on the beach

Bright spot of the morning, in terms of a pick me up, anyway, was coming across this site - the excitement comes to me whenever I find people finding ways to do the thing that they love. The frugal filmmaking ethos is intriguing and energizing. Same for music, comics, bakeries, virtual city builders, and a whole host of others in far-flung places. I have been feeling a lot of small country envy and homesickness recently (being from a small country), so it struck a chord that Tom and Barb are doing all this within New Zealand (Tom is the DP on 'The Insatiable Moon', which I wrote on a few posts ago). And taking in the Berlin Film Festival on the way!

I have a friend here (from Ireland), who is moving to Berlin. He said that he and his German wife, new parents both, decided that they need to move to a socially democratic country to raise their child. This rings very true, particularly on the health care issue, which I think about at least once a day. So the frugal creativity and social safety net are driving at least some of my small country envy (although small countries and universal health care don't always go together). I have not really had a complete thought on this but that was where I was at today.