Chris emailed me earlier today about this festival that he found on the internet in San Francisco this summer. It looks like a sweet line up. It also looks like there is some hip-hop thrown in with all the wonderful indie rock. Plus it looks like Radiohead is going to be there, and because they snubbed Portland on their tour I think this might be my opportunity to see them. One problem with going to ACL last summer is that now I want to go to music festivals all the time. The good thing about this one is that SF is only like one day of driving instead of 11, which is pretty much the number of days we drove to get to Austin and back. There is one small problem. I have no job, and thus no income. Last year at this time I was working for Premiere Valet at a hospital in South East Portland. I was lucky enough to get a different job for most of the summer, and that job ended with plenty of time to get to ACL before school started. This year, when I get a job, it is going to be only for the summer, and I don't want to come into it saying that I need some time off in August to go on a trip. Hopefully, if this trip happens, we can make it a long weekend instead of almost two weeks. That way I won't have to quit my job. Which was what I was going to do if I had gotten a job that wasn't over before the ACL trip.
Speaking of music, I just bought tickets to the Wailin' Jennys on April 20th at the Aladdin Theater. This is going to be a sweet show. If you haven't heard of the Jennys you should check them out. They are traditional country from Canada, and they are awesome.
Speaking of awesome things, Olivia made the comment the other day that the reason that I love Netflix so much is because it involves two of my favorite things: Movies and getting mail. I watched a movie yesterday that I wanted to talk about, but I didn't. So here goes.
Yesterday we watched Everything Is Illuminated. I read the book a long time ago, and I couldn't really remember it, but I must say that I thought the movie was pretty good. It made me think of all the movies that I have seen that are based on books. I have a thing about reading books that my favorite movies are adapted from. With movies like Wonder Boys and High Fidelity this was a bad idea. I loved both of those movies, but the books are so much better, and in the case of Wonder Boys so different, that I haven't been able to watch either movie since, and it has changed my whole perception of both of them. I don't really have anything else to say about that, I just wanted to get it off my chest. If I ever have a book that is adapted for the screen I think that I would like to be part of that process. I wouldn't have to write the screenplay, but I would at least like to be consulted. I think sometimes people that adapt books into screenplays think that however they want to change the story is ok because it is a new piece of art. I don't totally agree with that. It is a new piece of art, but it is based on an old, or at least different, piece of art. At some point, if the changes are too great, There Will Be Blood, I think that it becomes a non-related piece of art. It is no longer an adaptation. The tricky part is that it is also not an original. It could almost be called plagiarism. That's why Adaptation, from Susan Orlean's the Orchid Thief, is such a superior movie. It is both original and an adaptation. Charlie Kaufman is truly great.
PS. Any movie execs out there, I have no problem with having a book made into a movie. I just need to write a book first.
The Wailin' Jennys. THEY ARE AWESOME!
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