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Elk in Rocky Mountain National ParkI spent twenty minutes slowly getting as close as safely possible to an elk in Rocky Mountain National Park. ![]() This is my husband fussing at me from the shelter of the car about our differing ideas of safe elk-photographing distances. ![]() I had to crop both of the photos because my telephoto lens only goes so far, so please do not think that I really got this close to either dangerous mammal in real life. ![]() See? Safe distance. ![]() In this uncropped photo, you can see that I am enough feet away from the elk to be able to scream my dying words of "OH CRAP" before its pointy hooves make first contact with my face. Not that this would have happened, anyway, because ![]() Now this, ah. This, my friends, is the giant herd of elk that we drove by at the next bend in the road. I was able to photograph them easily from the car, thus rendering my careful stalking and subsequent spouse-scolding utterly useless. SonglistI'm 13,000 words into my first novel. I have to be in a certain mood to write, and this is my playlist that helps me fake the mood when I'm just not feelin' it: Klaxons - "Golden Skans," "It's Not Over Yet" I model the Scut Farkus look![]() My precious website readers, all three of you: Please tell me you remember Farkus from A Christmas Story. He's my all-time favorite buttertoothed redhead. Today's Movie: Camille (1936)"And to think... I couldn't see into this heart I knew so well, and see that it was sacrificing itself for me. No good can come to either of us without the other - I know that now."
When I was a kid, one of my favorite movies was Annie. There's this neat little scene towards the middle of the film where the fantastically wealthy Mr. Warbucks rents a Manhattan movie theater for a night and takes his charge, Annie (of "Little Orphan" fame), and his dedicated secretary, Grace Farrell (think Depression-era Pepper Potts), to a private showing of a new film. We're treated to the opening scene and then the climax of that movie-within-a-movie (for those of you keeping score, the term for this is an "embedded narrative"). In the shots that cut back to Annie's main characters, the little orphan is entranced, Grace is in tears, and Warbucks, the no-nonsense captain of industry, is flustered and embarrassed by all these shows of (*gasp*) emotion. He's particularly appalled that Grace weeps openly when the dashing movie hero's lover dies in his arms as he calls out, "Marguerite, come back! Come back!" I just finished watching this movie, 1936's Camille, and I'm telling you what, if you don't go through at least three hankies when Robert Taylor cries over Dead Greta Garbo, you have no heart. I'm serious. Go to your doctor immediately, because there's a giant vacant place in your chest cavity. Greta Garbo is, of course, amazing; also, Robert Taylor?
Maybe I'm just old school, but I think he broods a hundred times more compellingly than Robert Pattinson does, and he's got much better hair. |