(perforated lines--you can't resist 'em)

 (it's art!)
(yesterday) Saturday, July 22, 2000 (tomorrow)

 

1:51 a.m. I'm doing a whole artistic, moody thing here because (1) I've just finished watching Eyes Wide Shut and I have the urge to throw some shadows up and call them art; (2) if I do something very quickly here in this journal space, there will still be time to get back into the living room and watch the second movie we rented, Circuitry Man (don't ask); and (3) I'm seriously running low on photos.

The movie was haunting, and yes -- there were plenty of reasons not to like it, but plenty more reasons to keep on watching. If you're homesick for New York, of course, you'll love the street scenes. And I am and I did. If you like pretty settings, pretty clothes, and even a lot of breasts (all shapes, all sizes) -- well, there you go.

It seemed as if the pretty actors were semi-clothed and lovingly lit and arranged carefully in color-coordinated sets and then told to just start talking. There was a distinct feeling of expensive ad-libbing going on -- and Nicole is better at it than Tom, I'm sorry to say. Tom seemed lost in more ways then were called for in the script.

And I swear -- this isn't a movie review. Those are best left to the professionals. Instead, I just want to say that there was an awful lot of The Shining left over in this movie -- those moody slow spinning dancing scenes of a era long gone with a sad, tired swing band; those subservient servants with that air of menace.

I was out today for a little while taking pictures and now that I've been doing this journal for over a year, I know what I'm looking for and what I'm not. It's not that different from my writing, actually. There's always the light setting to worry about and to make a choice about.

The picture on this entry, for instance: It's a mistake. Oddly, it was a bright sunny day and the only reason, I guess, that the wall is so dark and the shadows so deep is because (1) the light coming in the windows was searingly bright and (2) I have a less-than sensitive digital camera and (3) I don't know how to use it.

Today I didn't take photos of urban ruin and the hopelessness of a broken down, humbled life on the street, although I could. Instead I took photos of the weed that blooms through some concrete slabs and the dancing daisies on a wall. Ruin is always ruined by one new tenacious bit of surging growth.

It's easy enough to be evocative -- but the peaches have suddenly turned so sweet that if you weren't a religious person before you bit in, you'd be one now. Really. It's as close as a fruit can come to kissing you back ...

... there was a lot of kissing in Eyes Wide Shut, but it was pretty cold and yes, sort of cadaverous. The skin of many of the women looked green and clammy, but that could also be a result of our little (maybe 10-inch?) antique TV set. We've had it for as long as I can remember, and there's a round burned-out circle in the middle of the screen at all times.

Hey -- maybe the movie is actually bright and cheery. Maybe it's time for a new digital TV screen. We saw some in the big 24-hour electronics store and they're not as expensive as I thought they'd be. Our 11-year-old Sony has been broken for many months now and we've been too (1) lazy or (2) poor or (3) uninterested in getting it fixed.

But it could be affecting our TV watching enjoyment, and when you try to pack as much entertainment into the too-short weekend the way we do, every square inch and every rod of color is important. So maybe it's time to call in the TV repairman and get the dreaded estimate. Subtracting the estimate from the cost of a new DVD-TV will yield an interesting new nugget of information.

Cinema noir may take on a whole new light.

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