AUSTIN, Texas, October 20, 2005 — We spent a lot of the day downtown today. Which is part of the fun of the film festival really.

Started the day on the tennis court with women of a certain age. One was late so we started playing California and just kept scoring when she arrived. She overslept.

I went home and showered after that. FFP had taken care of everything he needed to do so he and I decided to go downtown and have lunch and then go to some film panels.

Had lunch at Traviata and ended up talking to

Reed Clemons who was eating there. He's building a French brasserie where Mezzaluna used to be.

We still had time before the panel I wanted to go to so we sat in the Driskill bar people watching and had a Guinness. We met a gal from Australia who is studying in Virginia. She seemed nice. She is from Canberra. She was staying in the youth hostel off Riverside. We offered to show her around some time.

We went to a seminar on inspiration for writing. Yeah, that's what I need! Actually I am writing a little article about South Africa for a guest in FFP's column slot in The West Austin News. We listened to the panelists tell how they got inspired to write screenplays Bryan Poser did Dear Pillow and is doing some stuff with Burnt Orange Productions. This guy Josh Alexander has a movie in the narrative competition called Backseat which we will see later.

After the seminar, we went home. We figured Chalow needed to be let out. We went back downtown and parked again. We walked by the bar where the official AFF party was going on (Oslo) but we didn't really feel like going in. We went across the street to the Thistle and ordered food and drink. The gal from Australia we met in the Driskill had given us her phone number. So we called and said we were in the place across the street from the bar (she was in the party) and invited her over. She came and had some eats and drinks and brought a producer from New York. He didn't want any food or drink but was just escaping the bar for a quieter conversation. We all went after that and queued up to see Shopgirl.

OK I thought this movie was beautifully filmed. And if you want to see Claire Danes' legs, lots of Chaire Dane's legs (and other parts, too), well, it's great. But I didn't buy any of the stories of the three major characters. And, for the record, I didn't buy Sam Bottoms as a disaffected Viet Nam vet either. Frances Conroy could have been the mother of the gal I didn't believe Claire Danes was. Whatever. Home. Sleep!