No Strings Attached

Posted By Kathleen David on March 11, 2010

Well we had a couple of days of sun and now we are back to cloudy and rainy. That’s OK, most of what I want to do over the next couple of days is indoor work.

It’s nice to see baseball on TV again. I am more aware of the spring games since I can see it on my local cable system. No, we aren’t going to change from Cablevision even with all the bone-head moves. One reason is that we really don’t have a viable alternative. Now if they would just pick up BBC America.

I got the puppet bodies done for the school. Now I can move onto my projects for LunaCon. I will have a table there (well ¾ of a table). So onto those next. I have one design problem that I have to solve for one of the critters. I thought I might have a problem but now I can tell that I do. That can be part of the fun in making something totally new. You have to solve problems as you go.

I had some other thoughts about current news and online stuff but I have to say that my brain just dumped them out so I can’t remember what I was going to talk about.

Caroline spent time with Ariel yesterday while Ariel worked on homework. Caroline stayed up a little past her bedtime but she got up in plenty of time to get to school.

I am sorting out the day in my head while writing this. I keep shuffling things around trying to figure out if I can get everything done I want to get done today. I guess I’ll start at point A and work myself as far through the alphabet as I can get today and then pickup tomorrow where I left off and keep going.

I am now figuring that something is going to put a spanner in the works anytime now that I have it sorted out.

Off to start laundry and move onto the next thing.

I am grateful that my husband supports my creative endeavors.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 8, 2010

We did watch the Oscars. We decided not to let the finger pointing between Cablevision and ABC getting in the way of our continuous streak of Oscar Viewing. So we got a cheap room at a local hotel that did have ABC (and not much else on its cable system) and settled in for an evening of Oscar watching.

The Barbara Walter’s Oscar Night Special was more about it being the last special than it was about the Oscars. Both interviews felt more like footnote than a part of the festivities. I can understand why Barbara wants to go out while it is her choice, I just don’t think that was the way to do it.

The red carpet had a lot of blue dresses on it. Ariel commented that Blue must be the new black these days. Over all there were the usual hits and missed and gee I wish I had the body to carry that dress off. Miley Cyrus looked very uncomfortable in her dress. Her posture was way off. Someone needs to teach these young teens how to walk in evening wear.

As to the ceremony itself, I though that Mr. Martin and Mr. Balwin did a good job. The jokes were all within the context of the show and at the expense of the audience members which, honestly, I like better than lots of topical humor which really puts in into a time and a place a little too much. I didn’t miss the singing of all the songs and I wish they would get rid of intros for best actor/actress from people who previous worked with them on something (which is how they got Oprah in there). Those went on a little bit too long. The dance number was interesting and a little different. The salute to Horror used a really loose interpretation of what a horror film is. I mean really Marathon Man? Really? Not a lot of montages and I didn’t miss them. It made the John Hughes one really stand out.

Onto the Awards themselves. Am I surprised that Hurt Locker won as often as it did? A little, but upon reflection I can see why. Think about who is the majority of the voters in the Academy (I’ll give you a minute) (Cue Jeopardy theme) OK, what are actors Alex? Correct. Actors who probably see something like Avatar as a threat the way they use to see animated movies as a threat to their livelihood.

Avatar did get some technical awards and those are well deserved. Art direction and Cinematography make sense in terms of what new ground was broken in film. And Visual Effects was a slam-dunk. Peter said he didn’t see why the group wasn’t walking towards the stage before they announced the nominees.

We will honestly never know if Avatar would have won under the old rules. The new rules are rather convoluted and are suppose to be more fair but I am unsure about it. So pundits will argue about it for years and scifi fans have yet another Oscars to crab about.

I did like the costume designer, Sandy Powell, pointing out, in her very dry British wit, that modern dress and low budget films and even the future need to be looked at as seriously as the historic costume drama are. But she ain’t giving back one of her Oscars thank you. And I though well that was a very clever barb thrown at the Academy. Personally I though that Parnassus should have won considering the scope of the design work. I can see Star Trek getting it for Make-up compared to the competition.

I think it was nice that Up won for score and the song from Crazy Heart had been the odds on favorite since it was nominated.

Hurt Locker got a lot of love including director (first woman) and film. It sort of broke the myth that you had to release a film near Oscar time to get any traction since it was released back last March. I have yet to see it but we do have it on DVD and it is going to the top of the pack along with Precious.

So overall not a bad night of Oscar watching. It did go on a bit but not as long as some other ceremonies have gone.

I am grateful that we saw all of the Oscars rather than jumping in 15 minutes late.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 6, 2010

You know one of the reasons that Hatters went a little mad is the same reason that Roman Emperors went crazy, that would be mercury in their system. The Emperors and other Royalty drank liquid mercury (quicksilver) to balance the humors. For the hatters it was the mercury solution that was used to make felt from fur. To exacerbate the problem, this was done in poorly ventilated conditions in the workshops. For years mercury poisoning was know as “Mad Hatter’s disease”.

Yeah, I’m still thinking about the movie I saw yesterday. There were a couple of plot points that reminded me of the Looking Glass War but not that much and they are so general that I think any movie would be safe from being accused of copying it. There have been many takes on the tale of Alice and her adventures in Wonderland and what happened to her afterwards. From American McGee’s rather gothic take to Frank Beddor to the Burton Film.

I have also been thinking about some ideas for dolls for Art Shows. Not Alice based but still they have been floating around in my head for a while. I’ll have two or three done before Lunacon that rest ready for the other shows I do. Some of it will be a little darker than I have done before but they are inter-connected.

Today I plan to spend some time finishing up the bodies for the Alice puppets for the school now that I have all the materials. Then onto the next project.

I am grateful that Caroline is fever-free and feeling much better this morning.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 5, 2010

Or my first impressions having seen Disney Presents Tim Burton’s Alice in Wonderland with Caroline in 2-D less than two hours ago.

First Caroline’s review: I really liked it especially the stuff with the dog. I am glad that I saw it in 2-D first because it would have been very scary in 3-D at times. I liked the White Queen best. She was very pretty and queen-like. The Red Queen was really mean to everyone. Alice learned a lot during the film and she was very brave. I want to see it again in 3-D

My review, well it was definitely a Tim Burton film from soup to nuts. But it was the good kind of Burton film rather than the “what HAVE you been smoking” kind of Tim Burton film.

Casting was first rate as always. We had the usual suspects Johnny Depp, Helen Bohnam Carter, and Alan Rickman and some new players like Crispen Glover who really needs to do more movies. The guy is a fracking chameleon. The voices to the digital characters were first rate with my personal favorite of Stephen Fry as the Cheshire Cat. I loved both the Red and the White Queen’s armies. It was very cleverly done.

And that is the word that keeps coming to mind, it is a “clever” film and if you like that sort of thing, then this is your film. It was definitely mine. If clever annoys you, then this might not be your cuppa but personally I would love to join that mad tea party any day.

The person who surprised me most was Depp. I figure he can play just about anything and make you believe it but there was something here he hadn’t done before and it is very subtle acting which I know sounds strange since he is playing such an over the top character like the Mad Hatter. I honestly want to go back and see the film again to see if what I saw later in the film tracks through as well as I remembered.

It is a big screen film that needs that sort of scope for all the little touched like the dragon flies and the horse flies (look quick or you’ll miss them). I am a little unsure if it needs 3-D to be seen. Caroline and I saw it in 2-D and I don’t really feel like I missed anything by seeing it that way.

In terms of younger children, there are some scary stuff including some ‘off with his head’ stuff that gets pretty intense for a while. The armies clashing is loud but the visual is such that it’s not that graphic. I would say that 6 and over should be OK. There is no swearing other than the usual “But I swear that” kind of stuff and no sex or sexual situations so PG for cartoon violence really. I think it also got the PG rather than G due to the Caterpillar and his hookah and their crack down on smoking in any form.

Good family movie that engages the mind which is nice to see these days.

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Posted By Kathleen David on March 5, 2010

Today is my mom’s birthday. A large part of who I am today is due to her. She taught by example and she was one heck of an example. She raised four children to adulthood and all four turned into decent law abiding adults.

When I have a question in my head about parenting, I stop and think what would my Mother do? And that usual gives me my answer.

I use the same No means No speech that I must have heard a millions times while growing up on Caroline. It goes something like this.

Caroline asks for something or do to something that is not going to happen

End of discussion

I didn’t get many sick days from school because Mom was a nurse and it is hard to pull something by her. But when we were sick, she was our angel of mercy. She took really good care of us and nursed us back to health.

This morning Caroline woke up with a fever over 100, a very stuffy nose, and no voice. She can now squeak. I am keeping her home from school today. They don’t want kids with fevers in the school.

My mother got me interested in the mystery genre. She introduced me to Agatha Christie, Dorothy Sayers, Martha Grimes and PD James to name a few. Funniest story about that when I was at University College Oxford, I picked up a very battered copy of Gaudy Night and took it and a plowman’s lunch to read on the banks of the Thames while watching the punters go back. I got to the point where Peter and Harriet were having a picnic lunch under an old tree and realized that I was sitting right where the author was writing about.

My mother spend many years teaching students how to be nurses. Then she starting teaching others how to teach people to become nurses. I can remember clinic day. She would be in her nurse’s uniform and (when I was young) she would have her nurse’s hat very carefully pinned on top of her head. I would watch her starch, iron, and very carefully form the hat for the next time that she needed it. A lot of her co-workers want to know if I was going to follow in her footsteps. I said no, not because I didn’t highly respect what she did, but because honestly I couldn’t deal with bedpans and the smell of vomit without upchucking. (Sorry Mom)

Nursing for her was a way out of a rather small town that was coal and farm based. It was a hardscrabble life and nursing would allow her to leave and make a life for herself. It did. And because she left that town, she met my father and I came into being. She continued to educate herself. She went on to earn a PhD and other accolades in her profession. She believed in her children so we believed in ourselves and became better people for it.

So Happy Birthday Mom! I hope it is a good one for you.

Caroline wishes you a Happy Birthday in a rather squeaky voice.

I am grateful every day that My Mother is My Mother.

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