Ah, to live in a university town. This week I got a call from the University of Texas Infant Cognition Laboratory asking if Ro might be willing to participate in a study on infant perception. This, of course, tapped right into my scientist side (always looking for data – archaeology isn’t called a social “science” for nothing) so I decided to go for it. We set up an appointment and went in yesterday (unusually cold and rainy for Texas). Basically, they were looking at 7-month old’s ability to perceive images that have been altered to look more like line drawings, with minimal color. So, we went into a darkened room, sat in front of a computer screen, and looked at pictures for a few minutes. All in all, very painless.

For this, Ro got a cool bib:

Also check out this pic:

http://picasaweb.google.com/dpapas665/AuroraPics#5318053662191355410

Wednesday March 18

“Still Bill”

I am embarrassed to say that I would not have recognized Bill Withers by name before I saw this doc. I certainly recognized his songs though, and even more embarrassingly, subsequently realized I always thought of him as having been a commercial flash in the pan and not much more.  Like any good musician doc, you get to know the person a bit better.  In this case, we find out that, though he is a very musical person, his relationship with fame is bitter and complex.  His interviews are filled with philosophical, oblique answers to personal questions, so we aren’t allowed to know what event/s led him to largely drop out of the music biz, but we do get a sense that he is probably better off for it.  This is a pretty interesting point, in that the public’s response to a celebrity that shuns fame is usually selfish, perhaps even near
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Sunday March 15

“Reel Shorts 3″

Another nice reel.  The standouts:  “Thick as Thieves”, a comedy where a mugger holds up a guy in an alley and they hit it off.  So much so that they team up, hijinks ensue.  Also, “Wing It”, where two guardian angels guarding two respective parties in a drug deal gone bad try to reason with the other’s angel, but wind up having to stand their man up to fight it out.  Sounds kind of tragic written that way, but the Angels are crude and against typical convention, and the comic timing was perfect.  Last, “A. Effect”.  This one is a bit difficult to describe, but it’s set in a community college and the main characters are a loser playwright wannabe and a human
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Year 13 is upon me, and so are the annual writeups of what I’ve caught. I’ve slowed down my pace a bit, and downgraded myself back to a Film Pass, but I’m still doing it. No volunteering yet for me this year, but I’m still considering it, depending on how the demands on my time go next year. Mindy has continued to be very supportive of my traditional habit of nearly disappearing for a week every year for this event.   Right, so here’s what I’ve seen so far this year.

Friday March 13

“Strongman”

Honestly, I’m not sure what attracted me to this one in the schedule. Perhaps the potential for it to be an entertaining freak-show doc, the kind that so often seem to show up at SXSW, drew me in. It turned out to be a quasi-cinéma vérité style documentary, just following the aging “Stanless Steel”, whose ambition is to continue to be, well, a strongman in the carnival sense, though not literally in carnivals. The

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Just put a ton of new baby pics up.   My account at Flickr expired, so I thought I’d give Picasa a try.   Let me know your feedback on how it goes, if you prefer one or the other from your POV.  Try the control on the sidebar at right, or feel free to check out her and the other album(s) at: http://picasaweb.google.com/dpapas665.