They mostly come at night. Mostly.
|
 |
The Celebration III schedules are out in full for the four days, and I've scribbled out a basic idea of where I'll be and when. I'm trying to balance (as ludicrous as this sounds) between three basic categories - filmmaking technologies discussions, collecting panels, and out-and-out geek stuff. There are lots of conflicts - I feel sorry for any of the poor bastards who ended up scheduled against George Lucas on Saturday morning, and I don't know when I'm going to see Star Wars in 30 Minutes or One-Man Star Wars. Binary decisions abound, i.e. ILM development panel with Roger Guyett, or "I used to be Lando" panel with Billy Dee Williams?
I'll be in the Celebration store first thing every day (noon on Thursday and then 8 in the morning on Friday, Saturday and Sunday) to try to nab my various exclusives. I'm told that the higher-end exclusives (the Master Replicas and Gentle Giant items) will in fact be available to me on all four days, so the sky's the fucking limit there, if supplies hold out (they won't). The only major problem (again) is Georgie Boy, who is going to seriously fuck everything up on Saturday morning. I suspect we'll be in line hella early, to try to get into either the first or second showing. Everyone will eventually get to see him, no doubt, but it's going to hump me for the normal run of things that day.
Autographs have never been a priority in my life, but if I can spare some time for the autograph lines (and if these people are available), I wouldn't mind scoring:
- Peter Mayhew (the mighty Chewbacca)
- Leanna Walsman (Zam Wesell)
- Tim Rose (Admiral frickin' Ackbar baby!)
- Warwick Davis (Wicket, but I don't think he's signing officially)
- Amy Allen (Aayla Secura, the question being whether I can convince her to let me sign her breasts)
- Femi Taylor (Oola; same question applies)
- Kenny Baker (R2-D2... cuz honestly, why not?)
- Rebelscum.com is offering autographs by the guy who said "You rebel scum" - can't miss that
I'd probably just try to get them all to sign the same piece of C3 paraphernalia (my lanyard or something) instead of the glossies, cuz then I've made myself a nice little keepsake.
So here's how it goes down:
We're ditching T-dot at around 10:30 tomorrow night, with the aim being to drive flat-out to the middle of Indiana by around breakfast time. This plan gets us to the Will Call by 9, checked into the hotel by 11, and into the line for the Celebration store shortly thereafter. Thursday's main event (for me, anyway) are a couple of panels conducted by ILM regarding the model shop, and Warwick Davis, who is showing Revenge of the Ewok at 1:30. That's actually one of the three things I'm looking most forward to for the whole weekend. I loves me some Warwick.
 |
On Friday I have to decide whether or not I want to go to the Rick McCallum show; he's going to be showing footage from Revenge of the Sith, but I suspect Georgie Porgie will be doing the same thing so it's probably a moo point. There's a kick-ass visual effects tour conducted by John Knoll later in the day, along with panels on sound design and (holy cow I'm a nerd) the use of mood lighting in art design. I'd like to try to get into the Hasbro panel if I can, and in the evening I'll be dividing my time between a Master Replicas cocktail party, and watching Jason build a Star Destroyer out of Lego. Oh, and they're showing Return of the Jedi that night too. I hear it's good.
Saturday morning gets eaten by The Lucas, and then it's that
horrible Sophie's Choice between Billy Dee Williams and Roger Guyett. There are
a bunch of cool toy-related panels all day, an hour with Warwick Davis (if I'm
not already sick of him), more ILM stuff, and the chance to see if Jake Lloyd's
pubescence really "took." I'm not even bothering with David Prowse; Jake's the
only Vader I wanna see.
There's
also a rumour floating around that we'll ditch the con on Saturday night to
have dinner at the Beef
n' Boards Dinner Theatre, to watch a production of 42nd Street. How
this will leave time to fleece convention-goers of their poker money is a Tale
of the Unknown Book, but patience is a Jedi virtue.
On Sunday I'll try to get Nick Gillard to teach me how to fight with a lightsabre, see how Hilary's tats stack up to everyone else's at the tattoo contest, and try to balance learning abou the future of Star Wars collecting with my fetishistic desire to see all of the Star Wars babes on stage at the same time. Oh, and there's Wookiees. If that's not enough geeking for a four-day weekend, I don't know what. We're off to the steakhouse by 5, back in the car by 7, and back to this truly democratic nation of ours, hopefully, by the wee hours of the morning.
I'm certain that you, gentle reader, had no need for this level of detail, but I had to go through it all one more time just to get everything straight.
36 hours to go...
Things that happened
Apr 19 2005 - 9:04
a.m.
Blogging in point form:
- It's official: someone else gonna die on Lost before the year's out, and will be joining Ian Somerhalder in the "I can't believe I got cut from the best series ever" support group. (I hear the coffee's terrible at those things.) Is it time for a Big Scary Monster Eats Someone? Sadly, I doubt it.
- I actually purchased music all legal-likes, from the iTunes music store over the weekend. A single track - a surf-style cover of the Buffy theme. But now I'm intrigued.
- I have such bad heartburn right now I can barely see straight. This is the second time in five days a hamburger has done me ill. The first one was so greasy it put my system into spasm for the entire weekend; last night's had so many damne onions on it (my attempts to pick a reasonable quantity off failed) that I can currently see through time.
- Can we give a shout out to Bex? I mean honestly, she's putting the rest of us bloggers to shame.
Important random news stuff starring people you care
about
Apr 18 2005 - 9:08 a.m.
By the way, David Tennant has been signed to take over from depart-o-Eccleston on Doctor Who. Yeah that's right, it's my first Doctor Who news post! And I've only watched two episodes ever. For all I know, ep 3 is gonna suck the balls of the goat. Goat balls.
Tennant's playing Barty Crouch Jr. in Goblet of Fire, which I continue to remain entirely uninvolved in. But I loves me some Emma Watson so I will say happy birthday to that self-same Watson, who will probably always be 11 but who knows, it was her birthday the other day which is the point.
As for Half-Blood Prince, the whole Star Wars thing has completely shorted out my interest in the Potterverse, although I expect that said interest will come roaring back on or around May 21st. Will I do another marathon crawl through the past five books, attempting to land on the final page of Phoenix mere moments before walking through the doors of Indigo to pick up Prince? We'll see.
And finally: Serenity Rose is no longer going to be published as a usual comic book dealie. Instead, Aaron A is saying that there will be a mega, manga-stylie digest book once a year or so, but the first one ain't going to come out untill January '06. I reiterate my earlier comment about the testicles of goats. But the complete Vol. 1 (collecting issues 1-5) will be available in trade paperback soon, with goodies. Enjoy!
It's actually too hot to wear my bathrobe.
Un-amation
Apr 18 2005 - 8:57
a.m.
It seems like every fifteen minutes, Lucasfilm is sending me my Star Wars fan club membership kit. I received three of these things in 2004. Each one contains a cell from the Ewoks animated series, so I've got three of these useless pieces of plastic. Did you ever see that Simpsons episode where Bart orders an animation cell from Itchy & Scratchy and it arrives and it's just somebody's arm? This is kinda like that, only I'd kill to have an arm. An ewok arm on an animation cell? How cool would that be? Nope, I got stuck with
- A piece of coiled vine
- The wings of a butterfly
- A diffuse glow.
Well, I've assembled the cells here at 3QF and have decided to make an animated movie out of them... somehow. Maybe it'll be hommage to the works of Chris MacLean. (I can already hear Daniel's voiceover: "I am a piece of coiled vine. I am the wings of a butterfly. I am a diffuse glow.") Or maybe it'll be even more exciting than the Esquivel! song I've picked out to accompany it.
To be continued.
Are you drowning or waving?
Apr 16 2005 -
10:47 p.m.
Finished the script again. Yeah, I know, I say that every three weeks. But I really did it this time. The approach I began on Wednesday concluded tonight, after a beautiful and promising day that I managed to completely waste in every single regard. At around 9:00, though, I was watching the Clerks X commentary, and I figured I'd better at least get a few pages revised, just to hold the lines. I ended up working from page 69 right to the end. I ended up at 103 pages, so I put the entire Ubese bounty hunter discussion right back into the script. (I had cut it for length, but hung onto it as my favourite deletion.) I even ended up expanding it a bit. It's even better.
I'm really happy with this draft. It's finally solved the problem of the Two Most Underused Supporting Characters in Screenwriting History, and it's got a better sense of flow and rhythm than anything else I've done with the script in 2005. It's more personal, and more linked to things that have happened in my life, and things that I want to (at least tangentially) talk about. And there's now enough explicit sex and nudity (for both boys and girls, natch) to guarantee funding by any number of pornographic agencies.
So that's that. Whiskey time.
It doesn't have to be everything; it just has to be its own thing.
KongisTights.net
Apr 16 2005 - 9:41
a.m.
Jason turned me on to this one - I haven't actually been following the near-daily featurettes on KongisKing.net too closely because honestly, who has the time? But (as usual) I have to admire Peter Jackson's willingness to turn the making of a movie into an operatic saga that almost exists on the same level as the film itself. Bryan Singer got so juiced up by the whole process that he decided to do the exact same thing for Superman, on his own website, BlueTights.net. Now, for the first time, the two sites have overlapped, staging an adorable little gag sequence about PJ calling up Bryan and asking him to guest-direct Kong, so that Peter can get a bit of sleep. They're here and here. Make sure you stay until Frank Darabont's cameo - now there's a filmmaker I hate (although he did write my favourite Young Indy), but man alive, he's funny.
Bryan Singer is one of my favourite directors, which is odd, because a) I don't actually like his movies that much, and b) he's a bit of a jerk. What I realized just now is that it's the natural biproduct of this whole process of creating elaborate making-of coverage for your movies: the crew becomes the cast, and Bryan's a hell of a character for me to identify with. The directors that I actually consider to be great directors, and who I'd consider to be largely influential of my work, are usually people that I nevertheless feel very little of a personal connection to (Akira Kurosawa, David Lean, John Ford, P.T. Anderson, David Fincher, Quentin Tarantino, Sam Mendes, even Steven Spielberg), while the "celebrity directors" that I tend to watch like a hawk are the people who put themselves out there as part of the product - George Lucas, Jim Cameron, Robert Rodriguez, Peter Jackson, Kevin Smith, Bryan Singer. In none of these examples could I honestly say that I consider their canon to be rock-solid like any of the individuals in the first list, but the way these directors go about the process is closer to the way I go about the process (or how I feel like I go about the process). These are the characters I'm interested in; these are "my heroes" because they're doing it every day in a way that excites and challenges me. They make me want to make movies.
Gorrammit, now I gotta go make a movie. I'm all riled up.
A little too excited
Apr 15 2005 - 9:35
p.m.
The complete text of an e-mail I just sent Jason:
Date: Fri, 15 Apr 2005 21:34:58 -0400
To: Jason Gorber
From: Matthew C. Brown
Subject: now very excited
So we get to the Will Call by 9 to get our passes, get to the
Celebration store in time to line up for noon for the action figure, and we're
in Hall G by 1:30 to watch Warwick Davis present his short film about ewoks.
Does it get better than this?
I live to entertain you fine people with my extreme nerdiness.
And this just in: blogging will be possible from the convention. I repeat, there will be daily Tederick.com blogging live from Indianapolis. You are lucky, lucky readers.
And now, for my next lightsabre...
Apr 15
2005 - 9:11 p.m.
Bought another lightsabre today. I've got the Force FX one, I've got the brilliant Master Replicas one, but I needed something sturdy that you can actually hit people with, or I just won't be able to hold my own at Celebration at all. So Jason and I drove up to the Toys R Us at Vic Park and Lawrence, just like the old days, and bought us some Hasbro role-playing lightsabres. He got the Anakin one that changes from blue to red, and I got Obi-Wan Kenobi's Episode III blade. (Matthew was stymied as to why I needed this specific lightsabre and couldn't just make do with one of the ones I already have, but then... he's... well...) Naturally, Jason and I weren't out of the store ten seconds before we threw down and got into a pretty atrocious duel in the parking lot. As I recall, that's how we first met.
Just to clear up any confusion (because I talk about a lot of lightsabres on this site), here's what I've got:
- The lightsabre I bought today was a
plastic, electronic, light n' sound duelling blade from
Hasbro's role-playing line. The significance of this is that the very first
lightsabre I ever owned also happened to be the very first lightsabre in this
self-same line, back in 1996. I got
Luke's lightsabre for Christmas that year from my parents,
and proceeded to wail around the house for no less than an hour, hitting
everything in sight, as though I were four years old. (I was twenty.) The one I
bought today is Obi-Wan's from Episode III, and is likely the last such
lightsabre I will ever buy. I have about a half a dozen of this type of
lightsabre, in various makes and models - Luke's, Vader's, Obi-Wan's from
Episode I, Darth Maul's, Qui-Gon's, Count Dooku's, Anakin's.... and now this
one. I think that's all.
- The lightsabre I received earlier this week that I made such
a big fuss over is an officially-licensed prop replica from Master Replicas.
It's
Obi-Wan's lightsabre hilt from Episode III. To clear up a
misunderstanding, this is merely a replica of the hilt prop from the movie. It
has no blade. (Lightsabres aren't real.) It can't be used for fighting, or
really for anything other than sitting on my desk looking pretty. It's a very,
very expensive piece of metal, and I've bought it under the theory that it's
the last such Star Wars extravagance for a long, long time. It
concludes, essentially, my entire collection, bridging the gap between my
favourite character from the original trilogy (Luke) with my favourite from the
prequel trilogy (Obi-Wan) through the design similarities in their respective
weapons of choice.
- The lightsabre I got last summer, which I chased that dude down the street with, is a Power FX lightsabre, also from Master Replicas. This is Luke's lightsabre from Return of the Jedi. Unlike the prop replica above, this is not an exact duplication of the weapon from the movie; the design had to be altered slightly in order to allow it to house a glowing blade that makes eerily-authentic "vwimm-hum" sounds. This is a real prize in my collection. The only downside is that you can't actually use it for duelling, because any serious strike would shatter the blade. Thus, I done bought me the light n' sound one so that I can actually hit people in Indianapolis.
The new design of the electronic sabre is (almost) brilliant, by the way; they're using AA batteries instead of Cs now, so the hilt is nice and slender. The only problem is that damned grip ribbing - it hurts like a bastard in your hand. But the blue blade is awesome, and the sounds are great, and the whole motherfucking thing shakes when you hit something now. It's a lightsabre dildo, at long last.
Oh, and to clear up another seemingly-widespread misunderstanding: we are not going to be seeing Episode III in Indianapolis. This is a convention, not a screening. The movie's still coming out in May.
Geek out.
Would it surprise you, Eric, to learn that I've heard these
lies before?
Apr 15 2005 - 2:52 p.m.
Fido owes me $55.60. They've owed me this money since around the fifteenth of October, stemming from billing errors on their part that began on the first of June of last year. It's not a whole lot of money, so mostly I just use it as an opportunity to keep myself amused at the fundamental stupidity of their entire organization. The last time I called about the money was on the 7th of March; I was told that the cheque would be in the mail by the third week of the month. I didn't believe them for a moment; I only wrote, in my day planner on April 15th, "Call Fido again about the money." So today I called them again and was told that I will receive the money, by the latest, on the 20th of May. (The title above is an exact quote from my conversation with Fido.) I have already written, in my day planner om May 20th, "Call Fido again about the money." I'll damn well keep doing this. I'll go forever if I have to. Why? Because when I finally do get that cheque, I'm not going to throw it against the credit card debt that Fido helped create; no, I'm going to take it down to the Silver Snail and spend it on something entirely frivolous and stupid. And then, dear readers, I will regale you all with the complete, nearly year-long saga of how Fido tried, repeatedly, to fuck me in the ass. And they only forgot one thing: I LOVES A GOOD ASS FUCKING, BITCH!
Mmm. Hearty.
Today my street smelled like the worst kind of garbage raunch I've ever had the displeasure to inhale. I think we're seeing the downside of the whole green bin theory - in the summertime, a garbage truck full of absolutely nothing but rotting food matter is nothing less than a nightmare scenario. This one must have belched garbage water all over the curb outside my house, because when I went outside, I very nearly vomited... three separate times. The retching, the heaving, the watering eyes... it's a whole thing, I assure you.
Currently, 97% of my brain is in Celebration. Sandtroopers and lightsabres and George Lucas himself. It's only going to get worse for the next five days. The four of us are actually nerdy enough to be having a meeting about the trip, in just a few short hours. I'll let you know what the hizzel-fo-shizzel when I get back. In the meantime, I'm gonna attempt to continue the writing streak.
Suckin' balls, it's a hot day!
Season of mists
Apr 14 2005 - 2:43
p.m.
Every time I think I'm completely tired of Alias, they suck me back in with a really good episode. Actually in this case it was two really good episodes, back-to-back this afternoon on my PVR. Bill Vaughn's dead, Irina Derevko's obviously alive, and Sloane's got an evil twin brother who's name is probably Anton. For a second or two, you could almost imagine it's Season One all over again.
There's a lot of question in my mind as to what I'm going to do for an Intersections movie for 1MFVF'05. Everybody seems to be coming up with really elaborate ideas, myself included, but (as we've seen) the point of this fest is best served when you do something quick n' brilliant rather than huge and exhaustive. I think I'm overthinking it. I've got quite a few things moving, actually, when you think about it (documentary, music video, one minute film, two scripts, three proposals, and seven dozen festival submissions) and it's proving harder and harder to keep everything straight and give every separate project its creative due. I'm working on a new system, though - here's a hint, it involves flashcards! - and so far it seems to be holding its own. But the borders of my brain are frazzled.
Creativity, man. You can't run it like a business, and you can't survive on it if you don't.
The Process, part whatever
Apr 14 2005 -
12:01 p.m.
Going back to the well on the script seems to be working fine; after months of blockage I did twenty pages of revision last night, and thirty more today. I'm sitting on page 52, which would be the exact midpoint of the script. There's some murky water ahead because I have to fool around with the conclusion of the arcs of two of the supporting characters, but on the whole I'm feeling fairly confident. I'd love to have this draft printed and under my arm by the time I go to Celebration.
Ah, the writer's life for me. It's only noon, and I'm done my "work." Now I'm going to go for a bike ride in the sunshine, down to the Purolator office. Why? Because I can.
I want Mulder.
Apr 14 2005 - 9:58
a.m.
David Duchovny was on Letterman last night, and my usual springtime X-Files cravings are firmly in place. (These are the forces that compelled me to buy six - yes, six - seasons of the series on DVD at around this time two years ago.) Now I wants me some X-Files like crazy. I finally finished the series just a couple of weeks ago, but Season Nine is thin gruel for what I'm craving. And besides (I think I've mentioned this before), the world is back in an X-Files kind of mood. The last few years of the series were hampered by the fact that the worst "conspiracy" in America was about what ol' Bill did or didn't do to Monica's hoo-ha with that cigar. Now, with the United States - heck, the entire planet - in unabashed fascististic turmoil, don't we need a little Mulder? A little Scully? A little Doggett, Skinner and Reyes?
Well it's ten in the morning and I've been awake for an hour. I had meant to start writing immediately upon waking (like Robert Rodriguez) but my body just don't play that. I need my tea, I need my bathroom break and water and maybe something to eat. Well, whatever... into the shower, and then to the task at hand, before all the other tasks at hand come crashing down on me.
I slept with my lightsabre
Apr 14 2005 -
12:31 a.m.
"You look like Frodo, and you can
sing!"
-
my mother, to Adam, on why he should audition for the LOTR
musical
"I'm not much enamoured of the smell of
this
shirt."
- me, on my shirt, after having watched too much Deadwood
I'm just not a very good writer. I've been kicking around this "very minor" revision of subculture for, like, about a gajillion years and getting absolutely nowhere with it. I actually had a list of all the specific things I needed to do to the draft, and I was doing them, surgical-strike style, literally weeks apart and then wondering why the resulting work had no flow or style to it. That was draft 2.3, and tonight I just chucked that in the bin, went back to version 2.2, and then created a 2.3a, starting at the beginning and working my way forwards. It's already working much better. I finally figured out the first Mrs. Amazing scene in a way that doesn't suck, gave Heather a whole lotta bitchiness to chew on, and worked in the Wonder Woman / Die Hard 2 analysis in a way that wasn't entirely awful. It felt like taking a really good shit. Plenty left to do, but at least that's something.
I sent Jeff an e-mail today asking if I could borrow some Doctor Who backstory, because let's face it, I'm obsessed with Doctor Who right now. I knew I could count on Jeff, but not only did he reply in detail to my queries in the e-mail, but also responded to everything I wrote yesterday about the show. His response was so good, in fact, that it deserves to be posted as a thorough rebuttal to what I wrote. It's way too big to put right here, but here it is on its own separate page. Now there's a fella who can write.
I've been going to bed later and later, and waking up feeling like ass. Thought I'd get in bed by midnight tonight; that didn't work out, but I'm going now. I didn't actually sleep with my lightsabre last night, but I built a fairly significant Obi-Wan Keshrine on my dresser, with the sabre in the center, and various action figures, dolls, busts, and Unleasheds cloistered around it. It's rather spectacularly geeky, actually. One week to go before I'm Indiana-bound.
A little sex in your coffee?
Apr 13 2005
- 10:29 a.m.
It's springtime, the air is sweeter, the birds are chirping and the earth is thick and moist. Everybody's horny as hell, and getting hornier. Now, my time trawling the internet is not insignificant. I'm here quite a bit, actually. So, gentle readers, here's some fun sex-related stuff to enliven your day:
Lisa Gottlieb has written a very, very lengthy dissertation on her complete relationship with the penis called The Penis Diaries. As far as outsiders-looking-in perspectives go, this is pretty well top notch, IMHO. Explicit in places and pretty damned funny in other places, and pretty much continually fascinating. Well done.
Our fine Torontonian local, Eye Magazine, gets to the bottom of a question that I tried to answer for the vagina post back in December: are vaginas inherited? Well, of course they are, when you think about it. But as much as folk will say "she has your nose" or "he has your eyes," it's been a long time since I've heard a proud parent say "she has the spitting image of your vagina" or "my goodness his penis looks like yours, Bob." Here's the page; the question's at the bottom. (You can also read about anal sex and bleaching your bush, if you're so inclined.)
If you're after a blog that doesn't fool around with none of this endless ranting about shit that don't matter - none of this "text" at all, in fact - check out Everyday Nakedness. That's all it is - a picture, every day or two, of some part of the author's naked body. Some of them are godawful, some of them are self-consciously arty, and some of them are balls-to-the-wall hot. Good times.
 |
Finally, and probably best of all, there's Beautiful Agony. If this isn't what the internet was invented for, I don't know what. It's a porn site, yes, but it's notable for the fact that it's completely devoid of nudity of any kind: the entire site is composed solely of close-up videos of peoples' faces as they have an orgasm. Erotic? Hells yes. Brilliant sociological study? Even more so. As far as great levelling forces go, there's nothing to make you feel plugged into your species more than endless images of people shrieking in ecstasy. The downside is that it's a pay site (and no, I haven't paid), but there's more than enough free video samples on the various pages to give you a good taste of why an archive like this was just such a freaking good idea. Or you can just browse the thumbnails, because they are hilarious.
There. I think I've successfully out-Bexed Bex's dildo post. Have a great morning, everyone!
ReTARDIS
Apr 12 2005 - 1:03
p.m.
(This is the post that Jeff has been waiting for all his life.)
Can someone please explain Doctor Who to me?
 |
The most coherent thing I know about Doctor Who is that the opening credits scared the piss out of me when I was a kid, so I never watched the series, except in abortive efforts to "dare" myself to actually withstand the complete effects of the title sequence. The music, the creepy vortex, and the sheer "I am the king of the dead" look on Tom Baker's face were more than enough to send me spinning off into nightmareland.
But an event is an event, so I tried watching this new Doctor Who show. I tried last week and gave up after about ten minutes; I tried again today and watched the whole thing. You know what? I enjoyed myself. But I have no freakin' idea what's going on, so I've been asking various people all week to explain this thing to me.
The salient points seem to be this:
- Is he supposed to be acting like that way? i.e., like he's retarded?
- Is there any point in becoming invested in Christopher Eccleston as a lead character, given that we already know that he's leaving in 12 episodes?
- Didn't the phone box dealie used to be smaller?
- Do we have to go into the distant future next week, when all the aliens look like bad prosthetic re-hashes from the original Star Trek, including the talking piece of skin?
- Why aren't the opening credits scary any more?
It is the weapon of a Jedi Knight
Apr 12
2005 - 10:51 a.m.
I got my lightsabre just now. A man could get hooked on this Master Replicas treatment! A surprisingly ginormous box showed up at my front door, and inside was an imposing black obelisk - kind of like receiving an evil iPod. A quick unfolding of the many flaps, and there it is, heavy as an Oscar and just as shiny. It sure doesn't smell like an action figure. I've put it in its case and it's sitting on my desk while waiting for a better permanent home... because I'm sure not going to be flailing this thing about chasing hoods down the street in my pajamas. And the really weird part? It's limited edition number seven-fourteen. Sounds like it's really the one for me.
That is why there is a second-person narration and my hands are
flailing in the air.
Apr 12 2005 - 12:32
a.m.
I've just returned from the Command Zed Residency screening, which featured Chris' commissioned work, Walter's Undoing, along with four other films. It was my first Images screening this year, and will probably be my only one. At the end of the day, experimental work of this type just isn't my bag - I can appreciate Chris' work because I'm familiar with his complete canon, and a couple of the other films were decent (if flawed), but another was incomprehensible and the last was just plain bad. As usual, my brain started working on two levels; the front end was completely stymied, whilst the rear guard was furiously rearranging chess pieces on the boards of two or three ongoing projects I've been tinkering with in my mind. I cut out of the after-party early to come home and try to write some of them.
The funnest part of the evening was watching Chris tackle his first Q&A, but the proceedings were somewhat undone (no pun intended) by a dearth of audience vigour. Also satisfying (or at least redeeming) on a personal level was seeing the digital tape foul up during the fourth film, in almost exactly the same manner as the technical snafu during last year's One Minute Film Festival - I no longer feel like quite such a rank amateur. After the show we all trucked over to SpaHA!!, but without the flurry of free Steamwhistles that marked previous years, the bar was a relative ghost town. At least I finally got to put to rest my longstanding fear that Colin Geddes is either afraid of me, or that he is in fact my father and has been trying to figure out a tactful way to tell me, because we had a decent chat about some asian flicks he's trying to nab for this year's Midnight Madness. He also had a smidgen of kind support to offer regarding Leap, which he's finally seen... which means quite a bit, given that he's one of about six people in the city of Toronto whose opinion on film actually matters a lot to me.
Well I'd best turn in soon, so that the morning will come faster. This morning I heard the FedEx truck pull up in front of the house, but I was busy doing something and didn't go down to check the door, in spite of the recent flakiness of our doorbell. Sure enough, I missed my lightsabre. All day long I've been Polkarooing around the house, repeating endlessly "I can't believe my lightsabre was here and I missed it." They shall return, and this time, I'll be waiting.
Girls of shady origin and impure breeding kick ass
Apr 11 2005 - 10:42 a.m.
I'm doing the "Ride for the Heart" bike ride up the DVP for Heart & Stroke this year, and it's time for you fine readers to pony up the dough and sponsor me! Because a) good cause and b) I want to seem impressive and c) putting your credit card on the internet is fun. Go here to pledge me online. You can pledge any amount you want, big or small; there will be no offence taken if you only pledge a couple of quarters. I will, however, laugh merrily.
I woke up from a night of sweaty sex dreams and a strange alternate ending to The Aviator that involved a lot of running, and it's a beautiful no-strike day in Toronto. I'm not sure exactly what constructivity I'm going to get done today given that the lure of the outside is fairly strong right now. But this would be a good time for me to plug Chris' screening at the Images Film Festival, which is tonight at 9:15 at Innis Town Hall. Many Tederick.com luminaries, along with the writing staff behind much of the Blog Circle, will be in attendance if you wish to play shoot-the-blogger. Or you can just sit back and enjoy a night of weird, commissioned video art.
Look to the sky
Apr 10 2005 - 10:00
p.m.
While the TTC got its head out of its ass, Andy, Matty Price and I went on a 5½-hour hike on the Bruce Trail. (Well, it was probably more like a 4-hour hike on the Bruce Trail, but we have a penchant for lostedness.) Still, it was a damn good day for a walk in the woods. Being as that we are all male, our conversation dealt largely with titties, Superman, and taking a really good shit. It was a decent hike overall, probably about an hour too long for the first such engagement of the year, but my formerly-pallid complexion thanked me in advance for my rosy suburn, and my legs have that nice "deservedly tired" feeling. I came home, talked to my girl on the telephone, made risotto, drank single malt and watched The Incredibles on DVD. All in all, Sundays don't get much more pleasant than this.
As for the TTC, even with the strike tentatively averted, I'm fairly fed up with them. Well, I'm usually fed up with them; now I'm more just tired of their shit. Even though I know it's completely unrelated and an unfair connection, I have to say that after last month's fare hike, they couldn't have chosen a worse time to throw this hissy fit. They've successfully squandered what little goodwill the cititzens of Toronto had left for them. I've been a union worker in my time and have even seen my job taken away from me in a contracting-out dispute, but I gotta say, I wish the TTC wasn't unionized. Saying nothing of the fact that eliminating union protection might actually force the employees to do their jobs to the best of their ability instead of the bare minimum, I can't see how any organization should have the power to effectively shut down an entire metropolis on the whims of their contract disputes. That's supervillain jive. Is the TTC Toronto's supervillain? And who will defeat them?
Filmmaker
Apr 9 2005 - 6:50
p.m.
First of all, today marks the start of Tederick.com's first Star Wars giveaway. It's my hope to do two or three of these in the next six weeks, just as something special for my readers, to commemorate the release of Episode III. That's right, win free Star Wars shit right here on the internet! Click on through for contest details.
Now then. Yesterday Chris wrote a fairly detailed dissertation on the world of experimental video art and his place in it. I am not, nor have I ever been, an experimental video artist; I had what can only be described as a moment of clarity on the subject just a few months ago. I had pitched an experimental documentary to the Charles Street Video residency programme entitled This Is What We Do. It was going to be a chronicle of the process of completely recreating St. Lawrence Market, the only film of mine that no longer exists - because I personally obliterated it in 1996. I was so dissatisfied with the film - a group project commissioned by my first-year film production professor, Bruce Paddington - that I took the only copy out into the middle of Six Mile Lake, set it on a barge loaded with explosives and other flammables, and blew it to kingdom come. I still have a picture of the explosion hanging above my bedroom door with the caption "This is what we do to the films that suck," hence the title of my would-be CSV project.
Well, CSV didn't pick me, and almost immediately I realized, why the fuck am I even trying to do something like this? When have I ever wanted to do something like this? I've been a narrative filmmaker since I picked up my first camera, and I've wanted to be one since long before that. The genesis of my leanings is not Star Wars itself as so many people presume, but actually SPFX: The Making of the Empire Strikes Back, a one-hour special that aired on CBS in 1980 or 1981. My father taped it off Superchannel sometime in 1982 or 1983, and I was completely hooked. Here's why:
 |
There's a sequence in the documentary that visits the model shop at Industrial Light and Magic while they are making ready to stage a snowspeeder explosion for the Battle of Hoth. It's one snowspeeder - Zev Senesca's Echo Three, actually - and the ILM wizards have put together a perfectly beautiful little model of it, about a foot long, which they are suspending on descending wires in order to fly it in front of a bluescreen and blow it up. They've meticulously loaded an explosive charge into the back of the model. The entire process of preparation has taken 8 hours. Blowing up the ship takes about five seconds. And then, as we are reminded in the clip from Empire that follows, the shot that they captured is in the film for all of about 35 frames.
Most of the people I've told this story to have said that it's actually a decent argument for why not to be a filmmaker, but for me it was love at first sight. There's something innate about the rhythm of that work that appeals to me right down to my soul, and has since I was six or seven years old. Taking that much care and detailed effort to create such a tiny piece of such an overwhelmingly massive whole just instantaneously seemed like the exact sort of work I wanted to be doing. There's a surprising power and resonance in that rhythm for me - you just put this big thing together a bit at a time, a shot at a time, and sooner or later, it's all done. I love it. I've always loved it.
Now the models on wires are all but gone (though their exhaustive attention to detail lives on in the Bigatures that give us our virtual environments), bluescreens are used for people instead of ships, and film is far too unreliable a capture medium for visual effects work anyway, but something about that moment in time still remains as the very core of everything I do as a filmmaker today. Star Wars might have always been the kind of story I've wanted to tell on that massive 100-foot-high screen, but The Making of the Empire Strikes Back is the story of how I want to approach the work - with ingenuity, and care, and a willingness to undertake each tiny step in the ongoing, relentless effort to complete the whole.
Girl Guide Cookies
Apr 9 2005 - 10:40
a.m.
It's finally here, it's finally happening, Kate and I had our first beer on the back deck yesterday after a stroll down to Zellers that required both my Cyclops sunglasses, and the removal of most of our layers of clothing. Today I'm going to clean said deck, and maybe get one of those planter things for it so that I can grow me some various herbs for use in my summer cooking projects. I want a good plant for my bedroom window, too; I'm in full-on, hands-in-the-earth, surround-me-with-leafy-things mode. This week I'll have to track down some pipe-weed, and my plans will finally be complete.
I am a vampire. I'm so freaking pale I blind myself when I see myself reflected in car windows as I pass. A couple of weeks ago I made note of this to Kate as we were walking into a shopping mall, saying "Man, we're really pale." She replied "Well, we're caucasians." Which pretty much shut me up.
The best summer job I ever had was working at Summerhill Nursery and Floral, just because it was the perfect cure for all of this - having just come out of third year university, spending way too much time in the dank concrete dungeon that is York University's Centre for Film and Theatre. I needed to work with air and water and soil, I needed bright sunshine and heavy objects to lift and work clothes that always came home covered in dirt. For a couple of months in 1998, it was like heaven fell on the earth.
"I never quite mastered the 'your willie is private' rule, but I did manage to keep from peeing on my friends." - Matthew C. Brown, April 8 2005
The Force is with you, young D-Coc
Apr 8
2005 - 2:35 p.m.
I got a delivery notice from the post office today, so all atwitter, I biked out there to pick up whatever I had to pick up. The package was handed to me, a crudely-assembled padded manilla folder with no return address. It was addressed to Tederick Media, which itself is bizarre since the company's mailing address is elsewhere. I tore the package open to find 2 VHS tapes from the "Society for the Protection of VHS." One was titled Aytekkin Akkaya, and the other was Os Trapalhoes na Guerra dos Planetas. The enclosed note mentioned that these items had been in their inventory since December 25 2003, on hold for me, and were just now being delivered.
I figured it was something dumb having to do with the One Minute festival, or possibly an explosive, so I bunged the tapes in my bag and headed off home. On my way, I mulled over the possibilities for this strange package. If the items had been on hold since 2003, there was no way they would have found me at this address, since I haven't lived at 3QF that long. And the Society for the Protection of VHS... well, it all clicked into place fairly immediately at that point, since Daniel Cockburn has owed me a Christmas present for 2003 for close to 16 months now. We did a Secret Santa sort of deal that year, he got me, and he defaulted on the gift, until now.
Aytekkin Akkaya. Or, as it's better known, Turkish Star Wars.
And Os Trapalhoes na Guerra dos Planetas, a.k.a. Planet Wars from Brazil.
Wow.
Get a load of the Turkish Darth Vader:
The tapes are quasi-unwatchable and the Turkish one doesn't even have subtitles, but yeah, this has to ring the bell as one of the coolest additions to my Star Wars collection.
The Force is with you, young D-Coc... now give me back my coat, you son of a bitch!
Incredibly unbroken sentence moving from topic to topic (quite
hypnotic)
Apr 8 2005 - 11:45 a.m.
Nice - so it turns out that the guy in the house behind mine, who has the unobstructed view through my bedroom window, who has doubtlessly seen me spank it on more than one occasion, is some creepy-looking old geezer. And yeah, he's staring at me from his back door right now.
Well, I can't be bothered to care much.
Apprehensive though I may be on the Pirates of the Caribbean sequels, I couldn't not post the first on-set pic of Captain Jack:
My credit card just got dinged for a large sum from an American
company. Wonder what that could be?
Yay, it's
lightsabre time! Now the question is, can I get Georgie Boy to sign it? No,
probably not.
The old dude's asleep now. I may run over there and steal his pants.
Are you threatening me, Master Jedi?
Apr
8 2005 - 12:12 a.m.
So Palpatine jumps over the desk, sabre in hand, and a short while later, we know that he's dueling mano a mano with Mace Windu. The inherent suggestion here is that the old man offs three fairly significant Jedi in pretty much a single move. I'm seeing a clean slice across all three heads with that lovely red lightsabre. One slice, thunk-thunk-thunk. And that's badass.
 |
Yet another exclusive item for Celebration III; this one's a .45-scale Obi-Wan lightsabre replica (yeah, the one I'm getting, only smaller) done in a "dark chrome" finish. Tasty. The .45-scale sabres from Master Replicas tend to look like really ornate pens, so they're not as cool as they sound, but this one's pretty much a must. Then there's the talking Vader figure (the leading collectible for the event), which I'm not particularly excited about, except in that my 4-day pass will get me 4 figures, 3 of which (at least) I can sell to defray some of the costs of everything else. It's nowhere near as cool as the George Lucas action figure from last time, though, so boo to Lucasfilm. Finally, Gentle Giant is putting out an exclusive variation of their upcoming Sandtrooper bust - with a new hat! Well, with a black pauldron actually, but the difference is similarly irrelevant. I loves me the Sandtroopers, though, so I'll probably end up doing the hat trick on Celebration III exclusive collectibles. Don't know if I can buy multiples on the latter two, but if I can, they're comfortably Ebay-bound. Although I may save one as a door prize for you fine Tederick.commies.
Oh and I read Star Wars: Visionaries today. Some interesting stuff, some really pretty artwork, but the only story that was actually a good story was the (far-fetched) final duel between an aging Obi-Wan Kenobi and a cyborgariffically-rebuilt Darth Maul, who had been hunting the man who cut him in half for well over a decade. Still, it was a good time, and yeah... really pretty.
Thrall
Apr 7 2005 - 2:41
p.m.
The subway I was riding had just pulled out of St. George station - in fact, the whole ass of the train was probably still inside the station itself - when the whole thing came to a lurching halt. There was a few minutes of nothing particularly happening, and then the driver came on the intercom and told us we were heading back to St. George. The driver came out of his booth and a few people on the train asked him what was going on, and he told us that there had been a suicide at Union station, and that the entire loop south of Bloor was being shut down for an hour while the police cleaned things up. Then he went on his way. We were left on the train for about the next ten minutes while the TTC got the reversal organized.
Depression runs in my family. I deal with it every day. Today I was feeling blue for no particularly good reason. Not depressed - just blue, a bit of melancholy to go with the grey skies and light rain. I closed my eyes when the driver said "suicide" and kept them closed. A few minutes later I looked around the train car, at this 40 or 50 people frozen in that moment, trapped underground, soon to be shunted off in another direction from the line they had been following, being forced to improvise with streetcars and buses and taxis. And there's that thought of the meaning of a final moment of significance: that this person, after his or her death, was able to affect so many people, even if it was only for 45 minutes. For just about that long, a couple of thousand people were stopped dead in their tracks by a total stranger. Is that something? Does that matter? Do jumpers think about this, does it draw them in, meaning that much to that many people for that moment, or is it just something we put on them because the only way we can access that mindset is in how it affects everybody else?
Wuh-oh... lost in the woods
Apr 7 2005 -
10:53 a.m.
On hold with Look... I swear I got out of the biz to get away from this fucking hold music...
I had a dream last night where I was abandoned in the forest by a camp group that I had been leading, but which had decided I was incompetent. Hello, symbolism much? Get this - I then found my way to a small Ontario town called "Mainlands," and realized that I now had the option to call my father for help, but I decided that I would try to get back to Toronto on my own steam, just to see if I could do it. That one was so far over the fucking top that it shouldn't be allowed by the Dream Police. Come on, Siggy, give me a new one.
Still with the hold music.
Wait now I'm talking to someone. She can't find the domain I'm inquiring about because I have too many domains. Comedy.
All right. Solved it. God I miss Claire.
Lock stock and 2 smoking popes
Apr 6 2005
- 9:37 p.m.
I can't believe they actually killed someone on Lost! Someone who didn't miraculously sputter back to life a moment later, or appear back at the beach revealing that the person who had "died" was in fact an island hologram. Nope. Boone's dead. He was my second or third choice behind Locke and Sayid as most likely to not make it out of the season, but I expected him to kick in the season finale. Still, glad to see them thinning the herd a bit. Now can we please get rid of the Paris Hilton bitch?
I'm feeling a bit under the weather today, which I am trying to coax out of becoming a full-blown cold. I'm making stock. It's the first time I've ever made stock; I'm using the chicken carcass from last week, which I bunged into the big pot with some carrots, onions, and other such stocky stuff. Mmmm stock. It's such a "my mom" thing to do. And now the whole house smells frickin' fantastic!
Ah, Star Wars fans.
I love a resolute geek.
I'm still
up in the air about lining up this year, because at the end of the day, I want
to see Episode III in the best venue possible - and the Grande at Sheppard and
Yonge is definitely not that. We'll see. Two weeks till Indianapolis... I've
gotta work out a way to blog from the road.
My name isssss... Shake-zula, the mic rula, the pope
Apr 6 2005 - 3:10 p.m.
 |
I have been troubled by my answer in last month's Which Aqua Teen Character Are You? quiz, because although I am personally probably a lot more like Frylock, as a roommate, I am Master Shake all the way. This is proven to me daily by the high-pitched whine of self-righteousness that inflects my voice in just about every expository conversation that I have with Chris. So, I re-did the quiz, this time answering as though it were Chris or Brandy asking me the questions, and yes, I got Master Shake on the first try. I feel much better.
Incidentally, Brandy is clearly Meatwad, but I'm not sure if Chris is an accurate Frylock. He's the best we've got, though, so I suppose we're just lucky he's not Carl.
Here's the Master Shake action figure, thank goodness. And here's what's bound to be my Hallowe'en costume.
Is there any pope, Gandalf? For Frodo and Sam?
Apr 6 2005 - 10:49 a.m.
The thing about the blog is that it's a space for people to convey excitement about things that just about everyone else they know would not be excited about. In this way it replaces irritating, pointless phone conversations that are only of interest to one of the two parties, with archived, easily-browsed text. Blogs must therefore be seen as the superlative human social achievement of the past decade. All the discourse, none of the wankers prattling on about Yojimbo when nobody else cares.
Good news for Kurosawans: Criterion has announced that they'll put Ran out at long last later this year. (A non-Criterion release currently exists, and has just been deleted from wishlist.) There's also this DVD of early-20th Century pornography, which gives me a big giggle. I love vintage cinema!
I suppose the big news of the day, though, is that in a surprise announcement, George Lucas himself will be personall overseeing the final stages of the construction of this Death Star... .... er, I mean, Georgie Boy is coming to Celebration III! I'm not sure how I feel about this. As a filmmaker and an excited practitioner of the new digital cinema, I would have hoped to meet him some day as a colleague... but that's not going to be enough to stop the fanboy in me from trying to get him to manhandle my lightsabre. Not that I consider it at all likely that I'll get anywhere near the man, but hey, a Jedi has to try. And I'm crafty with my Force-jumps.
Have you ever busted a bottle of fish sauce on your kitchen floor? It smells exactly like one thing: poorly-tended asshole on an August afternoon. I didn't know whether to be grossed out or turned on.
This is what you get for fucking around with yakuzas! Go home
to your pope!
Apr 4 2005 - 2:06 p.m.
My server seems to be all screwed up today, so apologies, Tederick.commies, if you found it hard to get here. Don't even think about going into the Deeper Well; that place is currently pooched beyond retrieval.
Obligatory Star Wars huzzah... now.
Today I was thinking a lot about strategic denial. Only I had a better word for it before. But anyway, it's the state I'm currently in where I maintain a specific quantity of denial about certain things (debt, career, etc.) just so as to keep myself moving forward with some sense of optimism and an ability to enjoy myself. It's a bit like surfing: skimming along the crest of a wave, enjoying the sunshine, while ignoring the fact that a couple of tonnes of water are chasing you. I'm not saying that this is a bad thing; I think that to a certain degree, everyone has to do this just to get through every day of their lives. I actually get a sense of bizarre euphoria out of it, like when I think about my credit card bill and burst out laughing because it's so funny! Which may not be healthy, but it sounds healthy to me.
It's lovely out. I've been doing laundry and running errands, and now, gorrammit, I'm actually going to get something constructive and career-orientated done. The results may amaze even me.
Help me Obi-wan Kenobi, you're my only pope
Apr 4 2005 - 12:25 a.m.
Today basically didn't exist. Lost an hour on daylight savings, lost another three when I curled up on my bed with my cat listening to Kevin Smith interview Robert Rodriguez and Frank Miller, and ended up falling asleep. A Simpsons, an X-Files, a wank and a grilled cheese sandwich, and there's your day.
Had a great deal of fun ordering the various Revenge of the Sith books, now that the prices have dropped on my beloved Chapters.ca, and also noted that the status on my lightsabre order has shifted from "backordered" to "fulfilled." I certainly feel fulfilled...
"Give 'im the stick... DON'T give 'im the stick! ....Oooohhhhhhhhhhhh......"
No Pope
Apr 2 2005 - 9:08
p.m.
It snowed like a motherfucker in Toronto today. Like, snowflakes the size of testicles. (It always snows once in April, but this is ridiculous.) Rather than be blahed by the weather, though, Kate and I made a nest out of her futon, some blankets, and a whole buncha pillows, and watched Kill Bill Vols 1 & 2 - yeah, the whole bloody affair - while eating happiness soup and playing with the cats. It was so good, it was almost too good. It was like Death By Chocolate Cake or something. Perfect remedy, and I couldn't give less of a fuck about the weather now. Hit me with a hurricane, whatever. I'm all right.
My parents are back from Spain, and while laid over at Heathrow they stopped at the single malt shoppe and bought me some single malt, a 16-year-old oak-aged bastard named Tomintoul or something like that. Usually when I'm drinking whiskey I'm drinking the shite bottom of the barrel, but thank goodness I get the good stuff every once in a while. It restores my faith in humanity. This stuff is actually the most beautiful shade of amber I have ever seen in my life. I almost don't want to drink it, I just want to stare at it. But that would be dumb.
I didn't come anywhere close to opening all of my new Star Wars toys last night, but I've finally finished it now, and I've got a bit of a stomach ache like I've eaten too much candy or inhaled too much benzene. (It must be one or the other.) I was stunned, while tallying up the new arrivals, to discover that I've just rolled past my 500th figure and am now sitting pretty on number 501. Now, a few years ago, I contemplated this eventuality, and promised you fine Tederick.com readers that when this happened, I would reenact the entire Star Wars saga using my vast collection. I'm now mulling the possibilities for this, but must - of course - first see Episode III before I can even begin. Last night, while standing on Queen Street with the rest of the geeks, waiting to get into the Silver Snail, a streetcar rolled by and a dude yelled out the window "What's going on?" I told him we were watching Episode III in the back of the store in about ten minutes and encouraged him to get the hell off the streetcar and join us, but he didn't. People are such dinks. Or less susceptible to my ruses than I would like.
Anyways. The toys are, for the most part, brilliant. The best of the lot:
- The new Threepio, as I said yesterday, is the best Threepio I own. And I own a lot of Threepios.
- Mon Mothma and Bail Organa are solid, as is the new Dooku, and Mas Amedda is frickin' hilarious with that tongue.
- The new clones - basic soldier and AT-TE gunner - rock.
- The blue senate guard is a real treat, because his cape is made out of real cloth. This was true of the royal guard in the vintage line when I was a kid, and the royal guard was one of my personal favourites, so it's nice to see an hommage to the old toy in the new one. Plus, this dude can get into like any position you can think of. Like, beyond just standing around holding a gun and not moving, like he does in the movie.
- The best is the new Kit Fisto. I know, I wouldn't have believed it either. But this is simply one of the best overall action figure designs I've ever seen. Absolutely flawless.
All right, enough gassing. I finished Deadwood season 1 yesterday and I'm on course to finally get through all of the damned X-Files. My room's a filthy fucking mess of empty toy packaging. But I'm fat and happy.
The last haul
Apr 2 2005 - 1:53
a.m.
I've been opening toys since I got home at 12:30... and I've only got through seven of the fuckers. Seven basic figures, one vehicle (haven't put the stickers on yet), and two Unleashed. It was the Unleashed that killed me - that wraparound lava is just murder to get lookin' good.
The midnight madness was a blast, and I'm happy; got to reminisce with Kieron (Canada's answer to Steve Sansweet) about the good old days at the Yonge & Eglinton Silver Snail, caught up with a few lineketeers, and skipped over a vast, undulating mass of toy geeks by pre-ordering my shit and being handed two mighty boxes full of plastic goodness. Yep, after ten years in this racket, I finally rate boxes.
I opened all the core characters I could, but I've just gotta get some frickin' sleep now, the world's doing the swimmy thing. I saw Sin City twice today, had a fucking fantastic time, and even more fun writing my review. Preceded the second screening by having a whiskey in a jazz bar, and followed it by eating a bunch of steak, because both things seemed so terribly appropriate to the milieu.
Toys. Polis Massans, chopper droids, half-burned Jedi and the best damned Threepio I've ever owned. Good day. Very good day.
 |
Ankle
Apr 1 2005 - 8:18
a.m.
a.k.a. anklus rex, anklor, fibula fantastico, nuts n' bolts, bong bong, giuseppe, sprainy, baby food, step springer, the Golden Tallywacker, brokey mcgee, Achilles' bullseye, the gentleman's joint, the main line, the girl's grange point, apple sauce, the first hook of the apocalypse, walking apendage, the thing that's like an elbow but on your foot, Old Bendy
I think it's fair to say without hyperbole that the ankle is the springform joint that holds the entirety of human civilization together. Were it not for the mighty ankle - that coveted bundle of muscle, ligament, tendon, cartilage, and bone - and its ability to forcefully propell the human animal into an upright position, we never would have reached the (pun ahead) heights of planetary domination that we currently enjoy. Remember, cats may seem smarter, but at the end of the argument, a cat is bound to the ground level by poor anklage, while we erect humans can drop-kick a feline off a well-appointed roof without a great deal of difficulty. And what do we use for the drop-kicking? Why, the ankle, of course.
To be truly aware of the miracle of the ankle, it is first important to understand that what we term "ankle" is in fact two completely distinct joints. The true ankle joint is made up of the tibia, fibula, and talus, while the subtalar joint (which is, of course, "sub" the "talus") shares the talus with the true ankle, and also contains the calcaneus. It is this latter joint which allows side-to-side motion, while the former allows the ever-important up-and-down flexibility.
Here's a grotie pic of the ankle with all the skin gone:
Spraining Your Ankle
You've done it. I've done it. We've all done it. In fact, 25,000 people sprain their ankle every day. That's just shy of one every four seconds. Count to four - there's one! Do it again - ouch, there's another! We all talk about the cure for the common cold, but will there ever be a cure for the common ankle sprain? Not likely. We're just too damned clumsy.
Research suggests that the ankle is in fact the most vulnerable area of the human body. Some people (particularly Greeks) have been known to die outright from single ankle injuries. We place a lot of weight and pressure on our ankles, and usually in not-so-intelligent ways. An entire cottage industry has arisen out of the desire to protect the ankle; this is a cottage industry that will most certainly fail.
A sprained ankle means that the ligaments on the outside of the ankle were either stretched, or (worse) torn. If not properly treated, this condition can become chronic. Generally, treatment involves favouring the ankle by not using it too much, bringing swelling down with cold compresses, and immobilizing bandages. The most popular treatment is known as "limping," and people do it every day in rudimentary attempts to heal their injured foot.
Far worse than a sprained ankle is a broken ankle. This is worse because instead of being merely sprained, the ankle in question is in fact broken. Like any other bone in your body, except in your ankle. Terrible situation. Try to avoid it.
Fun Stuff To Do With Your Ankle
It's entirely possible that we just don't take enough time as a society to truly enjoy and appreciate our ankles. Sure, a penis or vagina makes an easy target for a little at-home fun, but try training your gaze lower and seeing what you can come up with to have a good time with your ankle. Here are some suggestions:
 |
Have a friend suck on your ankle. Heck, have an enemy suck on your ankle! Just get some ankle sucklage, and believe me, you'll thank me in the morning.
Make ludicrous socks. As the key item of ankle-clothing, the sock is a rich and fertile field for ankle play. Perhaps you would enjoy cutting the ankle-area out of every pair of socks you own, to best highlight the pleasing shape of your ankle. Or maybe a bit of suggestive writing, in the general ankle area, will enliven your sock collection.
Ankle-wrestle, for fun or profit. We've all arm-wrestled; ankle-wrestling is very much the same sort of activity, but involves ankles. Disrobe your foot (and the foot of your opponent, and place the flats of your feet together. Then, press on each others' feet as hard as you can, as though you are pressing on a gas pedal. The winner will successfully extend his foot almost horizontally away from himself. The loser's ankle will shatter painfully, almost certainly beyond any hope of repair.
Further Ankle Reading
The Foot and Ankle Web Index - Doesn't get much better than this. Or maybe it does, I dunno.
AOFAS - A web site for doctors specializing in the foot or ankle. Also, a really good word to yell out at mixed gatherings. "AOFAS! AOFASSSSS!!"
American College of Foot and Ankle Surgeons - Everyone loves Americans.
The Active Ankle - An organization dedicated to the protection and maintenance of the ankle.