It's hard, I think, to be cheerful right now, which puts me in a bit of a quandary. Should I depress everybody further by moping on about anthrax and my own miserable job situation? Or should I just not write at all? I could write about something upbeat and cheerful, but that somehow feels small and meaningless given the immensely difficult times this country is facing, undoubtedly one of the most dangerous moments in this country's history.

Not sure what the answer is to my own quandary. If you'd asked me yesterday, I'd have chosen option number two, and stayed quiet. I was feeling particularly blue yesterday. Not only on account of my own problems, but because it had really begun to sink in how dangerous the anthrax scare was becoming. I hadn't quite come to the point of finding anthrax in my sugar bowl, nor did I particularly feel threatened myself; but I had been truly shocked when I heard about how virulent was the anthrax found in the Capitol, and I felt almost as stunned, that day, as I did on September 11, with a growing awareness of the gravity of it all.

And Thursday came, and ... well, suddenly I felt a bit more cheerful. No particular reason. So I'm taking the opportunity presented to me to write while I don't feel full of doom and gloom. Who knows how often such times will occur, since the anthrax scare isn't going to go away any time soon.

So today, I got on with my little projects, which, right now, means getting ready for a trial shooting of my new film-class movie this Saturday. This is going to be the most difficult film work I've done so far, because I'll be using a film camera for the first time, as opposed to a video camera. Oh, it's so much more complex than I imagined! First, there's the cost of the film - something like thirty bucks for three minutes worth! And that doesn't even include developing it, which costs at least another fifty bucks.

Then there's the antiquity of the equipment I'm renting from the Film Arts Foundation. A mid 20th century wind-up Bolex motion-picture camera, with manual everything - no auto-focus/auto-exposure to help you out. Finally, once I've gotten my footage, I'm going to have to figure out how to splice it all together on a flat-bed film editor, cut in the sound, and then ship it off for a final print.

But all this is what makes it fun. Let's face it, it's pretty easy to point a video camera, then read the tape onto your hard disk and reorder the digital scenes. So this film stuff is going to be a challenge.

The little short movie I'm making is going to be in black-and-white, and I've put a lot of thought into camera composition, location, and the movement of the actors (my friends Jimmy and James). There is something very appealing about taking all these elements, planning it out meticulously ahead of time, then getting all your footage in just one day, and assembling it into the final two-and-a-half minute work. It feels like there's artistry in it. I've always, deep down, wanted to be an artist, but have never felt, until now, that I'd found an artform in which I could excel; or at least be competent.

This Saturday's shoot is not, in fact, going to be with the Bolex film camera. I'm doing two shoots; this Saturday's shoot will be be on video, as a sort of practice. But it will be like the real thing, since I'll be setting my video camera to manual mode. So I'll have James and Jimmy doing the waltz (see the story concept below!) along the skybridge which runs between the apartment buildings where I live. Should be fun.

The first bar of the Blue Danube waltz - close up of a young guy walking down the street. The next bar, we see another guy approaching from the other direction. As the music continues, they approach each other, and then pass, mak e briefest of eye contact. Seconds after they've passed, one turns to look back, sees the other guy isn't looking so turns back. Then the other guy looks back, and turns fully around to see if the first guy will look back. He does eventually, and the stop and stare at each other from a distance. Hesitantly they retrace their steps, and, as the music starts to rise in power, they link hands and start to waltz. To a triumphant climax, the two guys walk off camera, arm-in-arm.

We've had an odd mix of weather recently; lots of fog, a few days of sticky heat, and some beautiful sunrises and sunsets.

A panorama of San Francisco Bay, not long after dawn in October. This is a big, wide pic (178 kb), so feel free to scroll, scroll, scroll :) I have an even bigger version of this photo, 7000 pixels wide!

Evening fog in San Francisco Bay