No one used Bounce, no one hogged all of the professor's attention, no one thrived on hearing themselves talk, and I was able to ignore the occasional gum smacking.


Nelson.

In mid-November I discovered a utility van parked between two parking meters on Nelson's main street that cut their own organic potatoes and fried them in their very own separate fryer with organic sunflower oil. It drove up everyday at around 11:00 a.m. and pulled away about 7 p.m. The name on the side of the van was 'Bite'. What a cool name. Bright gold, really hot and shimmering with grease (of course they were greasy...they are french fries), twice a day I waited "That will be 8 minutes," for my fries to show up at the van window. Then horrors, the other day when I went to get a picture for you and a large fries for me...they were gone.

Two days later I was moping around hungry when I discovered, tucked away in a teeny little alley, Au Soleil Levant, a teeny little French bakery that makes bread I can eat. Given the choice I'd probably rather have french fries but warm bread works too.


Canada.

It was 1 degree tonight in Canada and one second later we were crossing into the US where it was 34.

Eleven dollars for a tube of extra blue hard wax (SINCE WHEN??) but on the other hand we get Canadian health insurance for 50 dollars a month and Apex, the ski area 10 minutes up and outside of Nelson, has had 3 feet of snow and grooming since mid-November. Plus actually I just realized that even at 11 dollars a tube that I can still ski for around 35 cents a day.

Live and Learn

No one told me that one of the most important steps in shooting documentary was transcribing. Or if someone did, it was when I wasn't listening. It may not sound like a big deal to you but I have to listen to and write down EVERY word with the time...to the nearest one-hundreth of a second...that it was spoken I have about 5 hours of shooting for my 5 minute documentary and my fingers look the times of a garden cultivator. Ironically, accidently forgetting to turn the sound on during a one hour shooting session was a disaster that ended up making my day.

I never paid much attention to Skype until our cell phone bill finally found us up here in Nelson. We knew it wasn't going to be pretty but were still surprised to see that the last two months were 690 dollars. Our favorite call was the 24 dollar casual chat the Vin and I had to each other from one classroom to another (in the same building). Who knew? (don't you hate that saying?)

Canada.
Benjamin Moore paint chip colors are in French. Rainforest dew is vert stuart. Pale avocado is avocat pale.
Yesterday it was pretty cold....1 degree in the Peace.
Remember I told you about the Cocoa-nut lounge? We showed up to another standing-room-only crowd...this time on a Tuesday....groovin' to an electric guitar artist yelling a combination of opera and rock.

Wednesday was classmate Alan's birthday. He turned 25 so the whole class (except Naomi who's only 17 and has a grandmother my age) went out to a karaoke bar where Vin and I belted out 'I've got you Babe' to a crowd that didn't know that Cher had ever been married.

House.
We've had electricity, plumbing and 4-6" (R30-R45) of high density closed cell foam insulation for ages but since they didn't lend themselves to compelling photography or storytelling I've had a hard time working them into my news.

The insulation people? Perfect.
The electric people? Perfect. Two brothers dba Brother's Electric. One of the brothers, Darin, went to college somewhere in Ohio because it had the strongest Ninja 'team' in the country.
The plumber? Apologized after hollering F*** You and hanging up on Vin because he asked when the boiler was going to be installed.

Max loves hiking on larch needles, a silent, western version of New England's fall leaves.

The Beam Team again

Movies.
Just finished writing a 1000 word Feminist interpretation of 'Silence Of The Lambs' and the part I enjoyed most about the process was emailing it off, finished, to the professor. For the most part I enjoy movies as entertainment and not for the layers of supposed hidden meanings that I can never find.

Yesterday we watched Citizen Kane (Orson Welles, 1941) and I'm proud to say that thanks to finally a movie with dialogue I stayed awake through MOST of it. Ian the professor said it was 'quite possibly the greatest movie ever made' which made me think that I definately missed something during the screening even though I stayed awake.
Please note that I've easily stayed wide awake for American Graffiti half dozen times.

I just finished shooting another film. it is a pretend interview of myself with my new pretend cookbook of recipe's using food that has gone bad. (not leftovers ....gone bad) I think it's really funny but it's too long. It ended up being 9 minutes and it was supposed to be 2. Just like the old days, was up until 5 am one morning working on it and it was actually good to have a reason to have to be up until then.

I was thinking that If I was making a movie that had the Vince character (see the dirty Vince photo to the left) in it I'd want Juaquin Phoenix to play him. Juaquin is retired (I can't believe I know that) but I doubt if it would've ever happened anyway only because Vince would never want anyone else playing him.

House.
Two cords of firewood (which won't be maple or cherry or ash)* are showing up tomorrow so I wanted to show you our deck before it got covered up. Vin and Brett built the deck (which included mixing the concrete for the piers and looked like a lot of work to me). Then Joe, one of my favorite friends (FF) of almost 30 years cut down one of our trees (like the ponytail, Joe cut it for FREE....maybe it has something to do with cutting) and we put it on the deck to look like it was propping up one of the corners of the roof. The deck is a rectangle and if you looked at it from an airplane it would look like you had this big rectangle and slid it under the house at an angle. It's pretty dramatic as far a decks go. I THINK I like it but then again maybe that angle-drama has something to do with the headaches I've been having lately.

* I think I'm a firewood snob.

Grades.
Some mid-term test grades are in.
Screen-writing____A-
Editing_____A
Cinematography........ Trick questions. I'm not counting it.

Nelson.
Cocoa-nut Lounge. Funky, late night coffeehouse open until midnight 6 nights a week. That gem of a discovery gets us closer to our perfect-place checklist. Our maiden visit (a Sunday night) had us joining a standing-room-only crowd to listen to local poetry that I didn't realize was poetry until the third reader stepped off the rug that functioned as a stage. I'm at an even lower level with poetry than I am with movies.