Nigel Ewan enjoys life.

• Drew Kelly to kick off this semester’s figure drawing class. A good beginning.
• Resumed the Worst Class of the Week, which actually wasn’t too bad this week. Just a serious waste of time.
• Complained about Sylvia Plath in my American lit class.
• Wore a bedsheet as a toga for extra credit in history of fashion. It made knitting difficult.
• Made an outfit for a Barbie using only a scrap of fabric, metal wire, nails, aluminum foil, and silver tape.
• Endured a super-long crit in my illustration class where we talked about animal drawings.
• Got my friends to wind my yarn for me during the aforementioned crit, which was fantastically good.
• Consumed giant giant giant portions of food at friendship lunch and was then really sleepy all afternoon, making it difficult to draw more animals.
• Spent a long time on the phone with Amanda agonizing over papercraft things.
• Endured torrential rain on thursday; wore my orange rain boots!
• Continued to complain about Sylvia Plath in my American lit class.
• Looked at tons and tons of great paintings in my 19th century art history class. I’m thoroughly enjoying my ability to sit in the dark, look at good paintings, talk about history, and eat elaborate brown-bagged lunches.
• Had one of those thursday afternoon classes where there is no actual teaching, only three hours of random sitting around and “working”. During which time I: talked to a bunch of classmates about my work; held an uncannily productive team meeting; almost went shopping for half-price muffins but didn’t actually; had one meaningful conversation and a bunch of silly ones; danced alone; hugged a bunch of my friends.
• Continued to knit at a furious pace.

On tuesday night, I watched the 1969 horror film What Ever Happened to Aunt Alice?, starring Geraldine Page and Ruth Gordon. Page played a cruel, spoiled widow, in need of cash, who hired housekeepers only to murder them and steal their money. Ruth Gordon played a housekeeper of Page’s, who went undercover to find out about the murders. I hate a lot about 60s/70s movies—the costumes, the picture quality, the editing, the general vibe—it’s all pretty unappealing. But the acting in this movie was so fantastic I forgot about all the unappealing stuff. Ruth Gordon’s character, especially, was fantastic. She reminded me a lot of my neighbor Donna. The movie’s plot was seriously scary but tastefully done and really enjoyable.

On friday, I watched one of Hitchcock’s pre-Hollywood films, from 1932, Number Seventeen. Except for a train-chase scene at the end, the entire film was shot on one set. The editing was clumsy (lots of sloppy jump cuts), and the story itself had some continuity problems. Leon Lion played a funny old tramp, but characters like that always kinda creep me out. An altogether disappointing movie!

On saturday, I watched a 1933 film The Kennel Murder Case. This was glorious. Even if this movie hadn’t had any plot, it would’ve been worth watching solely for the suits. I could go on and on about men’s suits in the 30s. William Powell, who played the protagonist, Philo Vance, looked totally killer. Suits or not, this was a great little murder mystery. Really inventive camera work: sweeping crane shots of city blocks, split-screen phone call scenes, and peeking-through-the-keyhole shots. The cinematography made this film pleasant to watch. My only complaint is that I’d have liked to see more of Mary Astor. Oh, and the typography in the title sequence was awesome. You can watch the whole film on YouTube. I recommend it.