The weather in Memphis this weekend was a bright and breezy golden-kissed howdy-do-fall handshake with mother nature. I spent probably 80% of it indoors watching movies at the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
I saw some good stuff, went to the wrong place a couple times, chatted up strangers, drank full-on HFCS coke, cried while watching a documentary about video games, and even lightened up on my punch-people-who-look-at-their-cell-phones-during-movies policy (hey it’s a festival – people are on a schedule) for a little while.
I did walk out of two movies, I don’t walk out of many movies (I won’t even let my friends leave baseball games until they are officially over, no matter how many extra innings they run) and I won’t tell you which ones, but I can tell you that no one would walk out of any of my movies because I have a couple built-in foolproof mechanisms that ensure this would never happen.
These safeguards involve techniques like having some kind of intro title that says, "Stay in your seats, we have someone coming around to hand out a special surprise!" Another strategy has my friends pose as violent security officers at the doors refusing to let people out. Or maybe my mom, or any midwestern mom for that matter, standing at the door catching folks trying to walk out, asking them, “Oh did you need something? What do you need? Can I scramble you an egg? Go back to your seat. I’ll bring you something. Do you need a blanket?”
If there is one thing I learned from the festival panels these past few days, is that you have to think about these things. This is a new age of entertainment. We have a new kind of audience. Their brains are disintegrating! Film is interactive! You can’t just hand your ideas over to some producer and think they are going to make it happen. You have to believe, be smart, and follow through to the end – all the way to the doors of the theater.
I’m not sure if anyone said that in those precise terms, but it is what I gleaned from their body language and eye movements. It’s just a gift I have. I know what people mean instead of what they say.
And - speaking of being gifted, I happen to have a true gift of enthusiasm for teaching, but a gift that I don’t have is: interest for the giant m-effing stack of essays that these classes seem to produce every other week. Like the one I am looking at now. Who is assigning this sh*t?! I need to stagger these due dates. Where is my TA? What else can I write about to procrastinate getting started?
Topics I am interested in and considering rambling about instead of getting to work right now:
- LA Lakers – Why do they control my boyfriends mind?
- Guy at the Hop-in who ID-ed me and said “whoa” when he looked at the date
- The good movies at the IMFF
- Sympathetic magic: similarity and contagion
- Mumblecore – trends I drank through
- Joyce Jillson
- Arkansas PBS Show – Squirrel Enchiladas
- Media literacy in this day and age
- Oxblood – trendy color or medieval beauty treatment?
- Camo photography gear (as seen on Arkansas PBS Show)
I’ll save those for later and get down to business (for now). Hope y’all had a happy weekend.
Oh - If you were wondering – I heard from Sargent Sparkle today. She’s already teaching the Afghani’s the cupid shuffle. More later.
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