If only this were the main romantic pairing in the series.

A lot of ink has already being spilled about the juggernaut of a movie that opened this weekend — New Moon, the second installment in the Twilight series (or “saga” or whatever). And the column inches will continue to rack up, and believe it or not, I’m not unhappy about that. Sure, I find Twilight, its premise, and the vast majority of its characters offensive on a visceral level. But, as many critics are today noting, New Moon’s utter domination at the box office this weekend means that what the industry dismissed as woman-oriented “flukes” over the past year (Mamma Mia, Julie and Julia) possibly weren’t, and it’s not just hormonal young men who want to go to the movies (I’ll skip the Megan Fox invocation here).

Here’s what Melissa Silverstein at Women & Hollywood had to stay on the subject:

It seems to me that while Hollywood felt comfortable dismissing Sex and the City, Mamma Mia (because the audiences for those were primarily over 25), and even Twilight (as a one time wonder), there is no way that these numbers could be dismissed as a fluke.  THEY ARE JUST TOO BIG.  Women and girls are looking for material that they connect with just as much as guys and boys are, but they thing that blows me away about the success of New Moon and even The Blind Side [Sandra Bullock's new-benevolent-white-lady-saves-poor-black-kid movie -J] is that the theatres were just packed with women not caring if the guys came with them.  This was a weekend where the gals went in bunches and left the guys home cause they wanted to see this movie more than they wanted to see whatever their boyfriends or guyfriends wanted to see.

Frankly, despite my personal distaste for all things Twilight, I’m glad the movie did well. If Hollywood things women go to movies, then presumably more movies with women characters will be made. And while Twilight is full of feminist fail — a “heroine” who has no interests or hobbies beyond cooking dinner for her dad and being rescued by her undead paramour, for example — I’m going to take it as a baby step.

Let me be clear that if Twilight is your guilty pleasure, I won’t hold it against you. It’s OK to like bad things. We all do, from time to time. And I accept that the story, for some, is far more true-to-life in its emotional resonance. Read Molly Langmuir’s excellent post at This Recording:

Most of the teenage girls I knew at the time experienced some version of this story as well. But most of us also managed to eventually grow out of our teenage versions of romantic bliss (and move on to the version embedded within Jennifer Aniston vehicles, but that’s a whole other story). The movie makes no room for this reality, though, and simply goes about affirming my early conceptions of love with the delicacy of a chainsaw.

Let it be said that I tried to read Twilight; I even purchased a copy, back when I was hearing rumblings about how so many people loved it. Then I started reading and could NOT get through that damn books, because it’s so boring. Nothing happens in it. So I abandoned it in favour of reading Cleolinda Jones’s recaps. Cleolinda’s gotten a good amount of mainstream exposure recently, and deservedly so, because her work is hilarious. How she sums up the phenomenon:

Emo teenage girl moves to new town, meets mysterious boy, realizes he’s a sparkling vampire; Greatest Love of All Time Omg ensues. In later books, a love triangle forms with the addition of a werewolf. Babies are of paramount importance; going to college is not. Some readers rank the series up there with Pride and Prejudice and the works of Shakespeare; some readers… beg to differ. Severely.

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Let’s leave the world of massive media events and return to the humble burg of Winnipeg, where my activities this weekend, regrettably, did not include going to the annual Art from the Heart sale. My pal Mama Cutsworth was DJing the soirée, and I’ve always wanted to go. Thankfully, Ariel Gordon has  a recap of the event.

My own weekend activities were the following:

• Going to the Lo Pub on Friday night to celebrate a friend’s birthday; appreciating that even an onslaught of ridiculous hipster bands can’t cancel out the establishment’s inherent comfortableness.
• Playing mermaid toys and paper dolls with a bilingual three-year-old. (Click here for a photograph of the homemade mermaid paper dolls, which the young one took home and, according to her mother, who made the photo, is still enjoying
• Eating pizza and watching Star Trek on a big-screen TV with my brother
• Setting up my first ever personal Christmas tree. (A process that is, of now, incomplete; details and photos to follow.)

A lovely, sunny weekend has given way to an abysmally cloudy Monday. At least it feals abysmal. Though we really should keep perspective, here, because they’re forecasting high ‘teens for the reast of the week, along with lots of sun. Yesterday was a truly summer-feeling day, a very foreign sensation given that we’ve suffered a bitterly cold and long winter followed by a unseasonably cold and wet spring.

Yesterday I was at the University of Mantioba campus to watch a friend perform at the Manitoba rhythmic gymnastic provincials, and in a shady spot next to a large tyndall stone building remained a significant pile of snow, left over from winter parking-lot clearing. Rebecca and Chantal found it irresistible and made and threw some snowballs at Sabrina. Yes, snowballs in May. That’s Winnipeg. (I was complicit in the attack — I caught it on video and it’ll be in the May video scrapbook, which will appear in roughly seven days!)

Another highlight of the weekend was a trip to a foreign part of the city. Foreign to me, I should qualify. Raised in the south end of the city, I rarely get to the far north corners and so they hold a good amount of novelty and curiosity for me. The occasion in this case was Cynara’s need to return to her homeland of Transcona for a brief bit of banking at her home credit union. I came along for the ride, and on our way back to the city’s centre, where we live, Cynara said, “Look, there’s the butcher with the cows on the roof!” Now, I am definitely unfamiliar with much of the ways and places of Transcona but Sausage Makers I know. I’m not sure how they came to be such fans of the place, but my parents have long been extremely keen on the buckwheat sausage and Kaessler pork chops from there.

So when Cynara mentioned the cows, I was all, “CAN WE GO THERE, PLEASE?” and I called my parents. My dad picked up the phone, and when I asked if he wanted anything, his tone of voice immediately brightened and he said, “Oh! Let me get your mom. Heidi! Do we want anything from Sausage Makers?”

I took their order, and Cynara, Derek and I went inside. It was my first visit to the actual place, and it was hectic! I am very unfamiliar with ordering meats from a butcher directly but I muddled my way through. (“Six Kaessler, please.” “How thick?” “Um… the normal thickness?”)

I also obtained some marzipan, another German staple, and Cynara got some German chocolate-covered gingerbread (I could’ve spent half an hour browsing all the specialty import foods they have in addition to the meat).

Well, no two ways about it, it’s Monday. That means two things. One, you can listen to the excellent pop/rock radio programme Dept. 13 on CKUW 95.9 FM (or online at CKUW.ca). Two, you are probably going back to work this morning after a weekend of relaxation and/or debauchery.

I myself got little done this weekend beyond the serious work of enjoying myself.

I’ve mentioned before the oppressive spectre of an interminable winter that lies over us here in Winnipeg in January. Perhaps it is a way of combatting this spectre that I find myself making efforts to initiate new projects, ones in collaboration with other people, so as to add social enjoyment and, indeed, accountability.

In the last week, I’m pleased to say I’ve made the inital steps toward two such collaborations. Neither is craft-related, you might be surprised to know. One is creative writing-related and the other is music-related; that’s all I’m prepared to say at this point. But it feels good to have these things out there and on their way, even in the most preliminary fashion.

It feels good to begin.