Friday, December 15, 2000

 

2:15 a.m. Tonight, a little trifle. A sudsy bubbly little surprise of a movie that I've never seen before, although I've seen it go by ... Les Parapluies de Cherbourg, 1964.

Very interesting, very sad, very very colorful. Very French, I suppose. I certainly knew the music, but I never really knew that the whole thing was sung, from the first words to the last.

I liked many things about it, but what I absolutely loved was the way each and every set and scene was used as a backdrop for the women's costumes. If she was wearing pink, the wallpaper was pink and the curtains were a perfect shade of celery. Absolutely gorgeous.

And oddly moving, in a strange nostalgic way. The melody of the love theme makes me all weepy and the way that Catherine Deneuve was clingly and collapsing and needy was sort of heartbreaking. I don't know ... maybe too many hours researching shopping carts has made me soft in the head.

Do you know how unbelievably, extremely complicated it is to set up a storefront on the web? I want something nice and I don't want to have to pay more for it than is fair, so I have to educate myself.

I suppose this is where all the real money is being made on the Internet. There are set-up fees and application fees and transaction costs and "discount rates," which are actually more fees. Did you know that you need a certificate to make that little blue line appear at the top of the browser to indicate a secure server?

Sometimes I really don't know how any business gets done when there are so many things you have to learn before you can turn that key in the door and hold out your palm for that first dollar bill. I'm developing a new-found respect for anybody who has a "Buy this item" button on their site.

Oh well, back to work for me. If you haven't seen that movie and you like strange, offbeat stuff -- try it. I won't tell you the plot, but I will say that French women aren't living on the same planet as American women. They must think we are very strange.