Spring Break interval

April 11, 2007 by wilmington.

Just back from South Mountains State Park. 2 nights of below-freezing tent life at a primitive camping site (it’s a 2 mile, 1,500ft. hike up to the site) during which I was the only human for several miles - including one night when I was the only person on that particular mountain for the night. Beautiful and very vigorous hiking, very diverse terrain and types of trails at what the brochure modestly describes as “one of the most rugged state parks in North Carolina.” My muscles reply, “Well….YEAH!”

Trying desperately to get to still-unfinished Sea Shanty work: DVD distribution of X-GEN/Wingnut, final tweaks to Bailey, and continuing post-production on The Spectre. The showing and weekend at New Bern were filled with laughs and fun culminating in a double feature of Kung-Pow! The Way of the Fist and Battlefield Earth. I’ll give your brain a chance to wrap itself around that prospect……and now we’re back.

We did not have the best audience numbers for the work-in-progress Spectre or public premiere of Bailey. The scheduling of the conference put us in the last block of films of the festival, and we did not get a chance to answer questions immediately after our showing (the final film, a hilarious Indian Jones parody, started immediately after Spectre and created a 20-minute buffer before the Q&A). We got some good feedback from those who did see it, but many people had left during the break before our block. Very disappointing, but understabdable: attending a festival can be exhausting.

We saw some good stuff, but the standout was Jim Haverkamp’s new film Willow Garden. They still had some sound issues to clean up, but this film was outstanding. Very unique look, excellent performances, and the directing and DP work were highly professional. A real tragedy whose roots lie in an old “murder ballad” folk song.

Spring Break still includes a trip to the NC Zoo in Asheville (modeled on the San Diego Wildlife Park), an 8am soccer game for me (umm…yay?), finding and registering for my 4th and final course as a 1st year Ph.D. studetn at Baylor, mounting distress that I will be taking crash-course French in less than 3 months, time to finish The Thirteen Gun Salute (and ensuing panic that I am closing in on the final third of the Aubrey/Maturin books!), and now-earnest work to sell our house and prepare for the move to Waco in  June.

Photos to come of camping and other bizarre stuff…

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