Understanding
the Situation
Tammy Wynette was right. Sometimes
it is hard to be a woman.
You see, I love film. I love
it as art, I love it as entertainment. There is no other
medium that speaks to me or moves me like it does. To paint,
to draw, to sculpt, to photograph, those are all wonderful.
But to capture or create something truly beautiful behind a camera,
be it a field full of poppies or a seething bullet wound, that's
unparalleled to me. When I watch a good film it absorbs me.
I want to know it, inside and out. I crave a deeper knowledge of
every shot and cut. It's like a sex act. A good film takes
me into it, and elevates me to a higher place. Sometimes I
think about what it would've been like to sit in that first theater
and watch the train pull into the station, and it honestly makes
me cry at how powerful it must have been. I wonder sometimes if
too much of my life has gone unlived, spent instead inside the movies.
But I wouldn't want to have it any other way. I wouldn't want
a life where I couldn't lose myself in a picture on the screen.
So that's me. That's where I stand.
There's nothing I worship more than the art of film. But.
. . then there's that part about being a woman. Or not even
a woman, because you're a girl when it starts. You're young,
maybe six or seven, lying in bed under the covers with a flashlight
and a Tiger Beat magazine. And then there's him. He's
there with you. There's nothing you want more. You're just
a baby, you don't even understand want, but you can't stop looking
at him. Then you get older, his face gets blurry or old or
disapears alltogether. Someone new comes to replace him.
Maybe the new one is younger. Maybe he's a different race.
Maybe it's not even a he, but there's always the one. The
idol. The avatar. The picture on the page that you can't
stop looking at. But you're an adult now, you can't just
blindly fantasize. Maybe the guys can. . . hell maybe the
girls can, but you can't. You love his art, you love film,
too much not to notice his transgressions outside the magazine.
You want him to give you artistry, virtuosity. You want life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, all on one reel! You love
him, and you love his craft, and you want them both to come together
in some extraordinary revelation of what film can be!!
. . .But he won't. You're left disappointed.
And it's so damn hard.
To
Love a Pretty Picture
Para
que tú me oigas
mis palabras
se adelgazan a veces
como las huellas de las gaviotas en las playas.
Collar,
cascabel ebrio
para tus manos suaves como las uvas.
Y
las miro lejanas mis palabras.
Más que mías son tuyas.
Van trepando en mi viejo dolor como las yedras.
Ellas
trepan así por las paredes húmedas.
Eres tú la culpable de este juego sangriento.
Ellas están huyendo de mi guarida oscura.
Todo lo llenas tú, todo lo llenas.
Antes
que tú poblaron la soledad que ocupas,
y están acostumbradas más que tú a mi tristeza.
Ahora
quiero que digan lo que quiero decirte
para que tú las oigas como quiero que me oigas.
El viento de la angustia aún
las suele arrastrar.
Huracanes de sueños aún a veces las tumban.
Escuchas otras voces en mi voz dolorida.
Llanto de viejas bocas, sangre de viejas súplicas.
Amame, compañera. No me abandones. Sígueme.
Sígueme, compañera, en esa ola de angustia.
Pero
se van tiñendo con tu amor mis palabras.
Todo lo ocupas tú, todo lo ocupas.
Voy haciendo de todas un collar infinito
para tus blancas manos, suaves como las uvas.
God
and Satan watch "Ride with the Devil"
God: I don't
know about you, but I'm excited. I can't believe we never got around
to seeing this in the theater.
Satan: Neither can I. I adore this
guy's work. "Sense and Sensibility" is one of my
very favorites.
God: You always were a fag for Jane Austen.
Satan: Oh please. This from the man who let
Randy Newman into Heaven.
God: Randy Newman's still alive. You're
thinking of Liberachi.
Satan: Hah! You're right. How the home did I get
those two confused?
God: No idea. But shut up, the credits are ending.
(Fifteen minutes later)
Satan: . . .uh,
why are they all talking like that?
God: You mean like someone programmed Stephen
Hawking's voice bot to speak like it's cornfed?
Satan: Exactly. Is that accurate?
God: How should I know? It was the civil war, I
had other things on my mind than fucking Missouri.
Satan: Good point. Hey, is Abe around, I'll bet
he'd know.
God: Nah, he spends his Fridays on the links
with Chubbs.
Satan: Chubbs? You mean Chubbs Peterson?
The. . . fictional character?
God: Yeah. I know it's against principal,
but that movie was just so damned funny I went ahead and killed
Carl Weathers a few years early. And I make him stay in character
most of the time. For laughs, you know.
Satan: You can't possibly be serious.
Are you joking with me?
God: Honest injun.
(Twenty minutes later)
God: I know it's a little early to call it.
. . but I think this movie might suck dude.
Satan: Yeah, I was thinking that too.
Man, I hate to not finish a movie I've started though. Do you have
Tivo? Then we could at least fast forward through the boring parts.
God: Nah.
Satan: Darn!
God: But. . . we are, you know, watching it
on dvd. Idiot.
Satan: Haha. Sheesh, I wasn't cast out for nothin',
huh?
God: Yeah yeah yeah, less talk more chapter skip.
Satan: I don't have the remote.
God: It's over on the coffee table. Get it.
Satan: Why do I have to get it?
God: I created the universe.
Satan: Fudge.
(Two minutes later)
God: STOP!
Satan: What??
God: I think we missed Jewel's titty.
Satan: Oh, doodlebugs!
(Ten minutes later)
Satan: Well, that was. . .something.
Final thoughts?
God: You know, I try to be a cooler, more
easy to get along with God these days. You know, ixnay on the engancevay.
But then they just keep giving Skeet Ulrich roles.
Satan: He's from Lynchburg you know. He's
probably one of yours.
God: Meh. Say, are you going past Broad street
on your way home?
Satan: Probably. Why?
God: Because I think this clunker needs to
take a "ride with the devil" back to Hollywood video.
Satan: *rimshot*
Driven
Mad By Heavy Things-a Fictional Encounter
There he sat. She'd known
he was in town shooting a movie, so she'd kept her ear to the ground.
She could've hung around the set like all the other swooning fangirls,
awkardly asking for autographs between takes. But she didn't
want that. She needed him alone. She'd listened around for
the gossip, paying attention to where the cast and crew were spending
their off time. And now she'd found him. She glanced
at her reflection in the window. Not her best outfit, but
she looked nice enough. One last self-conscious adjusting
of her hair and she was off.
"Excuse me. I hate to be rude, but aren't you. . . " she
trailed off, not wanting to just offer his own name to him on a
platter like that. Besides, she knew that he was who he was,
this was just a formality.
He gave her a smile straight from the catalogue. The kind that looked
nice, but that she knew had been afforded to a thousand other girls
no better or worse than she was. "Heh, I am," he
said.
"I don't want to disturb you while you're eating," she
began, "but I was hoping I could maybe talk to you. Just for
a moment."
He gave her a quick once-over, taking in her favorite red sweater
and thrift store skirt. Then came the catalogue smile again.
She knew he was expecting her to hit on him, and was coordinating
the pleasantries in his head while she took a seat at his table
without it being offered. "What's up?" he offered,
preparing himself for the, "I'm flattered, but. . . "
that he'd handed out to so many dowdy young things since he'd started
showing up in the movies.
"Okay," she started. "I love you. Well no,
I won't say that, that sounds far too presumptuous. I don't
love you. Or rather, I'm not in love with you. Don't think
that. I'm just. . . a big fan. But I need something
from you."
He pulled a new smile out of the repetoire for her then. This
one was just slightly more genuine, and twinged with sadness. Then
he touched her hand and she blushed in spite of herself. At
that moment he knew he should probably just get this out of the
way, and spare her feelings. "Um, well, I think I might know
what you're getting at. And I want you to know that I'm really
flattered, bu-" and then she cut him off.
"I need you to take better roles," she said, looking him
in the eye for the first time since sitting down.
"I. . .well you. . . I'm sorry?"
"I know that sounded harsh. And I don't want you to think
I hold these things against you, 'cause I don't. But, well, you're
attractive. You probably know that, and have been told that
by more important people than me. And it's why I liked you
in the first place, I'll admit. It was just an attraction.
A pretty face in a magazine spread. Something to look at and
feel good for a few moments. So I started following your career.
And I have to say, I really like you. Not just as a face. Not anymore.
But I think that you're good. Legit good. So I've stayed loyal.
I've sought out the straight-to-video movies. Even bought
the foreign bootlegs on Ebay. And I've been happy to do it.
But, you know, I've been a fan of yours for almost a decade now.
I know it's cliche, but I've watched you grow. And I've grown
too. Yeah, maybe that it. It's that I've grown. I'm not some
dumb kid any more, carrying out dumb fantasies for the cute foreign
guy in YM. But everytime I read about a new role you've taken,
I get excited. I convince myself that this is the big one for you,
the one that will make everyone notice. Cause so far you're
always just the good part of not so good projects, you know? So
it's like, I wait and wait and wait for that special role. That
one that will give me proof that I haven't just been making you
up. You're a real talent. Ten years ago you could've been
acting cardboard and I would've convinced myself you were Olivier,
if that's what it would've taken to keep loving you and watching
your movies. But. . .I just can't, anymore. I can't do it.
I want to, but I'm too old. I think you're so great.
I just need some reason to like you that can't be cut out and stuck
to my wall."
He didn't say anything. She had been afraid that when she
was finished he would look "dumbstruck." She hadn't
wanted to see him that way. Luckily for her, he'd just turned
away, confused. She thought it best that she leave quickly,
to spare his feelings. She squeezed his hand. Partially
to comfort him, and partially because the young girl with the YM
magazine got the best of her in the end. She stood up, and
walked out.
He sat there for a long time after that, turning her words over
in his head. Then he too stood up, walked out, and went back
to making his movie.
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