Whatta Fiasco

This weekend was the second annual Stabbing for Apples fencing tournament in Larryville, and my second tournament of the season. It went not badly. We had seventeen in mixed epee. My indicators were lousy lousy. I came in last in my pool and tied for last in the event, but I can’t complain too much about my fencing. Mostly, it was a lack of follow through on the riposte. I had some decently executed defense, but the planning on my attacks wasn’t quite deep enough. I did win my first DE bout, although it was against a fencer with a little foil experience who had just switched to epee, plus she’s a left hander who had never fenced another left hander. It was my bout to lose, but I kept my cool, took all the time I needed and used all the information I had. We both enjoyed the bout. Then I got to fence the eventual winner of the event. Whee. I did manage to get four touches on him, which was more than either of his next two DE opponents got on him. I was happy. And my next tournament is next weekend.

The title is a multilayered pun, but the subject is not light. A woman volunteers to help teach at a high school for (mostly) trangendered youth in LA. Through her eyes, we get to meet four of them, plus their friends and families, biological and chosen, as they careen through the stress involved in becoming young adults. This isn’t a textbook on transgender, but it is an engaging look at a marginalized community by a sympathetic audience.

[powells]

Campy romantic horror comedy. Yes, it’s another one of those kitchen sink films. It even has a musical number in the middle, and one of the strangest nods to the Wizard of Oz I’ve ever seen. (A Taoist master, his face slicked over in ectoplasm, channels the Cowardly Lion as he bemoans his desire to be a ghost.) Later there are some truly creepy images during a storming of Hell. Strangely enjoyable.

Not so much a movie, but very much a Beatle’s fan wankerism. That sounds so disparaging, but it was a delightful bit of film with hits and misses along the way. Brutally pretty and psychedelically innocent. Jude (Jim Sturgess) is even prettier than Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), but Sadie (Dana Fuchs) and Jojo (Martin Luther) were the highlight of the film for me. Their onstage breakup scene was enormous, and balanced out a weak Mr. Kite sequence. And kudos to Joe Cocker. Nice job. This one is likely to sink with little trace, and in short order, but I wouldn’t mind having a copy of this in my dvd collection.

[imdb]

Vampire and Sorcerer detectives in an alternate history. More, please. Not because it’s vampires and sorcerers, but because the characters are people I want to get to know better.

[amazon]

The second in what I understand is planned to be a set of three movies. Eye candy and more eye candy. It’s very pretty, with loads of detail, a musical score I enjoyed, and just enough plot to hold it altogether. But everyone speaks so sloooooowly. Especially when they’re speaking in Spanish. Oh, and don’t expect a lot of hand holding when it comes to explaining the unwinding of the central encounter.

[imdb]

Another Inspector Chen novel. Another fun read, with our intrepid policemen back in hell and dealing with family problems. Popcorn with just enough salt.

[powells]

Graphic novel time again, and it’s another good one. Rabbi has quiet, opinionated cat. Rabbi has locquacious, empty-headed bird. Bird gone? Cat begins to talk. Outrageous cat. Sly and funny with plenty of rough edges. The art work alone didn’t grab my attention at all, but it works so well with the text, that I was hooked after the first page.

[powells]

You’d think that a week stuck on a slow-moving houseboat on a river would be an ideal time to get some reading done. Not so. The best places to read were on the forecastle (the shaded front deck of the boat) and the top deck. A little sun, a little wind, a gorgeous view. The boat rocks under you, the seagulls shriek, a pelican flaps by, and suddenly you realize that you’ve read only two pages in the last ten minutes because your eyes keep wandering to the river and the boats, and the houses on the shore. But that’s ok. Two books in one week of vacation is just fine. I get plenty of time to dive into books. It’s not often I get to enjoy the constant experience of being on a river.

It was a much prettier river than I had expected, even though the leaves weren’t in full color yet. The water was much clearer than I had expected, and the level of visible pollution wasn’t as great as I had expected either. Sand everywhere. And large fish jumping out of the water at dusk. Waking up to a pink sky reflecting in silky water and a hot cup of coffee. Mostly it was a week of just soaking up the experience. In short, it was just the sort of vacation I needed.

The were only two thngs I missed. One, I never took the opportunity to learn how to steer the vessel. If I end up on another similar trip, I’ll correct that oversight. The other item was a lack of physical activity. Other than hiking around on sand, sometimes piles in precipitous slopes, and the occasional stroll through a town, there wasn’t much exercise. If I do one of these trips again, I’ll be arranging to have at least one kayak along. It would have been a lot of fun to paddle around some of the islands we landed on for our evenings, but it also would have made a decent, fun workout.

Second of three books. Enjoyable fantasy, but nothing meaty to get stuck in your teeth. I’ll eventually track down the third book, but I’m not in a huge hurry.

[powells]