Cornucopia

Last day of an era. My Occupation Title changes tomorrow so I've been trying to wrap up and do as much as possible before that. Shopping and stocking up on supplies. Even cracked out the ironing board for a rare (probably less frequent than annual) ironing session last night.

Best of all: I found an unmolested red tomato in my garden! I would have wanted it to mature a bit more, but even more than that, I wanted to avoid further pillaging from the evil squirrels, so I decided to harvest my little fruit and let her ripen in the relative safety of the great indoors. Isn't she gorgeous? My beaut's currently occupying an elevated position on my southern windowsill where she can bask in the sunlight. Should be perfect within a couple days.

You may notice the bed of Swiss chard that my Tomato is resting on in the photo. This is my first year growing this and I love it already: no bitterness in my homegrown chard, and even the thick strong salty stalks are juicy, not overly fibrous or tough at all. In my garden, there are two Swiss chard plants: one who's a little itty bitty guy, and another one who's quite large, to put it mildly. As I write, I'm cooking up three of the leaves in some chicken stock, which will probably feed me for a week, since the leaves are from Big Daddy. Why have I named this plant Big Daddy? Observe.Yep, that's a metre stick, and this leaf measures in at over 90 cm. For the Imperialists out there, that's about 3 feet. At these sizes, how can I blame Bitty Baby for cowering in Big Daddy's shadow? Though slight, he's still a cutie, and I'm sure he'll grow up to make me proud.

+++

Saw Ex Drummer today at the Toronto International Film Festival. The film, situated in Ostend, Belgium, is about a famous writer who's approached by three handicapped musicians to fill out their rock band as the drummer. With the soundtrack alternating between fairly sweet melodies and hard noise rock, Ex Drummer is a barrage on the senses: harsh scenes illustrating the lowest depths of humanity, surreal glimpses of violence and chaos, with some parts so extreme that they're absurd, funny, hyperreal and disturbing all at once. Well done, and I'd probably give it 3 chards, but for all the shock, I'd prefer something a bit more humanist or edifying, and there was no redemption in this film. No strong morality tale. Unnerving editing choices -- if you see it, you'll know what I mean. I'm still jarred by its effects; it's violent, graphic, loud and generally unsettling to see. The director, Koen Mortier, was there for some Q&A after the film, and he was so charming and funny, reeling off anecdotes with a soft-spoken accent, that the whole thing was rather incongruous for a Sunday afternoon. Makes me think of pointillism. Odd effect.

Also probably spotted Ethan Hawke outside some TIFF party after, but without cinematic lighting and makeup, it's hard to say for sure whether it was him or one of the other Hollywood types who look like him. Nice suit, though.

I object to violence because when it appears to do good, the good is only temporary; the evil it does is permanent.
- Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi