I’m at a complete loss to explain why the Seattle PI’s Bill White hated Being Caribou so much. In today’s SIFF round-up, he gave the film an “F” and complained that it consisted of little more than “two people mouthing platitudes about natural beauty while hiking in the snow”. (There’s a more positive review of the film, and several of the other nature films being shown at SIFF, in a back-issue of the Seattle Weekly.)

I certainly wouldn’t argue that this was the greatest documentary ever made, but I found it quite charming and informative. It chronicles the experiences of Canadian husband-and-wife team Karsten Heuer, a forest ranger, and Leanne Allison, a documentary film-maker, as they follow a migrating caribou herd from the Canadian Yukon Territory to Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and back again, a 900-mile trek that lasted for five months. Carrying a plastic George Bush doll with them, the couple set off with the intention of making a movie that would show audiences both how beautiful and how fragile this ecosystem is, with the obvious hope that this might encourage viewers to protest the opening of ANWR to oil drilling.

While the film does an admirable job of documenting the caribou migration, it is also very much about Heuer and Allison’s journey itself. Bill White seems to have been put off by this, but I found it fascinating — perhaps in large part because I’m a hiking and camping weekend warrior who fantasizes about going on long treks in the wilderness. If Allison and Heuer sometimes sound a bit loopy as they talk about their relationship with the caribou — one wonders whether physical exhaustion and food deprivation have somewhat addled their brains — they remain amazingly cheerful as they trudge through the snow carrying 60-80 pound packs, are stalked by bears, are trapped in their tent by a blizzard, are forced to eat berries and arctic rodents after they run out of food (“tastes like chicken!”), and are assaulted by clouds of ferocious mosquitoes. As you watch them experiencing this ordeal, the film’s many scenes of natural beauty — a caribou calf taking its first steps, hundreds of caribou grazing in the summer range lands, the splendor of the ANWR landscape, etc. — seem all that much more miraculous for having been so hard to capture on film.

It doesn’t look like Being Caribou has a US distributor, but it is available for sale at the National Film Board of Canada website.

even hipsters love icecream!

If you made the trek to the Gorge for Sasquatch on Memorial Day weekend, you may have noticed the guys who arrived in an ice cream truck. Given the sweltering heat, you probably looked longingly at the vehicle thinking of the cool treats within. The people, the truck, and their ice cream actually made the 1200 mile journey to attend the festival as more than just a crazy road trip:

But who are we really you might be asking? We are a whole generation. We were those kids who had all the crazy ideas and who have now grown up. Some of us have money. Others have time and skill. Regardless, we are in the midst of fashioning an open space that reflects our core values of peace, prosperity, and friendship. [icecreamman.com]

Neotechnohippieidealism aside, they drove further and probably took better pictures than you did. Check out their extensive galleries and commentaries and relive your own sweaty Memorial Day memories at the fantastic Ice Cream Man Sasquatch 2005 site.

(via stereogum.com [#])

For those of you have not seen the satellite imagery that Google offers for their mapping service, creepiness aside, it is amazing.

The resolution is high enough that it has spawned a sightseeing page that points out interesting things that are clearly visible from space.

There is already a page dedicated to our state, and Seattle-ites (get it satellite, seattlites) should be able to recognize several local landmarks, including the Mukelteo ferry waiting to pull away. Also, apparently Safeco Field has its name on the roof.

This is older technology, as the photos appear to be several years old,(the building I live in does not exist in them) so if using this declassified, civilian technology I can pick out my office-mates car from space in the parking lot at work, remind me again why can’t we find Osama with the stuff the military must have if they let us use this level of the technology?

This afternoon when Dino Rossi finally came to his senses and said he wouldn’t be appealing Judge Bridge’s election ruling, I felt a sense of relief weirdly similar to what I felt after walking out of the movie theatre at the end of Star Wars Episode III — “It’s finally over.”

I’ve been angry at the media for months, ever since last November, when one of the TV news shows (probably King5 news, as everything they say tends to annoy the living daylights out of me) announced they had done a survey with the result being that half the locals were confused about who had won the election. Small surprise there, since every day had brought a different result, and people who can watch the news every single day have far too much time on their hands.

As time dragged on and the media continued to make the Republicans look like a bunch of sore losers without ever saying it out loud, but instead needling us every other week or so with threats of a multi-million-dollar re-vote, my tolerance for politicians and all things electiony wore down to a nub.

On Sunday night when King5 was quoting someone saying how unfair it was on the voters that all these errors should have turned the election, I went to sleep grinding my teeth. I can’t believe they’ve spent all this time blaming the voting system, and King County’s procedures, and dead people, and criminals who voted. Who’s really to blame here are the voters.

Yes, that’s right: you lot. Did you all pick a buddy and agree that one would vote republican and the other, democrat? Almost a million people voted, and the only thing the Rossi camp could do for the past 5 months was nitpick over a thousand votes cast by local felons? That’s like… one-tenth of a percent. The real injustice was that there were two candidates who were so equally unwanted that it was a 50/50 coin-flip as to who would make it into office. Think about that the next time you head in to vote.

Despite the color of our state on the 2004 electoral map, some drivers are still a bit sensitive to vaguely anti-Bush statements. Especially when they’re issued by the Department of Licensing.

Although the state didn’t have a problem issuing a vanity license place with the phrase “F Dubya” they received enough complaints to revoke it on the grounds that it was “offensive to good taste and decency.” Now the license plate can be yours, if you happen to have an extra five grand sitting around just waiting for an online auction. [eBay]

( via Wonkette [#])

Judge John Bridges has just issued his ruling on the state Governor’s race… Christine Gregoire gets to keep her keys to the mansion – at least for now.

While Judge Bridges criticized the elections process and called for voter-initiated electoral reform, he dismissed charges of fraud and willful misconduct and found no evidence that any of the 1600+ votes he determined to be illegal went to Gregoire.

An appeal to the state Supreme Court is likely to be forthcoming, but this verdict definitely deals a blow to Dino Rossi’s quest to overturn or throw out results of the final hand re-count.

The P-I and Times have the details. Read all about ‘em.

The final verdict on the Beatwalk bands is tied. Early on, I’d decided that the Bookworm Exchange’s jazz trio was Not My Thing, but as I paced from store to store, I kept returning, and they eventually settled back down and played something light and soothing. And then of course, there was the armchair, the large comfy armchair that I had to occasionally fight the other patrons for.

I engaged the bookstore’s owner in conversation, to see if I could get an impression of the money trail. It was quite short. The five bucks that adults pay to listen to these bands (children are free, which explains all the little rug rats running around in excitement) go directly to the bands after a tiny cut is taken out by the business owners association. The bookstore owner ruefully admitted that his band usually cost him more than the (on average) $65 check he received back from the association for the Beatwalk night, but claimed it was still cheaper than an ad in the paper (and proceeded to quote a price which made me black out in horror).

The wifi signal continued to be problematic at the Bookworm, fading in and out. I could imagine all the books exerting their bookish influence to shield the store from this newfangled wifi, and truly, if I hadn’t been determined to blog on location tonight, I wouldn’t have bothered even trying.

On the other hand, the Starbucks down the street appeared to act as a conduit for the wifi in the ether, sucking the signal into some sort of wifi black hole in the middle of the store. Probably one of T-Mobile’s contractual requirements.

Ruthie and John over at the Gallery were playing wonderful music, and as one of the patrons coaxed them to play something and started singing in Italian, it made my goosebumps come up all over. You just can’t beat an Italian tenor for making women swoon. Someone get that guy to come back next month.

In Revival Lighting, Jazzukha was romping around in the small space. The drum rhythm was infectious, and parents were happily prancing around with their children. The vibrations went right through my body, forcing my heart to beat in time. I stood in front of the ceramic light switch panels for half an hour, but couldn’t decide.

Across the street, Victoria (of Victoria’s Sweets) was so excited about her sweet shop she was visibly jumping out of her skin (or possibly she had sampled too many wares). Standing in front of the door, she stopped passers-by and demanded they try either the huckleberry popcorn or the caramel and almond popcorn (I had one of each). “We’ve been here a whole month!,” she enthused, “the community loves us!” Well, of course they do — you sell sugar, and that’s what love is made of: sugar and chocolate. I asked if she had been concerned about the low-carb craze. “Not at all,” she stated confidently, “we’ve used this as an opportunity to educate ourselves and we carry low-sugar, sugarless, and sugar substitute candies.” She dragged me over to the window to show me some Sugar Daddy socks. They matched a Sugar Daddy Tshirt that they were resting on. While I stared at the display, she went back to accosting the passers-by. “Try some huckleberry popcorn!”

All very well, but I had to move on. I still had quite a dilemma on my hands. Was I supposed to choose my dinner location based on the food, or the musical entertainment?

If you go: Columbia City is a straight forward hop, skip, and jump away, for us Eastsiders, making any destination in Seattle look like a maze of twisty passages. Parking is a snap with the public parking lot (dollar an hour) and side streets.

Well, here I am in sunny Columbia City, a place that I have always driven right past on my way to somewhere else. Somehow the promise of free wifi lures me, as though it’s the first in a string of promises. Free wifi, comfy seats, excellent food, and cute little puppies littering the streets. Possibly an occasional shower of hundred-dollar bills.

I’m here in the Bookworm Exchange where the signal strength is officially Low (1 Mbps) as opposed to out in my car where it was 54 Mbps. But I’ve laid claim to the largest armchair in the store so it’s not worth my while heading to the Starbucks to see if I can pick up a few more bytes. This is the most comfortable that my poor back has been all month (well, ok, the past three days). The Bill Anschell Trio on the other side of the store warms up with fragments of light jazz, for their early audience of 6. But as soon as they start playing in earnest, I decide that Ruthie Dornfield & John Miller in the Columbia City Gallery next door sound better and that’s where I’m headed next.

I’m the luckiest woman in the whole world. Well, except for the rain of hundred-dollar bills thing.

Tonight’s Schedule

the new 764-HERO?

News so disgusting that it it must be shared: MSNBC reports on the emerging problem of jugs of urine littering Washington’s highways.

Roadside litter comes in all shapes and sizes