English-Plus!

There's an important bill on the ballots in my hometown of Nashville, Tennessee today. Because I know that several amongst my small smattering of readers hail from that very city, I feel I'd be remiss if I didn't bring it up-- especially in light of all the high global and American community spirits currently aloft in my adoptive city of DC.

There is a group of citizens who've got bees in their bonnets about government services being conducted in languages other than English. They've brought forth this so-called English-Only bill to enact some dubious legislation that will prevent non-native English speakers from recieving services in their own tongues. Now, the impetus behind this bill is fear-- fear that the "fur-eigners" will take over; fear that, because so many immigrants will work for less money than born and bred Amurikuns, said Amurikuns will lose their gainful employment to these nefarious interlopers. Now, I could go on and on about how these fears are unfounded (we spoiled Americans are pretty effin' reluctant to fill all those thankless, menial brazero positions after all, aren't we?) but there's really no need. I can sum all that up by saying the bill is ethically questionable at best and a logistical nightmare at worst. In a best case scenario, it'll cost the city budget gajillions in added costs incurred while coping with skein after skein of brand new (totally needless) red tape.

It's important that my Nashville readers do their part for voting this thing down. My mom's been on her soapbox about it every time I've talked to her in this past month. My dad gives me poll numbers whenever I speak with him. And Jon. Well, Jon's been posting regularly about it for months, with some particularly interesting bits in the last 10 days or so.

Actually, I would have been harping about this here on my own blog much earlier, but my biggest source for links, information and commentary about it has been... Jon's blog. And well, dear readers, please forgive this: my impending over-share. As Jon's and my complicated relational enterprise came to a relatively abrupt end a few weeks ago, I've been reluctant to link him-- which is one part petty, one part self-preservation. On a daily basis, I'm still cycling through a regular rotation of disconsolate sadness about the demise of our conflicted association, hot rage at him for any number of perceived affronts, and nauseated irritation with myself for still feeling so passionately emotionally involved in the whole thing. He's been my closest human spirit for the last four years and this is a trying period of detachment. I made plane reservations for my annual excursion to the Nashville Film Festival last week and I'm experiencing something of an onslaught of mixed feelings at the prospect of attending the festival without him as my companion. The last thing I need to have happen is for the simple act of my linking pertinent, trenchant information from his blog to stir up some pit of uneasily salivating attack dogs from deep within me. The second-to-last thing I need is his interpreting a passing on of political commentary as an invitation to engagement of some sort. It's not. Really.

So, I know this post is an emo mess. That is, in part, I have no doubt, due to that fact that I'm feeling pretty deeply mired in my annual winter funk-fest at the moment. I may or may not have some more to say on how much January in DC sucks in a future post.

But nonetheless, I hope I can catch a couple readers before the polls close. Please. Go read Jon's posts. He's far more versed in the nuances of this thing than I am, so he sounds a lot smarter than I would if I tried to recount it all in my own words. And then go vote this thing back to racist-hell from which it came. Go!

UPDATE: As you can tell from the comments, this amendment did NOT pass. Now non-native English speakers can continue to receive 911 care with the aid of a translator. See? Nashville's not so heartless after all.

Now THAT'S my hometown!

Jon's been playing roving reporter via blog, text messages, gchat and the occasional cellphone call all day, god bless 'im! Seeing as I'm feeling particularly far from home on this night when all the politics worth talking about are going on in the city of my youth, rather than the city of my present, I am terribly grateful for his surrogate presence in the crowd.

And the best news? He tells me the crowds are dominated (dominated!) by Obama supporters. The crowds are dominated by Obama supporters in the city that is home to Belle Meade, the part of town with the most, per capita, Republican party contributors in the country. In one of the wealthiest cities in the south. In the south!

Honestly, it's about damn time the rest of the country takes note Nashville's outgrown its redneck reputation, isn't it? The city's always been more than country music and mayors named "Boner" but tonight's debate in particular, with all those happy, excited, blue-sign-toting Obama supporters, seems like a bright, sparkly moment in its history.

Dare I venture forth such with such unadulterated optimism? I'd say so.

Vacation Goals

Under cover of night, I've scuttled back into Nash Vegas. Upon exiting Concourse C, I found my father, fast asleep in the kiss-n-cry area on the main floor of BNA. I plopped down next to him, jarring him awake, proclaiming, "Well, hello, old man! What gives? Asleep in public?" At first he protested: "I'm not an old man." But then, I think, as he regained wakefulness, he reconsidered and agreed that he is, indeed, an old man who falls asleep in public.

Anyway, I think it's high time I set forth the scope of this vacation. Here is a list of some stuff I hope to accomplish:

1) Watch at least 12 films at the Nashville Film Festival. I've already bought tickets for 10 and the other two are contingent only on whether or not my friend Jen gets called into work. With luck, I might even find time to see a couple of non-festival films, too.

2) Write blog posts about at least 6 of the films I see before heading home a week from Saturday. This is a daunting task. Finding time to both process the films and write about them was a great challenge last year. But it's also the lion's share of the point of why I try to attend this festival every year.

3)Test this recipe. I'm having some friends from that old job (the one I quit yesterday) over when I get home and I think this recipe is fancy enough to satisfy my desire to show off, but conservative enough for those wary of my own more experimental dessert-related palate.

4) Test this recipe. This one is definitely far more my style. And I know at least a few of my friends will get a kick out of its weirdness. One of these friends, upon perusing the link I sent her, said, "Good god, that blog is total porn!" And given the cupcake/sex metaphor that seems to be gaining ground within the collective unconscious, I think she's probably right. These are not just cupcakes. They are lusty cupcakes.

5) Read the entirety of my mom's copy of The Omnivore's Dilemma. I've been meaning to read that damn book pretty much since it came out, but have yet, despite owing my firstborn to Amazon, to purchase my own copy. So, even though she's currently in New Orleans doing foodie things, I've stolen her copy without permission and hope to surreptitiously replace it before she even notices it's missing (or, uh, reads this post).

6) Relish Nashville in all its end-of-April glory. If ever anyone gets a yen to visit my li'l hometown here, I highly recommend doing it at this time of year. It's pretty consistently sunny and temperatures range from mid-60s to mid-80s. It's lush with yellowish fringe on everything that will be green within days. The redbuds are petering out and the dogwoods are riotous. All I really need is a cucumber-chili pepper paleta from Las Paletas and a park bench and I'm a happy chiquita.

7) Avoid sexual congress with a person with whom I have had an extended gray-area entanglement. I love you, punkin, but I think it unwise. Maybe saying it in a public forum will help me hold to my resolve? (Please don't kick my ass for saying it in a public forum!)

8) Compensate for #7 by making out with my dog (who lives with my parents as my DC lifestyle does not support his free-loading ways (or his need to pee more than twice a day)) a lot. Upon my arrival last night, he just about shivered himself out of his skin, he was so happy to see me. When he's really blissed out, he gets this totally retarded expression on his face-- his eyes get all squinty and he draws up his considerable jowls into this funny grin and he'll press the side of his face into mine: "Kiss me, Mom! Kiss me!" This is the look that keeps me in love with him, despite our extended separations. Ugh. God. I miss having a dog. And my dad's making him fat, dammit!

9) Squeeze in at least 5 full-out yoga practices and 6 Pilates floorwork sessions. All those cupcake tastings and paletas are gonna make me fat (not to mention the visits to DaVinci's, The Family Wash, Nola, and whereever else I might go so as to partake in Nashville's finest comestibles). And we all know how neurotic I am about getting fat. That's simply NOT an option.

So, I've only got 8 days here. It's quite a lot through which I need to bluster. Anon, anon...

Let me just call myself the prodigal daughter, as I'll be returning.

It's official.

I've booked my tickets. I've gotten leave from my supervisor. I've warned my parents that I'll be camping out in their spare room. I've secured the company of Jon, my usual sparring partner in all things film-related.

Be forewarned: 2008 Nashville Film Festival, here come the brown rabbits, half-rabid and prepared to consume you whole! I still can't afford Sundance, but as this thing's grown to be the 4th biggest film festival in the country and attracts scads of truly fine filmic works, you can color me excited! Pinkly so!

If I see anything near as good as last year's Milk in the Land, I'll consider it worth the trip.


Oooh, I'm all a-tremble!

Last things first

I've been silent for a few days, despite much avid movie-watching, mostly because there hasn't been time for both attending blog fodder and posting blog content. So, now that the Nashville Film Festival is all but over, I've finally got a few minutes for a recap.

I'm starting with the movie I saw last night called Adrenaline-- it was a bonus screening for a little Nashville-made film that I didn't think I'd be all that interested in--it's a thriller-sorta about a guy whose car satellite system gets intercepted by a hacker who claims to have abducted the guy's daughter-- nor did I think I'd have time to see it. However the fates conspired and apparently, I was meant to see this movie. When I first read about it, I felt rather disinterested, based on plot-outline alone but then as I learned a little more about it, I realized that it's hard to be a Nashvillian and not have some connection to it... and, you know, that just-nearly-touching-the-action thing is always fun. So here are my connections to it: David Alford, the star/co-writer, is a pretty prominent local actor and heads the Tennessee Repertory Theatre (probably the most notable local theatre group, for my non-Nashvillian readers). Now, when I was in high school, I volunteered at the Nashville Children's Theatre, helping out with costumes... and David was in a couple of those productions... and my recollections of him as a totally sweet and unassuming guy made me feel like I ought to go support the film. And when I mentioned to my mom that I was gonna skip out on dinner to go see this extra screening, she got all excited and starts telling me about interviewing the guy who invented Dippin' Dots (do people not from Tennessee know what Dippin' Dots is, I wonder?)-- and apparently, this guy happened to be the executive producer for this film. So, basically, Nashville is the smallest of all the small worlds.

Now the thing is, this film is destined to be picked up by some distributor somewhere, undoubtedly. I say this mostly because it's the sort of novelty that's likely to get some attention. It's 88 minutes long and the whole thing is just one shot. Yep, in the tradition of Hitchcock's Rope and that brilliant thing that came out a few years ago Russian Ark (if you haven't seen it, do so. Do so NOW!), just one little bitty shot. Or rather, one exacting, meticulously choreographed, driving-in-circles-in-downtown-Nashville, extremely loooooong shot. And they do a pretty good job of it from a technical standpoint. In the Q&A session after the screening, they confessed to several mishaps that we, in the audience, would never have noticed--like, for instance, Alford's hooked up to a live blue tooth all the way through and was in constant contact with this blonde woman (didn't catch what her job actually was, but I gather she was important) but in the middle of the 5th take-- the one that we saw-- apparently, his blue tooth died about 20 minutes from the end and when he leans over to vomit (scheduled, cued vomiting, mind you), he's really telling the DP that he's just gonna wing it for the rest! And this is pretty amazing, seeing as the remainder of the film is all a pretty tight action sequence. So, because this thing is so remarkable in its execution, I'm pretty sure everyone will have access to it sooner or later. And I can certainly reccommend it for the experience of it... it's a pretty fascinating experiment in filmmaking.

However, I feel I should offer a few caveats. For one thing, I think they had to make some pretty serious concessions here and there for continuity. I mean, the voice-over dude (the bad guy who's talking to Alford over the car satellite system) tells him to turn left a few times while he notably turns right. He plays a recording of the daughter's voice in which she repeats herself and doesn't answer questions-- which is a dead giveaway that Voice-over Dude is just pretending to have abducted her. Little plot issues like this seem par-for-the-course in this kinda genre film and didn't particularly worry me. But the Voice-over Dude himself? He vascillates between being campily sarcastic, issuing painfully overwrought decrees dripping with Hollywood evilness and obsequiously quoting Shakespeare (is this supposed to remind us that the writers are smart guys who've done their fair share of reading/stage-acting? Yes, thanks, I kinda already knew that). Basically, Voice-over Dude is Telephone Dude from Scream. Though, he's less ironic and aware of his own hamminess. Which is really too bad. He just chucked me right out of the moment with giggle-inducing cliches ever now and again.

That is not to say, however, that the film doesn't manage to mount a pretty serious tension. Because there is never any break from filming our protagonist, his own mounting anxiety is palpable and it's relentless. And, because Alford's plenty talented enough to go well beyond the bounds of the Nashville theatre scene, his Chris Thompson character is about as natural as they come.

This sort of thing is really what film festivals are all about: seeing some little experiment that some folks made for $65,000 (that may or may not catch fire) and being part of the local excitement. I just checked the NaFF website, knowing the awards were presented this morning and it looks like Adrenaline has won the Tennessee Independant Spirit Award for local filmmakers... and hopefully that'll give it some momentum. So, congratulations and good luck, David, et al! Should be at least as fun a ride for those guys as riding around an 8-block radius of downtown NashVegas, anyway!