Day in the Life 13848: Panoply, Batman, It Follows, Knee Injury, and Talking Weird

BLOT: (29 Apr 2015 - 09:18:22 AM)

Day in the Life 13848: Panoply, Batman, It Follows, Knee Injury, and Talking Weird

It is a little bit of a tradition that I go with Sarah on the opening/Friday night of Huntsville's spring-time festival, Panoply. This year we were joined by Alicia. It was ok. Over the years, the ticket price has ticked up, now $10 a day, and the free-festival stuff had decreased (music/dance acts notwithstanding, I mean more in the lines of the free arts and crafts booths that have become a bit cheaper, more-for-kids only feeling) so you are kind of paying more to do less unless you want to listen to the music and pay high-ish prices for frozen treats and funnel cakes. If we had money to buy art, as we usually do, it might be different, but many of the artists I like I already know and could technically cut out the middle-man or see them at Lowe Mill. I'm not done with the festival, per se, but I would like to see it swing a little back to its older roots.

Let's try posting the couple of good pictures I have of the event. The first, from around 9pm, is the folks from Sloss Furnace pouring out the excess molten iron as fireworks go off behind them. The second is a piece of cast iron art that we—Sarah, Alicia, and myself—made. It is three parts, a fish, a spiral, and a tree; one for each of us. It looks kind of neat.

The other memorable moment from our night was getting to watch some of Unknown Lyric's show. Positive acoustic music, I'd guess you'd call it. Bought a CD, since Sarah needs violinspiration (dang). I've seen them play at Bridgestreet before (note: video not mine, but it is indicative), but hadn't really known who they were.

After Panoply, we went over to the Regal 18 and watched It Follows. I dug it. I want to write my review of it sometime, but kind of think I need to see it again to fully write one. First impression is that it's an effective story driven by a simple premise—once you sexually contract "It", It will follow you...no matter where you are, it is out there, somewhere, walking straight towards you. When it gets you, you die, and then it goes after the person you contracted the disease from. It suffers, as many movies do, from dragging its heels around the 2/3s mark, and there are probably a good 20-minutes of faffing back-and-forth that could have been avoided without any loss of story. Still, it's a good horror movie to see and it has the sort of ending that I wish more had, though I suspect it will piss a few people off.

In other media news, have been a little bit on a Batman kick lately, partially driven by the fact that I had grown somewhat tired of Batman as a character—thanks-in-the-most-part due to Nolan's overblown movies—but after reading The Dark Knight Returns, I wanted to go back and experience the key moments in the character's history. I've been mixing reading several of the key comics—stuff like The Killing Joke and Arkham Asylum—with the New 52 stuff and watching the amazingly amazing 90s cartoon. I'm sure I'm driving Sarah a little bit...wait for it...batty.

That's about it. I hurt my right knee a couple of days ago, which has made walking to work a strange exercise in slow motion, but it is not too bad up until night-time when it tends to hit the peak-pain for the day. I'm taking it fairly easy on it, but am seriously considering getting a brace because my knee seems to be lacking the ability to not hyper-extend the second I stop thinking about where I'm placing my leg.

Also, have finally gathered up enough materials from my crashed hard-drive to build a complete Doug Talks Weird episode, which I am going to try and do tonight. Though I've said that before.

Ok, need to get to work. Have a better one.

OTHER BLOTS THIS MONTH: April 2015