CannesCon

Another reason to marvel in May is over.

Another good field ran in the 64th reeling of the festival de Cannes.

Malick, von Trier ... even Takashi Miike got a long overdue invite to compete for the Palme d'Or.

The jury, headed by Robert De Niro, gave the nod to Malick. Which doesn't mean much, of course. What makes the festival noteworthy are the films buried in the sidebar competitions and non-competitions that finally make it to wider distribution.

One of the best parts of all this was watching De Niro speak French. I guess his Italian didn't help him out very much.

http://www.festival-cannes.com/en.html ("Best of du 64eme festival de Cannes" - at the 6:30 mark)

Country Fair

The Victoria Day long weekend is about to kick off!

Here in the city, the patios are packed. The hot dog vendors can't keep 'em coming fast enough to ease the long lineups.

And out beyond the city limits, the season of the country fair is about to unfurl in all its ferocious glory.

Its time.

Time for the 4-H clubs to make some hay.

Time to clean out the fryer, and wipe off the grill.

Stir the gravy. Chop the curd. Flip the burgers.

Take the tokens. Put up the beer tent.

Ride the rusty rollercoaster. Bum a smoke off the carny.

Drive the tractors over. Put your lemon in the demolition derby.

Creedence cover bands. Proof of age wrist bands.

Others can have their Pioneer Days. Nothing needs to be re-enacted at the Country Fair.

Its always been.

And others can have their Balloon Festivals. No Trooper. No April Wine. No Honeymoon Suite. No Loverboy. No unforgiving spandex. And no balloons. Sounds like a solid manifesto to me.


I'll take the country fair.

You'll find me and my Jumbo Dog under the shade of the John Deere green.

Going a Maying

Its May Day.

The Beltane fires are burning. Walpurga has walked.

A putative day off for proles around the world. And the intergalactic workers as well, Space Truckin' their way through the nebulae.

Too bad it falls on a Sunday.

Tho' even on this day of rest and recuperation, there's a bustle in my hedgerow -- the spring clean for the May queen continues.

A vain Projector for so long, my tempest-tost head is reeling with productive possibilities, while my passions are firmly in the grippe of a virulent yet vitalizing strain of biblophagia.

On this evening 228 years ago, Samuel Johnson remarked to James Boswell and a young Edmund Burke that "it is strange that there should be so little reading in the world, and so much writing. People in general do not willingly read, if they can have any thing else to amuse them. There must be an external impulse; emulation, or vanity, or avarice. The progress which the understanding makes through a book, has more pain than pleasure in it."


Its May, and we're all after something.

Gather ye rosebuds while ye may.



Maypole Song by