Crimson Adhesive
I thought I was mad when people were flooding me with requests to buy memberships... speaking unintelligibly or too quietly, not making eye contact, saying half their sentences while looking over their shoulders at nothing-in-particular solely to avoid looking directly at me. I thought I was mad.
I thought I was mad when these people were rude to me. When they snapped at me upon first walking up to the counter, when they acted as if I was mentally deficient for not being able to guess their zip code or how many were in their party. They growl and grimace and they look to me to continue being polite to them if only so they can feel, in their downtrodden and desperate lives, that they are at least momentarily superior to someone. Anyone. Even the person behind the counter trying to help them. I thought I was mad.
I thought I was mad when people were asking for refunds because they'd miss their showtimes by being complete and utter idiots. "I didn't know there were specific times," "No one told me I couldn't go in whenever I wanted," "I thought it was a show about Boob-les... not Bubbles. Y'all straight lied to my moron-ass!" Then, I thought I was mad.
And I even thought I was mad when people were paying for tickets, in dividends of three dollars and eight dollars with credit cards. Credit cards, wasting paper and wasting time, wasting energy and wasting the moments between the moment of purchase and the moment the show as about to start, which was invariably down to the last second because the fools had waited so damn long to buy tickets that a) they were in danger of attempting to buy tickets to a sold-out show or b) they were in danger of trying to buy tickets for a show that had already started, all the while arguing over Triple A discounts and Membership rewards and special circumstances and fuck all. I thought I was mad then. I thought I was furious.
I was wrong.
I was mad, truly mad, when a woman bought three tickets to a Laser Show, at a dollar a peice, and after asking for them, once I'd rung them up, informing me she was a member. I voided the sale, changed the price, and told her the new one, even less, and she winced at me. Winced. At. Me. She then asked if she could pay, for her $2.25 purchase, with a check. As she put away her membership card, I saw that, in her little pocketbook, she'd taken out a small wad of one-dollar bills.
No, you can't pay with a check.
Not that we don't let people pay with checks... but you, Madame, may not pay with a check.
Li-vid.
And then came the saga of the Pink Shawl. I've lost my baby's pink shawl in the show! Someone said they'd brought it up here to the Lost and Found! Whatever will I do?! I don't want to leave without my baby's pink shawl!
Well... ma'am... I don't see it up here.
He said he brought it up here! CHECK! Do you want me to go get him and bring him here to tell you?
Well, if you want to...
FINE! I don't BELIEVE you're making me go... (she trails off as she storms off into the Center)
I go through all of our logs, our lost and found items. I check the bin twice. We do not have any pink shawl on record.
Fifteen minutes later:
(She walks up to the counter) You need to have your employees bring lost items to the lost and found. They had it tucked away in some office...
Can you tell us which staff member it was?
I don't know who it was! It was in the show! It was tucked away!
(In my head) I understand that you're embarrassed for getting so snippy with me about the shawl when I quite honsestly told you I'd never seen it. I understand that you've now found the shawl and feel ashamed and probably pretty cowed that you were so rude to someone who didn't deserve it. What you do, in that situation, is not try to dig yourself out of the hole by being even ruder than you were before, but by apologizing, shutting the hell up, and then walking out the door directly behind you, because frankly, Bitch of the Day, I'm done dealing with you, and you're lucky the man to your left talking you down from your froth right now is there, because I wouldn't be half so nice as he, and I can be pretty fucking nasty when I get pushed too fucking far.
...
I always assume there to be this theoretical bureacracy around anything I want to take part in that I will have to penetrate or circumvent in order for my dreams and desires to be realized. As it turns out, the one thing I find myself extremely interested in, truly passionate about, is something that I am being welcomed into with open and enthusiastic arms, and it is evident to me that this is not a common occurence, but one I have justified on my own merit and mettle. This is the Order of the Film Scholar... and it's what I've always wanted.
I'm not saying this is any formal club or anything, but it is a brotherhood. An almagamate of those who study, appreciate, and truly understand film, and who look down on and villify those who do not. Today, for really the first time, I felt at home among my peers, and my peers they now truly are. I am on level with Master's students, people. I am in their curriculum, I am matching them review for witticism, surpassing them, even. I am now a force they recognize.
I wrote a review recently, one I'm rather proud of for its qualities of both...
I'll finish this later. Someone set off the damn fire alarm.
... 5-Days-Later...
Temporal happenstance aside, that was still a pretty annoying thing to happen. The Bubble Man at the ol' mill used a bit too much fog in his show and it set off the alarm. At least, that's the story I was given... but it seems to me (though my hypothesis has already been refuted) that fog wouldn't set off a fire alarm. What do I know, though?
Anyway, as I was saying before, I'm rather proud of the review I wrote recently not only because of the fact that it was well-recieved by so many people who I consider to be pretty savvy in the world of film scholasticism, but also because I discovered in myself the ability, or at least the consistent capacity, to discover. I set out to write about Tim Burton, and ended up (by finishing my viewing of his filmography) writing more about Ed Wood. The assignment needed to be edited back to focus more on Burton, but Wood fascinates me now, as I think I've seen something in him that most people (if not all people) haven't seen. The fact that I'm capable of this kind of thought process (or at least the fact that I can objectively notice it) is a real treat for me.
I finally feel as though I belong, that I am recognized and accepted, in the world of film study. My peers (if I can call them that, as they are all so-called higher-level students than I) have praised my work, I feel comfortable talking to them about our chosen medium, and I feel confident that my theories are well-thought-out and that I have something to contribute to the community of film scholars. For the first time (five days ago, when I began writing this) I felt like I had reached a place I had been trying to reach, or that I felt I hadn't yet been recognized for reaching, for a long time.
...
Today, making this the longest work-in-progress single-blog-entry in the history of blogs... lord I hate that word... I saw Jim Jarmush's "masterpeice" Dead Man. Allow me to explain. In the lexicon of films that don't explain themselves sufficiently not to make the audience question or to elicit any specific emotion, but to fool the inattentive into thinking that they should be emoting or should be asking questions (in short: films that act like they're mysterious, deeply thoughtful and poetic art-house peices but are not) Jarmush's romp through a progressively less-realistic wild west following the concept of an accountant becoming the concept of a bullet-riddled killer accompanied by his fat, fat Indian friend... doesn't even stand up to a good Lynch film. For varying values of the word "good."
At least Lynch displays some mastery of the bullshit art. At least he leaves enough open to really leave the audience guessing. People feel lost after his films, that they've missed out on something, and that if they don't try to fill that void with psycho-analytic explanation they'll be ridiculed by their friends, who obviously understood the movie because they're so prepared to delve into their own intepretations of the film, never realizing they're all bullshitting each other in a grand circle of bull.
Jarmush can't even give us that ambiguity. He can't, with Dead Man, resist putting Iggy Pop (an old friend from the days of the Coffee and Cigarettes shorts), Alfred Molina (same), and the ever-orthodontal Steve Buscemi (third verse, same as the I hate you Jim Jarmush) smack dab in the film's alterantely verbal and cameo-centric roles. We might not notice Steve, but Iggy Pop in a dress waxing religious to his two fur-trapping, somewhat hom-o-erotic/icidal pals? Are we not to notice Alfred Molina acting as a racist zealot in control of seemingly the only tobacco in the film up for grabs? Is this supposed to mean anything to us?
And the answer is no. God forbid it should mean anything to us. Jarmush might have to have an idea at that point, or an opinion. Oh no... god forbid.
...
I've got a lot of Lemon and a lot of Kubrick waiting for me, and I won't be able to watch any of it tonight, sadly, as I'll be... sleeping.
I won't be able to watch more than one tomorrow, either, as I'll be working, for the first time since... ever, on Underground, hopefully to finish by the end of next week. Wow... me and my fucking deadlines. Last time I tried to do a project that was longer than fifteen minutes, it ended up taking me five months. I owe it to the Mrs., though, for goading me on. I don't know if I ever would have motivated myself to do it otherwise. I'm still not motivating myself, she is. I've put the damn thing off for three weeks. Ass.
We'll see how it looks raw tomorrow, and we'll see how much there is to use.
Next time I take a break in the middle of a post, it'll be a fortnight, just to set a new record.
I thought I was mad when these people were rude to me. When they snapped at me upon first walking up to the counter, when they acted as if I was mentally deficient for not being able to guess their zip code or how many were in their party. They growl and grimace and they look to me to continue being polite to them if only so they can feel, in their downtrodden and desperate lives, that they are at least momentarily superior to someone. Anyone. Even the person behind the counter trying to help them. I thought I was mad.
I thought I was mad when people were asking for refunds because they'd miss their showtimes by being complete and utter idiots. "I didn't know there were specific times," "No one told me I couldn't go in whenever I wanted," "I thought it was a show about Boob-les... not Bubbles. Y'all straight lied to my moron-ass!" Then, I thought I was mad.
And I even thought I was mad when people were paying for tickets, in dividends of three dollars and eight dollars with credit cards. Credit cards, wasting paper and wasting time, wasting energy and wasting the moments between the moment of purchase and the moment the show as about to start, which was invariably down to the last second because the fools had waited so damn long to buy tickets that a) they were in danger of attempting to buy tickets to a sold-out show or b) they were in danger of trying to buy tickets for a show that had already started, all the while arguing over Triple A discounts and Membership rewards and special circumstances and fuck all. I thought I was mad then. I thought I was furious.
I was wrong.
I was mad, truly mad, when a woman bought three tickets to a Laser Show, at a dollar a peice, and after asking for them, once I'd rung them up, informing me she was a member. I voided the sale, changed the price, and told her the new one, even less, and she winced at me. Winced. At. Me. She then asked if she could pay, for her $2.25 purchase, with a check. As she put away her membership card, I saw that, in her little pocketbook, she'd taken out a small wad of one-dollar bills.
No, you can't pay with a check.
Not that we don't let people pay with checks... but you, Madame, may not pay with a check.
Li-vid.
And then came the saga of the Pink Shawl. I've lost my baby's pink shawl in the show! Someone said they'd brought it up here to the Lost and Found! Whatever will I do?! I don't want to leave without my baby's pink shawl!
Well... ma'am... I don't see it up here.
He said he brought it up here! CHECK! Do you want me to go get him and bring him here to tell you?
Well, if you want to...
FINE! I don't BELIEVE you're making me go... (she trails off as she storms off into the Center)
I go through all of our logs, our lost and found items. I check the bin twice. We do not have any pink shawl on record.
Fifteen minutes later:
(She walks up to the counter) You need to have your employees bring lost items to the lost and found. They had it tucked away in some office...
Can you tell us which staff member it was?
I don't know who it was! It was in the show! It was tucked away!
(In my head) I understand that you're embarrassed for getting so snippy with me about the shawl when I quite honsestly told you I'd never seen it. I understand that you've now found the shawl and feel ashamed and probably pretty cowed that you were so rude to someone who didn't deserve it. What you do, in that situation, is not try to dig yourself out of the hole by being even ruder than you were before, but by apologizing, shutting the hell up, and then walking out the door directly behind you, because frankly, Bitch of the Day, I'm done dealing with you, and you're lucky the man to your left talking you down from your froth right now is there, because I wouldn't be half so nice as he, and I can be pretty fucking nasty when I get pushed too fucking far.
...
I always assume there to be this theoretical bureacracy around anything I want to take part in that I will have to penetrate or circumvent in order for my dreams and desires to be realized. As it turns out, the one thing I find myself extremely interested in, truly passionate about, is something that I am being welcomed into with open and enthusiastic arms, and it is evident to me that this is not a common occurence, but one I have justified on my own merit and mettle. This is the Order of the Film Scholar... and it's what I've always wanted.
I'm not saying this is any formal club or anything, but it is a brotherhood. An almagamate of those who study, appreciate, and truly understand film, and who look down on and villify those who do not. Today, for really the first time, I felt at home among my peers, and my peers they now truly are. I am on level with Master's students, people. I am in their curriculum, I am matching them review for witticism, surpassing them, even. I am now a force they recognize.
I wrote a review recently, one I'm rather proud of for its qualities of both...
I'll finish this later. Someone set off the damn fire alarm.
... 5-Days-Later...
Temporal happenstance aside, that was still a pretty annoying thing to happen. The Bubble Man at the ol' mill used a bit too much fog in his show and it set off the alarm. At least, that's the story I was given... but it seems to me (though my hypothesis has already been refuted) that fog wouldn't set off a fire alarm. What do I know, though?
Anyway, as I was saying before, I'm rather proud of the review I wrote recently not only because of the fact that it was well-recieved by so many people who I consider to be pretty savvy in the world of film scholasticism, but also because I discovered in myself the ability, or at least the consistent capacity, to discover. I set out to write about Tim Burton, and ended up (by finishing my viewing of his filmography) writing more about Ed Wood. The assignment needed to be edited back to focus more on Burton, but Wood fascinates me now, as I think I've seen something in him that most people (if not all people) haven't seen. The fact that I'm capable of this kind of thought process (or at least the fact that I can objectively notice it) is a real treat for me.
I finally feel as though I belong, that I am recognized and accepted, in the world of film study. My peers (if I can call them that, as they are all so-called higher-level students than I) have praised my work, I feel comfortable talking to them about our chosen medium, and I feel confident that my theories are well-thought-out and that I have something to contribute to the community of film scholars. For the first time (five days ago, when I began writing this) I felt like I had reached a place I had been trying to reach, or that I felt I hadn't yet been recognized for reaching, for a long time.
...
Today, making this the longest work-in-progress single-blog-entry in the history of blogs... lord I hate that word... I saw Jim Jarmush's "masterpeice" Dead Man. Allow me to explain. In the lexicon of films that don't explain themselves sufficiently not to make the audience question or to elicit any specific emotion, but to fool the inattentive into thinking that they should be emoting or should be asking questions (in short: films that act like they're mysterious, deeply thoughtful and poetic art-house peices but are not) Jarmush's romp through a progressively less-realistic wild west following the concept of an accountant becoming the concept of a bullet-riddled killer accompanied by his fat, fat Indian friend... doesn't even stand up to a good Lynch film. For varying values of the word "good."
At least Lynch displays some mastery of the bullshit art. At least he leaves enough open to really leave the audience guessing. People feel lost after his films, that they've missed out on something, and that if they don't try to fill that void with psycho-analytic explanation they'll be ridiculed by their friends, who obviously understood the movie because they're so prepared to delve into their own intepretations of the film, never realizing they're all bullshitting each other in a grand circle of bull.
Jarmush can't even give us that ambiguity. He can't, with Dead Man, resist putting Iggy Pop (an old friend from the days of the Coffee and Cigarettes shorts), Alfred Molina (same), and the ever-orthodontal Steve Buscemi (third verse, same as the I hate you Jim Jarmush) smack dab in the film's alterantely verbal and cameo-centric roles. We might not notice Steve, but Iggy Pop in a dress waxing religious to his two fur-trapping, somewhat hom-o-erotic/icidal pals? Are we not to notice Alfred Molina acting as a racist zealot in control of seemingly the only tobacco in the film up for grabs? Is this supposed to mean anything to us?
And the answer is no. God forbid it should mean anything to us. Jarmush might have to have an idea at that point, or an opinion. Oh no... god forbid.
...
I've got a lot of Lemon and a lot of Kubrick waiting for me, and I won't be able to watch any of it tonight, sadly, as I'll be... sleeping.
I won't be able to watch more than one tomorrow, either, as I'll be working, for the first time since... ever, on Underground, hopefully to finish by the end of next week. Wow... me and my fucking deadlines. Last time I tried to do a project that was longer than fifteen minutes, it ended up taking me five months. I owe it to the Mrs., though, for goading me on. I don't know if I ever would have motivated myself to do it otherwise. I'm still not motivating myself, she is. I've put the damn thing off for three weeks. Ass.
We'll see how it looks raw tomorrow, and we'll see how much there is to use.
Next time I take a break in the middle of a post, it'll be a fortnight, just to set a new record.
posted by DeadLanguage at 3:18 PM
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You understand me, One Eye Chills?
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