Foxy

Two visits to the bank, two to the post-office, one to the international students' office, one to the cheese shop, one to the grocery store, three to used book stores/charity shops, one to the film festival, two calls to the realtor, three e-mails to the department head... and now I may have a place to live next week (signing at lease on Friday evening, which is less than ideal, as I have to be out of my current place at 9am on Saturday, and am going to have to walk all my stuff to the new place, which is only 7/8 of a mile away and downhill, but dude, I have a lot of books, and walking them down one of the busiest drinking streets in Scotland on a Friday night, well, is the worst idea I've ever heard) and a visa extension (or at least my passport is in the mail, so no one have any emergencies which require me to travel in the next month) and a new supervisory team for the Ph.D. (and one with which I'm pretty happy at that, although I suspect I'll have to work pretty hard for these folks). But oy, I'm tired. And I have to not only be social tonight, but organize other people to be social, and how I ever got into that position I just don't know. And ooh, but I'm late.

But far more interesting than all that, today I went to the film festival not, as one would expect, to see new films, but to catch a small part of the Michael Powell retrospective they've been having (that Thelma Schoonmaker was in my city last weekend and that I couldn't see her is probably going to count as one of my major life regrets). What I saw was Gone to Earth, a David O. Selznick produced (but still an Archers production), Jennifer Jones-starrer from 1950, based on a novel by Mary Webb, whose Precious Bane was one of my mother's favourites. It's one of the odder films I've ever seen, closest in feel, I suppose, to a Douglas Sirk production of Jane Eyre, with a gigantic dollop of Return of the Native thrown in. Phenomenally melodramatic, often-times just plain silly, lurid and obvious and as over-the-top as ever you've seen, occasionally dreadfully acted (I'm actually compelled to go off and find a DVD of Jones playing Emma Bovary, which sounds as dreadful as anything I can imagine, and oddly perfect), and yet absolutely compelling. It's strange how melodrama of the past becomes more appealing, how we can accept things in a movie from 1950 that we'd never accept now, how we allow ourselves, in looking at the past, to fall sway to sentiments we'd never admit to having in our present conception of our lives. If you're a Powell/Pressburger fan, or a Sirk fan, or just want some absolutely amazing colour photography (Jones throughout wears this shawl which is indescribable, shot through with colours which have never existed, and the reds of the fox hunts at beginning and end is as beautiful as any cinematic red I've ever seen), check it out.

In other news, I'm digging the new New Pornographers, which I picked up as a special reward today for not going completely crazy yet (last night was a close call on that front, sigh) - it's a thrill to have more than two tracks. It puts me (heretically) in mind of the Fiery Furnaces; it seems that prog is back to stay. I don't know - only three listens in, so no real opinions yet, and I ended up a much bigger fan of Electric Version six months in than at the beginning. Then again, I'm also a big fan of the new Franz Ferdinand track (downloadable here if you haven't found it yet), so anything I say may be used against me.

As you've possibly noticed, this journal has remained photo-free, thanks to my technical illiteracy. However, it is important to me that you realize what my city looks like right now, so that this journal strikes you as less rife with exaggeration. Today's NY Times has an article on the fringe (written, of course, by a friend of my flatmate's ex-girlfriend), which features a slideshow. The picture of acrobats is taken in a doorway of my building, the picture of all the people in the street is taken on my street (about a block and a half down from where I live, specifically). Now do you believe me?