Full-frontal disclosure (boobies! Woooo!): I failed you guys on
several fronts this week. Firstly, I beefed it completely in my
recommendation of Saturday’s Couch Fest Films (I described the thing as
a “sweet little DIY idea” and implied that you should go to it), and
for that I gravely apologize. Couch Fest is in no way as cute as
I thought it would be. Nope. Because. It. Is. CUUUTER!!! And I should
have insisted that you go to it! Upon penalty of death! Iron maiden! Wooooo! (Do you see what I did there? That trick where I
tricked you? In comedy journalism, we call that a “Wet T-Shirt Contest”
[WOOOOO!!!]. Wait, I fucked that up. We call it an “Ole One-Two
Switcheroo.” Look it up. It’s in all the textbooks. Wooo.)
Second failure: I failed to really go to Couch Fest. I mean, I
went. I just didn’t go very much. Because we were
having this crazy monsoon—remember that?—and as I am
made primarily of papier-mâché (and lizard DNA [and
snuggles!]), I just really, really needed to go home and take a nap
under the heat lamp until I crisped up.
Couch Fest Films is an annual event (this was the second) in which
intrepid, couch-having citizens invite other intrepid, butt-possessed
citizens into their homes, to unite butts with couches and watch
short films and be together in the name of awkward. Each house features
a 30-minute-
or-so program of shorts, repeated all day long. The
films come from all over the world, with quite a few selections by
terrific locals (Ben Kasulke, Brady Hall, Reel Grrls, the Beta
Society). You sit on a couch, you meet some strangers, you talk about
film, you eat a potato chip.
In the slightly drafty living room of the Documentary house, I ate a
potato chip and met my first strangers. Aaron (laconic) and Keith
(ebullient) were there “to meet people, do something quirky.” We
discussed Chuck Close, overhead projectors, cougars, the great Red
Vines vs. Twizzlers debate), the even greater soda vs. pop debate,
and The Stranger (“I look at it occasionally, if there’s nothing
else to read,” Keith said, cheerily).
The films were awesome. Healing Art is a fascinating and
surprisingly affecting peep at the artists who sculpt and paint glass
eyes. Amid painful tales of eyeball trauma, two Seattle ocularists
craft the simple little glass things that can restore normalcy to a
damaged life. Ars Magna—a sweet, silly profile of a local
anagramist (one of his best: Ronald Wilson Reagan →
Insane Anglo Warlord)—is so perfectly pitched that one
suspects mockumentation. Afterward, we laughed and discussed what we
had seen, casual surroundings and abundant sangria breeding
familiarity. CUTE, right!? I wanted to stay all day, bopping from house
to house, watching films and defending Red Vines. But it was
raaaaaaining, you guys! Getting a little soggy around the joints, you
know? I went home. I am sorry. Next year I will not fail. 
