Today at Lunchtime

No big post today, just us being incidental and slightly computer frigged for fun.

Sometimes mountains move themselves.

I'm not quite sure how this happened, but I have a roundtrip ticket to Columbia, SC in my hand. I am leaving Korea in a few hours. Jim will be staying here, in Ulsan, on the other side of the planet. But since he's the most amazing husband of all time, he is very relieved that somehow, this opportunity presented itself to me.

If you are in Columbia and you can help me find a place to stay... I'll be online until 2pm, Monday afternoon, Eastern Time, please email or leave me a message through this blog, if you can.

The world loves you.

Helen, July 2004, visiting Halifax.

Jim and Paul trade specs, July 2004, Halifax.

In case you haven't seen it yet, the official Helen Hill tribute website is up. Click here.

The little super 8 clip, below, is one of only a few bits of Helen footage I have on-hand here in Korea. I apologize for the quality. I shot this in Calgary (May 1999), on a filmmaker trip there with Helen Hill, Helen Bredin, and Jim MacSwain from Halifax. I transferred it, along with all my super 8 stuff, very quickly and haphazardly the day we were packing up to leave Halifax, in Aug 2005. Sadly, it was also the day of Hurricane Katrina. The last phone call we got before our Halifax phone was disconnected, actually, was from Helen. Telling us not to worry, that they escaped the storm...

Anyway, here's Helen Hill doing what she did (past tense still hard to say) best: making sure everyone's in the frame. Here, she insists on filming me almost right off the bat, she tries to convince the reluctant Helen Bredin to turn around, and we manage to find Rick Doe's small film processing lab, which was the point of this particular excursion to Calgary's NE industrial park area. Helen made sure I was included in this trip to Calgary, as a filmmaker - my first of many amazing opportunities Helen gave me. I was still a student at NSCAD, having just completed her wonderful animation summer course, and I was also one of her downstairs flat neighbours.

Helen was just beginning her "Combustible Countdown" project, her mission to bring together recipes and stories of filmmakers who made hand-crafted cinema (which eventually became the book "Recipes for Disaster" and the short film, "Madame Winger Makes a Film"). Watching her go to the lengths she went to bring everyone together, like she's doing here (she's in the orange scarf) is the best inspiration.


And I can't believe I found this today - I put together some clips from our road trip to Phil Hoffman's Film Farm (June 2000) as a sort of going away tribute, when they left Halifax in December of 2000.



Some links
From the New York Times (thanks, James):
click

From CBC:
click
(realaudio links on the top, and intro text is on this page, too - scroll about 1/2 way down)

click
(Nova Scotia-based story)


September 18, 2000. Paul, Helen, me, and Rosie in front of our home at 5515 Falkland Street, Halifax, NS. Photo by John Porter. See more of his beautiful images of Helen at his site, Super8Porter.

We are still trying to put our grief into whatever constructive, positive plans are in the works. They're so much in the hearts of so many, so the energy to organize and collectively remember feels frenetic, especially at the edges of the action, which is where we are. We're trying to get in touch with as many people as we can and we really need to be part of what's going on right now. We're awake at the wrong times, and all of our contributable photos and notes and everything is locked up 13 timezones away. We can't express how sorry we are to not be able to be closer to anyone right now. Waking up after getting a few hours' rest made the cycle of grief start all over again. I know this is a lot to ask, but if you're one of our friends who has been asking us if there's anything you can do for us (which just feels so ridiculous since we know as well as anyone that we are so, so far from being the only ones grieving)... the only thing I can think of is to please, please just keep in touch with us. I really can't stand being here right now and communication's all I got.

Paul and Helen and Kenny and Katrina and Rod and Dan and Lisa and James and my Mom and my Dad and Ali and Siloen and wow, we're just missing everyone right now.

Update: just saw this Daily News article. It was about 2am here when I talked with the reporter, and obviously, I was pretty out of it.

We love you.

"Goodbye, so long... farewell for now
You're gonna leave a big hold 'round here
But it's up to us to fill it up again somehow,
Up to us to fill it up again somehow.

"You lived each day as if it was your last
May you have so many more more more
If we only will it, it will come to pass
If we only will it, it will come to pass..."

-- Al Tuck, in his tribute song to Paul Gailiunas and Helen Hill, on the occasion of their leaving Halifax to move back to New Orleans, December 2000.







Subject: birthday hello from The Crescent City
To: "Becka Barker"

Becka!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!

It just turned 2007 in New Orleans. The fireworks are
booming and crackling all around and it sounds like
Mogadishu outside. We had a fun night, eating out at
The Praline Connection (the only place in town where
the collard greens aren't cooked in pork fat), and
then stopping by three parties before Francis Pop
collapsed from exhaustion.

New Orleans is very interesting, still so decrepit and
sketchy. But we're enjoying the new neighborhood
we're in, with lots of coffeeshops and a nice park
where lots of cool little kids play. Francis Pop and
I now have a weekly ritual of dancing in front of The
Spotted Cat to either The Rites of Swing, Washboard
Chaz, or The Panorama Jazz Band. Francis is such a
precious and funny little guy. I enjoy every single
second of watching him grow.

Please e-mail us your phone number so we can try to
call you in the morning. Love to you and Jim!

Paulie and family.





I can't think of any way to write how I feel about Helen Hill any differently from what's already been said, but of course, I want to say something. Especially since we're so far away and we can't physically be with our friends. I guess there's some kind of comfort in seeing so many tributes to her being put out there, on the internet, so quickly - the world just really, really, really needs to know about her... to understand how she helped so many, and in so many different ways. It needs to be said that her motivation has always been love. I feel like everyone in the world needs to hear about this, and feel this, because the event of her death is a precise example of the kinds of problems in the world that she and Paul worked so hard to counter. They got it, better than anyone I think. Helen knew that the only way to break down the oppressive forces that keep people sad, that keep people poor, that keep people on the outside, that make people act in desperate and sometimes hateful ways, was to be unyieldingly generous and unfailingly inclusive - to feed the world with as much love as she could give it - to create positive changes in her communities. Of all the things she taught me, that's the biggest and most important. All demonstrated by the example of how she lived her life. No one was worthless of her attention and care.

I remember driving around with Helen and Paul, my first time visiting them in New Orleans. This was about 18 months after they'd left the home they made on Falkland Street in Halifax. They were looking to buy their first home in NOLA. Top considerations: must be in a neighbourhood that's highly socially integrated, must be generally safe, must be not-too-fancy, must have enough space for all their letters, art supplies, zines, books, films, music, and pets. As we toured several homes, we'd run into some of the more "down and out" folks they knew. We'd pull up to the curb, have a chat, and introduce me to each person in a completely socially-level way. If any of these folks were looking sick, or like they weren't quite lucid, Paul and Helen would fish out a bottle of water and scrounge around the car for some food to offer. It was never a big production to do that kind of thing, for them. They just wanted to make things better for people who didn't have it as good as they did.

They thought long and hard about moving back to NOLA, and I know it does no good to wish your loved ones into protective boxes. Let's get out and give. Let's do right by our neighbours. Maybe if everyone lived and loved as generously as Helen did and as Paul does, we'd all be much safer, in the end.

The Holidays, part 1.

You may think we didn't have a lot of Christmas action in these parts. Not so! At least, not so in ESL school-land, or in chi-chi department store land. In fact, after reviewing all our snaps and footage - we had lots of holidaying. LOTS. And we're pretty pooped and ready for a normal and (relatively) uneventful January. First video: Jim jams with the kids, plays Santa, and we do a little celebrating with our co-workers at the Christmas party. Just a string of clips, relatively unedited.



Next! The big Christmas present-opening phone conference with my folks in Florida. Mom and Dad, thought you'd appreciate this. Almost two minutes of video in its most pure, raw form.



Finally: aside from hoping for some nice charitable donations this year, we were really hoping someone out there would send us some of our favourite poison. Our wish totally came true. I think we've figured out why Korea Post was a little suspicious that we might be starting up a coffee shop.



Next post: the Christmas trip, and New Year's pyromania.