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5/31/2004

SIFT 

Tomorrow, I'm off to good ol' Gatineau for a week of 'Ideas into Images', a workshop my dad is giving at the Summer Institue of Film and Television (SIFT). I must say, I'm a little nervous. Everyone else in my class is going to be in their 30's, finishing up their second masters degree and working on their third feature documentary while raising their first child. Meanwhile, I've got one year of 'coms' under my belt (a.k.a. didley-squat) and I'm only there because my dad is the teacher.

Oh well. Tomorrow night is the opening dinner/reception. Do you think that means free booze?

pilgrIMAGE 

As some of you may know, I'm making a film with my dad this summer. It so happens, and quite conveniently might I add, that my dad is Peter Wintonick, no stranger to the booming business that is canadian documentary. You may remember him from such films as 'Manufacturing Consent: Noam Chomsky and the Media' or 'Seeing is Believing'. Or maybe you don't. But nonetheless, we are setting out sometime in July to make the documentary to end all documentaries. Or something of the sort. We're still figuring it out.

Here is a sample from the official synopsis which we are currently sending to all canadian art institutions whether they like it or not, in the hopes of getting just a little more funding.

"A father, Peter Wintonick, and his 19-year-old daughter, Mira, both filmmakers, take a cinematic roadtrip around the world. They trek through the present and future of film and image-making, using significant contemporary and historical cinematic sites and personal encounters as their points of departure. pilgrIMAGE is a trans-generational, cine-genetic meditation on media and its personal and social consequences. Equal parts verité film-journal, digital-diary and ciné-blog, through a series of Socratic father-daughter dialogues, gleaned from years of inter-continental film-gypsy journeys, they meet other renowned film 'pilgrims' and media practitioners. The goal is to transfer a bit of crazy wisdom between father and his daughter. From a renowned documentarian of cinema's Generation Why? to those of the next-wave Generation D (as in digital) era."

So as you see, it's obviously just an excuse for us to go travelling the world on someone else's tab. No, no. That's for giggles.

Where will we go, you ask? Well, my stops include The Squatter's Film Academy in Amsterdam, the roots of the Dogme film movement in Copenhagen, meeting the father of Linux and the open-source movement in Helsinki, editor Walter Murch in San Francisco, Adbusters in Vancouver. And so on. Of course, most of these people don't know they're expecting us yet, so who knows. As I said, we're still working on it.

In the meantime, I have a new blog which I'll be using to write journal entries for the film while I'm away (don't worry, digital downpour is still number one in my heart). But, I'm still in the process of designing it, and it has to look pretty cause it's going to be on film after all, so I'd apreciate any comments on the look of things over there. Thanks.

5/29/2004

the digitaldownpour movie of the week 

Iceland. It's like Canada, but small and extra cold.

That and the island's sheep outnumber the people 5:1. No kidding.

Yet somehow, despite the bitter cold and ever present threat of an angry sheep takeover (seriously, they are on the verge of revolt), the country has been providing festivals around the world with some of the most unique and beautiful films for the past few years. Most never make it to theaters once the festivals end, like the minimalist, dogme-style Salt, my personal favourite from last year's Montreal World Film Festival, usually a somewhat disapointing two weeks.

Then there are the Icelandic films that actually get screened here at the few 'art-house' cinemas willing to give some foreign flick a chance instead of playing 'When Arnold met Bomb' or 'You got served: Redux' on every screen. Films like Baltasar Kormakur's '101 Reykjavik' and 'The Sea'.

The latest of these is Dagur Kari's Noi Albinoi.

NOiNoi is 17 and bored to hell in Bolungarvik, a town of 957 inhabitants. He sleeps through his classes, breaks into museums and shoots at glaciers in his spare time. The shotgun is his grandma's, who uses it to wake him up in the morning with a nice, loud bang out his bedroom window.

The film is simple and stunning and darkly funny and really worth going to see. So just do it.

Plus, it'll help you touch up on your icelandic. And you never know when that'll come in handy. Like right now, for example.

"Eg er med ofæmi fyrir thorski." That was me telling you I'm allergic to cod, which is actually a lie. Or how bout this: "Hvad i andskotanum ertu ad gera a thakinu minu?" Eh? This time I was asking you what the hell you are doing on my roof. See what fun Iceland can be?

5/28/2004

The Googlers 

Lately, Google has been so kind to digital downpour that almost no matter what you type into the little search box, our blog is sure to pop up. From "hypermasculin breasts" to today's "does lawren harris have a famous painting?", all signs, for some reason, point to here. While we are always amused to see what latest query has brought some poor, misled Googler to our blog, we are also curious to see what these people were really looking for and why? And how confused were they when their often only result had absolutely nothing to do with what they were looking for? So begins our study into the lives of the Googlers. We'll keep you posted.

5/27/2004

Armelda 

This is silly and hilarious and worth checking out. Thanks to little leah and her crazy site for the link.

5/26/2004

our favourite family 

FamilyIf you can't wait 'til "sometime in 2005" when The Family Guy reclaims its rightful throne as televisions's King of Comedy, here's your chance to see it live!

That's right folks! The cast will be at this year's Just for Laughs festival in Montreal for a reading of an episode, Q & A, and surely a whole lot more family fun.

piano concert 

keysOn Friday, May 28, Jana Stuart, who also happens to be my piano teacher, is giving a concert at the Oscar Peterson hall at Loyola Campus.

It is 16$ for students and all proceeds go to select Montreal women's shelters and to aiding survivors of domestic abuse.

I'm going to be there filming it and it's sure to be a good show, so if anyone's interested, please don't be shy. Click here for more information.


5/24/2004

multiple m's 

i found another 'm' on blogger but she is a capital 'm' like this: M. and aparently she likes to knit.

this is her blog if for some reason you care.

darn lobsters 

so the four remaining coms-kateers had a nice little pic-nic at the tams yesterday, with olives and candy and lots and lots of hummus.

but now we're all bright pink and sunburnt.

that'll teach us to stay at our computers where we belong instead of wandering out into the bright and sunny world.






that was I.
that was me.
that was the author of this blog.





5/21/2004

you don't say 

Apparently, iMacs are the devil. According to this zany christian site, they are "based on Darwinism [may lord have mercy]. While they currently don't advertise this fact to consumers, it is well known among the computer elite, who are mostly Atheists and Pagans."

well, that's a shame.

(thanks to matt soar's pixel blog, where I found the link.)

5/20/2004

hello? i don't think so 

well, it's all well and good to offer a free photo-blog uploader-maggig called 'hello', but when it only works with windows, i say boo on you, photoblogger. that's right. boo on you and good day.

toy troubles. 

lomographswell, my new action sampler camera toy is aparently more tricky than it looks.

out of the 36 photos i took on my first roll, only about 5 are worth looking at. the rest are just blurry or lame or you can't even tell what it is that was meant to be in the frame.

but i won't let this minor set back get me down. i'm going to keep on taking ugly pictures like there's no tomorrow.


the new blogger 

okay, so i'm all for blogger's new look and the fact that you can now search for other blogs based on interest and topic and all that. but i just hate how when you're writing a new post, there are no line breaks, and you have to scroll back to see all you've written. that or hit the return key i guess but that's annoying and a little much to ask.

5/19/2004

gee. 

no wonder so many americans have their panties in a knot about rising gas prices. According to this month's Harper's Index, the ratio of the average number of vehicles to the number of children per U.S. household is 5 to 2. See more fun facts from the index here.

5/14/2004

lomographics! yay! 

yay! my dad bought me a new toy! aparently, this is the new fad in argentina, and maybe everywhere else too for all i know. it's a little camera that takes four pictures one after another but prints them all on the same photo. it looks fun and i can't wait to try it!

5/13/2004

aww. 

i think maybe i should have watched more frasier.

damn straight 

how good is your blog? by koolutt
blog name
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5/09/2004

sobered up 

okay, so as much as I'd like to delete that last post and let it mingle forever wherever all the deleted online things go, I think I'll leave it up as a lesson. A lesson that teaches us that blogging and boozing are a sad and pathetic mix. also, it wasn't 10:43 when I posted that. it was much, much later.


and so, until next time, remember: don't let your friends blog drunk.

booooowze 

yah, i'm drunk , so what? screw you. that's right. you all stubk. adele is my best friend.

as i said i
, m soo tanked right now.

eheh eh\j

so i'm sitting here in my bra, and i think that beer is a goood thing

5/08/2004

digital downpour's new look 

we at digital downpour (well so far it's just me, I don't know what allie thinks of all this yet) are thinking of slowly phasing out the orange. so far I haven't figured out how to get rid of the big ugly orange stripe, but I'm looking into it. please let us know what you think of our new design and leave us any suggestions about color schemes and such in the comments box. thanks


-the management

Mira's movie of the week 

maddin Winnipeg. 1933. Lady Port-huntly wants to sell more beer and what better way than an international competition to see which nation has the most depressing music? Will it be Serbia's Gavrillo the Great with his mournful cello and fake mustashe? Or America's slippery-haired Chester, who does sadness right, but with "sass and pizzazz"?

isabella
And of course what Maddin film would be the same without a child's dead heart preserved in a jar full of his father's tears, a pair of glass legs brimming with golden brew and humour dark enough to blot out the light of a 1000 watt bulb.

Quite brilliant if you ask me.


5/06/2004

japanese weiner art, a.k.a coms heaven 

okay, so I stole this link from the shoup blog (thanks sasha!) but I thought I would repost it here since it is just so darn apropriate.

Prepare to be amazed!

I mean, really. Who wants origami when they could have this instead?

5/05/2004

He's not a tree, he's a Bush or How to get rid of unwanted shrubbery 

With the upcoming US presidential election, I thought that any american citizen happening upon our blog might want some tips on how to oust Mr. Bush from office, if they are so inclined. Now, as was demonstrated in the 2000 election, simply not voting for Dubya doesn't seem to be enough to stop him from claiming the presidency. Hoping to try a completely different approach and seeking insight on how to get to the root of this Bush problem, I turned to The Plant Man. So, without further adue, here is his advice on how to get rid of any pesky presidential shrubs.

shrub

(warning: the following content may have been somewhat edited without the permission of the original author)

Replacing shrubs needs the right tool

Sometimes those shrubs around the house - the ones that had so much "curb appeal" a few years ago - just don't seem quite as appealing any more.

Perhaps they've grown wild and straggly. Maybe you've repainted or remodeled and those old Bush plants just don't seem to be quite right. For most of us, spring is the season when we take a look at our landscaping and think about what we could do to spruce it up.

But the thought of tackling the job of removing those entrenched and well-established shrubs can be quite a deterrent!

QUESTION: "Hi Plant Man! My hubby and I live in a one story ranch style home which is about 20 years old. There are bushes in the white house to the left of the porch which we would like to replace because they are basically overgrown and not very attractive. We have pruned them regularly, but would like to do something different in the front. Is this a job for a professional? Or do you think novices can take on a project like this?

1. The removal process: Can we just cut them down to ground level and leave the roots? Or does something need to be done with the roots?

2. The replacement process: I love the look of a burning bush, but am open to other suggestions you may have.

Thanks so very much for your assistance!" - Pat

ANSWER: Great question, Pat! From the size of the plants you describe it should not be too large a chore. It is just whether or not you feel you are up to it! Yes, the roots need to be removed but this can be done with a tree spade. You can dig down at an angle about 8 to 10 inches form the main trunk in a circle around the tree. Wedge your spade down underneath the roots and lift the roots and tree at the same time. If the trunk diameter is over three inches you may want or need to get some help. Remember to dispose of the bush when you are through to prevent its seeds from spreading.

-The Plant Man


And hey, if that doesn't work, there's always Vine-X*. vine-x At only 39.95 a bottle, Vine-X moves through the Bush's internal capillary system to the root, where the active ingredient works to disrupt the president's natural growth activity.





* Effective for suppression. Some re-sprouting may occur. May require repeat applications to achieve full control.

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