Friday, July 16, 2004

BEFORE 
 
“A French grad student meets an American boy on a train between Budapest and Vienna.” So goes the description of a movie I saw some 6 or 7 years ago (“Before Sunrise”). My reticence about revealing favorite films on the blog notwithstanding, I do admit to having liked it. One person called it a meandering nothing. Perfect!  The characters take part in a sensual little adventure, stimulated more than anything by the ongoing conversation that they have with each other. And chemistry. It is a lovely little film (kind of a culty thing, with a very loyal following). 
 
Today the sequel comes to Madison. I was buying tickets hours in advance. Just in case.  
 
AFTER 
 
In the previous film they set a time and place to meet again. We now find out that one of them doesn’t show. Many years into the future they come across each other again, in Paris, where he is on a book-signing tour. They have only a few hours. How does anyone use such a short circuit of time?  
 
The 9:30 Madison showing (opening night!) is almost completely empty (the film has been well received elsewhere and the movie houses have been full). That kind of cavernous atmosphere makes the movie seem tentative, fragile somehow. 
 
But it is subtle and sweet and she (Julie Delpy) is so splendid looking! The conversation between them is playful, spontaneous, informal and therefore enthralling. The movie is just that – an 80 minute chat through the back streets of Paris. And in this time, the audience understands more of the physical tension between them than if they had had explicit sex before close-up cameras.  Wonderful.

Whomping the yak and beaming the gadget

Looking over Dave Barry’s column today in the IHT (here), I was dismayed that I am gender neutral by his analysis. [Because if you have one count of manhood and one of womanhood, what could you possibly be if not stuck in a gender warp of neutrality?] 
 
Barry makes the familiar point about male/female differences in shopping. He traces male goal-directedness (enter store, zero in on item, purchase, leave store) to prehistoric times where man would draw a piece of meat on the cave wall (a yak perhaps),  go out and whomp the yak (“making the purchase”),  come home and eat it.  I am just like that. I despise malls and am anxious when the first store doesn’t have exactly what I want. I want my yak to be there and waiting for me to whomp it. 
 
But there is his second point – about the manhood of acquiring  gadgets that are about as necessary as  a spare tire is for a tricyce. Barry describes his experiences with using a fancy new cell phone ineffectively (since men don’t read instruction manuals. Ever.). The goal? To beam an email message to his pal standing two feet away (who attempts then to beam one back).
 
My history with gadgets is terribly dysfunctional, which, I suppose,  places me in the category of a stereotypical woman who prefers to work her dough with her hands and talk to people directly rather than through gadgets. Not only do I avoid gadgets, but when I buy them I don't use them. I acquired  a palm thingie back in November. I set it up on my desk in the study just to remind myself how stupid that purchase was. I hereby admit that I never even studied  all its special features.
 
So perhaps when I was getting my hair cut today I should have taken into account my newly established gender identity: half and half. Hmm, maybe I’ll start using more gadgets. Why is it that men have the better set of stereotypes in this equation?

Squelch rumors before they form

It is absolutely not true that I am having “my hair done” today because a photographer will be following me around the Market tomorrow. I am not vain and I do not care that the sun has made my hair streak with every conceivable shade of brown. Irrelevant. Glossy magazine coverage of my L’Etoile foraging activities does not phase me. I am above and beyond such trivialities. [I was scheduled to have my hair attended to today way before I knew of tomorrow’s Market plans and if you knew how hard it is to get an appointment with my man Jason, you’d understand that last minute requests are, in any event, out of the question.]