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Heat Death

Last night I was reading the New Scientist's article on photographing black holes, particularly the one presumed to be at the center of the Milky Way. I then took off on a Wikipedia spree in the following order:

• Solar System
• Milky Way
• Galaxy
• Dwarf galaxy
• Great Attractor
• Dark flow
• Timeline of the Big Bang
• Universe
• Ultimate fate of the universe
• Heat death of the universe

Histories in tabbed browsers are notoriously bad at representing the precise order in which the user actually read the pages listed, but I'm fairly sure that I had to shut the computer off at some point near the bottom of the list after my brain exploded.

Rolling SIFF Updates

After running through the catalog again, I believe I've got a tentative schedule set at 48 films.

Thirteen on Memorial Day weekend, nine the short week after that, fourteen in week two, and twelve the final week.

Hard to say exactly how many will actually get watched. Any besides Humpday definitely getting theatrical release in Seattle will be stricken from the list. Probably half of these are can't-miss, and the rest I'd like to see if possible. Hopefully I can compile a manageable list of a dozen or fewer to suggest to interested parties.

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Andy Horbal's Film Blogs, Etc. search tool at Google is exceedingly helpful in trying to get an idea of general reaction to smaller films. It includes both of David Hudson's blogs, Twitch, Slant, The Auteurs Notebook, and of course a load of personal blogs. Variety is also a necessity, though their review database is slightly less than comprehensive.

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After the first run-through, I've scheduled ~45 films over the 24 days of the festival. This doesn't include several I've marked to look up later, so I will also need to start trying to find reasons not to watch some as well.

20090503

Today is significant for three reasons. First is the biggest cache of information thus far on SIFF '09 in the Seattle Times. Most startling to me was the re-scored film at the Triple Door: No Age performing new music for The Bear (Annaud, 89). The Album Leaf and Kinski, who I know have filled the musicians' role in the past, both seem like rational choices, but I would probably have gotten through most of Sub Pop's roster before guessing No Age. The film might be longer than their entire recorded output to date.

Second is the second time I've recognized someone onscreen in a commercially released movie. Ivan popped up in a Joe Swanberg film or two, and today I spotted Isaac Smith in Sugar, the middle third of which is set in Iowa.

Third is that I finally finished walking the last block on Capitol Hill, unless you're the sort of perverse Seattle geographer who considers anything north or Roanoke to be part of the neighborhood. And I don't.

Pp+

I have decided on the occasion of finishing three (not all-that-long) books in the past week to read through my accumulated stack before looking at anything new or different. The result is roughly 4,000 pages of required reading; perhaps I'll get an exact count for a Daytum panel. It feels like a pretty tall order.

Last year I read approximately 31 books that were not graphically oriented. They tended to not be terribly long, so at an average of 250 pages, that makes 7750 for the year. I also believe, on average, that they were probably less dense than those to be found on my Goodreads list (to-read + currently-reading). Given that, and slightly increased magazine reading over 2008, I'm probably looking at seven to eight months before I can go looking for anything new to read. That is, somewhere between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In other words, the goal is to finish up before attending the Vancouver Film Festival around the beginning of October. There are only 2.5 fiction books out of the 9+ total, but hopefully Infinite Jest can absorb several non-fiction titles to maintain a pleasantly even ratio.

Inauspicious

I'm sure this has been noted elsewhere already, but Cliff Lee has already given up more runs in 2009 (the Indians played their first game today) than he did starting regularly through the full first quarter of the 2008 season.

Consolidation

Since I can't get my act together and make a decent mix anymore these days, I decided (after Holly's comment) to finally get all the old ones uploaded in one spot. Twelve and counting currently via MediaFire.

Q1 '09

Movies
Che
Medicine for Melancholy
Coraline 3D
Crips & Bloods
I Love You, Man
- - -
The Baxter
Easy Rider
They Shoot Horses, Don't They
The Wild Bunch
Body Heat
- - -
PIFF

Beer
Ninkasi Total Domination
Avery Ale to the Chief
Avery 15th Anniversary
Cascade Vlad the Impaler
Deschutes Oregon 150
Big Time Breakfast in a Glass
Elysian Stout on cask
Full Sail Black Gold
Russian River Consecration
Pilsner Urquell (can defeats bottle)

Staving Off Bittorrent, Update

It's movies, not music, but today David Hudson blogged about an up-and-coming database of films available online, called SpeedCine. Not fully functional yet; or rather, it's functional but just not fully populated with all results from relevant sources. I wonder if/how they'll take into account brief windows of opportunity, like Pitchfork.TV's weekly rotation of features.

There is a section devoted to "Free Films," and I hope that will include information on commercials and interruptions. For example, just pulling a couple from the list, I'd watch Stagecoach like that, and would hesitate before doing so with Last Tango in Paris, but would still probably go ahead. There is absolutely no way I would want to watch Ballast piecemeal, though.

Staving Off Bittorrent

One thing the Internet really needs is a site that matches record labels to MP3 vendors. You could then fill in artist and album-specific links, but basically I really want to know something like, Where can I buy the new Six Organs of Admittance record online?

Now, I know they're on Drag City, which means eMusic doesn't have them and apparently neither do Insound and Other Music. However Amazon is carrying it for $17.98 and iTunes has it for $15.99. But this is all at least label-specific information, if not album specific. For example, some labels only provide part of their catalog to certain stores, and I know eMusic sometimes receives albums long after their original release date, if ever.

This should pretty much be Google Shopping* with an awareness of international restrictions (Bleep won't let Americans buy a lot of rock music, but most of their electronic stuff is okay) and store preferences, since if thirty sources are selling a record for $9.99, I'd rather not have to page through a bunch of junk to get to eMusic or Other Music, which are my preferences for indie rock type stuff. And it would need to include iTunes and any other sources that aren't directly available through a browser.

*Yes, I tried doing a relevant search on the actual Google Shopping, and it was completely useless.