hace calor

i've never been one to really complain about the heat, because surviving each new england winter for me is an incredible feat in and of itself. it entails many long nights, groaning under mountainous blankets, chain-drinking hot tea, being a general recluse and awfully bad company, and abandoning my sense of fashion by contemplating the purchase of a sun-lamp visor. some may think seasonal affective disorder is a crock of hooey; however, i seriously beg to differ. i myself have and will continue to reach all-time lows during the heinous season. i am not referring to the remarkable abundance of whining and complaints, but rather, the chronic fatigue, volatile and entirely arbitrary outbursts of tears and/or emotional instability, and complete and utter helplessness...sylvia plath style.

but blessed be that spring time comes and i riseriserise; i am re-born and start to- you know, feel things again. to feel things is a good thing.

and so, 96 degrees you say? bring it on, bring it hard.

during our summer excursions down to the glorious beaches of duck, north carolina, my friends would jest about my ability to withstand a profuse amount of sun exposure. in fact, i was ridiculed for hitting the sand so soon after an early morning breakfast, and remaining there until sundown. while the pink-skinned others slept late, bathed, read their light summer literature and picked their asses, i moseyed on over solo. i seek maximum heat; i want to drink it up, store it. like a chipmunk reserving acorns for the long winter to come, i blindly aspire that the more vitamin D which i successfully absorb, the farther into the approaching season i will remain sane. this marathon basking is what i coined, during the summer of 2007, as "mission melanoma."

i have never been accustomed to or dependent on chilled interiors; growing up we did not enjoy the luxury of central air. during the truly unbearable summers i.e. the record-breaking heat wave summers during which my mother might catch a news story about a dehydrated pet dog dropping dead or the elderly suffering sun stroke, my father would install one window unit in one of the bedrooms. this just meant sweating in other parts of the house, and running to the bedroom to stare blissfully into the face of our lone savior. it also meant that i spent the majority of my days in the basement, pressing my bare feet to the cold floor tiles. needless to say, my malfunctioning fan which currently blows warm air my way is still what i would refer to as "refreshing."

what i'm having the most trouble with is not coping with the heat, but enduring the extreme air-conditioning at my workplace. it cranks throughout the day, and i maintain goosebumps for nearly eight hours. this, only to thrust myself out onto the sweltering boston common, is so debilitating- so shocking to the system. i find myself wanting to collapse right there beside the homeless man in boots who blesses me each morning. and so it goes, the oppressive tomb that is park street station and all of the noxious body smells and my knees buckling as the mexican musician sings me canciones tristes.

and the little ranchera inside me wails.

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i promise i'll be back, that is, once i've weaned off the david lynch and am able to formulate coherent sentences again.

schmeh.

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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.

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