Me: Where you're going, you won't need land vehicles. You'll take the world by air, then you'll become a seal. Then, if that's not enough, you'll be a cheetah too.

Avi: But cheetahs don't really have the endurance.

Me: I guess not. Hm. What can go the distance? Hm. A land-salmon! You'll be a cheetah and a land-salmon.

I realized another reason I liked Amelie (which I saw with my Brother in NY this weekend) while watching "Adaptation" with No-omi, Stacey, Jackie, and Avi:Amelie made me feel really good about watching people's faces in dark theaters. The faces of people falling into other worlds. If people wore those faces more often....if people fell into each other more....

glimpses through silver-screen starlight were all I got of No-omi and Jackie and Stacey, who seemed to appear and fade with the credits. Into the blizzard. They also gave me some words:

from Jackie--"Stop tapping!" (whispered) and "There's no way Mustard Seed is open" and "I have to get home for dinner"

from Stacey--"bybye"

from Nomi--"you are the second worst person to watch a movie with" and "no way" (grimace) and "it's definitely not open"


Adaptation betrayed me. It succeeded in doing what most Hollywood movies half-heartedly try and fail: it made me believe that nothing was going to happen, that no great change was going to occur, that no one was going to find love and no one was going to die.

And then, it went further: unlike almost any other movie I've seen, it Adaptation made me WANT nothing to happen. No one was going find their soulmate or lose their soulmate, and I was thrilled. On the edge of my seat waiting for nothing. A big Fuck You to an industry of sham lives.

And then, everything happened. People died, found love, made profound realizations. There were crocodiles or alligators involved. And sex and drugs. Not necessarily in that order.

An artful betrayal. Screenwriter to audience: "I'm going to make you, a movie audience, want what no movie audience ever wants--to identify with the strife of a screenwriter until you are INVESTED in nothing happening. And then, not only will things happen, but they will happen in droves."

Ari to screenwriter "you bitch! but i can respect that."

And I do. And I learned a lot. He played the meta-card full force, and I managed to learn something about narrative through orchids, and something about orchids through narrative in the process.




Back to my place, bouncing around the walls doing nothing with Avi, playing with an old workbook of the constitution and then finding maya in the snow who took us to her home and told us blue grass stories. What a quality woman she is. Always emanating a soft glow.