The kids found this moth on the front porch this morning; it was huge.

It’s a Luna Moth (Actias luna).

I think it was dying: it wasn’t reacting to our presence, even when I gently picked it up and put it in the garden.

Seraphim Falls could be titled 101 Things to Do With a Knife (watch the movie to get that joke). The first 15 minutes play like a Grizzly Adams version of 24. It’s brutal.

Pierce Brosnan’s performance as a man on the run — who knows how to fight back — is outstanding.

The movie is mostly one long chase scene with a slightly surreal ending, but it’s one of the most exciting westerns I’ve seen for awhile.

Canadian Senators hard at work.

It gets good around the 2 minute mark.

I’m just copying the code from J-Walk’s HTML 5 Audio Test. If you have Firefox 3.5, this should work. It might also work with the latest version of some other browsers, too.

It uses a very simple HTML 5 AUDIO tag. Unfortunately, it works only with WAV and Ogg files.

The tune is “Scrambled Eggs,” a previously unreleased demo for an album I released in Japan several years back under the moniker Crazy Gapped-Tooth Mama-san and The Schizoid Panda Bears.

This is a test. I will remove the file by this time tomorrow.

A friend of a friend posted this photo on her Facebook account. I think it’s from San Francisco. The caption for the photos reads: “Bus shelter sign in Haight Ashbury.”

We’re getting a new window installed today from Windows Unlimited. (See photos below.) And I have to stick around while it’s being installed, so I’m going to blog about it as it happens. It’s a window the size of a door, replacing a door on the top floor of the house that used to be a silly fire escape door.

11:45am
Just got home. The window company truck was here when I arrived. There are at least 6 guys out there eating potato chips and drinking pop, having lunch. The total price for the window, including installation is $850.

12:00pm
Well, they’re putting the new window in now. I was talking to one of my uncles a couple days ago and he said it’s not hard putting in a window. Other people have told me the same and have provided me with instructions on how to install a window. But I don’t trust myself with cutting big holes in my wall. You can’t uncut a hole. At least I can’t. Nevertheless, next time I need a window installed, I’m calling my uncle. There are SIX GUYS here to install this window. At least six, maybe seven. And they’ll be here for up to 2 hours, and we’re paying for their labor. That’s about 1/3 the total cost I’m guessing. At least $30.00/hour each, times 2 hours, times 6 = $360.00 — yup, that’s about right.
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Anyone see In Bruges? What do you think of it?

I saw it last night and it’s not what I expected. It’s about hired killers who are told to hide out in a nowhere town in Belgium after a hit goes bad. It didn’t grab me at first because I was annoyed by the presence Colin Farrell. But I got more into it as it went on, and by the time I got to the end, I thought, “Wow, that was good.”

Anyway, just curious if anyone has seen it.

According to NPR, Greg Brown has a couple new records.

A 5-song live set from June 24th, 2009, can be streamed from the page.

…just released is Dream City: Essential recordings vol 2, 1997-2006, which features previously unreleased studio and live tracks, in addition to a retrospective collection of his earlier albums.

Photo by Brian Blauser.

Gone Baby Gone is Ben Affleck’s directorial debut and it’s pretty damn good. It’s the story of a private investigator looking for a little girl who has gone missing in his neighbourhood, and brother does he get messed up in some serious shit. And just when you think you know what’s going on, you don’t, and it’s at that point the film shifts into high gear and doesn’t let up until the very last shot. It’s not just a thriller; it’s an intellectually engaging and morally challenging film, one that will give you something to talk about while the credits are rolling. That’s an accomplishment for any film. (Not recommended for parents with small kids, though.)

Anything directed by Jim Jarmusch is worth watching, even though his movies don’t always do much for me (Dead Man and Coffee and Cigarettes). His camera quietly observes people in an unobtrusive way that brings out the subtleties of character and has us feeling for them because they’re just so unremarkable. Broken Flowers, a road trip movie about a guy (Bill Murray) looking for a woman who leaves an unsigned letter in his mailbox informing him that he has a son, is Jarmusch’s most conventional movie to date, and as good as anything he’s done. It’s one of my favourite movies from 2005.

Bill Murray’s low-key acting style is perfect for a character bored enough with his life that he’ll drive across the country visiting old girlfriends. He doesn’t tell them directly why he’s come to see them. His approach is, “By the way, you don’t have any children, do you?” Each of his old girlfriends has a distinctive history, some of them sad, some of them scarred, some of them bizarre — all of them potential mothers of a son he’s never met. It’s a quietly dramatic movie with enough funny moments to keep it entertaining. And Jeffrey Wright as Winston is the best (the guy in the trailer who says, “Congratulations, you’re a father!”). The soundtrack is excellent too. I’ve watched Broken Flowers on DVD a few times now. It works well on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

We have a garden gnome!

It’s difficult to see in the photo, but he’s holding an axe in his right hand. But Obi-wan has his light sabre, so I guess that makes it an even fight.

In other news, I now have 50 Facebook “friends.” I’ve decided that’s my limit. If I accept any more friend requests, it means I’ll have to kill off one of my other friends. That works for me. Facebook is a reminder of how little I have in common with any of my “friends.” My favourite friend is Whole Wheat (aka Jim Kloss). No joking. I look at everything my other friends post, and I either have no interest or I can’t relate to them at all. Jim went out to work in his garden the other day. I can relate to that.

The rest of the album isn’t like this, but this one is purty darn cool.

No Country for Old Men is the best movie I’ve seen from the Coen Brothers. Naturally, it’s about a psychotic killer with a high-pressure air gun looking for stolen money, and another guy who stole the money running from the guy with the air gun. I normally don’t care much for the way the Coen Brothers use lethal violence in their movies, but in this case it’s fascinating and compelling because it’s so cinematic. It’s a pleasure to watch the craftsmanship that goes into it. And it’s not all for show. The images and the subtle details work together to create a story and a weird reality that takes you for a ride and leaves you thinking, “What the hell was that?” It’s a crime drama, a thriller, a comedy and a morality tale, and it’s entertaining. (A detailed analysis and discussion of the film on Jim Emerson’s Blog.)

- Christopher Walken

I like this song by The Deep Dark Woods.

Reminds me of Bruce Cockburn’s “Lovers in a Dangerous Time.”