an eventful night

This is a strange thing to broadcast to the world, but I woke up in the middle of the night (3 a.m.) with a pain in my crotch & discovered that I'd been bitten by a tick. At least, I think it's a tick. My google image search convinced me that it was, although I don't know if it's a "soft tick" or a deer tick or a brown dog tick (&c.). I guess I'm taking the tick along with me for the rest of the tour just in case I run into an entymologist. After I got bitten, I was freaked out for an hour or so, searching my entire body for more ticks, stripping the bed, and so on. I didn't find any others, so I did eventually fall back asleep.

Where did the tick come from? Was it in the hotel room? The Capri Theatre? Did it get on me when Martin McCaffery took me to see Hank Williams' grave? Or when we walked around the state capitol building in order to look at their massive & slightly scary monument to the Confederate flag? I guess I'll never know.

Other than the tick, my visit to Montgomery was great. I got in relatively early, so Martin & I were able to set up my miniDV camera & to test out their 16mm projector, so that I could show all the work in the best possible format. The theater is great--a big old movie house with about 300 seats. The projection was gigantic & it was really nice to see the films projected at that size. We didn't quite fill the seats--there were 31 people there by the official count--but it was a nice crowd, including some high school kids who hung around to ask questions after the show. They seemed really interested in knowing the tech side of things, so I hope that means they feel like they could go out there & make some films too. I like when people say nice things about the films, but I'm even happier when people feel inspired by their screening to make their own films.

Off to Mobile...
R.