Fishers and films

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since I've blogged. Life jumped up and smacked me, what can I say? There's been good, bad and the ugly, and the sublimely beautiful too. And, as always, I've drafted the blog entries in my head, then the days and weekends end and I'm too exhausted from the busy, distracting work of living to actually take the time to sit and write. It's too bad. There have been some really good drafts in my head.

The weekend of April 10 when we decided to go south in search of open water -- the lakes up here were still frozen over and the rivers running too wild to float. So we took the weekend off of work, we threw the kayaks in the back of the truck, and we headed to Red Wing. It was fabulous. We floated on the Vermillion Slough, the water so high that we parked a half a mile before the parking lot and then floated the rest of the way. The picture of Gabi above is in the parking lot -- and about three feet of water. While there we saw several Bald Eagles, one in a nest, as well as a fisher (aka North American marten) which was quite fun. We feel very fortunate for that, since they are supposed to be very shy animals.

I first saw the fisher in the water, trolling around some fallen logs that were swamped with high water. Then, he saw me and skedaddled, running for the nearest standing tree. He climbed up it very quickly, looking both awkward and elegant (and noisier than I would have expected) and then stopped about twenty-five feet up, in the vee of some branches. From there he peeked out watching us, and seemed to be as curious about us as we were about him.

Then, two weekends ago was the 8th Annual St. Cloud GLBTA Film Festival, and like every year before it was nail-biting mayhem at times and nerve wracking, sit and wait to see who shows up at others. The films were awesome. We had a great film-screening committee and they did a great job. Unfortunately, the turnout was much lower than we'd hoped.

This is the second year that our turnout has been down. This year was the lowest we've had. I can't help wondering if, in an era of Logo network, Brokeback Mountain, and Ellen with not only a highly rated talk show but also her full-page Covergirl spreads, that maybe GLBT film fests just aren't needed as much anymore. We're not starved for lack of mainstream images of ourselves. The popular culture and media landscape is so phenomenally different than it was even ten years ago. It's good, but I'm starting to wonder how and if our little film festival will survive.

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Pic info: Gabi in the kayak taken by me. The fisher is from the wikipedia entry on fishers, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fisher_(animal).