Tribute In Light
Originally uploaded by Vidiot

This might be the last year they do the tribute in light. Of course, something should be done so that it continues - of course, something should be built there so that we might always remember. From the Winter Garden of the World Financial Center, it just looks like an (extraordinarily large) construction site.
My friend Sam took this photo; I was across the East River, and what I could see was ghostly, pale, and not worthy of any photograph I'm capable of taking. I could see no one taking time to look.
Maybe they lights have become commonplace.

"Sorrow is nothing but worn out joy."
- Kurt, Old Joy

The film Old Joy concerns itself with two old friends, who take a trip into the Oregonian wilderness. Bearded, bald Kurt, at whose prodding the journey is undertaken, is a lost-soul-type; cleaner-cut Mark a somewhat worried father-to-be. Mark's pregnant wife is glimpsed briefly at the very start of the film, but her entire role is over before the opening credits are finished.

At 78 minutes, the film is neither a short nor a feature; a lot of things remain unsaid and have to be gleaned from gesture. The director, Kelly Reichardt, seems to have absorbed Tarkovsky's obsession with nature, without resorting to the frankly bloated running time of many of that man's films. If Cuarón's Y tu mamá también bashes you over the head with the idea that its road trip is in every way "ultimate" and that its characters are traveling together as an act of closure, then Old Joy is merely content to suggest that Mark and Kurt will never see one another again.

The film's most conventional scene takes place at a campfire. Kurt tells Mark of auditing, then giving up on, a physics class - because they "wouldn't accept his theories." Mark has nothing to say to this, which causes Kurt to flatly state that he is worried things between them aren't ever going to be the same.

While Kurt apologizes for showing his emotions (always a no-no amongst heterosexual American men) it is telling that later the film, Kurt touches Mark in a way which simultaneously suggests violence and religious transformation.

Somehow ponderous and yet also succinct, Old Joy says more about the inability of young men to successfully navigate the passage to true adulthood than perhaps any other film I have yet seen.

Labels: film, review

Manchurian Candidate, 1962. "Rosie" is Janet Leigh; "Marco," Frank Sinatra. Set-up for the scene is that Sinatra, sitting in the dining car of a train traveling from Washington to New York, has just spent a good two minutes trying, and failing, to light a cigarette. He stands up abruptly, knocking over a table, and leaves the train car. Leigh's been watching him and follows him out into the vestibule.

Rosie: Maryland's a beautiful state.
Marco: (Looking away) This is Delaware.
Rosie: I know. I was one of the original Chinese workmen who laid the track on this stretch. But nonetheless, Maryland is a beautiful state. So is Ohio, for that matter. (She lights her own cigarette.)
Marco: I guess so. Columbus is a tremendous football town. You in the railroad business?
Rosie: Not anymore. However, if you will permit me to point out, when you ask that question you really should say, 'Are you in the railroad line?' Where's your home?
Marco: I'm in the Army. I'm a major. I've been in the Army most of my life. We move a good deal. I was born in New Hampshire.
Rosie: I went to a girls' camp once on Lake Francis.
Marco: That's pretty far north.
Rosie: Yeah.
Marco: What's your name?
Rosie: Eugenie.
Marco: (He finally looks at her) Pardon?
Rosie: No kidding, I really mean it. Crazy French pronunciation and all.
Marco: (He looks away) It's pretty.
Rosie: Well, thank you.
Marco: I guess your friends call you Jenny.
Rosie: Not yet they haven't, for which I am deeply grateful. But you may call me Jenny.
Marco: What do your friends call you?
Rosie: Rosie.
Marco: (He looks at her) Why?
Rosie: My full name is Eugenie Rose. (He looks away) Of the two names, I've always favored Rosie because it smells of brown soap and beer. Eugenie is somehow more fragile.
Marco: Still, when I asked you what your name was, you said it was Eugenie.
Rosie: It's quite possible I was feeling more or less fragile at that instant.
Marco: I could never figure out what that phrase meant: more or less. (He looks at her) You Arabic?
Rosie: No.
Marco: (He reaches to shake her hand) My name is Ben, really Bennett. Named after Arnold Bennett.
Rosie: The writer?
Marco: No, a lieutenant colonel who was my father's commanding officer at the time.
Rosie: What's your last name?
Marco: Marco.
Rosie: Major Marco. Are you Arabic?
Marco: No, no.
Rosie: Let me put it another way. Are you married?
Marco: No. You?
Rosie: No.
Marco: What's your last name?
Rosie: Chaney. I'm a production assistant for a man named Justin, who had two hits last season. I live on 54th Street, a few doors from the modern museum of art, of which I'm a tea-privileges member, no cream. I live at 53 West 54th Street, Apartment 3B. Can you remember that?
Marco: Yes.
Rosie: ELdorado 5-9970. Can you remember that?
Marco: Yes.
Rosie: Are you stationed in New York? Or is stationed the right word?
Marco: I'm not exactly stationed in New York. I was stationed in Washington, but I got sick, and now I'm on leave, and I'm going to spend it in New York.
Rosie: ELdorado 5-9970.

Please feel free to disagree with my assessment.

Labels: film

I was riding a Red Hook-bound B61 bus, sitting under the air-conditioning vent in an unsuccessful attempt to freeze a hangover out of my brainpan. Near the intersection of Atlantic Avenue and Henry Street, a pretty girl got on the bus. I looked up to watch her walking down the aisle, and then furtively glanced out to the street when she took her seat. I saw the facade of a restaurant. For a second its cursive letters spelled out "Lonely Island Restaurant," which, having seen the place before, I knew to be untrue.

The island I inhabit is long, but it is not lonely. Hallucinations be damned.

A friend visited and asked if I was still writing. I said not so much, but that it didn't mean she couldn't call me that anymore. Schmook said "If you're a doula, he's a writer. He gets a pass." Thanks, Schmook. I'm going to try to make good on that pass.

Labels: brooklyn

Netting
Originally uploaded by Vidiot

Brooklyn Bridge. Taken by Sam Meyer

Next week I will be guest-posting on mpthreesome, my friend Old Man Steve's music blog, as "the jazz guy." Whatever "jazz" is anyway. It's all just music to me. Such a statement can only serve as a preview of my tastes.

Eric Dolphy, John Coltrane, Reggie Workman, Village Vanguard, 1961

Thanks to flickr user klbndc for the photo.

Labels: jazz, music, upkeep

This is just to let you know I'm sorry.

As we were getting on the subway this morning, I directly behind you, I stepped on your sandal in such a way that it shot off your foot and into the crevasse between the subway car and the platform.

I looked at you, acknowledged what had happened, and then I got on the train, leaving you on the platform, standing on one foot.

In some alternate universe, I'm a compassionate guy, and not a jackass. In one of these universes, I jumped onto the track, retrieved the shoe from a whole family of rats, jumped back onto the platform, disinfected the shoe, got down on one knee, and gingerly placed it back on your foot.

In another, I gave you a piggyback ride back to your apartment, or perhaps a Payless.

In our universe, I was a real first-class shit.

If I'm ever out with friends, and a stranger throws a drink in my face, I'll have another reason why.

Cross-posted here.

Labels: brooklyn