This post will be broadcast simultaneously here and on Twitter.
I probably don’t have time to write very much today (which is perhaps just as well given that my uncollated thoughts are being spewed out on two channels at once). Having been to the cinema twice already this week, I’m seriously overdoing the film thing by going to another film this evening, preceded by an Edinburgh International Film Festival event about LGBTQI+ representation.
Sitting in a café just now enjoying another pot of peppermint tea and a brownie, while taking refuge from the searing heat outside. (It’s nice, but I feel my skin peeling almost as soon as I step into the sun.) A few days ago, I was so down that I could barely drag myself here, and I discovered that Twitter can be a bit slow when it comes to emergency support. However, it was the only place I could think to turn to at the time. Some lovely people replied to my Twitter outpourings (they know who they are), but there’s sometimes no substitute for actually being with someone in person, and sometimes I really yearn for physical contact.
It’s a bit odd having an upbeat soundtrack to a post like this. I know you can’t hear it, so you’ll just have to imagine a mix of pop tracks (most recently, No matter what I do and an instrumental remix of Don’t you want me). Another thing you won’t have imagined is the armchair I’m sitting in at the end of a narrow cul de sac within this oddly shaped café. Looking past a fireplace and a row of bar stools, I can see people sunbathing on the grass outside.
Anyway, I have just about finished my peppermint tea, and should head off down the road to the event. After that, I’ll be heading almost straight away to see my third (and final) film of the week: Wild nights with Emily.
Later in the day
So I went to the Traverse Theatre for the diversity event, and saw that they had fairly good toilet signage there:
Very appropriate for the event (and there were gender-neutral toilets too).
The event itself was interesting, though I had expected a slightly more diverse/aware audience. I crudely live-tweeted.
A hastily consumed spicy lentil roll (pre-purchased for efficiency) saw me suitably fuelled for the film (directed, as it happens, by the same Madeleine Olnek).
Wild nights with Emily was funny but understated, with wonderful use of Emily Dickinson’s poetry (which I’m inspired to look into further – I’d only really come across her through the text of John Adams’s Harmonium, based on three of her poems). I’m not going to write a film review (that’s not one of my genres), but I’d recommend it if you get a chance to see it. (It’s on again in the Film Festival this Saturday.)
Thus (abruptly) ends my simulcast experiment. Regular programming continues on both channels.