Waste Not, Want Not

I recently was digging in my coat closet and came across an old skirt I'd made 10 or 12 years ago for Renaissance Fair & SCA use. It doesn't fit any more, and the elastic in the waistband was dry and crunchy, as happens when it gets old. I decided that it wasn't worth salvaging, and tossed it in the wastebasket. But then I thought that it had a lot of perfectly good fabric in it, and that I should try to reuse it. Therefore, I decided to make a little dress for a little girl I know.

This is for the SCA, and it's a perfect thing to do in that context, as that's exactly what they did in the Middle Ages--fabric was expensive, and garments were often given new life by cutting them down for someone smaller. I used almost exclusively materials that I already had in my stash, and I'm quite pleased with it. This is much better than throwing out that old skirt.

Not the most beautiful tomato in the world

This is the first year I've planted a vegeatble garden since I bought my house. Every year I mean to, and every year it doesn't happen. Back when I lived in an apartment and grew vegetables in pots on my back patio, I dreamed of having my own yard so that I could have a real garden. But time gets away from me, and digging up the grass for a garden is really hard work, and I worried that it might not work out and I'd just have a messy, weed-filled eyesore in my yard. I've passed plenty such gardens as I walk around town, and they did not encourage me to give it a try.

This year I started small: my garden patch is three feet by five feet, which is how far I got before I was too tired to dig up more grass in May. It contains three tomato plants, two peppers, one melon, and an anemic row of the world's smallest carrots. One tomato plant was store bought, and has been producing yummy cherry tomatoes. The other two are heirlooms that I started from seed. The variety is Mister Stripey, and I didn't realize when I started them that they are a fairly late tomato. Consequently, they've been green right up until a few days ago.

Heirloom tomatoes are supposed to have character, and I think it's fair to say that my tomatoes have more character than beauty. They're lumpy and have cracked badly and frequently. I'm not sure if this is my fault or the weather's, as I have no basis for comparison. June and July were hot and we were in a drought; August has been the wettest on record. Nevertheless, this evening I picked the first one, and it is undoubtedly a tomato. Success! I don't think I'll grow this variety next year, though.

Now, I'm going to eat it with a big pile of bacon.

Renaissance 2007

Images:
1. Booth 709, Battered Veggies, where I worked in 1993
2. Me!

I spent Saturday at the Minnesota Renaissance Festival with friends, and had a great time. This is sort of my old stomping grounds, as I've always loved the Renaissance Festival and have been many times. I even worked there two years in the food booths, which is a lot of long days and hard work for fairly low pay, and you don't have time to get out and enjoy the Festival very much. But I loved the place, and was willing to do it just to be out there every day. After I stopped working there I joined the SCA because I was looking for somewhere else to wear my costumes, and I've been doing that for 12 years now. But my first love is still the Renaissance Festival--it's just a lot more fun than any SCA event I've attended.

I haven't made it out there the last several years, though. I'm not sure why, it just never worked out. Every year I intend to go, and every year it doesn't happen. It was interesting to go back and see how much has changed and how much has stayed the same. I still know where to find Tuey, Zilch, Puke & Snot, the Dew Drops and the Tortuga Twins when I want to see their show--it hasn't changed. I still know my way around the grounds, still know where all the privies are, still am familiar with most of the craft booths, as they don't turn over much. But the Robin Hood/Hobbit stage is now the entrance to an Enchanted Garden, which involves a brisk hike up and down the hill to the swamp behind the festival to see the little houses and gardens. The Falconers stage is gone, replaced by The Dungeon--surely the biggest tourist trap at the Festival, it's a very, very tacky display of models of instruments of torture, including big-boobed mannequins in tacky nylon costumes and signage provided by someone who is not familiar with proper spelling or punctuation. It costs a dollar to get in, and is a gross ripoff.

There was a fire a couple of years ago in Cartwheel Cove and my first booth-- 836, Cookies & Milk--was among those that burned down. The area has been rebuilt, minus the wine garden and the Spanish Fries booth. And the space that was my old booth is now selling smoothies. Sigh. On the other hand, it is now possible to get gelato, which is a great improvement in food service from the Castle Kitchens. The mango gelato, in particular, was terrific. I also had a banger roll from the Scotch Eggs booth, which was incredibly greasy but fairly tasty.

I had to dig all my old RenFair gear out of a box in the closet because it's been so long since I've worn it. And the elastic had gone in my skirt, so I took it in four inches in the waist and still had to use a belt to keep it from falling down. Wandering around the Festival brought back so many memories, mostly good. I'm very glad I went, and I'm going to have to get back out there again, perhaps even this year. I really missed it.

Das Boot

Das Boot is a German film from the early 1980s about a submarine crew in World War 2. It was apparently originally a miniseries for German television, then cut to a film which was released internationally. I saw the Director's Cut, which is shorter than the miniseries but longer than the film that was originally released. It's three hours and 25 minutes, and it's too long. There is a very drawn-out scene near the end when things aren't going well that was just way, way too long. Other than that, though, I really enjoyed the film.

The German U-boats were a very powerful force early in the war. They roamed the Atlantic freely, mostly sinking freighters that were carrying supplies from North America to Britain. The Allies, of course, set their minds to finding ways to fight the U-boats, and as the war progressed the life expectancy of U-boat crews grew to be very short. According to the text at the beginning of the film, 30,000 German sailors died on U-boats. Das Boot is set in the middle of the war, when things have turned and life has become quite dangerous for a U-boat, but not yet so badly as at the end of the war, when nearly all of them that sailed were destroyed.

We follow a trip of U-96, which is very loosely based on the history of that sub and its commander. The narrative character is a young leutnant who has been sent along to observe the mission and then write glorious publicity of the heroics of the submariners. He quickly learns that it's not a glorious lifestyle at all. German subs were no larger than they needed to be, and thus were extremely narrow and cramped. Sailors shared bunks in shifts, food was packed in every inch of available space, and no one bathed or shaved for months on end. The mission consisted of weeks of boredom separated by hours of stress and danger. For the film, they built an accurate model of a submarine's interior and filmed within it, to emphasize how claustrophobic the experience was. It's fairly intense and grim, but that is appropriate in a war film.

I thought it was an interesting and absorbing film, and enjoyed it. Recommended, with the caveat that you may want to fast forward through one drawn-out section around the three-hour mark.

Life is weird sometimes

I was sitting in a finance meeting this afternoon. There were seven of us there, and halfway through I realized that there were two Jims, two Johns, and two Gails. This made communication a little complicated.

Letters from Iwo Jima

I intended to see this one in the theater, but I either didn't get to it in time or my local theater didn't show it at all (I no longer recall which). It's out on DVD now, and I watched it yesterday.

As I'm sure everyone knows, Iwo Jima is a small island in the Pacific which was the site of a brutal month-long battle in World War II. The Japanese had dug into the hills and US forces took it, eventually, through greater numbers. Casualties on both sides were massive. ( I read a really riveting account written by a Marine doctor last year. It's called Surgeon on Iwo, and was written by James Vedder. It was later reprinted under the title Combat Surgeon: On Iwo Jima with the 27th Marines. It's out of print again, but I highly recommend it if you can track it down through the library.)

Clint Eastwood made a pair of movies about Iwo Jima: Flags of our Fathers is told from the American perspective, and Letters from Iwo Jima is told from the Japanese perspective. Letters is nearly all in Japanese, with a Japanese cast, and written by a Japanese-American screenwriter. It is subtitled, and filmed in a sort of grey/sepia color scale. As anyone who has studied the battle knows, the Japanese eventually lost. The men in this film are doomed, and they know it. They went into battle knowing that they were going to die for their country, and it is an interesting psychological study of a mindset that was different than America's. It is also a realistic and gritty portrayal of the horrors of war.

I suppose that the film is grim, in that almost no one survives. I don't consider this a spoiler, as it's made clear from the beginning that they are probably doomed. However, I found it a sympathetic and moving film. And I also consider it a great accomplishment: this film could not have been made in 1957, for instance. The war was too recent, and the Japanese had been enemies too recently, and people would have been enraged to see the Japanese portrayed sympathetically. But enough time has passed now that we can view things more objectively, and I admire Clint Eastwood for not only conceiving this film, but taking on what must have been a daunting project. It's a great film, and I recommend it highly, with the caveat that it's grim and not everyone likes that.

The DVD doesn't have director's commentary on it, which I found a bit disappointing. However, it does have a second disc with bonus materials, including a section on the cast and clips from the film's world premiere in Japan and a press conference with Clint, the cast, the producer, and the writer. I found it interesting that the Japanese mostly don't know about Iwo Jima--it is not about taught in their schools. So I suppose this must have been a bit of revelation to Japanese audiences, to see a film about a part of Japan's history that they'd never heard of, created by foreigners who did have records of it. I hope they liked it. I certainly did.

Hot Fuzz

This one is not good. Really, really not good.

I liked Shaun of the Dead fairly well. It was quirky and funny. This one was just tedious and gross. What a waste of time.

35W Bridge

If you've seen the news this evening, you've probably seen coverage of the collapse of the 35W bridge in Minneapolis. I've been watching since it happened, and it's very tragic and horrific. I can't even imagine how terrifying it must have been for the drivers who had the road collapse out from underneath them. It is still unknown how many vehicles plunged into the river, or how many drivers were able to escape their vehicles.

I've been watching the coverage all evening, and find it even more unnerving because I know the neighborhood. The road collapsed near the University Avenue exit. When I was in college 15 years ago, I lived on University Avenue a couple of blocks from 35W. I crossed over the highway every day as I walked to and from the university. I used to regularly drive on the 10th Avenue bridge, which is the intact bridge shown that runs parallel to the collapsed bridge. I don't live in Minneapolis any more, but this happened just blocks from my old home. That makes this all much more personal to me, and it's really creepy.