Blissed Off

I don’t generally suffer from depressions. So far as I know, neither do my brothers. A couple of sessions ago, I asked my therapist if there was a hereditary component to depression, and she said that there was evidence that there is. My significant other is another matter. She gets fairly severe bouts of depression. She’s asked me in the past how I do it? How I am able to shrug off things that would reduce her to tears. In truth, I don’t know, but I suspect it comes from having good parents and good parenting (not necessarily the same thing). I mentioned this to her once, knowing full well that it wouldn’t be helpful. She sometimes thinks I’m a Vulcan.

I’ve been taking female hormones for a little over three months now, and so far, I haven’t noticed any of the “moodiness” that allegedly goes with them. The last time I saw my therapist, she was surprised that I hadn’t noticed any change to my emotional state. I see her again this weekend, and this time, I have something to tell her. I’ve haven’t been experiencing depressions, or “moodiness,” or blue funks. Quite the opposite. I’ve been experiencing completely random bouts of euphoria. I’m talking stop-in-the-streets-and-start-singing euphoria. And, quite honestly, I don’t know where the hell it’s coming from. I’ve had money troubles for the last quarter (mostly stemming from a furnace going bad). I’ve had to suspend my electrolysis schedule, which should get me down. The weather has been shit. The economy scares the hell out of me. And for some reason, I found myself lying in bed on Saturday with the cat curled up beside me and feeling like I had never, ever been happier in my life.

Weird.

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As some of you may know, Friday was an unofficial holiday: a man’s version of St. Valentine’s Day called “Steak and a Blow Job Day.” The, er, thrust of the day should be self-evident. I didn’t participate in the festivities this year. On Saturday, I mentioned the holiday to my SO and she turned pale, then carnation pink. She had dined with a (male) friend of ours on Friday night. They had steak. I didn’t ask about the second part.

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Here’s a song that always makes me feel euphoric. Lately it makes me feel wistful, too. It was so long ago…

And here’s a song that never fails to amuse me, especially when Debbie Harry claims that using ESP to cheat at cards isn’t cheating. Heh.

Enjoy.

Approximately a Mission Statement

This blog will focus primarily on transgender themes and issues (with an occasional nod to broader GLBT issues). I have other blogs that are much more expansive. This one will be more disciplined (she said, confidently…). In general, this is a placeholder to allow me access to the communal blog in which I was invited to participate by friends.  We’ll see how this works out.

Entry for February 26, 2008

I haven’t had much to say lately. My life continues on an even keel. No drama. No pathos. A few financial problems that are par for the course for everyone. But I don’t like playing absentee landlord, so I thought I’d stick my toe back in, ever so briefly.

Christi vs. the Ants:

One of my favorite movies when I was a kid was The Naked Jungle, with Charlton Heston as a rancher fighting an invading column of fire ants. It’s based on a terrific short story called “Leiningen vs. the Ants” by Carl Stephenson. I’ve spent the last few days re-inacting that story, on a smaller, less desperate scale. We have an infestation of those tiny, sweet-eating ants right now, and I’ve been opening up a can of whoop-ass on them for the last couple of days. The little bastards are persistent. They keep showing up even though a thorough cleaning of my kitchen has left an expanse of metaphorical scorched earth for them. We’ve laid the ant bait, now we get to wait to see if they die off. If they keep coming, well…hell.

The Oscars:

Feh. I had no interest in the Oscars, but in the news reports from the event there are enough pictures for me to decide that my vote for Best Dressed (among the women, anyway) would go to Laura Linney, followed by Helen Mirren and Marion Cotillard (who wore the most adventurous dress of the evening). I wouldn’t vote for Tilda Swinton, who wore an awful outfit, but I love Tilda and I think she gave a hilarious thank you speech when she won for Best Supporting actress, calling out George Clooney for his dedication to wearing the nippled rubber Bat-suit under his clothes at all times. Here’s a more stylish Swinton speaking about film to the San Francisco Film Festival:

And so it goes.

The Hurdy Gurdy Man

Hmmm…the Thompson show was unexpected. I didn’t know he was still doing the 1000 Years of Popular Music show, in which Thompson completely ignores his own music in favor of music from the 1100s on up. Felicia was taken a bit aback, too, though she was pleased as punch with the medieval songs she knew. “What’s that instrument he was playing at the beginning?” she asked me after the show. “It’s a hurdy gurdy.” “Oh! So THAT’s a hurdy gurdy.” It’ was amusing. I can’t say that I ever expected to hear Abba and Richard the Lionhearted within a 15 minute period, but there you go. And where the hell does he find his singing partners? Judith Owen was the featured singer, and I have no doubt that she could have knocked some of Thompson’s own songs out of the park if they’d played any of it. Which they didn’t. She’s married to Harry Shearer, of all people. Here’s a version of Spinal Tap’s “Christmas with the Devil” that she did with Shearer:

Thompson’s other collaborator was Debra Dobkin, who also sang and played the drums. I think the highlight of the set was an Elizabethan madrigal called “Shepherd’s Pipe,” in which the three singers harmonized with a clarity that sent shivers up the spine.

The Blue Note seems a different venue entirely without a pall of cigarette smoke hanging in the air, by the way. This is the first time I’ve been there since the smoking ban.

A whole mess o’ guitar

We’re going to see Richard Thompson tomorrow night. If you’ve never heard him (let alone heard of him), he’s a guitarists guitarist. Jesus, the man can play. Doubtless, he’ll be playing this tomorrow night:

…which he screwed up the last time we saw him. It was pretty funny, actually.

If you prefer a rave-up, he does stuff like this, too:

Enjoy.

Laissez les bons temps rouler!

Some quick thoughts for Super Fat Tuesday.

Carnival is derived from Latin: carne vale. It means “farewell to the flesh.” The festival that precedes Lent is a fond goodbye to meat and more carnal pleasures. Is it any wonder it’s such a party. The license to sin won’t be reissued for another 40 days. To this end, I vowed to eat nothing but meat today. And have all the sex I could before I chafed myself raw.

Yeah, right. Then I went to vote. I’m sure that all of the election workers, wizened as they are, are very nice people, but they pretty much killed any sex drive that may have surged through me today. I did go to lunch at a cajun restaurant, though. I had jumbalaya, which is also my favorite Hank Williams song.

Ah, the election. I chose to vote on the Democratic side, though I toyed with voting on the Libertarian ballot. My candidate, Chris Dodd, dropped out a couple of weeks ago. My plan-B, John Edwards, bowed out last week. Both were still on the ballot, but that’s playing with fire. I have no guarantee that their delegates are going to fall in a direction I’d like if either of them tries to play kingmaker at a brokered convention, so it was time to suck it up and make a choice. I went with Obama. I have reservations. I have more reservations with Hillary. After years of voting for mediocre middle-aged white men, who’da thought I’d miss it? Go figure. It will be an interesting election.

Incidentally, voting is fun.

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It’s getting harder and harder to find Rosemary and Olive Oil Triskets. This alarms me, because it’s the pattern with products that are being phased out. In response to this scarcity, here’s an open letter to Nabisco: if you discontinue these crackers, not only will I stop buying your products, I’ll break into your homes and offices and replace all your furnishings with lawn chairs. You have been warned.

Oh, the Humanity….

…you can’t make this stuff up:

Clean-film business was front for porn, police say

Just goes to show that the family values crowd actually has a sense of irony after all, eh?

A Follow-Up

Unfortunately, Yahoo doesn’t have threaded comments, nor notification that might go with it. So I thought I’d answer some of the responses to my insane movie post from last week on a follow-up posting.

Lorianne comments:

“From “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” to “El Cid.” My aren’t we rather ecletic? All I get nowadays because of my 3 children are movies like “Veggie Tales,” “Ratatouille,” and “Alvin and the Chipmunks.”
–I miss real movies.”

There aren’t really any types of movies that I won’t watch. Horror movies are my first love, though, so a disproportionate number of them would creep into any list of my “favorite” movies. I sympathize with your dillemma regarding your kids. There ARE great kids movies out there. You might try some of the Ghibli Studios animated films like My Neighbor Totoro or Spirited Away, or Nick Park’s Wallace and Gromit shorts. And there are always Looney Tunes–the DVD box sets of these are nearly inexhaustable. You also get the benefit of Bugs Bunny’s crossdressing, so it puts a positive spin on things.

Nicole comments:

“While I don’t have an exhaustive list like yours to cut-and-paste, here are a few “beloveds” off the top of my head: Barry Lyndon, Time Bandits, Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams, Koyannisqatsi, Swimming To Cambodia, The Constant Gardener, Monty Python and the Holy Grail, TRON, Casino Royale (the 60’s version), Taxi Driver, Trainspotting, The Wizard of Oz, Never Cry Wolf, A Clockwork Orange, and nearly all of the ones in the list above that I’ve seen.”

Actually, I don’t keep lists at all. This was culled from the list at They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They, and there are a goodly number of movies that I love unreservedly that don’t make their list.

I had the chance to see Koyannisqatsi with a live orchestra conducted by Phillip Glass himself. It was an amazing experience. I had the chance to see him do a similar show featuring his score for Dracula with the Kronos Quartet, but I passed on that because I don’t much like the way it plays with the movie. C’est la vie.

Moon Baby comments:

“Holy mutha’…that’s a great list. I’ll have to show you my Netflix queue. You’ve probably seen most of them on there but it would be fun to compare and review.”

Feel free to send me an invite.

Josie comments:

“I Love alot of those movies as well, but I don’t go for the blood & gore.”

I presume you’re referring to The Texas Chain Saw Massacre? Believe it or not, The Godfather is more violent by a pretty wide margin. The most violent thing about The Texas Chain Saw Massacre is the title. I remember reading an interview with Michael Bay about his recent remake in which he claimed that he wanted to make a movie for the mainstream rather than a bloodbath “like the original,” to which I shouted “Have you even SEEN the original?” Mind you, the overall tone of the movie is profoundly disturbing, more than most movies I can name, but it’s not because of gore. You hardly see any. Halloween is similar. It doesn’t spill a drop of blood on screen.

“The classics you list are great and I Love most of them as well. Die Hard is one of my all time faves. Also a big Clint fan and Love the Bogie movies. The Big Sleep… “Your Cute!” ”

My favorite line in The Big Sleep is “She tried to sit in my lap while I was standing up.” They don’t write em like that anymore, that’s for sure.

“Some Like it Hot was great, “Just keep remembering your a girl.” Billy Wilder was awesome. I also love the Frank Capra movies but it appears you don’t.”

I love Mr. Smith Goes to Washington, though I grouse about the way it’s slanted sometimes. Capra could indulge in some serious corn when he wanted to. I love Meet John Doe even more, but it’s not on the TSP list.

For the record, I love Billy Wilder at his nastiest in movies like Ace in the Hole and Sunset Boulevard. In anything where he shows why William Holden described him as having a “mind full of razor blades,” basically.

“It is interesting you loved the Life of Brian but not The Holy Grail.”

I used to work in an office where one of the pastimes of my co-workers was quoting lines from The Holy Grail. It grated after a while. I can’t even watch it anymore. Fortunately, they left Life of Brian untouched.

“His Girl Friday was awesome. I really owe it to my wife for turning me on to the classics. I was pretty much a Sci-Fi fanatic who loved action adventures as well. Now I’m starting to like to chick flicks alot more. I enjoyed watching the Jane Austen Book Club on the plane ride home. I Love it when a movie makes me cry. But it is great to laugh as well. Movies like An Affair to Remember can make you do both.”

I’ve always cried at certain movies–hell, I was a wreck the last time I sat through Old Yeller. I’ve not put it to the test since I started monkeying around with my hormones, though. I imagine that something like The Clock or Brief Encounter will work me over but good the next time I watch it.

Finally, Ronnie comments:

“What about Cloverfield!?! You didn’t include Cloverfield! ”

Yeah, I can’t believe the TSP people haven’t put it on the list yet. And I can’t believe they didn’t put The Wizard of Speed and Time on the list, either. What a bunch of tools.

Salut.

The Bride of Christi’s Movie Picks and other ephemera

I’m feeling a bit like an absentee landlord these days, so let the following provide whatever surcease of sorrow my loyal readers have been missing…

I was chatting with Nicole Meadows a few nights ago when the subject of movies came up (as it nearly always does when anyone corresponds with me for any length of time). She asked me what my favorites are. I gave her some titles off the top of my head, not having any idea of what she herself likes, and left it at that. A few days later, the subject came up again after I invited Nicole to “friend” my Netflix queue. After much comedy, she noticed that my account hasn’t rated any movies, which is the way Netflix stacks their recommendations.

In truth, I don’t really have “favorite” movies. I’ve seen so many movies that what I might claim as a favorite today might not be the same movie that I’ve claimed in the past or might claim tomorrow. But that’s not to say I don’t have opinions. So I thought of a counter-solution. They Shoot Pictures, Don’t They? is a website that aggregates critics lists and director’s lists into a mega-list of 1000 great movies. It’s not terribly different from the Sight and Sound poll that runs once a decade. Like that poll, there’s a lot good and a lot bad about it, but to someone just getting into film, or just moving beyond the multiplex for movies, it’s a good resource. I’ve seen roughly 750 of the movies on the They Shoot Pictures list. I like a lot of them, I REALLY like a lot of them, but I love about 192 of them. Which is to say, unashamed love. And here they are, in the order in which they appear on the TSPDT list:

Citizen Kane (Welles, Orson; 1941; US) Vertigo (Hitchcock, Alfred; 1958; US) The Godfather (Coppola, Francis; 1972; US) The Searchers (Ford, John; 1956; US) Seven Samurai (Kurosawa, Akira; 1954; Japan) Tokyo Story (Ozu, Yasujiro; 1953; Japan) Sunrise (Murnau, F.W.; 1927; US) Singin’ in the Rain (Donen, Stanley/Gene Kelly; 1952; US) Bicycle Thieves (De Sica, Vittorio; 1948; Italy) The Passion of Joan of Arc (Dreyer, Carl; 1928; France) The Godfather Part II (Coppola, Francis; 1974; US) Rashomon (Kurosawa, Akira; 1950; Japan) Casablanca (Curtiz, Michael; 1942; US) Touch of Evil (Welles, Orson; 1958; US) Les Enfants du paradis (Carné, Marcel; 1945; France) The General (Keaton, Buster/Clyde Bruckman; 1926; US) Some Like it Hot (Wilder, Billy; 1959; US) Psycho (Hitchcock, Alfred; 1960; US) Sunset Blvd. (Wilder, Billy; 1950; US) Persona (Bergman, Ingmar; 1966; Sweden) The Gold Rush (Chaplin, Charles; 1925; US) The Magnificent Ambersons (Welles, Orson; 1942; US) The Seventh Seal (Bergman, Ingmar; 1957; Sweden) The Night of the Hunter (Laughton, Charles; 1955; US) Ugetsu monogatari (Mizoguchi, Kenji; 1953; Japan) M (Lang, Fritz; 1931; Germany) Wild Strawberries (Bergman, Ingmar; 1957; Sweden) The Wild Bunch (Peckinpah, Sam; 1969; US) Panther Panchali (Ray, Satyajit; 1955; India) The Apartment (Wilder, Billy; 1960; US) Metropolis (Lang, Fritz; 1926; Germany) The Leopard (Visconti, Luchino; 1963; Italy) Notorious (Hitchcock, Alfred; 1946; US) Ikiru (Kurosawa, Akira; 1952; Japan) Viridiana (Buñuel, Luis; 1961; Spain) Sherlock Jr. (Keaton, Buster; 1924; US) Aguirre: The Wrath of God (Herzog, Werner; 1972; Germany) My Darling Clementine (Ford, John; 1946; US) To Be or Not to Be (Lubitsch, Ernst; 1942; US) His Girl Friday (Hawks, Howard; 1940; US) Stagecoach (Ford, John; 1939; US) Duck Soup (McCarey, Leo; 1933; US) King Kong (Cooper, Merian C./Ernest B. Schoedsack; 1933; US) The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, John; 1948; US) Los Olvidados (Buñuel, Luis; 1950; Mexico) Jaws (Spielberg, Steven; 1975; US) The Red Shoes (Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger; 1948; UK) Chimes at Midnight (Welles, Orson; 1966; Spain-Switzerland) Black Narcissus (Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger; 1946; UK) The Exterminating Angel (Buñuel, Luis; 1962; Mexico) Out of the Past (Tourneur, Jacques; 1947; US) Rome, Open City (Rossellini, Roberto; 1945; Italy) A Matter of Life and Death (Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger; 1946; UK) Red River (Hawks, Howard; 1948; US) The Crowd (Vidor, King; 1928; US) The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Buñuel, Luis; 1972; France) Sweet Smell of Success (Mackendrick, Alexander; 1957; US) Kind Hearts and Coronets (Hamer, Robert; 1949; UK) The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger; 1943; UK) Celine and Julie Go Boating (Rivette, Jacques; 1974; France) Nights of Cabiria (Fellini, Federico; 1957; Italy-France) Late Spring (Ozu, Yasujiro; 1949; Japan) Cries and Whispers (Bergman, Ingmar; 1972; Sweden) La Jetée (Marker, Chris; 1962; France) Brazil (Gilliam, Terry; 1985; UK) The Maltese Falcon (Huston, John; 1941; US) Pulp Fiction (Tarantino, Quentin; 1994; US) The Conversation (Coppola, Francis; 1974; US) Rocco and His Brothers (Visconti, Luchino; 1960; Italy-France) Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, Akira; 1957; Japan) The Good, the Bad and the Ugly (Leone, Sergio; 1966; Italy-Spain) La Belle et la bête (Cocteau, Jean; 1946; France) The Wages of Fear (Clouzot, Henri-Georges; 1952; France-Italy) Pandora’s Box (Pabst, G.W.; 1928; Germany) The Spirit of the Beehive (Erice, Victor; 1973; Spain) Unforgiven (Eastwood, Clint; 1992; US) Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, Steven; 1981; US) The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy, Jacques; 1964; France-Germany) Meshes of the Afternoon (Deren, Maya; 1943; US) Peeping Tom (Powell, Michael; 1960; UK) Only Angels Have Wings (Hawks, Howard; 1939; US) White Heat (Walsh, Raoul; 1949; US) The Big Sleep (Hawks, Howard; 1946; US) Kiss Me Deadly (Aldrich, Robert; 1955; US) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Hooper, Tobe; 1974; US) Night of the Living Dead (Romero, George A.; 1968; US) Strangers on a Train (Hitchcock, Alfred; 1951; US) Senso (Visconti, Luchino; 1954; Italy) The Wind (Sjöström, Victor; 1928; US) The Navigator (Keaton, Buster/Donald Crisp; 1924; US) The Scarlet Empress (von Sternberg, Josef; 1934; US) Fargo (Coen, Joel and Ethan Coen; 1995; US) The Manchurian Candidate (Frankenheimer, John; 1962; US) Aliens (Cameron, James; 1986; US) Great Expectations (Lean, David; 1946; UK) Tristana (Buñuel, Luis; 1970; France-Spain) Casque d’or (Becker, Jacques; 1952; France) F for Fake (Welles, Orson; 1973; France-Iran-West Germany) To Have and Have Not (Hawks, Howard; 1944; US) Steamboat Bill, Jr. (Keaton, Buster/Charles F. Reisner; 1928; US)

El (Buñuel, Luis; 1952; Mexico) Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Capra, Frank; 1939; US) The Cameraman (Keaton, Buster/Edward Sedgwick; 1928; US) The Empire Strikes Back (Kershner, Irvin; 1980; US) Top Hat (Sandrich, Mark; 1935; US) Yojimbo (Kurosawa, Akira; 1961; Japan) Frankenstein (Whale, James; 1931; US) Eyes Without a Face (Franju, Georges; 1959; France-Italy) That Obscure Object of Desire (Buñuel, Luis; 1977; France-Spain) Our Hospitality (Keaton, Buster/John Blystone; 1923; US) They Were Expendable (Ford, John; 1945; US) Dawn of the Dead (Romero, George A.; 1978; US) How Green Was My Valley (Ford, John; 1941; US) The King of Comedy (Scorsese, Martin; 1983; US) Closely Watched Trains (Menzel, Jirí; 1966; Czechoslovakia) I Walked with a Zombie (Tourneur, Jacques; 1943; US) I Know Where I’m Going! (Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger; 1945; UK) Halloween (Carpenter, John; 1978; US) Forbidden Games (Clément, René; 1951; France) Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpah, Sam; 1974; US) Odd Man Out (Reed, Carol; 1947; UK) Mad Max 2 (Miller, George; 1981; Australia) Point Blank (Boorman, John; 1967; US) Pinocchio (Sharpsteen, Ben & Hamilton Luske; 1940; US) The Lady from Shanghai (Welles, Orson; 1948; US) She Wore a Yellow Ribbon (Ford, John; 1949; US) Dead Ringers (Cronenberg, David; 1988; Canada) Monty Python’s Life of Brian (Jones, Terry; 1979; UK) Faust (Murnau, F.W.; 1926; Germany) Detour (Ulmer, Edgar G.; 1945; US) 42nd Street (Bacon, Lloyd; 1933; US) A Canterbury Tale (Powell, Michael/Emeric Pressburger; 1944; UK) The Adventures of Robin Hood (Curtiz, Michael/William Keighley; 1938; US) Invasion of the Body Snatchers (Siegel, Don; 1956; US) I Was Born, But… (Ozu, Yasujiro; 1932; Japan) Cleo from 5 to 7 (Varda, Agnès; 1961; France) The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog, Werner; 1974; West Germany) A Touch of Zen (Hu, King; 1968; Taiwan) Cat People (Tourneur, Jacques; 1942; US) Killer of Sheep (Burnett, Charles; 1977; US) Die Hard (McTiernan, John; 1988; US) The Tenant (Polanski, Roman; 1976; France-US) Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! (Meyer, Russ; 1966; US) Gun Crazy (Lewis, Joseph H.; 1949; US) Ivan’s Childhood (Tarkovsky, Andrei; 1962; Russia) The Killer (Woo, John; 1989; Hong Kong) Scarface (Hawks, Howard; 1932; US) Land Without Bread (Buñuel, Luis; 1932; Spain) The Innocents (Clayton, Jack; 1961; UK) Ride the High Country (Peckinpah, Sam; 1962; US) Farewell, My Concubine (Chen Kaige; 1993; Hong Kong-China) If… (Anderson, Lindsay; 1968; UK) Holiday (Cukor, George; 1938; US) Rififi (Dassin, Jules; 1955; France) Ace in the Hole (Wilder, Billy; 1951; US) The Lady Vanishes (Hitchcock, Alfred; 1938; UK) Flowers of Shanghai (Hou Hsiao-Hsien; 1998; Taiwan) The Outlaw Josey Wales (Eastwood, Clint; 1976; US) Dersu Uzala (Kurosawa, Akira; 1975; Japan-Russia) The Thing from Another World (Nyby, Christian/Howard Hawks; 1951; US) Man of the West (Mann, Anthony; 1958; US) The Man Who Would Be King (Huston, John; 1975; US) Gregory’s Girl (Forsyth, Bill; 1981; UK) All About My Mother (Almodóvar, Pedro; 1999; Spain-France) Wagon Master (Ford, John; 1950; US) Red Beard (Kurosawa, Akira; 1965; Japan) Blood Simple (Coen, Joel and Ethan Coen; 1984; US) An Actor’s Revenge (Ichikawa, Kon; 1962; Japan) Miller’s Crossing (Coen, Joel and Ethan Coen; 1990; US) Dumbo (Sharpsteen, Ben; 1941; US) Branded to Kill (Suzuki, Seijun; 1966; Japan) Gold Diggers of 1933 (LeRoy, Mervyn; 1933; US) Night of the Demon (Tourneur, Jacques; 1957; UK) Blow Out (De Palma, Brian; 1981; US) Stray Dog (Kurosawa, Akira; 1949; Japan) Diary of a Lost Girl (Pabst, G.W.; 1929; Germany) The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (Mankiewicz, Joseph L.; 1947; US) Pickup on South Street (Fuller, Sam; 1953; US) Gimme Shelter (Maysles, Albert/David Maysles/Charlotte Zwerin; 1970; US) Duel (Spielberg, Steven; 1971; US) Awaara (Kapoor, Raj; 1951; India) Seventh Heaven (Borzage, Frank; 1927; US) To Live (Zhang Yimou; 1994; Hong Kong) The Criminal Life of Archibaldo de la Cruz (Buñuel, Luis; 1955; Mexico) The Private Life of Sherlock Holmes (Wilder, Billy; 1970; US) El Cid (Mann, Anthony; 1961; US) Land of Silence and Darkness (Herzog, Werner; 1971; West Germany) Harakiri (Kobayashi, Masaki; 1962; Japan) The Man in the White Suit (Mackendrick, Alexander; 1951; UK) Ballad of Narayama (Imamura, Shohei; 1983; Japan) The Unknown (Browning, Tod; 1927; US) One, Two, Three (Wilder, Billy; 1961; US)

You can take these as recommendations if you like, but I have very specific and idiosyncratic tastes in movies, so your mileage may vary. Caveat emptor. The films that are in bold face type are films that I own in one form or another.

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I’ve been on hormones for about a month and a half and for the longest time, I felt no real changes. That time has passed. This past weekend, about five weeks into the process, my breasts became sore. I had been experiencing fleeting, phantom sensations for weeks that may or may not have been real, but this is the real deal. There’s no imagination involved in this. Additionally, my sex drive has noticeably diminished, though it’s still there, and my beard appears to have slowed its rate of growth. Which is good, because I’ve had to take an unforseen break from my electrolysis schedule this month. I haven’t felt any emotional changes yet. A (fe
male) friend of mine told me that I won’t really know what it’s like to be a woman until I break down into an uncontrolable crying fit for no good reason. So I have that to look forward too…

For all of that, I’m in total guy mode right now, which I hate. I don’t have an electro session on the day of my next therapy appointment, so I might show up to that as a girl. My therapist hasn’t seen me that way yet. The downside is that I’ll be leaving the house at 6:30 AM. I may not be in any shape to create the persona, especially if I hit the snooze bar a couple of times.

Miscellaneous

Totally stolen from Bad Astronomy: Astrology Magazine has ceased publishing for….wait for it…unforeseen circumstances. Priceless

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Top Gear solves the energy crisis with a car made in 1963:

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This remains my favorite web comic. It’s the existentialist in me, I think.

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So far, I’ve watched 13 of the planned 366 movies I want to watch this year, so I’m beginning to lag. Fortunately, I have a three day weekend ahead. I’ve finally started to remember to mail my Netflix in the morning, too, which will help. I can finally resume buying movies again next month. Woot.

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Enjoy.