can you put a price on your dreams?

while i'm on the topic of movies (and i have cranking through them recently- next, to finally finish the twin peaks series), terry gilliam's the imaginarium of doctor parnassus completely blew my mind. once again, i am in complete disbelief by the fact that it took me this long to see it; however, i do recognize that since november of last year until about a couple of weeks ago, my life has been one confusing, emotionally overwhelming blur of a shit show. suffice it to say that i have been detrimentally out of touch in regards to films and music, and pop culture in general (and the latter i must admit is not much of a loss). but i had blacked out on this one, or i believe i recall being considerably turned off by the buzz and hullabaloo of heath ledger's "tragically stunning" performance, which i am quoting because i imagine some one some where was likely to have deemed it that. he did, after all, suddenly pass away in the midst of filming, about half-way through production. but i do have the tendency to revert back to the mindset of a pretentious, rebellious teenager when it comes to all things "popular", snubbing whatever it may be with a miff and a good, blatant eye-roll. "eat pray love" for instance, no thank you. this new "girl with the dragon tattoo" phenomenon? i don't even know what it is all about, and it still makes me slightly sick. i just imagine hordes of middle aged soccer moms in crocs sitting in circles at book clubs, squealing and gesticulating in between sipping their starbucks skinny vanilla lattes.

now don't get me wrong, though ledger might not have been my favorite actor, he is certainly not on par to the likings of the bored, desperate housewives of america. he was indeed talented and beautiful, and still so very young, but pardon me for saying that post-mortem glorification is a serious peeve of mine. if a person is not worshiped for his or her publicly displayed crafts while they are alive, what is the necessity for immortalizing them once they are gone? was ledger's performance as the joker really all that extraordinary? or were we perhaps tainted by the reality that it was to be his last complete piece of work? in my opinion it was certainly not worthy of an academy award. maybe brokeback mountain pulled some permanent heart strings, or it is very possible that the dark knight evoked a mysterious allure with the general public in the same vein as brandon lee in the crow; the gloom and the darkness, that sort of coincidentally relevant grim and consequential intrigue. i'm sorry, but i was a devout kurt cobain fan before he took a bullet to the head. all in all, i suppose it is better to burn out than to fade away.

regardless of all this business and my asinine refusal to partake in things celebrated, the movie was incredible. i can not remember the last time i was so thoroughly excited during a film...visibly so, cross-eyed, and testing my bladder control to maximum capacity. it was all so beautiful, so visually stimulating- aesthetically pleasing from the costumes and masks, muted color palette and tinting, all with the charm of a late 18th century carnival freak show...and then segueing into the vibrant, psychotropic effect of the imaginative realm. the great christopher plummer and ::drumroll:: TOM WAITS (shown above) playing the devil of all people, and so appropriately so. that sandpaper scratch of a voice, that sinister smirk, the recognition that behind the garb and the character lies a man equally as absurd and eccentric. in all honesty, the sheer sight of him on the big screen thrills me enough to get my blood pumping and my hair standing on end. i suppose that makes me strange also; yes i love that man of mine.

oui oui

i just watched paris, je t'aime for the first time, after it being recommended to me by countless folks. way overdue. such a beautiful little series of vignettes! and i'm so surprised someone didn't sit me down sooner and force me to watch it; really, right up my alley.

i wasn't much surprised to learn that this one in particular, les tuileries, was written/directed by none other than joel & ethan coen. their fingerprints are all over it- and what person with any taste doesn't have a serious soft spot for steve buscemi? killer combo.

my personal favorite, however, was the final story entitled 14e arrondissement, about a middle-aged american mail carrier from denver. she recites in terrible (but embarrassingly adorable) french what seems like a third grade essay recounting her experience. heartbreakingly poignant, and no difficulty whatsoever in relating to:

sitting there,

alone in a foreign country,

far from my job and everyone i know,

a feeling came over me.

it was like remembering something i'd never known before,

or had always been waiting for,

but i didn't know what.

maybe it was something i'd forgotten,

or something i've been missing all my life.

all i can say is that i felt at the same time,

joy and sadness.

but not too much sadness,

because i felt alive.

yes, alive.

* * *

i love her too

yanks

"Yankee Doodle" is a well-known Anglo-American song, the origin of which dates back to the Seven Years' War. It is often sung patriotically in the United States today and is the state anthem of Connecticut.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yankee_Doodle

this year, independence day was actually notable, i'd say memorable in fact. i find most holidays to be anti-climactic, with the exception of halloween which is always a good time (and only leaves you saddened by the fact that you will have to wait another long year before executing your next costume AHEM *the artist formerly/now again known as prince [purple rain style]* AHEM, i digress). thanksgiving leaves you...plumped up and turkey-tired, and christmas...well, christmas is exciting in the making, what with all of the merry tunes and garish lawn ornaments and cookies and spirit and warm fuzzies and fucking bing crosby diverting you with all his charms. and then BAM- it hits you like a blow upside the head; it is all over. that AM radio station you love so much doesn't even play continuous holiday jams through the new year. it's just you and your mom on a couch by yourselves looking glum and wishing things could be the way they used to be when life was simpler and your father was still alive and ruddy-cheeked and singing and excitedly still passing off his distinctive uppercase handwritten gift-tags as "SANTA'S", even when you're seven and have given up believing because a jewish girl from school looked his name up in the dictionary to prove he was "fictional" as it says, clear as day, right there in the webster's...still passing it off as "SANTA'S" even when you're twenty and suggest that year to not exchange gifts at all because well what's the point anyways? it's not like you ever get what you want, or like you even know what you want, anymore.

or like your birthday- i have never been a big birthday person- not one of those "countdown to my special day-here's my wish list-let's throw a grand party to celebrate the birth of my wondrous self" types. i was always more of a wait your birthday was in september? types, why didn't you tell anyone or bring in cupcakes?

but this fourth of july was verrrrry fourth of july-ish; had all of those new englandy 'merican components; public drinking, swimming at walden pond, frisbee, tree climbing, beach basking, car dancing, grilled meats and watermelon and lemon slush and fried fish platters and more beer drunken out of cozies, and of course a majestic fireworks display.

when i was very young i could not even bear to sit through a fireworks display; i was absolutely terrified by the noise. perhaps it was because i had ear issues as early as age four (had surgery to have tubes put in), but the blasts and cracks were just too overwhelming; in spite of the preparation for what was coming, i was endlessly shocked by their amplitude. i would curl into myself, hide behind the nearest relative, and crycrycry until it would be over and my cheeks were hot and my shirt soaked. my sisters love to recall the story of how i once leaped off the back of a statue i had been sitting on, and dove face first into the gravel rambo-style, when a fire-cracker had unexpectedly went off nearby. i had risen pitifully, with dirt in my mouth and gravel embedded in my palms.

it was about eight years ago when things became a bit more sentimental, or maybe mental, or maybe just hormonal. i had teared up a little, right there on the mass ave. bridge, well before i had even moved to the city. i had a moment with the one that got away, or so we shall call him; as fireworks blasted in the sky, we had found ourselves separated from our group of friends. i was thrilled to finally have him alone, and my youthful romanticism blindly led me to believe that i might temporarily abandon my obvious timidity at the time and speak up. i had a this is it moment and opened my mouth to say every thing i had always dreamed of saying, but no words would come. i just stood gaping at his blatant indifference as he looked off and away, somewhere else, asking me where did everyone else go?

it was just a few years back when i actually wept uncontrollably, again standing on the mass ave. bridge, this time with friends who presumed my emotions had something to do with the "beauty" of it all. i had just split from a boy i cared for very much and had suddenly felt so incredibly alone. who the heck knew fireworks could be so moving? that grandiose music blaring, all of the togetherness.

maybe i am being melodramatic or perhaps i was just a little intoxicated, but the fireworks this year exhilarated me in a way they never have before (clearly, based on these vignettes). i was wide-eyed, grinning and giddy; my friend brett beside me was hollering and hooting like he was at a god damn rodeo and i was all ooohs and ahhhs, no doubt. the thundering booms i could feel in my gut, in my heart, and it felt so good- to be that close to the barge, to feel shaken, like a good hard squeeze...complete and utter catharsis. never once since childhood can i say that i had attended an event like this and not at least slightly feared the magnitude of sound. this was a new feeling for me, and after the finale had concluded and the last speckles of light had dissipated into smoke, i felt curiously delighted.

icons and/or maybe i'm a little gay

jean seberg

gina lollobrigida

virna lisi

sophia loren

monica vitti

cake or death?

my mother sent me home from connecticut with a sponge cake.

i would like to think that she baked the cake for me, to take, a cake with which to nourish myself, because moms like to nourish. i would think that had she not berated me for ruining the cake by taking it out of the oven ten minutes too soon. i had been unable to leave the house while she ran off to fulfill her sunday duties as a devout, god-fearing immigrant, and ascribed the duty of "taking out the cake at 12:15pm." it was a trying task, but i somehow managed and followed her directions; golden brown top, clean toothpick. i was later condescendingly rebuked for the cake's resultant "shrinkage", only to have it wrapped for me in aluminum foil and packed away in my to-go bag of boston provisions.

in the moment, i had found this to be excess- mom, i don't need this, please, no really, please, what on earth will i do with an entire loaf of cake? i imagined it sitting on a counter somewhere, becoming increasingly stale and crusty. what a shame, i might say. only it doesn't happen this way at all; it never does. i am a lazy bitch and often times live like quite the frugal fanny (yet comically i can succumb to the temptations of an overpriced vintage 1960s frock, while insisting on eating cereal for dinner because i just mustn't spend the cash). i suppose the money is there and i'd just rather wear it. and so it goes, the sponge cake i so vehemently abhorred (and likely as some sort of symbol of my inability to take care of myself) has slowly but surely whittled down to a couple inches of thickness- nothing one more instance of breakfast time hunger won't deplete. in conclusion, my shrunken floppy sponge cake incident has probably saved me somewhere in the realm of fifteen dollars. thanks mom.

this can't help but remind me of the time my sister nancee pushed what one might call a "goodie bag" of sorts upon me the night before my trip to portugal (containing a six hour layover in brussels). i insisted that i did not need such things; gummy snacks, peanut butter crackers, granola bars, all of which were taken from her five-year-old son's snack cabinet. listen, i thought, i am going to land in a realm of espresso and pastries and fine port wines, i have no need for such american nonsense. and so i tucked the ziploc bag away in a deep pocket of my backpack and forgot about it for a while, that is, until my portuguese host family began starving me. had i known that this glorious little bag of supplies would constitute for the majority of my daily calorie intake over the course of my first week abroad, i would have demanded more. perhaps it is just the european way, or the way of a family with a busy, travelling father and a formerly anorexic mother who maintains the weight of approximately one of my thighs. who can say exactly. what i can say is that though delicious, breakfast came early, and then following came 10-12 hours spent being active with no food whatsoever. due to the fact that i did not yet have any european currency, and the fact that i did not speak a lick of the language, i was in quite the pickle. my boyfriend at the time was strapped for cash and i was in a strange phase of adjustment; my embarrassed silence progressed into the occasional whining, and ultimately evolved into absolute low-down hostility. by the time dinner would roll around (though i'm not sure why they bother calling it "dinner" if it comes around the time i'd typically already be inebriated and craving late-night munchies), i would be so famished that my insides felt like they were rotting and i wanted more to vomit and/or to pass out. there was one day i recall being particularly hellish. we had come home and finally plopped ourselves down at the dinner table, utterly exhausted and absolutely ravenous. i was salivating and drunk on the meals fumes. he began serving me a piece of bacalao and my eyes widened with glee. before the fish could even hit my plate, his mother made a comment about how it was too much food for me and i would never be able to eat it all. i then watched a portion of the serving return to its originating platter and sunk into my chair. it's okay, i'd reassure myself, i still have my bag. during those gaps of time where i knew meals were improbable, i began to ration myself the remnants of the bag- like bastian in the neverending story saving a portion of his peanut butter and jelly sandwich because he knew it would be a long motherfucking journey.

i suppose when you see someone on a daily basis, you do not realize they are withering away; you do not see their slouchy jeans and concave stomach. or on the contrary, maybe he enjoyed the resulting slenderized version of myself. perhaps this was just a part of the assimilation process. regardless, i sent many detailed delirium-heavy emails to my sister at home, and to no surprise, in turn received panicked offers to fed-ex costco boxes of fiber one bars. no really, she would demand, give me the address.

i'm not so sure people quite comprehend what it is like growing up in an italian-american home, with a mother like mine who pushes sponge cakes and cereal bags and jars of nutella and avocados and mangoes upon me as i rush out the door. a total shit show. to go hungry in a home like mine is truly an impossible feat. if you would not be lured by the overflowing cabinets alone, you would have a woman coming at your face with crazy eyes and a wooden spoon filled with tomato sauce. you look emaysheeayted, she would say, mangia! my childhood friend katie spent sunday afternoon with my family and me, in the swimming pool and for the dinner smörgåsbord that ensued. i watched as she happily dined on steamed clams and corn on the cob and baked macaroni, helping herself to seconds and reaching the point where her surviving the meal seemed more of a challenge than a likelihood...as if it was some sort of competitive sport. it's just so good, she said with pain in her eyes, okay, i can do it.