We Are Wizards Trailer

 

Thank goodness for Kiwi men

 So what’s it like at SXSW?  We’ve never been, and we’ve been wondering.  Thankfully the gentlemen from Flight of the Conchords have come to our rescue.  Of course.  Click for a full account of SXSW.  Thanks for the tip Greg.

 

Giants

So I got this clip in an email this morning:  Isn’t it amazing?  Apparently its part of a larger play “The Sultan’s Elephant” done by the group Royal de Luxe, who, described by wikipedia, are a “French mechanical marionette street theatre company.”  I absolutely love it. Why haven’t they come here?  I haven’t watched footage of the whole performance yet, but from what I’ve seen of the pictures it just looks extraordinary.  It reminds me a bit of one of my favorite films, Alice, by Jan Svankmajer.  –The story of Alice in Wonderland told through a combination of live action and stop-motion animation.  

 

It too, is beautiful and intricate, with this lovely sinister side. (My favorite scene is when Alice is in some sort of storage closet.  A carton of eggs breaks and little bird skeletons scramble out.  Its delicious.)  I guess this feels the same to me.  

  

I love the little girl. How sweet and gentle she seems despite her size.  Did you see the part with the children swinging on her arms?   Hmm she looks like these sketches of this little girl I’ve been working on, doesn’t she? 

 

Cheesecake! Twice.

This past week I made cheesecake twice.  Which is funny because I’d only made it once before a few years ago. And though it was pretty well received, and not too, too scary, I’ve shied away from it since.  But to comply with a birthday request I made it again.  I used this Gingersnap-Pear Cheesecake recipe from Real Simple  and didn’t stray too much from it.   It was so easy and was completely delicious!  (The only annoying part was making the gingersnap crust. –Which wouldn’t be a big deal but I don’t have a food processor.  I know; it’s sad. ) It was enjoyed by all and the best end to a birthday meal of pork loin, curried apples with barley, mashed sweet potatoes and salad.  

  

We also had a cheese course before hand.  Yikes.  The birthday boy said it was like Thanksgiving.  Such compliments! We all rolled home.     

Anyhow it was so easy that we decided to have another one the other night.  It was Valentine’s Day so we deserved another one.   I used low fat cream cheese, which was basically just to make me feel better mentally, as I’m sure it didn’t make much of a dent calorie-wise.  We used the same recipe, but this time made a chocolate one. –Basically just added powered baking cocoa.  It probably would have been better with a graham cracker crust, but there weren’t any crackers, so gingersnaps with more powdered baking cocoa ended up doing the trick:  

 

Stackers for Jane

So I’m not a fan of fast food chains, but a friend sent me this: I completely love it despite it being all about Burger King.  yuck. But then I look back at the drawings and think if Burger King actually ran ads like this I could probably be persuaded to ignore their many, many faults.    

Regardless, I know a certain someone who will appreciate that clip to its full extent.  Man, those burgers look like they are having such a good time. Did you catch the bacon necklace?  

Meatballs and hearts

I ( with a lot of help) made meatballs from scratch last night for the first time: 

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You might not think  of meatballs first thing when pondering the perfect Valentine’s Day dinner, but that would be your loss.  Just look at all that red!  Very festive.  Too bad no one had enough patience to make them heart-shaped.  darn.

We’re going to Austin!

It was officially announced the other day that We Are Wizards, the documentary I’ve been working on with Josh, Myles and Gerald, has been invited to have it’s World Premiere in the South By South West Documentary Competition this year.  Its a huge deal for us and we’re all so excited.  Now we’re all running around getting ready.  I don’t know if a few years ago when Gerald and Josh started this thing they ever thought we’d actually get here.  But it looks like its happening.  

I can’t wait for March…And of course, if you’re going to be in the Austin area in the beginning of March, please stop by and say hello.   Also check out HeatherShow,  the website of Heather.  She is featured in WAW and is not only a wonderful person, but also recently posted a sweet and perfectly dead-on description of the film.  Thank you Heather.