In past week-and-an-half, I have seen two films at the posh east-side Landmark franchise cineplices (plural of cineplex, no? such that vertex becomes vertices, and fornex becomes fornices, should not cineplex be cineplices, in the plural?), Schultze gets the blues and Off the map. I enjoyed each immeasurably, the first as expected (known?) I would, the second after entering with some trepidation (I was expecting something a little more Up-side of anger, which, while featuring Evan Rachel Wood (no, I am not a pederast!), also has Kevin Costner (does he only appear in films where he can be a current/present/former ball-player?), and is a bit too melodramatic in the bathos of contemporary monied-but-searching upper-class life. But, anyway....
In each film seen -- Schultze and Map -- there is a character, in the first the protagonist, the second the shy, longing stranger, who is dissatisfied. Each has been tasked with an assignment -- playing traditional German polkas for small parties, auditing non-filers of income-tax -- but is not taking anything away from it. The void that each should fill, be it a limited social life (Schultze is the only one of the three retirees from the salt-mine to remain unmarried) or a bank-account from which to provide for the accoutrement of one's life (food-stuffs, other possessions, travel, home, etc.), remains unfilled, the heart's desire deadened by the dissatisfaction but still alive enough to want to be met.
Enter zydeco. Enter a nude woman hoeing in her family's garden, off the right flank of the rustic homestead, provided for by the land and trade.
Schultze and Gibbons (?) find themselves re-invigorated as talent is re-struck. The former opens his accordion case again, and plays the snapping, high-toned rhythm of the Acadians, his eyes gleaming as a child's on Christmas. Gibbons, his romance with Marnie never to be (she is committed to her husband, however silent he may be, for a piece), takes up with the water-colours that the husband has not been using of late and produces an epic ocean piece for the daughter of the couple whom he was supposed to be auditing.
Their lives take a turn better when they recapture what is their love.
Likewise, I wish to do this with my own talent, writing. And, in part, such wish is why I have actually tried to keep a journal here. I don't update daily, as do children (largely, female) with diaries, nor precisely, as do REAL writers, as did (in effect) Plimpton in describing his life as a quarterback, or boxer, but I try to bring my sentiment of the moment -- of the several moments, really -- before composing to the page. I try to give a feel for myself, to myself, that should be fit for recompilation.
So, to my anthology [sic], titled [Title deleted to preserve the writer's safety if that it should ever be published, self-published. -- ed.]? Maybe. I have four more entry to make. I just want to make them well.
In each film seen -- Schultze and Map -- there is a character, in the first the protagonist, the second the shy, longing stranger, who is dissatisfied. Each has been tasked with an assignment -- playing traditional German polkas for small parties, auditing non-filers of income-tax -- but is not taking anything away from it. The void that each should fill, be it a limited social life (Schultze is the only one of the three retirees from the salt-mine to remain unmarried) or a bank-account from which to provide for the accoutrement of one's life (food-stuffs, other possessions, travel, home, etc.), remains unfilled, the heart's desire deadened by the dissatisfaction but still alive enough to want to be met.
Enter zydeco. Enter a nude woman hoeing in her family's garden, off the right flank of the rustic homestead, provided for by the land and trade.
Schultze and Gibbons (?) find themselves re-invigorated as talent is re-struck. The former opens his accordion case again, and plays the snapping, high-toned rhythm of the Acadians, his eyes gleaming as a child's on Christmas. Gibbons, his romance with Marnie never to be (she is committed to her husband, however silent he may be, for a piece), takes up with the water-colours that the husband has not been using of late and produces an epic ocean piece for the daughter of the couple whom he was supposed to be auditing.
Their lives take a turn better when they recapture what is their love.
Likewise, I wish to do this with my own talent, writing. And, in part, such wish is why I have actually tried to keep a journal here. I don't update daily, as do children (largely, female) with diaries, nor precisely, as do REAL writers, as did (in effect) Plimpton in describing his life as a quarterback, or boxer, but I try to bring my sentiment of the moment -- of the several moments, really -- before composing to the page. I try to give a feel for myself, to myself, that should be fit for recompilation.
So, to my anthology [sic], titled [Title deleted to preserve the writer's safety if that it should ever be published, self-published. -- ed.]? Maybe. I have four more entry to make. I just want to make them well.