documentary film festival!

It rages on in San Francisco--here's the info-- and I couldn't be happier. Well I guess I could be happier if I had more time to go to more of the films, but what are you gonna do? So far I've seen two films and they've made me think all sorts of different things.

Cracked not broken--a movie about a crack whore. Made me think about people with addictions and what the breaking point is between being a functional addict and giving in to it to the point at which you'll sell your body and lose everything. The film didn't really address it, which is probably why I'm still thinking about it.

Muskrat Lovely--a movie about a beauty pageant/muskrat skinning competition. This one got me thinking about how I grew up, and what it is to live in a town with a local beauty pageant that means a lot and where hunting/fishing/trapping are huge parts of so many people's lives. How easy it is to laugh at those people. How hard it is to portray them with dignity. I think this movie walked the line between mockery and homage that was interesting--made me think of other "look at this kooky bunch of people!" documentaries that I've seen. Errol Morris does it best (duh).

One of the shorts before Muskrat Lovely was Aluminum Fowl--watch it here. I don't even know what to say about it except watch it.

So what's on the summer reading list? Tempting me is my two volume Eugene Onegin translated and commented on by Nabokov. I'd also like to read some more mystery--Wilkie Collins, Dickens, Doyle. And my summer project is to learn Galois Theory as Emil Artin wrote about it. And to finish some of the knitting projects I've got going. Doable.