sowing seeds: porn and gardening?

well, i was all fired up last night when i got home from work. i planted another tray of 72 seedlings, using the seeds i got yesterday. the trays that i use contain 72 little pods of soil/peat that i plump up by pouring warm water all through the tray. then, i gently squeeze each one at the base and use a pencil to poke a small hole in the center of each little pod. then, i drop 2 seeds into each little hole and pinch/tamp the pod back together. pour on a little more warm water (fortified with a smidgen of fertilizer), put on the greenhouse lid and secure with rubber bands to keep devil-kitty out. done! i usually do 6 pods of each kind of seed. in the past, usually one pod doesn't sprout... then i kill off one or two during the transplant process. so out of six, i get 3 or 4 healthy plants. not too shabby for a lazy/not-very-dedicated gardener. if i have too many healthy plants, i will give them to courtney or scott's dad.

so as i plugged away in the sunroom, sowing seeds and creating life... scott was in the living room watching norwegian pornstars sow their own kinds of seeds. !! seriously! well, there was a reason. i suppose i should tell you that. scott is volunteering as a "screener" for the SilverDocs documentary film festival held at the American Film Institute Silver Theatre. SilverDocs is one of the largest documentary film festivals in the worlds, and it gets thousands of submissions - which it weeds down to a hundred or so. as a screener, scott gets assigned stacks of DVDs each week. he watches them, makes notes, then writes a summary, assessment and recommendation for each one. some are okay, some are really compelling, and some are just horrible.

last night, he watched several - all from norwegian filmmakers. the first was just great - i was trying to build a new house for the gerbils, but i kept drifting over to the couch to see what was happening. it relayed the account of this norwegian skiier/climber/adventurer who, along with his best friend, decided to climb mt. everest - then SKI down the other side. !!! his friend never made it. it was beautifully shot, exciting, and touching. very good. then he put on the next one, about this off-the-cuff norwegian porn star who recruits high school seniors to act in his porn films. sort of like girls-gone-wild meets american idol meets some else really pornographic and depressing. most of the film follows the story of the pornstar/director's girlfriend, as she progresses from one of his high school recruits to pornstar to jealous girlfriend watching on the sidelines. it was quite good, but i can't see it playing at the festival. it had a few really graphic moments - not exciting, but just to show the sort of businesslike, no nonsense aspect of making a porno (bright lights, setting up the more splattery scenes, orchestrating scenes). illuminating, kind of depressing. but i can't see it playing the big screen at the AFI. :)

so that's that.