We Make Movies, LA

The other night John and I went to a screening at a cool venue in downtown Los Angeles. We saw a feature, a short film and a handful of trailers, all presented by a collective called We Make Movies.

Impressed. Involved. Proud. These were the things I felt while watching--you know, as opposed to This is too loud. I wish those people in the next row would shut up. I have to pee.

Impressed: the feature, Ruby Booby, was made for somewhere around $7,000 and was more engaging than a number of $70 million behemoths I've seen lumbering across the screen. There was some fine acting, too, and if I were a casting director I'd be on the phone trying to book these people right now.

Involved: the short, Carefully Descending, takes you to the heights and depths of love with a story so piercing, sad and beautiful that I'm still hearing the superb music days later, and the casting director in me is still on the phone.

In fact I'd like to manage the careers of all the writers, directors, cinematographers, producers, etc. whose work I saw at the screening. Even the trailers made me want to see the films they teased, which is exactly what trailers are supposed to do.

This We Make Movies group -- watch for them. Unless, of course, you're the kind of person who sits through an indie film thinking, There should be more blood/sex/blood. Where are the explosions? They should be more abusive to the women.

Oh yeah.
Proud: my husband's a member.


Uppity Uppity Update:
There will be a free screening of Ruby Booby Tuesday, October 18th for cast, crew and industry folk (and readers of Pasadena Daily Photo!). The screening will be held at the Downtown Independent, 251 S. Main Street Los Angeles, CA 90012, (213) 617-1033. Doors open at 6:30pm, the screening begins at 7:00 and Ruby Booby starts at 7:30.

RSVP to rubyboobythemovie (at) gmail (dot) com to assure yourself a seat.

The Particulars

Who: would be so negligent as to lose their library card? Uh, that would be me.

What: This is the dome of Pasadena's City Hall reflected in a window of the Central Library.

When: During the month of September, you can renew a lost library card for free. Usually it's $10.

Where: 285 E. Walnut St, Pasadena.

Why: Because I like it. Not the library card. I mean yes, I like the library card (or I will when I get it). But the picture. I like the picture. And the library. City Hall, too.

Urban Meets Wild

Not a complicated photo. (This one loaded really fast, that's how I know.) It's one last shot to complete the story about our evening at Hahamongna Watershed Park (see the previous two posts). You should probably click on it to enlarge it. Or at least I wish you would, otherwise it's just a little splash of gold in the black.

Looking north from the Devil's Gate Dam you see the Jet Propulsion Lab, affectionately known as JPL, with the lights of La Canada Flintridge off to the left and a couple of Altadena's gleams on the right.

JPL anchors the north end of the park and the Dam, where we're standing, marks the south end. In between are coyotes, dirt, rabbits and trees--wildlife doing its thing. There are also water catch basins, telephone poles and paved roads. It's not wilderness. It's a symbiosis of humans and the wild, and it's working pretty well for the nonce.

If you care about protecting Hahamongna and places like it you might check out the Urbanwild Network. They're having a potluck at the Eaton Canyon Nature Center Saturday, September 10th. Gather at 5:30pm, dinner at 6, program at 7.

Even Better

If you've been on Facebook with a Pasadena friend in the last couple of days you know we were treated to a magnificent sunset Sunday night. Everyone posted photos of it.

John, Bellis and I walked Hahamongna with our friends Karen and David and our various dogs. The sky changed and changed and changed again, and we couldn't stop taking pictures. The dogs didn't notice the sky, but they may have been aware of our stopping to say "ooh" and "ah," like at a fireworks celebration.

A spectacular sunset is spectacular no matter where you see it from, and the visuals rivaled what the gods must have viewed from Mount Olympus. But when you're walking with friends on a dusty trail and the lightning begins to strike while coyotes yip, and the air is a sweater woven of the scent of buckthorn, not even perfection compares.

Not the Last Day, After All

Word has it that the Devil's Gate Dam interim silt removal project is complete. If so, all the silt has been moved to Johnson Field from the dam. For now.

It's not the whole project by a long shot. There will be an environmental impact report before the rest of the work is done. I don't know how long that'll take or what the end result will look like, but it will be a much larger project.

Here's how Johnson Field looked last Saturday at dusk. Not nearly as bad as I'd feared. I took the photo from my usual spot, so those of you familiar with PDP's Last Day Project could make comparisons even if you've never seen Johnson Field in person.

A pan to the left:

It's a bit dark, but I hope you can see in both photos that the trees have been spared. Basically, the county workers piled the silt neatly at the north end of the sunken basin that is Johnson Field. The silt took up about half the space. Room for more silt in the future, I guess.

I have a list of disappointments related to this work, but those disappointments are (mostly) not with LA County. There's plenty of time for it to get worse but so far, the work they've done has been more sensitive than I expected. We even saw a few toads at the fountain. With a little rain we'll soon have some nice weeds growing in the silt. Maybe wildflowers.

We were treated to spectacular skies that night. More pictures to come.

Zen Monday: #161

Today's a holiday, but Zen Monday isn't taking the day off.

In Zen, one learns through experience rather than books or lectures. Zen Monday is the day you experience the photo and tells us what you've learned, rather than me lecturing you about it.

Please leave your thoughts in the comments box and enjoy.

The Best Laid Pipes

Boz and I had planned to hike yesterday. We were going to head to Johnson Field, where this pipe stands. Or stood. We're not sure. A lot's been going on at Johnson Field lately, and for all we know this above-ground access to water has been buried under the mounds of silt being moved from behind Devil's Gate Dam to what we hope is temporary storage in Johnson Field.

But we didn't find out for sure last night, as we had to postpone our hike. We'll find out later today, though, and bring you a report.

Fun news for the meantime: the September issue of Pasadena Magazine features the Dena's daily photo bloggers. For her article, "Daily Affirmations," Kelly Shimabukuro interviewed me, Laurie Allee (Glimpses of South Pasadena), Kat Likkel (Pasadena, 91105 and Beyond) and our already sorely missed Ben Wideman (The Sky is Big in Pasadena and wherever else he goes). Thank you, Kelly!

It was Ben who turned me on to our newest daily photo blogger. She's a bit anonymous, but she's got style. Check out All Over Pasadena.