The Illusionist

We met our friends Joan and Deb at the Bay Street Mall to see The Illusionist. There was another film of the same name made a few years back, but it has nothing in common with this one except for the title. This one is animated, based on an unfinished screen play by the French film-maker Jacques Tati.

The looks and mannerisms of the main character are based on Tati himself. It's about the relationship between a traveling illusionist and a young girl, a waif who adopts him as her father figure. It's also about the passing of vaudeville acts, replaced by television and rock n'roll. It's a sad sentimental film, more Chaplin than Tati in mood. The older generation of magicians, chorus girls, acrobats, clowns and ventriloquists become anachronistic. They end up out of work and homeless.

Naturally, we identified with their plight: Deb, the part-time teacher whose position is being attacked by union busters, Joan the librarian, whose hours have been reduced because of budget cuts, Bob laid off from his job at the bank so now 'retired', and myself, a commercially unsuccessful artist and impractical dreamer.

The real irony was that we were almost the only people in the theater, watching scenes on screen where the illusionist plays to an almost empty house. It was a quiet film with beautifully animated scenes of Scotland, especially Edinburgh. Those scenes were well worth the price of admission though the story was too sentimental and the film dragged on too long.

The second irony was that we watched it at a multiplex. The loud explosive sounds of other movies made it hard to hear the film's soundtrack, combined with the ping-ping of the video arcade next door. I finally complained to the manager. Instead of a refund, he gave us free tickets for another movie. It may be a while before I make it back.

Hand-made Book

I like making books by hand, but I'm no good at it. I lack co-ordination. Or whatever you call it. When someone explains to me, "This is how you do the binding," I nod like I understand, but I haven't a clue. It's like math class after the teacher has gone through an algebraic formula. The same lack of comprehension.

I'm talking about creating art journals, not actually writing books -- though I've always wanted to do that, too, and failed. Not failed, but never started. "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach," my mom used to say when I helped myself to food I couldn't finish. My ideas are bigger than my ability to execute them. I took an Art Journal class once from my friend Christina. While other people did the assignments, I filled up page after page with red paint and then tore out the pages.

I'm too in love with the details to see the big picture. That helped when I made my Tarot deck. It was simple: just do one card at a time, then go on to the next. Besides, the Tarot was an established system that I could work with. But to come up with a concept of my own? That's different. Maybe that's why I like to blog. The details of my day unfold into small individual essays, unrelated to each other except in their relentless progression.

Listeners

Listeners will always turn the conversation away from them and back to you. Being a talker, I fall for that every time. Talkers. Are we the narcissists? Loving to hear the sounds of our own voices? Maybe. But who are they? The listeners, sitting in the shadows, their faces obscured by wing chairs. Are they our audience, entranced and entertained by our stories -- or are they our therapists, our Father Confessors?  Are they bored, thinking about something else entirely? Do they even hear a word we say? Hostile, wishing we would just shut the hell up? Are they our silent judges? Like God?

"Your turn to talk," I always break off at some point, embarrassed at my lengthy monologue. A long silence ensues. Listeners-turned-into-talkers pause between words, considering what they will say next or even if they will speak at all. Will they ever get to it, reveal themselves? No. Uncertain, afraid of being jumped on or interrupted, they give up easily. They were probably criticized for speaking out as children; now they're afraid of offering their true opinions.

That's one sort of listener. The other sort goes straight to the point. Short and concise, he says what he wants to say and then he's finished. Is that all? Is there no foreplay, no wallowing in words? No lingering aftermath? That one thing said seems wise in retrospect, precious because it's so brief. Or is it just forgotten? So short, so quick.  Barely spoken. Whispered.

Let It Snow

Snow is predicted. I'll believe it when I see it. It has happened a few times since I've lived in the Bay Area though on those rare occasions, what passed for 'snow' was actually a few flakes whirling by the window before they disappeared into thin air. I've never seen snow ON THE GROUND here. Neither has anyone else so we're all excited. Snow!  Its arrival would be as rare and magical as a unicorn's appearance on Market Street.

In the meantime, it rained -- proper winter weather for this area. Bob went to dinner with friends and I stayed behind, comfortably ensconced in the warm dry house while the rain beat down. I like the rainy season. I prefer cool weather and rain makes for high-quality introversion -- important for writers, readers, and artists. It's a powerful motivation for cleaning out your closets, too.

Thistles and Stalks

I showed Bob a plant volunteer in our front yard, a stalk with coral blooms that suddenly popped up between the poppies, the jade plants and the tangle of ice plants that he planted several years ago. They've all gone pleasingly wild over the once rather barren slope in front of our house. Now it's a tangle of unruly plants hemming in the rose bushes that were originally here when we moved in eleven years ago. (It doesn't seem that long ago, but is.)

We bought the jade plants at a garage sale, tiny cuttings in cheap plastic pots. For years they sat on our front porch, neglected. One day we decided to plant them. For us, that was a radical notion. To our amazement they grew, imperceptibly it seemed, into the large sturdy bushes that we have today. The larger bush blooms every year. It's blooming now, covered with white flowers. The ice plants are in bloom as well, crowned with crinkly purple thistles.

How the ice plants came about was theft: every time we walked along Emery Bay, Bob filched a cutting or two from the vast expanse that grew along the waterfront. I was not supportive of this endeavor in any way. Embarrassed, I pretended I wasn't with him when he committed the theft and when he planted them, I was dubious that they would grow. But grow they did. Now they cover the entire slope.

He was a little grumpy when I pulled him out of the house into the cold air to look at our new flower, but just then a humming bird swept in, hovered over the rose bushes and winged away -- a small miracle that gave us joy.

A Strand of Memory

Gone are the days of the old movie houses. Even when I was young, they had already seen their best days. Many closed or became porn theaters. Others of them played art films for cheap (3 films for 3 dollars) so I spent many afternoons in the dark watching bad prints of French, Italian and German imports. I didn't care. I was entranced.

In San Francisco I sometimes went to the Strand on Market Street. That theater was the pits, the absolute bottom of the barrel in the way that the strip joints on Market were the worst and the sleaziest, but I went there anyhow. My second husband Randy had worked on a science fiction film script that later became renowned for its abysmal-ness. I can't remember the name of the film, but it starred Sean Connery and Charlotte Rampling. Randy said Sean Connery was a great guy and a real gentleman, but Charlotte Rampling was a bitch. She couldn't remember her lines and they had to do rewrites for her every morning.

We watched that film at the Strand, the celluloid crackling as loudly as the stale popcorn under our feet. Bubblegum in the aisles stuck to the bottoms of our shoes. Gay men and transsexuals sat up in the balcony doing unmentionable things. Some dressed in drag, others in bathrobes and hair curlers. Straight men sat alone in the front rows masturbating, talking to themselves, or drunk, snoring under wet newspapers because it was raining outside and they needed a warm place to go. The films played on in a continuous loop like the continuous stripteases in the sex shows, only cheaper. Only a dollar. Maybe two. I can't remember now, but those were the days.

Sushi à la Française

I found myself up at 2 in the morning so I sat down at my computer. That's when my Internet searches become increasingly bizarre. The first thing you know, I had stumbled on a site about the French way of eating. It was written by an American mom and nutritionist who had lived in France with her children. (Sorry, I can't link to her site because I don't remember what it was.) She compared French school menus with American ones for 123 days.  I actually read each menu very carefully, in my bleary-eyed insomniac way. Of course, the French menus turned out to be superior to ours in nutritional value and variety of foods. She explained that in French schools, children are seated at table where the food is served to them in courses instead of our American free-for-all. They have two hours for lunch, but only one choice of entree unless there are special dietary concerns. They are not permitted to bring their lunch, but they are allowed to go home, eat, and come back. The main meal in France is served mid-day, with a lighter one eaten later in the evening. The French eat slower, take smaller portions, and spend more time at the table than we do. They do not snack or eat on the go.

How right she was! For lunch, I went back to my favorite Japanese restaurant and there she was -- the French woman whom I had admired in an earlier post. This time she was sans husband, but with her two children, a little girl and boy. They sat one table down from me. Since the restaurant was relatively empty, I could observe them at leisure, which I did. I hope I didn't freak them out, but they seemed not to notice me, absorbed as they were in the ritual of their meal.

It was amazing to watch. The first course was miso soup. They sipped slowly until it was all gone. Then the edamame arrived, which the kids gobbled up. After that came an order of sushi rolls and a plate of chicken teryaki with a bowl of rice. The woman carefully arranged the children's portions: a single piece of sushi, a mound of rice and a small amount of teryaki. They ate enthusiastically, occasionally making "Mmmm" noises of appreciation. Then the tea arrived (silence while they carefully sipped) followed by a large salad of pickled cucumber. That was her entree, but the children freely sampled.  Lastly, le dessert: a saucer of mochi, petite balls of mango, ginger, and green tea ice cream.

The children did not run around screaming. The mother did not talk on her cell phone. She let them play with their food. The little boy fed her several times, which I thought was sweet. (I usually witness the feeding ritual to be the other way round.) When the little girl laid down on the bench and squirmed, she was gently admonished. She sat up again, but danced happily in her seat along with her mother, who also bobbed to the music. What struck me was the careful attention the mother gave to her children and to the food. It wasn't the coddling I see in American parents, nor the alternate pattern of yelling interspersed with neglect. They weren't indulged, but they were nurtured. She was entirely relaxed and present. It relaxed me just to watch her.