Friday

First things first: at twelve-oh-three, eastern standard time, light from the center of the sun crossed the Earth's equatorial plane in declination, ending Summer 2006. Happy Autumn, everybody. For the last two and a half days it has not rained here at all. By today it was back to its normal dry state (I even watered the backyard again today). For two and a half weeks, as storm after storm crashed on our Pacific shores, it has been raining, flooding, and cool; but this last day of Summer was still hot after dark. We had Greek food tonight, and then headed over to the opening of an exhibit on Mexican Cinema at the MARCO, only to discover an enormous quantity of people lined-up there. Being crowded through an interesting exhibit was not something we wanted to wait hours for, so we went to see Trans America instead. Interesting to see a sleeper-type movie--cliché, even--act as the platform for one of the most remarkable feats of acting I've ever seen. I'm a Felicity Huffman fan--and what a jaw-dropping performance she delivers here; or rather: how impressive that this performance was so natural and heartfelt that even my jaw was fooled. I mean, if I did not already know better, I would chalk this up to a trick of casting: a role fit snugly to someone walking right through the picture playing themselves. Huffman was so utterly, humbly, calmly lost in her character that she never seemed to be acting at all. Sadly, others in the movie were not so true. One cartoonish performance halfway through was bitterly funny, sure, but such a contrast with Huffman that it seemed like a cheap special effect. Or Who Framed Roger Rabbit. PS, go see many new pictures at Flickr. [Cavin]