Happy Birthday to Me! And films.

It's that time again, and I already got my first birthday present...a new digital camera! Thanks sweetie! That should make pictures posted here more frequent and less blurry.

I'd like to thank Ashley for enthusiastically giving Ethiopian food yet another try, despite that traumatic first exposure in the basement restaurant in D.C. It sounds like she's coming around to the food, if not to the bread, injera, which I think is a marvel of bread technology, halfway betweeen a tortilla and a crepe, and many people don't really like. Also, I could never remember what injera was called until I heard someone say the name and I tried to make a tasteless pun about assasinated Indian Prime Minister InDira Gahndi.

I'd also like to thank everyone who came to celebrate with me, and I'd like to apologize about any nightmares or epilepsy that anyone may have experienced as a result of their exposure to the experimental films I made them watch.

That being said, I am really glad that I got out to see some artsy film stuff. It's been ages since I got to see anything really weird at Cinema 21 in Portland or from Trilogy. I realized this watching the scene in the third "Pirates of the Carribean" movie, the one with the extended shot of just Johnny Depp's nose and a peanut, and then the rocks that turn into crabs and try to eat him. Delightfully weird. Anyway, at the Pittsburgh Filmmaker's film kitchen we got to see:

1. A behind the scenes look at a local university's production of Pinnochio, with lots of puppets and shadow puppets;
2. A short film about a young actress returning to Pittsburgh from L.A. and meeting a very weird ex-classmate at the bus stop;
3. An experimental short film trying to do something with the numbers representing the letters L-I-G-H-T and the number of frames and cuts in the film ;
4. A film of someones family photos and snippets of interview with family members - memorable line was "sometimes I look at a picture and I don't remember that I drew it";
5. A seizure inducing animation half way between "Heavy Metal" and "The Simpsons" with strong influences from "Beavis and Butthead". Memorable image was the power cord of the T.V. glowing with the same energy as the I.V. lines of the elderly couple watching it.
6. A kid having a bad dream about becoming prematurely old and confusing his mother for transvestite zombie naughty nurse ("someone was abused by their parents" said Ashley);
7. Something with a rabbit suit and a banana and a record player;
8. Something with a bleeding dying abused woman;
9. In a brief acknowledgement to the existence (if not the value) of narrative, a loosely strung together short about the Queen of Fantasy who sends her anally expulsive devil minion to a drab and dusty Pittsburgh to retrieve a depressed and dreamless damsel and bring her back to their seventies era panelled basement appartment for cake and to try on a fabulous wig, but it's really just all a drunken dream at a party, but it's actually real because the devil shows up...or something.

So...thanks to the artsy types for remaining weird and sharing it with us, and thanks to my friends for even considering coming to my party next year.