Joss Whedon – LaDonnaWitmer

Where Do We Go From Here?

Mood: Diligent | Drinking: Soon

future

If you read that title and you’ve now got a Joss Whedon tune ringing in your ears, join the club. If not, well, congrats. You are not as big of a nerd as you think you are.

I, however, am a huge nerd. And I’m definitely feeling the “what’s next?” vibe, though not bursting into song just yet.

Every big undertaking (in this case, the revamp of this website) has a big payoff in the form of fluffy clouds of euphoria. But the payoff is usually promptly followed by a letdown. You’ve been so busy and so focused for so long, and now you’ve reached the pinnacle, you’ve achieved your goal. So then you start looking for the next mountaintop. You start wondering where you’re gonna go next.

I never have a shortage of artistic ambition. A lack of energy, time, and direction, yes. But never a lack of hare-brained schemes.

Fortunately, the post-project dip is a shallow one this time. I’m already on to the next thing — this Saturday, in fact, which is the first of 3 or 4 non-consecutive days of cinépoem shooting. We start filming Homogeneous this weekend, with fearless volunteers Jimmy and Emanuela, who have already recorded some pretty badass vocal tracks.

Homogeneous is one of the most ambitious cinépoems Shel and I have done so far, although this one doesn’t involve any bunny suits or fake blood. It’s a three-parter and involves some tricky coordination, so it might be awhile before the finished product makes a grand debut. But it will be worth the wait.

I have a few other ideas up my sleeve as well. It’s only been 2 years since The Secrets of Falling came off the presses, but I’m starting to have dangerous ideas about a new printed piece.

And there are always new small projects, postcards and prints and things, to do with Kathy. So I’m in no danger of being bored.

Meanwhile, beyond this website and all the fun poetry projects it encompasses, life continues to move and change in new and strange ways. Boy and I have decisions to make, but it’s one of those domino things where one leads to another which leads to another, but you can’t go anywhere until the first domino falls. I’ll let you know where they land… when they land.

Speaking of all that’s new and fun, what do you think of the new site? Comments are open now, remember? Be sure to leave your mark. How else will I know that you’ve been here?!

-Lo, who thinks that 39-year-old straight white dudes who are tone deaf should not walk around the office singing Beyonce, if they want to maintain their dignity.

Biblical Battlestar Ballet

Mood: Chilled | Drinking: Chilly Tea

facade

Saw this Newsweek article about “The End of Christian America” today and found it to be an interesting read. Although I’ve been in the post-Christian era of my life for some time now…

———-

Those who know me know that I’m a big Battlestar Galactica fan (the reimagining, not the cheesy original). I loved that show for years with the same burning fiery love I’ve harbored for all Joss Whedon’s creations. Which is to say, a metric buttload of lots.

So I found this Onion article about Obama and his depression over the end of the series to be quite amusing. Although my depression over the end of the series is not as amusing, since it’s very real!

———-

I went to the ballet on Friday night with some girlfriends — the second performance of the San Francisco Ballet I’ve attended this season. (Boy and I saw Swan Lake in February. And yes, he enjoyed it.)

I’m a big ballet fan, but a rather uneducated one. I couldn’t even accomplish a cartwheel as a kid, much less attempt the splits, so I have no natural dancing ability or technical understanding of what it takes to make ballet look so effortless.

But I appreciate it nonetheless, and am so pleased to live in a city with such a world class company. They are truly amazing, and if you live in SF or are coming to visit I highly recommend that you catch a performance — or buy tickets to see them on tour if they come to a city near you!

———-

-Lo, heading out into a sunny Sunday afternoon.

Once More, With Feeling

buffysing1
Mood: Tired
Drinking: Tea

Overheard at the Buffy the Vampire Slayer sing-along:

“It’s too bad Angel isn’t in this episode. He’s so hot.”
-teenage girl behind me in line, standing with her clearly unenthused mom

“I have a friend who has a friend who went to high school with Faith and — no surprise — she said she’s a dumb bitch.”
– know-it-all twenty-something nerdcore girl standing in front of me with the guy who brought his dry cleaning to wave around during the Mustard song

“So, like, the Grrr Arrrgh monster at the end, sometimes he changes.
Like when Buffy had to kill Angel, he cried. And when she graduated from high school, he wore a little graduation cap. And, like, in the Christmas episode, he wore a Santa hat… I mean, I didn’t, like, see them all myself, but that’s what I heard.”
– Marina beeyotch with muffin tops

“In my opinion, Anya totally out-Cordelia-ed Cordelia.”
– big balding geek of a man sitting behind me with a big buttery tub o’ popcorn

This weekend, I wholeheartedly embraced my inner geek. The one who worships at the throne of all things Whedonesque and has a whole collection of Buffy action figures and comic books (hooray for Season 8), and owns every single DVD, from “Welcome to the Hellmouth” to “Chosen”.

For those not in the Buffy-know, there was a sing-along this week at the Bridge Theatre, put on by the Uncool Kids and attended by legions of my fellow fanboys and girls.

If that’s not going back far enough for you, then you need to be informed that there was a musical episode called “Once More, With Feeling” (originally aired in Season 6 on November 6, 2001). There was singing, dancing, and spontaneous combustion, and fun was had by all.

And although I fully enjoyed singing my little strange heart out to such favorites as “I’ll Never Tell” and “Walk Through the Fire”, it is a bit disconcerting to see, live and in person, all the freaks who share your geekhood. Especially the drunk Marina trixies who have “like, totally seen all the DVDs and, like, love them” but never watched the show when it was actually on TV.

Yes. I’m a Buffy purist.

It was entertaining, to say the least. And big friend points to M & K, who sat through the whole thing without ever complaining. (Although I think M and I are now even for that My Chemical Romance concert I sat through earlier this year!)

-Lo, who lets her freak flag fly on Sundays and bank holidays.

Back to Insanity

Mood: Running on vapors
Drinking: The usual poison

Returning to the real world is proving to be more difficult than I thought. It’s my 2nd Monday back in the swing since returning from the lands across the sea, and I still feel fuzzy about the brainpan.

Can’t blame it on jet lag anymore. Not reliably, anyway. But I may be able to blame it on my weekend of geek theater ecstasy, since I saw both Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask (gorgeous) and Joss Whedon’s Serenity (orgasmic). So I’m lost somewhere between the streets of flying fishes and River’s ballet of Reaver death. And if you understand none of that, I guess you’re not a true geek. Which is good or bad, depending on your point of view.

I think I need to see both movies a dozen or more times to thoroughly saturate myself in the otherworlds, but I do have a living to make and so here I am, deskbound, procrastinating by babbling incoherently. Fun!

About the Italian adventure…my real world friends should prepare themselves for an avalanche of photos, coming to inboxes soon via Ofoto. For the virtual world, though, I’ll condense it to a list of highlights, since I am as yet unable to post photos here. Consider yourselves starcrossed.

When In Rome…
– Be sure to eat not only pizza and pasta, but nectarines from fresh air fruitstands like the one on Via Imperiali. Juicy and delicious.
– Rent a scooter, if you dare. We did and I found myself alternating between laughing maniacally while speeding in between moving buses and swearing incoherently (ohfuckohfuckohfuck!) while trying to maneuver my way out of a traffic circle. It was great fun!
– Marvel at the Sistine Chapel. Not just the ceiling, either. God and Adam are just part of the crowd.
– Get a tattoo near Vatican City from a man named Massimo who speaks no English. When it’s finished, smile and tell him “Bellissimo!” He will laugh at you, but you won’t care at all.
– Touch the stones of the Colosseum and wonder who was touching these same stones on the other side of 2,000 years or so.
– Make friends with the stray cats, but don’t let them follow you home.
– Imagine the Roman men dressed in Centurion outfits. You won’t be disappointed.
– Instead of throwing coins in Trevi Fountain, throw yourself in. It’s more fun. (I should have taken my own advice on this one.)
– Eat all the pizza you can stomach.

The Five Wonders of the Cinque Terre
1. Steps. So many stone steps.
2. The water is bluer than the sky.
3. Follow every path you see because you never know what kind of wonders lie at the end of it. Or not. But either way, you’re walking off all that Roman pizza!
4. The cats know many secrets.
5. Don’t miss Vernazza — it’s the best of the five towns.

Venice Must Be Seen To Be Believed
* Streets of water are even more beautiful in person than in all the books you’ve ever read.
* St. Mark’s Square is better in the early morning hours, shrouded in mist and empty of people. The pigeons are always waiting, though.
* Rent an apartment between St. Mark’s and the Rialto bridge. Never leave it without applying red, red lipstick.
* When taking a gondola ride, be sure to do so at dusk. None of your photos will turn out, but some pictures are better in your head, anyway.
* Mask shopping is a must. You should go into every shop you see, find a favorite, and visit it three days in a row. Then when you make a purchase, be sure to buy at least four.
* Internet cafes are magical.
* Don’t be fooled by the creme-stuffed canolis and their sultry red cherries. Try the apple-filled ones instead.
* Avoid the Rialto bridge at noon unless you want to be caught in a sweaty tourist sandwich.
* Get lost. Over and over and over.
* Ride the public boat for at least an hour, just to see what you can see.
* The mosquitos in the shower are actually tiny vampires. You won’t feel them bite, but they will leave a mark that lasts for a week or more.
* Leave your windows open at night so you can hear the drunk gondoliers singing Italian opera as they float down the canal outside your apartment. (The mosquitoes are already inside, anyway.)
* Gwen Stefani looks better on Italian MTV.
* Ricky Martin is SO gay. You know this without a doubt after seeing his new music video five times in a row sometime in the middle of the night.
* Decide that watching old Italian men arguing is your new favorite hobby.
* You don’t have to go to Murano to buy pockets full of glass.
* It’s ok to dream of Venice, as long as your heart is still in San Francisco.

Five Things You Should Do In London When You Only Have 25 Hours
1. Sleep.
2. Walk to Buckingham Palace.
3. “Look kids! Big Ben. Parliament.”
4. Ride the London Eye, but try to get in a pod with the German tourists. The Americans are too annoying.
5. Eat pub food. Not just fish and chips, either. Try the bangers and mash.

– Lo, who’s already planning her next overseas adventure. How about a hike to Count Dracula’s Castle, eh?

Home Sweet …

Mood: Lagging
Drinking: Sweet Tea
I’m back, stamps on my passport and blisters on my toes.

I’m tweaking on some hardcore jet lag at the moment, or “free drugs”, as some people call it, so I’m not going to write the unintelligible and giddy post I could be capable of writing right now. Although that would be fun for you, wouldn’t it?

I’ll just say this…between steering a scooter around Rome, shooting still photos for an experimental cinepoem in Venice, counting cats in the Cinque Terre, and stuffing my face with pub grub in London, I had an amazing time. A-maze-ing! And I have the vampire mosquito bites to prove it.

More to come. Must enjoy the lag time now. Vacation’s almost gone for good…

By the way, between Neil Gaiman’s MirrorMask, Joss Whedon’s Serenity and Tim Burton’s Corpse Bride, ALL IN THEATERS NOW, it’s a pretty freakin’ fabulous time to do some cinema sitting, eh?

-Lo, who had a somewhat convincing eurotrash accent there for a day or so.

Sex and the Single Girl

Mood: Waiting for the night to come
Drinking: Two-fisted, even

When you don’t do the out-of-town thing for Memorial Day weekend, you usually end up on your ass in front of a screen of some sort. Computer. Movie. TV. I chose the TV option this weekend.

I did spend *some* of the holiday weekend off my ass…took the LeeLoo for a multitude of walks, went for a long motorcycle jaunt with Boy, did the barbeque thing with friends, spent Saturday on the boardwalk in Santa Cruz (mmmm, taffy) with S and MTB and Boy. Sunscreen was liberally applied. But there was a whole day when Boy and pals went off-roading and I opted to skip the jouncing over rocks and through mudholes and sit on my ass.

Having recently finished the Firefly DVD set (have I mentioned how much I’m loving Joss Whedon, again?), I needed some new distraction that would last longer than the average movie-minute. So I decided to go with the cliche and order up some Sex and the City. (I had never seen it before, mostly b/c I always thought it looked almost as stupid as Britney Spear’s stage outfits. Plus, I’ve always had a full slate of favorite shows and not much room for promiscuous WASPy bitches.)

I have to preface this confession by saying that Sarah Jessica Parker is on my “Euw!” List. I’m not a fan, never have been a fan, never will be a fan, and get rid of that nasty mole already! But I was weakened by boredom and, let’s face it, a fairly large helping of cat-killing curiosity.

So. Three Sex and the City discs later, I’m in Season Two and already over it. I’m sure this is blasphemy to some, but this is my web site, so all the Carrie Bradshaw fans can shut it. I’m not going to waste space with a list of reasons of why I don’t give a shit about SATC (bad writing, bad clothes and dirty, dirty whores). But I will say that it got me thinking about my own single girl days.

Back in college a girlfriend and I came up with the theory that there are two basic specimens of female in the dating world: The River People and the Desert People.

River people float along all carefree with the wind in their hair, docking their little shapely boat at any place along the riverbank that looks welcoming. Meanwhile, the desert people stumble along with cracked lips and sandblasted skin, searching the horizon for any sign of an oasis, and often going for years without seeing one.

Translation: River people are the girls who are NEVER without a boyfriend. They often have a new boyfriend before they bother to discard the old one. And the Desert girls are the ones with large stretches of empty space in their love lives. Which is not to say that they don’t have plenty to fill up the space. But they are more often than not “without”.

I, of course, was a Desert person, and tended to hang out with Desert people, also. I had four real boyfriends and a handful of flings from the time I was 18 until Boy hitched my star to his wagon (or vice versa) when I turned 28. Before Boy, my longest relationship was 9 months. With a year or two or three of desert in between.

I’m glad I was a nomad, though. I liked it out there. I got tough. I got creative. I got busy with my own life. I learned how to be independent and self-sufficient and how to hang on to my girlfriends. But as a typical desert-dweller, I also learned how it felt to be the “pal” gal. The one the guys call to go rollerblading down Michigan Avenue at 2 in the morning with the rest of the “guys”. The one the guys call to fill out the group of holiday skiers. The one the guys call to talk about the girl they really like. Yup. I was a most excellent gal pal.

(Thank god Boy never wanted to be pals.)

Anyway, it all reminded me of a little thing I wrote back in 1997. A little thing about a boy who thought of me fondly as one of his very best “gal pals”. And it didn’t even matter that, had he asked me, I would have (most likely) said “No!”. What mattered was that he didn’t. What mattered was that he called me up, often, late at night, to talk about someone else who took his breath away…

BREATHING

He called to say
she left him
breathless.

Tongue twisting
around his eyeteeth
while he looked for
perfect words
and spoke the wrong ones
stupidly.

Knees knocking
at the door of
manliness since
he saw her in church
so he couldn’t be
horny.

Heart leaking
love jelly
through the seams
of his chest and his
missing rib ached
when he finally blinked
to breathe.

He called to say
she’s beautiful
intelligent
and sweet. She
makes him laugh
and makes him
dream but he won’t
tell her that.

She makes him
nervous.

He called to say
“Thanks for listening.”
He can tell me
anything.

Yeah.
I always leave him
breathing.

-Lo, who would never have survived the river, anyhow.

Bored Now, not live but in color!

Mood: Deleriously Exhausted
Drinking: Cuppa tea

Breaking News: Cinepoem #2 is up! It’s live and alive and shiny and new and here.

You must go see it. It’s called “Bored Now” and yes, I am a vampire Willow fan. And if you don’t recognize that reference, you never loved Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (All bow to Joss Whedon, geniusgod.)

A mild warning that Cinepoem #2 is a long one (7-ish minutes), so it might cause complications for you dial-up folks. But well-worth it, in my self-absorbed opinion.

In other cinepoem news, we just finished our 3rd video shoot a couple of hours ago. (We being my beloved S, who has a starring role, and my favorite M & M.) Cinepoem #3 is very different from the other two, but that’s the idea. We’re trying to make them all their own special thing. Anyway, #3 is called “Slow Roast” and it’s set in a diner. So we spent the day eating pancakes and watching me pretend to be a waitress. Buckets of fun. We’ll start editing that one soon, so by the time you’re all bored with “Bored Now” (or by the time your dial-up finally downloads it all), we’ll have a shiny new cinepoem for you.

But that’s getting all ahead of the game. So go check out “Bored Now”.

-Lo, who’s going to go to take a nap now. Showbizness is so exhausting.

P.S. Hey V (a.k.a. “New Friend”)… If you’re reading this, I did get your gorgeous photos and fabulous emails and I shall be writing you back soon. After I am all napped and refreshed and able to type coherent sentences. Promise!