Wednesday, January 05, 2005
you can use my skin to bury secrets in...
and I will settle you down....
Rediscovering Fiona Apple after a long break is always a pleasantly melancholy experience.
I saw a wonderful film yesterday called Maelstrom. It's French-Canadian (go Quebec!) and stars a very beautiful and very good actress called Marie-Josée Croze. The movie might not have worked without her, but with her it's delightfully tragicomic and you can't help but feel for her despite knowing objectively that you should be disgusted. It's the most sensual film I've seen in a while, in that it really makes you experience everything very acutely, both the wonderful and the horrible, on a physical as well as an emotional level.
But it's really not that serious. The story is narrated by a fish being filleted, so any art-house pretension is really just that -- pretension.
I watched it in my new film class, Introduction to Canadian Cinema. I love, love, love film classes, but I must say I have identified a distinct film-student stereotype that I didn't expect and am not sure what to do with. They're mainly guys, always either very skinny or overweight, always with unusual hairstyles or outdated facial hair (like the ridiculous goatee), and they're always wearing long black trenchcoats and other similarly colourless clothing. Before and after class they get together in groups of two or three and discuss the minutia of the film we just watched, or are going to watch, or a film they saw last week or last year, or some new director they like, or some obscure director they like, or any combination of the above topics. They're usually frighteningly smart, and look at me as though I'm a cute little brown-haired, colourfully-dressed, somewhat loud creature from another planet, which in their world, I suppose I am. I really have the greatest respect for these guys, though I also get some pretty strong impulses to cut/shave/wash their hair. I guess I'm pretty weird that way. I don't think it's unfair to request a modicum of attention paid to one's appearance. I'm not shallow, I just enjoy the word MODICUM.
I feel incredibly inarticulate today, like every word that emerges from my mouth or my keyboard is total shite. I don't know why that is, cause the word 'modicum' is really pretty fucking great. I did run into a lot of people today who I either barely knew or hadn't seen in ages, and that always turns me into a babbling fool. Plus I'm damn sleepy.
Stayed at the Boy's last night, which is probably why I'm damn sleepy. As usual, I don't care. It was well-worth the fine cuddles and more.
Got a really great letter and photo from D. in England today, which quite thrilled me. I've been waiting and waiting in vain for K. to send me some sign of life from Ireland, but to no avail. I was starting to think D. had forgotten about me since I hadn't heard from him in ages either. So I was pleasantly surprised to get a real letter from him. If any of you want to impress me, ever, send me a letter!
I am obsessed with this U2 song:
Whooo-hooo whoo-hooo...
I'm in a place called vertigo.
It's all the things I wish I didn't know.
Except you give me something I can feel...
Feel....
I remember listening to U2 with S. & C., the Germans who took me under their wing in Switzerland. They were the sweetest people, and I still think about them a lot. C. in particular was a lovely guy. I remember thinking that he was one of the only real men I had ever met. I don't mean the only masculine or macho person I'd ever met, because those are a dime a dozen. I think he was just the first person I had ever known who seemed totally, 100% comfortable with his masculinity. He was the kind of guy who didn't really seem to care much what people thought of him, but he was always impeccably dressed, polite, and sweet. He listened to U2 religiously, was totally protective of women and yet completely respected their independence, and he always told people how he felt about them, even if it was a dangerous or foolish idea. He was also the only straight guy I ever knew who wore a nipple ring with style and a total lack of self-consciousness. He was most honest when drunk on German beer, which was frequently. I'll never forget his willingness to give me genuine advice that was well-thought-out. He was one of the few guys during my time abroad who I always, always felt safe with.
His girlfriend of four years was also endlessly sweet, and very beautiful, with really pale skin and blue eyes and blond hair. All the guys used to talk about how hot they thought she was when she wasn't around, but she was not the bombshell type, despite her 1930s movie star looks. I remember her as being exquisitely thoughtful, terribly studious, and always worrying about something. She always, always spoke French with her non-German friends, and claimed she couldn't speak English, but I knew better. She was just keen to practice her French. Once I got to know her I found it hilarious how guys talked about her, since she was one of the most modest and least sexually-explicit people I had ever met. She would have been aghast to hear most of what they said, yet I'm sure her coyness was mostly pretense -- she was a capable, sexual adult and the things she didn't tell us about herself would probably have shocked everyone. She managed to always stay something of a mystery, but both she and C., never, ever failed to be there for you when you needed them.
S. and C. found Hawaii very late one night after a huge party in one of the student residences by the lake, wandering in the cold along a busy street wearing a t-shirt and shorts, drunk out of his mind and totally unaware of where he was. It was too late to get a bus and he was in no condition to take a massively overpriced taxi across town. So they took him home to their tiny one-room studio and he passed out in their bed, famously with his feet on the pillow and his head at the foot of the bed (they even had a picture to prove it). It was a funny story for months afterwards, but I always remembered how sweet it was of them to rescue him that night, and how tactful they were afterwards to only circulate the story around friends, though Hawaii certainly warranted extensive teasing for his ridiculous frat-boy antics.
It seems that once I get started on these memories of last year, I really can't stop. They just start to unwind like a giant movie projector, and I have nothing to do with any of them. I hate scrapbooking, I don't want to make a cheesy album, I stopped keeping my journal once I discovered that some things just can't be journalled, and the friends who understand these stories are all hundreds and thousands of miles away. I was reading some stupid pamphlet the other day about a class at the university called "Writing your Memoirs." It advised that whether you were 18 or 80, you could write a compelling autobiography that people could read. I actually laughed out loud. There is no way anyone would want to pay to read about my boring life (it's hard enough to get them to read it for free!), and writing my memoirs would involve exposing all kinds of people to complete and utter character assassinations. I couldn't write it any other way but honestly, after all. And plus there are certain things my parents, aunts, uncles, grandmother, and other "proches" probably shouldn't know about my life.
So I just continue to unwind the memories at certain intervals, and sometimes I end up laughing hysterically, other times I want to cry or destroy things.
One of my saddest memories is of leaning over the cement railing of my balcony in res, singing along to The Red Hot Chili Peppers' Under the Bridge and just sobbing, totally unable to pull myself together, feeling utterly alone as I looked out at the cold lights of the old town and the lonely white moon. For just a moment, I thought the grass four floors down would be a wonderful place to land, with my face in the moss and the daisies and my heart totally at peace. Then I think a different song came on and I managed to drag myself skiing the next morning. But it was a poignant moment, that's for sure.
Okay, enough reminiscing.
If you have suggestions for how to deal with haunting and hilarious memories without expensive therapy or psychotropic substances, please send them my way.
Thanks!
-N
Oh, and if anyone is in the market for a guitar, this one: http://www.seagullguitars.com/products6%2Bfolk.htm is going for $425. And the money goes to a good cause, that is Gage being able to continue successfully feeding and clothing herself without having to resort to a cubicle-bound office nightmare. ; )
See Office Space if you don't think that's a real nightmare.
