T/F Over. Miserable Again.

True/False is over, and I'm back to my daily grind. However, I will try to recap the entire weekend. I'll try not to repeat myself, but I'm not promising anything.

Friday got off to a great start. I had parent/teacher conferences (see, I'm already repeating myself from a previous post) and was able to leave work early. 5:30 rolled around and I was able to check out Brett Morgen's Nimrod Nation, an eight part docu-series set to be shown on the Sundance Channel later this year. Morgen, T/F's True Vision award winner, presented the first, second, and seventh episodes in his series. It's amazing how poignant docs featuring high school basketball can be when the story strays from the court. This outdoors man straight out of a Cohen brothers film was busy fighting the development of his U.P. community when he wasn't attending basketball games. There were some interesting Native politics explored through one of the team's players who was virtually ignored by the local paper when he reached the 1,000 point mark, unlike the celebration of a white player's similar accomplishment. There's even an interesting storyline following the relationship between the coach and his point guard son. I'd get Sundance just for this series.

T/F's big opening night film, In the Shadow of the Moon, was next at the MO Theater. The film started out good enough. It chronicled the creation of the astronaut program and the great space race with the Soviet Union with entertaining commentary from some of the original astronauts. The narrative seems to climax when Apollo 11 reaches the moon. Things became weird at that point. The audience applauded when Armstrong stepped onto the moon's surface as if they weren't sure he'd make it. The second half of the film told way too much about all the other Apollo missions. That was followed by messages of religious or spiritual revelations by the astronauts that just didn't seem to fit with the rest of the film. It was all I could do to stay awake. By the end, I was looking forward to the next flick.

After a brief detour at Sycamore celebrate a friend's birthday, I hurried over to the Ragtag for Running Stumbled which I had been talked into attending instead of Air Guitar Nation by R. However, she bailed when she came down with an ear ache. I already had the ticket to RS so I went anyway. Not only had I given up a possible chance to see a movie about Scandinavian air guitar competitions, but I had to keep myself awake for two hours of a junkie train wreck that has only been surpassed in crappiness by Tarnation. That's all I really want to say about it.

I did get to see a couple of good bands during the night. I caught Lawrence, Kansas' own Death and Flowers. They're just another freak folk act in the same way there used to be alt-country bands in every college town. But that's fine. I like most freak folk. Also, right before the moon movie, Chicago's Mucca Pazza riled the crowd for some moon drama. Rarely does one get to see a 31 piece punk rock marching band before a documentary about astronauts.

I'll continue recapping the rest of the weekend when I have time...