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28/12/2005 Books

Black Swan Green

From the Random House website:

From award-winning writer David Mitchell comes a sinewy, meditative novel of boyhood on the cusp of adulthood and the old on the cusp of the new. Black Swan Green tracks a single year in what is, for thirteen-year-old Jason Taylor, the sleepiest village in muddiest Worcestershire in a dying Cold War England, 1982.

David Mitchell himself says:

It’s about 13 months in the life of a 13 year old boy. It’s set in a small, narrow village in South Worcestershire that the narrative only leaves twice. It’s 1982, in the cold war, and the year of the Falklands war.

Source: The Agony Column Book Reviews.

Knowing that Mitchell is from my neck of the woods, and knowing that neck just as well as he, I’d suggest that Black Swan Green is the name of the village in which Jason Taylor lives, and that the real-life precedent for that village is Hanley Swan. I’m going to have to wait until April to find out if I’m right.

13/12/2005 Film

HD!

No, this is not a reference to the modernist poet. It’s an expression of excitement because my Final Cut upgrade arrived today. I’m ready to roll with editing, now all I need is some footage.

Also, I now have the funds I need to set the Varsity documentary in motion. It’s a tiny budget, but just about workable.

11/12/2005 Film

Big Mac

A mysterious box arrived in our apartment yesterday. The contents of the box made it possible to bring you this daft little film, (14.5mb). If you click on the link and just see a big blue Q and nothing seems to be happening, don’t worry. The movie just takes a while to download.

Technically, I think Courtney’s parents are the executive producers for the movie, as they provided the editing station. Thanks, in-laws!

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29/11/2005 Film

Enter the Niche

Early last week Jeff emerged from his editing cave shouting “final cut” and waving a shiny plastic disc. He gave it to Carl’s web oompa-loompas, who ran off to their chocolate factory to internet the nuts off it. Now, squished down to a tenth of its original size, and available for viewing on your common-or-garden computer screen is the Camp Niche web movie.

29/11/2005 Housekeeping

Grok the Transition

During a brief morning web browse I came across this little article about fixing your parents’ computer. I was gratified to see that it recommends my first course of action:

Switch the system’s default web browser to Firefox
Download Firefox. Install it, and import all of IE’s preferences and bookmarks. (See previous Lifehacker feature Importing Bookmarks into Firefox for more info on how.) When Firefox asks if it should be the default web browser, click “Yes.” Finally, remove the blue E from your parents’ desktop. On newer versions of Windows (like XP), you can simple drag and drop the blue E into the Recycle Bin. In Windows 98 (yeah you know some of your parents still use it), in Control Panel choose Internet Options. On the Advanced Tab, uncheck “Show Internet Explorer on the Desktop.”

To help your parents grok the transition from the blue E to the orange fox, rename Firefox’s desktop shortcut to something more obvious, like “Internet – Mozilla Firefox.”

Grok, indeed. Did you know it means “to understand something intuitively or by empathy?” No, neither did I.

25/11/2005 Travel

Upstate

Sunset over Geneseo, 25th Novemeber 2005

This week we’re visiting Courtney’s parents in upstate New York. It’s snowy and crisp out, and the light this afternoon was pretty good, so I took a walk.

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16/11/2005 Davis, Food

Butt-Naked Chef

I don’t know exactly how this came to be, but I remember a degree of nagging and flattery emanating from Courtney, and a degree of arm-twisting from Julie at the Co-op. The upshot is that on February 16th 2006 I will be teaching a course on how to make Cornish Pasties and Chicken Tikka Masala. Here’s my class description:

How to Eat with a Stiff Upper Lip

British cuisine is underrated! Join Liam Creighton to learn to cook two perennially popular winter warmers. From England’s rural past, the Cornish Pasty, and from multicultural modern Britain, Chicken Tikka Masala, the nation’s favourite dish. This class features meat, but is totally free from jellied eels, pickled eggs and black pudding. Vegetarian versions of both recipes will be demonstrated.

I hope no-one I know turns up. That would be really embarrassing.

16/11/2005 Davis, Film

Varsity Documentary

I’ve started pre-production on the Varsity documentary. Hopefully everything will be in place for a shoot on the second weekend of December. I’ll post more news as and when it happens.

The New(ish) Jaga Jazzist album is wonderful. Courtney and I are looking into buying an iMac for me to edit on. If and when it happens it will look like this. That is all.

16/11/2005 Film

Proof of Pudding

My first shoot with my new camera seems to have been a success. Jeff and I went to Milbrae (near San Francisco airport) to shoot a bit of documentary-style video of a seminar. I wasn’t pleased with the first day’s shooting, but I showed a measurable improvement on the second day. It was the first time I’ve shot without total control of what’s happening in front of the camera. I kept wanting to ask people “OK, one more try, please.”

Jeff has been editing the footage, and has a rough cut ready to show me tomorrow. I’ll post a link to the finished video as soon as it’s up on the Niche Media website.

31/10/2005 Davis

Smashingly Stylish

My friend Jeff has decided to use me as the face of his Crow About Davis t-shirt range. I hope my mug doesn’t damage his sales too substantially.

Crow About Davis advertisement, Oct 29th 2005

26/10/2005 Davis, Film

Art House

Last night, after months of wrangling, dithering, and what appears to be attempted sabotage, the city council finally approved my boss’ plan to reopen the Varsity cinema in Davis as an art house cinema.

Built in the 1950s, it had all the trappings of a small movie palace, including murals and a proscenium. It’s been hacked about since then. In the 70s it was divided into two screens, then in the early 90s the council acquired it and turned it into a very dull theatre space. The murals disappeared, the seating capacity was halved, and the exterior was painted grey and white.

Cinema Treasures documents the history, whilst the Davis Wiki details what the place has been used for in the past couple of years.

All being well, over the next few months I will make a documentary about the history of the building to be shown on the night of the grand re-opening.

09/10/2005 Davis, Rights & Wrongs

Speechless

The other day a customer at the coffee shop asked “Did you see that?”
“What?” I asked.
“Someone just came up to one of the tables outside, changed their baby on it, and left without wiping up.”

And bugger me, it was disgustingly true.

26/09/2005 Film

Coming Soon

Canon XL2 DVcam

Sometime in the next 3-7 days I will be the excited and slightly nervous owner of a brand new Canon XL-2.

Damn! I’d better start thinking of something to shoot!

09/09/2005 Travel

Wash ‘Em

Courtney’s parents are with us in England right now for a visit and a slice of Anglicana. Last week we took them for a Ploughman’s lunch in the Farmer’s Arms, an unspoilt pub on the fringes of Birtsmorton Common. In the gents’ I was treated to a wonderful piece of rural dialogue.

The Farmer’s Arms gent’s toilet is a pretty standard two urinal, one cubicle arrangement. An ancient rural type was standing at one of the urinals, so in accordance with toilet etiquette I used the cubicle. As I went about my business I could hear the old chap mumbling and grumbling to himself. Perhaps he was attempting some kind of pep talk. He was still there when I left the cubicle. As I washed my hands he leaned over and said:

“I was always told that if you ain’t pissed on your hands then you don’t need to wash ’em.”

And the irony is that as we left the pub a few minutes later, he was the one giving me a funny look.

08/09/2005 Snaps, Travel

Pretty Bleak

View from the Stiperstones looking roughly east, 10th August 2005

Last month, Courtney, James, Dave and I explored the Stiperstones in Shropshire. It’s an impressively bleak landscape, and a site of scientific interest, which has peaked in recent weeks as full-sized, flesh-coloured human “heads” have been noticed growing on top of certain rocks. We hoped to see some of these for ourselves.

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01/09/2005 Housekeeping

New Email Address

I’ve sorted out my email glitches. My new address is my first name (all in lower case) @junkopia.net. My old clara.co.uk address will be defunct by the end of September at the latest. Cheers all.