Summer Moon Illusion

As if you needed an excuse to be outside on these gorgeous summer nights. (Northern hemisphere only — not sure how this will work in Singapore…)

Several years ago, when I first met Ben, he asked me why I didn’t use Photoshop more to edit or play with my photographs. I told him that it was enough trouble to compose, shoot, and print the damn things — I wasn’t going to invest the time and energy in learning how to manipulate them afterwards, too.

Really it was a combination of a few factors:

1) Laziness and vanity (I hate the learning curve that accompanies new tools. I don’t know why I ever try to learn how to do new things, really. I so despise not being good at them. ;-))
2) I used to be a bit of a traditionalist. I thought it was kind of a cheat to do things to your pictures after you’d taken them (outside of the darkroom, of course).

These days, although I still think Photoshop allows me to perform a rather unfair amount of magic using minimal skill, I like the way very simple changes can really transform a picture in a way that works in harmony with the essential qualities of the subject matter. Here are two examples from today’s adventures:

At the River Festival there were some people completing a mural, and I used the “Paint Daub” filter on this shot in Photoshop to extend the texture of the canvas into the entire picture. The effects are clearer if you look at the Large version of the photo in Flickr (click on the image to be transported there in an instant!)

Here Ross is showing off a Taekwondo kick, and when I looked at the photograph it just seemed as if his body wanted to do what the Twirl filter could help it do.

Just popping in to tell you that I downloaded the original cast recording of the Phantom of the Opera from iTunes this morning.

I haven’t listened to it in years, but I can hum all of the songs. It’s interesting how long-term our memory for music is.

Off to the Cambridge River Festival! Photos later maybe.

I got a postcard from Elizabeth today that is a photograph of the Opera Garnier in Paris, at early dusk. There must be lots of people on their way to the evening’s performance in it, or off to a delectable meal at the restaurant that you can see sitting adjacent to the opera house. Traffic looks pretty bad — but on the whole I’d be pretty happy to be stuck in a traffic jam, if I could arrange to do it in Paris at early dusk.

The Opera Garnier, according to Elizabeth’s postcard and my vague memory of a childhood obsession, is where the Phantom is supposed to live. Did I ever tell you that when I was thirteen years old I wrote half of the libretto for a prequel to the Phantom of the Opera, based on this book? We were going to produce it as a class, you see. Me and my best friends. We had almost gotten to the auditioning stage when one of us (not me) discovered boys or something and we never finished the thing. I never told you? Let’s see if I can remember any of the words.

…..

Damn, I was sure I could still call up the wrenchingly tragic song I wrote for the scene where the Phantom’s mother looks at the deformed face of her baby and laments over it with great sighing and teary angst. But now all I think I can be sure of is that I rhymed “conceal” with “reveal,” and that there was something in there about “the monster I’ve created.” It was a very dramatic scene. I’m sure I wanted to play that part, as a matter of fact, which is why I wrote all her songs first. I know I still have that particular scrap of lyric buried in a box somewhere at home, so the next time I go to Singapore I’ll dig it up for you.

Because I know you’re dying to hear it.

Anyway, it’s an embarrassing project to talk about now, but the reason I was so excited about writing that prequel to the Phantom is because it was all tied up with that wonderful, prickly adrenaline that comes when you tell an old, old story that everybody knows, but you begin it a little earlier. What’s great about it is that you’re working with archetypes, so you’ve got a whole set of heavy, mystical associations that already exist and that you can’t help but conjure up — but at the same time you get to feel like you’re creating those associations from scratch. It’s deeply thrilling. I saw Batman Begins tonight and was suitably thrilled. Ross and I have to watch lots of superhero movies and read comics because we’re in the researching stage of our project at the moment. I really think we have to start in the middle of the story and then go back and tell the beginning, because dude, origin stories are so incredibly satisfying. I will never get tired of watching myth-creation movies or reading myth-creation books — even the bad ones send shivers down my spine.

I love witnessing the births of stories.

Picture o’ the day taken New Year’s Day, 2005. I cannot fathom how it became the middle of June.

I just saw the third Harry Potter movie (yes, I’m slow). Here’s my verdict: I liked everything about it except all the things that were — presumably — I haven’t read it — from the book.

Which is to say, I loved the way it looked (dark, glistening). I enjoyed the storytelling and how the film moved (swiftly, without bothering to telegraph everything). I liked the scene cuts and cinematography and imagery. The acting wasn’t awful (even though it was mainly done by three kids in their early teens — an intense and ridiculous age, in between two kinds of beautiful, as I recall).

I just didn’t think the plot or characters were any good.

Rather than write a photo-essay about Pride, I’m just going to intersperse pictures in this entry, which will be mostly about Howl’s Moving Castle and how I cannot be left alone with no purpose for more than 15 minutes at a time, for I will buy books. If, perchance, you would like to see more of the spectacle than I include on this page, you can view my Pride photoset (which is still only a tiny, tiny fraction of the pictures I took — be very grateful I am not coming to your house with a slide projector) here.

Mmm, shiny motorcycles. Anyway, Jo and Ross and I went to see Howl yesterday. It’s based on this book by one of my favorite childhood authors. Diana Wynne Jones writes the kind of fantasy that is totally original and surprising. I remember writing a letter to one of my adult cousins when I was maybe 11 and had just read Dogsbody — I laid out the plot for him, and he wrote back in disbelief:

“You’re kidding, right? You didn’t read that book. You made it up.”

Ok, so maybe I was just incoherent in my explanation. But really, part of it is that her plots tend to be somewhat convuluted, but wonderfully satisfying. And I’ve been a big fan of hers since I was a big baby who wept over every book I read. I’m also a big fan of Hayao Miyazaki, who makes stunning and often very weird anime films (we have four of his movies if anyone is interested), so when I heard he was going to produce one of her books, I was thrilled. I think a lot of people were.

However, I don’t think I’m capable of writing an unbiased review of the film, because I have such a gigantic crush on Howl that I apparently missed all of the flaws that Ross and Jo saw in it (the biggest one being that the plot had completely unraveled by the end). And I’m usually a very difficult movie-goer to please — I’ve been known to convince people who liked a film that they ought not to like it, with a bulleted list of criticisms.

So I think it must be that I’m blinded by infatuation. Have you, dear reader, ever had a crush on a character out of a book?

Who was it?

Was it by any chance a vain, self-absorbed, selfish, cowardly, overly dramatic, but extremely debonair wizard with fantastic dress-sense and a tendency to turn into an eagley-monster? No? Oh well. Then you wouldn’t understand. But you understand my position. I’m not likely to get a chance to meet a vain, self-absorbed, selfish, cowardly, overly dramatic, but extremely debonair wizard with fantastic dress-sense and a tendency to turn into an eagley-monster, anywhere in my real life — so I have to spend all available movie minutes enjoying him, leaving me with no brain cells left with which to be critical.

Oh, right. The superhero part of the title. So, I had half an hour to kill in Harvard Square this afternoon before Ross picked me up and I just couldn’t resist buying four books that I certainly don’t need and I definitely don’t have space for. One of them was a gorgeous history of Wonder Woman. ;-) I told the guy at the counter (who admired the cover) that Joss Whedon was making a Wonder Woman movie, and he was excited about it. My good deed for the day.

Last picture. Sleep tight, lovelies. Kiss the one you adore if you can; you’re very lucky.

(Again, my Pride photoset is here, and all my posted Pride photos are here. Disclaimer: It’s just possible that some of the pictures you will see at the other end of those links will make you uncomfortable for some personal, political, or spiritual reason. If so, I am sorry. But hopefully that will not happen, and you will enjoy them and all the joy that’s in them.)

Apart from the Magnolia soundtrack, which is quite brilliant and lovely, my acquaintance with Aimee Mann was limited to that song that came out ten years ago and was on the radio all the time the year I was 16. “That’s Just What You Are.” Which was a tune so sing-songy, when I song-sang it to someone at the time he told me he was sorry, but I couldn’t hold a tune.

Despite this, when I saw on the company bulletin board on Wednesday afternoon that someone had two extra 5th row tickets for the next evening’s Aimee Mann concert, something made me shoot the guy an email. I don’t know why, but I suddenly got really excited about having a surprise up my sleeve for Ross. I love surprises — both giving and receiving them — but I don’t get enough of either experience. This time, since I only had to keep a secret for 24 hours, I figured the odds were in my favour: which is how we ended up in the Orpheum on Thursday evening, uncomfortably ensconced in a pair of very small, extremely ugly red plastic seats with hideous red tweedy upholstery and, in all likelihood, decades of dirt embedded in them.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Really the first thing I need to get off my chest is that all night I kept thinking Aimee Mann’s guitarist reminded me very strongly of someone, and I couldn’t figure out who it was. But then the next morning when I was standing in line waiting for my coffee I realized: the big hair, the square jaw — Johnny Damon! People who think Johnny Damon is sexy might disagree with me, because Aimee Mann’s guitarist — though very talented and quite a harmonizer — isn’t the hottest buffalo wing in the tub. Nevertheless, in my mind, anyway, the resemblance is uncanny.

The second thing is that this was the first time I’d ever been in the Orpheum, and man! The place is awesome! The deal is that it’s a 19th century theater (it opened in 1852) with a pretty illustrious history: the Boston Symphony played its debut concert there, Booker T. Washington and Ralph Waldo Emerson lectured there, it was a vaudeville playhouse at some point, and when Ross’s mother was a kid in Boston, it was a movie theater. Nowadays it’s a concert venue again, but this time for rockstars. Ross saw Cake there. Aimee Mann said she saw Elvis Costello play the Orpheum. Bruce Springsteen, David Bowie, Ani DiFranco, Paul Simon. You get the picture — it’s a cool place to play.

But see, the thing about the Orpheum? Is that it’s an incredibly majestic building that is falling to bits. It has, on its vast ceilings and high up on some of the interior walls, frescoes of genteel 19th century uppercrust sipping wine at picnics. They are filthy. You can barely make out the figures on the ones on the side walls. It has towering Greek columns. They are crumbling. It has private boxes along every wall which are ill-lit and appear somewhat dank. There are ornate mouldings everywhere. They are mouldering. The lovely amber colored stained glass and wrought iron trim that runs along the upper edge of the stage has missing pieces in it that seem to have been filled in with orange cellophane. The bathroom tiles are cracked. It is hot, mildewy, and hasn’t seen a lick of paint in years. In short, it is a place of ruined luxury. It is like a very old rich person whose velvet gowns are moth-eaten but she wears them anyway. It is very nearly like I imagine Satis House in Great Expectations looked like. And it is wonderful.

You’ll be glad to hear that now I’ve tired myself out telling you about the theater, I don’t have the energy to pontificate about all the tremendously profound thoughts I had during the concert re: art and style and professionalism and an artist’s relationship with/responsibilities toward her audience.

Instead I’ll just tell you that Aimee Mann was quite interesting to look at. The combination of:

1) her protruding forehead,
2) her incredibly high cheekbones,
3) her deepset eyes,
4) her severe, slightly intimidating frown, and
5) the intense light shining on her from above —

all gave her a somewhat Neanderthal aspect. I’m not saying she was ugly, mind — I’m just saying there was a distinctly cavewoman air about her, especially since she also had sinewy, skinny arms and very broad shoulders. But she was extremely graceful when she played; tough and graceful, all muscles and angles and sharp strummy jabs. I love watching musicians move.

I really wish my fingers were deft enough to play the guitar.

Oh well. They’re getting enough practice on the shutter-release, anyway. I took 262 pictures at the Pride March today (I kiss you, 1GB flashcard), and with any luck ten or eleven of them will be worth sharing. Give me a few days though — they need work.

Happy Pride!