02 March 2007 - 2:18 am

It's my birthday, it's my birthday!

And among other news,

it's cold here in Los Angeles, cold enough to make you think it might actually still be winter. Beginning of March, could be so. Windy and cold. Glad I'm inside. I'd turn on the heat, but then I'd have to move the CD racks I just put in front of the heater last week. (Thinking the coldness for the year was done, and I would find better homes for them when next I re-arrange the living room.)

Sent out the some-odd hundred invitations to my birthday party next week, had it all ready, set to go at lunch time and managed to delete all that I had done. Spent another two hours at it, after work of course, saving it multiple times, only to find it hadn't saved that part of it, re-doing it, and adding more names to the invite, and finally sent it out. Of course on the way home, I thought of some more people I should invite. I know perfectly well more than 75% of these people won't show, but that doesn't mean I shouldn't be egalitarian and not invite them (wait, was that a triple negative, and where does that leave me?) Of all the hordes of people that I did invite (that I do have an email address for, that is) I did not invite my recent date. It's a party, it's at night, and I would in the end have to tell him to leave, because I wouldn't be comfortable having him spend the night and that just doesn't sound fair. Besides, it sounds like he got himself a new job, working as a bartender, and is busy the next few weekends. I didn't invite him because I thought he would be busy. He's not my boyfriend, so I wouldn't want him showing up at a party expecting anything. I just thought it could be awkward.

Anyway, enough guilt.

If it sounds like all I do is watch movies at night, besides being right, I do do a few other things. Like this last weekend I read a book. Two in fact. One was the P.D. James book Children of Men that the recent movie was based on, and like Blade Runner, there is religion and a lot more going on in the background than what was depicted in the film. In fact, the book is messier as to its complications. Love and betrayal and other unpleasant facts. The movie is loosely based on the world of the book and follows a lot more movie conventions, making it a stronger movie. I still like the movie, but it is not the book and vice versa. In fact the ending of the movie is far more hopeful and open ended. The relationship of the lead character to the Warden of England in the book is much further developed. Final verdict? I liked both book and movie, very different though they may be.

This last weekend I found myself in the young adult section of the bookstore and found a book I mistook for another movie, Crank. Same title, and not related to the movie. This was a book told in verse, each chapter a different poem. The author has written three books this way, and it caught my interest because I used to write essays in high school that way. I looked up essay in the dictionary and discovered it didn't exclude verse. So it was interesting to see an author parlay it into a successful writing niche. Sadly, the author wrote the book directly from her experience dealing with her straight-A daughter who became addicted to crank while in high school.

Tonight, another couple of red envelopes arrived, and I watched Hollywoodland. I know it was panned by critics, but I liked it. Sure, the mystery of the death of George Reeves remains a mystery (was it murder or was it suicide?) but the ambivalence was fine because it was much more about the emotional maturing of the private investigator obsessed with the case.

Listening to the director's commentary, it was just the sort of detail rich commentary I love, pointing out obscure details that may or may not have been visible on the big screen, but which made the director proud for having been as accurate and faithful to the time and period as he could make it. For example, his extras only spoke of subjects relevant to the times, not that anyone really could hear their conversations. The cars were accurate, even when only faintly seen reflected or as shadowy blurs. This was an actual crime photograph of a suicide of the period, here the colors of costumes of the two characters complemented one another to show how well they worked as a couple, here if you were to blow up the image and scan it, you can see which character had a tell-tale prayer card in their possession. Here this shot was in LA, panning to a shot in Toronto. This was a flubbed line, but worked so perfectly. This object says property of, giving insight into the character who stole it, etc. The commentary added a lot of depth to the film, resolving some of the uncertainty I had been left with at the end, now clearly pointing to what happened, in the director's eyes. But subtle clues, without which still left it open to interpretation.

And tomorrow I get my car back. The mechanic claims he has fixed the problem. We shall see.

But,

it's still my birthday, it's my birthday, and I've got a thing or two planned to enjoy it. Just gotta get that pesky work thing left to do on Friday out of the way. Then it's fun, fun, fun and cleaning and shopping all next week in preparation for the party!