Greetings From Amidst the Grey

I admit it - persistent grey weather dampens my spirit. On Monday I rejoiced at heading home from work in broad daylight, but since then, hello zombiedom.

Tuesday night I resisted the grey ennuie by going to a festival of shorts (as in movies, of course- it's still only March) that a friend had told me about at the last minute. Called "Reel Dames", it feaured short films by women composed for or with musical soundtracks. I found some a bit too self-consciously strange. I find that this is a reflex in a lot of artistic stuff - when in doubt, make something really strange and dare people to make any sense out of it. Of course, art doesn't need to make literal sense, and actually shouldn't try too hard to do so, but it ought to make sense on some emotional or sub-conscious level. Saturating a work with incoherent arty cleverness tends to smother any impact it could have. I've made that mistake myself. But then, maybe others felt engaged on some level by things that seemed a bit pointless to me.

That said, there tended to be interesting stuff in all of the pieces, and some were very good. I liked a couple of the animated pieces best- there was a video for a song called "Black Cab" that traced the journey of a white snowball, burying everything in its path. "Listen Kid" was also a very nice animation. "Drifters" was a nice video, but what I liked best about it was the song by Patrick Watson (is the song called "Drifters" too?) I liked "The Walk" mainly because it reminded me of walks I've had through Montreal.

It was also an occasion to see a friend I hadn't seen in a while, although it was almost like it had been no time at all. Her mind can move very quickly though - I was struggling to keep up at first. My mind can move pretty fast too, but not on days like Tuesday...or yesterday...or today. Grey days...sigh.